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bellastraniera
a.k.a. Marcy Swingle - obsessed with food and fashion.View my photography website.
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Tag Archives: French food
Le Relais de Venise L’Entrecote
“It’s like the Ray’s Pizza of Paris,” I said to Marie Fromage, trying to describe the complicated history of L’Entrecôte. “There are several of them, and each one claims to be ‘the original.’”
Unlike New York’s various “original” Ray’s Pizza shops, however, all of the L’Entrecôtes of Paris dish out steak frites with a delicious mystery sauce from the same grandfather’s recipe—they are just owned by different branches of the same Gineste de Saurs family. They all have a rabid following in Paris, though there is some debate as to which one is “the best.” Now L’Entrecôte is finally in New York.
The one off note that kept us from going until now was the location. The Le Relais de Venise L’Entrecôte, with locations in Paris and Barcelona, landed on the bottom floor of a brutish Midtown office building, a far cry from its charming centuries-old building in the 17th arrondissement. Inside, New York’s L’Entrecôte is cheerful, with bright lighting, as in Paris, a mural of Venice on the wall, as in Paris, banquettes, glass partitions, and no bar, also as in Paris. Once you’re inside, the most jarring difference is the absence of a thick haze of cigarette smoke floating above the tables – that and the fact that there are no lines or hour-long waits. We walked right in with a party of five and were seated immediately. (more…)
Pasta with Wild Mushroom Sauce
There are so many different varieties of mushrooms arriving at the market right now, like these at Dean & Deluca, below, that it’s hard to choose just one. How can you settle for just cremini when chanterelles, oyster mushrooms, and hen o woods are right nearby? Usually the answer comes down to price: the fanciest mushrooms can cost $45 a pound, so many cooks stick to the basics. But keep in mind that just an ounce of mushrooms can go a long way flavor-wise, so cooking with exotic mushrooms can be done with little pain to your wallet. Just use a higher proportion of less-expensive mushrooms (cremini) and a smaller proportion of the pricier ones (chanterelles).
One of the best recipes that uses wild mushrooms is one by Melissa Clark for the Times in the spring of 2007, for creamed morels on toast. But what about fall, when morels aren’t in season? All the mushrooms I found at Dean & Deluca would be excellent with cream and white wine on toast, but I wanted to feature them in a main dish. The creamed mushrooms became an unorthodox French pasta sauce served on linguine – though for a really stellar effect, serve the mushroom sauce over fresh, homemade fettuccine. (more…)
Bar Artisanal
The chain-ification of upscale restaurants has its good points: you can now sample Daniel Boulud’s sausage at several places, one of which is near my apartment. But expanding a haute brand downward can be a slippery slope. Take the NYT slam of Michael Psilakis’ Gus & Gabriel Gastropub for instance: sub par food is even more maddening when served by someone who knows how to cook.
Such was the case when we visited Terrance Brennan’s Bar Artisanal recently: the hits on the menu served as a nagging reminder of the bliss to be found at Picholine, whereas the not-so-great items never would have made it out the kitchen door at that three-star place. The gougères ($8.50) were sublime as usual, made with a mix of Brennan’s signature artisanal cheeses. (more…)
The Point Restaurant, Bermuda
It may hard to believe in this era of shuffling shoeless through airport security monitors, but in the ‘30s-‘60s, one of the most glamorous things about going to Bermuda was getting there. Starting with the luxury cruise ship the Queen of Bermuda, which made its maiden journey in 1933, the voyage to these far flung tiny islands in the Atlantic was pretty posh. As air travel became more common, one of the biggest brands to promote Bermuda was Pan Am, which featured idyllic, stylized images of the island in its posters.
One thing that strikes you as soon as you step into the lobby of this new hotel in Bermuda, Tucker’s Point, is the pure glamour of it all. The wide marble corridors, high ceilings, graceful outdoor corridors, infinity pool and gorgeous views seem almost over the top on an island known more for British restraint. But when you learn that the executive director is Edward Trippe, son of Pan Am founder Juan Trippe, it all begins to make sense. An appreciation for big, American-style glamour must run in the family. (more…)
Vutera
With all the secret, annoying, members-only nightspots opening recently, it’s a relief to find a place that’s hidden without being trendy or pretentious. Welcome to Vutera, the little spot in Williamsburg that opened beneath Rose Live Music. Owners Carlo and Gina Vutera managed to carve a romantic, candlelit space out of an unsuspecting basement beneath the bar, and the result is a very appealing mix of rustic decor and sophisticated food.
D. and I started with the chilled asparagus soup with herbed goat cheese ($7) and the Spanish mackerel escabeche ($10). Vutera’s escabeche was surprisingly breaded and lightly fried before being chilled and marinated – which actually added a slight edge of toasty flavor to the final product. Though the name of the restaurant says “Italian,” it was hard to pin a nationality on this dish. (more…)
Minetta Tavern
Finally! Minetta Tavern is open. Yes, that one, the place that’s been around for 72 years.
Amid all the buzz about Keith McNally’s new venture, there was always one thing that wasn’t clear. Why had he chosen this crusty old place as the next incarnation of McNallyism? If you’ve lived in New York long enough, you know the Minetta Tavern because you’ve walked by it–often solely for the purpose of getting away, fast. Once the intersection of cool and the setting for Serpico, MacDougal Street and Minetta Lane is now only the home of Cafe Wha? (and the underrated Bellavitae) and has gotten as touristy as it once was cool.
Of course, there are exceptions. 124 Rabbit Club opened up across the street, and before that, underground jazz den Bar Next Door. So maybe the writing was on the wall.
But as soon as you walk into Minetta Tavern, the answer is apparent. There’s an old school bar, murals and caricatures on the wall, the decor harkens back to an earlier age of the Village, and gorgeous Ralph Fiennes is sitting across from you. Is Minetta Tavern McNally’s answer to the Waverly Inn? Certainly McNally had an unlikely rival in Graydon Carter, who never so much as dabbled in restaurants before, then came in to gather up the celebs in one fell swoop.
If Minetta Tavern is the next chapter, McNally has come up on top. He’s wisely gotten away from Italian and back to his bistro roots, installing Riad Nasr of Balthazaar in the kitchen. The Pat LaFrieda burger (called the “Black Label Burger” on the menu) that has inspired so much worship appears here, and, as steak meat ground into burger form, it’s exactly right for the times. If we like to have our steak and eat it to, this is it – and yes, it’s all it’s cracked up to be.
The Dodd cocktail – a tasty mix of bourbon and absinthe. Also – the wines. There’s a great $9 Malbec that goes perfectly with the Black Label burger.
Mesclun salad with goat cheese.
This was quite tasty – and owed something to Jodi Williams, I thought. Stuffed calamari with salt cod, like a brandade. Delicious sauce and olives, too.
Comfort food alert: the Pommes Aligot.
The Minetta Burger – pretty darn good for a regular old cheeseburger.
Choux Farcis – stuffed cabbage.
The supposed Holy Grail of burgers, the Pat LaFrieda patty, was excellent. Really more like a ground steak than a burger, but we’re not complaining. For God’s sake, don’t you dare put ketchup on it.
The back dining room, definitely a little more chill and quiet than the front.
The bustling front room. It’s really hard to get in – literally – because of the log jam at the door. But the front of the house staff is very quick.
Caricatures on the wall.
Beautiful old bar (totally packed). There are lots of interesting little details like the mural of boxers (?) on top.
Looks quiet outside but wait until you get inside.
Old meets new? Minetta Tavern and Cafe Wha, two Village standbys.
Minetta Tavern
113 MacDougal Street, at Minetta Lane
New York, NY
212.475.3850
Posted in food
Tagged American food, burgers, French food, Graydon Carter, Keith McNally, New York, restaurants
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Apiary
Often it’s the new restaurant right around the corner that you get to last. That’ll be where you just stop in after a movie or a night out with friends, right? Wrong. The highly stylized and buzzed-about Apiary, right around the corner from me, was always fully committed when it opened in mid 2008. But obviously we’re in a different landscape now, and places that were once booked to the hilt are now wooing diners with recession specials. For Apiary, it couldn’t happen at a better time–it’s become more accessible just as chef Scott Bryan returned from Virginia to take the helm.
It was a sad day when Bryan left Veritas, considered one of the best restaurants in town by certain industry insiders–and not just for the wine. So it’s thrilling that he brought his signature American style inflected with French technique to Apiary, where you can find a similar quality for a gentler price.
Some think the decor here is a little chilly–we thought it was pretty fab, especially the laser-cut light fixtures. All the furnishings are by Conran. When the restaurant is full of people, as it was that night, it really does buzz.
We started with the endive and pear salad, which, although it looks bland on the plate, had a bright, sharp flavor and excellent crunch. The innovative plating–three large endive leaves propped together to form a sort of V that contained the rest of the salad–added a nice architectural touch.
The confit of duck leg was rich and tender, but it was the combination of celery root puree and French green lentils underneath that got devoured right away.
Bryan has real French flair with vegetables, as evidenced by the grilled pork loin, where it was turnips–turnips!–that stole the show. The pork itself was juicy and perfectly cooked, the shaved brussel sprouts were a nice accompaniment, but the turnips were sublime. My dining mate Marie Fromage described a French technique for vegetables–something involving cooking them very slowly under parchment with a hole on top–was that how he made them?
Fortunately, the chef himself came out later to check the night’s receipts at the bar. The turnips, we asked. How did you do it? Chicken stock, sherry vinegar, and butter he said.
That’s the kind of thing you’ve got to like about Bryan. Rather than being coy, he just out and says it–although without the technique, it would be hard to get the same end result. His cooking has the same refreshing directness. It’s approachable, but once you’re into it, there’s a subtle complexity that keeps you coming back.
And now there’s really no reason not to go back: Apiary has extended their $35 Restaurant Week prix fixe through Labor Day.
Benoit
It can be terrifying when someone decides to tinker with a place you know and love. Such was the case several years back in Paris when the Alain Ducasse group took over Benoit, a beloved institution in the local dining scene, and injected it with new blood in the kitchen and a face lift in the dining room. Purists in Paris quibble that it’s a little too slick and international now, but at least it’s still alive and serving excellent food, unlike so many other traditional bistros there.
So what would happen when the Ducasse group decided to airlift the Benoit concept over to the United States? It seemed like there was no way they couldn’t mess it up in this town, which, due to the McNallification of the dining scene, equates “bistro” with loud music, subway tiles, and unisex bathrooms–several things that would never fly at a traditional bistro in Paris.
What a relief, then, to walk into Benoit in New York and find a little slice of authentic French food and dining culture. There is no music; there are no candles on the table. The lighting is not quite as bright as it is in Benoit Paris, but it’s dully uniform, just as it is in bistros there. It’s the idea of restaurant-as-stage-set, where your only choice is to pay attention to the food on your plate or the scene, and what a scene it is. Former patrons of La Côte Basque, mainly well-to-do Upper East Siders, have returned to the old location. On a recent night, an elderly lady done up in an exquisite black and white dress (Chanel?) and her elderly husband both sat on the banquette, facing the crowd. A large party of young, glamorous couples stopped in for a late dinner at 9:30; one woman walked down the aisle in a pencil skirt done up with bows above the high-cut slit in the back. Trés chic. As Florent Morellet has said, arrange your seating just so and you’ll create a veritable catwalk, just like they do it in Paris.
The staff, which was polite and attentive, started us off with a round of gougeres that arrived at the table straight from the oven. These seemed to have the maximum cheese-to-non-cheese-ingredients ratio and were some of the best in the city. Marie Fromage, JP Morgan, and I started with the escargots, since there are very few places where you know you’ll get them fresh, not out of a can, and Benoit is one of them. Have them fresh and it’s like tasting real French fries after eating frozen Ore-Ida’s – what a huge difference in quality. Benoit’s escargots were just as buttery and garlicky as anyone could desire, and crusted on top with a thin crispy layer of breadcrumbs.
The lobster bisque was beautifully presented–a dollop of buttery, tender lobster meat and creme fraiche in the middle, which the waiter then surrounded with the bisque, poured from a pewter boat. The soup itself was a little too salty–the saltiness would be our main critique of the food here–but traditional French cuisine is generally much saltier than any nouvelle cuisine that has followed. Suck it up for tradition’s sake?
Lamb chops had a wonderfully smoky char, and the meat was lean, clean, and tasted of spring herbs. Quenelles, breaded flaked fish patties dressed up with sauce, aren’t something you often see on a menu–indeed, Marie Fromage remarked that she hadn’t seen them since culinary school. These were fluffy and light but decadently rich in flavor. The Spanish version of this dish, thought to be introduced by the Romans, is brandada de hacalao, found at Boqueria.
At my place arrived the true test of authenticity: the cassoulet. Benoit in Paris had the best cassoulet I’ve ever tasted–could the New York version compare? The perfectly tender white beans floated in a broth that was a little more watery than expected, but in the end this turned out to be a blessing, because the flavor was so intensely meaty (and admittedly salty) that a denser texture would have been overwhelming. Beans concealed a spicy lamb sausage and–surprise–an entire duck leg. This was over-the-top delicious, definitely on par with the Parisian version and almost certainly the best cassoulet in New York.
Wine aficionados will find a lot to like on the wine menu, which, like the food menu, includes many reasonably-priced, high-quality options. We really enjoyed our $10 glass of Bourgogne, a V. Girardin Cuvee Saint Vincent–and couldn’t believe it was just $10.
We managed to find about two cubic inches of stomach capacity left to tackle dessert, which we ordered because of its clever name, Mister Mystere. But there’s no mystery about it: this iced hazelnut mousse was refreshing yet rich, dressed up in melted chocolate, the perfect “light” ending to an excellent meal.
Benoit
66 West 55th Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues
New York, New York
646-943-7373
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Bobo
It’s hard to be taken seriously with a name like “bobo.” Wharton business major Carlos Suarez found he kept using the word, coined by David Brooks, when describing his plans for a new restaurant. Only a Wharton business major or Mary-Kate Olsen wouldn’t pick up on the inherent insult in a word that means “half yuppie-bourgeois and half hippie-bohemian.” No matter: Like Mary-Kate Olsen and many a business major, bobo succeeds anyway.
If you’ve been before and dismissed bobo because of the lackluster food, it’s worth a revisit. Former chef Nicholas Cantrel left and has since been installed at Bagatelle. In his place are chefs Rick Jakobsen from Red Hook’s 360 and Jared Stafford-Hill of Hearth. How convenient! All this time I’ve been to lazy to schlep out to the famously good 360, now tragically closed. One can only hope that the new incarnation of bobo can channel what was before out in Brooklyn’s Red Hook.
If you can find this nearly-unmarked West Village townhouse, you’ll walk into a beautiful, low-ceilinged, candlelit English basement level space with exposed beams, a long bar upholstered with a houndstooth pattern, and a black upright piano stacked with vintage LP records. They may be bobo touches all, but the records aren’t just for show. We heard the Beatles and Led Zeppelin the night we were there, complete with a few pops and scratches and the uncompressed, rich sound of old vinyl records.
It’s an appropriate soundtrack for a place that strives to keep it real, as much as a bourgeois bohemian can. Bobo is one of a growing number of restaurants that, for environmental reasons, does not offer bottled water. Instead, they make their own purified and seltzer water and serve it in carafes.
It was a lively gang that night, perhaps because Knucklehead, Menudo, and Annette had already spent several hours at Smith & Mills before heading uptown. High Maintenance ordered the winter squash soup with pear, cranberry, and smoked duck – hold the pear, cranberry, and smoked duck (don’t ask). The spartan soup that remained held up well on its own, however, and it came served in pretty vintage bone china.
My tuna, white bean and arugula salad arrived as a salad alongside a massive hunk of tuna that must have been prepared in some high-tech way. Was it grilled then sous-vide’d? Grilled then preserved in a crystallized format somehow? Either way, the resulting tuna, though visually appealing, was oddly rubbery and bland. As Sara Jenkins pointed out, why do male chefs insist on treating the kitchen like a science lab? But the white beans were wonderfully toothsome and the arugula nice and peppery.
Menudo’s winter vegetable salad was exactly as advertised and came with a delicately tangy lemon dressing. Raw scallops and grapefruit, beets, and fennel came together in Knucklehead’s dish, the best of the appetizers. 
The scallops had a wonderfully clean, barely saline taste, delicious with the bitter sweet juicy crunch of the grapefruit. As we saw at Momofuku Ssam, scallops pair particularly well with fruit, and a sprinkling of fennel leaves gave Bobo’s a tingling herbal taste.
Surprisingly for a place that’s not even Italian, much less a serious pasta joint, Bobo has a ricotta ravioli that could contend with the best. Huge, plump, generously portioned ravioli were already decadent before getting dressed in butter, parmesan, and meltingly soft winter vegetables.
The chicken was just the sort of elevated comfort food we were craving on that rainy night. Crispy skin, tender meat, and a buttery flavor throughout. It had been seasoned just enough, but not too much to overwhelm the rich flavor. A mixture of polenta and black cabbage topped off the homeyness of the dish.
Supposedly there was a basic steak dish at the previous incarnation of Bobo, which I never visited. The current entree takes steak to the next level, topping it with oxtail soffrito and caramelized cippolini. Here again Bobo straddles the line between comforting and outright decadent and succeeds with flying colors.
Pot au feu gets a tweak with lamb substituted for beef as the starring meat. I can’t imagine why I’ve never seen this dish before in a New York restaurant. Lamb makes the pot au feu so much more flavorful, and the vegetables were still al dente, done in the Dan Barber haute barnyard style.
There are so many iterations of Annette’s Berkshire pork entree with cabbage, potatoes, and pinot gris in the city now that it was hard to set this one apart, but his had prettily carved baby potatoes in the French style.
As for the desserts, we wished the chocolat pot de creme had gelled a little bit more – it should be firm, not gloopy. But it was nice to see a good old-fashioned upside down cake, this time in
pear, on an urban menu again. Definitely worth the post-prandial calories.
A trip to the restroom revealed a gorgeous second floor dining room on the townhouse’s parlor floor. All the details have been well thought-out here, from the octagonal book nooks to the dramatic chandeliers to the Victorian wallpaper and brass swan fixtures in the powder room. Now, it seems, bobo’s food is finally following suit. If liking Bobo makes one bobo, then consider me guilty as charged.
bobo
181 West 10th Street at Seventh Avenue South
New York, New York
212-488-2626
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Tagged American food, Bobo, French food, Italian food, New York, restaurants
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Bar Boulud
When Knucklehead was going to be too late to join us at a recent dinner at Bar Boulud, High Maintenance suggested he meet us afterwards at the bar.
“Oh no,” I said. “There’s not actually a bar there.”
Therein lies the conundrum of Bar Boulud – and many other new places about town. Dining at the bar, which started as a solution for the reservation-deprived at places like Babbo, has now superseded drinking at the bar. So much so that you can’t even get a damn drink. What is the world coming to?
For one thing, the bar-less bar makes waiting awkward. At Bar Boulud, you’re standing uselessly at the edge of the room, like the kid left out of the slow dance during a school mixer. Add to that the lack of alcohol, and you have the entire junior high feeling. Fortunately, there are plenty of cool people to ogle here, like Sandy Weill, Martha Stewart, and Thomas Keller, all of whom were under one roof on the night we visited.
After a brief scuffle between High Maintenance and a hostess, we were led away from the drafty tables up front and past the long bar, which is inlaid with a lit glass display of hunks of meat in a Damien Hirst-like effect. Definitely ask for a table in back. The front area shouldn’t even be a seating area in the winter – for one thing, that’s where everyone’s standing around waiting. Daniel Boulud, why not put a foosball table and a TV in your bar instead? They have foosball in France…
We were greeted by glorious gougeres. These were supersized to tennis ball dimensions, light and fluffy, with just the right tang of cheese.
Bar Boulud, where Gilles Verot is the chef de cuisine, has just opened and is one of the most anticipated new restaurants of 2008. The menu is extensive, impossible to cover in one visit. We couldn’t try many of the dishes, but many of the ones we did still needed some fine tuning.
High Maintenance ordered the mushroom salad without the mushrooms – don’t ask – so that one can’t be covered here. Gibson’s Mom went for the mesclun provencal salad, which was quite nice. The small tomatoes were carefully blanched and peeled to bring out a true tomato flavor in the middle of winter.
The St. Jacques au chou, grilled Maine scallops, were disappointing. They did not seem to be overcooked, yet they were rubbery and stringy. This was particularly strange since scallops are in season now. The accompanying Orleans mustard winter slaw is a sort of sauerkraut, but ironically, I liked the Guss’ Pickles sauerkraut at Fette Sau better.
At least the cuts of meat were excellent. Black Angus sirloin had just the right mix of char and juiciness, and it was accompanied by delicious frites, beautifully presented. Unfortunately, someone had forgotten to salt or pepper it before putting it on the grill. This cardinal sin of cooking shouldn’t be overlooked just because the chef is taking the high road. There is even a folklore tale or two about how much meat loves salt.
The roasted chicken breast suffered the same saltless fate, though it too was a juicy cut of meat. Garlic mashed potatoes were subtly garlicky and quite satisfying – we ate them right up. Cauliflower gratin was served in a little cast iron dish. All it needed was some salt. And there was none on the table.
There was one star among our entrees, though: one of the signature dishes of this high-end charcuterie, the boudin blanc. This was perfection. Meltingly tender, this white sausage was made with a subtle but effective seasoning of herbs. Bar Boulud definitely owes a debt to Kurt Gutenbrunner, who’s been doing sausage right for years now at places like Blaue Gans. But as Boulud points out in the menu preamble (yes, there’s a preamble), he’s the sausage king of Lyon. Bar Boulud is like a Gutenbrunner place pushed to a new level of culinary esoterics and flashy interior design.
The wine list bears mentioning – it’s extensive, resourceful, and gently priced, with classics balancing out sommelier Daniel Johnnes’ new finds. Service was quite good – our waiter seemed like just a charming young guy, a little scruffy, until he broke out in perfect French. While it’s famously hard to get a reservation here now, we noticed that a couple tables were no-shows, and there was availability after 9:30 (even at the bar!).
Would we go back? There’s a catch 22 here: by the time the kitchen finds the salt, the celebrities may be gone. If you’re after the scene, go now. If you’re going for the food, wait.
Bar Boulud
1900 Broadway between 63rd and 64th Streets
212-595-0303
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