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Why the attitude? No one else is eating here.
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- – By 2018, 43% of Americans are expected to be obese. [NYDN]
- – Gordon Ramsay has lost his right-hand man. [Bloomberg]
- – The Senate is considering requiring beef to be tested for E. coli. [NYT]
- – Top Chef contestants aren't being paid for the TV dinners that feature their faces (and recipes). [Time]
- – First canned pumpkins, now an Eggo shortage looms. [NYDN]
- – The art of complaining to a restaurant. [Guardian]
- – A modest proposal for fixing restaurant and bar smoking bans. [Eater]
- – Related: the science behind banning smoking outside. [Time]
- – Ever wonder what it would be like to cook dinner for Thomas Keller? [Esquire]
- – Talking cooking with Coolio. [Fork in the Road]
- – NBC's newest cooking show, United Plates of America, will give away a four-restaurant chain. [Reuters]
- – Hey, so, while you eat that sushi, this guy here is going to swallow a sword. [WSJ]
- – Starbucks continues to roll out its unbranded coffee shops. [Diner's Journal]
- – If New York loses its lawsuit, Tavern on the Green will become Tavern in the Park. [Crain's]
- – Restaurants embrace Twilight. [NRN]
- – Martha Stewart is not a fan of Rachael Ray. [ABC News, via EMD and GS]
- – The Rolling Stones, the wine. [Examiner]
- – Pork belly and other over-served dishes. [Between Meals]
- – Students arrested for not paying their tip. [Philly]
- – Plastic wishbones: what will the kids fight over? [SE]
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- – Marcus Samuelsson will be working the kitchen at Obama's first state dinner. [Obama Foodorama]
- – The fight for Cadbury intensifies. [WSJ]
- – Chipotle sets its sights on London, Europe. [NRN]
- – Costco drops Coke. [AP]
- – Related: Coke bottles, 1899–1986. [Pixdaus]
- – Milk producers wish they could sell their product "raw." [NYT]
- – Hooters is having trouble in Vegas. [Eater]
- – A canned pumpkin shortage looms. [Diner's Journal]
- – Putting things in perspective with the Fat Map. [HP]
- – Jamie Oliver wants to help you find a date. [Marketing]
- – A Shake Shack in Boston looks increasingly possible. [GS:B]
- – What a $20 Thanksgiving feast from Walmart gets you. [The Awl]
- – A word we'd like to quickly forget? "Koodie." [SE]
- – Foods named after people. [Mental Floss and Cakespy, via SE]
- – They found water on the moon...can you drink it? [Slate]
- – Making mushrooms with coffee grinds. [Chronicle, via Coldmud]
- – Making art with meat, some wires, a videocamera and a stove. [EMD]
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Bouchon's roast chicken
Photo: courtesy of the restaurant
Nearly two decades after he cooked at Checkers in Downtown LA, über-chef Thomas Keller is returning to SoCal, bringing the third edition of his upscale French bistro, Bouchon (the others are in Yountville and Las Vegas), to an elegant Beverly Hills space across from the Montage Hotel; expect high ceilings, ornate wall treatments, a raw seafood bar – and the sort of buzz Keller generates wherever he goes; N.B. this location doesn't have a bakery, though one is planned for the future.
225 N. Canon Dr., Beverly Hills; 310-271-9910
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Maialino
Photo: courtesy of the restaurant
To the revamped New York City Gramercy Park Hotel space that was Wakiya comes Maialino, an Italiano from restaurateur Danny Meyer, which takes its visual and culinary cues from the classic trattorias of Rome and, à la Gramercy Tavern, is divided into a casual (and cheaper) front bar section and a checked tablecloth–equipped rear dining room; connecting the two areas are counters showcasing its housemade bread and salumi, the latter of which stars on the moderately expensive menu that also features pastas, traditional entrees like the eponymous roast pig and an impressive formaggio selection.
2 Lexington Ave., New York City; 212-777-2410
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When word spread across the blogosphere that Nancy Silverton was planning to open a hamburger stand in the original Farmers Market in Los Angeles, my reaction was: well, of course she is. Nancy made her bones by redefining (and refining) bread in Los Angeles at her iconic La Brea Bakery. After that, she changed the way we perceive pizza at Pizzeria Mozza. Then, she opted to fool around with mozzarella in its myriad forms at the adjacent Osteria Mozza. That she would focus her seemingly faultless sense of taste on the Great American Burger is natural. Indeed, if anything, she's a bit behind the curve – more than a few boldface names have foie grased and short-ribbed their creations already.
But there's no way that Nancy won't do something unique – it's not in her DNA to do the same old, same old. And so, we called her to find out where the process stands. But since chef Silverton would (famously) rather spend her time in the kitchen pounding bread dough, spinning pizzas and playing with soft cheese than actually talking about what she's doing, she had her partner in the burger project, Amy Pressman, call us back.
Amy, it should be added, may be the most famous chef in Los Angeles that you've never heard of. She's a diminutive sprite of a woman, who was one of Wolfgang Puck's original line cooks at Spago. In the years since, she's created the menu for the much-loved Parkway Grill in Pasadena (along with many of the other restaurants owned by the Smith brothers). For a decade, she ran the outlandishly indulgent Old Town Bakery. She's had her hand in a multitude of other restaurants, always behind the scenes. But when it comes to Nancy Silverton's burger joint, she's the designated spokes-chef. She's also having the time of her life – reinventing the burger is a lot more fun than reinventing the wheel.
Merrill Shindler: Amy! You and Nancy! All these years after you worked together at Spago – you're back together again!
Amy Pressman: Nancy is a partner in the burger place. She's intimately involved with the food. But she's not going to be behind the counter every night, like she is at the Mozzarella Bar at Osteria Mozza. Our arrangement is she'll be there as much as she can, and I'm happy to have her there as much as she can be. But right now, she's deep into it – we're figuring out every aspect of burger. The meat, the bun, the toppings, the cheese – there are lots of parts.
MS: Where in the market will it be?
AP: It's in the old Du-Par's Bakery. It's a two-story building – a stand downstairs, sit-down upstairs. The upstairs will open up, so it's sort of a crow's nest. You'll be able to look over the market, not just into it. At the moment, we call it Market Burger. We were thinking of Grass Burger, but Market Burger is what we're calling it right now.
MS: How did you and Nancy come together on burgers?
AP: We did a burger night at a small restaurant called Canelé. It was really fun. And we both share the same passion, always searching for the best of everything, and making it ourselves if we can't find it.
MS: Have you had fun researching burgers?
AP: I'll tell you, I've probably eaten more in the past six months than in the five years before it. It never ends. We've tried every component we could get our hands on. I'm extremely passionate about the possibilities of using grass-fed beef from Sonoma Direct. And Nancy has come up with a blend of Harris Ranch beef that's fabulous. We're dealing with some really juicy, delicious hamburgers.
MS: Where have you been going to taste burgers? You've got to do research after all...
AP: I grew up in Pennsylvania, eating at a place called Charlie's. It doesn't exist anymore. But I can still remember what it tasted like. It was the best. I've gone to every place that people recommended – and especially to taste the Daniel Boulud burger in New York. He started the upscale burger trend. It's an amazing thing – foie gras and ribeye in a burger. You'd be hard-pressed to finish it, and feel good afterward.
MS: What's feeling good afterward got to do with it?
AP: I'm much more into feeling good after you eat something than Nancy is. That's been a point of disagreement for us. But then, Nancy never finishes what's on her plate. She's a taster, just eating a bite. So, it's not an issue for her. It is for me – I finish everything. I used to eat the double cheeseburger with chili, bacon and a fried egg at Fatburger after a night of working at Spago. The whole burger.
MS: What makes a great burger?
AP: It's all about the proportions. The meat, the cheese, the bun, the crunchiness of the bun, the toppings – everything has to work together. Get one element out of whack, and it falls apart. I was at a place the other day, the burger was really good. But the bun was so over-toasted it cracked when you bit into it. That ruined the experience. It's all got to work.
MS: And when do you open?
AP: Not till next summer. The building is a tear-down. We're building it like a burger – from the ground up.
– Merrill Shindler
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Maialino
Photo: courtesy of the restaurant
Danny Meyer certainly knows how to pick ‘em. Chefs that is. The restaurants within his Union Square Hospitality Group have produced a good share of mega-stars: Michael Romano, Tom Colicchio, Marco Canora, Daniel Humm and Floyd Cardoz to name a few. Meet Meyer’s new rising star, Nick Anderer, who makes his debut as an executive chef at New York's Maialino within the Gramercy Park Hotel. Plucked from the kitchen of Gramercy Tavern, Anderer comes with a pedigree, having worked for Colicchio, Michael Anthony, Mario Batali and Larry Forgione. The Buzz chatted with the chef the morning after his first night of service.
Zagat Buzz: So we heard that Anna Wintour, Ruth Reichl, Dana Cowin and Alain Ducasse were all in the house on opening night? How did that go?
Nick Anderer: Yes, it’s true, they were all there. It went very well. It was all good to have that vibe in the house.
ZB: How do you know when a restaurant is ready to go when you’re opening it?
NA: It takes time. Any restaurant is a living organism that is going to grow over time. For me, I’ll know it’s there when I look up and see the big picture. Right now my head is focused on lots of small details trying to make that big picture come together. But the day where I can walk out of the kitchen comfortably and sit in that dining room and experience a meal is the day that I’ll say, “OK, this vision is at least getting there.” But the short answer is that you’re never going to be there, it’s something that’s going to continue to grow. There’s always a lot of unfinished business. And that’s the beauty of restaurants, and of Danny’s restaurants, because they stick around and you always have opportunity to improve on things.
ZB: Were there any special considerations opening within a hotel?
NA: Absolutely. It was something we had to think long and hard about. It is a situation that is unique and we were given the opportunity that a lot of hotel restaurants haven’t been given in the sense that we can function Maialino pretty autonomously. There’s a room service kitchen that is separate from the regular kitchen. I have basically transplanted a team of new chefs that are all people that I have worked with in restaurants, so my entire management team has a restaurant-geared mentality. Of course, opening a hotel restaurant comes with a certain amount of hesitation from a chef, I think that all those fears go away with the fact that we do pretty much function as a free-standing restaurant.
ZB: So what is your approach to the menu at Maialino?
NA: We’re doing hearty Italian food inspired by Roman trattorias. Every single neighborhood in Rome has had an impact on the menu. Danny and I spent several weeks there researching for the menu and this is kind of a greatest hits of all the things that we tried. And Danny and I both have a shared love affair for Rome that goes way back. Danny spent a lot of time there and I spent a full year my junior year of college studying art history there. That time was the spark for my culinary career – I came back to New York and started cooking. So it was that shared love of Rome that inspired this restaurant.
ZB: What are some of the signature dishes?
NA: I don’t like to say “signature dish” because there are so many things that we pride ourselves on. But some of the things that stand out in my mind are the bucatini all’amatriciana, coda alla vaccinara (oxtails with tomato and celery) and spigola al forno (baked whole sea bass). But despite the fact that we are sticking to the Roman canon the areas where we stray are in choosing the best ingredients. In any Roman trattoria the call is to what is really thriving at the market on that particular day. We’re not in Rome, we’re in New York, so we can’t make everything to the T. As a result we’re not going to have carciofi alla Romana every day. The things that we are coming up with on a daily basis are very market driven.
ZB: With so many Italian restaurants in New York, how do you feel that Maialino is going to stand out?
NA: Hopefully it will stand out because everyone who comes in will feel that they are getting a little slice of homeyness. I think the challenge for me as a chef is to try to make a pretty big restaurant feel smaller than it is. There’s love in each plate. I encourage all my cooks, with every single movement that they make throughout the day, to think about who they are cooking for. And we really take a lot of pride in the sourcing of our ingredients. That attention to detail will make us stand out.
ZB: This is the first kitchen that you have been in charge of as an executive chef. What have you learned from your years within the Union Square Hospitality Group that helps you to be a good leader in the kitchen?
NA: I have learned so much about building a cohesive unit and about putting together the perfect team. Danny Meyer really creates a great sense of family in all of his restaurants and makes every single person feel that their job is the most important job in the entire space. And every person takes pride in what they do because they feel valued. I have learned to make sure that every person realizes how important their job is. I think Danny is the master of making sure that each individual part of this big unit is functioning at a high level at all times.
– Kathleen Squires
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- – The FDA is targeting caffeinated booze. [WSJ]
- – Meanwhile, its efforts to ban eating raw oysters didn't work out so well. [NYT]
- – Burger King franchisees lose 10¢ for every $1 double cheeseburger sold. [NRN]
- – A special Subway franchise is set to rise up with the Freedom Tower in New York. [NYP]
- – U.S. chicken production is set to fall for the first time in 36 years. [Reuters]
- – Champagne sales are a bit flat these days. [NYT]
- – Musicians do covers of other bands' hits, why shouldn't chefs cover other toques' recipes? [Guardian]
- – Pinkberry's further expansion plans include Boston, DC, New Orleans and Mexico. [Eater]
- – Why we read cookbooks. [The New Yorker]
- – Want a new drug? Synthetic alcohol isn't out of the question. [Scotsman, via ColdMud]
- – Just when we've gotten used to twist-off tops, get ready for wine in a plastic bottle. [Stuff]
- – Things a restaurant patron should never do. [Applesauce]
- – Related, 10 dirty restaurant tricks. [Slashfood]
- – Peace through hummus. [Economist]
- – Hard to turn down a "love dessert" made with passion fruit and...Viagra. [NYDN]
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Authenticity has never been more perfectly faked.
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Fans of affordable dining, mark your calendars. New York City Restaurant Week returns for its winter engagement January 25–February 7, 2010. For those days, once again hundreds of local restaurants will be offering $24.07 three-course lunches and $35 three-course dinners. If you don't have your calendar handy though, don't worry. We'll remind you!
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- – A whole lot of info on what diners like to drink. [R&I]
- – Should the FDA try to prevent you from eating raw oysters? [NYT, Slate]
- – Burger King franchisees are suing over $1 double cheeseburgers. [Miami Herald]
- – Meanwhile, McDonald's plans for the future. [CNN]
- – The backlash to the list of waiter no-nos is on. [XX, Server not Servant]
- – How to act around a celebrity chef. [Atlantic]
- – The U.K. now has its own version of the Food Network. [Eater]
- – Related: Emeril Lagasse is planning a prime-time variety show not on the Food Network. [ABC]
- – Mario Batali makes his film debut in The Fantastic Mr. Fox. [WSJ]
- – Heston Blumenthal plans a wildly expensive Christmas dinner for a TV special featuring ambergris, aka whale vomit. [Sun]
- – Jamie Oliver has seen a backlash for the salt content of his pasta sauces. [Guardian]
- – Cooking With Coolio, the cookbook, is now on sale. [EMD]
- – Remembering New York City's 1935 ban on baby artichokes. [Diner's Journal]
- – Don't be embarrassed to dine out alone. [Between Meals]
- – Raising a vegetarian child without the conflict. [LAT]
- – Can drunken fruit flies help cure alcoholism? [Wired]
- – Looking to find free grub for the rug rats? Try here. [Kids Eat For, via SE]
- – Deep-fried turkey disasters. On video. [EMD]
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Each time we perform a survey here at Zagat we inevitably find ourselves with a slew of amusing outtakes that aren't quite fit for print. Which doesn't mean they aren't entertaining. Here are a few of our favorites from our just completed Cruise Lines survey:
A conga line is not conducive to good digestion.
No activities for anyone who isn't an alcoholic seeking random sex.
They cater to the newly wed and nearly dead.
Great if you like hairy chest contests.
A rust bucket filled with rowdy people.
The more you booze, the better you cruise.
Bathrooms so small you have to sit on the toilet sideways.
It does attract a crowd – it's called ‘God's floating waiting room.'
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If you’re thinking of taking to the seas in the near future, you’ll want to check out the just-released results of Zagat's first-ever Cruise Lines survey. Drawing on the insights of 2,379 cruisegoers, the survey names favorites in three different ship sizes – large (Royal Caribbean), mid-size (Crystal Cruises) and small (Windstar Cruises) – and also offers rankings in everything from cabins and service to dining and activities. Looking for a deal in these lean times? The "Best for Budget Cruises" winners are Carnival, Costa and Norwegian. For the full results, click here.
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Michael Mina
Photo: Hernan F. Rodriguez
With an award-winning cookbook, accolades including a James Beard Foundation Best Chef award and 17 restaurants across the country, chef Michael Mina is a household name in the industry. During the the Savor Borgata event in Atlantic City, where Mina was cooking for 700 people, the Buzz sat down with the chef to find out, among other things, what he considers to be his biggest gamble of his career.
Zagat Buzz: Welcome to the East Coast! What are you preparing for tonight’s event?
Michael Mina: I’ll be making a Nantucket bay scallop ceviche with horseradish panna cotta and tomato gelee, and a butter-poached lobster with sweet-potato crepe and coconut curry broth.
ZB: Your restaurants are a popular draw in Las Vegas and here in Atlantic City. Did you open restaurants in these spots because you like to gamble?
MM: (Laughs). No, no, I don’t gamble at all. I enjoy it, but I have too many restaurants in casinos that I would end up writing them a check every month!
ZB: What do you consider as the biggest gamble you’ve taken in your career?
MM: Probably when I left Aqua in San Francisco and ventured out on my own to open Michael Mina. I put a lot of money and time in the establishment, and that was a big gamble. Thankfully, it worked out.
ZB: Why haven’t you placed your bets on a restaurant in New York City yet?
MM: I absolutely love New York, but there are a couple of reasons that I'm not there. The main reason is that I enjoy NY too much. My best friend lives there, and when I go I really enjoy myself. I'm not saying that I wouldn't enjoy myself if I opened a restaurant there, but it would be different and I would feel a lot more pressure. Plus, there are just so many big chefs in New York, so if I am going to open there, I will have to put in an enormous amount of effort. I have two young boys right now so the timing isn’t right for the focus and effort required.
ZB: How much do you feel that dining guides affect your business?
MM: All of the guides affect business. Zagat especially has an enormous impact on the restaurant business here in the U.S. But dining guides are important for the restaurant business around the world.
ZB: How many restaurants are you planning on opening in 2010?
MM: The only restaurant we have planned to do right now is American Fish in Las Vegas’ CityCenter. I am really excited about it, as the opening is really right around the corner. I did a walk through of the building last week and it is beautiful, really spectacularly designed. I have a lot to live up to there.
–Kathleen Squires
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- – Trying to save New Orleans' po' boys. [NYT]
- – 25 children were recently arrested in Chicago for...a food fight. [NYT]
- – The recession has been especially hard on Arby's. [Slate]
- – Meanwhile, Uno Express has opened 160 locations in the past 15 months. [BG]
- – Consumers expect to spend less on dining out next year. [NRN]
- – Starbucks tries a new look out in London. [BrandRepublic, via Eater]
- – Obama's pastry chef, the "Crustmaster." [AP]
- – Top Chef contestant Dale Levitski takes over Chicago newcomer Sprout. [GS: C]
- – Despite being an international restaurateur himself, Gordon Ramsay blasts international restaurant chains. [Daily Record]
- – The Food Network seeks America's worst cooks. [Variety]
- – Related: What Would Brian Boitano Make? gets picked up for a second season. [EMD]
- – Health-wise, is chocolate milk the new red wine? [NYT]
- – Related: finally, a scientific reason why red wines (mostly) don't go well with fish. [Economist]
- – Actually? French women do get fat. [Reuters]
- – Why must restaurant websites be so terrible? [Between Meals]
- – An undrinkable beer from the Hindenburg disaster is up for sale. [NYP]
- – A tofurky-flavored soda? [SE]
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