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Tomato Terroir - New York City entry #3 Ten years ago a dining companion and I shared a memorable evening at Simpson’s on the Strand, that quintessential British restaurant in the heart of London’s West End. I rank the evening: 1) Yorkshire Pudding (very delicious) 2) Dining Companion (very beautiful) 3) Service (very British) Much of the charm of Simpson’s is its sense of place: to dine is to bathe with British aristocracy. The food was ideally paired with our cultural imagination. Some restaurants attempt to capture an idea: a place, a time. Among current New York restaurants, Blue Hill is one that strives for the truth of terroir. And, so, after the span of a decade, D.C. and I selected Blue Hill for a post-S.o.t.S. meal. I will gain few admirers by a modest proposal to ban anyone under thirty from public spaces, but Thomas Hobbes had a point when he critiqued social life as a “buzzing, booming confusion.” Blue Hill started life as a West Village speakeasy, and much of this busy bustle remains. As the evening progressed and the restaurant emptied, the space became increasingly soothing. We could finally appreciate the place. Blue Hill indicates that they have fifty-five seats, but sounds echoed. Blue Hill’s claim to culinary fame is their stated commitment to local, seasonal food and to sustainable agriculture. Many of their vegetables are grown on Executive Chef Dan Barber’s farmstead in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, what they described as “nature at its best.” One admires the commitment to quality that results from raising one’s own produce, but I reject the ardent claim that a salad will be more conjugal if my mixed greens once shared the same bed. I came to feel that Blue Hill wanted to proclaim their virtue by including too many herbs, greens, and vegetables in each dish as if to suggest: look at our cornucopia. What a plot of land! Still, aside from self-satisfaction, Blue Hill is a superior restaurant and a worthy addition to New York dining. Our amuse bouche was a simple glass of cool pureed corn soup. It was silky smooth, showcasing the essence of corn. It was very pleasant, indeed, although perhaps not sufficiently savory as to be a perfect amuse. It lulled the senses, not awakened them. The dominant taste was the liquid purity of the corn itself. I am somewhat embarrassed to relate that in its one note, it reminded me of Moto’s infamous Doughnut Soup. The selection was also peculiar in that Blue Hill serves a more robust Chilled Corn Soup as an appetizer. Given that my D.C. ordered that Corn Soup, why serve a second corn soup as an amuse? All corn, all the time. The appetizer soup (“Chilled Corn Soup, Preserved Tomatoes, Marinated and Pickled [Enoki?] Mushrooms) was exceptionally delicious, and the most memorable course of the evening. The soup was flecked with caviar and the pickled mushrooms provided an unexpected but welcome tang. The signature of Chef Cuevas’s cuisine [Juan Cuevas is chef at the Greenwich Village Blue Hill] is a willingness to experiment with unexpected tastes - herbal, pungent, and candied. These dishes are designed to surprise and inspire, while remaining within the canons of contemporary dining. I selected “Maine Crabmeat Salad, Green Tomato Marmalade, Preserved Tomatoes, Basil, White Eggplant Confit, Chilled Tomato Consomme.” As the ingredient list suggests, this is a dish that creates honeyed memories. Each bite of tomato marmalade, each taste of summery basil transformed the sweet crabmeat into a confection. Less successful was the pool of consomme that surrounded the cylinder of crab salad. Consomme may now be the preferred term for “vegetable water.” The water had strong notes of cucumber and zucchini, and perhaps the diluted liquid was intended as a naturopath’s gazpacho. The effect was to create a culinary bog at the waterline. Crab surely has enough moisture without such misguided assistance. “Poached Hudson Valley Duck, Stew of Organic Carrots Cooked in Their Own Juices with Toasted Spices and Portobello Mushrooms” was a signal success in its refusal to embrace the cliches of duck preparation. The sliced duck breast was robed by a rich carrot jus (perhaps Blue Hill has now perfected carrots with butter in their veins, but I suspect the carrots were goosed by the chef). The sauce was flavored with chives and fennel, which along with the mushrooms, gave the duck a welcome touch of bitterness, undercutting the common treatment of duck as dessert. Our second entree was less successful (“Wild Striped Bass, Pistou of Summer Vegetables and Pureed Basil”). A pistou is a vegetable stew that demands the chef thoughtfully consider which produce belongs together. I felt that the choice of vegetables were selected to show off Blue Hill’s farm, rather than for aesthetic reasons. The problem was less the taste than the texture (the slab of bass was fresh and properly cooked). Any chef who combines lima beans, broccoli, yellow squash, and field peas plays a dangerous game. Well-cooked lima beans have a delightful snap, but they can’t avoid the slightly grainy texture that make children and gourmets intensely suspicious. With a soft vegetable like squash, the odd edges of broccoli, and firm peas, the stew might have been vegan leftovers. Our shared dessert was also texturally challenged. I am always amused when a menu places quotation marks around a dish, preparing diners for a full serving of irony. Here was “‘Strawberries and Cream,’ Ice, Jam and Puree, Lemon Cake and Crunchy Almonds.” Ice? Jam? Crunchy Almonds? We ordered it, and so caveat emptor. The play of tastes was compelling, but next time 86 the ice. No wine tonight, but a smooth, yet tangy, sake: “Yuki No Bosha Junmai Ginjo Sake, ‘Limited Release,’ Akita, Japan.” Sake is today’s Sauvignon Blanc. When not ordering a bottle of wine, I often select a fine sake, which I find, when well made, enhances most foods. Blue Hill is a restaurant that demands to be taken seriously. As a mid-priced restaurant ($115/two), it delivers creativity that one might expect with a steeper tag. The chef may be too taken with the idea of displaying local produce for its own sake, but there are far more foolish claims that believing that the land speaks through the response of our senses. Blue Hill Restaurant 75 Washington Place New York, NY 10011 212-539-1776

I understand that the owner and chef at Matsumoto are friends with the folk who run Heat (or perhaps used to - I'm not sure). I haven't been to Kaze yet.

Photos and other reviews on LTHforum.com - see link below. Pre-Med at Matsumoto Globalization takes its toll. With the expansion in the United States of the depth and complexity of Asian, Latin, Eastern European, and, now, African haute cuisines, how can the serious diner break from the constraints of culinary cliche. In a world system, provincialism chains one to ignorance. I have consumed piles of sushi, sashimi, teriyaki, tempura, ramen, and poki. Yet, although I have an intuitive grasp of the rudiments of French cuisine (at least a rudimentary grasp of the intuition of ...), my knowledge of the philosophies and possibilities of Japanese cuisine is narrow. Every visit to a Japanese restaurant is like sleeping at a Tokyo Holiday Inn where "the best surprise is no surprise." Even with a son who speaks Japanese, spending time in Kyoto, and another who views far too much anime, I am as pure a Midwestern gaijin as might be found. Hai! After last night, this must change. But change is never easy. Five of us on LTHforum dined at Matsumoto, a new and significant Japanese restaurant along a rather unprepossessing Chicago commercial strip (a center of ethnic cuisine in Chicago - Lawrence Avenue may well be the most appetizing street in the city). The meal will alter how I taste. Dinner at Matsumoto stands in distinct contrast with a Philadelphia meal that a friend and I shared at Morimoto, the eponymous restaurant of Iron Chef Morimoto. That meal, worthy as it was (a three star meal, I felt), did not jolt me. Morimoto is shaped through Japanese preparation as shaped by an American sensibility. I have not visited Japan, and so this claim may seem amusing to those with a knowledge of the Tokyo dining scene. However, the restaurant with its Orientalist touches, has an ambience of an American's night on the town. The Omakase (a tasting menu but - I believe - with less philosophical import than a Kaiseki menu) was worthy, with a hamachi sashimi the high point. I still fondly recall a Japanese inflected foie gras plate and a luscious tiny wild plum. Unsurprisingly the fish dishes - both the raw and the cooked - were the emotional center of the meal. The pace was a little rushed, as dishes were hustled away before they were quite done, but the waitstaff were agreeable in that very American fashion that waiters outside of Manhattan cultivate. A student confronting a new world is swamped by information, none of which quite makes sense. There are no handles through which knowledge can be ordered. Everything stands alone. Perhaps one loves the idea of being a surgeon, but one must still pass organic chemistry. So many new and inexplicable things for which the comfortable familiarity of experience is useless. However, the cute metaphor of organic chemistry is inadequate to describe the experience of a Japanese Kaiseki menu (Kaiseki is a style of Japanese degustation menu, but is one that is linked to the philosophy of the seasons, an expression of a philosophy of living - the gustatory equivalent of Ikebana.) Facts are not what are required in exploring the intricate corners of Japanese cuisine - philosophy and sensation are. If art students were required to pass "organic virtuosity" classes, the metaphor might be more apt. I lightly use the pre-med metaphor to excuse what the internists of Japanese dining will recognize as my offenses, gaffes, and embarrassments. I aim for a C+, passing, if lacking much distinction. Matsumoto as a restaurant space is reminiscent of a pleasantly proportioned and designed neighborhood restaurant with a color scheme emphasizing gray and plum. Its decor is not much different from Chicago's reliably excellent Katsu, but not comparable to those seductive Japanese restaurants that specialize in "Sushi and the City," such as Japonais. The decor at Matsumoto may confuse those who see high-end restaurants as places where architects display their craft. How often does one consume a $150 banquet with wooden pull-apart chopsticks? There may have been gold leaf on the sashimi, but not on the utensils. Throughout the meal we were educated by the charming Chiyomo and her assistant, our beloved server (and superb English-speaker) Suziko. Both were somewhat startled (at least the matter was raised several times) that we had prepared for the most authentic Japanese cuisine (what that means is a subject for professional authentologists). Without our two guides our experience would have been pallid and my confusion would have been disordered, not compellingly mysterious. This is a chef who embraces his art passionately. The chef arrived at 11:00 a.m. to prepare our menu. He must have whirled and dashed in the kitchen to construct our four hour dinner. The soy sauce is made in-house (although, at least, for our banquet, the wasabi was not). Our sake, Junmai Ginjo, a gift from the owner, was a smooth as a Japanese river stone, rice water in a velvet glove. While I love the more pungent sakes, Ginjo is from highly polished rice (30%, I believe), and is as polished a liquid as I have tasted aside from certain rare Grand Crus. The menu: 1) Oyster Shooter with quail egg in a soy broth 2) Squid innards, salt and sake 3) Sea Cucumber Liver with Mountain Potato mash 4) Seaweed in a sour liquid 5) Clam with dried bonito flakes 6) Assorted Sashimi 7) Broth with Shimeji mushrooms 8) Crab with a soybean (yuba) skin with Namatake mushrooms 9) Grilled salmon with pickled lotus root and pepper, and egg squares 10) Braised duck with green onion bundles 11) Deep fried sea urchin, whitefish, and salmon wrapped in seaweed on fried noodles 12) Oysters with red miso and green onions 13) Geoduck clams (mirugai) in a lightly sour sauce with carrot and cucumber 14) Assorted sushi 15) Fruit soup These images do not begin to do justice to the complexity of tastes. My most vocal complaint is the amount of food. But the time we reached course 13, doing justice to these creations proved impossible. I know that to take sushi home for lunch is a culinary crime, but not to do so would be a crime against all that my mother taught me, rather too well (Eat! Eat! People are starving in New Orleans!). The moment of truth was the presentation of the first courses, five jewels, each in their own glass, and each confronting this American with the recognizing that my culinary map has many gaps: I am Magellan with clean and open hands. This tray as visual display could have been a creation of Charlie Trotters or the other American chefs of the age, influenced, like Picasso by foreign climes. The texture, however, was not for an American chef to imitate. Ultimately tastes are building blocks - sweet, sour, salty, bitter, and (some say) umami, a savory taste intensifier. However, textures are not universals, but tied to the very idea of what edibility is. Consuming these exquisite starters forced me to confront textures that seemed just wrong, but in their disturbing impropriety forced a reconsideration of the possibility of food itself. The oyster shooter, the first starter, was, to Western tongues, the most conventional of the five. A perfect fresh oyster floating in a miso jus, nudged by a raw quail egg. Americans do not need to be told the arousing properties of oysters, and any viewer of the brilliant 1985 film Tampopo knows what a raw egg can do. We had just started, and already the bed beckons. The second cup proved a different species altogether. I don't know which part of the squid was at our service, but eating this innards was like approaching a cup of chewy, live anchovies in a thickened and salty liquor. Were I expecting Western cuisine, this would be an ouch! moment, but I am a novitiate searching for truth. I can not pretend that I will pair this with cereal - it will never be my comfort food - but I will think of it long after my Cheerios are soggy with soy milk. The third dish was the most challenging of the evening, sea cucumber liver in a mountain potato (yam) puree. Imagine me: I thought that I would be able to hold to the potato while being challenged by that liver. The potato was a golden, slimy mucilage that at first taste reminded this Yankee of boiled okra without any of its charms. I couldn't finish this dish which left me bereft of the full range of what chef Matsumoto can be. I remain an accidental tourist. But that sea cucumber liver wasn't half bad. Seaweed in sour liquid was velvet threads soup. A cocktail of Spanish moss is no Martini, but its texture, bolstering a sweet sourness, is something to consider. The texture of this dish will return whenever I trek through a southern swamp. The tray ended with clam with dried bonito flakes. The clam was properly chewy, the liquid sweetish, and the flakes added an singular crispiness that made the chewiness seem a reproach to the softness and the crackliness of so much western cuisine. The sashimi, sprinked with gold flakes, was to be reminded of the potential of Japanese cuisine as known in the west. Each fish was magically above its peak of freshness (fish that would become fresh tomorrow), and each was constructed with accompaniments as to be its own work of art - toro, scallop, salmon, flounder, squid and a creamy sweet shrimp. This was perfection, but by raising the bar made so much other sashimi seem like yesterday's meal. Course seven was essence of soup: a miso broth, flavored with Shimeji mushrooms, white fish (fluke: specifically enkawa, the muscle around the fin of hirame). In each earthenware tea kettle, was a rosy star of wheat gluten (fu, I'm told). I have picked and eating mushrooms for decade, but I learned how the hidden heart of a mushroom tastes. This deceptively modest soup was a religious experience. Crab with tofu skin (yuba) and salmon roe, nametake mushrooms and mountain potato puree was a dish that proved more accommodating that I might have expected. While the textures were still somewhat novel, by two hours into the meal my understanding was beginning to dawn, facilitated by the most elegant sake. My gaijin skin was slowly shedding. The ovals of crab were complimented by the range of savory and deep flavors and intriguing textures, making each bite an essay of possibility. It was like a Trotter's dish as passed through a cultural mirror. Course nine was grilled salmon with pickled lotus root and pepper and egg squares. JeffB points out that his salmon was a bit overcooked. Mine was perfect in the center, but slightly dry on the edges. This course was perhaps the most conventional dish of the evening (excluding the dovine sushi). Its glory was the presentation, cemented by a lotus root that resembled a slice of trompe d'oil Swiss Cheese. The squares of yellow and white egg were so quiet and discrete that one could hardly imagine that they harbored any of those fats that have excluded eggs from breakfast tables. I adore duck, and for many years were drawn to the inevitable main course canard until I duck became a cliche as it was smothered each fruit in the orchard. But tonight my passion was reborn. This duck was cooked in a golden crown set atop an elegant tabletop stove heated by hot rocks. Here it was shiitake that gave flavor to the broth. Five pieces of duck surrounded fasces of green onion. I experienced perfection as the duck was perfumed from outside and from within. The texture of these bites was beyond compare. And not a fruit to be seen. Course eleven was deep fried black triangles of seaweed filled with pressed fried sea urchin, whitefish, and salmon. Perhaps the filling was not as glorious as some of the dishes and some liquid accompaniment would have helped, but the arrangement in shape was striking as it sat upon thin, budding noodles that had a crispness unlike any I have tasted. By the time that the oyster with red miso arrived, I was slowing. The size of portions is a matter that Matsumoto might wish to review as smaller plates benefits both diners and owners. This was another course cooked at the table. The oysters were powerfully sweet and pungent while bathed a subtle soy sauce with green onions. My final oyster remained on my plate but I miss it. Course thirteen might have been more memorable had I more capacity. Here was a plate cleanser from another culinary planet. Geoduck clams (mirugai) sat a bowl of purest ice water with cucumbers and carrots giving color and crunch. If one did not leave refreshed, one was but half a diner. Finally a gigantic platter of sushi with some exquisite vegetable carvings. I was now unable to appreciate the freshness of the dish (and the size of the offering was a gift from the chef), but saved for the following lunch, I cannot recall fresher fish. We reached dessert, an aftermath that was a final palate cleanser. Grapes, kiwi, strawberries, black beans were served in a super-sized martini glass filled with some of the sweetest but lightest syrup than a human could prepare. There is no comparison to a classically trained pastry chef, but fortunately this light ending never tried. My tongue was ready for a second dinner, a challenge that my poor stomach could not abide. No meal must reach perfection, or we could just stop eating. However, Matsumoto provides a level of dining that demands the attention of every chef, every gourmet, and any one who thinks about food. Last night we five were the only diners at Matsumoto. If this grand, newly opened restaurant is as quiet in October, culinary Chicago will have lost its way. When I visit glittering Masa in the opulent Time-Warner Center, Chef Masayoshi Takayama will have a high bar to meet the brilliance of this simple kitchen in the deepest heart of ethnic Chicago. Matsumoto Restaurant 3800 West Lawrence Avenue Chicago 773-267-1555 Morimoto 723 Chestnut Street Philadelphia 215-413-9070 Cross-posted on LTHforum, Opinionated About, and eGullet Photos available (by Mike G and soon by Cathy 2) at Photos of Matsumoto on LTHforum My digital camera is in the mail.

Gaffes and Genius The insistent and obstinate question after last evening's visit to Charlie Trotter's is what errors should affect the reputation of a restaurant. This is a crucial question for reviewers, but one rarely discussed. Problems of conception, execution, service, and style are endemic - even in the writings of critics. Should my failures at spell checking or mistaken allegation that a wild plum was tame count against my hard-fought and fragile credibility? Find the 30 goofs in this text and win a prize. I had last visited Charlie Trotter's in 1999, dining at the kitchen table. The meal was as close to being perfect as a can recall. (Were I Nick Hornby's emotionally stunted Rob in High Fidelity [i am], it would have nestled on my top five meals with twenty-four hours to live. "Hey, have a nice day"). That meal was, if anything, too superb. For years I hesitated to return because I recognized that any second visit could not hold up to the memory of the first. Sometimes at highly regarded restaurants I deceive myself that the meal was better than it was, if only desperately to convince myself that I had an EXPERIENCE. But a critic must flagellate himself, and, despite the bill, very few meals snuggle up to perfection. I will be spending next year in New York City and plan to dine at Trotter's 2006 New York outpost (along with a few soggy New York establishments that wistfully strive for Chicago standards). A return was long-overdue. It remains true that Charlie Trotter is a culinary genius. Today he is the most profoundly influential chef of his generation. The kitchen at 816 Armitage is a teaching hospital, and we are grateful for his training of a new generation. However, perfection and socialization do not always exist in comfortable harmony. Chef Trotter has a preternatural sensibility of texture and taste. (He seems less interested in aroma, leaving a space for Grant Achatz's experiments). A tranquil and modest grandeur characterizes Trotter's cuisine. While his plates are often elegantly composed, they are less visually pyrotechnic than is often found. Trotter's greatness is as the broker of the transition between a classical cuisine and a cuisine that is unafraid of marrying foodstuffs from different lineages and with contrasting taste profiles. One can not fairly suggest that he fully belongs to the French nouvelle tradition with its boisterous joy of overturning expectations, but he brings a Japanese emotive sensibility to the gustatory experiments of the nouvelle tradition without ignoring classical limits. It is this profundity which provides a base from which chefs such as Cantu and Bowles can create their boisterous experiments. As a dining room, Charlie Trotter's with its vaguely Art Deco decor insists the place not distract from the plate. The tans, browns, creams, and maroons avoid the fantasies of French drawing rooms or post-modern architectural seductions. The only exceptions - and they are profound - are the stunning bouquets at the entrance and in the dining room, as powerful for their textures as for their shape and color: hortus in urbe. Our plan was that I would order the Grand Menu ($135) and my wife would "take one for the team," ordering the Vegetable Menu ($115). On this late summer evening, the vegetable menu was heaven, while the Grand Menu inspired thoughts about error and taste. What should it matter if a server forgets the butter? When our rolls arrived, our server forgot the butter. Servers at Trotters are known, properly, for combining efficiency and a cheery cordiality; our servers were not disappointing in this regard, answering my many questions. Yet, there was no butter. When I requested some, it was brought with alacrity. How should such an error count? All would agree that this is a mistake, but one so fleeting and so human that one can hardly pump oneself to take offense. The minor daily flubs we all commit would pale beside the crime of the truant butter. However, at a restaurant that strives for perfection, such a mistake is to be noted, not because even the harshest Captain Queeg can prevent such blunders, but to ignore such things is to dismiss the very standard that the restaurant demands. We turn to the Amuse Gueule. Amuse Gueule? I trust that some solid rationale exists for an alternative terminology to the more common Amuse Bouche. Enquiring minds note that Rick Tramonto of Tru and interlocutor of Chef Trotter on the politics of foie gras has a well-publicized new book devoted to the Amuse Bouche. But shame on me for suspecting. The Amuse Gueules started the meals off on different trajectories. The Vegetable Menu began with a delicate squash blossom stuffed with morels, and napped with a silky morel sauce. But morels in August? Surely not from a can? Trotter's takes May morels, preserving them in oil, so the opulence of the oil (presumably olive) adds another herbal dimension to the taste. Alinea's PB&J may be fun, but this is delight. In sharp contrast was my own amuse. The Irish salmon on seaweed noodles married the soggy with the gummy. The two bites constituted the least appealing (and, in truth, the only unappealing) bites that I have had at Trotter's. If I don't know all of the trade tricks of the chef, I can tell sashimi grade fish. A small course, but big miss. Both first courses were triumphs with the vegetables tinkling brighter. "Confit of leeks with organic fennel, nicoise olives and Sally Jackson farm sheep milk cheese" was an archetypal Trotter dish. It was not flashy - no sharp edges, no blazing colors - but what a palette of flavors! The fennel added a slightly bitter edge, the olives an acidic pungency, and the cheese a rich savoriness. The leeks, standing up to these challenges, held the center from which these alternative accents radiated. There was a classic purity to this dish that simultaneously seeming so contemporary. My own opener, "Marinated Bluefin Tuna and Citrus Vinaigrette with Heirloom Tomato Water" (with an Annatto Rice Chip) was, in contrast to the amuse, superbly fresh matchsticks of tuna. While the dish is described as "tomato water" (a surprising turn of phrase), it had the texture of a puree. Citrus and tomato add the acid that cut the buttery richness of a fatty fish like tuna. I was fully satisfied, if still a little jealous. Susan's favorite food (#1 on foods to consume on a deserted island) is hearts of palm (she would, of course, only settle on an island that could satisfy such needs). As a consequence, I missed my just share of "Roasted Hearts of Palm With Fava Beans & Summer Truffle" (which, if memory serves, also embraced some nubile young asparagi). This was another memorable dish, textured with careful gradients in taste. The slices of summer truffles were a loving touch, although I have never been enamored by God's Viagra. Chef Trotter, consider the army of amoral pigs brutally rooting in the forest duff for a bit of nasty: surely truffles are fungal foie gras. Two minutes can be an eternity at the stove, and managed to upend my second course, so close to brilliant, "Japanese Hamachi with Indian Pickle, Thai Eggplant & Lemongrass Curry Emulsion." Hiding on the plate was pieces of satsuma orange and, majestically, bitter melon. The combination of tastes, patient and demanding of attention, were perfectly balanced. The unexpected bitter melon, like a hidden character left off the program in a murder mystery, proved that one does not need a chemistry set to knock out diners. And yet at the heart of this otherwise assured dish was a piece of hamachi (yellowtail or racing tuna) that had seen better minutes. Tuna is an unforgiving fish. Perhaps a cook was dreaming of a wayward lover, and my fish got the worse of unrequited love. The hamachi was not a wizened hunk and looked healthy, but died on the tongue. In retrospect, this was a moment for alerting the server, but my discretion was the worst part of valor. Someday I will have this dish in its perfection, and my unrequited love will be requited. Adding piquancy was that on my first visit the high point of the evening was a brilliant and blatantly undercooked duck breast, confronting those who muddle with medium. Third course on the Vegetable Menu was "Vegetable Cannelloni with Farro, Kohlrabi & Red Wine Emulsion (read: foam)." The "pasta" was comprised of root vegetables - Atkins on Armitage. (Farro is, however, an antique grain). If this was not quite the bright combination of flavors of some other dishes, feeling more "vegetarian" than most, it was a witty and spare response to traditional Italian cuisine. The red wine foam added a complexity that otherwise was lacking. Dish three on the Grand Menu, "Organic Berkshire Pork with Braised Salsify & Zucchini-Cumin Puree" (with forest mushrooms) was another dish that was a few ticks on the clock from glorious, although far less unfortunate that the lamented hamachi. The flavorings were grand. Pork and cumin are made for each other. Trotter cooked the pork in several forms, but the medallions suffered most. Just a hint of juice would have placed this dish in the collection of Trotter's best. The final "entree" on the Vegetable Menu, "Taro Root Cake with Black Trumpet Mushrooms, Braised Italian Kale & Orange Lentil Puree," was Chef Trotter's most architecturally ambitious creation of the evening. The brown and orange smears of sauce set off the greens, tans, and blacks of the main ingredients. If taro is not the most pungent of foodstuff, kale and lentil provided the energy. Trotter's dishes do not generally aspire to serve as visual works of art, but this dish surpassed the requirements of this approach to haute cuisine. The Grand Menu climaxed with "Millbrook Venison Loin with Lobster Mushrooms, Savoy Cabbage & Sweetbreads." I came to realize that the chef's culinary palate was pointing towards fall: root vegetables, cabbage, lentils, kohlrabi, and 57 varieties of mushrooms. I have always thought of venison as autumnal and the cabbage and lobster mushrooms were just right with the venison lightened by the perfectly prepared sweetbreads. With the exception of the earlier heirloom tomato water (and the desserts) summer had set. If the venison loin was cooked just barely more than I would have chosen (the ball of veal cheeks was superb), its presentation was well within appropriate culinary standards, and the dish was superior. Our palette cleansers were a pair of sorbets: Cantaloupe with Yuzu and Watercress (with bits of lardon) on the Grand Menu and Cucumber Sorbet with Cucamelon & Cilantro. Cucamelon, who knew? Cucumber and melon; chocolate and peanut butter? What a world. Neither were quite palate "cleansers;" each was a palate intensifier. No dish is too modest to challenge our assumptions. The dessert on the Vegetable Menu qualifies as the best dessert that I have eaten (shared, sadly) since the last time at Trotter's when I was presented with a platonic plate of Japanese inspired and flavored petit fours. "Red Haven Peaches with Thyme & Olive Oil Ice Cream" [and, surprise!, apricots too] was dessert to a higher power. Red Haven peaches are a Michigan varietal, but these fruits have a honeyed southern accent. The herbal ice cream cuts the sweetness of the peaches, and creates a dish that avoids a dessert sugar fix. "Michigan Raspberries with Anise Hyssop & Raw Vanilla Ban Ice Cream" was the curtain call on the Grand Menu. The raspberries, not as large as some varieties, were more flavorful than most, and as with the peaches the touch of anise cut the sweetness. A most excellent close to what had been a brilliantly conceived, if imperfectly executed, menu. I haven't mentioned the wines. I decided to try the "beverage tasting menu." I was glad of that choice since my intent was to see the kitchen at work, but I would not again. These elegant drinks could not match the complexity of wine. The selections: "Granny Smith Apple, Cucumber and Celery," "Lemongrass, Green tea and Asian Pear," "Pineapple, Orange and Picked Galangal (ginger's cousin)," "Navarro Vineyards Pinot Noir Juice," "Porcini Mushroom, Dandelion Miso Tea," and "Watermelon & Yuzu" were straight-forward, and each was dominated by a simple taste: celery, green tea, pineapple, porcini, and watermelon. The pineapple and watermelon were particularly refreshing. As juices, who could complain, but they were far from the flinty hills of Burgundy. This meal reconfirmed my belief that Charlie Trotter's is a rare four-star restaurant, that Charlie Trotter is not only among the greatest chef creators of his generation but the singular animating force who has created Chicago dining as American haute cuisine, and that this is a restaurant that demands routine patronage. However, while the Vegetable Menu was a four star meal, the Grand Menu rates three stars for execution. Perhaps the overcooking is a sign that the restaurant is becoming cautious in attempting to please a more conventional clientele or perhaps it means that I suffered the doleful effects of a cook in love. Critic's Note When asked, I informed the server that some of the dishes, particularly the hamachi, were overcooked, and she told me that she would share my wisdom (although she did not describe it so) with the kitchen. This is, of course, something that no critic with a shred of self-esteem should do. When our meal was complete Chef Trotter stopped me: "I just wanted to let you know that we terminated the cook who prepared your hamachi." Fool me once . . . . Diners have heard stories of this youthful chef's commitment to perfection. He soon added, "that doesn't mean that we fired him, we terminated him" (with extreme prejudice). I was upended. This from a man who might serve Rick Tramonto's bloated liver, but still manages to retains Richie Daley's charm. Bravo. In the interest of full disclosure, we were also provided a bag of gifts, which although it violated my critic's code, I accepted with a mixture of chagrin and glee. As I shall soon have a website, I have learned that the code of ethics for us bloggers is a four letter word: MORE. Charlie Trotter's 816 Armitage Chicago, IL 60614 773-248-6228 Cross-posted on eGullet and LTHforum. Coming soon to a blogosphere near you.

Moto 3.0 To visit a visionary restaurant three times in six months might seem like an instance of American excess, but in visiting Moto again I have watched Homero Cantu grow from a (remarkable) enfant terrible to a more confident and mature gustatory stylist. To what to attribute such a salutary change, I can not state with confidence, but perhaps one can only have so many food fights before tiring of the cleanup. Our party selected Moto's ten course menu ($100 plus $60 for the wine progression). (We had fifteen dishes in slightly over four hours). The food was recognizably Homero's creations, but for most of the dishes the tricks and experiments were no longer the point - but contributed to the overall seductive delight of the dish. With but a single exception the versions of those dishes that I had eaten before were markedly improved. Moto now seems firmly about the food, and less about deconstruction theory. I hope that the chef will not take it ill that I was quite pleased not to be served any "dipping dots" - a few iced goes a long way. At times Moto August 2005 seems a more traditional restaurant than Alinea, as often as not to its credit. (Chef Cantu has not reached the same level of confidence in flavors and savors of Chef Achatz, but, as I wrote previously, Cantu is a work in progress). Matthew McCammon is no longer Moto's general manager and wine director, and I miss his presence. He was uniquely able to select both appropriate and memorable wines for the chefs creations. He has been replaced by Matthew Gundlach, who does an admirable job. One of the nine wines (a luscious, off-sweet Vignalta "Alpianae" Coli Euganei Fior d'arancio, Veneto 2002) was superb. It was filled with lichi and honey notes without the sticky, too-honeyed tastes of lesser Sauternes. The Kesselstatt Mosel Riesling, an Australian Two Hands Shiraz, and a Domaine Schoffit Gewurtztraminer were also very pleasurable for a summer dinner. A Movia, Ribolla from Brda (Slovenia) was worth trying, assertive and full of spice. I missed the Warwick Pinotage (from Stellenbosch, South Africa), promised on the website and one of the very best of the post-Apartheid South African wines, which was replaced by a good, but not terribly special Paulliac, Chateau Behere (it is supposed to have an aroma of pencil lead, but I couldn't taste that as much as the berries that are also characteristic). The big bust of the evening was a harsh and flat Spanish Bodegas Pucho, Bierzo 2003, served with the bass course. The pairing was linked to the bacon in the sauce, but this was not a wine that attracts me (I am not enamored by Spanish reds, other than, sigh, Sangria). We settled in to consume Chef Cantu's edible menu, swimming in a cream risotto of puffed rice. We can gave our chef little extravagance, an idea that overwhelmed its pleasant taste. No chef treats his Amuse Bouche more amusingly than Homero. The dinner began with what may be the finest of the forty or so dishes that I have had at Moto: Champagne & King Crab. What made it definitive was that it was a riff on traditional haute cuisine. It was a dish that would only barely have been out of place at Everest or even Lutece. The chef presents small piles of perfectly sweet and delicate king crab in pools of sweet pea puree, precisely flavored with a touch of jalapeno. Nestled under our serving implements (a fork and a spoon, to be clear) was a dollop of exuberant citrus cream. Every bite was a delight. The delight was in part the glorious taste and in part that Chef Cantu didn't feel that he needed to strain to stick a finger in the eye of the culinary establishment. This was a transcendent dish. (Perhaps it is significant that my preferred dish from my five course April menu was also the first: white elf mushrooms with pearl onions). The second course - a Lesson in Cuitlacoche (huitlacoche by another name) - may become a superb course. Now it suffers from a certain pretension, a work in progress. On the bowl's side is a cuitloche smear (an unappealing brown daub). In the center of the bowl servers pour a nitrogenated saffron foam over popcorn (?!). Perhaps I am not a honors student at Moto U. but I require remedial assistance. The dish seemed, like some earlier attempts, to be done for its own sake. Cuitlacoche has such a distinctive taste and texture that pureeing it was a shame, but perhaps we should be grateful that the chef didn't retreat to his inkjet and create an edible image inspired by a dish of "corn smut." Don't even think it. One of the most striking dishes of the February Little Three Happiness 21 course extravaganza (the "raccoon-athon," forever memoralized by Time) was Cantu's "Lobster with Freshly Squeezed Orange Soda." This latest version was far more satisfying and demonstrated that the rough edges of Moto are smoothed. As I recall the earlier version, the Lobster and the carbonated orange were given equal stature, but why? We hope for lobster dreams. This lobster was given top billing with the tingly orange comic relief. The poached lobster (again, precisely fresh) was enrobed in a velvety celery root (buerre blanc?) sauce, with a tight scoop of brown butter ice cream. Perhaps ice cream and lobster can't work, but it did this warm weekend. The orange was homage, not sabotage. As in the opening preparation, Cantu creatively rethought haute cuisine, rather than discovering victuals on some other planet. It is cheering to see that dishes are critically rethought. Because of the passion of one of our party - "Sweetbreads & Cheese Grits", a dish on the grand menu - was added to our menu and it was a jewel. The sweetbreads were prepared in a tempura batter and nestled with cheese grits. Cheese grits and sweetbreads belong together, not at all offal (yes, I'm deeply ashamed). With the presence of collards, sweet potato, and Krispy Kreme Soup on the menu one wonders whether Chef Cantu is pursing a southern strategy. We turned to "Artichoke, Balsamic and Macadamia" - one bite wonder. Some at the table didn't find the artichoke flavor sufficiently intense, but with vinegar this good, who would notice. We did, but it didn't prevent a highly satisfying bite. The next course, "French Fry (Sweet) Potato Chain Links, Sweet Potato Pie and Veal Breast," was another revision from the first menu, and, again, a far superior version. (I had found that earlier version, more curiosity than culinary). This was much better realized, and the chef is coming to reveal his attention to core ingredients, in this case veal breast. If the chain carving lacked the intricacy of winter, but the dining satisfaction was higher. Veal goes well with sweet potatoes in a pairing that might otherwise be startling. At the moment that the artichoke bite was served, our servers revealed Cantu's Magic Boxes. Tonight he slow cooked sea bass: "Bass With a Grilled Tomatillo Broth." Again it was a remarkably improved version of "Bouillabaisse Deconstructed then Reconstructed Tableside." Even the titles reveals a shift from technology to cuisine. The bass was sited in a subtle broth with the happy addition of chantrelles, paprika, jalapeno, and bacon. It rivaled the king crab for its elegance, and it, too, was a dish of which any chef would be proud. Following this highpoint came the meat dish - "Beef with collards." This was a new dish, and it rather modest. I wished for a more assertive hunk of flesh, but it was not to be. This was a good dish, but would have been better if it hadn't come after the masterful fish in a box. Admittedly in a ten course meal, this is the point that some diners are slowing down, but the presentation seemed designed to display the corkscrew silverware rather than the meat. As we slide towards dessert, we were presented with "Spanish Strofoam, Manchego & Chorizo," one of the two least successful dishes of the evening. When visiting Moto in February, I was agape at the presentation of butter flavored packing peanuts. What seemed inspired in February seemed annoying in a larger dish that should be about taste. Diners might appreciate these startling snacks at the start or end, but let us be semi-serious. When mixed in a complex dish with cheese, sausage, bayleaf jelly, apple butter, the dish - despite astonishing visual appeal - didn't work in its own terms or as a means of presented Cantu's unique signature, which at the consumption had become somewhat soggy. If this is eye candy, I might diet. Our palate cleanser was a surprising drink of watermelon and cilanto essences, as processed through a centrifuge to purify it. Some chefs might have been satisfied with a strainer, but perhaps Argonne National Laboratory was free. However achieved, the combination of strong fruit with herbal flavors was a stunning success. In its glass, one was recalled the shimmering light of absinthe, making this green fairy magical. "Doughnut soup" is a Moto signature: essence of Krispy Kreme. If this won't gain Moto a James Beard award, it is a rich pleasures of dining at Moto. The first dessert was my least favorite dish. Honesty demands that I confess that I find desserts at Moto generally less compelling than the main courses. And so it was with "Strawberry, Rice Pudding, Peanut & Soy Ice Cream." I might have dodged the bullet had I announced that I am not supposed to eat soy (Nobody should eat soy, but that is a rant for another day). The crisp topping was soggy and the flavors seemed neither bright or compelling. We were blessed by a more compelling dessert - "Fettuccine Alla Dolce" - slightly sweetened pasta with a light basil thyme sauce, and milk chocolate ice cream. If it was not the most satisfying dessert, it was delightful, again with a proper herbal note to cut the sweetness. The final touch was a lovely take on a white chocolate truffle, filled with a liquid mango-ginger center. Delicious. The ginger recast the otherwise mundane mango liqueur. A recognition of the defensible boundaries of haute cuisine is transforming the Cantu style. This was the first moment that I felt ready recommend Moto to any friend who enjoys fine dining, even if they lack a background in Jacques Derrida's mischievous deconstruction. It is satisfying to see that Chef Cantu can paint within the lines, only straying when he must, and not when he wants. I edge Moto 3.0 to 3.5 stars; yet I suspect that I may never award four stars. If I do I would enjoy the experience measurably less. Moto 945 West Fulton Market Chicago, IL 60607 312-491-0058 Cross-posted on LTHforum, eGullet Soon to be dangerously outfitted with digital camera. Can the blogosphere be far behind?

gaf, at risk of placing you in jeopardy within earshot of any El, isn't DiNic's pork sandwich (or John's or Tony Luke's) an improvement upon Chicago's Italian Beef? I've yet to have one of the latter (as good as some of them are) that matches up to a Philly pork sandwich. Tommy DiNic, btw, also does a beef sandwich in the same style as his pork one. ← There is quite a range of Italian beef out here in Chicago. Much of it is quite mediocre, I must confess - although I imagine that this is true of Philly pork sandwiches. However, Johnnie's out in Elmwood Park is really transcendent. It is an ideal mix of meat, relishes, and a beautiful crusty bun. If you come out this way, I'll take you there. As for the general point, I'd need to try more pork sandwiches to see how they compare with the good versions of the Italian Beef sandwiches, such as Al's. But there is no doubt that Dimic's makes an awfully fine sandwich.

Well, I was originally writing for my fellow Chicagoans, who would have me for dinner if I were to say that I treasured Philadelphia. But I do. I was an undergrad at Penn from 1968 to 1972, and it was where I became a man, or better, a diner. And I love the city, even if there are now architectural hulks that reach higher than Billy Penn's statue. But who could hate a city with the Reading Terminal Market and the Duchamp room at the PMA, the Schuylkyl boathouses and the Italian market. I won't edit my first post, but Philly I And thanks to Holly Moore for his magnificent webpage which I read when I become nostalgic. You have secret admirers here in the Chicago branch of Cyberspace. Pat's was fine as usual, although the meat did not seem chopped as fine as I recall, and because, in their assembly line, the cheese is on the bottom, the cheese was not as much of an essential part of the sandwich as I recall. I agree with what is implicit in Holly's rankings that Pat's is perhaps not the best cheesesteak around (although able to blow away any Chicago CS). Dimic's was terrific. We do have our share of pork sandwiches out here, but they tend to be breaded pork tenderloin. Dimic's is more of a French dip type sandwich - swimming in "jus." Alas, Fisher's Pretzels was closed and I didn't get to Down Home for my scrapple fix. Although Richie Daley has done a lot for Chicago (viz Millenium Park), he does not think like a Chowist. The regulations are tough for food trucks and we do not have the food markets like Reading and the IM. Philly is (my) street food kind of town.

A Tale of Two Restaurants Being stuck in Philadelphia this week, I was able to dine at Striped Bass and at Le Bec-Fin, and their contrast startled me. The restaurants are located within a block of each other, but miles apart in their haute philosophies. (I also dined at Morimoto, at Dimics, and at Pat's, but that is a tale for another occasion). The contrast between Le Bec-Fin and Striped Bass suggests something of the changes in American haute cuisine over the past 35 years - changes that are not entirely salutary. In passing I note that my girlfriend (now wife) and I used to frequent La Panetière when Georges Perrier was the head chef in the late 60s and we were undergraduates at Penn. (There is a moral about giving one's collegiate offspring much too much spending money - but we chose the right aphrodisiac in selecting chanterelles over psilocybes). We followed Perrier to Le Bec-Fin when he opened his establishment on Spruce Street in 1970. La Panetière and Le Bec-Fin constituted the mainstays of Philadelphia dining until the Philadelphia restaurant revolution of the early years of the 1980s. And what miracles they were! Georges Perrier captured my palate with the seduction of taste. He was unafraid to use powerful tastes, but his dishes were never showy. He was no hot dog. And at its best this was how dining could be imagined. I confess that I never had any grand desire to meet Georges Perrier, just to sup at his table forever. Contrast this with our celebrity chefs today. If Charlie Trotter, Thomas Keller, Grant Achetz, Mark Miller, Paul Prudhomme (and these are some of my favorites) do not stop to chat somehow dinner is not complete. The food - even when spectacular - is but an expression of the vision of the chef/auteur. Along with this culture of culinary celebrity is the sense that a meal must be a form of spectacle. And so we have vertical food, technocuisine, or the 31-flavors of fusion. If a dish doesn't have a dozen feuding ingredients (each identified by the helpful server), it is a dusty relic. Blessedly Georges Perrier (and some others in the backwater haute cuisine temples of yesterday) will have none of it. The meal that I ate at Le Bec-Fin was as clean, as strong, and as confident as any dinner that I have eaten since, say, I last ate at Le Bec-Fin in the early 1970s (if this is a slight exaggeration, I hope no one will catch me). I began with a cassolette of snails in a champagne and hazelnut garlic butter sauce (Cassolette d'escargots aux noisettes en hommage à Monsieur Cleuvenot [a lucky man was M. Cleuvenot]). Snails in butter is, of course, cliche, but not here. It was the touch of hazelnut and champagne that created transcendence from the mundane. With the snails and the nuts, I was presented with two earthy elements made ethereal through champagne and (oh yes!) the butter. The hazelnut oil combined with the butter in such as way as to make the snails seem newly fashioned, a more complex escargot but with neither chef nor diner forgetting that the dish was about the snail. I selected black bass as my fish course: black sea bass barigoule, fresh herb and artichoke fricassee (Loup en barigoule avec son émulsion à l'huile d'olive, fricassée d'artichauts et ses herbes fraiches). Chilean sea bass has become rather common these days, but loup is somewhat rarer. I find that it has a slightly stronger, more assertive taste. It is a fish that can dance with a flavorful olive oil. Artichokes are not a garnish that goes with everything, but it certainly did with the olive oil and herbs. As with so many of chef Perrier's dishes this was a dish that appeared simpler on the plate than in the mouth. The meat course was Pennsylvania rack of lamb, lupini beans and bell pepper fricassee, garlic confit, lamb jus and chorizo emulsion (the geographical descriptor is perhaps to placate local boosters - would it have mattered if the lambkins had swum across the Delaware River? And did those lupinis have their green card?). (Carré d'agneau de Pennsylvanie servi avec sa Basquaise, purée de lupins et ail confit, jus d'agneau et émulsion de chorizo). I admit that I didn't notice the chorizo and just as well. The lamb was perfectly prepared. I couldn't imagine it needing a millisecond of more or less heat (and couldn't understand some fellow diners who insisted it their way. This ain't Sizzler). A noble lamb rack doesn't need much except itself and a whiff of garlic. The lupini and bell peppers (one mild, the other forceful) nicely set off the purity of the lamb. This is dining without artificial lights and fireworks. No need for a highwire when one stands on clouds. After a cassis sorbet, we reached the fine cheese tray and then a dessert tray that again reached for the transcendence of simplicity: pineapple in a ginger jus, a tart that was the essence of lemon, and a definitive Philadelphia cheesecake (I insist that classic under-sweetened New York cheesecake has no equal). Georges Perrier is a chef from the days that a chef was a worker, from the days that craftsmanship mattered, and from a day in which simplicity rather than elaboration - taste not decoration - mattered. Even the setting was the traditional Parisian salon (I prefer my architecture modernist, but, no matter, nostalgia has its virtues). Contrast this to Striped Bass, the reopening of beloved Philadelphia seafood restaurant, part of the Stephen Starr family of restaurants in the lobby of an old brokerage house, from when investing in the market conveyed something about social class. Starr brought in Alfred Portole (of New York's Gotham Grill) as consulting chef and hired Christopher Lee his working chef. At this point Portole provides advice (although his touch, delightful and sometimes malign is evident). Lee, we were told with pride, received the James Beard Foundation's annual award (for Rising Star Chef of the Year). Ahhh, a celebrity chef on the march. This little essay is not the account of a grand restaurant and a poor one. Striped Bass is a restaurant to which I would happily return if Le Bec-Fin were closed or if Pat's ran out of provolone (no Whiz, please). Striped Bass can be a superior restaurant, although at times too clever for its own good. Portole and now Lee seem to believe in a cuisine of excess. If five ingredients are good, fifteen must be yummy. Maybe. We ordered the seasonal five course tasting menu. It began well with a yellowfin tuna tartare with English cucumber, shiso leaf, sweet miso, and Asian ginger dressing. It did not equal the sashimi at Morimoto (and why call it tartare), but the fish was fresh and not overly encumbered by cucumber, shiso, miso, or ginger. The plate was perhaps a little busy, but the tastes harmonized. The second course was, well, a mess. Seared Diver Sea Scallops with barley grains, baby white asparagus, sun trout roe, lemon pepper sauce, and (ulp) microgreens. I am unsure how I feel about the licensing of handguns; however I wish someone would licence microgreens. But perhaps one of the NRAs would have use their considerable muscle to prevent what seems to me to be a most modest proposal. It was not that the dish was poorly executed, piece by piece, but less is more, and more is less. When each bite is a separate dish, something is wrong. And when the purity of the scallop is walloped by a lemon pepper sauce we can only sigh. The third course - Organic Scottish Salmon with Artichoke Ravioli, Green Lentils, Smoked Yellow Tomato, and Warm Horseradish Vinaigrette - had some of the challenges of its predecessors, except for a better combination of tastes. Fortunately the artichoke ravioli - the essence of pureed artichokes - was at some distance from its neighbors and could be enjoyed on its own. Unlike Scallops, Salmon is able to stand up to rough justice, and the lentils were a fine complement. Course four was christened "Philadelphia ‘Cheeseskate'." Trouble. Braised short rib surrounded by skate in a protein-laden hockey puck, Hen of the Woods mushrooms, caramelized onions, Parmesan cream and hot sauce (?). The braised short rib was delicious, although the skate was added just for a laugh. The skate, like the scallop, couldn't stand up to all the fanfare. Had the skate gone missing, the dish would have been superb, an inspired take on a definitive cheesesteak. Desserts were anchored by an excellent (and simple) chocolate pot de creme, raspberry yogurt with mint ice cream, and a white grasshopper mousse. All were exemplary. The problem of Striped Bass (and of Chefs Portole and Lee) is that they don't trust their ingredients and, perhaps, the attention of their diners. We do not all have gustatory ADD. They fear that we might not notice their work if the dish was not gussied up, bundled, and masqueraded. Chef Perrier trusts us, and knows that he need not strive for Disneyland or for the Time-Warner Center, just for Escoffier as lighted by Twenty-first Century preferences. Here we see the difference between the Enchantment of the Raucous Dish and the Enchantment of Taste. Le Bec-Fin 1523 Walnut Street Philadelphia 215567-1000 Striped Bass 1500 Walnut Street Philadelphia 215-732-4444 Cross-Posted on LTHforum Soon my digital camera shall arrive!

I just returned from three days in Athens and environs, and made my usual delicious visit to Weaver D's (fried chicken, field peas, squash casserole, and sweet potato souffle). Automatic for the People! Their neighborhood has gotten more spiffy, and after construction is completed, it will be even spiffier. I also had some fine Brunswick Stew at Hot Thomas's in Watkinsville and at Zeb's in Danielsville (the latter more of a burgoo stew; the former more pure spiced meat). Unfortunately neither Hot Thomas nor Zeb's has truly first rate BBQ (the first specializes in tomato based BBQ [although one can get vinegar based, which reveals a surprising lack of commitment, much like a bar with Cubbie and Sox memorabilia] and the latter is vinegar based, although not as pungent as in eastern Carolina). The revelation on the trip was a new (or perhaps not so new) high-end restaurant in Five Points: Five and Ten. As noted by Tony, the chef is Hugh Acheson, formerly executive sous chef at Gary Danko in SF, who followed his partner to Athens. For good and for ill, the restaurant does not have either the pretensions or the ambition that it might have, but it is by a long-shot the best restaurant in Athens, and among the best in Georiga. We were told in no uncertain terms that we need not wear jackets and ties, and that the restaurant aspired to be a local neighborhood restaurant. Well, that is a bit disingenuous, but it certainly does not have the airs of Restaurant Gary Danko. We had a superb Oyster Stew, divinely flavored with saffron and fennel. The best main course (of the three) was Lowcountry Frogmore Stew (Georgia shrimp [Georgia shrimp?], local fish, fingerling potatoes, leek, corn, and andouille sausage. Very satisfying. The blackened redfish with roasted pepper farro, artichoke, asparagus, and lemon emulsion was quite good, although by no means as assertively spiced as a New Orleans blackening. Less successful (a bit of a mess, actually) was red grouper with a boiled peanut buerre blanc (!!!), grits, fennel slaw, and roasted tomotoes. Like so many young chefs, there is a sense that the more ingrediants one throws in a pot, the better it is. Beware: no chef should be allowed to include more than ten ingrediants without a license. We skipped desserts: ginger creme brulee, warm chocolate soup, and strawberry baked alaska. Hugh Acheson is a young chef worth watching, and 5&10 is the only serious restaurant in Athens. The question is whether its ambitions will remain local or whether this is a place in which the chef is experimenting with southern products in preparation for greater glory.

I have enjoyed the comments on this thread immensely; here is an account of my experience at Alinea: AGAPE AT ALINEA A dinner at Alinea is to be reminded of how Charlie Trotter has, like Alice Waters and Rick Bayless, transformed American cuisine. The impact of a chef is, like a teacher, not in his/her creations, but in the influence of students. As little Waters flowed over the American landscape preaching the doctrine of the local and the pure, as little Baylesses covered the landscape, reminding us that ethnic ingredients can be as haute as any, Trotter's students - whether trained by him or no - proclaim that gastronomy is, after all, a branch of philosophy. A chef as Cu.D., doctor of cuisine. Unlike the great French chefs, often working class men trained through harsh apprenticeship, creating amazing robust explosions of flavor, the new American chef is an aspiring intellectual. While we do not (yet) require cooks to receive a Masters of Culinary Arts (a fearsome and faux MFA), can that be far away? Our new chefs wish to amaze us with the idea of dining: robust hunks of meat are out, deconstruction is in. This trend, if trend it be, is all to the good, until it becomes old. The more ideas of how to cook, serve, and eat, the better is a diners lot. And for a cuisine of amazement - Agape Cuisine - Chicago is Ground Zero. With Homero Cantu's science experiments at Moto, and Graham Bowles subversively straining at the constraints of hotel dining at Avenues, Chicago is what San Francisco, New Orleans, and New York once were. (As on contemporary Broadway, most of the important restaurants are imports from beyond the Hudson). In what is the most awaited, significant restaurant opening of the year, Grant Achatz has given us Alinea. Bowles, Cantu, and Achatz were all influenced by Trotter, directly or indirectly, and it shows. Even if some of the impulse derives from Ferran Adria at El Bulli (I haven't eaten there, so cannot speculate), much of the inspiration comes from Lincoln Park. These chefs confront the modern diner's ennui and attempt to shake, rattle, and roll. Dishes, unlike any other, breaking conventions, destroying paradigms are the order of the night. The place of the chef is evident in the centrality of the pre fixe menu. The control that diners once held over the kitchen in selected those dishes that appealed to them as clients (even asking that chefs, like portrait painters, fix the imagined errors) is transformed so that now the chef is in charge. At Alinea, this is evident from the moment of arrival in which supplicants at the alter of cuisine find no signage (not even a cross of knife and fork) as if to suggest that this restaurant will either sell itself or sell itself out. The entrance to Alinea ("Yellow Truffle" has provide astonishing photos on eGullet) is a remarkable, if somewhat frightening space, in which the scalloped gray passage seems ever narrowing and the ceiling apparently lowering, ending, it seemed, in an impossible walkway: the door can only be seen as one reaches it. The customer is put in his place at the outset. After inquiring about food allergies, the customer becomes the chef's audience, not the chef's master. At Alinea, one is provided only that flatware that Chef Achatz feels is required. (One of my strongest responses to my first meal at Moto was similarly how Chef Cantu controlled my experience of dining by doling out only those utensils that he wished for me to use). The serving pieces, too, reveal the chef's control over the experience. The crisp prosciutto sandwiches with passion fruit cream is served on a bed of mint - a "plate" in which the micromint is still growing. One imagines a wearhouse of mint in the outer reaches of the Gold Coast. The little pedestals on which Chef Achatz placed his Hearts of Palm in Five Sections, with no forks allowed, meant that, unlike Burger King, he had it his way. While Alinea began with a twenty-eight course menu, the grand tasting menu, after three weeks, it has been trimmed to a comparatively svelte twenty-five (twenty-four listed and one extra). And in 330 minutes, we never felt full, just filled. Those chefs who prepare two dozen dishes expect to fail occasionally, and should wish to. Diners are experimental subjects. At each of temples of agape, I have been served dishes that I would not wish to have again (such as a foolish foie gras sucker at Avenues or a nasty oatmeal stout with chocolate at Moto). At Alinea, the Hazelnut Puree with a capsule of savory granola was the memorable failure. Aside from the wit of breaking open a baked capsule (a trick of Cantu as well), seeing curried granola tumble down, one was treated to a somewhat sodden, if exotic, breakfast. I'll stick with Trader Joe's. Yet, these failures revealing the workings of the chef's mind. I also wasn't very fond of the too, too precious deconstructed beef with A-1 on a potato carpet - my wife pronounced it excellent - or the impossible to eat strawberries with lemon verbena and argan (a type of nut). The strawberries, successful as to taste, were inserted in a glass tube that required more suction than I was capable of providing at that time of night. This, of course, still leaves us with nearly two dozen other dishes. Each had its measure of amazement as we were constantly reminded of the possibilities of food. Food at Alinea depends on four of the senses (sound is left to Moto). Achatz is more attuned to the variations of subtle tastes than either Bowles or Cantu, but very much reminiscent of a dinner at Trotters. Outstanding examples included the seasonal and woodsy frog legs with morels and paprika and a spectacularly indulgent Dungeness crab with parsnip, young coconut, and cashews. Each bite (and, of course, there were only a few of them) promised something different and produced it. The melon with gelled rose water and horseradish was another triumph in which quite unexpected tastes, from different corners of the taste pyramid, combined with an unexpected synergy. Where Achatz was perhaps most successful was in playing with smell. The single strongest and most memorable dish of the evening was his stunning turbot with geoduck clams, dried water chestnuts in an eggless custard. In its own terms it would have been a spectacular dish of textures and flavors. The bowl in which the turbot was served was placed in a larger bowl filled with hyacinth flowers. The server poured steaming water on the buds and the aroma of spring was gloriously overpowering; we were close to sensory overload. The dish, otherwise first-rate, became transcendent as taste, sight, texture (the water chestnuts), and a distinct and external smell merged into a Platonic experience. Something similar might be said of the finger limes in a eucalyptus tea or the one-bite burnt orange, olive, and avocado, this latter one of the most agressively flavored dishes of the evening. The broccoli stem with grapefruit (!) and caviar was similarly a remarkable combination of sensory experiences as was the bison with beet salad with a "smoking cinnamon" bowl. The smell of the cinnamon transformed the bison to the strongest of Achatz's meat dishes. No discussion of Achatz's cuisine would be complete with mention of the culinary references of several dishes - this is a referential cuisine. The signature dish (although not in itself the most outstanding) is the opening amuse bouche: PB&J. Achatz (well, his staff) peels a grape, nestles it in peanut butter, surrounds it in a brioche pastry, and places it in a metal holder. The dinner picks up the amuse from the grape stem and in a jiffy mouths it, grinning with astonishment. What is amazing is not so much the taste of the dish, but the way that our humble memories of childhood afternoons have been transformed and made haute. Similarly Achatz's "hanging bacon" takes another humble food of childhood memories (Who eats bacon today?), and creates it anew with butterscotch, apple and thyme, hanging it out to dry. It is another one-bite triumph. Finally there is a homage to Escoffier, the subtly fried artichoke heart, "fonds d'artichauts cussy #3970" (the number refers to Escoffier's recipe). It was a brilliant tribute, made more clever in that it was served in what our waiter described as an "anti-plate" - a ceramic ring on which the spoon which held the artichoke was placed, again reminding us of the chef's control of our experience. I could continue praising many of the dishes (at least twenty were very successful), but by the end I was slightly troubled. A diner who wants to be smothered with wonder will find much in which to wrap one's memory. And, yet many great meals have a logic to them. When one goes to Charlie Trotters and order his degustation menu, one is not merely served a collection of astonishing dishes, but one is served a meal - a set of dishes with a "culinary logic," a totality. After two dozen dishes, I struggled to make sense of the evening. Perhaps dining, like much rock music, should stop making sense, but I admit some philosophical pretenses. Take evening lying in bed (and after two dozen courses and a dozen glasses of wine how could one sleep?) I hoped to find the chef's hidden theme. Perhaps an Agape Cuisine should suffice by providing Barnum-like miracles, but I wished a meaningful sequencing. I wished for a sense of what Achatz considered his unique philosophy of dining (a sense that one does get, strongly, at Moto). Of course, shorter menus may provide more of what a chef considers his most important work. But the competing strands and loose ends force us to recognize that Achatz is still a chef in process whose control of dishes is stronger than his control of the meal. Our party ordered the wine tasting menu. The wines were designed to match the dishes, and most did so quite successfully. I particularly enjoyed the opening nutty Madeira (which, oddly, was billed separately from the wine flight, even thought it wasn't ordered separately). In contrast to the brilliant selected wines that Matthew McCammon offers at Moto or that Aaron Elliott chooses at Avenues, at Alinea wines are more modest affairs. There was not a single wine, adequate as all were (we were not served vinegar on this visit!), that I would select for my own cellar. The service was extraordinarily attentive as one might expect at a restaurant of this caliber. However, there were almost too many people (a dozen?) serving us throughout the evening. I prefer establishing a temporary, if intense, tie with a few men and women who I can come to know, question, josh with, and rely upon, but at Alinea just as each course was different, it appeared as if each dish was served by a different person (not true, but close). Like the meal, the service was both excellent and somewhat disjointed. I must note that our check was improperly figured, which they caught (the original bill had been in our favor, but we were too blissed out to notice and to decide how far our ethical sensibility would stretch). This is something that if common demands correction. The bill: approximately $400/person - the grand tasting menu, the flight of wines, coffee, tax and tip. Was it worth it? Surely. Would I try the long menu again?: Probably not. Would I return?: Tomorrow. The meal was not flawless and is in progress, but Alinea is a four-star restaurant and unlike such fine Chicago establishments as Everest, Ambria, or Tru, Alinea is a restaurant with a national reputation. Grant Achatz's experiments matter for all Americans who care about how high a chef can fly. We should be astonished when a chef soars towards the heavens, and be moved when the downdrafts send him hurtling to rocky shoals, trusting the wind of imagination will send him still higher. Meal: Saturday May 21, 2005 Cross-posted on LTHforum.com