Sneakeater
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Posts posted by Sneakeater
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Your living room doesn't look like that?
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As you can tell from the comments, I have.
For what it is, it's very good.
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In my experience, Kuruma is some multiple of the expense of Yasuda. In fact, my experience is that Kuruma can easily be more expensive than Masa.
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Yes, only a limited number of tables on Opentables.
Cool, fortunately i've got a few dates to pick from so should hopefully get something
Don't get TOO excited.
Many people's experience is that this gives you TWO chances to be told there's nothing available.
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Yes, only a limited number of tables on Opentables.
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If you look at the a la carte menu, you'll see that the pricing on the Aldea tasting menu makes no sense.
I love that place, but it doesn't pay to stray from the carte there.
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They switched it from black cod to black bass a couple of weeks ago.
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If anyone is paying attention to their wine "program", that's a new development.
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If you think Yasuda can add up, don't go anywhere NEAR Kurumazushi.
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I just meant that Italy, because of the novelty of its restaurant culture and its long adherence to tradition rather than innovation in cuisine (neither of those is meant as a pejorative, BTW), lagged behind other countries in developing a "name" chef culture (that is CERTAINLY not meant as a pejorative). Sure, there are a few superstars -- but for Italy, Davide Scabin is pretty famous for a chef.
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I think what weinoo was getting at, in his initial post, was not "restaurants with chefs who should be better known," but rather "restaurant with chefs who are invisible."
I doubt anybody goes to combal.zero without knowing who the chef is. Anyone interested in food who could identify that restaurant could also identify its chef. Maybe he's not as famous as Massimo Bottura -- but he's still the reason people go to his restaurant.
Contrast that with a place like Le Grenouille in New York. Or -- a much less respected place -- 21 in New York. Who knows who the chefs are there? People don't go to those places because of their current chefs.
I think a current good restaurant in New York that comes close to this is Minetta Tavern. Diehards know the names of the chefs there -- but they're not really the draw, and I'll bet on any given night most patrons couldn't name them.
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And the most important position is that of the maitre d'hotel; in the old days, the maitre d' started in the back and worked his way to the front.
I think this is a major recent change in the way patrons relate to restaurants.
Back in the day, everybody knew that the guy you had to know was the maitre d'. The maitre d' was the public face of the restaurant; he was the one who could get you in and get you seated. The chef was just someone who worked there.
There was a time, not so long ago, when the various maitre d's at the top restaurants in Manhattan were celebrities in their own right. Much much more than the chefs were.
Now that's changed. To the point where, when Daniel Boulud tells the following story (as he loves to do), it's with a sense of how funny it (now) is:
A few years ago, Puff Diddy -- a Daniel regular -- took Jay-Z to Daniel for Jay-Z's first visit. Daniel visited their table several times: he doted on them.
"Is he the guy you have to know?", Jay-Z asked Diddy.
"No," Diddy answered, gesturing toward the front desk. "He's the guy you have to know."
Daniel may think it's cute -- but as with so many other things, no matter how much the mainstream might condescend to them, the rappers have a better sense than most people of how things really work.
PS -- For Italy -- which is just developing a "celebrity chef" culture -- Davide Scabin is as "name" as chefs get.
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I would check to make sure that Del Posto -- or any other restaurant -- is open on Christmas. Other than the traditional Chinese, not that many are, in my experience.
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From what I understand, Azimov has made clear he wants to keep the wine beat, and has turned down the permanent restaurant reviewer post at least once in the past and maybe twice.
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Mile End!!!!!!
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I dunno. SHO and Adour are on my radar. It's a kind of food and ambiance that's hard to get in the City these days, unfortunately. (Not that their food is similar; just a level of "fanciness" and accomplishment.)
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Good luck stumbling into Shopsin's at 3 in the morning.
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But it isn't really "straight" food. That's the problem (or not, depending on how you look at it).
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Remember when the rule of thumb was, don't order steak in anyplace other than a steakhouse?
This is a change.
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And what's interesting about each of those places is that Minetta is an order of magnitude better than any and all of them.
(I can't think of a time when the second or third-best steak in New York WASN'T at a steakhouse. This is a significant and interesting new development.)
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So, to recap, people interested in eating great dry-aged prime steak should disregard Minetta, even though it has the second- or third-best steak in the City, because:
1. The decor is interesting.
2. Service is friendly and attentive; and
3. If your dining companions don't want steak, they have interesting choices and aren't stuck with second-rate salmon.
Makes sense to me.
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I would never have expected a restaurant in a Midtown hotel to be cutting edge. (How long did Paul Liebrandt last at Gilt again?)
What I thought Ma Peche would be was Chang's attempt at a "straight" restaurant. And given that Tien Ho is not only the best chef to have come out of Momofuku, but IMO one of the best chefs in New York period, I found that an interesting prospect indeed.
The disappointment is that, instead of Chang's take on a "straight" restaurant, they've given us something more like Ssam Bar Lite.
With Chef Ho running the kitchen, it could never be bad. And in truth it's very far from that. It just isn't particularly interesting.
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Understand. It's not a steakhouse. It just happens to have the best sub-Luger (and possibly Wolfgang's on the right night) steak in New York.
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Very strongly agree with ermintrude.
Best delis in NYC?
in New York: Dining
Posted
2d Avenue Deli is Kosher. They couldn't have a Reuben.