Clinton and Ray Team Up for Fund-raiser; What Lidia Served the PopeThe former president and America’s first lady of home cooking are putting on a fund-raiser together, Pinkberry isn’t as “all natural” as you’d like it to be, and a recipe for a season-appropriate dish served to Pope Benedict XVI last week.
NewsFeed
Jonathan Waxman Is So Over Farm ChickensJonathan Waxman can be said to have risen to stardom on the wings of chickens, and his culinary familiar has not abandoned him yet. Barbuto, the chef’s New York restaurant, received a one-star review from Frank Bruni this week, and, as at his eighties star vehicle, Jams, the chicken was the center of attention. We talked to him about poultry, serving Bell & Evans chicken, and just how much poulet de bresse costs.
The Other Critics
Barbuto Saved by a Chicken; Fiamma Comes Up ShortThe wildly uneven Barbuto earns a single star from Frank Bruni, almost entirely on the strength of a well-roasted Bell & Evans chicken. To quote Winston Churchill, “Some chicken!” [NYT]
Alan Richman was appalled by how small the portions were at Grayz, how much they cost, and how shady most of them were, except for the magnificent, world-beating short rib: “In complexity and satisfaction, this dish reminded me most of the Gray Kunz of Lespinasse, the chef we miss so much.” [Bloomberg]
Randall Lane gets that Fiamma’s Fabio Trachocchi is cooking in a grand, Continental style and doesn’t hold that against him, but the food is too rich and the service too sloppy to give him the five or six stars the place would have liked And so they have to settle for four. [TONY]
NewsFeed
Jonathan Waxman to Open a New Barbuto UptownBarbuto, Jonathan Waxman’s Haute Barnyard outpost in the Far West Village, has always been a restaurant noted as much for its unique space as for its menu. That might not be the case for the new Barbuto, which we hear is planned for next year in the Columbus Circle area. The Susan Magrino Agency, which handles Barbuto’s PR, wouldn’t proffer any details just yet but confirmed that the restaurant had a target opening date of September 2008.
NewsFeed
Chef Centerfold Calendar Ready for 2008
We just got our copy of the Gourmet Institute calendar, and though we expected it to be pretty good (the pictures are by My Last Supper author Melanie Dunea), it turns out to be almost surreal. Dunea really gets the the absurdity of chef glamour shots, but rather than try to tone down the portraits, she folds her insight back into the photograph. The pictures are so high-concept that they transcend their original food-porn purposes. Brilliant! The calendar, which helps to support City Meals on Wheels, features twelve big-shot chefs in her signature style, and includes such awesome shots as Maremma’s Cesare Casella in a cowboy suit, looking like a tough Tuscan sheriff of the plains; Esca’s David Pasternack, looking totally looped, pouring liquor into the mouth of his fish companion; and Barbuto’s Jonathan Waxman, throwing what we hope is flour around in a gleeful, Tony Montana–like spree.
The Chefs of the Gourmet Institute 2008 Calendar
Related: Eating the Last Supper
Openings
Five Points Owners to Transform Provence (But Still Serve Bouillabaisse)It’s always a sad day for Francophiles and nostalgists when yet another beloved old-school French restaurant shutters its doors, but in the case of Provence — which served its last bowl of bouillabaisse on Saturday — it could be a lot worse.
Vicki Freeman and Marc Meyer, the owners of Cookshop and Five Points, have taken over the space with plans to completely gut the kitchen, redo the dining room, put in a raw bar, and reopen by January as — guess what? — a nice French restaurant called Provence.
