Charlie Trotter Details Emerge; Frank Bruni’s Cross-Country TripThe first details on Charlie Trotter’s still-unnamed restaurant on Madison Square Park emerge: It will have 80 seats as well as a bar and lounge. [NYT]
Merkato 55 may be turning New Yorkers on to African cuisine, but there have been plenty of excellent, albeit under-the-radar, restaurants offering the continent’s cuisine for years. [TONY]
Related: Merkato 55’s Most Popular Dish: Doro Wat
The Modern’s new wine director, Belinda Chang, is the kind of sommelier we want to be someday: “I’m definitely obsessed with magnums. They’re so fun to pour!” [NYS]
The Annotated Dish
Merkato 55’s Most Popular Dish: Doro WatMerkato 55, Marcus Samuelsson’s tribute to the pan-African cookery, has only been open a few weeks, but already one dish has begun to break out — and oddly, it’s the most traditional thing on the menu. Doro wat, chef Andrea Berquist tells us, is essentially the national dish of Ethiopia, “so there was a lot of pressure to do it well. But I’m happy with it. It’s definitely our most popular dish. I did 50 orders just last night!”
NewsFeed
Merkato 55 Opens Tonight — and Here’s a Sneak Preview of the Food
Merkato 55 is only a few hours from opening, and it has been covered from nearly every angle except the most interesting one: What will the “Pan-African” food we’ve been hearing about actually look like? These first images of some of what will be Merkato’s signature dishes represent chef Marcus Samuelsson’s vision, as executed by chef Andrea Bergquist. So what should we get, we asked Bergquist? Her answer was direct: “Start off with the kodogo bar. It’s something special that you’re not going to find anywhere else in New York: 25 different small bites from the continent of Africa. It’ll be like a trip around Africa — or, at least, we hope so.” We hope so, too.
NewsFeed
Embattled Bistro Now Serving ‘Nouveau African’ at Korhogo 126The saga of Bouillabaisse 126, described here last summer, seems to have had a happy ending. The Carroll Gardens restaurant, a French bistro formerly haunted by the ejection of partner Neil Ganic, has quietly become one of the city’s most interesting French-African fusion restaurants. Under former Les Enfants Terribles chef Abdhul Traore, it’s now Korhogo 126, and attempting to convey the flavors of the Ivory Coast via the refinements of French technique. Escargot are pressure-stewed and served with star anis and tomato under puff pastry, African honey sweetens an endive-and-pear salad, and the ratatouille is “served with West African, Wolof-inspired rice infused with tomato, onion, and Senegalese spices and sautéed vegetables.”
