Charcuterie Continues to Wow on the UWS; Beer, Cheese, and Chocolate Go TogetherChelsea: Cain’s Website is already “pimping” a London opening. [Down by the Hipster]
East Village: Jimmy’s No. 43 is hosting a cheese, beer, and chocolate pairing on January 22. Luckily, cheese before beer, you’re in the clear. [Gridskipper] Danal on 10th Street has given up the ghost. [Zagat]
Hell’s Kitchen: Tasting World is hosting its first Wine Essentials course of 2008 on January 17. [Tasting World]
Midwood: The Amateur Gourmet’s “Best Place I Should’ve Been To Already and Where I Should’ve Already Gone Back To” for 2007: Di Fara Pizza. There are surely too many out there who can relate.
Upper West Side: Ed Levine is as wowed by Sylvain Gasdon’s charcuterie at Bar Boulud as we were. [Ed Levine’s New York Eats via Eater]
West Village: David Page and Barbara Shinn have left Home to focus on their North Fork winery and have taken the wine-sensitive heart of the restaurant with them. [Eater]
NewsFeed
Bar Boulud Opens, and It’s No Mere Wine Bar
We just returned from a first look at Bar Boulud, and our immediate reaction: dumbstruck awe. Here we thought the place was supposed to be a wine bar! In fact, it’s a full-scale restaurant with three private dining rooms, a huge kitchen, a separate charcuterie kitchen, and enough dried sausages and glistening terrines on display to get any gourmand hot and bothered. Even the design elements are special: The place is a wine shrine, with a vaulted ceiling (to suggest wine cellars), limestone floors (likewise), and white oak tables (an allusion to wine barrels). Along the walls is a series of framed photographs of wine stains made by Daniel Boulud and artist Vik Muniz. They look like red suns floating, Rothko-like, on their white backgrounds, and are slightly hypnotic. But so are the pork products!
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Bar Boulud Opening Early for New Year’s EveBar Boulud isn’t slated to open until January, but legendary good-time guy Daniel Boulud has decided to move up the place’s christening a little bit — to New Year’s Eve. The first night of Bar Boulud will be the site of two seatings: one at 5:30, consisting of three courses of charcuterie-heavy classic French bistro fare for $80, and a second, more festive “gala,” starting at 9, with four courses for $150, including a midnight Champagne toast with D.J. and dancing. That is, if eating the likes of hare terrine, warm saucisson aux lentils, and civet de lapin, and drinking inordinate amounts of red wine doesn’t take the starch out of you. (The menu isn’t set yet, but Boulud’s publicist says these are the type of dishes likely to be on it.) The man himself promises to swing by sometime after midnight to greet his debut crowd, which suggests to us that he’ll be leading the conga line sometime before dawn. Try calling the reservation line on Monday: 212-595-0303.
Related: Exclusive: Feast Your Eyes on Bar Boulud, Coming in November
Mediavore
Another Look at Bar BouludDavid Bouley is expanding his Tribeca empire with “an upscale Japanese-themed restaurant called Brushstrokes” which will take over the soon-to-be-former Delphi space. [NYS]
Gael Greene was on hand for last night’s first taste of Bar Boulud even though the opening has been pushed back a month or so. [Food Writer’s Diary/Nation’s Restaurant News]
Related: Exclusive: Feast Your Eyes on Bar Boulud, Coming in November
The next Next Iron Chef challenge is “cooking gourmet airline food with all the constraints of airline galleys. Holy smokes. It’s the exact same challenge as Top Chef.” [Serious Eats]
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Come Summer, a New Look for DanielDaniel, arguably the grandest of the city’s top dining rooms is planning a rehab, though it won’t be until the summer. Though neither the restaurant nor its patrons are dissatisfied with the current room (and why would they be? It looks like the gateway to the afterlife, circa 1895!), the renovation will keep the place fresh. “Upper East Side ladies get their face-lifts before they’re needed,” spokeswoman Georgette Farkas tells us. “It’s something we’ve been thinking about. But Daniel doesn’t want to do anything too revolutionary.” Farkas wouldn’t name names, but a source close to the restaurant says designer Adam Tihany, who did Le Cirque 3.0 and Osteria del Circo, is topping the short list of candidates. In the meantime, the Daniel empire has plenty to keep it busy: Bar Boulud is still slated for a December opening; Maison Boulud, in Bejing, will open in March; and Boulud’s downtown burger bar is, sadly, still unnamed.
Related: Exclusive: Feast Your Eyes on Bar Boulud, Coming in November
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Exclusive: Chemel Leaves Café Boulud and NYC; Head Chef Named at Bar BouludBertrand Chemel, the chef recently praised in Frank Bruni’s three-star review of Café Boulud for deftly filling Andrew Carmellini’s shoes, is leaving the restaurant in mid-December. A source says he made his announcement three days after the Times rave and will be starting his own restaurant in the Washington D.C. area. Boulud spokesperson Georgette Farkas confirms, “Bertrand is spreading his wings. He’s made an amazing contribution. Daniel has chosen a new chef, but he’s not prepared to announce it.” Daniel is, however, ready to name the head chef at his soon-to-open Bar Boulud, and that will be Damien Sansonetti, a sous-chef at Daniel for almost five years. So did media outlets jump the gun when they said Ed Cotton would be exec chef there? “He was someone Daniel had considered but decided it wasn’t his choice,” Farkas tells us. Not that Daniel left him in the cold — we hear he’s the one who scored Cotton the interview at Veritas, his new home.
Reading Fortunes in a Bowl of Pasta [NYT]
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Grant Achatz Getting Better; Bourdain Spreads Blood and Holiday CheerGrant Achatz writes Ruhlman that the tumor on the great chef’s tongue has been diminished by about 75 percent, thanks to aggressive chemo. [Ruhlman].
In his upcoming No Reservations holiday special, Tony Bourdain cooks a Thanksgiving dinner with L.A. rockers Queens of the Stone Age and spends “a fair amount of time spraying stage blood onto [his] niece and nephew’s face.” [The Grinder/Chow]
Rickshaw Dumpling has officially opened. [Eater]
NewsFeed
Exclusive: Feast Your Eyes on Bar Boulud, Coming in November
Daniel Boulud’s burger bar is in the prelim stages — the lease was just signed, and it’s still without a name — but lucky for those who crave visual stimulation, his uptown wine bar and bistro Bar Boulud, opening in November at 1900 Broadway (at 64th Street), is a little further along. Thomas Schlesser has already designed the wine cellar’s barrel-vaulted ceiling and doughnut-shaped tasting table and is preparing to line the walls with vineyardlike gravel. And that’s just the start of it. We’ve acquired an exclusive PDF of Bar Boulud’s design scheme, featuring renderings of the main room, floor plans, even upholstery samples. We look forward to pocketing the glass holders.
Bar Boulud Renderings [PDF]
Earlier: Daniel Boulud’s Downtown Burger Finally Signs the Lease