‘Nightline’ Exposes Tom Colicchio’s Hirsute PastNightline did a loving, lingering profile of Craft chieftain Tom Colicchio last night, and the substance of the piece is on ABC’s Website today. It’s all interesting stuff — why Colicchio loves mushrooms, how he developed his style, his rough-and-tumble boyhood and all that — but the real value in the story is this truly bizarre picture of Colicchio with hair! It’s a strange, unsettling image, and the sooner we forget it, the better we’ll feel.
Nightline Platelist: Tom Colicchio [ABC]
In the Magazine
This Week: New Fusion, New Coffee, Repurposed Water
The city’s newest food-fusion trend is Latin American and Italian cuisines, says the Underground Gourmet in this week’s magazine. Miranda in Williamsburg and Matilda in the East Village are leading the charge, and Rob and Robin alternate between calling it “Mex-Italian” and “Tusc-Mex.” (Our pick: “Mexcellente.”) Outside of our regular reading route, Intel has a dishy item about David Bouley — apparently, his Tribeca neighbors aren’t so thrilled about his proposed Brushstrokes restaurant. Back in the food section, it’s a difficult time of year for the Greenmarket, but that doesn’t deter Damon Wise at Craft for offering up this week’s “In Season” recipe: pan-roasted salsify. Gael Greene visits Smokin’ Q on the Upper East Side this week and enjoys the ribs and the thin-cut fries, though she could do without the owner’s jokes. Rob and Robin introduce us to three new restaurants this week, and we can’t wait to visit Terroir, the latest from Marco Canora and Paul Grieco. Also in “Openings”: an East Village coffee bar co-owned by Sasha Petraske and a new burger spot in the financial district. If a recession breeds good $4 burgers, it can’t be that bad. Finally, if you want to reduce bottled-water waste, we found four restaurants with a DIY approach to filtration and carbonation.
Click and Save
Cook Like Your Favorite Chefs With Our New Recipe Database!
The hardworking listings department at nymag.com has just added a stellar new feature: recipes! Our extensive database includes dishes drawn from New York’s finest restaurants. Get Laurent Tourondel’s instructions for chestnut-stuffed guinea hens; serve Tom Colicchio’s bruschetta of clam ragout; and assemble your own tartlets, just like they do at Gramercy Tavern. Search by ingredient, cuisine, type of dish, and more. Now there’s no excuse to eat out.
nymag.com’s Recipe Finder
Neighborhood Watch
Bruni Down With Lunch at Craft; Blue Ribbon to Open This Week in Columbus CircleClinton Hill: A Nigerian restaurant, EN of Africa, is opening on the corner of Cumberland and Lafayette, and there’s relief that it’s not another French spot. [Clinton Hill Blog]
Flatiron: Frank Bruni finds the newly instated lunch at Craft a good, logical fit, in that “Craft doesn’t project the kind of fussiness — on the plate or in terms of décor — that can feel more stilted and constraining at lunch than at dinner.” [Diner’s Journal/NYT]
Hell’s Kitchen: Xai Xai, a new wine bar, has opened up. [Endless Simmer]
Murray Hill/Kips Bay: From November 7 to 10, the Champagne room at Country will be transformed into a bonbon shop where you can pair pastry chef Hsing Chen’s house-made chocolates with specialty cocktails or order a chocolate tasting menu as part of a collaboration with the upcoming Chocolate Show. [Grub Street]
Park Slope: Katina’s seems to have been taken over by super Greek diner Purity and may now be called Little Purity. [Grub Street]
Upper West Side: Blue Ribbon Six Columbus is poised to open this week, and here’s a sneak peak of the interior. [Zagat]
West Village: Mary’s Dairy has closed both of its locations supposedly because the shops weren’t making enough money. Can ice-cream-only stores no longer cut it? Mary’s comes on the heels of Emack & Bolio’s Seventh Avenue closure and Ben & Jerry’s Bleecker Street failure. [Eater]
Williamsburg: Three of the ten-plus restaurants that serve sushi in the nabe made the cut in this Brooklyn raw-fish roundup. [Gridskipper]
NewsFeed
Michelin Stars: Colicchio Doesn’t Care, But Psilakis Sure Does
Michelin stars, like their celestial models, have enormous power to create and destroy; and even if, unlike their European counterparts, the New York versions lack the power to drive chefs mad or even to suicide, they can still mean a lot to a chef. We spoke to two chefs yesterday. One had lost and the other had gained a star, and neither man seemed unshaken by the event.
NewsFeed
Govind Armstrong Bringing His South Beach Magic North
Given that we have now exported Craft to L.A., it’s about time for L.A. to return the favor. That seems to be on the horizon: Word is that Govind Armstrong, the former Spago prodigy and current toast of South Beach, is planning to open a restaurant here in NYC. (Or so we hear from a source who is close to the Table 8 chef.) Armstrong, who began his career at 13 working for Wolfgang Puck, has told intimates that the space is all picked out and the deal almost done, but he’s not giving a location until the lease is signed, and the restaurant itself is probably nearly a year away. Still, as the chef with the distinction of having prepared the only decent meal we’ve ever eaten in South Beach (not counting Wolfie’s, of course), we have to say that our city will be richer for having him.
In the Magazine
Nature Bursts From the Pages of This Week’s Issue
In this week’s issue, as befits spring, nature is bursting out of our food coverage. Snails and sea urchins take supporting roles in Adam Platt’s review of the highly rarefied Anthos; Gael Greene flutters into a restaurant called Tree; Rob and Robin talk tomatoes, spring almonds, and even more snails; and, in the spirit of growth, our food editors lay out two Short Lists of places where you can introduce young, growing gourmands to their future lifetime pursuit. Plus, four new restaurant bloom in the April sunshine, all in New York this week.
Openings
Marco Canora Does His Thing at Insieme, Aw Yeah
As Rob and Robin announce in this week’s Openings, Marco Canora has finally opened up a second restaurant. As its just-published menu shows, Insieme represents Canora’s efforts to do two things at once. On the one hand, dishes like lesso misto con condimenti tipici (mixed boil) or bistecca fiorentina (grilled steak) represent his take on ultratraditional Italian food; the “contemporary” side, with offerings like sea-urchin risotto, allows him to assert the thoughtful but restrained style he showed as the original chef at Craft and in his own, still-popular Hearth.
Insieme Menu
The Other Critics
Anthos Gets a Rave; More Knocks for MorandiRandall Lane gives Anthos its first full-out rave, granting the restaurant five of six stars and writing about it in adoring terms. It’s a rare move for Lane, and a good omen for the more powerful critics still to come. [TONY]
At times, Alan Richman likes the food at Morandi a lot, but when it’s late and the place gets busy, he considers it to be a kind of restaurant hell. He won’t be going back after 9 p.m. “any time in my life.” [Bloomberg]
Paul Adams felt much the same about Morandi, calling out its fine fried foods but dissing its heavy pastas, “theme park” atmosphere, and lousy entrées. It’s unanimous: The critics all dislike Morandi. Meanwhile, Keith McNally is crying all the way to the bank. [NYS]
Related: Not So Bene [NYM]
The In-box
Excuse Me, But Craft Didn’t Start the FireDear Grub Street,
I read what you wrote about Craft’s ingredient-centric influence the other day, and I think you’re way off. Didn’t you ever hear of Chez Panisse, Alice Waters’s hugely influential Berkeley restaurant? Is it gauche for American cuisine to have a history longer than fifteen minutes? Or is this a New York thing? I’m seriously asking, as a former Bay Area resident who feels that some of the food values of that region aren’t fully appreciated here — or, if they are, they get fetishized as new discoveries.
Jane
The In-box
Why Wasn’t I Completely Floored by Craft?Dear Grub Street,
I’m hoping someone can explain Craft to me. I was taken there the other night for my birthday dinner and came away completely confused and disappointed. Really, what’s the big deal? What’s with all the glowing reviews?
Andrea
Back of the House
Hanson, Now Inside Starwood, to Start Gobbling Other Restaurant GroupsYou didn’t think that Starwood Capital’s 50 percent purchase of B.R. Guest Restaurant Group (a story we broke here, as it happens) was the end of their plans, did you? In business as in evolution, bigness begets bigness, and now word comes, via this week’s issue of Crain’s, that a new group inside Starwood will go on a restaurant-group shopping spree. Hanson is said to already be sending candy and flowers to fellow moguls from coast to coast. But his, and Starwood’s criteria, are very clear: “Any business [Hanson] considers must be a chef-driven operation that owns multiple eateries and brings in revenues of at least $30 million,” the report says. The Craft empire is mentioned in passing as a possible target, and its ruler, Tom Colicchio, says he would listen if Hanson came calling. With the kind of cash Starwood commands, who wouldn’t? Money talks, and independent operations tend to walk.
B.R. Guest to acquire other restaurant groups [Crain’s]
Earlier: B.R. Guest and Buy Our Restaurant Group
Does David Burke Come With That Steakhouse?
NewsFeed
Damon Wise, Now Officially the Man at Craft, Brings in Shane McBride
Restaurant Girl reported earlier today that Shane McBride, formerly of 7Square (RIP), had been hired as the chef at Craftsteak, taking over for Chris Albrecht, apparently nudged out in January. Craft emperor Tom Colicchio set the record straight with us: “Here’s the deal,” he tells us. “For the last three months, Damon Wise has been the acting chef at Craftsteak and has completely changed the way things are done there: the suppliers, the menu, everything. Shane has been hired specifically to execute the menu that Damon created. Damon has worked his ass off day and night, and I want him to get credit for that.” Done and done.
NewsFeed
The Latest Haute Heritage Meat: ChickenHeritage Foods USA recently announced the arrival of a chicken so pure and primitive, so unspoiled by modern industrial breeding, that it has “even retained [its] fighting look” from its days as a battling Javanese bird. The price of the Indian Game Chicken is fierce, too: $68 for two three-and-a-half pounders. Apparently, the first batch of birds sold out in two days, and the company reports that some of the city’s top chefs have come calling, including those from the Batali group, the Craft restaurants, and the Cleaver Catering Company.
Back of the House
The Great Chef CrisisRecently, apropos nothing much, a prominent young chef we were chatting with launched into a tirade about the restaurant world’s “labor problem.” “None of us can get enough good cooks!” he exclaimed, by way of explanation. Between 2000 and 2006, only a handful of high-end restaurants — Lespinasse, Meigas, Quilty’s — have closed, and there has been an avalanche of major openings: Robuchon, Ramsay, Per Se, Masa, Craft, Del Posto, Morimoto, A Voce, the Modern, Lever House, Buddakan, Cafe Gray, Alto — the list goes on and on. “And it’s not just the massive boom of restaurants,” Adam Platt tells us. “They also have to be either bigger, or chefs have to open multiple places, so that they can enjoy the economies of scale they need to compete.”
The Annotated Dish
Picholine’s ‘Oceanic’ Sea-Urchin Panna Cotta“I have a personal interest in this dish,” he says, “and I wouldn’t let it go.” That’s Picholine chef Terrance Brennan on his sea-urchin panna cotta, one of only two items from the restaurant’s previous incarnation that he continues to serve today. The dish, which the chef describes as “all about the taste of the ocean, and nothing else” is the first course of an $80 three-course prix fixe menu, and one of his signatures. As always, simply scroll over the arrows on the large image to see quotes from the chef.
NewsFeed
Tom Colicchio Working the Raw Bar Tonight at CraftsteakAs part of a serious effort to soup up the food at Craftsteak, celebrity chef and Craft mogul Tom Colicchio has been working the raw bar at the restaurant the last couple of nights. It’s worth checking out, and not just for a chance to ask about his Top Chef co-host Padma Lakshmi. Colicchio and his right-hand man, Grateful Dead–loving Craft chef Damon Wise, have created a new menu of composed crudi dishes, including an eye-opening cobia (a dense white Florida ocean fish) with cured lardo, and sea urchin with pickled cucumber. The meat program has changed as well. Colicchio has adopted two of the country’s best beef sources for steak: Wolf’s Neck Farms beef from Maine, a richly marbled, complex, all-organic product, and Brandt Ranch steak from California, another all-natural meat that chefs all over New York are falling in love with. Colicchio called the mixed reviews of Craftsteak a “wakeup call” that led him to sever his ties with Gramercy Tavern in order to devote all his time to the Craft restaurants. Between the new fish and the new meat, Craftsteak seems geared for a major upgrade.
In the Magazine
Thanksgiving for Foodies, DummiesOur Thanksgiving Dining Guide provided a plethora of options for eating out on the big day. But many people who refuse to cook on holidays do so because they like things simple and want to avoid too much decision-making, right? Well, it doesn’t get any simpler than Rob and Robin’s “Talking Turkey” short list, a look at just five Manhattan restaurants, all very fine, and all with special plans for Thanksgiving. Whether it’s Karen DeMasco’s pumpkin fritters at Craft or Daniel Boulud’s organic bird at DB Bistro Moderne, you can’t possibly go wrong with any of these places. Lob a dart at the screen if you have to.
Talking Turkey [NYM]
NewsFeed
A Salumi-Obsessed Chef’s New GigWhen we were told that Italian Wine Merchants had a new chef, our first thought was, Why would a wine store need a chef? In fact, the Batali-owned specialty shop does a huge banquet business and is booked for private events nearly year-round. The new chef is Liz Chapman, a veteran of Craft, Casa Mono, and Babbo, and a big part of her mandate is to create the cured meats that Mario & Co. so adore. Chapman, whose fiancé is Per Se chef de cuisine Jonathan Benno, tells us, “I’m really here for the salumi. I wake up in the morning, and they’re all I think about.” We know how you feel, Liz. Just don’t tell Benno!
The Haute Barnyard Hall of FameNew York magazine restaurant critic Adam Platt files periodic musings for Grub Street, under the pseudonym the Gobbler.
Haute Barnyard restaurants like the Tasting Room have been around for a while now, but the phrase is new — so new, in fact, that the Gobbler is the only one using it. Therefore it requires a little elaboration. All Haute Barnyard restaurants are Greenmarket establishments, of course, their menus more or less dictated by the rhythms of the season. New York’s versions of the genre, however, have evolved their own highly self-conscious style.
