Sel Fin

Jiro Ono + René Redzepi

Piegato

Kits

Renaissance

NYT: Daniel, 3-Stars

23 JULY 2013

Serving the Stuff of Privilege

By PETE WELLS

Your job may be worrying you, or your father’s health, or your own. You may have been up at 2 that morning drafting a better ending for a long-ago memory. But certain restaurants, if you can afford them, can knock down the barriers between you and happiness for a few hours. Every taste seems to transport you to another world, while every gesture of the staff convinces you that you live in the privileged center of this one.

Daniel, which turned 20 this year, can make you feel that way. Does chilled pea soup sound like the stuff of privilege? It is when it comes from this kitchen, where Jean François Bruel has been the executive chef since 2003, and which Daniel Boulud, the proprietor, watches over from a windowed perch above the saucepans and sieves.

Those sieves got a workout on this soup, straining it to a gliding smoothness. It had the clear, refreshing sweetness of the smallest peas eaten straight from the pod. Salty diamonds of smoked sable and a white ring of rosemary-infused cream helped the soup’s purity shine more clearly. This kind of exquisitely sensitive, profoundly seasonal, fundamentally French cooking helped lift Daniel to several four-star reviews in The New York Times, the most recent one by Frank Bruni in 2009.

Again and again, I have been startled by the excellence of Mr. Bruel’s ingredients and his talent for unlocking all they had to offer. I have never tasted more calmly flavorful veal tenderloin, or fresher and more gently handled swordfish, or a more skillfully roasted breast of guinea hen.

But some of these star ingredients were embedded in elaborate, multipart compositions that didn’t fully reward the attention they demanded. At times, the restaurant gave the impression that it was trying to garnish its way to greatness.

And while the service can be among the best in the city, with a supreme attentiveness softened by a surprising warmth and even chattiness, it is not always that way for everyone. When people who are known at the restaurant tell me about their meals, they look blissful. Others look disappointed or resentful as they tell me about cramped tables in the neoclassical arcades around the grand sunken dining room and hasty, perfunctory service.

One night I had a reservation 15 minutes apart from a colleague who wasn’t likely to be recognized, as I repeatedly was. We both ordered the six-course $195 tasting menu. (A three-course prix fixe dinner is $116.) Our meals were virtually identical. Our experiences were not.

The kitchen sent two amuse courses to my table. His got one. A few remaining sips of my wine, ordered by the glass, were topped off. His glass sat empty at times while he waited to be offered another.

We both ate extraordinary fried lollipops of filleted frogs’ legs on a long stick of bone, but only I was then brought a napkin-covered bowl of rosemary- and lemon-scented water for rinsing my fingers.

My servers were solicitous: Was this course, or that one, or that one, prepared to your liking? Was the pacing of the meal satisfactory? Could we interest you in a cheese course? Would you like your espresso with dessert, or after? Finally, as I neared the revolving door on East 65th Street: Can we help you find a cab tonight?

My colleague wasn’t asked any of those questions. Still, the next morning, he reported feeling very well taken care of. And a restaurant can’t be blamed for trying to impress a critic.

It can be faulted, though, for turning its best face away from the unknowns, the first-timers, the birthday splurgers, the tourists. They are precisely the people who would remember a little coddling at a place like Daniel for years.

And while a missing finger bowl won’t seriously mar anyone’s evening, missing Daniel’s cheese cart might. It is one of the finest four-wheeled vehicles in New York. Whenever I wondered if I really wanted cheese, a server would lay his knife on a soft wheel, pressing gently. The mounded top would fall for a moment then rise up again, gracefully and almost willingly. After that, the question was not if I should have some, but how many kinds could fit on one plate.

It was just as pointless to try to wave away the basket of Mark Fiorentino’s gorgeous breads, like a garlic focaccia, round and dimpled in the center. Rajeev Vaidya, the head sommelier, shepherded me past the many bottles that could land a weak wine lover in debt to more affordable ones. He has a 2007 halbtrocken from the German riesling maker Georg Breuer. Some buyers scoffed at the vintage, pushing prices down, but not Mr. Vaidya. A bottle can be yours for the princely sum of $25.

Recently, the title of executive pastry chef passed from Sandro Micheli to Ghaya Oliveira, and the dessert course, already exciting, has a little more energy. Ms. Oliveira’s approach is more modern and wide-ranging, embracing unusual spices and exuberant swipes of color. Her mint-scented strawberries are a giddy, flagrant essay in pink, with triangles of watermelon, columns of half-frozen strawberry mousse and ladyfingers tinted with powdered strawberry skin. It was a soft, lilting summer tune I won’t get out of my head before Labor Day.

The courses before dessert could be just as wonderfully haunting. I’d give a lot to recapture the happiness I got from slow-baked abalone, rich with creamed avocado and slightly tart with heart-shaped wood sorrel. I’m still transfixed by a peekytoe crab salad’s bravura variations on apple and celery, carried through to the juices in a walnut-oil vinaigrette.

And nothing quite prepared me for the untamed whoosh of intense green herbs in a bowl of olive-oil-poached cod teased into big, glistening flakes, then seasoned with za’atar and a bright cilantro sauce.

But the kitchen’s compulsion toward complexity could also result in a proliferation of dollhouse garnishes. Grilled sweet shrimp were outfitted with a heart of palm purée, microcubes of mango and cucumber, bok choy, tiny tapioca crackers, curls of shaved hearts of palm, among other things. The parts never quite gathered into a rush of flavor.

A variation on Mr. Boulud’s classic roasted sea bass with syrah sauce came with radicchio so bitter I wanted to slap it. A drum of sweet potato purée with a candylike crust of marrow on top only made the next bite of radicchio harder to take.

The kitchen loves to put two or three treatments of an ingredient side by side, when it might do better to focus on the one that works best. In a triptych of striped jack, a poached piece on a salad of mustard seeds with cubes of riesling gelée tasted as if the components were destined to be together. But there wasn’t the same inevitability about the lettuce-wrapped dumpling of striped jack tartare topped with caviar, or the smoky rillettes surrounded by crunchy carrot and asparagus.

Daniel built its fame on Mr. Boulud’s exquisite refinements on French peasant food. Over the years, the refinements have multiplied while the peasant food has been sent away to his many spinoff bistros.

Traces of it are still around, as in the short rib braised in red wine, half of a beef duo. The last time I tasted it, I was sure it was the finest French beef stew in existence. I knew my servers were trying to make my night one I’d recall with a smile. And I wished everyone could be so lucky.

Daniel

★★★

Charlie Rose/Frank Bruni: Italian Food

Statute

Thomas Keller: Stanford GSB

Practicality

Boulud, Batali, Meyer

GOTHAM

By JILL SIERACKI

Regardless of whether you consider yourself a “foodie” or just dabble in New York gastronomy, you have certainly heard the names Mario Batali, Daniel Boulud, and Danny Meyer. The three men represent more than two dozen Manhattan eateries, ranging in size and scope from a New York Times four-star establishment to a multifaceted gourmet market or casual burger chain so popular even New Yorkers are willing to wait hours in line. However, their accomplishments are hardly limited to the kitchen—each has expanded his empire into products, cookbooks, and even television programs.

And while their areas of expertise greatly vary, there are many things the three have in common. “A through-line between us is restaurants with soul,” says Meyer. “You can’t be born with soul, but you can definitely earn soul over time, and it starts with the spirit of the restaurateur. It starts with the sense that nothing matters more than having this idea, pulling together a really talented team to execute the idea, caring deeply about the relationship between your idea and the staff, guests, and community, and you end up with these relationships with your alumni, with the regulars at the restaurant, with your community— it’s a really cool thing.”

Over the course of their careers, these three restaurateurs have produced an exemplary roster of alumni—Tom Colicchio, Andrew Carmellini, and White House executive pastry chef Billy Yosses among them—and in the coming months will be celebrating several milestones: Boulud will be marking the 20th anniversary of his namesake Upper East Side restaurant Daniel next fall as well as launching a new cookbook and restaurant in Toronto. Meyer is expanding his Shake Shack brand to Long Island and Connecticut, finishing Family Table, a cookbook filled with menus from nightly staff dinners, and releasing a new cookbook from Gramercy Tavern. Batali is expanding his Eataly empire, opening Carnevino in Hong Kong, and finishing In Search of the Genuine, a book cowritten by Jim Harrison about game cooking throughout the Midwest and beyond.

Here, as the city prepares to celebrate all-things epicurean at the Food Network New York City Wine & Food Festival, which hosts events across Manhattan and Brooklyn October 11 through 14, Batali, Boulud, and Meyer gathered at Meyer’s Maialino to discuss Yelpers’ influence on New York dining, being the Ivy League of restaurants, and the importance of staying the course.

How do you think this month’s Food Network New York Wine & Food Festival has impacted the dining scene in the city?

MARIO BATALI: When I look at the year, I see that there are really three events that I pay attention to. The first one has always been the James Beard Foundation Awards; then there’s the Big Apple Barbeque Block Party (it just brings in so much information, so many cool people, and different stuff than we would normally do); and then the Wine & Food Festival. It makes sure that we’re always still at the crossroads. It’s bringing everyone in, first of all for them to show us what they are doing, but also it gives us the opportunity and the pride to show people what we’re doing.

DANNY MEYER: And this particular one has also done great things to fight hunger. They raise an enormous amount of money for the Food Bank for New York City and Share Our Strength.

DANIEL BOULUD: We are in the business of entertaining people, but we are not in the business of entertaining them publicly. And I think Wine & Food offers an opportunity to be entertained with the great chefs, the great talents, the great foods.

For each of you, the majority of your restaurants are in New York. Why have you chosen to base your careers here?

DM: I don’t know of a city on earth that has a better balance of talented staff, a more sophisticated potential clientele from which you can draw, and a more interested media to shine a light if you do a good job. You have those three things together; where else would you rather be?

MB: You can totally curate an experience to the exact level that you want, knowing that even if you turn a few people off, because there’s such a good volume here, you’ll turn even more people on. In New York City, even if 2 million people hate you, there are 9 million left—and you don’t say that with some strange, swollen self-worth. It’s more that if we decide to play this music, have the lights like this, and serve this kind of food, there is a group of people who are going to support that.

DB: After living in France, I went to Denmark, and I realized that I was in a country with no audience. To me, coming to New York meant you could stay who you are and you’re going to have an audience for it with the money to support what we can do, which is great food, great service, great wine.

What do you see as the exciting culinary trends happening in New York right now?

DM: Better beverages. Chefs at breakfast are looking at fresh-pressed juices the same way that they’re looking at beer, coffee, and wine—and it should have the same level of sophistication.

DB: Growing food on your roof like Danny does at North End Grill; that’s the big thing. [Tribeca Grill chef] Don Pintabona was trying to open a mushroom farm in an old silo in Brooklyn. Urban farming is how close we can bring it to the consumer. That’s interesting, but we’re not really chasing the trends.

DM: Everything that we do is based on classic technique and hospitality. And what’s great is you get to see how people who have graduated from our kitchens put their own twist on that technique and make something their own. New York is an incredibly expensive city in which to open a restaurant, which is why you see so much casual stuff happening, especially in Brooklyn.

MB: When I got here in 1992 the East Village was where people who couldn’t open a restaurant or an atelier went because the rent was low and the threshold to get into your own business was much lower. Now the East Village is expensive, and the people are in Williamsburg. You find the crazy, arty ideas in places where the thresholds to get into the game are much lower.

DM: When there are fewer seats to fill, you can have a sharper point of view: I don’t need salmon on my menu if I only have 22 seats; as soon as I have 180 seats, I have to have salmon. Every year that I’ve been in this business, there’s a new trend. The first year I got into business in New York City, 1985, the big trend was mesquite grilling. Then two years later the next trend was architectural presentation on the plate. The next t rend was making your sauces out of vegetable juices. A restaurant needs to stand the test of time, and, year in and year out, the staff is great, the food is consistent, the place is full—it is so much harder than you think to do that, especially because the media loves to focus on what’s brand new and you can only be new once. In order to stay in business and stay busy, you’re really developing a culture.

What is a unique challenge to operating a restaurant in New York?

MB: The tendency to constantly chase the microhits that involve being very hip right now. In a world where social media is becoming so relevant, it can often deter you from keeping a very steady ship, thinking, “I so want to do a pop-up restaurant with René Redzepi,” but in the long term, maybe your brand is better served by a slightly longer vision. There’s so much temptation to involve yourself in the things that everyone does. My greatest weakness is always wanting to copy somebody else very quickly, and in New York City there’s no better place to do that.

DB: Once you drop somewhere, you start to really root yourself. I stay in the Upper East Side; I landed there by coincidence in 1982, and I never left the zip code.

DM: I agree 100 percent. The only thing maybe is the other side of the coin of what Mario said is that in a city that has so many restaurants and so many people commenting on those restaurants....

MB: Yelpers, we call them....

DM: ....it’s increasingly hard to come up with an idea that is both fresh and relevant today. The fads come and go; they always have, but the one thing that remains is everyone wants to go out, be well treated, and eat good food. I don’t think any of us shies away from competition.

What are some restaurants that you enjoy going to that are not your own?

DB: The first week I arrived in New York, the president of the hotel I was working for said, “We’d like to take you to the best restaurant,” and they took me to the Four Seasons. I didn’t really understand what “the best” meant at that time, but for most birthdays for the past 25 years, I’ve been going to the Four Seasons just because I love that place.

MB: My birthday is coming up, and it’s actually between the Four Seasons (because my children have never been there) and Blanca, which is [Bushwick restaurant] Roberta’s tasting menu place. I’m going to let the kids choose.

DM: Out of 10 dining experiences, I really like six of them to be at a place I’ve never been because I learn something new, but I also really like going to four that have been around for a long time. I love going to restaurants that have the equivalent of bottle age, where the pedigree has shown through, and the restaurant has actually enriched itself. Of the new places I try, I would say that 90 percent of them are either opened by friends or by alumni.

MB: Let me just suggest that each of us choosing four restaurants, three of those four will be within four to six blocks of our house because that’s how New Yorkers operate. I will go to Pearl Oyster Bar at least once or twice a month.

DM: That’s Casa Mono for us.

MB: You go to these places because they give you exactly what you came for. People aren’t going to take a taxi up to Rao’s even if they like lemon chicken and fusilli with cabbage and sausage. New Yorkers are very geographically based. In a city where it is so tempting to be segmented into being the pizza guy or the dumpling guy, how do you define yourselves?

MB: All three of us are the guys who no longer want our restaurants to be a dinner party. We want to offer a variety of experiences. We’re not the meatball guy—although we’ll have a great meatball—sadly and yet remarkably, we’re The Man. We are not the indie band, although we were the indie bands when we started, and we have indie band brains. We’re the guys who the young guys have to figure out how to beat or compete with.

DM: If I were going to make a metaphor, it would be almost like being three great universities because I think that people who come through our restaurants to work go on to do really remarkable things. I would love if the metaphor is that we were universities—Ivy League no less.

Welig

Sashay

Golden

Seminal