Results tagged: Interview

Tomorrow evening Per Se kicks off its An American Table at Per Se dinner series with special guest Wells Guthrie of Sonoma County's Copain Wine Cellars. The series will allow guests to experience limited production American wines alongside a seven-course tasting menu, "specially crafted to highlight the old world nuances and flavors reflected in the wines." In addition, each guest winemaker will lead a discussion around their techniques, influences and personal winemaking style.

We spoke with Guthrie recently to learn about Copain, his background and his past experience working with the team at The French Laundry and Per Se.

How long has Copain been around?

1999 was our first vintage. We did a whopping 300 cases.

How much are you producing now?

For our vineyard designated wines, we do about 4,000 cases. That's split over six different Pinots, a few Syrahs, so about 10 wines. We have an appellation wine called Tous Ensemble, which means "all together." The appellation wines that we make are more readily accessible.

How did you get into winemaking?

I started working at Wine Spectator. I worked there for two years as their tasting coordinator in San Francisco. I set up all of the tastings for the domestic wines. I got to taste all of the wine, which was cool. Getting to taste 3,000 to 4,000 wines a year gets your palette honed for what you do and don't like.

We'd heard recently that Paul Kahan, chef and co-owner of The Publican in Chicago, was planning to introduce brunch at his wildly popular beer- and pork-themed restaurant. It turns out that this past Sunday was the first day of service and Kahan and his publicist, Ellen Malloy, used the opportunity to send out real-time updates via Twitter (view the full transcript). While it didn't quite live up to its "Reality Twitter Cooking Show" billing, it was an interesting experiment and preview of what we expect to see from other high profile chefs in the future.

Prior to Sunday's Twitter event writer Brittany Bellgardt spoke with Kahan and asked him about The Publican and where he's finding inspiration these days.

What menu item or items best represent the type of cooking you're doing at the restaurant?
Pork, oysters and beer...so pretty much anything on the menu!

What should people know about your wine and cocktail program?
It is all about beer, and we serve any beers that are good.

What's your favorite ingredient to cook with?
This week, quince, because it's quince season and it's tasty. There is so little around that is interesting to cook with this time of year. Quince adds a splash of joy.

If you could collaborate with any chef, alive or dead, who would it be?
Michel Bras because he is so in tune with the product of the ecosystem in which he lives and he is a genius.

What food-related book or cookbook would you recommend to the adventurous home cook?
Right now, I'm really in love with the Moro cookbooks. They seem to really be in tune with what we do at The Publican and I'm very inspired by them.

---

The Publican

Location: 837 West Fulton Market between North Peoria and North Green Streets in the West Loop
Hours: Mon-Thu, 3:30-10:30pm; Fri-Sat, 3:30-11:30pm; Sun, 10am-2pm and 5-10pm
Reservations: Call 312-733-9555 or try OpenTable.

Get more information about The Publican on Savory Cities.

By Louise McCready

National restaurant sales are suffering as diners increasingly choose to cook at home, but at Damon: Frugal Fridays, thrifty cum trendy couldn't be more popular. Craft's adjacent private dining room, host to pre-Recession priced prix fixe Tom: Tuesday Dinner, transforms into a no-reservation hot spot each Friday night under the creative genius of chef Damon Wise. Trying a dish from each of the nine categories won't break the bank or take all night, but good luck grabbing a butcher-paper-topped table in under an hour.

After working at fine dining establishments, how did you adjust your ingredients or techniques to fit within such budget constraints that all dishes cost less than $10

Instead of cheaper ingredients, everything is smaller in quantity so that people can order many things at once. Everything is still prepared very gently and still has that straight line look, but it's faster food. It's a good way for people to eat the same products.

Other than adjusting quantities, was it any more challenging for you?

No. If you're constantly thinking about food and you look at how to create a budget for a restaurant, there are different ways to make money using very good ingredients.

One of the things you feature is offal...

"Awful offal" - that's what my mom calls it.

Do you think offal's experiencing a renaissance because of this economic downturn?

I don't know. I set the menu up with what I like to eat and what other chefs would like to eat. The Observer asked me, "Why do you put the duck hearts on?" Because they taste good. I go my friends' restaurants and they always take care of me and feed me well. I thought, "If my friends came in, what would they want to eat?"

With the secondary cuts, people forget how good they are. People say, "They're high in fat, high in cholesterol." You don't have to eat an entire plate of them - just a taste.

What is your favorite ingredient on the menu here?

The one I'm most obsessed with is the pizza dough. The New York review said something about the pizza dough and I've been tweaking it ever since. I'm obsessed with trying to get it right because everyone loves pizza, and they love it a certain way.

You've been quoted as say you'd like to have your own upscale restaurant. When the economy turns around, is that still what you would like?

At this point, I'd like to just have a restaurant. It doesn't matter what it is. I would love to do fine dining, but I don't think that our economy can support it. Down the road? Of course. But if it has to be a restaurant with meat on a stick, I'll make them all day long if people will come.

Do you use sustainably raised or local ingredients?

Whatever Craft is buying, I'm buying. We use all the same products; I'm just using different cooking mediums. We buy our food from the green market. We buy locally.  We buy small-farm products.

Anything that you're particularly looking forward to using as the weather gets nicer?

Lighter food, not as hearty. I'm excited about heirloom tomatoes. I can't think of anything else exactly because I take it one day at a time, but the menu will be forever changing. That's what's fun.

I'm putting a new section on the menu this Friday. We haven't figured out the name. It's going to be food bundled up, or food on a roll, or food in a roll.

Pigs in a blanket?

Like that. I'm going to make tamales, spring rolls, lettuce cups, and little crepes wrapped with meat.

---

Damon: Frugal Fridays at Craft

Location: 47 East 19th Street, between Broadway and Park Avenue South
Hours: 5:30 p.m. to midnight.
Reservations: First come first served.

Get more information about Craft New York on Savory Cities.

If you've eaten pork recently at any of New York City's more high profile restaurants chances are you've tasted the fruits of Bev Eggleston's labor. Eggleston, a protégé of Joel Salatin, the champion of small-scale ethical farming practices profiled in Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma, raises pigs, sheep and chickens on his Virginia farm and sells his exalted products (Frank Bruni called Eggleston's pork, "outrageously fine swine" in his review of Terroir) at Washington, D.C. farmer's markets and to dozens of top restaurants in D.C. and New York.

Writer Louise McCready spoke with Eggleston to learn more about his pigs, his upcoming NYC home orders program and plans for bringing live pata negra hogs to the U.S.

How is your New York business unique?

In D.C., we sell at farmers' markets because we feel like we're more local. In Manhattan, we have a strong wholesale presence but no retail, so we're developing a home orders program. We've added a twist to the home metropolitan buying clubs. Each month, you get an unknown quantity of unknown inventory. The EcoFriendly foodie is cognizant that they help us develop a product. We tweak the recipe and send it back to them a couple months later.

Does that mean you'd deliver a dish made from a Gramercy Tavern recipe?

Either the chef will find a recipe that he hasn't put on the menu yet, or it will be the place for a chef to try a new product. We have our meats, their recipe, and a hundred consumers who allow the recipe to get tested before putting it on the menu.

We're going to make sausages, dried salumi, sopressata, chorizo, both fresh and dried lomos, patés, soups, stocks, glacés, consommés, stews, and terrines. We're going to make things that come from the head, the hooves, the butt, the bones, and the knuckle such as thyme-infused and rosemary-infused pork lard I'll grind into sausage or sell as a spread.

When will you be ready to sell these products?

Probably this summer. Right now, our one processing plant is serving both cities. I want to give to New Yorkers what they're asking for - localized food.

What animals are you selling now and why are they special?

With beef, a double-muscle Piedmontese breed, which makes for a unique flavor and quality. We age the beef and grow it on grass only. Gramercy Tavern buys a lot from us, and Peter Hoffman and Danny Meyer both decided they wanted it to be in all their restaurants.

The Katahdin breed is a hair sheep bred that sheds short hair instead of big fluffy mats of wool, and has less lanolin and a lower fat content. A lot of Americans don't like lamb because the fat sits on your tongue and coats your mouth, but the Katahdin is mild, low in fat, and doesn't taste like mutton.

The Ossabaw, the Five-Way Cross (which we call the Farmer's Cross), and the Ossabaw Crosses are the three main breeds of pigs. We cross the Ossabaw with the Durock, a standard hog, and an older breed, called the Waddle. When we mix a Waddle with the Ossabaw, I call it the Waddabaw. Farmers' Cross with Ossabaw: Crossabaw. Berkshire with Ossabow: Berkabaw.

Most chefs prefer the Five-Way Cross because it's an all around killer pig. The Ossabaw and the Ossabaw Crosses need a customer and a chef who's ready to utilize that high fat content pig by making charcuteries or by using a lard based recipe.

Which chefs in particular like the fattier pig?

Michael Anthony at Gramercy Tavern and Ignacio Mattos at Il Buco. Other fatty pig lovers would be, of course, David Chang and Momofuku Ssam Bar chef Tien Ho.

Due to the recent increase in the price of Ibérico pata negra hams, have any chefs chosen to buy from you rather than import from Spain?

José Andrés, the unofficial Ambassador to Spain who's responsible for getting those hams imported through the USDA and approved, loves our Ossabaw pig because it's the American equivalent of the pata negra. He's going to help us import more breeding stock from Spain because the ones we got off Ossabaw island were there so long, they're inbred. We're in the planning stage right now of getting pata negra - not the hoof - the live animals.

---

Sample Eggleston's pigs at these restaurants in and around New York City: Blue Hill at Stone Barns, Blue Hill, Boqueria, Craft (Tom Colicchio's Crispy Port Trotter made Frank Bruni's list of Best New Restaurant Dishes for 2008), Craftsteak, Del Posto, Gramercy Tavern, Hearth, Il Buco, Inside Park at St. Bart's, Insieme, Lupa, Mercat, Momofuku Ko, Momofuku Noodle Bar, Momofuku Ssam Bar, Savoy and Terroir (Marco Canora's Pork Blade Steak, was another of Bruni's top dishes for '08).

For more information about EcoFriendly Foods visit the EcoFriendly Foods web site.

By Elizabeth S. Bennett

When it comes to La Fonda del Sol's legacy, ambitions, flavors combinations and décor, "big" and "bold" leap to mind. La Fonda is the second take on the eponymous 1960s Latin-themed restaurant and takes its cues from the diverse flavors of Spanish cuisine.

Head chef Josh DeChellis, late of Barfry and Sumile Sushi, has forged a menu based on his training and exploration in Spain, with inflections of Latin America. Customers can expect lunch, dinner and all-day tapas that includes standbys like potato and egg tortilla ($4.50), garlic shrimp ($12) and roasted and fried potatoes "bravas" (which can be ordered with a fried duck egg) ($4.50). But there are some more daring pairings, including potted duckling and pork with sherry ($11), pequillo peppers with bacalao and truffle oil ($12) and beef short ribs with pomegranate and celery root ($9.50).

Dinner service promises an ample mix of flesh and fish with the likes of kampachi tiradito, a thinly sliced Peruvian take on ceviche ($14), and the justifiably ubiquitous acorn-fed Iberian ham ($18). Big flavors are the hallmark of DeChellis's entrees, such as prime rib for two with garlic confit, lemon oil and chili pepper salt ($48 per person), the cochinillo, a suckling pig with smoked dates and almonds ($28) and a lamb loin with a pumpkin seed crust and lemon-honey glaze ($24).

We recently caught up with chef DeChellis in the back of La Fonda's zebrawood paneled main dining room, one of two giant 1960s-inspired eating areas designed by Adam Tihany.

How would you describe the menu?
It's Spanish, but we have some latitude to play with Latin flavors. I'm taking advantage of the bandwidth of flavors in Spain. You've got the flavors of saffron, rabbit and partridge from La Mancha, the wonderfully prepared seafood from Galicia, truffles from the Basque country and Barcelona, and the spices and exotic fruit from Andalucia.

Which of Sol's dishes do you think exemplifies the spirit of the menu?
I'd say the giant prawn, which was inspired by a dish in the fishing town of Getaria in Basque country. It's a large prawn cooked on the plancha, a heavy steel griddle, with barely anything on it except a light brushing of spicy soffrito with onion, garlic, pimentón de la vera and tomato.

Also the cochinillo. That's baby pig with crispy skin and succulent meat. We take a 30-pound pig and bone it. We cook it for 12 hours at 140 degrees, then we chill it and slice it thinly so each part of the pig is represented on the plate. And we crisp the skin on the plancha.

What's your favorite ingredient to cook with these days?
Nori. I use it for wrapping salads, in powder form to thicken sauces, nori salt and taco shells for raw fish.

If you could collaborate with any chef, dead or alive, who would it be?
Jean-Louis Palladin. He was a free spirit which let him soar, but he also had very good bones in terms of training.

How is La Fonda Del Sol faring in this economy?
If it were a different time, maybe we'd have higher-end wines and more luxury ingredients. But what I've always loved about Spain is that it's a very modest culture with modest ingredients prepared very simply. That keeps things affordable.

---

La Fonda Del Sol
Location: The MetLife Building, 200 Park Avenue at East 43rd Street and Vanderbilt Avenue.
Hours: Tapas lounge: Monday to Saturday, 11:30am to 11pm. Lunch is served from 11:30am to 3pm. Dinner is served from 5pm to 10:30pm.
Reservations: Book on OpenTable or call 212-867-6767.

View the complete La Fonda Del Sol listing on Savory Cities.

By Elizabeth S. Bennett

Jim Lahey of Sullivan Street Bakery (and no-knead bread) fame, has realized a decade-long dream of opening a restaurant dedicated to the creation of, in Lahey's words, "individual custom loaves of bread with signature toppings."

Some may call it pizza, but Lahey insists he's up to something else entirely. His obsession is bread and he puts years of slavish dough devotion to work at Co. where, as the chef-owner, he cranks out 150 to 200 of the wickedly good pies each night. Whether it's the Popeye with pecorino, gruyere, buffalo mozzarella and slightly charred fresh spinach, or the toppingless Bianca with a little sea salt and Chilean olive oil, Lahey has pumped up the volume on the pizza polemic in New York.

Even pies that sound overwrought, like the Flambe with béchamel, parmesan, mozzarella, caramelized onions and lardons are balanced and ethereal. The crunchy, chewy, blistery crust is unmistakably Sullivan Street and unmistakably delicious.

In search of a little more insight into the man, his bread and brand new restaurant we sat down with Lahey to ask him a few questions...

Why pizza and why now?
Pizza is bread and I like making bread.

How does your pizza dough differ from your Sullivan St. Bakery bread?
There's a lot more salt in the pizza dough. You need it to inhibit fermentation.

How long has this idea been in the works?
It's been in my mind for 12 years. I would have opened eight years ago had I been unfettered. Three years ago, I was being sued by my former business partner and trying to undo the damage of a knockoff business by another baker. But I also would have died if I had opened it then because I would not have gone through the bullshit of life.

How did you come up with the name for the restaurant?
I was sitting in the space on an August afternoon. It's on a street corner and I knew that I wanted the name to have something to do with the corner and I thought, "co.," the shortest abbreviation for corner. It's also the abbreviation for "company" which is like the Latin cum panis -- "with bread". I call the restaurant Company. I know some people refer to it as Co. and that's okay.

How did you select the wines on the menu?
I had one principal to limit wine selection: they to have a screw top or alternative closures to cork. It was a good filter to narrow the choices and it's easier from a service perspective. You get rid of the bullshit ceremony.

And why create an artificial limit? It's not necessary to only drink Italian wine with Italian food. Why not just have good wine with good food? It represents the globalization of wine and wine culture. Wines can come from anywhere. They're good and not too pricey.

Why don't you accept reservations?
We want it to be friendly for the solo diner. It's a restaurant for foodies on a budget.

Do you have any plans for the restaurant?

We'll try to open up for lunch within two weeks and will eventually add Sunday brunch. And the menu will evolve. It's not just a set thing that we're leaving alone. We'll be doing simple better.

---

Company

Location: 230 Ninth Avenue at 24th Street
Hours: Co. is currently open Tuesday through Saturday from 11:30am to 3pm and 5 to 11pm.
Reservations: Not accepted.

View the complete Co. New York listing on Savory Cities.

Photo: Squire Fox