MARIANI’S
JUNE
26, 2005
NEWSLETTER
Lucille
Ball and Vivian Vance in "Pioneer Women" on I Love Lucy (aired March 31, 1952).
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HOMAGE
TO HOME
by John Mariani
NEW YORK CORNER
by John Mariani
QUICK
BYTES
Homage
to Home by
John Mariani
Washington Irving's
home, Sunnyside, in Tarrytown on the Hudson River, NY
As much as I travel, the more I’m at home, the more I hate to leave. And the more I travel, the more I see, the more I experience wildly different cultures, the more I reflect on how important my house and home and family are to me.
Home for me is Westchester County, the first county north of NYC, bound on the east by the Long Island Sound, on the west by the Hudson River, and on the north by other New York counties. It is basically a suburban region, but its beauty radiates from the river and the Sound and myriad lakes in the north country, along with historic cities like New Rochelle ("Forty-five minutes from Broadway. . . "), Sleepy Hollow (with its spine-tingling "Legend"), Eastchester ("Home of the Bill of Rights"), and Tarrytown, with the storybook Sunnyside home of Washington Irving and the grand Gothic mansion of Lyndhurst.
Over the decades I've lived here I've gotten to know its gastronomic landscape well, since the days when most of the restaurants were either pizzerias or continental dining room of straitlaced propriety. In the late 1980s that began to change quickly, and for more than ten years I covered the Westchester waterfront and everything in between for local newspapers and magazines and got to know how richly endowed the county is with good restaurants, some of which I've written about in this newsletter, including Chef Anthony Goncalves' wonderful White Plains restaurant Trotters (http://www.johnmariani.com/archive/2005/050116). We also have one of the finest French restaurants in the U.S., La Panetière in Rye, which I recently profiled in Wine Spectator (May 15, 2005 issue).
For
some of the best steaks in America, the independently owned Flames
in Briarcliff Manor (533 North State Road
Begin with an array of appetizers here, from lump crab meat and jumbo shrimp that really earn their moniker, to platters of fresh mozzarella, prosciutto and peppers. They do some good pastas here too, including an authoritative spaghetti alla carbonara made with eggs and bacon but without cream. The lobster bisque is, on the other hand, marvelously rich and creamy.
The sirloins are nonpareil--they taste like those New York steakhouses used to serve twenty years ago. The porterhouse is the equal of Peter Luger's. The double veal chop is massive, the Colorado lamb chops huge, and the gargantuan lobsters full of fatted meat, weighing in at three to ten pounds or more. All the side dishes--home fries, French fries, onion rings and creamed spinach--are first rate.
Flames’ dining room has pretty archways and marbleized columns, with plenty of room between tables broad enough to hold the huge portions served here. Ask to see the exquisite downstairs private dining room in the temperature-controlled wine cellar. I think you’ll be in awe of a cache that includes every significant name in wine making. It is truly a great wine list with all the big names in abundance--400 labels and 35,000 bottles, including remarkable verticals in bordeaux and California cabernets from the most prestigious vineyards.
In a genre that too often just goes through the motions of cooking and delivering steaks, Flames is a place with rare personality and a refreshing attention to hospitality. That it also has the best steaks and lobsters around makes it well worth a drive this this bucolic part of the County.
Westchester has as many Italian restaurants as all others combined, reflective both of the popularity of the cuisine and of the large number of Italian-Americans who, like my parents, moved here after World War II. Most are pleasant places of little distinction, but Mazzei (25 South Regent Street; 914-939-2727; www.hostariamazzei.com) in Port Chester rises above them all in decor, food, wine list, and the dedication of Milanese owners Dominick Avelluto and Alberto Marazzano, along with their partner, Sardinian Chef Giovanni Sias.
The restaurant is named after Thomas Jefferson's Florentine friend Philip Mazzei, a former surgeon turned wine merchant.
It is a very smart-looking but fairly
casual restaurant, with a dominant wood-fired pizza oven to one side
(the pizzas and breads are fabulous here), fine ceiling lights that
cast a rosy glow, a polished bar (below)
and a two handsome private dining rooms. A partition of
wainscoted glass
creates intimacy in the large room (right),
and big windows open onto the
street, with ample parking just around the corner.
Abandon yourself to Sias' lavish antipasti table--fresh bufala mozzarella, salume and prosciutti, carpaccio of beef with herbs, or to his hot items like a napoleon with mushrooms and sautéed onions in a Gorgonzola cream. The pastas are across the board some of the best I've tasted this side of Italy, from macheroncini with artichokes and fresh tuna, and orrechiette with broccoli di rape and fresh sausage, to lovely potato-spinach gnocchi with sage and mozzarella and tagliatelle with a shrimp ragù.
The cooking is light but very flavorful here. Sias' veal is of prime quality, done with a lemon sauce and sautéed string beans, and his monkfish is baked in the brick oven with breadcrumbs and tomato sauce to keep it juicy to the cartilage.
Grilled beef sirloin is very good too.
If you have a large table and a day or two in advance, call and ask Mazzei to make you a grande bollito misto--that magnificent array of meats including chicken, beef, pork, veal, and tongue slowly boiled to extract flavor to make a broth, then sliced tableside in large slabs for your delectation and served with pungent-sweet mostarda di cremona. This is preceded by fresh pastas and perhaps fried zucchini flowers and bagna cauda, the heady elixir of olive oil, garlic, and anchovies into which you dip crudités and bread.
Sias is also rightly proud of his desserts, which includes a first-rate tiramisù and rich panna cotta. Espresso is well made here, and the wine list is outstanding, both for its numerous bottlings under $40 and its selection of half-bottles, as well as for some of the noblest wines of Italy from the greatest estates. Few Italian restaurants in Manhattan have lists this comprehensive.
Mazzei's antipasti run $8-$12, pastas (as a main course) $12-$15, and main courses a remarkable $16-$20. There is a prix fixe lunch of three courses at $20.05.
Seafood is of course ubiquitous in the county's restaurants (though as yet no one's fishing food out of the Hudson). But there are few specialty seafood restaurants of note. One that is very much so is Caffé Regatta Oyster Bar & Grill (133 Wolf's Lane; 914-738-1199; www.cafferegatta.com)
in the southern Westchester town of Pelham.
Chef-owner Anthony Labriola, Bronx born, has worked at some high-class
kitchens, including Park Avenue Café and Lespinasse in
Manhattan, where he
opened his first restaurant, Caffé Lure, which he later closed
in order
to open Caffe
Regatta in 2001 in this charming, well-heeled bedroom community of
Tudor façades and broad green lawns.
The moderate-sized 60-seat room has the distinct look of being a dining room on a yacht, its ceiling slightly bowed, its wood polished to a high shine, its watery colors pale and cool, and its banquette seating reminiscent of a boat's below decks. There is a fine bar to one side, where a lot of people will wait for a table on weekends, quite happily so, having a cocktail and downing some raw shellfish. There about 125 labels on the wine list, with plenty in the $25-$30 range. Appetizers run $7-$12, entrees $18-$27. A $30 fixed price menu is a great deal.
Labriola's cooking has real spark in almost every dish, unless you prefer to go real simple with a steamed, broiled, or grilled lobster up to 5 1/2 pounds. But you'd be missing the vivacious way Labriola has with seafood, from generous Maryland crab cakes lightly sautéed and served with charred corn salsa and a sun-dried tomato aïoli to steamed mussels either with a marinara sauce or white wine sauce, accompanied by French fries. Caviar cream dresses up Florida grouper and a potato galette, while yellowfin tuna is crusted with peppercorns, seared quickly to rosy-pink and served with a winning combination of green beans, celeriac purée, and foie gras. There are also several meat options here, including leg of Colorado lamb with a sweet potato gratin, tomato confit, and minted-garlic jus.
There's lemon meringue pie for dessert as well as biscotti to dip into your coffee or gelati.
Caffé Regatta is one of those places that, if you lived in the area, you'd eat in every week. If you didn't, you might well consider a drive or train trip up to Pelham on a summer's evening; you can be back at Grand Central in half an hour.
America is not yet rich in Portuguese restaurants, which makes West Harrison in mid-county all the richer for Aquario (141 East Lake Street; 914-287-0220), because owner Manuel Cabral and Chef Tony Correia are so proud of their heritage and of the underrated, seafood-rich cuisine of Portugal. The restaurant is a broad room with marine artwork and seafood displays (below), and the well-dressed Mr. Cabral is at every table's beck and call. How refreshing to see a gentleman owner who is a) in his restaurant, b) keeping his eye on every aspect, and c) making sure every guest is happy.
My most recent visit to Aquario
restored my affection for this kind of cooking, right from the
appetizer plate of Littleneck clams steamed in white wine with garlic,
a touch of Dijon mustard, and chopped coriander; broiled octopus of
supreme tenderness sautéed in garlic and oil; jumbo shrimp
sautéed in a cognac sauce; and filets of fresh sardines in a
tantalizing escabeche dressing. Next came soft, tender New
Bedford squid stuffed with shrimp and minced vegetables (New
Bedford
and other New England fishing towns still have thriving Portuguese
populations).
While Aquario has a good selection of meat dishes, including the loin of pork alentejo with clams in white wine and coriander, and roasted baby suckling pig I intend to have the next time I visit, I wanted simply cooked seafood and I got it in abundance: Mr. Cabral will ask if you want your fish cooked on or off the bone, and I always choose the former to preserve succulence. So Dover sole as fat as I've ever had in England or France came on the bone, with a lush sauce à la meunière to make it glisten. Red snapper filet was baked in olive oil slowly so that the meat kept its firmness, served with sautéed onions. Canadian halibut was sautéed and served with a spicy shrimp sauce, and New Zealand langoustines were expertly butterflied and broiled to the perfect tenderness, lifting easily out of the shell to be dabbed in butter or olive oil. Each cooking technique showed Chef Correia's precision with individual species. Not one was even close to being overcooked.
How Aquario does all this at such reasonable prices--with seafood running $19.95 to $35 ($45 for a lavish Portuguese fish stew for two)--is amazing to me, because the quality of ingredients is definitely evident in every dish.
The wine list is exemplary in showcasing the best Portuguese wines now coming into the world market--wines that definitely need showcasing, because they can now compete with the best out of Italy, Spain, and South America.
It's a reasonable question whether such restaurants as these are worth the proverbial journey from New York or anywhere else, and I answer by saying that the quality of these matches the quality of some of the best in the city or anywhere else in America. And, in the process, you'll see some of the most beautiful territory in the Mid-Atlantic region, from river to river.
NEW YORK CORNER
by John Mariani
PRUNE
54 East First Street
212-677-6221
Prune is one of
those restaurants whose popularity depends on all the right things but
whose hyped-up reputation depends on all the wrong ones. What
began as a neighborhood bistro of modest means and ambitions has become
an expensive destination restaurant for foodies who have heard that
this is a gem
in the wilderness, set on one of the still grim, graffiti-splashed,
and
cluttered streets of the slowly gentrifying Lower East Side. Brunch is so popular here that waits of more
than an hour are not uncommon.
Owner-chef Gabrielle Hamilton, whose childhood nickname was "Prune," cooks out of a minuscule open kitchen to the rear of a storefront (left), with a 30-seat dining area and a bar with no pretensions or decor aside from flowers. The tables, set within inches of each other, are topped with butcher paper and need adjusting to be stabilized, the flatware, stemware, and china are cheap, the menu is lettered by someone with childlike handwriting, and the wine list is little more than serviceable. The place is intensely loud, and, when the customer count is at its peak around 9 PM, they inexplicably pump in indecipherable music. The service staff, mostly amiable young women, are dressed anyway they feel like, which is how their guests dress, including men in tank tops--never an appetizing sight over dinner.
What makes Prune quirkily charming is the goo-eyed affection its customers bring to it; what makes it notable is the high quality of Ms. Hamilton's cooking, honed to a fine point by repetition. Since last reviewed here three years ago, the menu hasn't changed much, which is not unusual for a bistro whose regulars demand their favorites always be on it.
Upon sitting down we were presented with boiled peanuts, which the two southern women I was dining with declared pretty unworthy of the name. In fact, they tasted as if they'd been steeped in dishwater. Olives would be a better nibble. But the accompanying bread is very good and very crusty.
One of us ordered a generous portion of burrata, a mozzarella with a cream center, and it was scooped up ravenously by all of us. Sweetbreads were crisp and tasty, not in the least oily, with salty bacon and tangy capers. Heads-on shrimp--big ones--came with a mild anchovy butter. A chopped salad with a poached egg on top (which is almost a leitmotif here) was pleasant if nothing special.
This is hearty cooking--perhaps too much so in summer--but I couldn't resist the suckling pig, which has been on the menu forever. The dish was generously portioned, the pig's skin crisp as a cracker, but the meat could have used more seasoning. Roast chicken was as good as any in the city, flavorful and juicy, and a nice cut of pink, succulent lamb suffused with garlic could not have been better. A whole sea bass came expertly cooked on the bone. Potatoes and vegetables are extra, however, like a buttery (small) circle of pommes Anna, and bland peas in a watery, almost soupy sauce.
Desserts include some well-rendered profiteroles with caramel sauce, and just-rich-enough caramel pot de crème.
On the whole I had a nice evening at Prune, though there was nothing there that would make me rush down to the Lower East Side for more of the same. If I lived in those parts, I would probably eat there often. But I'd have to be fairly flush to do so on a regular basis: In our last report, a three-course dinner at Prune averaged "about $38." This, alas, is no longer the case. Every restaurant has a right to ask whatever they can get for their food, and Prune is always packed. But you pay a good chunk of change for the experience here at a tiny table. Appetizers can run $14 and entrees get into the $30 range, after which you have to add a potato or vegetable, which are $6-$9, so you're well above $40 before dessert, which will add anther $7-$9 to your tab. Throw in a $30-$40 bottle of wine and you can build up a stiff check fast.
Compare, for instance, Prune's prices to the much larger, more exciting Balthazar's (in a much pricier neighborhood, Soho), where entrees range from $14-$26, most with side dishes of potatoes, couscous, and /or vegetables. Or the menu at Payard Bistro's on the tony Upper East Side, where the most expensive main course is a NY Angus sirloin with black peppercorn sauce and frites, for $32. Or at TriBeCa's venerable Odeon, where roast free-range chicken with mushroom ragoût, fingerling potatoes, and asparagus costs just $18.
In perspective, then, though its bare bones decor would lead you to think otherwise, Prune is no bargain. You can get a whole lot more elsewhere for less.
As much as I travel, the more I’m at home, the more I hate to leave. And the more I travel, the more I see, the more I experience wildly different cultures, the more I reflect on how important my house and home and family are to me.
Home for me is Westchester County, the first county north of NYC, bound on the east by the Long Island Sound, on the west by the Hudson River, and on the north by other New York counties. It is basically a suburban region, but its beauty radiates from the river and the Sound and myriad lakes in the north country, along with historic cities like New Rochelle ("Forty-five minutes from Broadway. . . "), Sleepy Hollow (with its spine-tingling "Legend"), Eastchester ("Home of the Bill of Rights"), and Tarrytown, with the storybook Sunnyside home of Washington Irving and the grand Gothic mansion of Lyndhurst.
Over the decades I've lived here I've gotten to know its gastronomic landscape well, since the days when most of the restaurants were either pizzerias or continental dining room of straitlaced propriety. In the late 1980s that began to change quickly, and for more than ten years I covered the Westchester waterfront and everything in between for local newspapers and magazines and got to know how richly endowed the county is with good restaurants, some of which I've written about in this newsletter, including Chef Anthony Goncalves' wonderful White Plains restaurant Trotters (http://www.johnmariani.com/archive/2005/050116). We also have one of the finest French restaurants in the U.S., La Panetière in Rye, which I recently profiled in Wine Spectator (May 15, 2005 issue).
For
some of the best steaks in America, the independently owned Flames
in Briarcliff Manor Begin with an array of appetizers here, from lump crab meat and jumbo shrimp that really earn their moniker, to platters of fresh mozzarella, prosciutto and peppers. They do some good pastas here too, including an authoritative spaghetti alla carbonara made with eggs and bacon but without cream. The lobster bisque is, on the other hand, marvelously rich and creamy.
The sirloins are nonpareil--they taste like those New York steakhouses used to serve twenty years ago. The porterhouse is the equal of Peter Luger's. The double veal chop is massive, the Colorado lamb chops huge, and the gargantuan lobsters full of fatted meat, weighing in at three to ten pounds or more. All the side dishes--home fries, French fries, onion rings and creamed spinach--are first rate.
Flames’ dining room has pretty archways and marbleized columns, with plenty of room between tables broad enough to hold the huge portions served here. Ask to see the exquisite downstairs private dining room in the temperature-controlled wine cellar. I think you’ll be in awe of a cache that includes every significant name in wine making. It is truly a great wine list with all the big names in abundance--400 labels and 35,000 bottles, including remarkable verticals in bordeaux and California cabernets from the most prestigious vineyards.
In a genre that too often just goes through the motions of cooking and delivering steaks, Flames is a place with rare personality and a refreshing attention to hospitality. That it also has the best steaks and lobsters around makes it well worth a drive this this bucolic part of the County.
Westchester has as many Italian restaurants as all others combined, reflective both of the popularity of the cuisine and of the large number of Italian-Americans who, like my parents, moved here after World War II. Most are pleasant places of little distinction, but Mazzei (25 South Regent Street; 914-939-2727; www.hostariamazzei.com) in Port Chester rises above them all in decor, food, wine list, and the dedication of Milanese owners Dominick Avelluto and Alberto Marazzano, along with their partner, Sardinian Chef Giovanni Sias.
The restaurant is named after Thomas Jefferson's Florentine friend Philip Mazzei, a former surgeon turned wine merchant.
It is a very smart-looking but fairly
casual restaurant, with a dominant wood-fired pizza oven to one side
(the pizzas and breads are fabulous here), fine ceiling lights that
cast a rosy glow, a polished bar (below)
and a two handsome private dining rooms. A partition of
wainscoted glass
creates intimacy in the large room (right),
and big windows open onto the
street, with ample parking just around the corner.Abandon yourself to Sias' lavish antipasti table--fresh bufala mozzarella, salume and prosciutti, carpaccio of beef with herbs, or to his hot items like a napoleon with mushrooms and sautéed onions in a Gorgonzola cream. The pastas are across the board some of the best I've tasted this side of Italy, from macheroncini with artichokes and fresh tuna, and orrechiette with broccoli di rape and fresh sausage, to lovely potato-spinach gnocchi with sage and mozzarella and tagliatelle with a shrimp ragù.
The cooking is light but very flavorful here. Sias' veal is of prime quality, done with a lemon sauce and sautéed string beans, and his monkfish is baked in the brick oven with breadcrumbs and tomato sauce to keep it juicy to the cartilage.
Grilled beef sirloin is very good too. If you have a large table and a day or two in advance, call and ask Mazzei to make you a grande bollito misto--that magnificent array of meats including chicken, beef, pork, veal, and tongue slowly boiled to extract flavor to make a broth, then sliced tableside in large slabs for your delectation and served with pungent-sweet mostarda di cremona. This is preceded by fresh pastas and perhaps fried zucchini flowers and bagna cauda, the heady elixir of olive oil, garlic, and anchovies into which you dip crudités and bread.
Sias is also rightly proud of his desserts, which includes a first-rate tiramisù and rich panna cotta. Espresso is well made here, and the wine list is outstanding, both for its numerous bottlings under $40 and its selection of half-bottles, as well as for some of the noblest wines of Italy from the greatest estates. Few Italian restaurants in Manhattan have lists this comprehensive.
Mazzei's antipasti run $8-$12, pastas (as a main course) $12-$15, and main courses a remarkable $16-$20. There is a prix fixe lunch of three courses at $20.05.
Seafood is of course ubiquitous in the county's restaurants (though as yet no one's fishing food out of the Hudson). But there are few specialty seafood restaurants of note. One that is very much so is Caffé Regatta Oyster Bar & Grill (133 Wolf's Lane; 914-738-1199; www.cafferegatta.com)
in the southern Westchester town of Pelham.
Chef-owner Anthony Labriola, Bronx born, has worked at some high-class
kitchens, including Park Avenue Café and Lespinasse in
Manhattan, where he
opened his first restaurant, Caffé Lure, which he later closed
in order
to open Caffe
Regatta in 2001 in this charming, well-heeled bedroom community of
Tudor façades and broad green lawns.The moderate-sized 60-seat room has the distinct look of being a dining room on a yacht, its ceiling slightly bowed, its wood polished to a high shine, its watery colors pale and cool, and its banquette seating reminiscent of a boat's below decks. There is a fine bar to one side, where a lot of people will wait for a table on weekends, quite happily so, having a cocktail and downing some raw shellfish. There about 125 labels on the wine list, with plenty in the $25-$30 range. Appetizers run $7-$12, entrees $18-$27. A $30 fixed price menu is a great deal.
Labriola's cooking has real spark in almost every dish, unless you prefer to go real simple with a steamed, broiled, or grilled lobster up to 5 1/2 pounds. But you'd be missing the vivacious way Labriola has with seafood, from generous Maryland crab cakes lightly sautéed and served with charred corn salsa and a sun-dried tomato aïoli to steamed mussels either with a marinara sauce or white wine sauce, accompanied by French fries. Caviar cream dresses up Florida grouper and a potato galette, while yellowfin tuna is crusted with peppercorns, seared quickly to rosy-pink and served with a winning combination of green beans, celeriac purée, and foie gras. There are also several meat options here, including leg of Colorado lamb with a sweet potato gratin, tomato confit, and minted-garlic jus.
There's lemon meringue pie for dessert as well as biscotti to dip into your coffee or gelati.
Caffé Regatta is one of those places that, if you lived in the area, you'd eat in every week. If you didn't, you might well consider a drive or train trip up to Pelham on a summer's evening; you can be back at Grand Central in half an hour.
America is not yet rich in Portuguese restaurants, which makes West Harrison in mid-county all the richer for Aquario (141 East Lake Street; 914-287-0220), because owner Manuel Cabral and Chef Tony Correia are so proud of their heritage and of the underrated, seafood-rich cuisine of Portugal. The restaurant is a broad room with marine artwork and seafood displays (below), and the well-dressed Mr. Cabral is at every table's beck and call. How refreshing to see a gentleman owner who is a) in his restaurant, b) keeping his eye on every aspect, and c) making sure every guest is happy.
My most recent visit to Aquario
restored my affection for this kind of cooking, right from the
appetizer plate of Littleneck clams steamed in white wine with garlic,
a touch of Dijon mustard, and chopped coriander; broiled octopus of
supreme tenderness sautéed in garlic and oil; jumbo shrimp
sautéed in a cognac sauce; and filets of fresh sardines in a
tantalizing escabeche dressing. Next came soft, tender New
Bedford squid stuffed with shrimp and minced vegetables (New
Bedford
and other New England fishing towns still have thriving Portuguese
populations).While Aquario has a good selection of meat dishes, including the loin of pork alentejo with clams in white wine and coriander, and roasted baby suckling pig I intend to have the next time I visit, I wanted simply cooked seafood and I got it in abundance: Mr. Cabral will ask if you want your fish cooked on or off the bone, and I always choose the former to preserve succulence. So Dover sole as fat as I've ever had in England or France came on the bone, with a lush sauce à la meunière to make it glisten. Red snapper filet was baked in olive oil slowly so that the meat kept its firmness, served with sautéed onions. Canadian halibut was sautéed and served with a spicy shrimp sauce, and New Zealand langoustines were expertly butterflied and broiled to the perfect tenderness, lifting easily out of the shell to be dabbed in butter or olive oil. Each cooking technique showed Chef Correia's precision with individual species. Not one was even close to being overcooked.
How Aquario does all this at such reasonable prices--with seafood running $19.95 to $35 ($45 for a lavish Portuguese fish stew for two)--is amazing to me, because the quality of ingredients is definitely evident in every dish.
The wine list is exemplary in showcasing the best Portuguese wines now coming into the world market--wines that definitely need showcasing, because they can now compete with the best out of Italy, Spain, and South America.
It's a reasonable question whether such restaurants as these are worth the proverbial journey from New York or anywhere else, and I answer by saying that the quality of these matches the quality of some of the best in the city or anywhere else in America. And, in the process, you'll see some of the most beautiful territory in the Mid-Atlantic region, from river to river.
NEW YORK CORNER
by John Mariani
PRUNE
54 East First Street
212-677-6221
Prune is one of
those restaurants whose popularity depends on all the right things but
whose hyped-up reputation depends on all the wrong ones. What
began as a neighborhood bistro of modest means and ambitions has become
an expensive destination restaurant for foodies who have heard that
this is a gem
in the wilderness, set on one of the still grim, graffiti-splashed,
and
cluttered streets of the slowly gentrifying Lower East Side. Brunch is so popular here that waits of more
than an hour are not uncommon.Owner-chef Gabrielle Hamilton, whose childhood nickname was "Prune," cooks out of a minuscule open kitchen to the rear of a storefront (left), with a 30-seat dining area and a bar with no pretensions or decor aside from flowers. The tables, set within inches of each other, are topped with butcher paper and need adjusting to be stabilized, the flatware, stemware, and china are cheap, the menu is lettered by someone with childlike handwriting, and the wine list is little more than serviceable. The place is intensely loud, and, when the customer count is at its peak around 9 PM, they inexplicably pump in indecipherable music. The service staff, mostly amiable young women, are dressed anyway they feel like, which is how their guests dress, including men in tank tops--never an appetizing sight over dinner.
What makes Prune quirkily charming is the goo-eyed affection its customers bring to it; what makes it notable is the high quality of Ms. Hamilton's cooking, honed to a fine point by repetition. Since last reviewed here three years ago, the menu hasn't changed much, which is not unusual for a bistro whose regulars demand their favorites always be on it.
Upon sitting down we were presented with boiled peanuts, which the two southern women I was dining with declared pretty unworthy of the name. In fact, they tasted as if they'd been steeped in dishwater. Olives would be a better nibble. But the accompanying bread is very good and very crusty.
One of us ordered a generous portion of burrata, a mozzarella with a cream center, and it was scooped up ravenously by all of us. Sweetbreads were crisp and tasty, not in the least oily, with salty bacon and tangy capers. Heads-on shrimp--big ones--came with a mild anchovy butter. A chopped salad with a poached egg on top (which is almost a leitmotif here) was pleasant if nothing special.
This is hearty cooking--perhaps too much so in summer--but I couldn't resist the suckling pig, which has been on the menu forever. The dish was generously portioned, the pig's skin crisp as a cracker, but the meat could have used more seasoning. Roast chicken was as good as any in the city, flavorful and juicy, and a nice cut of pink, succulent lamb suffused with garlic could not have been better. A whole sea bass came expertly cooked on the bone. Potatoes and vegetables are extra, however, like a buttery (small) circle of pommes Anna, and bland peas in a watery, almost soupy sauce.
Desserts include some well-rendered profiteroles with caramel sauce, and just-rich-enough caramel pot de crème.
On the whole I had a nice evening at Prune, though there was nothing there that would make me rush down to the Lower East Side for more of the same. If I lived in those parts, I would probably eat there often. But I'd have to be fairly flush to do so on a regular basis: In our last report, a three-course dinner at Prune averaged "about $38." This, alas, is no longer the case. Every restaurant has a right to ask whatever they can get for their food, and Prune is always packed. But you pay a good chunk of change for the experience here at a tiny table. Appetizers can run $14 and entrees get into the $30 range, after which you have to add a potato or vegetable, which are $6-$9, so you're well above $40 before dessert, which will add anther $7-$9 to your tab. Throw in a $30-$40 bottle of wine and you can build up a stiff check fast.
Compare, for instance, Prune's prices to the much larger, more exciting Balthazar's (in a much pricier neighborhood, Soho), where entrees range from $14-$26, most with side dishes of potatoes, couscous, and /or vegetables. Or the menu at Payard Bistro's on the tony Upper East Side, where the most expensive main course is a NY Angus sirloin with black peppercorn sauce and frites, for $32. Or at TriBeCa's venerable Odeon, where roast free-range chicken with mushroom ragoût, fingerling potatoes, and asparagus costs just $18.
In perspective, then, though its bare bones decor would lead you to think otherwise, Prune is no bargain. You can get a whole lot more elsewhere for less.
SCHPEAK
DISCREETLY, SEIGFRIED, VE ARE SUPPOSED TO HAF DISAPPEARED!
"Walking into Café Sabarsky transports you into not one but two equally vanished worlds. One is the long-gone kaffeehaus world of fin-de-siecle Vienna--the schlag, the newspapers on long poles, the delicate pastries. The other is the more recently disappeared world of discreet, cultured New York--the Mittel European emigrés, the low voices engaged in hushed conversation."--"Five Museum-Quality Meals," The Wall Street Journal (April 29, 1005).
OH, JEEZ, JUST WAIT'LL JOE PESCI HEARS ABOUT THIS!
Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano vetoed a bill that would have allowed people to carry guns in bars and restaurants if they weren't drinking alcohol and if the businesses had not already banned them. Supporters of the bill, including the National Rifle Association, argued it would allow people to protect themselves and to avoid the risk of having their weapons stolen out of their cars.
"Walking into Café Sabarsky transports you into not one but two equally vanished worlds. One is the long-gone kaffeehaus world of fin-de-siecle Vienna--the schlag, the newspapers on long poles, the delicate pastries. The other is the more recently disappeared world of discreet, cultured New York--the Mittel European emigrés, the low voices engaged in hushed conversation."--"Five Museum-Quality Meals," The Wall Street Journal (April 29, 1005).
OH, JEEZ, JUST WAIT'LL JOE PESCI HEARS ABOUT THIS!
Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano vetoed a bill that would have allowed people to carry guns in bars and restaurants if they weren't drinking alcohol and if the businesses had not already banned them. Supporters of the bill, including the National Rifle Association, argued it would allow people to protect themselves and to avoid the risk of having their weapons stolen out of their cars.
QUICK BYTES
* During July, Sea Island Resort's First
Annual Americana Month will host Au Bon Climat Winery's Jim Clendenen
to headline
several events, including a tasting of spirited California Sea Island ISLAND or visit www.seaisland.com.
* From July 4-14 In NYC Les Halles Downtown will celebrate Independence Day and Bastille Day, with a Liberty Festival produced in NYC, D.C., and Miami, home to a Brasserie Les Halles. July 4-14: Les Halles Downtown will hold trivia quizzes, with music and a special “Revolutionary” menu. On July 14 the Liberty Festival street party will feature entertainment, Lady Liberty, and the Waiter’s/Waitress’ Race, with restaurant wait-staff from all over the city balancing a tray with a bottle and a wine glass on one hand. Also, a Chef’s Race, a Les Haller’s Race (Guest’s Race) and a Les Halles Angel’s Race (Children’s Race). The suggested entry fee for all races is $10, with all proceeds going to benefit Best Buddies.
* On July 11 Gaia restaurant inGreenwich , CT
* From July 4-14 In NYC Les Halles Downtown will celebrate Independence Day and Bastille Day, with a Liberty Festival produced in NYC, D.C., and Miami, home to a Brasserie Les Halles. July 4-14: Les Halles Downtown will hold trivia quizzes, with music and a special “Revolutionary” menu. On July 14 the Liberty Festival street party will feature entertainment, Lady Liberty, and the Waiter’s/Waitress’ Race, with restaurant wait-staff from all over the city balancing a tray with a bottle and a wine glass on one hand. Also, a Chef’s Race, a Les Haller’s Race (Guest’s Race) and a Les Halles Angel’s Race (Children’s Race). The suggested entry fee for all races is $10, with all proceeds going to benefit Best Buddies.
* On July 11 Gaia restaurant in
*
On July 13 Hotel
Byblos Saint-Tropez, along with Mrs. Jean-Pierre Aumont, will host
a dinner
gala to raise proceeds to further
research for Alzheimer’s disease. Sir
Roger Moore will be guest of honor, chaired
by Mr. Alain Delon, and Mr.
Jean-Claude Brialy. An auction
will
include art and jewels signed by Bulgari, Piaget, Chaumet, IWC,
Mauboussin,
Pouellato, Officine Panerai, Cartier, Dinh van, Bell&Ross, Vacheron
Constantin, Breitling and Omega. Also Nana Mouskouriwill perform.
*
On July 14 NYC’s Lincoln Center for the
Performing Arts presents “The Taste
of Summer,” when patrons of the arts are
invited to an evening of fun
that
includes dancing, a Lincoln Center
Festival event, and a celebrity chef food tasting that will
feature
delicacies and wines from more than 35 NYC restaurants,
incl. Brasserie 8 ½, Butter, Calle Ocho, Fleur de Sel, Manhattan
Ocean Club, Nice Matin,
Ouest, Pampano, Park
Avenue Café, Pearl Oyster Bar, Petrossian, Picholine, Tocqueville,
and WD-50.
* From July 14-16 the Sonoma County Showcase of Food and Wine will feature 125 winemakers, authors, and 50 food purveyors, at the MacMurray Ranch. Proceeds will go to county charities. Tickets to the Taste Event are $155/person. Call 707-586-3795 or visit www.sonomawine.com.
* On July 14-17, Rodney Strong Vineyards will host the 2005 Sonoma County Showcase of Wine & Food Live Auction and Dinner, with a series of lunches, dinners, tastings, live and silent auctions, and a performance by the San Francisco Symphony. The 2005 Showcase is taking place July 14-17. Visit www.sonomawine.com.
* On July 14
NYC’s La Grenouille will celebrate Bastille
Day with a special 5-course dinner at $95 pp.
Call 212-752-1495.
* From July 14-16 the Sonoma County Showcase of Food and Wine will feature 125 winemakers, authors, and 50 food purveyors, at the MacMurray Ranch. Proceeds will go to county charities. Tickets to the Taste Event are $155/person. Call 707-586-3795 or visit www.sonomawine.com.
* On July 14-17, Rodney Strong Vineyards will host the 2005 Sonoma County Showcase of Wine & Food Live Auction and Dinner, with a series of lunches, dinners, tastings, live and silent auctions, and a performance by the San Francisco Symphony. The 2005 Showcase is taking place July 14-17. Visit www.sonomawine.com.
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MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET NEWSLETTER is published weekly. Editor/Publisher:
John Mariani. Contributing Writers: Robert Mariani, Naomi
Kooker, Kirsten Skogerson, Edward Brivio, Mort
Hochstein, Lucy Gordan, Suzanne Wright. Contributing
Photographers: Galina Stepanoff-Dargery, Bobby Pirillo. Technical
Advisor: Gerry McLoughlin.
Any of John Mariani's books below
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copyright John Mariani 2005