MARIANI’S

  December 4, 2005                                                        NEWSLETTER

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In This Issue

      Blessed are the winemakers, for they keep faith with the land.
    This is particularly the case in Napa Valley where decades of careful tending have preserved the beauty of the territory and prevented expansive development in a way that maintains a harmony between nature and man.  There are some, of course, who regret that any development but agriculture destroys the Valley's basic character and beauty. Fortunately, those who have built resorts here have for the most part nestled them in the hillsides and kept signage to a size so inconspicuous that you might easily  miss your turn as you whizz up the Silverado Trail or Route 29.
      The restaurants of the Valley have for the most part arrayed themselves along the main arteries of the area, most of them within towns like Napa, St. Helena, and Calistoga; a few,  like those at Domaine Chandon and the Auberge du Soleil resort (180 Rutherford Hill Road, Rutherford;  707-963-1211; www.aubergedusoleil.com), have their own respectful architectural ties to the land. In the case of the latter, the resort cascades over 33 acres of hillsides in one of the finest sites in the Valley, and its view of the vineyards and surrounding territory is breathtaking.
     Since opening two decades ago, the Auberge has had several chefs, all of a high caliber, some more impressive than others.  The last, Richard Reddington, who garnered high praise for his work at the Auberge, is about to open his own restaurant, Redd, in Yountville, but his replacement, Robert Curry is, I think, every bit his equal and brings his own fresh style to the inn while maintaining a clear connection to wine country cuisine for which it has always been known. He comes from the position of exec chef at Wine Spectator Greystone Restaurant at the Culinary Institute of America in St. Helena, and has also worked at Domaine Chandon in Yountville, as well as doing stages at Louis XV in Monaco and Michel Rostang.
      The dining room here has a quiet, soft, colorful elegance, while the more rustic but well-appointed terrace tables are the most coveted, overlooking the vineyards. A lunch or evening here invites lingering over a bottle of wine from one of the Valley's stellar lists, as rich in non-California bottlings as it is the full range of the state's wine regions, assembled by sommelier Kris Margerum and now up to 1,500 selections and 17,000 bottles.
      At a recent lunch my wife and I sat happily on the terrace and dined splendidly on dishes that ranged from pâté foie blond with a cherry compote, aged balsamic, and watercress, to potato gnocchi with pea shoots, parmigiano, and a truffle nage.  Seared scallops with a white corn mousse, sugar snap peas, and a leek nage could not have been sweeter, and for main courses (this was August) there was roasted lamb with goat's cheese stuffed squash blossoms and haricots verts, crispy chicken with yellow wax beans and fingerling potatoes, and halibut with shell beans, string beans, bacon, and basil.
     It is easy to see how this kind of seasonal, well-balanced food, full of wonderful local vegetables, fits impeccably into the ambiance of the region itself.  One senses that Curry feels a sacred duty not to reach beyond what is provided by California's cornucopia for his larder, unless he has to get vanilla beans from Madagascar for his sumptuous gratin with local strawberries and a lemon chiffon, accompanied by a glass of 2002 Topaz Late Harvest Semillon.
      At lunch prices for first courses run $12-$16, main courses $19-$29; at dinner, $79 fixed price for four courses, with six courses at $105.
     
       

    One of the most striking new restaurants in the Valley is Press (587 St. Helena Hwy South, St.Helena;707-967-0550; ww.presssthelena.com), which designer Howard Bracken, who did Kokkari and Scala’s in San Francisco, has fashioned into a marvelous glass-paneled farmhouse, with a canny winery mix of metal and black walnut wood throughout. The lighting is ideal for such a place—bright but soft, falling on all tables with equal levels of illumination and highlighting the wall of wines, a bar made from wood trunks, a huge fireplace and rotisserie (left), and a dominant 20-foot Douglas fir beam.

      Oddly enough for a region of rich gastronomic resources, Napa Valley has longed lacked for a good steakhouse.  In Press it now has one, opened last May by Leslie Rudd (of Rudd Winery), Pat Roney (Girard Winery) and Reuben Katz (of the Culinary Institute of America). Chef Keith Luce (below right), whose work I admired at Spruce in Chicago, The Little Nell in Aspen, and Merenda in San Francisco, has been called upon to take the best American chophouse and French brasserie ideas and combine them with a symbiotic focus on Press’s location within the vineyards of Napa.  The wine list is, as you’d expect, rich in California bottlings, and almost every selection has a description of its background. There is also an extensive wine-by-the-glass offering.
    There are plenty of nice touches here, including tableside carving and side dishes served in family-style cooking utensils.  Wine glasses are of superb quality--Spiegelau-- and, thank God!--tables are covered with fine napery.

    The menu is one page long, with about 8 appetizers, five rotisserie items, six grill items, and six side dishes.  I was not wholly surprised to find the appetizers among the most interesting items, and it is in this category that Luce shows his true mettle—even in the simplest salad of limestone and Bibb lettuces with a mustard vinaigrette.  His Baja Bay scallops are cooked en cocotte, with plenty of cream and butter and some crispy Serrano ham on the side.  Jonah crab “Louie” (a take-off on the old San Fran dish crab Louis) was very fresh and very good, and equally delicious was a warm goat’s cheese gratin over tomatoes baked to manifest their essential sweetness.  A creamy seafood soup, one evening, was fishy, however.
     When it comes to the main courses, Luce seems to be coasting straight through a basic steaks-chops-seafood menu that doesn’t show his considerable talents to their best advantage. He does well by the Heritage Berkshire pork chop with a stone fruit relish, and my favorite entrée was the impeccably roasted chicken (below), golden, crisp-skinned, and juicy, carved tableside.  I was surprised by the lackluster flavor of Alaskan halibut with a “virgin tomato sauce” (I have no idea what that means).
     So, too, the Black Angus USDA Prime NY strip was far from the richly marbled, well-fatted aged beef I expected from such an ambitious effort as Press. Nor was it correctly charred on the outside, despite the zillion-dollar kitchen it emerged from.  You get your choice of sauces—béarnaise aïoli, mustard, horseradish, and others. Of the side orders, I loved the wax beans with wine-cured onions (why don’t more chefs feature wax beans?) and Chioggia beets with truffled pecorino cheese and a touch of purslane. Since Luce usually doesn’t stint on fat, I was surprised that a roasted potato and garlic cake lacked the flavor that fat should have provided.
     Although there is an array of farmhouse cheeses each night, it was not presented before or as an option to dessert, which is too bad. The best of the desserts was a lovely, rich chocolate soufflé with ice cream. Good, though not among my top 50, was the crème brûlée, and I’ve yet to find a really good rendition of baked Alaska, here a $20 dessert that is said to serve “two to six,” depending on how hungry you are after all that food.
     I can’t hold it against Luce that he is not working culinary miracles at Press, for that, apparently, was never the intention here.  He has given Napa some fine food that goes very well with Napa's big red wines, however, and the owners have opened the best-looking restaurant to open in the Valley in many years.
     Appetizers run $9-$14, entrees $26-$48.



NEW YORK CORNER
by John Mariani
Photos: NYCRestaurant.com

ROBERTO PASSON
741 Ninth Avenue
212-582-5599
www.robertopasson.com

      It appears there is never any let-up in the number of new trattorias opening in NYC, but I've yet to reach my own personal breaking point, given that entries like Roberto Passon are so wonderful, so personalized, and so true to form.
      Passon (left), previously chef at Le Zie and Le Zolloe, has joined investors from Puttanesca and Cara Mia, to open this charming west side Hell's Kitchen trattoria with bustle and a fast pace, yet somehow it is not unbearably loud or frantic, and the staff is agile enough to move among the tightly set tables with aplomb.  The walls are yellow-ish, the lighting low but convivial.
     While known for his Venetian cooking (he's actually from nearby Friuli), here at his namesake restaurant Passon is being more catholic with regional Italian cooking, but still keeping it in a style with gutsy flavors and generous proportions.  Thus, you might begin with creamy slices of mozzarella with basil and tomatoes (assuming the tomatoes are good this time of year), and a dish to share of shrimp seasoned with rosemary, tomato, and a white bean sauce over escarole dotted with pignoli and raisins--a lovely dish with counterpoint flavors and textures. The bread is crusty and delicious here, served with good olive oil.
     Pastas really shine as they should, from plump agnolotti with porcini mushrooms in a mushroom foam to tagliatelle with Maryland crabmeat and a shot of peperoncini in a buttery sparkling wine brodetto with Italian parsley: it sounds like too much and the peperoncini too assertive, but the dish came together impeccably. Risotto alla pescatora with fried rock shrimp was fair, but the best of the pastas was torsione (twisted macaroni) with a hearty bolognese sauce, touched with orange, lemon, and rich mascarpone--a terrific dish.
     Passon really knows how to handle fish, grilling red snapper perfectly and serving it with a light sauce of rosemary and lemon and a little vodka (which doesn't really do anything), with gnocchi and beets.  Ever powerless to resist langoustines when I see them on the menu, I found Passon's catch fat and sweet, though they certainly didn't need the addition of a mustard and basil broth and prosciutto-wrapped melon with buffalo mozzarella, an odd misstep for a chef who seems to know knows when enough is enough.
      The meat dishes I tried were delectable in every respect, however: A fine veal chop was stuffed with black truffles, fontina, and prosciutto in a Marsala wine sauce with vegetables, and Colorado lamb chops, succulent to the bone, came over farro with onions, peppers, tomatoes, and the sweet-sharp frutta di cremona.
       Desserts stray far from the ordinary, with items like oven-roasted pineapple with coconut sorbet and a dark vanilla rum sauce and candied pistachio and a rich, dense chocolate tart with caramel sauce and peanut brittle.  Best of all was the praline of Italian meringue, hazelnut and chocolate ganache topped with a white chocolate mousse.
      This is very ambitious food from a small kitchen, yet Passon knows what he can and cannot do most of the time, so that the flavors of trattoria cooking are not brushed aside in favor of alta cucina in a warm, inviting storefront where you get good food of high caliber. Prices are, however, high for a restaurant of this type and neighborhood, with antipasti run $13-$16, pastas as a first course $15-$18, main courses $27-$38. At lunch the food is more or a bargain.

WE ALSO GET A WHIFF OF ROTTING BARNACLES AND BOAT VARNISH

RESTAURANTS WE WON'T BE RUSHING TO
Earwax Cafe, a Chicago vegetarian restaurant specializing in scrambled tofu and seitan dishes.

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.

 John Mariani is a columnist for Esquire, Wine Spectator, Bloomberg News and Radio, and Diversion.  He is author of The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink (Lebhar-Friedman), The Dictionary of Italian Food and Drink (Broadway), and, with his wife Galina, the award-winning new Italian-American Cookbook (Harvard Common Press).

 Any of John Mariani's books below may be ordered from amazon.com by clicking on the cover image.

copyright John Mariani 2005