Virtual Gourmet
ANNOUNCEMENT The 5th Annual Palm Beach Food & Wine Festival will take place this year from Dec. 9-13, with a star-studded, epicurean extravaganza hosted on the resort island playground of Palm Beach. Join James Beard Award-winning chefs, Food Network personalities, authors, winemakers, mixologists and a plethora of local talent in an unforgettable series of dinners and parties that will saturate your senses in the most anticipated culinary event of the season. Chefs include Michelle Bernstein, Daniel Boulud, David Burke, Clay Conley, Scott Conant, Dean Max, Michael Schwartz, and many more. John Mariani is proud to be Honorary Chairman. For info click here.
THIS
WEEK
WHERE TO EAT IN MIAMI RIGHT NOW by John Mariani NEW YORK CORNER: PATSY'S by John Mariani MAN ABOUT TOWN: THE PIERRE HOTEL AND LE CAPRICE by Christopher Mariani
WHERE
TO EAT IN MIAMI RIGHT NOW
By John Mariani
Thanks to an increase of
rich South Americans, free-spending Russian
zillionaires, and euro-giddy Europeans, South Florida
doesn’t really have much of an off season any more,
which in turn leads to more restaurant openings and
more consistent service. But the chilly weather is upon much of
the USA, and it snowed in NYC this week, so you
might be thinking of a Miami escape. If
you’re planning a trip there this fall or winter,
here’s where you’ll want to eat.
WYNWOOD
KITCHEN AND BAR 2550
NW 2nd Avenue www.wynwoodkitchenandbar.com Photo by Mark Raskams
GIGI 305-573-1520
If you like loud
and you like late—5 AM on weekends--Gigi, in
Midtown, is the place to get it, along with
remarkably tasty casual dining, from snacks like
grilled corn with tofu to buns filled with crispy
chicken skin and aïoli to BBQ ribs with hoisin
sauce. There are raw seafood offerings like tuna with
yellow watermelon and celery, and noodle bowls like
Caribbean shrimp pad Thai. And you've got to order the
cornbread with honey-bacon butter, which deserves the
contemporary foodster cliché "awesome." It’s
all cement walls, floors, closely set tables, and big
windows. Spend an hour here and you’ll see that
everyone at every table seems to know at least one
person from another. And it's open daily, serves
breakfast, brunch--which is big here--you named it.
They aim to please, and they even keep the wine prices
low. Billecart-Salmon Brut Champagne at $56 is a
great deal.
ZUMA
www.sustainmiami.com
This new Midtown
hit has one of the city’s best-balanced American menus
via Chef Alejandro Pinero, whose approach to his
ingredients gives the restaurant its name. It’s a
grand space, lighted to show off its guests, with a
mangrove rib-cage wall, cypress benches, and open
kitchen. The
snack food--soft
pretzels accompanied by wholegrain mustard and orange
blossom honey; pigs in a blanket served with spicy
mustard; and fried chickpeas in herb-infused oil—is as
good across the board as hearty main courses like BBQ
grilled quail with Brussels sprouts, cipollini onions,
and mustard-horseradish cream; and wreckfish served
with cannellini beans, escarole, chorizo, and clams. Oh, and the
“wet fries” are drizzled with bone marrow gravy. For
dessert? Key lime crème brûlée.
Eden Roc Renaissance
Hotel 4525 Collins Avenue, Miami Beach 305-674-5594 Photo by Brett Hufziger Two
hundred
twenty million dollars have brought back Miami Beach’s
art deco glitz to the Eden Roc Renaissance Hotel,
designed in 1956 by the weirdly great Morris Lapidus
as a place where, in those ring-a-ding days, Frank,
Dean, and Sammy ran boozy riot and Nat King Cole and
Streisand played the Café Pompeii. DaSilva
bases
as much of her menu as possible on the bounty of
Florida farms and waters, so start off with a ceviche
of Florida wahoo with peppers, onions, cilantro and
lime juice. The 1950s-style grilled peach salad with
blue cheese, candied pecans, and truffle vinaigrette
looks as delectable as Esther Williams on a plate. For a
steak, go with the Brazilian cut of Prime sirloin
called picanha,
and for dessert, the Homestead blueberry shortcake
with ginger mascarpone cream and Florida corn ice
cream will give you sweet dreams.
NEW
YORK CORNER Patsy's
If Frank Sinatra had
ever hosted a TV talk show back in the 1950s, I bet he
would have done it sitting at Patsy’s, his favorite
Italian restaurant, which has been in New York’s
Theater District since 1944. The TV camera would bring
you through the door and you’d be greeted by Patsy
Scognamillo or his son Joe like old friends, past
walls hung with black-and-white photos of every show
biz star of the day, then draw in on a corner table
where Frank is sitting with Dean Martin, Rosemary
Clooney, Tony Bennett Don Rickles, and Ernie Kovacs,
nursing a Scotch on the Rocks and telling his pals how
terrific the clams arreganata are, how the mozzarella in carozza
will melt in your mouth, how the rigatoni sorrentino
is groovy, and the sausages pizzaiolo with peppers
ring-a-ding-ding.
Old Blue Eyes would ask Rosie to sing “Come
On-a My House,” and Dean to do a few bars of “That’s
Amore,” and then they bring the fabulous cheesecake,
drip-pot espresso, and a bottle of sambucca with
coffee beans. Frank
thanks everybody for watching and says, “See you
tomorrow night with guests Charlton Heston, Ava
Gardner, and Sophia Loren.” Patsy's
fan Tony Bennett with Joe and Chef Sal Scognamillo
You miss veal francese? You get three flavorful
fillets lightly battered and sautéed in fine
olive oil and white wine and graced with lemon slices.
You love cannolis? Patsy’s makes theirs with homemade
ricotta, sugar, orange peel, citron fruit, and
chocolate chips. Chicken
contadina with red peppers and mushrooms
Patsy's is open for lunch and dinner daily. Antipasti run $10-$19; Pastas (full portions) $20-$27; main courses $27-$39; Pre-theater menu $50. This article appeared in a shorter version in Saveur Magazine.
The Pierre Hotel and Le Caprice On the
corner of 61st and 5th
sits the Pierre Hotel, towering over the southeast
corner of Central Park. The location is magnificent.
If you are looking to experience a taste of NYC’s most
luxurious hotels, there is no finer place in autumn to
encounter such excellent service and beauty than at
The Pierre.
To contact Christopher
Mariani send an email to christopher@johnmariani.com
❖❖❖ PERFECT HALLOWEEN
GIFT
Former
radio personality critic Frank DeCaro has published The
Dead
Celebrity Cookbook: A Resurrection of Recipes by 150
Stars of Stage and Screen, taken from old
cookbooks and magazines, including Lucille Ball's
"Cheese-y Thing,"
Liberace's Sticky Buns,
Bette
Davis's Red Flannel Hash, Gypsy Rose Lee's
Portuguese Fish Chowder
John Ritter's Famous Fudge,
Andy Warhol's Ghoulish Goulash,
Vincent
Price's Pepper Steak
, Lawrence Welk's Vegetable
Croquettes, and
Sonny Bono's Spaghetti with Fresh
Tomato Sauce
❖❖❖
Any of John Mariani's
books below may be ordered from amazon.com.
❖❖❖
FEATURED
LINKS: I am happy to report
that the Virtual
Gourmet is linked to four excellent
travel sites: Everett Potter's Travel Report: I consider this the best and
savviest blog of its kind on the web. Potter is a
columnist for USA
Weekend, Diversion, Laptop and Luxury Spa Finder,
a contributing editor for Ski and a frequent contributor
to National
Geographic Traveler, ForbesTraveler.com
and Elle Decor.
"I’ve designed this site is for people who take
their travel seriously," says Potter. "For
travelers who want to learn about special places
but don’t necessarily want to pay through the nose for
the privilege of staying there. Because at the end
of the day, it’s not so much about five-star
places as five-star experiences." THIS WEEK: BEST
AND WORST AIRLINES; LETTER FROM INDIA.
Eating Las Vegas is the new on-line site for Virtual Gourmet contributor John A. Curtas., who since 1995 has been commenting on the Las Vegas food scene and reviewing restaurants for Nevada Public Radio. He is also the restaurant critic for KLAS TV, Channel 8 in Las Vegas, and his past reviews can be accessed at KNPR.org. Click on the logo below to go directly to his site.
Tennis Resorts Online: A Critical Guide to the World's Best Tennis Resorts and Tennis Camps, published by ROGER COX, who has spent more than two decades writing about tennis travel, including a 17-year stretch for Tennis magazine. He has also written for Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel, New York Magazine, Travel & Leisure, Esquire, Money, USTA Magazine, Men's Journal, and The Robb Report. He has authored two books-The World's Best Tennis Vacations (Stephen Greene Press/Viking Penguin, 1990) and The Best Places to Stay in the Rockies (Houghton Mifflin, 1992 & 1994), and the Melbourne (Australia) chapter to the Wall Street Journal Business Guide to Cities of the Pacific Rim (Fodor's Travel Guides, 1991).
ALL YOU NEED BEFORE YOU GO
MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET
NEWSLETTER is published weekly. Editor/Publisher: John
Mariani.
Contributing Writers: Christopher Mariani, Robert Mariani,
John A. Curtas, Edward Brivio, Mort Hochstein,
Suzanne Wright, and Brian Freedman. Contributing
Photographers: Galina Stepanoff-Dargery,
Bobby Pirillo. Technical Advisor: Gerry McLoughlin.
© copyright John Mariani 2011 |