Virtual Gourmet

"LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS"

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

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ANNOUNCEMENT

This Tuesday, Oct. 30, the French Institute Alliance Française,

John Mariani, and a special culinary guest will be hosting
the French food film "Entre les Bras" (2010), about Master Chef
Michel Bras and his family. Guest host will be
chef Jean-Louis Gérin of Restaurant Jean-Louis in
Greenwich, CT. All screenings will be held
at Florence Gould Hall, 55 East 59th Street at 7:30 PM,
followed by Q&A with host. Tickets $10. For info click here.

STORM WARNING!
If, owing to the arrival of Hurricane Sandy this weekend,
you do not receive next weekend's Virtual Gourmet (Nov. 4),
it will be because I have either been swept away by Sandy
or the power in my neighborhood is down. Wish me luck!
--John Mariani

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THIS WEEK

AUTUMN LEAVES AND DINING WELL IN CONNECTICUT
by John Mariani

LAST CALL FOR LOCKE-OBER?
by John Mariani

NEW YORK CORNER
PERLA
by John Mariani

NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR
Morellino di Scanscano
by Mort Hochstein

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Photo by Galina Dargery

AUTUMN LEAVES AND
DINING WELL IN CONNECTICUT

English poet John Keats did not have Connecticut in mind when he wrote of autumn, "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,/Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun," but had he ever visited the region he might well have done so. It's a beautiful state at any time of year but shows off its greatest colors after Indian summer fades. The ash trees turn purple, the hickories and maples yellow, the oak bright red. It's a great time for a vacation from anywhere or a drive from New York, and you can eat well all over the state, especially in the southern region, where nationally heralded restaurants like Jean-Louis and Thomas Henkelmann at The Homestead Inn, both in Greenwich, The Elms Inn in Ridgefield, and The Dressing Room in Westport have long been distinguished. This past year a new crop has grown up in the Nutmeg State, well deserving that direction, worth a journey.

ELM
73 Elm Street
203-920-4994
www.elmrestaurant.com

         Not everyone will go anywhere for a great meal, and most people would not think that New Canaan, Connecticut, eighth wealthiest suburb in the U.S., would be where to find one. Yet there in the ‘burbs is Elm, which chef-owner, Brian Lewis, calls, correctly, “a world-class restaurant with small town charm.”
         In 2009 Esquire honored Lewis (below) when he was chef at Richard Gere’s Bedford Post Inn; now at his own place, which I honored in Esquire for 2012, Lewis is working at the top of his form with elegant dishes like griddled langoustines with pearly white garlic soup, uni butter, prosciutto lardo, and togarashi chile pepper. He invigorates black bass with chorizo and an eggplant aïoli, sweet pepper oil, black olive and golden saffron, and brings back the luster to good old carrot cake with a carrot pudding, walnut brittle, and caramel ice cream.
         Lewis was born in the suburbs, and, after leaving the Inn to find his own “stage,” he decided against California and New York. Sounding like Dorothy back from Oz, he says, “I realized I had never been so inspired as I was right here in the country. I decided that the stage is where you make it, you know, wherever you go, there you are. I’d become highly involved with a terrific network of talented chefs, passionate farmers and artisan craftsman, all that any urban hot spot would need as fuel for their fire, only it was right here in my backyard. So we just put our heads down and cook from our hearts for our neighbors and those up from Manhattan who are looking for a bit of the country and finding a taste of New York."
     His commitment becomes obvious in dishes like "crunchy" big-eye tuna with sunchokes, soy and brown butter caramel and his English pea sacchetti with lemon brown butter and pecorino--simplicity itself, delicious on every level. A duo of veal with hazelnut crumble, Mangalica ham, artichokes, farro, and hay ash was the exact opposite--too much going on on one plate. But his confit of pork with grits, stone fruit mostarda and a soft egg blended beautifully. For the Parker House rolls (left) alone, Elm deserves a special trip.
    There is a selection of artisanal cheeses well worth ordering, but you don't want to miss pastry chef Caryn Stabinsky's excellent toffee pudding with crème fraîche of her dark chocolate pot de creme with ruby beet sorbet.

Elm is open nightly. Lunch service, Sunday brunch and supper to follow; Appetizers: $11-$21, Pastas: $15-$23, Entrees: $20-$36; Four-Course Chef’s Farm Tour: $75/ $120 with wine pairings.

ARTISAN
Delamar Hotel
275 Old Post Road
Southport, CT
203-307-4222
artisansouthport.com.

I have been happily tracking Parisian-born Chef Frederic Kieffer since he was at Gaia in Greenwich after working his way through esteemed Paris restaurants like Taillevent, Le Chiberta, and the Lutetia Hotel. He was part of the re-opening of Windows of the World, then at Water’s Edge and Man Ray in NYC. Now he is back in Connecticut running two kitchens, Artisan and L'Escale (see below), which are quite different in style and menu.

Artisan's name says a good deal: the design melds Connecticut rustic with 19th century Scandinavian furniture, oxidized mirror panels, copper string chandeliers, a pewter-top bar, and a charming kakelugn, a Swedish tile stove that serves as a fireplace where you can sit and sip a Cognac or Single Malt.

The restaurant space sprawls over several rooms, including the 50-seat Tavern, and in good weather there are outside tables. The place has been very popular since opening and on crush nights, service is well meaning but can be slow.

Kieffer’s menu is full of hearty dishes, especially now that cooler weather is here. When I dined in warmer weather, richness of taste abounded in a wonderful lobster bisque that really tasted of lobster, not always a given elsewhere. The same goes for a textbook perfect chowder, teeming with chunks of seafood and served wit a fennel crackers. Griddled crabcake was bound with too much breading, but Kieffer’s pastas are very well wrought, including a wild mushrooms and farro risotto with Fossa cheese from Emilia Romagna, and delicious goat’s cheese gnocchi with a lamb meat sauce and arugula.

I liked the generous meat dishes, especially the beef pot roast with whipped potatoes and roasted baby vegetables and the finely grained Berkshire pork chop, juicy throughout, with fingerling potatoes, apple, bacon, sweet prune and a hard cider sauce, which is a totem of autumn cookery. On the night we dined, the seafood didn't quite come up to that standard, a dorade too strong in taste and scallops overcooked.

It would be tough to pass up desserts like creamy chocolate pudding with hazelnut crunch, sour cherry-whipped cream or an outstanding cheesecake with caramel and shake of sea salt. Silly in an over-the-top way but irresistible nonetheless is the lavish banana split of caramelized bananas, Nutella, ice creams, fudge and almonds.
Photos by Jane Beiles

Artisan Restaurant is is open seven days a week for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Brunch on Sun. Appetizers run $11-$17, entrees $27-$43.

L'ESCALE
Delamar Greenwich Harbor Hotel
500 Steamboat Road
Greenwich, CT
203-661-4600
lescalerestaurant.com

L’Escale opened earlier than Artisan but has been re-conceived since Kieffer came aboard in summer, 2011, and it’s now a much better focused restaurant than it used to be.

In warm weather everyone likes to grab an outdoor table on the harbor, which has its summery charms galore. Men dress in lockstep—tennis shirts, khakis, loafers, but the affluent ladies of the Gold Coast put on the summer finery here, as they do inside now that autumn is here, when their male counterparts switch to cable-knit sweaters and blue blazers.

The interior is a kind of marriage between suburban rustic and boathouse chic, with lots of distressed old wood and bistro chairs. The bar here gets a tony early and late-night crowd.

The menu at L’Escale--the name means "port of call"--is quite distinct from Artisan’s. It’s long and offers more for everyone, and though the dishes have French titles with French, Italian, and American flavors throughout, beginning with imported (“from Italie”) burrata with pickled eggplants. Very good are the broiled prawns with lemon and peppers, as are the grilled, not fried, calamari with avocado, tomato and basil, which you’d find on the French and Italian Rivieras. Also go for one or two of the daily tartares or carpaccios, each glistening fresh and refreshing with preserved lemon, olive oil, and herbs. I can't say the price of $150 for Chinese farmed caviar is advisable.

The lamb chops are big, rich, well-fatted and served Provençale style with tomatoes, fingerlings, and a touch of rosemary in the jus, while those craving an authentic bouillabaisse, based on the day’s best seafood selection, will be rewarded at L’Escale with the traditional ruddy saffron broth and the garlic-rich rouille and croutons. You’ll be just as happy with the way French fried potatoes are done to a golden turn.
You'd expect perfect soufflés--here chocolate and vanilla with pistachio sauce--and my favorite dessert, profieroles, are stuffed with ice cream and lavished with warm milk chocolate sauce. There are also banana beignets and a warm apple tart.

So, if you're feeling nostalgic for those nights in Nice or San Remo and miss the taste of bouillabaisse, don your blue blazer or new Ralph Lauren ensemble, and head for L'Escale. You''ll get lost in a reverie.

L'Escale is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Appetizers run $11-$22, entrees $14-$28.

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LAST CALL AT LOCKE-OBER?
by John Mariani

         The website announcement sounds pretty final: “Locke-Ober is currently closed for business pending the sale of our building. From all of our employees and proprietors, past and present, we thank you for your support and the opportunity to respectfully serve the community of Boston for the last 137 years.”
    It is always unfortunate when an historical restaurant closes, but Locke-Ober is a special case. It is famous for several reasons beyond its longevity, not all of them admirable. Alsatian-born Luis Ober took over the premises in 1875 on Winter Place, with money from the owner of Jordan Marsh, who ever afterwards had a table at the restaurant, decorated in the Parisian style, with expanses of mahogany, etched gold wallpaper, an L-shaped bar, and six silver tureens lifted by pulleys, designed by Reed and Barton. An early tradition among diners was to touch the toe of a bronze statue of “Gloria Victus,” and a nude portrait of “Mademoiselle Yvonne” (right) by Tomaso Juglaris (covered with a black sash whenever Harvard lost to Yale) has been a symbol of the restaurant’s genteel hospitality.
    Frank Locke, a saloonkeeper, joined Ober to open a café, and after 1894 various owners kept the restaurant thriving well into the 20^th century. The cuisine was in the French style of the time and didn't change much over the decades—the current menu still lists Dover sole, crab Louis salad, escargots bourguignon, and its lobster stew (said to be JFK’s favorite dish).
    The place always drew Boston’s Brahmins and important figures visiting Boston, but Locke-Ober’s banning of women from the downstairs Men’s Grill (left) until 1970 when invaded by a protest group was a smudge mark upon the place, long after such discrimination had disappeared in American restaurants elsewhere.
    My few visits over the years have been hit and miss. Back in the late 1970s, shunted upstairs by a frowning maître d’ well known for his lack of tact, I found an ugly, ill-lighted room with walls stained by rusty water. The food was lackluster and served without the slightest degree of civility. Later visits at renovated premises showed Locke-Ober to be a much more gregarious, democratic place, but the food, with pretty much the same menu, improved in quality. But by the 1990s the luster had worn off what had become a tourist restaurant, not much improved by late owners and chefs.
    And so, although this is not the first time Locke-Ober has closed its doors, this may the last call for a place rich in Boston tradition. Like Galatoire’s and Antoine’s in New Orleans and Delmonico’s and `21’ Club in NYC, Locke-Ober is a reminder of any earlier style of dining, one too often based on preferential treatment for some and snobbish dismissal for others. But for the beauty of its design, now irreplaceable, the cast of its menu, and a place in American history, it’s a sorry thing if Locke-Ober is gone forever.

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NEW YORK CORNER
by John Mariani

Perla
24 Minetta Lane
212-933-1824
http://perlanyc.com

    Remember Billy Joel’s song “Scenes from an Italian Restaurant”--“A bottle of red, a bottle of white/It all depends upon your appetite/I'll meet you any time you want/In our Italian Restaurant.”? That’s Perla, a place you’d go at the drop of hat, the perfect little Greenwich Village Italian restaurant, where you call ahead to owner Gabe Stulman and ask, “Hey, is the fazzoletti bolognese on the menu tonight?” and Gabe says, “Yeah, I’ll save you a portion,” and you say, “Be there in twenty,” and you get caught in traffic and there’s a ten-minute wait, so you nurse a negroni, and see a plate of braised octopus with oven-dried tomatoes pass by, and you are really, deeply starving, and so happy you’re at your favorite Italian restaurant.d, a bottle of white/It all depends upon your appetite/I'll meet you any time you want/In our Italian Restaurant.”? That’s Perla, a place you’d go at the drop of hat, the perfect little Greenwich Village Italian restaurant, where you call ahead to owner Gabe Stulman and ask, “Hey, is the fazzoletti bolognese on the menu tonight?” and Gabe says, “Yeah, I’ll save you a portion,” and you say, “Be there in twenty,” and you get caught in traffic and there’s a ten-minute wait, so you nurse a negroni, and see a plate of braised octopus with oven-dried tomatoes pass by, and you are really, deeply starving, and so happy you’re at your favorite Italian restaurant.
    My editor and I went to Perla for a leisurely working lunch and found we stayed later and ate more than we'd planned, but everything on the menu sounded so good, the aromas coming from the kitchen were so enticing, and the wine working their way early on, that we kept pointing to items on the menu and kept eating. It was past three when we left, full and smiling broadly.
    What we ate, via exec chef Michael Toscano, included irresistible foie gras pancakes with peach and maple syrup--a dish that veers from the basic Italian cast of the menu--and some shrimp alla piastra, with a fregola salad. The pizzas here are first rate and have out-of-the-ordinary toppings, besides a fine one in the margherita style. There's one with "clams casino," topped with Littlenecks, sweet peppers, and pancetta that's a must-try.
    For pastas I can heartily recommend cavatelli with squash, arugula and pancetta, and the black tagliatelle with corn and Scotch bonnet peppers. There is so much more, but it changes so often, so just go, check out the blackboard items for the day, order anything. You won't go away hungry.

Perla is open for lunch Fri.-Sun., for dinner nightly. At dinner antipasti run $12-$15, pastas $18-$26 and main courses $24-$32.

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NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR

Morellino Di Scansion
by Mort Hochstein

When I’m asked to suggest an inexpensive red wine, I normally recommend Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, which hovers in price around the very sweet spot   of $12.   Friends have been praising   Grifone Primitivo, from Roccadero in Puglia, which has been roaring off the shelves at   an incredible $3.99 from Trader Joe in Manhattan, reminding me of the fuss a few years ago over Two-Buck Chuck, aka Charles Shaw, notorious at that ridiculously low    price in California and for a buck or two more in New York and other regions.
   Recently I found a new family of wines which are also in the Montepulciano price range,    depending on quality and where you shop. Like   those from Abruzzo, they are light, fruity and easy drinking. These are the wines of Morellino Di Scansano, coming from the Tuscany Maremma, a region known for its fine horses and Tuscan cowboys, where wild boar is often featured on the dinner plate along with seafood from the Tyrrhenian Sea. The nearby seacoast is a favorite of Italians and Scandinavian refugees from long cold winters.
    Morellino wines   have been available, though often overlooked, in the American market for years. Wine merchants tell me customers today have become more aware and   are moving toward them   because of their price and value.     Knowledgeable restaurateurs attracted by   low cost and   their easy drinking characteristics, have long favored them, particularly for wine by the glass options.. More Morellinos of higher quality are increasingly available as several of Italy’s major producers have entered the arena, drawn by inexpensive land with good potential .Those heavyweights include Jacopo Biondi-Santi of Montalcino, who’s been producing a high-end Scansano listing at $45, and others such as Castello di Romitorio of Chianti and Fattoria dei Barbi of Montalcino.
The region’s winemaking provenance flows back to the time of the Etruscans, that strange yet rich civilization which preceded the Roman era. Researchers unearthing Etruscan tombs and deserted fields have found earthenware jars holding grape seeds, vineyard tools, kilns and other wine-related artifacts dating back to the fifth century. Romans conquered the Scansano territory circa 280 BC and produced wine destined for the empire’s western provinces.    When Rome fell, the region declined and the population shrank as people abandoned the region to escape flooding and swamps in coastal areas.   Until relatively recently, only a handful of growers remained, producing primarily for their own and local consumption.   Morellino (right), one of the many clones of Sangiovese, takes its name from horses named Morelli, used to pull the carriages of locals fleeing the malaria-infested swampy coastal region for higher ground at Grosetto.
    The number of vineyards and producers increased dramatically after 2007 when the region’s wines were elevated to DOCG status. Morellino could be called a ‘new-old’ vineyard region,   since nearly 80% of its fields were given over to grapes vines   only in the last two decades. At a recent count, there were 520 growers producing more than two million gallons and close to 11 million bottles of wine annually. Very little Morellino is sold in bulk.
    We tasted a batch of Morellino wines in early October at the Cork Buzz winebar in New York City. Though they came from different vineyards , some hilly, some low lying, some coastal, they were uniformly fruit forward, velvety, and   extremely approachable Under DOCG regulations, 85% of grapes must be Sangiovese, and most are blends using Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Merlot and, occasionally, Alicante. These are not wines for laying down and   should not be held more than five years. We tasted just one 100% Sangiovese, Terre di Fiori Ventaio 2009 ,   with a distinctive floral aroma. It is a supple, elegant wine from a single vineyard benefiting from partial aging in oak Moris Farms 20ll, Sangiovese with a helping of Cabernet and Syrah, boasting blueberry, blackberry spicy qualities   was our opener and it set a pattern of easy approachability for the wines that followed. Our favorite was the oldest wine we sampled, Poggio Valente Riserva 2008 from Fattoria Le Pupille, Sangiovese   given added power, spice and body from Syrah and Alicante. It was delightfully smooth on the palate, with gin-like hints of juniper. For the wine fan seeking a broader spectrum, Scansano would be worth a detour on the wines shelves and on the roads of Italy.

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DEPARTMENT OF REALLY, REALLY BAD TASTE

Southern Comfort has announced the release of a special military-only package "to pay tribute to our servicemen and women protecting our country." “We’re extremely proud to release these special camouflage Southern Comfort bottles in honor of our servicemen and women,” said John Tichenor, VP, Group Brand Director, Southern Comfort. “May it remind us all of the sacrifices our troops make every day to preserve our freedom.” Bottles will sell for $16.99, only on military bases.

RESTAURANT REVIEWS WE
NEVER FINISHED READING

“Shish kebab and sunshine are hot right now.”
—Cal Foster, “Pleasanton on the Mediterranean,”
Diablo Magazine (Sept. 2012).

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N Squared Productions Public Relations Campaign

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.