NOTES
FROM THE WINE CELLAR Good Parties
Deserve Good Wines from Even the Thriftiest Hosts
by John Mariani
❖❖❖
DINING IN CHICAGO, Part Two
by John Mariani
Chicago, forever
known, in Carl Sandburg's poem, as "City of the Big
Shoulders," is equally the City of the Great
Architecture, and into it fit some of the
best-designed hotels and restaurants in America.
THE
PENINSULA HOTEL
108 E Superior Street
312- 337-2888 peninsulachicago.com The
Peninsula
Hotel, now 13 years old, is one of Chicago’s very
finest and certainly the most beautiful in view of its
baronial space, with a grand lobby leading to the
concierge and front desk,\ and in the clean, modern
style and design of the rooms, each with a wonderful
view of one or another facet of America’s most
majestic cityscape. Downstairs is one of the city’s best and most
elegantly appointed Chinese restaurants, Shanghai Terrace,
with its outdoor tables, and afternoon tea is very
popular at the hotel. In May 2012 Chef Lee Wolen came onboard to turn
the Lobby into the hotel’s primary dining venue (the
former Avenues dining room is now used for private
parties), and it has the same spectacular size and
panorama that distinguishes the rest of the hotel
space here, with twenty-foot floor-to-ceiling windows
overlooking Michigan Avenue (left). The odd banality of the restaurant’s name is
hardly a draw, but
Wolen, with a résumé that includes
Eleven Madison Park in NYC, has crafted a menu that
has been getting rave local reviews, and I wholly
concur that he has quickly become one of the most
exciting chefs in the city, and one who has not gone
the gimmicky route of some of his publicity-grabbing
colleagues. Among my favorite starters was a salad of
pristine peekytoe crab, garlic, asparagus, prawn and
sea urchin with a foamy urchin sauce. His ricotta gnocchi with
rosy Serrano ham and English peas is simple
perfection, and his hand-rolled cavatelli with
rabbit confit, artichokes and mustard worked well.
Wolen’s rendering of octopus, with heirloom
carrots, slivers of radish and nubbins of smoked ham
is already a star dish. Marinated Kona kampachi
was well married to olives, favas and mild sorrel,
while a torchon
of foie gras was given a little crunch from almonds
and a citrusy sweetness from grapefruit. Of the entrees, I was amazed by the deep, rich
flavors of his whole roasted chicken with morels,
potatoes and ramps, which at $54 for two is the city’s
best bargain for great cuisine. It comes to the
table in a hot skillet and is deftly cut apart before
you, its crackling skin hiding an herb stuffing
(think Pepperidge Farm to the sublime) and is sauced
with cream and morels. What a great dish. Roasted scallops came with peas, more morels
and guanciale bacon,
all
to good effect, while olive-oiled poached halibut with
razor clams, shrimp and lemongrass straddled every
coastline of America with considerable panache. Of
course, Wolen uses Colorado lamb, whose fatty richness
makes all the difference in a dish with feta, toasted
chickpeas and roasted eggplant and puree. His cooking is all of a style, one with
flourish not flamboyance. The principal flavors
and textures are all complemented, never overwhelmed.This applies to the desserts, too, like
tarte Tatin with vanilla ice cream and crème
fraîche, and his tender chocolate cake with dark
chocolate pot
de crème. Wolen has given this large lobby space a
personality it would otherwise lack, and he is be
commended for maintaining the balance of fine cuisine
without the gastro-theatrics.
The Lobby is open for breakfast
daily, brunch on Sun., Lunch Mon.-Fri., and dinner
nightly. Entrees $27-$39.
CARRIAGE
HOUSE
1700
W. Division Avenue 773-384-9700 CarriageHouseChicago.com
There’s
no more reason that Chicago shouldn’t have one of
America’s best Southern restaurants like Carriage
House than for having a great steakhouse or Thai
restaurant. With its wooden communal tables, farmhouse
accents, ceiling fans, bentwood chairs and dishtowel
napkins, Carriage House is close in spirit and flavor
to the best restaurants in Charleston, Savannah,
Atlanta, and Memphis, and better than many. Chef
Mark Steuer shows what he is calling “Re-imagined” Low
Country cooking at its best, by adding a good deal of
himself to traditional dishes like sherry-laced
she-crab soup with hot drop biscuits; his big, tasty
shrimp with heirloom grits are textbook, and the
Carolina rice balls with pimiento cheese and pickled
cabbage are just plain delicious fun. There’s much to applaud by his combining high
and low in a dish of cornbread in a black skillet with
foie gras, nectarine marmalade and smoked salt (left). And
you can’t help but lick your fingers after a taste of
his juicy quail with black pepper dumplings, Vidalia soubise and
pickle relish. The “Supper” items here are very well
priced for a whole lot of good, honest food, like a
Low Country Boil teeming with
seafood, rabbit, sausage and potatoes (right). The dining room itself is spare and loud, so
it’s not a place to linger. Conviviality might be
increased by a bit of sound-proofing, but you can
still carry on a civilized conversation here.
Something tells me their Sunday brunch would be
terrific, sipping a Creole Cocktail made with bourbon,
Carpano Antica vermouth, Ramazzotti, Benedictine and
orange bitters, or a nice pitcher of punch.
The Carriage House is
open for lunch Tues.-Fri., for brunch Sat. &
Sun., for dinner Tues.-Sun. Dinner prices $6-$34.
QUARTINO
RISTORANTE & BAR
626
North State Street 312-698-5000 quartinoChicago.com
I
have admired Chef John Coletta ever since he opened
the fine Caliterra Bar & Grille back in 1999.
Now, with Quartino, opened ten years ago, he has
crystallized all he knows and loves about Italian
food, traditional and regional, so that obvious care
and long experience shows in every dish, however
ubiquitous it may seem around Chicago’s Italian
restaurant-scape. It’s a very handsome place in an old-fashioned
way: there’s a salumeria
counter hung with sausages, a bar with its own small
bites menu, the rough wood tables are stacked high
with plates to share, ceiling fans whirl away, and
there are outside tables. They also offer a $25 lunch
for two people that is just downright remarkable.
It’s a huge place—600 seats—and it’s packed at lunch, but the large
staff seems to keep up with everything with aplomb,
and friendliness of spirit guides everything here.
Actually, the menu is way too big and tries to
do too much; cutting its scores of dishes back by a
third would probably be wise. I barely made a dent in the menu over a lavish,
multi-course lunch, but I’d certainly go back to try
just about everything at Quartino. Begin with an array
of antipasti like Sicilian caponata,
roasted peppers, salumi, Calabrian sausage, duck
prosciutto, and much more. The pizzas are good
enough on their own to order as a first course, with
almost 20 options. Again, fewer would be better. The house-made pastas are excellent, from plump
ravioli with braised pork and Speck with
favas to cavatelli
with tomato and ricotta (right). None is priced over $12.75
and the portions are more than generous. There’s
even an extensive vegetarian section, with eggplant
parmigiana, braised escarole and cannellini, and
broccoli de rabe with red chili and onion, and there
are at least seven seafood items, including a brodetto with
shrimp, clams, octopus and fish in “aqua pazza”
(crazy water) broth. If you have thus far overeaten, don’t approach
the main meat courses that same night. Save them for
another, because they are hefty (you’ll take some
home), including the tangy lemon chicken with herbs,
lusty beef short ribs with salsa verde,
and osso buco
gremolata. Then end off with piping hot zeppole
fritters and a cup of espresso. Not
unexpectedly, I found the wine list was all over
several maps—Italian, California, France, Chile,
Argentina—when it should be more focused on a better
selection of small estate Italian wines. Who
really orders Pouilly-Fuissé with a veal
meatball slider? Quartino is not just making a success on volume
of guests, low prices and size of portions: it’s
making it because John Coletta wants everything—food
and service--to be as he would serve it to his own
family. That’s the best a chef can ever do.
Quartino is open daily
for lunch and dinner. Antipasti range from
$4.50-$7.50, pizza $8-$13, pastas $9.75-$12.75, main
courses $9.75-$15.75.
❖❖❖
NEW YORK CORNER by John
Mariani
VINATERÍA
2211
Frederick Douglass Blvd (at 119th Street
212-662-VINA(8462) vinaterianyc.com
Many
years
ago when I was a grad student at Columbia, the
Harlem neighborhood where Vinatería now sits
was so worrisome that I never would have thought to
walk through it on my way up to Morningside Heights.
What a difference a few decades make! West
Harlem now teems with vitality, the broad avenues
lined with expensive SUVs, the red brick buildings
scrubbed clean and occupied by a whole range of
people—most, it seems, with children in
strollers—and the restaurant scene has blossomed
with exciting places with a lot more appeal than
those deliberately grungy holes in the wall on the
Lower East Side and DUMBO (District Under the
Manhattan Bridge Overpass, in Brooklyn).
One of
the most appealing new spots, open since April, is
Vinatería, a very sleek, very amiable new
trattoria run by a Barnard grad, Yvette
Leeper-Bueno, whose beauty, style and effervescent
spirit imbues every aspect of the place. She
and her husband, Adrian Bueno (below with Faye Leepr,
Yvette's mother) , together with chef
Gustavo Lopez, have fashioned a corner restaurant so
enticing when seen from the street that it becomes
both a magnet and beacon on the avenue, throwing
light on Frederick Douglass Boulevard and on the
darling stripling tree in front. What I wouldn’t
have given to have a place like
this to take a Barnard girl back in my salad days!
The
interior was done by Jonsara Ruth, director of the
M.F.A. program in interior design at Parsons, in
various shades of gray and charcoal, including a
blackboard with wine selections on it, recycled wood
and zinc-topped tables, and pretty painted red and
yellow metal chairs outside.
“My
husband and I worked tirelessly on helping shape all
facets of the restaurant,” Yvette told me. “It is
challenging to be husband and wife restaurateurs!
The results, however, are extremely rewarding.
Seeing the extent to which people are enjoying
themselves at Vinatería is truly a dream come
true.”
It’s a
dreamy kind of place, with a good wine and cocktail
list put together by Gabriela
Davogustto, with plenty of bottles under $50.
The menu is divided into “Light,” “Medium” and
“Full” categories, which encourage you and your
friends to order from here and there and to share
most everything. That’s what I did with two
companions, and we had to restrain ourselves from
ordering more.
What
we
did have we liked very much. There are “snacks” like
olives and spiced almonds, cheese and charcuterie,
which includes a fine chicken liver
pâté. There’s a peppery dandelion
salad, rightly bitter but tangy with guanciale,
parmigiano, walnuts and crunchy breadcrumbs. The grilled octopus
with arugula is excellent, tender, flavorful,
succulent, with a confit of potatoes and
pimentón for fat and spark. Flatbread,
which changes daily, was good enough but came to the
table barely tepid.
Chef Lopez’s
pastas are light but substantial, especially the tagliatelle
with pork ragù
and black cabbage, and the spaghetti with golden
autumn corn, garlic, leeks, dark green broccoli di
rabe and bright red heirloom tomatoes—a wholly
engaging combination of ingredients at this time of
the year.
Pan-seared chicken breast with rainbow chard and
rosemary potatoes was above average, and the halibut
with grilled asparagus was finely cooked to the
perfect juicy tenderness.
For dessert there was a good
vanilla panna cotta and even better
chocolate
budino, a kind of rich Italian pudding.
Sitting there al
fresco after twilight faded to dusk and then
to evening, on a clear night when the temperature
was dropping into the sixties, I looked around and
thought about how Harlem has been so marvelously
transformed by a young generation that saw the
neighborhood had great bones and knew it would be
a wonderful place to live, raise kids, and drop
across the street for a bottle of wine and good
food at places like Vinatería.
Vinateria is open for brunch Sat. & Sun., for
dinner nightly. Brunch is $15, dinner small
dishes run $8-12, medium and large $12-$23.
❖❖❖
NOTES FROM THE WINE CELLAR
Good Parties Deserve
Good Wines from Even
the Thriftiest Hosts
By
John Mariani
Some years ago I was invited
by a wine seller to his birthday party at which each
wine was followed by a greater, rarer, more
expensive one, which at one point included a single
bottle of 1929 Château Mouton-Rothschild. The
already tipsy fellow next to me, who whispered he
knew nothing about wine, took a sip of his glass,
then flipped rest of it over his shoulder and barked
to our host, “Whaddaya got next?” Which taught me a great lesson: unless you
hold a party with only wine connoisseurs attending,
don’t ever, ever serve an expensive wine to your
guests. Then again, don’t ever serve them plonk, no
matter how innocent they may be of wine.A good
host serves good food and wine as an expression of
good taste and hospitality. For
me,
the tipping point for party wine prices used to be
$20 and below. But today, given the worldwide glut
of wine from producers who once thought they could
hike their prices, there are more delicious wines
than ever between $8 and $15. Few come from California, where mass
production makes for insipid, sweet or acrid wines.
The best come from Spain, Italy, Argentina and,
after years of almost pricing themselves out of the
market, France. And right now, many wine stores are
having post-Labor Day sales to make room for autumn
arrivals, so there are great bargains in the sales
bins for leftover “summer wines” like roses and
vintages of lighter wines unlikely to improve with
age. “A store’s palate is based on the least
expensive wines it buys,” says David Hamburger, Senior
Wine Buyer and Director of Special Events for New
York’s Acker
Merrall & Condit. “So a sales bin in a
store like ours (right)
features the kinds of wines a great restaurant would
sell by the glass--tasty, refershing, clean and
good. We price such wines at $12.99 and below.” Avoid jug wines for parties because they look
cheap and are usually undistinguished bulk wines
with only the most basic labels, like “California
chardonnay” or “Italian red wine.” The best buys in good sparkling wines—since
Champagne will always run well north of $30—are
Spanish cavas, like Castellroig Catalonian
non-vintage, which can be found for about $12-$13,
or, if you prefer a vintage label, the Pares Balta
Rose 2012 at $13. For a terrific Spanish red, the 2008 Luis Canas Rioja
Crianza ($15) is a steal. Red crianzas are
wines that may not be sold till their third year and
have spent a minimum of six months in oak barrels
(in Rioja twelve), and Luis Canas is one of the
pioneers of modern Spanish viniculture.This wine
is 95 percent tempranillo, with ideal
acid and fruit and the flavors of a true terroir. Italy is now shipping a wide variety of wines
that show off regional terroir at prices
considerably below Italy’s mass market big labels,
although the well-known Bolla brand’s soave,
valpolicella and bardolino are dependable wines.
These days some delightfully complex Piedmont
barberas can be found at the $15 mark, especially
those from the barbera d’Asti and barbera d’Alba
areas. Had I tasted a Bosco dei Ricci Barbera 2009 blind,
I would have ranked it as one of the best Italian
reds I’ve had this year at any price—rich,
satisfying and multi-dimensional-- yet I found it on
sale for $9 a bottle. I’m going back for more. So,
too,
I was impressed with an Araldica Barbera d’Asti 2011 at the
same price.A
bit lighter in body but loaded with fresh fruit,
this is ideal for a party serving any kind of meat
or poultry.
Argentina is making world-class
wines and, given its weak peso, its winemakers are
selling their products at remarkably low prices.
Finca Vides
Torcidas Mendoza Malbec 2011 at $8 is
really quite amazing, a wine of deep cherry flavors
and the usual soft tannins of malbec, easy to drink
with a wide range of dishes. The vineyard’s
chardonnay at the same price is a great pairing with
shellfish, especially crab and lobster. If good French wines once
seemed beyond your budget, there is every reason to
rejoice over regional wines from Roussillon and
Gascogne, both areas making a big push into the
American market.The oddly named Gascony vintner Uby makes a
fresh, delicious 2012 white from colombard and ugni
blanc grapes ($8), with a fine 11.5 percent alcohol
and a real citrus crispness for a wine with canapes
or first courses. If you like syrah but don’t want to pay
Rhône Valley prices, the Château de Jau
2008 Côtes du Roussillon Villages ($12)
has a velvety, lush blend of 45 percent syrah, 30
mourvedre, 15 carignan, and 10 grenache. Even Bordeaux winemakers are selling
bargain-priced cabernet sauvignon and merlot blends,
like Château
Lavagnac 2010 ($10, an amazement that is
smooth and lush on the palate, a perfect wine for
French appetizers like terrines and pates. Even the
popular Château
Greysac 2008 ($10-$13) will please anyone
who loves the basic taste of Bordeaux blends. You may not find all these specific wines at
your local wine store, though they are easily
ferreted out on-line (try wine-searcher.com), but if
you zero in on those regions I’ve mentioned here,
you’ll make your guests very happy and you will have
proudly saved a bundle.
The NY Times reports that
the hot dog
and drinks street cart at Fifth Avenue
and East 62nd Street by the zoo pays
$289,500 for the contract to be there.
NOT REALLY SUCH A
GREAT STORY ABOUT A16
"I have a great story about A16, the Southern
Italian restaurant in San Francisco. A few years
ago, I was in Argentina, eating my way through
Buenos Aires' chic Palermo Soho neighborhood, when
I tucked into an unassuming pizzeria for a
wood-fired slice. As I bit into the thin,
blistered dough and bubbly, burrata-flecked
Marzano sauce, the chef-owner, who had heard me
chatting with my husband and knew we were from San
Francisco, stopped by to ask what we thought of
his food. "Oh, it's very good, thank you," I said,
covering my mouth between chews.`Yes,' he said,
leaning in. `But is it as good as A16?'."--Jessica
Yadegaran, "Popular
A16 restaurant a hit in Rockridge," San Jose Mercury
News
❖❖❖
Any of John Mariani's
books below may be ordered from amazon.com.
My
latest book, which just won the prize for best
book from International Gourmand, written with
Jim Heimann and Steven Heller,Menu Design in America,1850-1985 (Taschen
Books), has just appeared, with nearly 1,000
beautiful, historic, hilarious, sometimes
shocking menus dating back to before the Civil
War and going through the Gilded Age, the Jazz
Age, the Depression, the nightclub era of the
1930s and 1940s, the Space Age era, and the age
when menus were a form of advertising in
innovative explosions of color and modern
design.The book is
a chronicle of changing tastes and mores and
says as much about America as about its food and
drink.
“Luxuriating
vicariously
in the pleasures of this book. . . you can’t
help but become hungry. . .for the food of
course, but also for something more: the bygone
days of our country’s splendidly rich and
complex past.Epicureans
of both good food and artful design will do well
to make it their coffee table’s main
course.”—Chip Kidd, Wall Street
Journal.
“[The
menus] reflect the amazing craftsmanship that
many restaurants applied to their bills of fare,
and suggest that today’s restaurateurs could
learn a lot from their predecessors.”—Rebecca
Marx, The Village Voice.
My new book--Now in Paperback,
too--How Italian Food Conquered the
World (Palgrave Macmillan) has won top prize from the
Gourmand
World Cookbook Awards. It is
a rollicking history of the food culture of
Italy and its ravenous embrace in the 21st
century by the entire world. From ancient Rome
to la dolce
vita of post-war Italy, from Italian
immigrant cooks to celebrity chefs, from
pizzerias to high-class ristoranti,
this chronicle of a culinary diaspora is as
much about the world's changing tastes,
prejudices, and dietary fads as about
our obsessions with culinary fashion and
style.--John Mariani
"Eating Italian will
never be the same after reading
John Mariani's entertaining and
savory gastronomical history of
the cuisine of Italy and how it
won over appetites worldwide. . .
. This book is such a tasteful
narrative that it will literally
make you hungry for Italian food
and arouse your appetite for
gastronomical history."--Don
Oldenburg, USA Today.
"Italian
restaurants--some good, some glitzy--far
outnumber their French rivals. Many of
these establishments are zestfully described
in How Italian Food Conquered the World, an
entertaining and fact-filled chronicle by
food-and-wine correspondent John F.
Mariani."--Aram Bakshian Jr., Wall Street
Journal.
"Mariani
admirably dishes out the story of
Italy’s remarkable global ascent
to virtual culinary
hegemony....Like a chef gladly
divulging a cherished family
recipe, Mariani’s book reveals the
secret sauce about how Italy’s
cuisine put gusto in gusto!"--David
Lincoln Ross,
thedailybeast.com
"Equal parts
history, sociology, gastronomy, and just
plain fun, How Italian Food Conquered the
World tells the captivating and delicious
story of the (let's face it) everybody's
favorite cuisine with clarity, verve and
more than one surprise."--Colman Andrews,
editorial director of The Daily
Meal.com.
"A fantastic and fascinating
read, covering everything from the influence
of Venice's spice trade to the impact of
Italian immigrants in America and the
evolution of alta cucina. This book will
serve as a terrific resource to anyone
interested in the real story of Italian
food."--Mary Ann Esposito, host of PBS-TV's
Ciao
Italia.
"John Mariani has written the
definitive history of how Italians won their
way into our hearts, minds, and
stomachs. It's a story of pleasure over
pomp and taste over technique."--Danny Meyer,
owner of NYC restaurants Union Square Cafe,
Gotham Bar & Grill, The Modern, and
Maialino.
❖❖❖
FEATURED
LINKS: I am happy to report
that the Virtual
Gourmet is linked to four excellent
travel sites:
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:
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).
nickonwine:
An engaging, interactive
wine column by Nick Passmore, Artisanal Editor, Four
Seasons Magazine; Wine Columnist, BusinessWeek.com;
nick@nickonwine.com; www.nickonwine.com.
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.