Category: dessert

review: olio…

I wanted to catch up with two friends whom I hadn’t seen in a while. Anticipating that I wouldn’t be particularly peckish (there was a whole lot of eating going on those few days in San Francisco), I was more fixated on my good company than the venue. They suggested Luce, the newly Michelin-starred restaurant […]

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review: olio…

I wanted to catch up with two friends whom I hadn’t seen in a while. Anticipating that I wouldn’t be particularly peckish (there was a whole lot of eating going on those few days in San Francisco), I was more fixated on my good company than the venue. They suggested Luce, the newly Michelin-starred restaurant […]

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review: sweet heat…

The fact that Kevin Gillespie was one of my favorite cheftestants from Season 6 of BravoTV’s Top Chef reality show factored little in my decision to visit Woodfire Grill.* In fact, I hadn’t intended on eating at Woodfire Grill at all on my recent stop in Atlanta. When Gillespie passed through Kansas City earlier this […]

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review: sweet heat…

The fact that Kevin Gillespie was one of my favorite cheftestants from Season 6 of BravoTV’s Top Chef reality show factored little in my decision to visit Woodfire Grill.* In fact, I hadn’t intended on eating at Woodfire Grill at all on my recent stop in Atlanta. When Gillespie passed through Kansas City earlier this […]

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review: retrospective… (alinea)

Nashville, Tennessee, 2004.  A ruddy-cheeked cherub came out of the kitchen after dinner to say hello. He was just a kid.  I was just a kid. We both loved food. He cooked. I ate.  We started talking. Though our conversation drifted from here to there, it moored mostly around a new restaurant that was opening […]

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review: retrospective… (alinea)

Nashville, Tennessee, 2004.  A ruddy-cheeked cherub came out of the kitchen after dinner to say hello. He was just a kid.  I was just a kid. We both loved food. He cooked. I ate.  We started talking. Though our conversation drifted from here to there, it moored mostly around a new restaurant that was opening […]

Continue

review: cheeseburger o’clock…

It’s not on the menu, yet it’s the most-coveted item at Holeman & Finch Public House in Atlanta, Georgia. The restaurant only makes twenty-four of them each day, and they’re only offered late at night.* At ten o’clock, the bullhorn sounds: “It’s burger time!” Blissful Glutton had arrived ahead of me to reserve a couple […]

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review: cheeseburger o’clock…

It’s not on the menu, yet it’s the most-coveted item at Holeman & Finch Public House in Atlanta, Georgia. The restaurant only makes twenty-four of them each day, and they’re only offered late at night.* At ten o’clock, the bullhorn sounds: “It’s burger time!” Blissful Glutton had arrived ahead of me to reserve a couple […]

Continue

review: timeless…

  Why doesn’t piperade get more playtime among the food cognoscenti? Surely, it’s not the shiniest new toy on the block – Gerald Hirigoyen, who was named one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs in 1994, opened this “California Basque” restaurant at the foot of Telegraph Hill with his wife in 2002. But eight […]

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review: timeless…

  Why doesn’t piperade get more playtime among the food cognoscenti? Surely, it’s not the shiniest new toy on the block – Gerald Hirigoyen, who was named one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs in 1994, opened this “California Basque” restaurant at the foot of Telegraph Hill with his wife in 2002. But eight […]

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review: kb6…

Kasparov, Euwe, Capablanca, and Spassky – none of them have occupied a more magnificent “KB6” than I did recently on the seventh floor of the Peninsula Hotel in Chicago. A 2-inch square of black anywhere else in the world, “KB6” at Avenues is a swivel-top throne, last in a row of six (thus, aptly coded […]

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review: kb6…

Kasparov, Euwe, Capablanca, and Spassky – none of them have occupied a more magnificent “KB6” than I did recently on the seventh floor of the Peninsula Hotel in Chicago. A 2-inch square of black anywhere else in the world, “KB6” at Avenues is a swivel-top throne, last in a row of six (thus, aptly coded […]

Continue

review: syzygy…

It bears noting that, of the more than a half dozen times I’ve visited San Francisco, my last three trips to the Bay Area have shared the same primary purpose: Manresa. Sure, there were other noteworthy restaurants scheduled into those trips that might otherwise warrant a trip of their own: The French Laundry, ubuntu, Chez […]

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review: syzygy…

It bears noting that, of the more than a half dozen times I’ve visited San Francisco, my last three trips to the Bay Area have shared the same primary purpose: Manresa. Sure, there were other noteworthy restaurants scheduled into those trips that might otherwise warrant a trip of their own: The French Laundry, ubuntu, Chez […]

Continue

review: thunder out of the gate…

commis shot out of the gate with a thunderclap.* James Syhabout opened this tiny, tiny restaurant on Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, California in June of 2009.  Four months later, it earned its first Michelin star, and half a year after that, Syhabout was named one of Food + Wine’s Best New Chefs. Barely opened for […]

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review: thunder out of the gate…

commis shot out of the gate with a thunderclap.* James Syhabout opened this tiny, tiny restaurant on Piedmont Avenue in Oakland, California in June of 2009.  Four months later, it earned its first Michelin star, and half a year after that, Syhabout was named one of Food + Wine’s Best New Chefs. Barely opened for […]

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review: figs on a plate…

After David Chang’s “Fig Gate” incident, it’s hard to order a plate of figs with a straight face. But, I did – in San Francisco, naturally. And, like everything else I had at Zuni Café that day, they were fantastic.  So was the cluster of Zante grapes that accompanied them. Sweet as candy, the pea-sized […]

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review: figs on a plate…

After David Chang’s “Fig Gate” incident, it’s hard to order a plate of figs with a straight face. But, I did – in San Francisco, naturally. And, like everything else I had at Zuni Café that day, they were fantastic.  So was the cluster of Zante grapes that accompanied them. Sweet as candy, the pea-sized […]

Continue

dinner: oui, chef…

“Chef.” That is the title afforded to every member of the staff in a gentleman’s kitchen. I recently had the honor and pleasure of being in the kitchen with four extraordinary gentlemen by the names of Bocuse, Boswell, Boulud, and Keller. Watching them orchestrate the “dinner of the decade” at Stella! was not only a […]

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dinner: oui, chef…

“Chef.” That is the title afforded to every member of the staff in a gentleman’s kitchen. I recently had the honor and pleasure of being in the kitchen with four extraordinary gentlemen by the names of Bocuse, Boswell, Boulud, and Keller. Watching them orchestrate the “dinner of the decade” at Stella! was not only a […]

Continue