The Knife

SXSW report: Lamberts Barbecue

I questioned the wisdom of Lamberts' motto: Fancy Barbecue. I was wrong to do so. Lamberts is exactly as billed and, as such, I would like them to open a Los Angeles outlet as soon as possible.

This is what we ate:

Green-chili queso (Fancy defined: Velveeta free.)

Fried green tomatoes topped with greens and crab remoulade.

Pork ribs. Hanger steak with chili butter. Brisket with homemade barbecue sauce. Homemade jalapeno hot link. Green-chili cheese grits.

There were also some smoky ranch beans and collard greens on the table, but by the time I got around to those, I was in no position to appreciate them.

Also noted: A bottle of Pinot Meunier from Mendocino's Domaine St. Gregory.  Like a Pinot Noir (and it's related), but with a stronger fruit flavor.

How good was it? We took a friend and said friend is returning this evening, solo. Plan to do likewise; as much as we ate, there's more to be had and the idea of waiting until SXSW next year is depressing.

Lamberts Barbecue, 401 W 2nd St., Austin. (512) 494-1500.

Top 15 dining picks for Austin/SXSW, with photo gallery!

Ask, and you shall receive.

I got emails, I got comments, I got a lot of people sending me a lot of love for eating in Austin. I got a heart full of gratitude.

And I got my top 15. I could have included another 15 without breaking a sweat, but 15 is all that I can contain in a single Variety.com photo gallery. Click away; it's a nice lineup.

The goods are after the jump.

The 2008 Sundance Film Food Festival

The Sundance Film Festival is getting to the point where what you eat is as interesting as what you see.

I recognize that may not be an entirely good thing.

Honors for best dinner party go to Talisker Club, which hosted a seven-course meal that began with a duck's-egg custard (served in the shell, thanks very much) with oysters and Iranian Osetra caviar and ended with a spiced ice cream Napoleon. Along the way were wine pairings that included Domaine Louis Latour Corton Charlemagne Grand Cru 2005 and (my favorite) Thibault Liger-Belair Nuits-St. George, "Les St. George," Premier Cru 2005.

Full disclosure: Variety hosted the event. Even fuller disclosure: To attend, you had to be either a Black Amex card holder, one of Variety's 10 Directors to Watch or, you know, work for Variety. Extra points for the evening's sommelier, who operates out of Salt Lake City. I asked him what it was like to promote wine in a state that largely believes his job to be a greased pole to hell. "Sometimes I feel like I'm promoting a love of wine, " he said. "Sometimes I feel like a drug dealer. And I can live with that."

Honors for best dinner party that Sundance attendees might actually attend went to the second-annual Bon Appetit Supper Club. Yes, the magazine chose to host a dinner for "The Hottie and the Nottie," with Paris Hilton as the guest of honor. No, neither the film nor Ms. Hilton have anything to do with Sundance.

However, Bon Appetit also hosted dinners for a half dozen other Sundance films, including "Bottle Shock," where the wines were provided by the Bo Barrett's Chateau Montelena (Barrett's portrayed in the movie by Chris Pine, soon to be known as Captain Kirk in "Star Trek.").  The crowds were controlled, the food was delicious and the interior was impressive thanks to the world's biggest doily that papered the dining room walls, which also posed graciously with "Bottle Shock" stars Bill Pullman and Alan Rickman, above.

Best-kept dining secret: That Bon Appetit was hosting a Sundance dinner for U2. According to publisher Paul Jowdy, it began when his secretary said there was a man on the line, but she couldn't understand him because his accent was so thick. "I don't know why I took the call," he said, especially when the brogue-tongued caller insisted Jowdy sign a nondisclosure agreement online before he even revealed the reason for their conversation. But Jowdy did, upon which Paul McGuinness introduced himself as the manager of U2. The band heard about the Supper Club and would Bon Appetit be interested in hosting them for their film "U2 3D"? And could Bon Appetit arrange for a Champagne sponsor, since the Edge loves Champagne, and a chef from New Orleans, since the band is very interested in supporting the area? One Veuve Cliquot and a John Besh later, it was done. (Al Gore with Bono and the bubbly-loving guitarist, above.)

Best Park City addition: The Sky Lodge. The hotel opened less than a month before the festival, so the Sky Lodge had its issues -- including double-charging me for my room. However, it also introduced three new restaurants, Fin, Easy Street Brasserie and La Boheme. None are cheap but all provided comfort and sustenance on demand -- at Sundance, no small feat. Bonus points to breakfast at Easy Street, which is included in the room charge and where the waiters happily put up with our sprawling, highly caffeinated story budget meetings.

Sundance is over; the cold I contracted there has (almost) followed suit. I'm back.

[EDIT:] Almost forgot to mention: Should you travel to Norwalk, OH, and should you  stay at the Georgian Manor B&B, you might have something like this for breakfast. French toast with berry compote, fresh blueberry muffins and the comforts of a flawlessly restored 1906 home helped make a tough trip much more tender. RIP, Ross Stewart.   

Sky Lodge: Chateau Marmont at 7,000 feet

For those who travel to the Los Angeles suburb of the Sundance Film Festival: Park City's Sky Lodge isn't open yet, but its reservation line is.

A media lunch provided advance looks at the restaurants' menus (Easy Street Brasserie and Fin); descriptors like "wasabi froth" and "filet mignon tartare" suggest that reservations will be sufficiently impossible January 17-27. (Good news: the foie gras hot dog appears to have been an empty threat.)

As for the boutique hotel, it promises to be the height of (pick any three) eco/sustainable/luxury/chic. There's only 33 suites, the smallest of which is 1,265 square feet. They're under fractional ownership; a rep claims the slots are 70% sold. During the festival, rooms start at $1,650 a night, up to $3,500 for the penthouse suite; expect them to be gone before the hotel opens Dec. 26.

Sky Lodge, 201 Heber Ave. Park City, UT. (888) 876-2525

Sundance Film Festival 2008: Now with foie gras hot dogs

By Sundance 2008, Park City may have its first honest-to-god fine dining restaurant.

It's part of Sky Lodge, a 22-unit "vacation resort living formula" (translation: Five-star timeshares) now under construction at the corner of Main Street and Heber Avenue, right next to Robert Redford's Zoom. The website is fancy and the PR claims it "is destined to emerge as this resort city's premier address" and they're probably right, since the only real competition is the Stein-Eriksen and that's at the top of the damn mountain.

Anyway, the food. There's three new restaurants. Fin is the one that they're hoping will inspire Osteria Mozza-levels of hysteria; there's also Easy Street Brasserie and Easy Street Bakery. (All the money they're spending and they couldn't hire someone to come up with a better name? "Easy Street Brasserie" sounds like it could be in a Toledo Marriott.)

Eating in Cannes: Tumbleweeds are yummy!

I'm at the Cannes Film Festival. It's the eighth time I've been here, but my first since I launched The Knife.

People told me, "Isn't that great? Now you'll be able to write about all the incredible restaurants!" And I thought, "Well, isn't that great. I'll be able to write about all the incredible restaurants."

And tumbleweeds have been blowing through my blog ever since.

Dining in Cannes: Tipgate!

The other night, Variety staffers had dinner at Mantel, one of the better restaurants in Cannes' old town district. (The chef, Noel Mantel, is a Alain Ducasse disciple.) The menu didn't say service compris (tip included), so they asked: Was service compris?

No, they were told. And to tip, we'll have to charge your card separately.

As a local told me, "That's absolute crap."

Of course, leaving a only buck or two in the U.S. is like asking a waiter to key your car. But if you've bought a meal in France, you've already paid a 15% tip. Under French law, a 15% tip is built into the price. Menus should read "service compris" (service included); that's a law, too. Throw down a few Euros for an exemplary experience and you're in good standing.

Some restaurants are even more aggressive than Mantel; the local said Caffe Roma, across the street from the Palais, "used to write something ambiguous on the receipt until it got picked up by the restauranteurs assocation and they were forced to change it."

Actually, it wasn't ambiguous: As you can see in the above photo, the receipts used to read "TIPS NO INCLUDED," right above "sce compris." (Note that this link goes to a blog post written during the Cannes Film Festival four years ago. And, to be fair, this blogger points out that tipping in France can seem baffling to locals, too.)

So, to be clear: Tipping isn't a French dining tradition. Unfortunately, at some Cannes restaurants, that's led to another tradition: Ripping off customers who don't know the difference.

The Knife in Cannes: Looking forward to excuses to drink

It's almost 10 am and I am in the Charles De Gaulle airport, waiting for a flight to Nice. Under normal airport circumstances, I'm excited to find a Taco Bell. CDG does not qualify as "normal airport," not when the duty-free shop makes Bristol Farms look like a 7-11.

Rose' Sancerre! Two dozen Champagnes! And grand crus - who knew? (1985 Chateau Margaux Premier Grand Cru Classe, for 670.70; 2001 Richebourg Romanee-Conti for 899.) All prices in Euros, of course. I wonder how they compare to Wally's.

Tomorrow I start the real blogger work for the launch of Festival Shootout at the Cannes Film Festival, but for the moment I am distracted by more important matters: Wine. Really good wine and plenty of it. The sweat of my brow will be pure rose'.

Not eating at Sundance, Part Third and Final

Smiles, everyone, smiles!

This was the first year that Bon Appetit decided to do something at Sundance. My first thought was, Bon Appetit? Your mom's cooking magazine? The slightly fusty journal of haute cuisine wants Sundance?

My second thought: Well, of course they do.

There's a concept that explains a lot of things in Hollywood: Fairy dust. It's generated by success and settles on the shoulders of anyone who's in its vicinity. It makes you look good by proxy. And Sundance kicks up a lot of fairy dust.

So, Bon Appetit wanted some fairy dust and rented the Claimjumper, a historic Main Street building that used to be a restaurant. (Ten years ago, a much-smaller Sundance used the space as a press lounge.) It's a handsome old saloon, with wood floors, exposed brick walls, high ceilings. The kind of charm that a New York restaurant would pay $20,000 a month to rent.

And, unlike so many other sponsored sites on Main Street, the Bon Appetit Supper Club was kind of nice.

Not Eating in Sundance, Part Two

Chefdance host Bethenny Frankel surrounded by "Black Snake Moan"
star Samuel L. Jackson and director Craig Brewer

For the last four years, Park City has hosted Chefdance. The 'dance suffix has also been co-opted by a half-dozen Sundance parasites like Slam-, X- and Troma-, but this one has nothing to do with films or competition. You could argue that it's sort of a festival in that each night a different chef oversees dinner for about 100 people. And you're "celebrating" the chef's work, or good films with good food and wine, or something.

Rocco DiSpirito was the host the first time I went to Chefdance, in 2005. He was quite the deal at the time, pre-"Restaurant" meltdown. (Actually, this came six months after the show's last episode and five months after Rocco was barred from the premises. The restaurant business is fun and glamorous!)  And he was supposed to oversee the chefdancing.

Imagine: DiSpirito is entertaining visions of providing fine dining to his adoring fans, a crowd of wealthy, appreciative, well-educated film lovers. And what he gets are the extras from "Animal House."

Not eating in Sundance, Part One

So I owe an explanation.

I'd originally intended to write The Knife from Sundance. I thought it would be fun, writing about food from a film festival POV. And it's not like there aren't enough restaurants around; Main Street is chockablock with them. Why, Robert Redford even owns one!

But I skipped Sundance last year. Big deal, when I'd gone eight times before. But obviously it is a big deal, or I've fallen prey to early-onset Alzheimer's, because I somehow failed to grasp how utterly pointless it is to write about food in Park City.