The Knife

FOOD SECTIONAL: The LA Times discovers cheese where it doesn't belong

Light duty today at the Food Sectional.

In the LA Times, Corie Brown turns in a fine piece about the rise in LA's sommelier culture with a look at those who meet weekly at Cut to study for tests that would allow the possibility (however unlikely) of membership in the Court of Master Sommeliers.

Los Angeles has long struggled to attract top sommeliers. But now as the area's restaurant scene matures and restaurateurs elevate wine service to match the standards of their cuisine, salaries for sommeliers are soaring. And a new generation of ambitious wine professionals eager for a leg up in a suddenly competitive industry is seeking membership in the Court of Master Sommeliers, an elite organization that selects its members through a series of rigorous examinations.

[snip]

The evolution of a serious regional wine culture relies on senior sommeliers willing to teach those less experienced. An entry-level course with 40 students at Disneyland's Napa Rose restaurant looks ultra-democratic. But the highly politicized Court of Master Sommeliers invites just some students, not all, to advance through the process. Even then, the London-based organization's final exam has a 97% failure rate. (emphasis mine)

With that ratio, we can expect one of the six sommeliers photographed for the piece to have... a very, very small chance of being inside that three percent. (Anyone want to help on the math?) In any case, those are nice portraits. (Credit: Bob Chamberlain for the Los Angeles Times)

Also noted: Irene S. Virbilia is duly impressed by the interiors at Tanzore (which won a Restaurant Design Award from the American Institute of Architects/Los Angeles ) but leans toward meh on the Cali-Indian fusion cuisine.

Some of the crossover dishes work, but others are less successful, sometimes due to concept, other times to flawed execution. I liked seared yellowfin tuna revved up with toasted coriander and set on a soothing avocado raita that's really an unemphatic guacamole. Velvet lamb kebab is delicious too, minced lamb streaked with paprika and cumin wrapped around a skewer and grilled. But what's with the mashed potatoes?

She also mentions something about Philly cream cheese in the paratha and cheddar with the chicken tikka.   

Food Sectional, New York Times: The entree is dead, I tell you! Do you hear me? Dead!

And you thought small plates were a trend? Nay, they're a nefarious plot! Or, as Kim Severson says in "Is the Entree Heading for Extinction?," "The entree, long the undisputed centerpiece of an American restaurant meal, is dead."

Upstarts like the snack menu, with its little offerings of polpettine and deviled eggs, are encroaching from the flank. Crudi, salumi plates and cheese boards have piled on. The appetizer, once a loyal lieutenant, is demanding more attention on menus. Side dishes and salads, fortified by seasonal ingredients and innovative preparations, are announcing their presence with new authority.

But the gravest threat may be the dining public, which seems to have lost interest in big, protein-laden main dishes.

“I think the entree has been in trouble for a long time,” said the chef Tom Colicchio. “Eating an entree is too many bites of one thing, and it’s boring.”

Of course, as the purveyor of a menu that specializes in nothing but bits and pieces that, once assembled, become entree-ish, Colicchio would say that. But it doesn't mean he's wrong. (My dinner at Lucques last night: a beet-carrot salad and a slice of sheep's-ricotta tart. Both appetizers, both delicious.)

Frank Bruni's one-star review of loungeatery Grayz suggests that if the entree isn't dead, no restaurant wants to be caught dead serving one.

“We don’t serve dinner,” said a woman who answered the phone late one afternoon when I called to check if Grayz, a new venture from the justly acclaimed chef Gray Kunz, had its full menu in effect that night. It was Thanksgiving weekend, so I wanted to be sure.

And bar snacks didn’t await me when I showed up several hours later. In fact, my companion and I ordered a five-course tasting menu that began with quail, proceeded through venison and ended with a chocolate soufflé. It cost $85 per person.

In my book that’s dinner. And Grayz’s reluctance to call it that — or to cast itself as a full-scale restaurant — opens a window into the befuddled and befuddling soul of the place.

Also noted in Florence Fabricant's Off The Menu: A "Top Chef" contender (Dave "I'm not your bitch, bitch" Martin, Season One) is opening Crave on 42nd on the deepest west side; restaurant magnate Jeffrey Chodorow is closing Wild Salmon Jan. 1, and Jason Neroni, former petty larcenist/Porchetta chef, will join forces with Katy Sparks at 10 Downing in Greenwich Village.

FOOD SECTIONAL: LA Times visits Bastide, gets giddy

Bastide, post-Chairgate.

First up! Irene S. Virbilia reviews Bastide. And it's a flat-out, full-throttle rave.

It's Bastide, unbuttoned. ...Service is as good as it gets in Los Angeles... All this at a price that's a bargain by European standards. The result is a restaurant unlike any other, certainly in L.A., and probably anywhere else in the country. This is restaurant as art form.

And so on. However, there's something missing, at least online: Where's the friggin' stars? They're missing, along with the little box that tells you the address, phone number and hours. On that note, Virbilia mentions that Bastide owner Joe Pytka is thinking about opening for lunch and breakfast. Who knows if that will happen -- Pytka thinks about a lot of things -- but brunch at Bastide? Bring it on.

Also, Restaurant Journal returns with some truly tasty scoopage: Providence's Michael Cimarusti will open a restaurant on the second floor of Beverly Blvd. clothing boutique Lords, in the old Le Colonial space. And already, Lords has a foodie retail counter: Espresso (and Clover coffee!) from LA Mill and bready goodness from Providence pastry chef Adrian Vasquez. All in advance of the coffee boutique that LA Mill's Craig Min is opening with Cimarusti. (Betty Hallock's source was Lords' owner; Providence reps declined comment and LA Mill was weird about it, too.)

The rest of the Food section, as often happens this time of year, is devoted to holiday-minded recipes, although Amy Scattergood has a nice piece about the Foundry chef Eric Greenspan cooking for Hanukkah with his mom. "Use a box grater, Ma!" "Ma, it's a latke!"

FOOD SECTIONAL: In which the New York Times gets it right, and wrong

There's a great audio slide show dedicated to tiki cocktails here.

Again with the cocktails! Only this time, the focus is kind of genius: It's the story of Jeff Berry, a California native (! dammit!) who is utterly geeked out (and apparently, utterly serious) about "elevating the lowly reputation of umbrella drinks to their rightful standing" and is the author of “Sippin' Safari: In Search of the Great "Lost" Tropical Drink Recipes... and the People Behind Them” (from a division of the tiny Slave Labor Graphics Publishing). 

Writer Steven Kurutz calls Berry a "cocktail shamus" and he might deserve the distinction: Did you know that the original tiki master was Ernest Raymond Beaumont-Gantt, who renamed himself Donn Beach and, in 1934, opened Don the Beachcomber’s in Hollywood? And was such an obsessive that he wouldn't write down drink recipes, but wrote down the formulas in code? Great stuff, and with an audio slide show to boot.

However, as if to prove that the NYT is also capable of pulling a boner: According to Florence Fabricant, Citrus at Social will open in May. Not so, according to the Social Hollywood rep: They're still aiming for January 15 or thereabouts, the better to coincide with the Oscar season. 

FOOD SECTIONAL: Now pre-cut for your enjoyment

As always, The Knife gives the LA Times' Food section home team advantage.

Oh, dear. Again with the story that's about-New-York -no-it's-LA-OK-it's New York. Interesting topic: Cocktail culture has taken hold to the point that bars are demanding behaviors as sophisticated as the drinks. Betty Hallock cites two examples in LA and more in New York (to the point that I wondered if Death & Co. had opened in LA and why I hadn't heard of it -- sounds like a great place). And her only LA examples were the Doheny (the downtown private club not yet open) and the new Father's Office, owned by Sang "'I'm an asshole; you got a problem with that?" Yoon.

But really, the problem here isn't the NY/LA thing -- it's a small item writ large, when it probably would have made a great Restaurant Journal. Nice recipes, though; too bad the slide show didn't work.

Irene S. Virbilia writes what sounds like a well-deserved takedown of Hidden, a new restaurant I've been avoiding: Why would four cuisines in one space work when most restaurants can barely handle one? Or, as she concludes:

It may be all right for a drink, but the confusing concept, lame cooking and general ineptness make Hidden a no-go zone for anybody who cares about food.

What she said.

By contrast, nice to see a rave for a little place on Robertson, Cafe Bella Roma, which could be the new Osteria La Buca (now that OLB has expanded and has a liquor license to call its own).

FOOD SECTIONAL: Fasting before Thanksgiving

Highway robbery, in progress. Credit: Evan Sung/NYT

There's not much to chew on in Food Sectional when everyone's obsessed with Thanksgiving. And while I'm not in the business of comparing recipes, as a former food editor I have a special reserve of sympathy for those forced to come up with new stories on turkeys, side dishes and traditions every damn year.

So here's what we've got: LA Times' Irene S. Virbilia gives two stars to Melrose Bar & Grill (aka Doug Arango's); Frank Bruni doles out a Poor (!) rating to the once-venerable Harry Cipriani:

Over the years the Cipriani restaurant family and its employees have faced charges of sexual harassment, insurance fraud and tax evasion, the last leading to guilty pleas by two family members in July.

But the crime that comes to mind first when I think of the Ciprianis is highway robbery. Based on my recent experience, that’s what happens almost any time Harry Cipriani on Fifth Avenue serves lunch or dinner.

Ka-POW!

At San Francisco Chronicle, Michael Bauer says quality has taken a dive at the once-fab Kuleto's and Tara Duggan writes about the crisis facing San Francisco restaurants: Between the cost of living and waiters making a city-mandated $9.14 an hour, no one can afford to work in the kitchen.

FOOD SECTIONAL: Michel Richard Air-Kisses L.A., the real Sneaky Chef and Maybe a 100-Point Bargain

You mean there's a world beyond the WGA strike? In this week's Food Sectional: Los Angeles Times hails the (sorta) return of Michel Richard, New York Times profiles the Dana Giacchetto of chefs and San Francisco Chronicle tells us about getting restaurant-lounges right, slowing down Slow Food Nation and a case of 1990 Chateau Latour up for the bidding. All after the jump.

(Photo credits, from left: Carlos Chavez/Los Angeles Times, Stuart Isett/The New York Times, Liz Hafalia for the San Francisco Chronicle)

Food Sectional: Silvertali wins, Bobby Flay confesses, Michelin chefs bolt

Los Angeles still loves Osteria Mozza and hates its waiters, the New York Times comes up with a new high holy day and San Francisco gives humility a good name. All that and more in this week's edition of the Food Sectional.

Food Sectional: OH MY GOD.

What in the hellfire was Regina Schrambling thinking with "You too -- yes, you! -- can be a food blogger: Cooking up a delicious blog is much easier than you might think." (Or as the LA Times' metatags put it, as I discovered while cutting and pasting, "FoodFake: In just a few hours, a new food blog was cooked up and launched as a demo using templates.")

Getting into the cyber-kitchen used to take money, for every step from registering a domain name to contracting with a server to host a website. It also required expertise worthy of molecular gastronomy -- five years ago, I had to pay a designer who could write HTML code. Now anyone looking to unleash his inner A.J. Liebling can sign up for a free blogging program and start typing.

Reggie! Stop it, please! You're better than this! Aren't you? (That goes double for the Food section's editors.) Of course anyone can be a food blogger -- anyone can be any kind of blogger and by now, most people are. We can also create our own radio stations on Last.fm or Pandora.com, add random comments to the most carefully researched articles and Google How To Build A Nuclear Bomb. The internet is a powerful and occasionally scary place, although not so much that there was any point to you creating an anonymous (!) blog with a name like FoodFake.

You feel a need to weigh in on the food blogosphere? Understandable; there's a lot going on. How about the ways in which these armies of food bloggers attract traffic? How they're trying to find more sophisticated techniques, even editorial strategies, to find readers? Or advertisers? The burnout factor, when the demands to maintain the blog threaten to outweight the passion for food that got you started in the first place? To fight the spread that creeps into a life made of eating and blogging, maybe there's a movement of food bloggers who type while on exercise bikes. (God, I hope that's not true.)

But. This. Is. Not. A. Story. This is embarassing. For once, I'm glad that the LA Times' Food section published a blogging article that managed not to mention a single Los Angeles food blogger.

(Ahem. More Food Sectional to come.)

FOOD SECTIONAL: LA gives NY service the pimp hand, NY admits it doesn't have everything and San Francisco gets its stars

It's Wednesday, a veritable onslaught of ink-stained culinary goodness. The Knife reads the big three and finds the chef from "Big Night," an article from the critic who held the seat now occupied by Restaurant Girl and the New York Times admitting that its restaurants don't do everything well. Read on!