é by José Andrés - Las Vegas

If Ferran Adrià is thought of by many as the great inventor of contemporary Spanish cuisine, than José Andrés is surely its great ambassador. Where Adrià, chef of the now-closed el Bulli, has dedicated his culinary career to the relentless pursuit of creativity and creation, Andrés (who trained with Adrià at el Bulli) has been equally dedicated to the promotion of both traditional and contemporary Spanish cooking in the U.S., and has perhaps achieved more recognition and success in doing so than any other chef of the past twenty years.

Andrés opened Jaleo, a tapas bar and restaurant offering a wide range of traditional Spanish regional dishes, in Washington DC in 1993. Before the decade had closed, he was recognized as a James Beard Rising Star Chef, followed in 2003 with an award for Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic. That same year, he opened minibar, which showcased some of the products of the culinary revolution that was overtaking Spain, spearheaded by Adrià and others.

The format of minibar was unique. Described as a "restaurant within a restaurant," physically it was really nothing more than a six-seat sushi bar tucked into a corner of an upper floor of his Café Atlántico restaurant, with a few kitchen tools (circulator, blender, fryer, a couple portable burners) jerry-rigged behind it.^[1] The menu of 25+ small dishes, many of which were one- or two-bite "munchies" or "snacks," was undoubtedly inspired by the sprawling tasting menus of el Bulli. So were many of the dishes themselves, some of which had direct antecedents in Adrià's work. But the "minibar" format also brought another intriguing element - interactivity, with two chefs working directly in front of the diners to do the final preparation and plating of the dishes. With only six seats and only two seatings a night, minibar is perennially one of the toughest reservations to score in DC.

Since opening minibar, Andrés has expanded the geographic scope of his ambassadorship, moving into Los Angeles with The Bazaar in 2008, and into Las Vegas in 2010 with a branch of Jaleo along with China Poblano, both in the Cosmopolitan resort. Also tucked away within Jaleo is é: an 8-seat "restaurant within a restaurant" featuring only a set degustation menu, very much along the same lines as minibar. Virtually nothing is done to promote é: there's just a one-page website listing an email address for reservation requests; it's not even listed on the website of the parent company for Andrés' ventures, Think Food Group. But it's definitely worth knowing about.^[2]

(You can see all my pictures in this é by José Andrés flickr set).

Unlike minibar, where you're literally sitting in a corner of the main dining area, é gets its own private room within Jaleo. The centerpiece is the kitchen bar, a rounded arc with eight seats circled around an open "kitchen" (though it's really more plating than cooking that goes on here).^[3] The effect is decidedly theatrical, and the sense of having stepped into the middle of some sort of performance is enhanced by a space that feels more theater set than dining room, walls lined with card catalog drawers and various knick-knacks. A team of three chefs performs final preparations and plates each of the dishes, which are then handed directly to the diners.^[4]

Much of the cooking at é is what got called, until recently, "molecular gastronomy," and now seems to have taken on the sobriquet of "modernist cuisine." In other words, there's liquid nitrogen, and foams, and lots of other textural transformations at work. I'll circle back to the issue of whether, as some might claim, this style of cooking is already passé in light of the advent of what gets called the "New Naturalism."^[5] I bring it up here only to note that the interactivity and intimacy has an interesting effect: the ability of the diners to see the preparations, hear the story behind each dish as it's presented, and ask questions of the chefs, creates a connection to the food that might not be otherwise established in the same way. It won't necessarily make a dish taste any better, but I think it demystifies food that some find alienating and inaccessible, without taking away any of the novelty of its presentation.

We visited é in late December and they were serving a special holiday menu loaded with luxury ingredients (and priced quite a bit more than the "regular" menu), so the meal you see here may not be entirely representative. Even so, some of my favorite dishes were those with the humblest components.

The meal started, as good meals often do, with a cocktail: a "Gin and Tonic," to be precise. With evaporating liquid nitrogen billowing across the workspace, one of the chefs prepared a gin sorbet a la minute, which was then topped with a tonic froth and a grating of fresh citrus zest - a refreshing rearrangement of the traditional drink.

A collection of little snacks followed.

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Yardbird Southern Table and Bar - Miami Beach

Geography notwithstanding, Miami really isn't part of "The South." Though Florida as a whole is undoubtedly a Southern state, those who live here know that the South really ends somewhere near Palm Beach County's northern border, and Latin America actually begins in Miami, with Broward and Palm Beach constituting something of a demilitarized zone of transplants from the Northeast.

So when word came out that Chef Jeff McInnis, recently departed from the Momofuku-esque Gigi, was going to be cooking regional Southern fare at a new place on South Beach, it was at least something different from the waves upon waves of burger joints and steakhouses. It seemed a far cry from Gigi's Asian-inspired small plates, but McInnis' work before Gigi at the Ritz Carlton South Beach, more Mediterranean than anything else, wouldn't have exactly suggested pork buns either.

Yardbird Southern Table and Bar opened in October 2011 and clearly was on to something; the place was immediately packed, and the crowds haven't stopped coming. Turns out, the chameleon-like McInnis hails from the Florida Panhandle (according to the map I've laid out above, that definitely is the South) and started his cooking career in Charleston, South Carolina, so maybe the food at Yardbird is actually closer to home than initial appearances would suggest.

(You can see all my pictures in this Yardbird flickr set).

As with Gigi, where McInnis teamed up with experienced restaurateur and club-owner Amir Ben-Zion, Yardbird is a collaboration between the chef and John Kunkel, founder of the rapidly expanding Lime Fresh Mexican Grill chain. They've created a look and feel for the place that is casual and Southern-accented without being entirely hokey: white-washed brick walls and unfinished wood-beamed ceilings, jars of pickled vegetables and blackboard drawings of farm animals as decoration. It's sort of Crate & Barrel meets Cracker Barrel.^[1]

The menu likewise plays on traditional tropes of the Southern genre while updating them with some contemporary style. Astute menu deconstructionists will be able to spot several McInnis dishes that got translated from Asian to Southern when he moved restaurants: that short rib meat loaf is a variation on one he did at Gigi; the pepper-spiced watermelon that accompanies the fried chicken used to be a component of a Gigi small plate; there's a fried green tomato BLT that comes from the same family as Gigi's pork belly BLT; the "Sweet Tea-Brined Southern Ribs" bear more than a passing resemblance to what used to be Gigi's "Southern Boy" ribs. Working with flavor profiles that have a more personal connection, the hope is that Yardbird's versions ought to be even better.

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Goes Around ... Comes Around - Gray Lady Edition

It seems somehow a bit petulant to start a new year off on a sour note. And yet ...

While doing a little archive-diving for an in-the-works review, I stumbled across a New York Times review of Gigi, the Midtown den of pork buns and noodles that opened in the summer of 2010. The NYT review begins:

Many restaurants are born when a chef has a concept. Gigi in Miami’s Wynwood district started with a concept in need of a chef. Last year, the restaurant’s owner, Amir Ben-Zion, placed an ad on Craigslist seeking a chef who could turn out "cutting edge, high performance, Asian-inspired and freshly prepared cuisine" that is "affordable, innovative comfort food for the modern, educated, discerning palate."

Which actually sounded kind of familiar. Then I remembered why. Because nearly a half year earlier, I'd written this:

Sakaya (Richard Hales), Chow Down (Joshua Marcus) and American Noodle (Michael Bloise) each started with a chef's own vision, and were very much personal projects. Gigi came about things from the opposite direction: Gigi was a concept in search of a chef to execute it. Amir Ben-Zion, who also runs Bond Street and Miss Yip on South Beach, Sra. Martinez in the Design District, and the Bardot nightclub right down the street from Gigi in Midtown Miami, placed a Craigslist ad looking for a chef about six months before the restaurant's opening. The ad was not lacking for hype: "Its cutting edge, high performance, Asian inspired and freshly prepared cuisine is affordable, innovative comfort food for the modern educated discerning palate."

I guess since Gigi was stealing its concept from New York's Momofuku, a little inter-city turnabout is fair play?

Best Dishes of 2011

This time last year, I was still basking in the reflection of a trip to Spain that included two meals that will probably always be among my most memorable - Asador Etxebarri in the Basque Country, and el Bulli. Not surprisingly, my "Ten Best Bites of 2010" list had a distinctly Iberian tilt. We didn't venture out of the U.S. in 2011, but nonetheless ate well, at home in Miami, on the other side of the continent during a trip to Portland, Oregon, and during a too-brief sojourn to Chicago.^[1] For much more worldly lists, I'd highly commend those assembled by Ulterior Epicure and Doc Sconz, who in one year could check off my dining wish list for the next decade or so.

It's always a fun task to compile these kinds of lists. The exceptionality of some dishes is immediately apparent, the experience of them firmly and indelibly imprinted on the memory. Others may need the perspective of time to truly appreciate, perhaps seeming simple at first but gaining depth and nuance upon further reflection, like the flavor development of a good braise.

I tried to hold myself to ten dishes last year but cheated, actually listing fourteen. With no editorial oversight here, I've expanded the list to 20 for 2011. A few curious patterns emerge, though I can't say whether it's mere coincidence or holds some deeper significance.

First: I hope it doesn't come off as self-horn-tooting that several of the dishes listed here (seven) were served at Cobaya dinners, a group I help organize. We've had the incredibly good fortune to work with many outstanding chefs in the past year, who have eagerly embraced our simple "mission statement:" "to get talented chefs to cook great, interesting meals for an audience of adventurous, open-minded diners." Our little experiment is now 2 1/2 years old, we had 10 events in 2011, and we continue to be both energized and humbled by the support from both chefs and diners.

Second: there sure is a lot of foie gras on this list; the ingredient is featured in four of the twenty dishes. At least that foie is somewhat balanced out by three predominantly vegetable dishes that also made the list. I have nothing against foie - clearly - but it's the latter that I think and hope is a real trend. The vegetable universe has been coming under increasing focus and attention from chefs worldwide, and with our uniquely upside down growing seasons here in South Florida there is plenty of material to work with.^[2]

Third: the simplest of dishes can still be made outstanding. It's hard to imagine anything more humble and rustic than choucroute garnie or bollito misto; versions of both were among the best things I ate this past year. And once again, one of the very best bites I had all year was basically nothing more than fish, rice and seasoning. This is by no means a rejection of culinary "modernism" - only a recognition that there are many paths to pleasure.

Here, then, is my list for 2011, with excerpts of my earlier comments on each.

1. Quail with Tripe - Le Pigeon (my thoughts on Le Pigeon)

The most memorable dish of the evening (maybe - this is a close call with one of the desserts) was the quail, burnished golden-brown crispy skin encasing tender, mildly gamy meat, served over a tripe and pepper stew with some generous dollops of a (saffron-infused?) aioli. Who'd've thunk to combine quail and tripe? It was simply and unexpectedly perfect.

2. Salmon Nigiri - Naoe (my thoughts on Naoe)

Scottish salmon belly. Cool fish, fatty and rich. Faintly warm rice, perfectly cooked, delicately seasoned. A brush of soy sauce. Perfect.

[Note: I included the same exact item in last year's list. It's hard to pick among the great sushi I've had at Naoe - outstanding aji, aoyagi, Hokkaido uni, among others - but it's this bite of salmon, always the first nigiri served, that perhaps best encapsulates what I love about the place.]

3. Foie Gras Profiteroles - Le Pigeon (my thoughts on Le Pigeon)

The dessert that will raise eyebrows, and should not be missed, is the foie gras profiteroles. Another twist on a classic, these light, faintly crispy puffs (the choux pastry itself enhanced with foie, recipe here) are filled with a rich foie gras ice cream that perfectly balances sweet and savory, and then generously drizzled with a thin caramel, a sprinkle of coarse sea salt, and delicate chocolate shavings. Outrageously good, it was very possibly one of the best desserts I've had all year.

4. Beet Salad - Azul Cobaya dinner (my thoughts)

Chef Huff's beet salad was brilliant, one of the best dishes I've had all year. From three basic ingredients - beets, blue cheese, bread - he crafted a stunning assembly of shapes, textures and flavors which he said included about 32 individual components. There were roasted beets in various hues, pointing their tendrils into the air. There were rounds of thinly sliced raw candy cane beets providing a bit of earthy, vegetal snap. There was beet espuma encapsulated in thin cylinders of beets. There was garnet-hued dehydrated beet paper, thin enough for light to shine through. There were powders, purées and gels of blue cheese, feather light croutons, razor-thin squares of lacy brioche. It was a dish that inspired a lengthy pause at the table, as everyone was reluctant to undo this beautiful construction.


Sometimes when presentation is such a focal point, flavor can get lost along the way. Not so here. This dish really highlighted the flavors and textures of its star ingredient, and was as delightful to eat as it was to look at. A truly exceptional dish.

5. Carrots with Yogurt and Mint - Ned Ludd (my thoughts on Ned Ludd)

If you can't get excited over chard, you probably won't get excited over carrots either, but this was one of my favorite dishes of the trip. A variety of different-hued carrots - orange, golden, garnet-red - were roasted in the wood-burning oven till tender but not limp. The carrots weren't woody, but still had a firm, almost meaty texture to them, reinforced by the hint of woodsmoke. A dollop of yogurt added both a richness and a tangy contrast, further brightened by wide strips of fresh mint. This was nothing complicated, nothing fancy, but it was perfect.

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