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FORK PLAY November 12, 2009
Technicolor Macaroons. Church and State. Beaujolais Nouveau.
Dear Friends and Family,
Why am I in Los Angeles? It's supposed to be a secret and I wasn't supposed to tweet about it, but, I confess, I'm an incurable twit. And friends and readers who have noticed
 my career Renaissance (especially on Bravo's Top Chef Masters) since I was so abruptly sacked by a certain magazine, will know more than I am permitted to say. In my few free evenings, I've already recklessly put my arteries on the line at LA's current hot destination, Church and State near the docks, and again at Nancy Silverton's Pizzeria Mozza. Amazingly, it has taken me this long to get to the new Spago, a revelation of ambitious reinvention, no longer new to anyone but me. And at brunch Saturday I discovered a pair of young lovers turning out world-class pastry and marvelous macaroons in the most strident M&M colors at Bottega Louie, a vast, echoing café and upscale carryout in a stately old bank in a spottily gentrified downtown zip code.
Gail Simmons led the way to Bottega Louie. Gail and I share not only a name and a passion for exalted dining, our luncheonette hungers mesh. It wasn't easy to get served a few minutes before noon. A good share of the staff seemed to have arrived yesterday from trade school in rural Uzbekistan. I had to put on a fiercely paralyzing glare to keep one determined young woman from mopping under our feet (yes, mopping in the full throes of lunch) while we shared the excellent chopped Italian salad - a smartly dressed gathering of crisp lettuces, Provolone, pepperoni, chickpeas, bacon, tomato and red onion in a mixing bowl. The club sandwich came in four large, triple deck triangles piled with ruffles of everyday potato chips and oozing that California essential avocado. Much too much for one,
 perfect for two: ham, chicken, hard-boiled egg, Gruyère,
nothing exceptional except the apple wood smoked bacon. Deeply satisfying.
I couldn't wait to go back and taste more. Louie was serving brunch Saturday in a noisy clatter of uninhibited locals bouncing off marble and tile when I checked into the dining room with my niece Pamela and her husband Mark just driven up from San Diego. Sadly, except for the first-rate Caesar salad (crisp whole leaves elegantly sauced) and perfectly respectable smoked salmon to layer on toasted bagel, brunch was a letdown. A gorgeous vegetable frittata was dry and dull. A little toss of olive oil or vinaigrette on the fresh arugula might have lent pizzazz to a decent enough white pizza with mozzarella, ricotta, grana padano.
What we needed now was chocolate, something over-the-top from the dessert vitrine upfront. "Can we order something from the bakery display?" I asked our amiable server.
"Of course" she said. "Would you let the pastry chef do a little platter?"
Several minutes later we were surrounded by waiters delivering half a dozen plates. A young woman did a roll call: Financières, those lush miniature loaf cakes, a trio of ice creams (clearly just made, already melting), a gussied up tart, that garish rainbow of macaroons and, all by themselves, half a dozen chocolate macaroons.
I bit into a chocolate macaroon and shivered, "Oh my." I looked up at the couple still standing there. She was young and smiling. He seemed even younger. (Of course, everyone is getting younger these days.) "You must be the pastry chef," I said.
"We are both the pastry chefs," she said proudly. "My boyfriend and I." Carolyn Nugent and Alen Ramos met at Robuchon in Las Vegas and worked with Pierre Hermé in Paris, at Ferran Adria's El Bulli and at the Fat Duck in England.
The tart - chocolate ganache and salted caramel - looked very Pierre Hermé indeed with its flutter of gold leaf and caramelized hazelnuts. "And the pâte brisée is just 2 millimeters thick," Nugent said, "not four." I promised never to use the word yum. Yum
By the way, I've borrowed the colors of two macaroons for our newsletter borders today. The purple doesn't quite capture the intensity of the lavender macaroon. It looks radioactive. 700 South Grand Avenue between 6th and 7th Streets. 213802 1470.
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The Pig and I
I surrendered all control at Church and State when I walked into a noisy, great looking open space in what was once the loading dock of the National Biscuit Company. As
 the guest of movie producer Jay Weston, a chef's pet for his long-running restaurant newsletter, author of the headline "Walter Manzke is Back, Bewitching downtown Diners," I had nothing much to say about what Chef Manzke sent to our cramped little two top. Actually I did say "pig's feet." And Jay greeted the waiter with, "I have to have the bone marrow." And then it began, starting with Nantucket scallops in the shell and oysters, and small rectangles of échiré butter on radishes, a tasting of what LA Weekly critic Jonathan Gold has called "the most refined bistro cooking in Los Angeles."
"Where do these people come from?" I asked, imagining the crowd at two eating bars and close-packed tables to be
 more eaters than scenesters.
"Pasadena, Beverly Hills, Dowtown," he said, spearing a sliver of yellowtail belly.
The herring salad with fingerling potato salad was no
bigger than my little finger. Instead of a half dozen, we each had one fat snail in garlicky butter under a balloon of puff pastry. And there were just two salt cod boulettes in the friture (beans, shishito peppers and sun chokes with basil aioli) but that was just the first hiccup. Of course I had to sample everything on the long wooden paddle of charcuterie that arrived with toasted brioche and terrine of foie gras topped with port wine gelée and rilletes of Berkshire pork, and duck under prune confiture in a pair of canning jars. A perfectly seared sea scallops was dressed with lemon, brown butter and capers.
Jay just looked at the flatbread tart with caramelized onions, bacon and Gruyère. I ate every morsel of a large piece and longed for another, but that was when the pig
 ears hit our table. I've never tasted anything like that crispy fried package of melting - what? Cartilage, for goodness sake. Amazing. Pied de cochon with pork shoulder, lentils
and frisée aux lardons might strike you as redundant. Well, maybe, but I'm thinking who knows when I'll get this far downtown in LA again and maybe I won't even survive the night. I was game to taste Jay's marrow but he'd already scraped the bone clean.
We debated ordering a tarte to share but then from the kitchen came a tasting of six desserts. I remember a luscious pot de crème au chocoat with caramel and fleur de sel. Blissfully I've forgotten the rest. 1850 Industrial 213 405 1434
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Starting Over
Before I left town, I spent an evening at SD26, my third dinner there. The place was packed and I watched a cluster of young people at the fancy wine dispenser - new since my
last visit - sipping and flirting. Technophiles are wild about
 the new wireless digital wine list but simple as it must be to master, it just didn't work for me. It tells grape, color, country or origin. But it isn't organized by price. That stops it for me. The sommelier knows I like my wine, red and
fruity and cheap. He came up with a delightful Dolcetto. And I was thrilled when Tony May sent our four saucers of the rare ovoli mushroom as his gift to our table. To read more about The Mays launch into the 21st Century and what I ate, click here. 19 East 26th Street. 212 265 5959
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Food is Love
When the Georges Duboeuf 2009 Beaujolais Nouveau rolls into New York on November 19, a psychedelic "Love Bus" will drop it off around town, including at Cipriani on 42nd Street, where we will again be pouring the fresh young red at Citymeals-on-Wheels Annual Power Lunch.
To mark the official wine release, the Duboeuf family and its U.S. Importer W.J. Deutsch will present a $5000 check to Citymeals and between sips of the new wine, I'll be there to say thank you. The team will also partner with the Food Bank for New York City to collect nonperishable foods from November 19 to 25. Go to www.duboeufnouveau.com to make online donations or find a list of drop off locations. I love that the usual frivolity of the Beaujolais celebration is linked to a concern for the city's hungry.
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| Photos of Church and State by Jay Weston. Photograph of SD26 spaghetti may not be used without permission from Steven Richter. |
Fork Play copyright Gael Greene 2009.
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