Colin Alevras: Do You Want Marrow With That?Having accomplished his dream of serving the eggs of eight different birds at one brunch, Haute Barnyard enfant terrible Colin Alevras of the Tasting Room is now contemplating his own high-end burger. But only if it “isn’t just another burger or some kind of over-the-top tarted up silliness. It had to have integrity.” Fair enough. So what did Alevras come up with? “I’m still working on it,” the chef tells us, “but we won’t be using pork fat like some people do, because then it’s just a sausage.” (Take that, Ryan Skeen!). “I want to put neck meat in there and tongue and heart and a little bit of calves’ liver for flavor. And why use fat, which just melts away anyway? I’m going to use marrow for fat, which will stay intact and also have a beefier, deeper taste.” Alevras is ensconced in bun and cheese issues, but the burger will debut for brunch service on March 30. Its name? The Old McDonald Burger. How’s that for Haute Barnyard?
Related: The Tasting Room Lays Eight Eggs on Us
NewsFeed
Eighty One Takes the Haute Barnyard, Locavore Thing 81 Steps Further
In what has to be the clearest example yet of Haute Barnyard run amok, Eighty One has sent us a scroll containing a list of “81 people who bring Eighty One to life.” Rob and Robin weren’t kidding when they said the ingredients were meticulously sourced — everyone gets credit from the “mushroom expert” to the frog’s-legs purveyor to exec chef Ed Brown’s body double. There are more shout-outs here than on a Diddy album, but we suppose it’s not the worst idea — Brown wouldn’t want to be accused of making false organic claims.
NewsFeed
PDT’s Winter Menu Blows Our Minds, GI Tracts
PDT’s winter cocktail menu debuted last night, and we are still hung-over. Mixologist Jim Meehan consulted his peers for the menu, which includes contributions from Pegu’s Audrey Sanders, Tailor’s Eben Freeman, “International cocktail maven” Charlotte Voisey, and others. There’s even a nod to Adam Platt in the description of PDT bartender Don Lee’s Benton’s Old Fashioned, a combo of bacon-infused bourbon, maple syrup, and angostura bitters: “the crossroad of Haute Barnyard and Barroom.” (If this keeps up, we’re going to have to add Haute Barnyard to the banished-words list soon.)
Back of the House
‘Organic’ Banished, We Wish
The voracious maw that is daily journalism goes through fresh phrases like they were going out of style, which they always are. This week’s “maximum cockupancy” is next week’s “tell it to the hand.” Now that Lake Superior State University has released its annual list of banished words, it appears that “organic” has entered the dustbin of history, joined by such deserving phrases as “throw under the bus,” “X is the new Y,” “back in the day,” and “post 9/11.” “Organic” has been especially hated for years by both farmers and consumers, but we doubt it’s going anywhere. There are (much-criticized) government regulations in place concerning the use of the “organic” label, and every day more shitty products up their sales because of the moniker. (Although, as one commenter to Lake Superior’s list pointed out, all the food we eat is technically organic.) Still, the fact that the word is taking abuse is a sign that maybe, just maybe, the Haute Barnyard movement has reached its peak.
Lake Superior State University Banished Words List [LSSU]
Related: The Haute Barnyard Hall of Fame
In the Magazine
It’s Time to Get Excited About the Second Avenue Deli
This week, Rob Patronite and Robin Raisfeld herald the impending return of the Second Avenue Deli with a peppery interview with owner Jeremy Lebewohl. Expect deep-fried chicken skins at every table, he says. Beats a bread basket. Irving Mill managed to extract a grudging single star out of the Haute Barnyard–phobic Adam Platt, and the Smith, despite a business plan dedicated to filling NYU students with “almost burnt” macaroni and cheese, was able to sway Gael Greene, no sucker for comfort food. Will the new restaurants be so lucky? The Robs introduce us to a high-concept townhouse restaurant, a grass-fed-burger joint, and a progressive Italian spot. And when you get cold from running around outside trying new restaurants, you can sip a nice hot chocolate. The Underground Gourmet found the best cups in the city.
In the Magazine
It’s a Haute Barnyard Type of Week in New York
“The doctrine of seasonal correctness is as ingrained in the collective restaurant psyche, these day, as linen napkins, pre-dinner cocktails, and superfluous baskets of bread,” Adam Platt writes in his review of Park Avenue Autumn, and who are we to argue? The combined efforts of Platt, the Robs, and Gael Greene all point to the triumph of the seasonal aesthetic. But that’s not to say they aren’t fun. Platt gives two stars to Park Avenue Autumn, Gael seems fairly pleased with Irving Mill, and the Robs introduce three restaurants (Lunetta, Bacaro, and Smith’s) that are all about fresh ingredients, as well as a recipe for Bosc pears that is, of course, in season. Meanwhile, back at the Greenmarket, a long-overdue crusade against plastic bags is at work. And, though not an expression of the Haute Barnyard mystique, it’s very much a sign of the times: PDT has named a hot dog for David Chang — proof that the Original Soupman has made it to the big time at last.
In the Magazine
Gridiron Gluttony and Haute Barnyard Gastronomy in This Week’s Issue
We like football. We like seasonal vegetables, especially peas. We like Cuban sandwiches, and Italian food, and Mexican food, and new things to start the fall with. So we liked this week’s batch of food stories in the magazine, especially since it includes what passes for a glowing review by Adam Platt of BLT Market, despite his readiness to mock the Haute Barnyard movement and all that it stands for. Add in the intriguing Italian-Mexican hybrid Matilda, announced by Rob and Robin in openings, and a guide to football bars even Tom Coughlin would approve of, and it’s another first-class food issue of New York.
Mediavore
American Reclaims World Hot-Dog Record; Bruni Calls Out SietsemaAt a Nathan’s hot-dog-eating contest qualifier in Phoenix, American Joey Chestnut shatters the world record set by Takeru “the Tsunami” Kobayashi. [NYP]
In a rare critic-on-critic showdown, Frank Bruni comes down hard on Il Brigante, whose pizza the Voice’s Robert Sietsema called “the city’s most perfect evocation of the true Naples style.” Hardly, Bruni says. “Nothing about this pizza argued strongly for a trip outside your own neighborhood.” [Diner’s Journal/NYT]
Related: New Restaurant Not Just for Lonely Mountain People [Grub Street]
A critical roundup of the city’s lobster rolls decrees Ed’s Lobster Bar “the world’s best.” [NYP]
Related: Consider the Lobster Roll [NYM]
The Annotated Dish
The Springiest of Spring Menus at Gramercy Tavern
Gramercy Tavern’s Michael Anthony, not to be confused with Van Halen’s Michael Anthony, is one of the city’s top Haute Barnyard cooks, a veteran of Blue Hill and a natural with produce. His Spring Vegetable Medley is a centerpiece of both Gramercy’s market menu and its vegetable tasting menu. “The idea is to bring springiness to a spring menu,” he says. “I don’t know a better way to do that then with a dish that highlights the crunch and brightness of spring flavors.” Mouse over each element to read the chef’s description.
VideoFeed
Inside the Greenmarket With Produce Master Bill Telepan
Few chefs are better known for their devotion to seasonal vegetables than Bill Telepan; his eponymous Upper West Side restaurant is one of the city’s foremost temples of Haute Barnyard. Here Telepan guides us through the springtime Greenmarket while offering up tips and opinions.
Related: Manhattan Gets Fresh [NYM]
Mediavore
Alain Ducasse Hates Molecular Gastronomy; BLT Market Pushed Back to AugustAlain Ducasse speaks out on his restaurants, his rivalry with Joël Robuchon, and the challenge of running a global empire. But his most pointed remarks are about molecular gastronomy: “I prefer to be able to identify what I’m eating.” [Bloomberg]
BLT Market, Laurent Tourondel’s entry into the Haute Barnyard sweepstakes, has been pushed back to August. [RG]
“Hipster chef” Sam Mason’s new Internet TV show gets love in the Daily News, which swooningly describes him as “witty, goateed and extremely good-looking.” But you already knew that. [NYDN]
Related: The Launch
NewsFeed
Urgent All Points Bulletin for Spring Vegetables
You don’t have to look far to see spring vegetables on menus all over New York. But look for local spring vegetables, and you may find they’re AWOL. Unseasonal weather has put the kibosh on many area sources, and for chefs that pride themselves on local ingredients, it’s a problem.
Back of the House
Telepan, Too, Faces Labor StrifeSpeaking of labor troubles, Bill Telepan seems to be the latest chef-owner to have them on his hands. NY1 reports that workers at Telepan, his Upper West Side Haute Barnyard restaurant, are incensed at management’s taking big chunks of their tips. “They’re actually stealing from what their employees are making,” a former waitress is quoted as saying. Telepan, reached by phone, denies the charges but says he’s not ready to go on the record yet with any details.
Telepan Under Fire for Tipping Managers [NY1 via Eater]
Earlier: The Heartening Backstory of the Deliveryman Rebellion
Mediavore
Neroni Gives Lame Reason for Leaving PorchettaNeroni’s reason for leaving Porchetta: They wanted to open for lunch and start serving sandwiches. And here we thought he was a prima donna. [Eat for Victory/VV]
The Russian Tea Room, taking a page from straight-to-DVD movies, pulls misleading blurbs from bad reviews to try to get some desperately-needed positive press. [Page Six]
Sullivan Street Bakery’s Jim Lahey is said to be opening a pizzeria in Chelsea. [Food and Wine]
The In-box
Excuse Me, But Craft Didn’t Start the FireDear Grub Street,
I read what you wrote about Craft’s ingredient-centric influence the other day, and I think you’re way off. Didn’t you ever hear of Chez Panisse, Alice Waters’s hugely influential Berkeley restaurant? Is it gauche for American cuisine to have a history longer than fifteen minutes? Or is this a New York thing? I’m seriously asking, as a former Bay Area resident who feels that some of the food values of that region aren’t fully appreciated here — or, if they are, they get fetishized as new discoveries.
Jane
NewsFeed
Flatbush Farm Chef Takes Leave of the BarnyardEric Lind, the chef who opened Flatbush Farm, has left the Haute Barnyard hit. You may be disappointed to learn that neither of the two projects he’s consulting on center around seasonal foods: Stella Maris, a recently opened restaurant on Front Street, specializes in modern Irish cooking; Nelson Blue is a New Zealand–themed gastropub also on Front Street set to open in mid- to late April. Once he’s done downtown, Lind plans on another eatery of his own, likely in the “rustic, organic, country style” he established at Flatbush Farm. “This is the food that really appeals to me,” he tells us, “and the food that I like to eat.” He’s not the only one.
Related:
Haute Barnyard Take on a Classic SoCal Sandwich
Flatbush Farm Takes Haute Barnyard to the Next Level
Mediavore
A Haute Barnyard Ethics Crisis; KFC Rats Hit the Big TimeElaine Kaufman, the beloved proprietress of actor hangout Elaine’s, has seen a lot of Oscar parties and talks about them in this Q&A. [NYDN]
An Haute Barnyard ethics crisis: Blue Hill’s Dan Barber on the day he added almond oil to his carrots. [NYT]
Related: The Haute Barnyard Hall of Fame [Grub Street]
The rats running around that KFC-Taco Bell have become a tourist attraction. [NYT]
Related: Oh, Rats [Daily Intel]
The Underground Gourmet
It’s Alive! The Tasting Room’s Kimchee-and-Cheese Sandwich
When Slow Food practitioner Colin Alevras, the chef-owner of the Tasting Room and as familiar a Greenmarket presence as corn in August, sets out to make a cheese sandwich for his new Tasting Room Wine Bar & Café, you don’t expect him to slap together some Kraft singles between two slices of Pepperidge Farm whole wheat and call it a day. No, what you expect is great, local ingredients, cleverly combined. What you expect is what our colleague, Adam Platt, would undoubtedly call a sandwich conceived and crafted in the Haute Barnyard style.
Back of the House
City Council Stands Up for Fast-Food Chains; Unlaid Eggs in VogueSome City Council members, apparently swayed — purely on principle! — by the plight of the big fast-food chains, oppose Mayor Bloomberg’s proposed law to make them post calorie information. [NYP]
The latest fad among Haute Barnyard types, like Dan Barber of Blue Hill? Unlaid eggs. [NYT]
Related: The Haute Barnyard Hall of Fame [Grub Street]
Bad news for cheesesteak lovers: The New York outpost of Tony Luke’s has severed its ties with its legendary Philadelphia headquarters and is now called Shorty’s. Also, Ollie’s Brasserie has closed, leaving the city with just one Chinese brasserie. [NYT]
Related: City’s Chinese Brasseries Double [Grub Street]
Foodievents
Epic, Possibly Disgusting Food Odyssey to End in Brooklyn WednesdayEat Industry, a documentary from two Brooklynites who took it upon themselves to drive across America and see where their food comes from, sounds like the kind of anti-industry agitprop that’s already been done to death. At least judging by the trailer: A cattleman describes the use of steroids on calves as a time machine, turning them into adults overnight; a community meeting looks as dramatic as a scene out of Erin Brockovitch. Whether or not it all adds up to anything will be revealed Wednesday night, when filmmakers Rod Bachar and Lilach Dekel screen the movie at Haute Barnyard spot the Farm on Adderley. The screening, which includes a Q&A with Bachar and Dekel, hot and cold hors d’oeuvre by chef Tom Kearney, and organic wine from Frey Vineyards, is $15 in advance and $20 at the door. Proceeds go to post-production costs for the film. Let’s just hope you have an appetite left after watching the thing.
Eat Industry screening, The Farm on Adderley, 1108 Cortelyou Rd., nr. Coney Island Ave., Ditmas Park, Brooklyn; 718-287-3101.
Three Blocks
Marketers and Finance Guys Get Crêpes and Martinis Around Third and 38thHorizon Media and Neuberger Berman employees dine next to private-practice doctors and lawyers in the micro-micro-neighborhood around Third Avenue and 38th Street. Located just southeast of Grand Central, upper Murray Hill offers an array of edibles ranging from hearty Italian to messy American to faux French.
The Underground Gourmet
Flatbush Farm Takes Haute Barnyard to the Next Level
Flatbush Farm
76-78 St. Marks Ave., nr. Sixth Ave., Park Slope, Brooklyn; 718-622-3276
With the possible exception of the Bay Area, Brooklyn may be the world epicenter of so-called local, seasonal, and — in the prevailing menu-speak — “organic whenever possible” cooking. In the past, it’s been enough to cite farm sources (360, Franny’s) or host farmer dinners (Applewood). Now, Kings County Haute Barnyard restaurants are confusing matters by naming themselves as if they were, in fact, produce-purveying competition for the Park Slope Coop.
First came the Farm on Adderley, in Ditmas Park, and now there’s Flatbush Farm, a bar and restaurant in the old Bistro St. Mark’s space that started serving small plates over the summer and launched its dining-room menu late last month. Chef Eric Lind, late of Bayard’s, has the right rural connections: His former boss, chef Eberhard Müller, co-owns Satur Farms on the North Fork and supplies Lind with locally grown produce. Aside from a few artfully displayed farm implements and staid portraits, the long, high-ceilinged space is more urban chic than country quaint; paper napkins and juice glasses for wine are the most notable signs of the restaurant’s commitment to the Simple Life. But Lind’s menu lives up to its rustic promise with hearty dishes like spaetzle with mushroom ragout and lamb shoulder with bubble and squeak. One night’s pork goulash was a tough, chewy disappointment, but the special salmon-cake appetizer was a textural triumph, moist and meaty over a bed of leeks and grainy mustard. One of those and a Pinkus Organic Ur Pils in the Indian-summer-worthy garden is about as bucolic as Brooklyn gets.
— Rob Patronite and Robin RaisfeldRead Adam Platt’s Haute Barnyard top ten.
