On Your Mark... Get Set... Goat!

anne saxelby of saxelby cheesemongersHeritage Foods USA has dubbed this month Goatober for the second year running and No Goat Left Behind is the month's lifeline.  The project was started by Anne Saxelby, founder of Saxelby Cheesemongers, as a way to provide an alternative to the often ill-fated destiny male goats are met with on dairy farms.  In order for there to be milk, animals must have babies, after which only the females with produce the milk needed to make cheese.  Heritage Foods' website describes these babies as "a bi-product of a farm that is looking to produce milk.  The labor and feeding costs of caring for these babies is significant. Since the farm needs the mother’s milk to produce cheese, the babies are fed on expensive milk replacer, a goat version of baby formula. Without a dependable end market for these animals farmers simply cannot take on the financial burden and must face hard choices like selling the animals into the commodity market at a few days old or even killing them at birth."

Goatober aims to raise goat consumption in the US, a country that contributes little to the fact that goat is the most widely consumed meat in the world.  The goal with No Goat Left Behind this year is to sell 1,000 animals.  Over a dozen family farms and 100 restaurants are participating.  Among them are Minetta Tavern, Momofuku Noodle Bar and Ssam, Balthazar, Fette Sau, Maialino, Gramercy Tavern, Roberta's, and all of Mario Batali's restaurants.

heritage meat shopAs part of Goatober, goat will be available for purchase at Heritage Meat Shop in the Essex Market and online at Heritage Foods USA.  Chef Sam Richman of Gran Electrica will be hosting Birria: A Cooking Demonstration and Tasting tomorrow, October 5th, at the Astor Center from 630pm - 830pm.  Birria is a goat-based Mexican stew.  Tickets are $40 and available for purchase here.

A.A. Gill Butchers the Michelin Guide

The 2013 Michelin Guide was published yesterday and revealed to the world those restaurants it deems worthy of one, two, and three stars.  Founded over a century ago by two French brothers, the Michelin Guide has evolved into an entirely seperate beast from what it was originally intended.  In a recent article for Vanity Fair, A. A. Gill shares his opinion and explains, "The Michelin guide made kitchens as competitive as football teams, becoming the most successful and prestigious guidebook in the world, and along the way it killed the very thing it had set out to commend."

No information is known as to how many critics Michelin employs, how much money the critics make, or how frequently they dine at starred restaurants.  What is known is that emotions can reach a roaring boil in anticipation of the published guide.  A bad review is a bad review.  At the end of the day, a Michelin star is praise worthy, but acquire too many and your clientele may start to look like ritzy clones of one another that share self-inflicted dietary restrictions and leather faces that aren't able to hold a smile.

Gill goes on to mention, "Michelin-starred restaurants began to look and taste the same: the service would be cloying and oleaginous, the menus vast and clotted with verbiage. The room would be hushed, the atmosphere religious. The food would be complicated beyond appetite. And it would all be ridiculously expensive."  This statement is hard to argue when you look at the starred restaurants and consider their price points.  "In both London and New York," Gill writes, "the guide appears to be wholly out of touch with the way people actually eat, still being most comfortable rewarding fat, conservative, fussy rooms that use expensive ingredients with ingratiating pomp to serve glossy plutocrats and their speechless rental dates."

Is Gill right?  Is the Michelin Guide right?  Which restaurants are missing from the list?

A Glowing Star for Calliope

[gothamist]Pete Wells is impressed with the French spirit at Calliope in the East Village.  The restaurant is run by Eric Korsh and Ginevra Iverson; "The couple, who met while working at Picholine, share kitchen duties."  Prior to opening Calliope, Korsh was the executive chef at the Waverly Inn.  Iverson has Prune on her resume and Eric Anderson, an owner of Prune, is a partner in Calliope.

Rabbitt is an integral part of the restaurant's menu.  Wells explains, "You’d have to spend a week in Paris to taste rabbit cooked in as many ways as it is served at Calliope."  Kidneys, saddle, and a ragu make up the "cotton-tailed roster," all of which portray the synergy that exists between Korsh and Iverson's cooking.  The two had practice working together not just at Picholine, but in California as well.  The couple owned Restaurant Eloise together and only closed it at the end of 2009 to head east.

The food falls flat in some instances in a room that, although has taken a design cue from Keith McNally, re: "tiles, tin ceilings, scarred mirrors and glass doors," is loud and "can make conversation an ordeal."  The overall glowing review leaves behind only one star, but it's made clear Calliope has a stronghold on the bistro tradition.

Bring Your Indoor Voice to The Library Next Tuesday

The Library, located on the mezzanine level inside the Public Theater building at 425 Lafayette Street, opens next Tuesday, October 9th.  Hours are 530pm - 2am every day.  According to their website, "the hidden away space plays dinner bar, watering hole or backstage lounge to downtown denizens and neighborhood dwellers, theater-goers coming or going, academics and artists alike."

Andrew Carmellini and Luke Ostrom (a partner in Locanda Verde and The Dutch) collaborated with Joe's Pub on The Library.  Joe's Pub has been serving food inside the Public building since '98.  The new menu has about 20 options in the form of starters, sandwiches, and mains; ranging in price from $12 to $26.  The wine list is Champagne heavy with a few white and red selections coming mostly from France.  A couple California and Oregon selections provide domestic options.  House cocktails are $14 each and six beers are available on tap at $6 a piece.

The Library is the first of two new projects from Carmellini to open this fall and the first to open on our Taste of Tastes to Come list. The second is a yet-to-be-named French restaurant opening in the former Chinatown Brasserie space down the street from the Library.

Le Cirque's Cookbook Will Leave Out Recipe for Lumpy Gravy

The above picture (via Eater) of Sirio Maccioni and Frank Zappa was taken from A Table at Le Cirque: Stories and Recipes from New York's Most Legendary Restaurant.  The cookbook, published by Rizzoli, comes out October 16th and is the first of its kind for the restaurant.

In its 38 years, the kitchen at Le Cirque has been graced with some of the city's most talented chefs; Terrance Brennan and David Bouley among them.  Though in his recent one-star review of the restaurant for the Times, Pete Wells bashed the current state of food being served at Le Cirque, "The kitchen gave the impression that it had stopped reaching for excellence and possibly no longer remembered what that might mean."

Authored by Maccioni himself, the 256 pages of A Table at Le Cirque will shed some light on the nearly 40-year-old restaurant.  From Amazon's description of the cookbook; "Woven throughout the book are colorful anecdotes and candid photographs documenting the glitz and glam of the restaurant, where a reservation is always coveted."  Sirio Maccioni's has spent nearly half his life on the dining room floor of Le Cirque and his charm has been an integral part in developing the aforementioned "coveted reservation."  His warm personality and approach to hospitality is the reason Le Cirque is the restaurant it is today.  Service has never been the issue at Le Cirque.  Wells describes it as "Old-guard formality softened and animated by charm and warmth."  Here's to hoping the book will inspire the kitchen.

Donde Dinner? - 231 Eldridge Street

Donde Dinner? wants to make your next dining experience an adventure.  So, we'll pick a restaurant and post its address for you every Friday.  The catch is, that's all the information you get.  No name, no type of cuisine, and no Googling!  Before we get to this week's Donde Dinner?, let's reveal last week's address:

220 West 13th Street = Miyagi (no official website)

This weeks spot follows typical Donde Dinner? fashion.  Price, quality, and accessibility have all been taken into account.  You won't be waiting at the bar for two hours with $15 cocktails, and you don't have to worry about a dress code.  Just hop on the train, or your feet, or your bike, and head to:

231 Eldridge Street (btwn Stanton and E. Houston)

The 21st Century Limited is Full Steam Ahead

Tonight is going to be the third dinner is a seriers of five; all part of the 21st Century Limited switch with Alinea and Eleven Madison Park.  Grant Achatz and his Chicago Alinea crew drove to town earlier this week and served their first dinner at Eleven Madison Park Wednesday night.  There's been people on Craigslist selling tickets to the affair and Pete Wells, who got to experience the $495 meal on Wednesday, describes in a Diner's Journal article how he bobbed for apples, littered the floor at Eleven Madison Park with dead leaves, and watched Achatz shatter a “Chocolate piñata” over a table he and EMP Chef Daniel Humm just painted to look like "a lost Abstract Expressionist canvas."  Wells goes on to write:

There is real magic happening at Eleven Madison Park.  The collaboration is a culinary first and those lucky enough to experience it are lucky enough to experience it.  Part of the multi-course menu includes urchin and driftwood, Scottish woodcock, pines hoots, huckleberries, and an edible helium filled balloon that tastes like green apple.  Grubstreet has pictures to prove it.  Dinner continues through Sunday.

Daniel Humm and Eleven Madison Park will pack up and make the drive westward for a five night stint at Alinea beginning October 10th.  Tickets have yet to go on sale for the EMP at Alinea portion of the 21st Century Limited.

(300th post!) Navigating Otto's Wine List

Navigating a wine list can be a daunting experience.  When the options exceed 600, as is the case at Otto Enoteca e Pizzeria, the experience can be overwhelming.  Many factors go into curating a wine list and one of the most important is pricing.  Restaurants markup wine at roughly 3 times what they pay for it.  If a wine is purchased at $20 per bottle, the restaurant will charge $60.  In retail, wines are marked up at one and a half times the purchase price.  The same $20 bottle would retail for $30.  There are certainly variations to the rule, but this markup structure is common ground here in the city. 

When Otto opened in 2003, wine was marked up according to prices that were in place that year.  A 1997 Barolo may have cost the restaurant $40 in 2003, so it's priced on the list at $120.  Ten years later, that same bottle of Barolo is likely to go for $60; which would have it at $180 on a list that's being put together today.  This situation occurs all over Otto's wine list and it makes for some incredible values, you just have to know where to look.  As Otto approaches its ten-year anniversary, we decided to take a look at their decade old wine list and come up with a road map for you.

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