A New Generation of Influence
Michael Batterberry, Ariane Batterberry
Posted: December 17, 2009
Who's chiefly responsible for today's age of diversity? The young, whose collective open-mindedness and attraction to the new continue to propel the movement with unsubduable force.
Nowhere is diversity more appealingly displayed than on the contemporary American restaurant scene, from ever expanding menu offerings and wine and drinks lists to proliferating operational styles to broadened staff and patron demographics. Buoyed by the popularity of tasting menus, wine pairings, and small plates formats, a new generation of chef/restaurateurs in their twenties and thirties is now steering diversity's future course. The names of two shining examples, Dan Barber and Nelle Bauer, each committed to their own distinct chosen path, have appeared on our masthead's contributor list for the past several years.
Nelle Bauer, a co-chef/owner with Jennifer James and Kelly Burton of 40 seat Jennifer James 101 in Albuquerque, took a degree in physics at Bryn Mawr, proceeded to The Culinary Institute of America, graduating at the top of her class, then embarked on a master's degree program in New York University's Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health. Meanwhile, to investigate food publishing, she signed on as a Food Arts intern. After ensuing stints in an Oregon winery, she returned to us as a full-time associate editor, starting "What Next?", a periodic column foretelling technological developments. Then came her present rewarding return to the stoves in her native New Mexico.
"We don't describe our restaurant as Southwestern or New Mexican," she reports. "We do clean classic American cuisine, using as many locally raised foods as we can. We don't foam anything or play with molecules. We change our menu roughly eight times a year, the wine list six times. So far, the wines have been drawn from 12 different countries. Purveyors and reps come in regularly, bringing bottles. On average we taste 15 to 20 wines a week from different people. The three of us keep our individual notes, and when we get tired of the wine list, we bring them out. It's very democratic here. We each say what we liked or didn't and then decide what's going to showcase our food best as well as stand out on its own as a good wine." Among recent pairings to find a hugely positive response: "St. Louis-style Berkshire pork belly and sweet potatoes with the 2004 Marchesi di Barolo Barbaresco from Piedmont, Italy, and the 2008 Robert Sinskey Vineyards Pinot Blanc from Los Carneros, Napa Valley, with our buttermilk fried chicken with 'white gravy' and all-day greens. The weight and opulence of the Pinot mirrors that of the dish.
"We have to walk a fine line to appeal both to our regular customers and potential customers. A community of inquiry is what we've created. Our regulars trust us. We might push people out of their boundaries. It's like moving them from high school to college education. And our vendors support us all the way. If a customer really doesn't like a suggested bottle, there's no problem. They'll either credit us or replace it with a different bottle, just as if it had been corked."
As for their wine program having an influential ripple effect, "We've found that when we offer wines-in addition to those on our list-that are available in limited quantities or at certain higher price points, sales of those wines in the city of Albuquerque and the state of New Mexico increase drastically. Wines that we offer by the glass often sell out from local wine merchants as soon as we've started offering them on our list. Granted, Albuquerque is a relatively small culinary town, but it's really quite endearing to recognize our restaurant's culinary and viticultural impact on the community. These wines are sometimes esoteric, non-Pinot Noirs, non-Chardonnays with less than stunning bottle art and lack clever names. They are honestly made wines that impress us and inspire us and give us a great opportunity to educate and inform our guests. They are good wines, and our guests recognize that. It makes our job that much more rewarding when we are effectively making better diners and wine drinkers out of the community."
It's been a banner year for chef/restaurateur/farmer/writer (his book-in-progress is "about improving and looking for flavor before it ever comes into the kitchen")/international conference addresser/agriculture and better-food-choices activist Dan Barber, a graduate of Tufts University and The French Culinary Institute, and veteran of heavy-duty stages in lofty French, Spanish, and California kitchens. Having already received the James Beard Award for Best Chef in New York City, this May he claimed the foundation's Outstanding Chef in America medal. Add to this Time magazine's 2009 elevation of him to its annual list of the world's 100 most influential people (along with Michelle Obama, Timothy Geithner, the Twitter Guys, et al), plus his fifth consecutive inclusion in the annual Best Food Writing anthology. Not to mention serial publication of page-devouring op-ed pieces, sounding agricultural alarms, in the New York Times.
At his critically anointed Blue Hill restaurant at Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture, which opened in 2004 (see "Class Action," Food Arts, May 2003, page 93) on pastoral Rockefeller acreages in Pocantico Hills, New York, Dan (whose first born Greenwich Village Blue Hill, incidentally, lured the Obamas on their first post-inaugural "date night" in Manhattan) works "to blur the line between the dining experience and the educational, bringing the principles of good farming [note: visible through the restaurant's windows] directly to the table."
Dan's commitment to biodiversity shapes every meal. At Stone Barns, as of last year, there is no written set menu. Instead, diners now must pick either an unidentified multicourse $135 "Farmer's Feast" ($105 for paired wines) or "Five Course Tasting" ($105, plus $75 for wines). On a companion page are listed, by source category, every single edible a customer might consume that specific evening (depending on how many dishes served, finite supply, and the inconstant nature of nature herself). Sources include Stone Barns' own greenhouse, fields, and pastures; the Barber family Blue Hill Farm in Massachusetts; regional Hudson Valley farms and greenmarkets, etc. Most fish and seafood, perforce, are flown in from afar.
As Dan explains, "In a traditional format, if you have a loin of lamb on the menu, for instance, you have to make sure there's a certain number of portions for the evening-some rough estimation of how many people may order it. But sometimes we get in only one lamb, in which case a loin of lamb on the menu will last 20 minutes of service. In this no-menu format we're able to utilize the whole animal in the course of an evening. There's more flexibility, and of course it's more challenging, but ultimately it's more efficient for the farm and for us."
The daily list, as you'll see below, is guaranteed to stop one conversation and spark another. "It forces you to be instantly engaged," says Dan. "The best positive is that you get to talk with staff about what these things are and how they're grown."
BLUE HILL'S BIODIVERSE BASKET
Friday, July 17, 2009
greenhouse focea lettuce Oscarde lettuce pea shoots saltwort ruby chard red deer tongue green Swiss chard sunflower sprouts mokum carrots bay leaves rosemary Osaka purple spring garlic blackhawk chervil arugula regina heads celtuse red Russian kale sulu mustard flowers rainbow chard calisse firecracker mâche minutina Italian parsley wheat grass nasturtiums mizuna tango purple garnet breakfast radish pac choi pearl onions starbor kale ficiodes hakurei turnip Easter egg radish sage purple komatsuma red sorrel sungolds bok choi field apple mint jade cucumbers okra strawberries Oregon giant snow peas fava beans padron peppers garlic scapes romaine lettuce Socrates cucumbers lita squash bush basil purple basil red beets garlic golden beets Genovese basil chamomile pineapple mint Johnny jump-ups artichoke Lebanese squash white bush squash marrow squash pistou basil forono beet greens Samantha cabbage Merlin beets chocolate mint orange mint piricicaba Tuscano romanesco squash fennel pollen bush baby squash Adirondack blue potatoes pasture eggs from our hens Blue Hill Farm milk honey Cornish cross chicken Berkshire pork ocean Alaskan halibut Maine lobster fluke quahog clams ruby shrimp littlenecks wahoo wild striped bass river/lake paddlefish caviar herring caviar Hudson Valley sugar snap peas red gooseberries titan parsley raspberries purple top turnips zucchini gold bar squash white cherries black currants English peas cherries cannellini beans blueberries elderflower emmer wheat fairy tale eggplant black raspberries red currants sour cherries strawberries summer beans. If you have a food allergy, please inform the server.
To quote Nelle Bauer, "We like to drink to inquiring minds."
