[Pigging by Wilfrid: December 23, 2013]
Where to begin? First, eating his food at Atlas, circa 2001 , distracted by Judge Andrew Napolitano (of Fox News) at the next table? Or before that, with stories of him cooking at one of my most treasured restaurants, Richard Neat's Pied-à-Terre--as recounted in his new biography, To the Bone?
Perhaps best begin last Wednesday evening, when I was introduced to him for the first time at a book signing. I was introduced as Kim Davis, to which he unblinkingly replied, "Yes. Wilfrid." Oh, well...
So when I dined at Little Elm, the new chef's counter inside The Elm restaurant, I was known to the house. Not that it mattered: apart from a complimentary sparkler to begin, I clearly ate the same meal as everyone else. And excellent it was too, just as my meals at the tables and bar of the same restaurant have been impeccable. Just as my dinners at Corton--and fleetingly at Gilt--were memorable.
It's been a long journey, but 2013 was clearly the year of Paul Liebrandt, with the critical success of The Elm and the launch of To the Bone. For all the fanfare surrounding Carbone, there can't be any serious doubt that The Elm was the best all-round new restaurant to open in New York this year, just as Corton was in 2008, and Gilt in 2005. Yes, I'm a fan.
The book signing at Bernardaud's 23rd Street boutique (right by Bistro La Promenade) was an intimate event, happily oiled by Krug. Staff from The Elm passed black olive-yuzu financiers and parmesan crisps. Bernardaud is partnering with Liebrandt to provide tableware for Little Elm, but I hadn't realised the Limoges-based tableware company has been working with Liebrandt since the Gilt days.
Bernardaud is celebrating its 150th anniversary with commissioned designs by fine artists, and there were examples on show at the boutique. Sophie Calle's "The Pig" series, with a strange story unfurling in a simple line of text across the center of the plates, was deeply strange. The open hands series by French artists Pierre Nourry and JR was haunting, and I was to encounter it again.
The book itself is handsome--Evan Sung's photographic detailing of Liebrandt's cuisine is extraordinary: and it's really a book with three textual elements. There's Liebrandt's story--fascinating to someone who dined in the UK when he was cooking there (tales of Richard Neat, Garry Hollihead, Marco Pierre White, et al). There's also a bunch of recipes in the back of the book--and good luck with them!
Perhaps most engaging, though, are the short texts which analyse a series of dishes which have been important to his career, including the signature glazed foie gras, and the gold bar dessert which is currently one of Little Elm's desserts.
Little Elm, for anyone who doesn't know, is the name now given to the dining counter which runs along the front of the open kitchen in The Elm's dining room. It offers a single tasting menu, priced at $135, which you discover in a drawer after you're seated. The counter is spaciously set with the Nourry/JR Bernardaud plates. (Comp disclosure: a glass of Crémant de Jura when I arrived).
I could hardly complain that the delicate financier and the parmesan crisp from the previous evening re-appeared as amuses here. Nor that the first pour of the wine pairings was Krug champagne.
Executive chef Mazen Mustafa directed the meal, and delivered most of the dishes, beginning with crisp crosnes and osetra caviar set over a light tofu chawan mushi. For refreshment, a cube of chilled Asian pear was trapped by tweezerish chopsticks at the side of the plate.
During the first week or so of Little Elm's operation, the complaint was heard that too many dishes from The Elm's regular menu were being served (not good news, sine you can dine well on that Menu for around $70). We did receive the disc of foie gras topped with Concorde grape jelly from the carte, which was no hardship. The other dish I recognized, but had not previously ordered, was the scallops with gnudi (on The Elm's menu no longer).
This came as the second part of a two-part scallop course. First, two plump diver scallops, nestled together in a bowl, under a shower of black sesame, and with a touch of citrus--yuzu, I think.
Nantucket bay scallops were then served warm, with fluffy gnudi and scallion sections, in a very mildly spicy tom yum foam (coconut, lemongrass). Chef Mazen shaved black truffles over the dish after it was presented.
One of the remarkable elements of The Elm, since almost day one, has been the sourcing of ingredients--like the tiny strawberries mentioned in my first review, or the turbot, of the same quality served at his much more expensive previous restaurant, Corton. The only stumble in ingredients at Little Elm might have been the lobster.
I say might, because the lobster was barely cooked through. I know this is the general taste, but I prefer my lobster a little more tender. In any case, this seemed slightly stringy and flinty, and was challenged by the richness of a brown butter sauce which was closer to a chocolate mole. A pair of sweet baby beets provided balance.
A Langhe Chardonnary with the scallops, Calera with the lobster.
No questions about the next ingredient, though: squab aged inhouse for five weeks. Squab, of course, is plump young pigeon, much milder in flavor than wild pigeon. This aging process reintroduces the gaminess, and then some. This was, in the best sense, truly dead flesh. By which I mean a kind of dark, mineral meat, almost with the texture of a solid jelly, if that makes any sense. Truly transformed.
The sweet potato cylinder on the side was surprisingly al dente; the other real treat of the plate was the squab leg meat, which had been braised, combined with other flavors I could scarcely begin to track, and reshaped around its bone like a sort of sausage. Wonderful too were the sauces, an oolong squab jus and a thin, almost grapefruity Buddha hand fruit purée. The Sean Minor Cali Pinot Noir was the pour.
A knockout dish, and worth a journey to seek out (not that all roads don't lead to Williamsburg, in any case).
They keep one cheese inhouse here, so it was the Stichelton next, same as the regular menu: a cheese so called because, unlike Stilton, it's made with unpasteurized milk, so can't call itself what it truly is--very good Stilton. It came with a dash of powdered vadouvan, and one of those long, wiggly jellies Liebrandt loves (apple and mint?).
Franco-American next: a millefeuille meets a popcorn mousse. The wine pairings built to a startling crescendo. If I have it right, it was the Castelnau de Suduiraut Sauternes with the cheese, a new Jersey Applejack--doing a convincing impersonation of a Calvados--to bring out the caramels of the millefeuille, and a Lustau Oloroso with the final chocolate course.
Which was--apart from some little sweet bites with coffee--Liebrandt's famous gold bar, a rich but light chocolate garnache. Of course, things were very pleasantly hazy at that stage.
The menu price, with the $80 wine pairings, takes the check comfortably past $200 before tax and tip, which puts it in the Corton ballpark, and aligns it more or less with Momofuku Ko (dinner, not lunch). But it's the season--Liebrandt season, that is--and the price doesn't seem too high to pay to explore a cuisine years in the making.
One always wonders, "What's next?" The high-end Liebrandt restaurant hypothesized for Manhattan remains--even in the text of To the Bone--tentative. It's hard to believe The Elm can contain his imagination; Little Elm already seems the domain of Chef Mazen.
But it hits the sweet spot right now, and I'm looking forward to Liebrandt's 2014, whatever form it takes.
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