Sunday, March 20, 2016

the comfort zone

studio

every restaurant in copenhagen that a noma alumnus starts has to make a point of not being another noma. sometimes, the tactics for doing this are broad stroke elements of presentation that are obvious and easily communicated in a photograph. at studio, the difference is subtle. torsten vildgaard's food does not push the eater beyond his comfort zone; there are no obviously exotically wild foods, no foods you obviously haven't eaten before. these days, restaurants showing such restraint are increasingly rare.

even during a short lunch, the kitchen brought me to areas of my comfort zone i'd not visited before. a slice of half-frozen pineapple, a snack casually sent out before the mains, mildly aromatic with some bright but unidentifiable flavour; this flavour (yuzu) made a simple piece of pineapple arresting, outstanding. and the kitchen showed me areas of my comfort zone that were, unknown to me, adjacent to each other. poached salt cod in a briny butter emulsion was concealed by cloud of raw shaved broccoli; its delicate crunch and subtle sulphur note filled this usually staidly rich dish with the feeling of spring. even the bread service was remarkable for its unassuming attention to detail and thorough perfection, the quickly fermented, gently lactic bread made from wheat milled on site (and a trace of barley from a 50kg bag gifted to the restaurant) and accompanied by a dish of freshly made, properly salted whey butter. it was a pyrotechnic-free lunch, and one of the best meals i've had in a long time.

for me, apart from the food, there was the added pleasure of seeing an old friend happy in his own kitchen. a chef with a clear point of view is rare, and one such who has created a kitchen, a restaurant, and a team which feels right is an even rarer satisfaction. for reasons unknown, the international press continues to fail to review studio—don't let this deter you from visiting.
studio
havnegade 44
1058 københavn K, denmark
part of my incomplete list of nearly perfect meals.

Thursday, March 17, 2016

liquid link

How you are able to taste a glass of wine and travel in your mind to the place where it began, recall the way the place looked in the Fall, the way the air smelled, the palpable energy of a vineyard bursting with fruit. Beer cannot do that, nor anything distilled. Walk a great wine estate and the wines produced there never taste the same again. Wine connects us to our senses, and to the places we’ve been, and the trajectory of our life. I know of nothing else that can make that connection. Wine grounds us on this beautiful planet. Maybe if the world had more wine drinkers, we wouldn’t have ruined it so carelessly.
ron washam, HMW

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

learning how to eat

Eating is highly subjective, and the man who accepts say-so in youth will wind up in bad and overtouted restaurants in middle age, ordering what the maître d'hôtel suggests. He will have been guided to them by food-snob publications, and he will fall into the habit of drinking too much before dinner to kill the taste of what he has been told he should like but doesn't.
a.j. liebling,"just enough money."