Wine. Travel. Food.
It’s said that fish and chips originated in northern England during the mid-1800s, when Spanish Jews first brought fried fish to the British Isles and, coincidentally, deep-fried potato became an established food item.
Back in the early 1980s when Pete and I were preparing to open Pronto Ristorante, we figured it would be a good idea to learn more about Italian cuisine. So we signed up for an “Italian immersion cooking school” taught by the legendary Marcella Hazan in Bologna, Italy. Every day, we would start out bright […]
I know, I know – I just posted about how I’m not a fan of fancy restaurants – too hoity-toity, pretentious and expensive. But there’s one restaurant – an expensive one – that I can’t get enough of. And the food isn’t even that great.
As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, I’m not a huge fan of fancy Michelin 3 star-type restaurants. I admire them, but I not only chafe at the cost, I find most of them a little too precious and full of themselves. Plus, dinner takes too long and my butt gets sore.
The food world is full of connoisseurs – steak fans, oyster mavens, cheese authorities, whisky and wine snobs, even soup Nazis. But have you ever once met a chicken aficionado? For a long time, I felt there really wasn’t a whole lot of difference between one roasted chicken and another. They all seemed pretty good […]
I’ve always loved Chinese restaurants – from our neighborhood take-out operations to the high-end, red-lacquered palaces in New York and San Francisco. I remember my first trips to Hong Kong and Shanghai, and how thrilling they were. But more often than not, Chinese food is a disappointment. Maybe because so many Chinese restaurants dumb it […]
Long, long ago – before I got into the restaurant business — I was a commercial interior designer who traveled frequently to New York. Even then, dining out was a passion. I can recall the beauty of Andree Soltner’s dishes at Lutece. I remember the thrill of eating at La Cote Basque, La Caravelle and […]
As the owner of a steakhouse that aspires to be the best of the best, I have a responsibility to check out the competition. It’s hard work sometimes (Heavy is the hand that hoists the steak knife.), but I do it without complaint. A quarter-century after opening Manny’s, I’ve eaten at probably every significant steakhouse […]
Joanne and I just returned from a two-week visit to Paris with three of our grandkids – ages 9, 10 and 14. And you ask, “What on earth do you do with kids in Paris? Is there a family-friendly version of the Folies Bergère?” To be honest, I was a little concerned about that, too. […]
Back in the day, before Pete and I started what was to become Parasole, we both had jobs that required a great deal of travel – Pete was a marketer for Pillsbury, with key accounts on the West Coast. I was a commercial interior designer with most of my clients in New York City.
