DiverXo: A review of Dabiz Muñoz's Madrid Masterpiece

Background:

The first thing you notice when walking through the revolving door into DiverXO (Pronounced Diver-zou) are the flying pigs and giants ants that line the walls and the staircase on the way up to the main dining room. Like most things at DiverXO, everything has a purpose and a meaning. Flying Pigs? This is a tribute to chef Dabiz Muñoz’s ambition. He told his dad when he was young that he would be the best chef in the world. His dad, being pragmatic, told him that it’s more likely pigs would fly. The Ants? They symbolize teamwork, as it takes an entire team running full cylinder in order to pull off the great dining experience that DiverXO delivers.

Thoughtful and deliberate. That’s what I kept thinking in my mind as we progressed through the meal at DiverXO. Each dish was so complex, had so much meaning, that I felt like I was only touching the surface of each dish. I’m a golfer, so bear with me on this analogy, but how great golf courses set themselves apart from good or average courses is their ability to get better each time you play them. You learn the nuances of the holes, understand the progression of the course, and get a greater understanding and appreciation for what the architect was intending when they designed the course as a whole. Of all the famous restaurants in the world which we have been, DiverXO felt the most like this to me. You know when you are experiencing it for the first time that it’s a great restaurant, and for most, including us, this will probably be the only time we ever get to experience DiverXO, but I think if you’re lucky enough to go a few times the experience will only elevate and grow with each passing visit. There are very few restaurants in the world you can say that about.

The head chef, Dabiz Muñoz, grew up in Madrid and from an early age he knew he wanted to be a chef. He was influenced greatly by Chef Abraham García of Viridiana in Madrid, where his father would take him frequently, and where he felt Chef García “turned his own visions and style into a reality. I knew that that’s exactly what I wanted to do one day.” He enrolled in a local hospital school near Madrid post graduation and eventually made his way to London, where he worked at Hakkasan and Nobu. He then moved back to Madrid and opened DiverXO in 2007. DiverXO received it’s first Michelin Star in 2010, it’s second in 2012, and it’s third in 2013, when Dabiz was only 33 years old. He was the second youngest chef ever to receive three stars and brought back to Madrid a third star which the city had not had for over 20 years. It is currently the only three Michelin starred restaurant in Madrid and is ranked #4 in the world on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants List.

Eat This:

DiverXO only has one tasting menu which is titled “La Cocina de los Cerdos Voladores,” or the Flying Pig Cuisine in English. Each dish is served with either a detailed picture of the dish or a written out explanation, so it’s easy to follow along while eating to know what’s going on. The pictures were amazing works of art in themselves, and we have already framed a few for our wall of menus we keep in the guest bedroom. They also presented the pictures before each dish was brought out, which helped with pacing as we were able to read and discuss what was going to be coming out which killed some down time that normally exists at these tasting menu restaurants. Buckle up to your pig with wings and hang on for the ride.

Nigiri Madurado Del Pirineo

The first dish of the night was three main ingredients showcased in one. The first was rice, which is prepared three ways, a crispy rice couscous, as gnocci, and infused with black garlic. It sits next to the Pyrenean trout, which is served raw as well as dry aged for 45 days. Served in a broth is the “river crab”, which looks a lot what we would call a crawfish in America.

TOPSY TURVY WORLD…FROSTY SALAD FROM THE BOTTOM OF THE FRIDGE AND ITS SEA GARNISH

This was a play on a crapy salad that had been sitting on the bottom of the fridge. It was a lettuce granita with tomato heart seeds, creamy sweet-and-sour olive oil dresses, and rocket and steamed edamame. It was served with a side of turbot grilled yakitori style only on the skin side, to create two different textures on the same piece of meat.

Mystery

This was a brand new dish for the menu and they didn’t have a card for it yet, so I don’t know exactly what this was, but it was meant to symbolize Chef Munoz’s first trip with his one year old daughter to Singapore. It tasted good and was served in a fruit which Yvonne knows the name of, but she isn’t around to tell me so it will, for perpetuity, remain a mystery to me.

Drunk Crabs party by Jerez

Blue crab cooked in a traditional Chinese way with kimchi ice cream and a screwer of wild strawberries.

The blue crab is an evasive species to Spain, so DiverXO wants to serve it in order to try and eradicate it from the country. The cold kimchi ice cream pair nicely with the creamy crab.

ASTURIAS AND YUCATAN

Skate wing chop with acidulated parmesan whey and Melipona honey in a chile morita colored mole.

One of the coolest presentations of the night, in a long list of cool presentations. The clear bowl sits atop different colored flower petals, giving it a very South American vibe.

Two Varieties of Caviar

This dish contains one vegetable made of tender peas which are flash fried quickly in a very hot wok and the fish caviar which is cooked in a tandoori oven. It’s served with two Andalusian sauces: the white one is made with macadamia nuts, coconut, and horseradish, and the green consists of pistachios and jalapeños.

I think this dish could be served at any modern restaurant in the world and be the absolute signature dish. What a bold and uniqueness of flavors.

Espardenyas in Wok 8 Seconds

Espardenyas, bonito tartare, Canarian potatoes, in a scorpionfish broth.

Espardenyas are closely related to the sea cucumber. The al dente tenderness of the meat was outstanding.

Minutejo Del Agus

crispy pork skin wrap with pork head fungi, pecorino cheese, and cured goose egg yolk.

This dish is meant to be a play on the sandwiches Munoz’s dad would make for him as a child, except now it’s elevated with suckling pig, pecorino, homemade sriracha, and forest-inspired pesto.

Fried barnacle Thai Curry

Fried egg with puntilla taco, acidulated flowers and fine herbs mojo “tigre que llora”

The only other time we had barnacle was at Enigma in Barcelona. The star of this dish was the taco, which had egg yolk and corn in it, tasting very earthy and refreshing.

Cantabric Icons

According to our waiter, the most rare and hard to get ingredient on the whole menu was the rooster from Cantabria (province in north Spain). It’s served with al dente “pasta” eels, ravioli, and of course fried rooster skin. This was the outstanding dish of the night for me.

Spanish Bull

Ox tail crunchy ravioli and black mole with roasted marrow, sweet chili andniboshi. Soup of sour and spicy galician ox boullon with black vinegar and penja pepper infusion. You drank the soup out of the horn, which gave us the #vikingfeels.

Lobster Rising on the Beaches of Goa

This dish is an ode to Indian Cuisine. A Pani puri is served in an elephant vessel (see below). Lobster is presented on the plate with various indian curries and sauces, as well as beet

The Bottom of the Pot Leftovers

Similiar to the first salad, this dish is meant to emulate the best of a dish with the crunchy, “bottom of the plate” leftovers. Wild boar ribs are served with truffles and the vegetables are “overcooked” to be extremely carmalized.

Toasted Butter Risotto with Tuber Aestivum

Both desserts were amazing, but this was my favorite. Rice pudding is cooked like risotto, creamed with brown butter, white pepper, nutmeg, and beetroot. It was served with ice cream and shaved white truffles.

Blackcurrent Bubblegum

Coconut ganache, black garlic, blackcurrant bubblegum and liquorice, served with coconut ash and yuzu ice cream.

This dish was meant to bring back your childhood with a bubblegum flavor. I am NOT a bubblegum guy, but the flavor was subtle and the mixture of liquorice and yuzu really balanced this dish out.

Japanese BonBons

Spicy Chocolate, Cookies Dunked in Milk, Tiramisu, and Calmansi Curd

To end the night we were given different flavored mochis. All of them were delicious, but I especially liked the spicy chocolate.

Drink This:

Okay we are bad and not big drinkers, so we didn’t partake in any of the wines from Miguel Angel Millán, 2023 Best Sommelier according to World’s 50 Best Restaurants; however, we did have €18 cocktails to start the meal which were good but nothing to write home about.

Atmosphere:

The atmosphere at DiverXO whimsical, fun, dramatic, while still feeling a bit upscale and traditional at the same time. There are white tablecloths, but on the white tablecloths are chain-clad pigs and giant metal ants. Each table is enclosed by a white linens, so you have privacy but you can also look into the main room and still get a sense of what is going on around you. Flying pigs are on the wall, accented by probably the most comfortable white chairs you could ever sit on.

Yvonne loved everything about it and thought it was one of the coolest restaurant setups she’s been to. For me something was missing that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I think I wanted it to be more bold and wild to even more match the food that was coming out in front of us. It was a little too white for me - maybe a little two sterile? This is very nit-picky, as I thought overall the individual playoff accents really heightened the meal.

The Hardware

Flying Pig City

Ants Marching

The elephant plate

Madrileños Hospitality:

The service at DiverXO is top notch and exactly what you would expect from a three Michelin Starred restaurant. The attentiveness was amazing, and the attention to detail outstanding. I am left handed, and they had my silverware placed on my left hand for the first dish before they even saw me use a untensil. I’m still trying to figure out how they know I was left handed so early - maybe it was the way I drank my glass of water? That was incredible. Yvonne dropped her napkin on the ground at one point and a waiter in one motion while carrying away some dishes picked it up almost as soon as it hit the ground. As they say in show business, 3 stars no notes on the service from these pugs.

Jeff’s Notes:

Madrid is hot as the backside of a Mastiff in the summer - try to avoid at all costs; Flying pigs are cool, but flying pugs? Now we’re talking; We continue to be the only people who show up to 3 Mich restaurants by walking over an hour each way, and this sometimes leads to us not looking our best when showing up, but it does make us hungrier when we get there; DiverXO is right next to the Bernabeu where Real Madrid play, so naturally I made Yvonne go in there which she loved; We found a Spanish brand called “El Pulpo” because who doesn’t love a funky Octopus as a logo? If you are into food, Spain has to be on your top 5 destinations - you literally can’t get a bad meal here.

Rating: 5 out of 5 with 3 Michigan Pugs

Yvonne and I both agreed that DiverXo is a top five meal that we’ve had together since we started on our crazy food journey together back in AD 2015. There was not a miss on the menu, and the stories that were being told by each dish were very unique and you could tell that Muñoz and team have spent a lot of time and energy making each dish perfect. There is also a passion and genuine-ness that comes through the plate to the dinner. Some places you go and you can kind of tell that the head chef has moved on and the restaurant is just playing the hits, but not at DiverXO, which even though it’s approaching 15 years is still improving and getting better each year. It’s a must visit if you’re in Madrid, and a restaurant that should be on your short list to plan a visit around in the next few years, as I can only imagine it will climb to #1 restaurant in the world over the next half decade.

 

Noma Kyoto: A Review of Rene Redzepi's Japanese Pop-Up

Background:

A lot has happened at Noma over the last year and a half. Rene Redzepi and his team got best restaurant in the world again, a third Michelin star, announced that it’s “shutting down” - more on that later - and moved the whole restaurant to Kyoto, Japan to do one of their famous worldly pop-ups.

Noma’s pop ups have always intrigued me. Their previous iterations, Tokyo, Sydney, and Tulum, seemed to inspire the best out of Noma by forcing the team to be creative with local ingredients while utilizing the techniques perfected in Copenhagen. I wondered if the wow factor that we experienced at our first meal at Noma in 2018 could be replicated seven time zones away.

Yvonne and I were originally supposed to go to Japan in April 2020 as our “pre-baby” trip. We had the whole thing scheduled, bags almost packed, and then Covid happened. Japan completely shut down for foreigners at that time and didn’t reopen until October 2022. It had been rumored for a while that Redzepi wanted to do another pop-up in Japan, and that it was planned for a few years but because of Covid kept getting delayed. When the Kyoto pop-up was finally announced, we had a one year old baby, so we turned our pre-baby trip into a post-baby trip.

Because of the exclusivity of the pop-up, we had to book a four-top table. I don’t have a lot of friends who want to travel halfway around the world to spend $810/person and eat (let alone I don’t have a lot of friends), so I turned to The Hungries, which is an online food community started by Anders Husa & Kaitlin Orr. It’s a great community of people who travel to eat and generally like the finer things in life. Joe from San Francisco and Katherine from Copenhagen ended up joining us, making our table a worldly representation of The Hungries. It also added a nice mix up for Yvonne and me, allowing us to have new conversations with like minded food people. Case in point - don’t be scared to dine with strangers. Sometimes it can be bad, but most of the time it makes the experience better.

Eat This:

Noma’s meals always tell a story, the dishes are always so layered, that I half joking said during this meal that I’m going to have to wait for the book to come out in a few years to understand half of what I was eating and what it meant in the context of the meal, Japan, the wider culinary scene, and maybe even humanity as a whole.

My general strategy when going to special restaurants is I try to not see the menu beforehand, which in this day in age is almost impossible. Noma is normally pretty good about not posting current menu items, but for this pop-up they were a little fast and loose, so I basically avoided instagram posts and stories, trying to keep the surprise alive. I prefer to enjoy the meal not knowing what is coming next. I find that makes the meal more enjoyable.

That being said, the anticipation for this meal was sky high. Would Noma live up the hype?

Hassun

1. Fresh Yuba and wild greens
2. Koji and red ginger
3. Dried tomato and roses
4. Cherry leaf with black garlic
5. Pollen and tomato

The first dish was a series of small bites meant to be Noma’s play on Hassun, which in a traditional Kaiseki meal would be the first bites served to represent what is currently in season. In Copenhagen this would have probably been presented at 5 separate dishes, but having them all on one plate and to experience at once really set the fireworks in place for the meal.

We’ve been to Noma now five times, and this was by far the strongest start to any meals we’ve had there and probably ever. Each sub-dish was so good and different from the next that it made the 10 minutes were eating these dishes a true experience. The outstanding bite for me was the koji and red ginger. The ginger was muted to just get the flavor and the koji’s umami made the bite unforgettable.

Shabu Shabu

various seaweeds, konatsu citrus, seaweed ponzu

This dish was a play on shabu shabu, which is normally made with meat. We were instructed to dip the seaweed into the broth and allow them to cook for 5 seconds. Then we were supposed to dip in the ponzu and eat.

The seaweed immediately changed color when put into the water, which made the dish look cool; however, this one to me just didn’t taste that good. The coolest bite of this dish was the konatsu citrus, which we were instructed to eat with the rind on. It was a mild citrus that wasn’t overly sour, making it easy to eat and enjoy.

Cuttlefish

The cuttlefish sashimi was served on a top of beautiful block of ice, appearing as if floating on top of the rocks of the sea. This was a great bite, delicate and subtle.

Bamboo

with black pepper and squid sauce

This one was also a slight miss to me - I love the concept but the bamboo was a little too “al dente” for my liking. But i’ve never had bamboo so who am I to judge.

Swordfish belly

with kombu butter and caviar

This was just fatty, buttery, silky excellence. If I could eat this every day, I would, multiple times a day. The swordfish was very meaty, which played well with the rich kombu butter and the creaminess and saltiness of the caviar.

TOFU

with almonds and nasturtium flowers

This dish was a standout to me. It reminded me of a coconut curry, with the combo of fresh grated almonds, the green soy milk tofu, and the spicy nasturtium. I think of all the dishes, this is the one I think about the most for creativity and perfection.

Kinki Fish

with egg yolk sauce

Kinki Fish (rockfish to us gringos) was bathed in a very nice egg yolk sauce and i’m sure some other ferments I don’t remember. This tasted really meaty, but nothing to write home about.

Lotus Root

This lotus root is confit in koji oil overnight and then put on the barbeque for multiple hours while being glazed with different concoctions from the fermentation lab. This dish reminded me of Noma’s famous celeriac shawarma - a way for them to take a pretty hard root vegetable and turn it into something special.

Sansai

lobster head sauce

This started a 3 part lobster progression. First were local, seasonal raw vegetables served on top of a lobster head sauce. This was a polarizing dish at the table. Some loved it, some hated it. I loved the local seasonability of the vegetables, but thought they could have used a little cooking instead of being served raw.

Spiny Lobster

with smoked corn, pumpkin, and sansho leaves

The lobster was served on top of a corn/pumpkin remoulade which was delicious. A great main course dish to highlight the lobster in a very Noma way.

Green Rice

with ise ebi, lobster, and rose petals

The final main dish was a tribute to Kaiseki again, where traditionally rice is served as the last main savory dish. This green rice was served with rose petals and the rest of the lobster. It was unique, as in the rest of the world you normally end with a more substantial dish, however, it made for a nice palate cleanser for the desserts.

Yuzu Shijimi Clams

Talk about a wow, A++++ dish. The yuzu ice cream is made to look exactly like local clams. The taste was sweet, citrusy, and slightest bit sour, and the creaminess and the temperature of the ice cream were perfect.

Desserts

1. Dried Strawberry stuff with Mochi
2. Sweet Potato paste in White Chocolate
3. Egg Fruit custard

We ended the meal as we started, with a series of small bite desserts that were all out of this world. The sweet potato had almost a marapan quality, and was one of my favorite bites of the night. The egg fruit is a fruit that has the texture of an egg yolk, and book ended the meal nicely in comparison with pollen and tomato custard from the first set of bites.

Drink:

The price of the pop-up included either a non-alcholic or alocholic pairing. The alcoholic pairing, which we didn’t do, had a variety of sakes, local beers, whiskey, and Japanese wines that Joe enjoyed. Katherine did something I had never seen and which was ingenius: she asked for a combo of the non-alcoholic and alcoholic. I think that’s a good way to go, especially if you tend to get drunk easy (aka me), as a full pairing can have you forgetting the second half of your meal.

The non-alcoholic pairing was a classic Noma pairing of local fruits, vegetables, and teas. We especilaly enjoyed the iced green tea.

After the meal we were offered special cocktails which we had to pay for. I chose a Paloma that had local hot peppers in it. It was good, nothing insane, and when the bill came it was ¥5,000, or the equivalent of $36. We were wondering what the price would have to be before someone said something about a cocktail being too expensive. It might have been over/under $36.50. But what can we do - YOLO.

Jasmine tea with amazake (fermented rice)

The $36 Paloma

Tomato & Smoked Corn Juice

Melon & Kiwi Juice

Atmosphere:

Noma did an excellent job making the decor feel like we were in Japan but with a Scandanavian vibe that put us all into what I thought was the proper setting for the dinning experience. Noma customized and furnished the entire restaurant for this pop-up, from the plates and silverware on up to the custom chandeliers as part of their extensive research and prep for the pop-up. The staff were wearing the familiar Noma blue outfits and grey aprons that we were familiar with from Copenhagen, and overall the vibe we had was a casual and fun.

The main dining room

Walking up to the restaurant by following the sea shell clues

View of the kitchen from our table

The view from our table

Hospitality:

The hospitality was top notch, with our main server Cornelia being extremely knowledgable and accommodating. This being our 5th trip to Noma, I was not walking out of the restaurant without a picture with Rene Redzepi, so Katherine was kind enough to be the loud American and ask if we could take the picture. It took about 30 minutes to make happen (a million other people had asked and wouldn’t stop talking to him), but we finally got it as we were walking out the door. Mission accomplished - I have a picture with Redzepi doing the Japanese peace sign and Joe looking creepy in the background. The perfect encapsulation of the meal.

FRANKIE/Jeff’S NOTES:

Our other big family news is we have a new pug, who we aptly named Jeff. He is an insane puppy, but we love him dearly; Yvonne during the meal asked Katherine if her earrings had Lizzo on them - turned out it was the Virgin Mary; I wanted to give a 10 second elevator pitch on how I thought that Noma should sell branded chopsticks or some other Japanese tchotchke to commemorate the pop-up, but decided against in and instead put it here to satisfy my introverted ways. I also think they should have a one day food tour the day before you dine with them to take you on a tour of Kyoto to get a better understanding of the place before the meal. And while i’m at it, Rene Redzepi should go around to each table for a 30 seconds each and take pictures with the guests. It would save him time and make everyone happy; We saw guests wearing everything from a t-shirt to kimono, and I think that sums up the world pretty well; Apparently every American has told Redzepi they want to move to Copenhagen, and his response is that Copenhagen is great except the weather could be 10% better.

Jeff aka Jeffrey aka Jeffy aka Geoff aka Poo Poo Jeffy aka El Malo

RATING: 5 OUT OF 5 WITH 3 MICHIGAN PUGS

I did a lot of nitpicking above, but overall the whole meal was amazing, thoughtful, and mind blowing. It brought us back to our first meal at Noma in Copenhagen, where we left shell shocked, not understanding what had just happened to us, and wanting more. There was so much to meal to unpack, so much meaning in each dish, that it’s hard to even know in the moment what was going on other than what we were eating tasted really good. I think the sign of a truly amazing meal is that when you come back to it in your mind you keep uncovering and finding new meanings and levels to the dishes and the experience as a whole. There is no doubt that Noma Kyoto was that type of meal.

Since the news that Noma as we know it is shutting down, and everyone knows that we are obsessed with Noma, we have been asked 100 times what our thoughts are on the news. You know it’s a big deal when People Magazine writes an article on the closing with the title “World’s Best Restaurant Noma, Which Often Served Reindeer Penis, Will Close.” My take - Redzepi accomplished what he wanted with Noma 2.0. He got best restaurant in the world again, got his third star, and now wants to move on to the next thing. If there is one thing we know, Redzepi is not one to sit on his laurels of past success. I think that the worldly pop-ups really stimulate him, and I think we’ll see a lot more of those in the future. I think we’ll see Noma do a lot of collaborations and pop ups in Copenhagen as well, just not as defined of menus as we saw with the three season restaurant. You’ll see a lot more products being sold from the fermentation lab, more books, and I think a more subscription based model like their current Taste Buds.

Whatever is in store next for Noma, you’ll know we’ll be first in line to sign up for the experience. There is no other restaurant in the world that has had a bigger influence on us and probably the rest of the culinary world then Noma, and we’re excited to see what the team decides to do next.

 

Jordnær

Background:

In recognition of Jordnær landing at #38 on the World’s 50 Best List for 2022 I decided i’d dust off my fingers and write a proper review of what was probably our top meal of 2021. With the birth of our first masculine child, Samuel, and some complications he has had in his early life, we have taken a pretty long break from the blog. We’ll try and write as much as we can, because we started this blog to document and memorialize the great meals we have had, but can’t promise when we’ll be back. Just know that we’re still out there eating in the ether, even if its not documented on the internet.

When visiting Noma a few years ago we dined with Kirstens Jepson (check out her instagram @kirstenjepson), a local Danish artists who specializes in food photography. We asked her what other local restaurants we need to check out, and she told us that we needed to go to Jordnær in the outskirts of Copenhagen in a town called Gentofte.

Jordnær (roughly translating to down to earth in English) is not flashy. It’s in a 3 star hotel in a quiet suburb that looks more from the outside like a you’re going to an Applebees than a 2 Michelin starred restaurant. If it wasn’t for the Jordnær tree on the glass door to the left of the hotel lobby we probably would have wandered around Gentofte trying to figure out where we were going and wondering what mess we got outselves into. Luckily Tina, who we would find out later is Chef Eric Kragh Vildgaard’s “better half,” found us looking bewildered and assured us we were in the right place.

The next three hours were filed with excellent food, wonderful service, and the most caviar I believe is legally allowed to be served in one setting.

Eat this:

King Crab, Sake, Coriander

The first bite was a beautiful tart that reminded me of Botticelli’s Primavera. Hope sprung eternal, and this dish encapsulated what would be ahead in the night - a seafood heavy, fresh ingredient driven experience.

Tart of lobster, yuzu, & Trout Roe

One of the most beautiful dishes, maybe ever. The dish it is served on makes it look like the tart is literally floating, which reflected the light, airy flavors of the dish.

Hamachi Sunazuri, Caviar, & Aged Soy

This was our first of many, many caviar dishes. The caviar flowed like cocaine flowed at a 1999 Prince concert. Leading to the question - can you have too much caviar in a meal? Jordnær challenged this notion, but at the end I think its safe to say we were left wanting more.

Japanese waffle, Fjord Shrimp, & Caviar

Probably the signature dish of the restaurant: the crispy waffle is filled with shrimp and then topped with, you guessed it, caviar. It is an ode to a Michelin star? I don’t know, but it tasted and looked magnificent.

Takoyaki - Elegence Ostra Classic Caviar

Now the truffles start! Hide your kids, hide your wife, because this is not the last time we’ll see considerable amounts of truffle either. Also we’re seeing a theme here - a very Asian influence with Danish ingredients.

Mushroom Tea, Walnut, White Truffle

I mean come on now - mushroom tea with shaved white truffles. This dish tasted like you were foraging with your truffle pigs in the forrest.

Scallop, Pear, & green gooseberries

This dish reminded me of a dish at Eleven Madison Park, which was a a squid tartare. The look and the feel of the dish were similar, with the stark white of the dish giving off a vibe of refreshment and subtle flavors.

Langoustine Bouillon with Tomato Water

Yvonne loves her a tomato soup - especially while pregnant. What was her weirdest pregnancy craving? It was, and a quote, “a flat white fish” which I procured from her at Vana.

Plants from Chris Elbos Garden, smoked mussels, Dashi

Do I remember anything about this dish? Nope - so probably wasn’t the best dish we had that night.

Smoked Cheese, Nettles, Kalix Pike Roe

Anything smoked is right up my alley. This was what I would call as sophisticated fondue - subtle flavors and of course more roe.

Limfjords Oyster, Wasabi, DILL

A wasabi + dill combo is a great combo you would never expect and was a great mixture of a classic Nordic flavor with a classic Asian flavor. A great symbolism for the meal as a whole.

Caviar, Miso, Black Currant Branch

The caviar is back with a vengeance. Maybe the perfect caviar dish?? The creaminess of the caviar mixed perfectly with the tea broth.

Hamachi, Sesame, Ponzu

When Chef came out and spoke to our table we asked him what was the secret to his restaurant. He said it was the ingredients - that he would go out of his way around the world to bring in the best raw food, because without that you are starting from behind the eight ball. I think this hamachi highlights this - getting the best fish is imperative to make this dish the best.

Bread & Butter

If I remember this correctly, this bread was a half Japanese milk bread and half Danish brioche. Obviously Yvonne is the bread course connoisseur and was willing to share a small sliver of the bread with me, of which i was forever grateful for. It was a heavy, buttery, delicious tasting bread.

King Crab, Blue Mussels, Vadouvan

Our first “main dish” was king crab. Again showcasing the fresh king crab with a nice slight curry broth.

Turbot, Langoustine, Tuber Melanosporum

This dish has been on the menu I believe the longest and is considered by many to be the signature. Who doesn’t love a black truffle encrusted fish dish? That was a rhetorical question.

Goatmilk, Beetroot, & Black Currants

We’re not in a transition to the desserts with a few “cheese” courses. The first being this goat milk and beetroot combo. It’s nice to have the earthiness of the beetroot to mix with the goatmilk and currents to clense the palate.

Sheep Milk, Sorrel, Rapeseed

Sorrel is the quintessential ingredient for me when I think of new Nordic cuisine. Maybe it’s because that’s one of the first desserts we had in Denmark when we first came, or just the earthy/slightly sour flavor that sorrel has. Also sheep milk is about as traditional Danish dessert as you get. We loved this combo.

Leatherwood Honey, Chamomile, & Lavender

The Tasmanian honey in this dish can only be harvested during a 5 week window throughout the year. I guess that’s the only time of the year you can safely avoid the Tasmanian Devils.

But seriously have you seen a more beautiful dessert? The taste of the honey was something extraordinary.

Friss-Holm White Chocolate, Caviar

This molded taco reminded us of a molded pancake we had first time we went to Noma, except Noma didn’t put a huge mount of caviar on top. You know we had to end with the lump of caviar. It’s the only way the meal could have ended at Jordnær.

Petit Fours

The final bites were a series of small bites to officially end our night. My favorite was the English cream pie which tasted to me like a Boston Creme pie. Maybe the Bostonians stole it from the English. We’ll never know.

Drink:

Jordnær offers a few wine pairings and a non alcoholic pairing. Since Yvonne was preggo and I’m a loser we both opted for the non-alcoholic pairing. It was a series of interesting drinks from around the world, including an alcohol free “distillation” from Australia called Ovant, some teas, kombuchas, and my personal favorite, a non-alcoholic yuzu beer from Mikkeller right there in Copenhagen. They also had an herbal tea service at the end of the meal where they would cut off living things from pots and put it in your tea, very similiar to our infamous tea at Kitchen Table in London. You could tell they took a lot of time in curating the non-alcoholic pairing to balance the food we were eating.

Ovant non-alcoholic gin

Mikkeller non-alcoholic yuzu beer

ATMOSPHERE:

The vibe here feels like one of those movies where you are wondering around the desert for a few days and then you stumble upon, out of nowhere, an oasis with a bar and good looking people hanging out like its Paris in the 1920s. One minute you’re walking along a suburban road seemingly in a nothing town on the outskirts of Copenhagen and then you’re in a 2 Michelin starred restaurant. We asked Tina why they chose Gentofte as a location, and she basically said it was was cheap and the only thing they could afford.

There is something pretty romantic about seemingly discovering a thing in a place that said thing probably shouldn’t be - like a secret that only a few people know about. It almost makes the experience feel like a dream. Were we actually in a nice restaurant there? Did we have a million grams of caviar? Was Yvonne pregnant? All questions that left us reflecting post meal that made the meal that much more memorable.

Eric & Tina

View of the dinning room

Signed, sealed, and delivered

Tea service

Gentofte Hospitality:

Jordnær is about as mom and pop as a Michelin starred/Top 50 restaurant can get. You’ve got Tina, the wife, leading front of house and Chef Eric, the husband, leading the back of house. Both of them could not be nicer. They both spent lots of time at each table, talking to us, bringing out dishes, and answering our dumb American questions. Also they have like 5 or 6 kids that they somehow manage (asking for a friend how to manage one). They are truly a remarkable couple. What was the most important to me was their LOVE was emanating from Jordnær - the love of good food, the love of great company, and their love for each other. It truly made for an exceptional experience.

FRANKIE’S NOTES:

Since our last blog post we had to say goodbye to our puggle Ollie, and we said goodbye to Frankie a few years ago. So we are currently pug-less; but fear not! Jeff is currently on the way from Puglicious Cuddled Pugs in Greenville, SC and should arrive to our home very soon. The good news is Frankie still calls us on the avocado phone from beyond the rainbow bridge to give us his notes on his dining experiences.

Showing up to a fancy restaurant by public transportation/bike/foot is way cooler than showing up in a fancy limo/car; If you have a sleeve tattoo and don’t run a Michelin starred restaurant are you even living, bro?; to answer the question - NO, you cannot have too much caviar in one meal; Not to come out and say it, but Copenhagen has the best pug weather and mom and dad should move their permanently.

Ranking: 5 out of 5 with 3 Michigan Pugs

On this trip to Europe we went to Noma, Alchemist, and Mirazur, but to us Jordnær was clearly the best of them all. From the first bite to the last sip everything was executed to perfection. We were so happy to see them land on the the World’s 50 Best List and we hope you all have the opportunity to visit them on your next trip to Copenhagen.

 

Noma: A Review of the Game and Forest Season Menu

Background:

We have done what few mortals have done - we’ve completed the holy trinity of the three Noma seasonal menus (Catch up by reading our reviews on the Vegetable season and Seafood season).

Getting to Noma this time was a year and a half process. We had originally booked a table for last summer, but then our friend Covid-19 hit and Denmark, like most of the world, shut down their borders. We kept pushing off and pushing off our trip until finally Denmark opened up and we were able to secure a table for the Game and Forest season.

During the pandemic Noma, like most restaurants in the world, had to pivot to keep its doors open. While they couldn’t have enough physical diners in their restaurant because of capacity laws they decided to open up a wine and burger pop-up, which now has a permanent location in the former, now deceased 108 spot next to Barr (Noma’s other sister restaurant) called POPL. They have two main options on their menu, a meat burger made from organic Danish cows and a vegetable burger from the famous Noma fermentation lab. The veggie burger is legitimately one of the best “burgers” I have ever eaten. The patty is made of a combination of quinoa and tempeh spores, which is fermented for 24 hours and then lathered with a garum of yeast, fava bean shoyu, and smoked vegan butter. It’s topped off with a slice of cheddar cheese, lettuce tossed in a chervil vinaigrette, POPL’s secret sauce, and a potato bun. The combination of all of those magical ingredients provides you with a texture of eating a meat burger but with much more intense and rich umami flavors. This burger is a great way to experience a part of Noma for $20 if you can’t make it to the main dining room and is a must try if you are in Copenhagen.

Don’t forget to order the fries with chili mayo as a side!

The Noma veggie burger

We visited Noma two weeks after its LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG overdue awarding of its 3rd Michelin star and a week before to 50 Best Restaurant list is to come out, of which Noma was named #1 in the world. It was also the first week of the new menu, which is always a fun time to go as it’s easier to avoid spoilers of the menu on the internet. Noma is famous for not repeating a dish on its menu, although if you have a vegetarian or someone with a food allergy dining with you you might see a reprisal of a dish from a former menu show up at the table. Because they don’t repeat a dish it’s always interesting to see what they come up with next to live up to the highest of high expectations. Most restaurants in the world, if they change their menu, will serve their “signature” dish, think Five Ages of Parmesan at Osteria Francescana or the balloon at Alinea. I think the non-repeating of a menu item forces Noma to be creative and to also throw some dishes on the menu that take some risks. Our first dish of the night, reindeer brain custard, was an example of this. The custard was topped with a gel made out of chestnuts, and the dish left us wondering if it was a good dish or not, mainly because neither of us are familiar with the taste of reindeer brain. But that’s how Noma goes - you’re going to try some shit that you’ve never contemplated trying in your life and 95% of the time you’re going to wonder why you don’t eat that ingredient every day because its so delicious, but of course we don’t have Noma to cook for us every day.

After three visits to Noma i’ve noticed a few recurring themes to how the team likes the structure it’s menu. For one, the first dish and the last dish normally have something in common. At our first visit during the vegetable season it was a potato soup served in a flower pot for our first dish and a cake shaped like a flower pot. For the seafood season it was a raw scallop to begin and a chocolate seafood cod to end, and finally for the game and forest it was reindeer brain custard to begin and a reindeer caramel to end. They also like to have a milk dish to start the desserts instead of a cheese course, which we’ve had berries and cream, sheep’s milk with dried berries, and buttermilk and scoby. There are also some ingredients that Noma likes to showcase - there is normally some sort of insect dish (grasshoppers, ants, etc), there is also the most delicious small pine cone somewhere in the meal, and they like to use quince instead of lemon to help flavor a dish or two. The Noma fermentation lab is always very involved in the dishes, whether it’s overt or not. There are garums, sauces, juices and whole dishes that the fermentation team works on and show up through out the meal.

Eat This:

The end of September through December is game and forest season, which is the only season which meat plays a predominate role (or really a role at all) at Noma. There is one menu, and it’s a whirlwind so hang on for the ride.

Reindeer brain custard

The first dish was served in a reindeer skull. We were asked to turn the skull over the reveal the reindeer brain which was covered in a chesnut gel. The reindeer brain tasted and had the texture of a pate, while the chesnut custard was like of like a weird jello experiment. This was a dish where we couldn’t quite figure out if it tasted good or bad, because it was so different than anything we’ve really ever had. Normally I like the first dish to be outstanding and set the tone, but what I think this dish did was let us know we were going to try some stuff we’ve never tried so be ready for it.

hipberry stuffed with Pollen

This dish and the next were focused on the bee, with this hipberry being stuffed with sweet bee pollen. The hipberry was very sour and reminded me of the fruit leather from past Noma meals. Noma did a very similar dish with this same combination for the first rendention of the Game and Forest menu in 2018.

pluM with bee larvae

One thing that Noma excels at is presentation. The plating of this dish inside of a honeycomb accentuated the fact that we were eating bee larvae. The plum’s sweetness and texture complimented the stuffed larvae on the inside perfectly.

Pickled Quail Egg

The pickled egg was served on with seaweed and truffle spread. The seaweed added a nice balance to the egg and heartiness of the truffle.

Oregano Sandwich

This was one of the best bites of the night. The Mexican oregano leaf was stuffed with chopped up truffles, and the oregano provided a buttery, umami texture to combine with the truffle.

Wild Board Speck & Chestnut Paste

This was, for both of us, the best tasting dish of the night. The boar meat was so juicy and tasty and combined with the chestnut paste it was so damn good. It was also served with quince, which we were to squeeze over it like a lemon.

Grilled Mushrooms

Served alongside the boar was grilled hen of the woods mushrooms. The Hen of the Woods is a huge mushroom that can be upwards of 35 pounds each. We were served a piece that was smeared with a garum from the fermentation lab. An amazing, earthy bite.

Apple Salad

This dish continued another theme of the night, which was turning over the vessel to reveal the edible portion of the dish. We were served a cut out apple (see below) which we turned over to reveal cubes of apples and ants in a sweet broth. You know the dish is good when you drink the remaining broth out of the cup, which we did.

Yellow Beet Sashimi

The yellow beets were cut sashimi style and served over cloudberries. The earthiness of the beet mixed well with the sweetness of the cloudberries. I think this is obligatory time to bring attention to the beauty of each dish which Noma serves. Noma has a serving style unlike any in the world. They combine the intricacy of the dish with the earthiness of the plate, and pay homage to the season and theme I think the best of any place in the world. There aren’t too many restaurants where you can show a picture of a dish and immediately guess where it came from, but Noma is one of those places.

Reindeer Ragout

The warm reindeer ragout salad was served in a huge leaf which you ate with a spoon. Three days after we dined at Noma, Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin went to Noma and his dish was “reindeer penis” served with caviar on top. Did we have reindeer penis? God we hope so.

Pumpkin in Koji Butter

The pumpkin was wrapped in a cabbage and served with a froth of koji butter. What was subtle and nice about this dish was that the chefs cut up the cabbage to make each bite each to eat. Too many fine dining restaurants serve dishes that are physically difficult to eat, which almost always takes away from the enjoyment of the experience, especially when you’re trying to cut something and the juices are flying everywhere.

Bear Dumpling

This is, as Adam Carolla would say, a classic rich man, poor man situation. The only people in the world who have tried bear are rich people who go to Noma and poor people who hunt bear in Appalachia. I think we’re pretty much right in the middle of that demographic now that we live in South Carolina.

The bear was served in a warm dumpling, and we were given a spoon of bear caramel so we could get an understanding of the flavor of the bear. I don’t think my palate is sophisticated enough to recognize the quintessential bear flavor, but this dish overall was very balanced and tasted delicious.

Wild Duck

The duck was served with a truffle sauce, very reminiscent of the sauced celeriac shawarma served during vegetable season 2018. It was served with different plays on leaves and feathers, which were all edible.

Having duck a few days earlier at Mirazur, which was pretty underwealming, this duck was well seasoned and cooked perfectly. The star of the show for me though were the leaf and feather sides, which balanced the duck and showed the amazing talents of the Noma chefs.

Foraged Things

This one didn’t have a title, so I’m going to call it foraged shit you find in the woods. The pine cone, a Noma staple and one of the most amazing things you’ll ever eat, showed up here, along with various nuts, pickled fruits, and leaves.

Mushroom broth with Sumac

Next we were served a mushroom broth with a piece of the sumac bush. We were told to soak up the mushroom broth with the sumac and then suck the sumac. Sumac by itself does not taste good, but sucking the juices from it added a subtle sweetness and bitterness to the mushroom broth which accentuated its flavor. Probably one of the more unique dishes we’ve ever had.

Buttermilk and Scoby

We are now transitioning to the desserts, and our first was a buttermilk ice cream with a kombucha scoby on top. This was the one miss of the night for us - we thought the ice cream was served too hard that it almost hurt when biting in, and the scoby didn’t add much to the non-flavored ice cream.

Saffron Ice Cream with Poppyseeds

The saffron ice cream was layered between rich dark chocolate from Mexico. I thought the chocolate counter balanced the saffron nicely, and it was also nice to have the layers of chocolate to dig into.

Reindeer Marrow Caramel

The last bite started like the first, with us flipping over the bone to reveal the caramel marrow and dried berries. The caramel was sweet and had a perfect, not too sticky, texture. This was an outstanding dish that left us wanting more.

Drink This:

Both Yvonne and I did the juice pairing this time, which are always amazing. My favorites were the bee pollen and the cloudberry and pumpkin. At the end of the meal, I asked if I could have a schnapps, which is a traditional Nordic way to end a meal. I was brought out an apple schnapps from the Sydfyenske region, which is a large island that separates the main part of Denmark that connections with Germany to the region where Copenhagen is. The story goes that 100 years ago most workers would take an apple on the train for breakfast as they went to work. Once they were done, they discarded the apple pit off the train. Flash forward to today, and now there are thousands of apple trees of various varieties all over this park of Denmark. The schnapps I had was made from these apple trees in a direct collaboration with Noma and is called “Jernbaner”after the railway company which still operates there.

Bee Pollen

Apple Schnapps

Seaweed Lemonade

Cloudberry and Pumpkin

Atmosphere:

The vibe at Noma always feels like a fairytale. From when you approach the gate, to the long walk down the path past the greenhouses, test kitchen, and garden, the approach to the main dining room door which is always decorated for the season, and then the parade to your seat always feels like you are entering a world which you never want to leave. I’ve always felt it was hard to take it all in at Noma, because there is so much going on and everything seems so magical that you don’t want to miss anything, from the decorations to the kitchen, to Rene Redzepi roaming around. When you walk out after your meal is done, you look back and it almost feels like a dream. I never went to the old Noma location, but the current location is hallowed culinary ground to me.

Main kitchen

The alley of antlers

Long path to the entrance

Main dining room

Noma Hospitality:

One of my only complaints about Noma is that the hospitality can come off, at times, as cold. When we were first seated our waitress said “I understand this is your first time.” That right there tells you that there is a miscommunication somewhere, or they don’t have a good system of knowing when there are repeating guests, or worse yet they don’t care. We also have noticed that the team plays favoritism to certain guests, whether its Rene Redzepi delivering dishes to certain tables and not others, or certain tables getting special dishes. This creates a feeling, for those of us who don’t receive that treatment, that we aren’t special enough to receive these special items from the team. And maybe we aren’t special, but on a night where you go to a place that you love you want to be treated that way. It’s like when you go to the big dance and see your crush making out with the high school quarterback. This has never set well with me, especially for someone who cares about what Noma means to the culinary world and how important I believe what they are doing with fermentation, foraging, and their work as a whole. I just want them to pretend to care about me as much as I care about them. And maybe that’s not possible, but I don’t think its too much to ask to know that we’ve traveled to Copenhagen three times just to visit Noma that this isn’t our first time at the restaurant.

Also a few other things I’ve noticed that have changed, and for me not for the better. Noma used to give you a menu with the date on it. Now the date is missing, which is a small thing, but just makes me think that they print the menus out a week ahead of time. The date added a personal touch that let you feel like that day was your day at Noma and was special. They also didn’t give us a little trinket for the season, which they used to do for each guest. They also brought us the same dish twice, which I’ve never seen happen at any three Michelin star restaurant. They were nice about it, and let us keep it and eat it, but still that is a mistake that shouldn’t happen.

The front door, with dead ducks and all

The front door at night

The top of the apple and ants dish

The view from our table

Frankie’s Notes:

Sam Hart, chef at Counter-, told us that his friend Alex was working at Noma. Before we went, we DMed Alex on Instagram (@reunionparkpopup) to tell him we knew Sam and that we were dining at Noma next week. He said to say hi, so we told our waitress when we arrived at Noma that we wanted to say hello to him at some point in the meal. Keep in mind, we’ve never met him, just DMed him on his food-based Instagram, so we have no idea what he looks like. After our meal is over, Alex shows up and we talk for a bit. He was a little quiet, but we figured we took him from his job, so we didn’t think anything of it. The next day I DMed him and just said how proud we were of a local guy from North Carolina working at Noma. He then writes back and says sorry he didn’t have time to come by and say hi to us the night before. SO WHO DID WE SPEAK TO? Turns out there is another American Alex from Virginia who we came and spoke to us and pretended to know who we were. Sorry Virginia Alex, we didn’t mean to freak you out by asking to speak to you, we were just asking to speak to the other American Alex. A classic case of Alex mix-ups.

Rating: 5 out of 5 with 3 Michigan Pugs

Putting all the hospitality qualms aside, Noma still dazzles with its unique, amazing food and fairytale atmosphere. It remains my favorite restaurant in the world and a place that any fine-dining lover should visit. Comparing it to the other seasons, we both enjoyed the menu slightly more than the seafood season and slightly less than the vegetable season. The vegetable season was our first visit, and I think that will always be number one for us since it was such a revelation for us as far as what a meal could be, so it will always be hard to top that, but Game and Forest lives up to the hype and then some.

 

Counter-

For those of you looking back at this picture in 50 years - Covid-19 was a special time for everyone

Background:

Counter- is the brainchild of Sam Hart, a Charlotte born and raised chef who trained at CPCC in culinary arts and worked at some of the best restaurants in Chicago, including Alinea. He came back to Charlotte in 2019 with a mission of opening a fine-dining establishment in the Queen City to rival the best restaurants in the world - he’s told me multiple times he wants to be on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list in the next five years. That’s quite ambitious for any chef, and more importantly quite ambitious for a city which has not received much national or international recognition. But that’s the point - Chef Hart wants to put Charlotte on the world’s culinary map.

Hart started by doing pop-ups around Charlotte under the name Anomaly in 2019, honing and testing his concept. After proving popular, he opened up his brick and mortar on Thrift Road in September 2020. Counter- serves a ten course, fixed price tasting menu Tuesday through Saturday that starts in price at $105 but goes up depending upon wine pairings and add ons.

What makes Counter- unique is it’s showmanship. Each course is paired with music to make a full immersive dinning experience. Chef Hart also has wears a microphone and story tells through each course, explaining the dish and how it relates to the theme of the meal and the music. Of all the fine dining restaurants we’ve been to, it is the most “showy” of any of them. You are here for an experience which just happens to serve you dinner. This is not a place to have an intimate meal or restaurant where you should go to catch up with a long lost friend. This is the high end, broadway show version of a Medieval Times. You are here to be entertained, but also enjoy and amazing meal, and somehow Counter- tends to pull off the show every time while still maintaining a Michelin level food and wine program. Charlotte ain’t in Kansas anymore.

Eat This:

At Counter- there is one menu and you’ve got to buckle up and enjoy the show. The menu changes seasonally with a new theme. Each theme is completely different from the next. Counter- also does pop ups a few times a season are normally a weekend. Some recent themes have been A Tribute to John Williams (where each course is themed after a movie score), Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy Album, and F*ck the Stars (a menu to make fun of Michelin starred restaurants). I tend to enjoy the seasonal menus better, as the team tends to hone in on the dishes and improve them over the course of the season. That’s why we always try to go at the end of each season, so we’ve given the team time to work out all the kinks and provide us with the best menu possible.

We’ve been six times since they opened, so instead of going through each meal i’m going to highlight some of our favorite dishes we’ve enjoyed throughout our visits.

Autumn

bruleed kombocha squash, cured sea bass that is poached in an acorn/squash dashi and then wrapped in a corn square.

Counter- loves to showcase local ingredients. This sea bass was highlighted by squash, which is abudent in the regions around Charlotte. The presentation on this dish is one of the best presentations of fish you can get in the world.

Foie Gras emulsion

Foie Gras, Orange, Hennessy, Caraway

The sphere emulsions pop up on a few of Counter-’s menus, but the best one showed up on the Beethoven tribute dinner with this foie gras mousse emulsion. The bite was rich, creamy, and decadent while still highlighting the liver flavor.

Pastarami Carrot

This was a collaboration dish with Ian Jones during the F*ck the Stars dinner. Anyone who can make carrots taste amazing is a winner in my book, and this pastrami carrot brought me back to having hot pastrami at Katz. It’s one of the top vegetarian dishes i’ve ever had, and it could easily show up on a restaurant like Noma’s menu and fit right in.

Sweet Potato Makhani

This is a southern version of butter chicken, with the chicken being replaced with sweet potatoes and collard greens.

A delight for me always is when a chef takes a classic dish, uses local ingredients, and makes it their own.

Oh and we need to mention Chef Elinn Hesse’s laffa bread. Hesse is making some of the best bread in Charlotte, and we look forward to her concoctions each trip to Counter-.

Hawaii

36 hour braised pork shoulder, lusty monk mustard, grilled pineapple, Hawaiian slaw, bacon fat mayo, bacon fat roasted gold potatoes with moa sauce.

This dish was served during the fire menu, and was a tribute to a Hawaiian luau. The different textures of pork, from the pulled pork to the crispy bacon bits made this dish stand out.

Blumenthal

Duck liver mousse, duck leg confit, caramelized onion soubise

This dish was a tribute to Heston Blumenthalfrom the Covers menu. The duck liver mousse with chocolate created a multi-sensory experience with the rich duck liver, cherries, and sweet/bitter chocolate.

Truffle Cream Puff

Pate a choux with pastry cream of foie gras, egg yolk, freshly grated white truffle, sugar, cream topped with black truffle and powedered sugar.

To me this is the signature dish of Counter- and maybe the best dish in all of charlotte. The foie gras/truffle cream on the inside of cream puff is so good it could be considered gold currency in some countries.

Kaiserschmarrn

pancake ice cream with a sugar twill and rum soaked cherries

Chef Elinn Hesse’s take on a traditional German smashed pancake dessert.

Not only was this dessert stunningly beautiful, but the maple tasting pancake with the rum soaked cherries left us wanting more.

Foie-cicle

foie gras, lemongrass, sea salt

This was another collaboration from the F*ck the Stars dinner.

I guess the foie dessert, maybe started with David Chang a decade ago, is becoming a trend. Cold and foie gras go together, and it tastes delicious with a little lemongrass added in.

Adria

Strawberry yogurt explosion, strawberries multiple ways, thyme gel, coconut snow, shortbread cookies

The strawberry explosion is a tribute to El Bulli’s famous olive emulsion. I love an explosion like this, but the highlight for me on this dish was the soaked strawberry jelly in the middle. The intense strawberry flavor made for a refreshing end of the meal.

Drink This:

Counter- has a fantastic wine program, offering one of the best value wine pairings you can do at a fine dining restaurant; however, we tend to stick to the non-alcoholic pairings, and Chef never disappoints us with unique and fun spirit-free concoctions.

Lavender butterfly pea cream soda

Of all the non-alcoholic beverages served at Counter-, this one stood out as the best. The drink tasted like a mix between a milk shake and a botantical, with a delicious, light floral flavor mixed with the cream.

Cheerwine Manhattan

with burnt sage

Chef Hart loves Cheerwine, as do I, and he tries to incorporate it into most of the non-alcoholic pairings. This Cheerwine manhattan with burnt sage was a nice way to mix the sweetness of the cheerwine with the smell of the sage added for a refreshing drinking experience.

ATMOSPHERE:

Counter- is a 16 seat “counter” that encircles a prep-table with the main kitchen looming in the background. For each theme the decorations change, including the artwork which Chef Hart curates from local artists and then sells at the end of the season, with the profits going back to the artist. The team’s clothing also matches the themes, always in a fun and whimsical way.

Counter- is not your typical sit-down dinner. Don’t come here expecting an intimate meal. You are here to be entertained, eat well and learn something. In a way, Chef Hart is giving you a behind the scenes, in your face look at how a Michelin-starred restaurant runs. Instead of just sitting at a table and the food coming to you, the veil of secrecy is lifted and the diner is shown under the hood of how everything works. Do we see it all - of course not, we don’t see the hours of prep-work that goes into each meal, but the diner is explained the thought process of the meal and why the chefs did what they did to exacting detail. The education aspect is very important for Hart, and comes through in each meal.

The meal is choreographed to music and lasts about 2 hours, with two seating each night. So everything is timed out to perfection, leaving just enough time at the end to hang out for a few minutes without feeling rushed to leave. It also allows for a compact dining experience that leaves you satisfied and not bored.

Chef Hart showing us the truffles

View of the counter seating (hello Danny!)

View of Counter- from the outside

Charlotte Hospitality:

Counter- offers a Michelin Star hospitality experience, with each member of the small staff trained on all aspects of the meal, from each dish to every wine pairing.

Our one quip is the up-charging during the meal of “add-ons,” such as the truffle course. Allow diners to choose an up-charge when you make the reservation or don’t have them at all. Doing an up-charge sell in the middle of service is a little tacky and makes people feel uncomfortable. Also we’ve never liked it when people around you are getting different courses then you, especially in such a shared experience.

FRANKIE’s NOTES:

Putting a dash (-) at the end of your name is a little pretentious, and if you do it don’t expect anyone to actually spell out the name with the dash; How much do we have to pay to have the truffle cream puff delivered to us at our house each morning?; We are still waiting for the Tenacious D tribute diner, and we will patiently wait until 2026 if we have to do for this - I Love you baby, but all I can think about is…Kielbasa Sausage.

RATING:

The most admirable trait of Counter- is the ability of the restaurant to take risks and not be afraid to fail. Chef Hart is willing to throw out a controversial dish to see if it works or not. Most restaurants will keep a menu pretty stagnant, but Hart charges menus almost too much. He was the first to have a true upscale tasting-menu restaurant in Charlotte where many more seasoned chefs around the city said it was not possible. His success has paved the way for other restaurants to follow suit and believe that the Charlotte dinning scene is ready for the big time.

Every city needs a restaurant like Counter-: a restaurant that isn’t afraid to bring something great to a city hungry for greatness.

5 OUT OF 5 WITH 2 MICHIGAN PUGS

 

The Catbird Seat

BACKGROUND:

Nashville is perhaps the epicenter of the Southern food scene. And arguably, one of Nashville’s best is The Catbird Seat. Catbird opened in 2011 and was designed as a culinary laboratory with constantly changing chefs. Currently, they are on their fifth head chef, Brian Baxter, who previously worked at McGrady’s, Husk, and Bastion.

I stumbled upon Catbird while talking to a local Charlotte chef, who said that Catbird was his favorite restaurant in America at the moment. That’s high praise for any restaurant, especially one not in Chicago, New York, or San Francisco. I was going to Nashville in November on a work trip, so I convinced my work colleagues to pony up some money and try the restaurant out.

Going with work people, not food people, was quite an adventure. There were eight of us, and six of the eight had never been to a tasting menu restaurant. This brought me back to my first tasting menu experiences at the original Momofuku Ko. It was a whirlwind, and I wasn’t quite sure what happened, or if what I had was good, but I knew it was an experience. A tasting menu is not a traditional meal, and in a lot of ways it’s the opposite of what a lot of people typically think of as a “nice restaurant”: you don’t order, the plates are small, you don’t share, it’s new flavors that are meant to get you out of your comfort zone, not necessarily heavy on meat, etc. A tasting menu is an experience that, for most people, necessitates some education and training. It was interesting to me to see this dynamic play out in front of my eyes, with some people hating the experience and others loving it. It was a good reminder to me that there are “live to eat” and “eat to live” people, and to reach the “eat to live” people at a tasting menu restaurant is a tough ask. If I were to do it again, I would have explained what a tasting menu was beforehand and make everyone swear an oath on a stack of Guy Fieri’s Trashcan Nachos that if they came, they were going to give it a chance and not complain the whole time that everything was too salty and the servings were too small. When you go to a dinner and people are outwardly not enjoying it, it brings down the whole mood and experience for everyone. Did I enjoy the meal? Yes, but definitely not as much as I would have if everyone knew what they were getting into.

EAT THIS:

Catbird offers two seatings with a 10-12 course tasting menu for $145/person. The late seating offers an extended course option for an extra $50/person. Catbird offers four distinct seasons running three months each. We attended Fall, which runs from roughly October to the beginning of January.

Fall Vegetable Crudité

with black chesnut hoisin

The first two bites were plated on a wood plank, letting us know, if we didn’t already, that it’s autumn time. First bites are so important, because if they suck it is hard to recover, as you always remember the first bite. Both of these were light and refreshing palate cleansers but also delicious bites.

Lion’s MaNE Mushroom

Dressed in nasturtium kosho, shisho

A beautiful looking bite and a tasty one - who doesn’t love a lion’s mane mushroom?

Royal Red Shrimp & Collard Green Dumpling

with the pot liquor and toasted nigella seed oil

The next small bite was the collar green dumpling - a clear homage to local ingredients being prepared with Asian techniques.

Oyster Pie

with pickled dulse and beer cream

Multiple people asked what to eat on this plate. Note to my fellow diners: you probably can’t eat an oyster shell. But the question did bring up a good debate - should you plate dishes with inedible features on them? I personally lean toward “no.” I think you should plate a dish exactly how you want people to eat it and leave all the crap off.

Crispy Grits, preserved horseradish, swordfish “Ham”, green garlic tamari

As Scarlett O’Hara might say, I have NEVER thought of having grits with horseradish and ham, but my gawd this southern lady has felt things eating this bite that she has never felt before. Get my fainting salts.

Spiny Lobster, tiger’s milk, maypop

I am a SUCKER for dry ice food. Dippin Dots - love. Tiger’s Milk - love. The cold of the bite with the melting and creaminess once it’s in your mouth. Chef’s kiss. Who doesn’t love that?

Coal Roasted maitake mushroom

with uni and rose bearnaise

The uni flavor really shined through on this dish - the rich umami flavor really highlighted the subtlety of the maitake.

Charred Brassicas

with fermented tomato and preserved lemon

If you don’t do a charred cabbage/lettuce dish on your tasting menu are you even doing a tasting menu, bro?

Hakurei Turnips

with turnip top butter, smoked trout roe

This one was special. The trout roe with the turnips and butter just tasted amazing with so many levels of complexity flavors and textures.

Fairy Tale Pumpkin

makrut lime from our garden, red curry

Tropical flavors added a special flare to what most people think of as a winter gourd. I loved the contrast of flavors and where this dish took me in my mind. Perhaps to someplace in India on the coast on the one day of the year they get snow.

Spot Prawn

green apple, chrysanthemum

The transition dish to the protein heavy portion of the menu. I am a big fan of raw prawns/shrimp. Always have been since I was six years old and we would go to Nakatos and my mom would let me order the shrimp off the sushi boat menu.

Scallop

Pumpkin butter, preserved gooseberry

Berries seemed to be the connecting theme of the meal. So many dishes contained variations of berries in unusual presentations that it was clear the kitchen wanted us to know about the berries. I’m a big berry fan, and I loved the sweetness that they added to the scallops.

Octopus

parsley root, sauce grenobloise

I mopped up that sauce like an octopus crawls around the bottom of the ocean looking for food. I guess that was the point of the dish.

Barbecued Pork Ribs

butternut salad

LOOK AT THE PEANUTS ON THIS FATTY PORK RIB AND IMAGINE YOU ARE BITTING INTO THAT JUICY, SAUCY, FALL OF THE BONE BEAUTY. Just try not to cry tears of joy.

21 Day Dry Aged Duck

porcini, pickled huckleberry, and sauce chevreuil finished with a paste made from blackberries

This was a two-parter, with the dry aged duck with blackberries (thematic element alert) and then the duck pie. 1. Lamb. 2. Duck 3. Pork (belly specific) are my current ranking of meats. Happy to discuss my rankings over a rack of lamb.

Duck Pie

This new iPhone really does great pouring pics. Kudos Tim Cook. The only problem with this duck pie was it was meant to be shared with another person, and I didn’t want to do that. At this point of the meal the newbies were too full to eat it anyway, so more duck for me. Thank you.

Killed Lettuce

You hand dipped the lettuce in the dressing. This one was clunky and hard to handle. The only miss of the night for me.

Yeast donut

foie gras, cherry

This was my favorite dish of the night. The foie really balanced the sweetness and tartness of the cherry (thematic element alert) to make for the perfect bite.

Stewed berries

chamomile, burnt vanilla

THEMATIC. ELEMENT. ALERT.

Burnt Brioche

peanut praline, saba

This was a grown up PB&J sandwich. For those of you who love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, this would have been your dream dish. I’m not the biggest fan of grape jelly, so it wasn’t my favorite but it was perfectly executed so I’m not going to let my crap palate ruin this for all of you.

Beef Fat Butterscotch

Chocolate & Hazelnut

Two perfect bites to end the night. Homemade caramel and a homemade Ferrero rocher were the perfect sweet bites to leave us wanting more.

DRINK:

There are a few options. You can do a wine pairing, non-alcoholic pairing, or drinks by the glass. I opted for the non-alcoholic pairing, because I’m the first pregnant man in the history of humanity, and ps my wife is tired of people asking every time she goes out and doesn’t drink if she’s pregnant. As a veteran of non-alcoholic pairings, this was one of the most inventive and enjoyable i’ve had. Here are a few of my favorites:

Tea

This tea was given to everyone right after our first bites. The tea had been seeping before our eyes on the way into the dining area.

Red Whyne

hibiscus, pinot noir verjus, beet, cherry, cranberry, black+green+white peppercorn, mint

This was a kombucha that was meant to taste like red wine to be paired with the duck and pork belly, and by golly if they didn’t pull it off.

Ps that camera and the guy wearing a baseball hat in the restaurant is my good friend Scott Scarano. He wants you to know that his previous best restaurant was Applebees.

Root

sassafras, sarsaparilla, wintergreen, vanilla, birch + maple syrup, apple cider vinegar.

I love root beer – it’s one of my favorite flavors. So, a root-beer flavored kombucha is just for me.

ATMOSPHERE

My ideal dining experience is a small counter surrounding the kitchen where you can see all the action. The setting took me back to Kitchen Table in London, the original Momofuku Ko, and our very own Counter- right here in Charlotte. I can watch the show of the cooking and plating all night, plus the constant interaction with the chefs make the night even more personal and fun.

Always say it’s someone’s birthday, even when it’s not (aforementioned Scott)

That’s it folks - the kitchen and chef’s table surrounding

The head of the beverage program - I don’t remember your name but you were amazing

NASHVILLE HOTSPITALITY:

Every server/chef/bartender/hostess at Catbird deserves a gold star for putting up with our crew, who I am pretty sure experienced their exact definition of a “nightmare” that they fear as far as a party of eight going to a nice restaurant. So bless them, and thank you for putting up with us. I promise you that when I come back it will be just me and Yvonne and we will not scream at you.

Frankie’s Notes:

The ven diagram of people who do CrossFit seven days a week and people who understand a good tasting menu is very small if non-existent; Nashville is so hip in the national restaurant scene that it almost seems like not enough people/pugs are talking about it; Hattie B’s has the best hot chicken I tried and I tried them all. They may not be the original but damn it’s good; Accountants know how to party, just not this accountant because I am a true A-type like the Jerry accountant in Soul.

Rating:

A sign of a great restaurant is that even if your company is kind of weird, and you’re having a strange dining experience, the restaurant and food will still shine through. Catbird is a top restaurant, and if it were in a New York or Chicago it would have a lot more notoriety. If you are visiting Nashville, it’s a must visit if you can score a table.

5 OUT OF 5 WITH 2 MICHIGAN PUGS

 

Pujol

Background:

Enrique Olvera opened Pujol back in 2000. 20 years later, it is considered by many as the best restaurant in Mexico, and it consistently makes an appearance on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants List (currently #12). He also has a sister concept, Cosme, in NYC, which is always on the top 50 list as well. Some credit Olvera and Pujol with putting Mexican food on the world map, where today it is hotter than the hottest chili pepper out of Oaxaca. Chefs from all over the world flock to Mexico, Rene Redzepi of Noma being the most famous, to get inspired, find themselves, learn more about God, and maybe to adopt a chihuahua. Speaking of Redzepi, Olvera is definitely part of the Noma gang – a cult of like minded chefs who see the the world of food as an expression of culture, modernism, and anarchy from the traditional, white table clothing fine dining establishment. Scallionpancake definitely follows this train of food thought as well, and will happily drink Kool Aid and wear Nikes with the rest of the Noma-ites.

Growing up in the US, but in the part of the US that is not close to Mexico (South Carolina), I’ve always thought of Mexico in the stereotypical ways that most white Americans think of Mexico – either a dangerous and drug lord infested or a place where teenagers go on spring break to lose their virginities. Obviously, this is borderline racist, wrong of me, and couldn’t be further from the truth. Puerto Vallarta and Mexico City couldn’t have been more fascinating and beautiful, and it’s filled with the nicest people, the most delicious food, and rich history. And even better, Mexico is so close to us – a quick three-hour non-stop flight from Charlotte to Mexico City and you’re a 20 minute Uber ride from eating delicious tacos. What this trip to Mexico taught me was even seasoned travelers like Yvonne and myself have stereotypes of places that are untrue and embarrassingly ignorant. That’s what makes travel so magical and so important, because as more people travel to places where people don’t look like us, or share our same culture backgrounds or heritage, we realize that we’re got way more in common then we have differences.

Now that I’m off my high horse, let’s talk food.

Eat This:

There are two dining options at Pujol. You can either make a reservation in the dining room where a seven course tasting menu is offered (a choice either of either sea (2554 pesos) or corn (2227 pesos), or you can eat at the taco bar and indulge in a 10 course taco menu. We chose the main dining section, and we were each allowed to pick a different tasting menu, so Yvonne went with the corn, and I went with the sea.

Earlier in the day, we had eaten at Quintonil for lunch, which was amazing, but was also a three-hour tasting menu. So, we were still pretty full from that experience; however, we are not quitters…we are Pancakes. And as a Pancake, sometimes you book two tasting menus in a day. Last time we did this was in Lima, where we did Maido and Astrid & Gaston in the same day. We vowed after that to never do that again, but that was two years ago, and how bad could it really be? Plus, we really only had one day in Mexico City, so we had to squeeze both of them in, no matter how uncomfortable our stomachs might feel at night.

Street Snacks

Both tastings started with street snacks, which consisted of this crunchy, fried tortilla with salsa. I believe this little bite changes frequently based on the season, unlike the elotito below.

Elotito

with ant mayonnaise

This is Pujol’s play on the traditional elote, which is a staple Mexican snack traditionally made with grilled corn, chiles, peppers, cotija cheese, sour cream, and lime. Pujol’s twist is taking the topping and making a spicy, tangy mayonnaise from ants. This dish was served warm, and it was so good I could have eaten 4,000.

Chayote Squash

with scallop pico

When you look at this dish, you’d think the bottom layer was the scallop, but it’s actually the opposite. The chayaote squash is flown in directly from Oaxaca, where it cooks in low temperature water for a few hours. Then they are “laminated” and covered in lime juice.

Tlayuda

with black beans, cheese, tomato, grasshopper

Tlayuda is a traditional Oaxacan dish. You can tell that Pujol really cares about highlighting traditional Mexican dishes and cooking, as well as showcasing the amazing diversity of ingredients that make Mexico so special. This dish is simple, yet so tasty.

Kampachi Ceviche

cacahuazintle juice, celery, yuzu

Cacahuazintle is an old variety of corn prized in Mexico. You don’t normally think of a ceviche made from corn, but we are in the land of corn so why not? The Kampachi was, as you’d expect, lightly cooked and served to perfection.

Huitlachoche

with black truffle

Huitlachoche is fungus that grows on corn, and to me has the deep, umami flavor of a blue cheese. Put some black truffle on that and you’ve got the makings of a delicious little taco, or two, or three.

This is the time in the meal when the tortillas start flowing to the table, and they are so good it’s hard not to keep eating them, but if you want to survive the meal – pace yourself, as there is a lot more to come. The easy way we’ve found to do this is just stick the tortillas in your purse for a late night snack down the road (always carry a special tortilla purse for these occasions).

Octopus

The octopus is marinated in a paste made from chilis and grasshoppers that is then grilled. This was the best dish (other than the mole) of the night to me. The chili paste added a unique outer texture to the octopus that made this dish complex and delicious.

Plantain Tamal

hoja santa, mushroom barbacoa

The plantain is made from roasted bananas and served with a side of barbecued mushrooms. The mushrooms are mixed with an adobo and left to sit overnight. Then the tamale is wrapped in a “holy leaf” and served together.

Striped bass

mole verde, fava bean, kosho

Look at that piece of fish! The skin was so crispy and delicious, yet the meat was almost rare beneath. Delicate, tasty, magical.

Wild herb open Papadzul

quail egg, chiltomate

The papadzul is an ancient Mayan dish that is said to be the precursor to the enchilada. This dish is made by dipping a tortilla in sauce made from pumpkin seeds and then serving it with hardboiled eggs.

Mole

Mole madre 2,057 days, mole nuevo

This the THE dish of Pujol, and boy did it live up the hype. On the day we were there, it was the 2,057 day of the mother mole (black), which had the richest, most savory taste. Mixed with the new, fresher mole, this dish was complex and just out right delicious. You could eat this all day, every day, and never get tired of it.

At this point in the meal we are brought outside to their extensive patio, where we were told we would be served our desserts. It’s important to note that we are so full at this point, that we literally wanted to get out of there as fast as possible, not because the meal was bad, in fact it was amazing, but because we thought we would embarrass ourselves by throwing up on another patron. But we stomached through, because we’re not quitters, and because we love dessert.

Corn Cake

rum, vanilla, cacao

You’ve got to finish the corn menu with a corn cake. I ended up liking this dessert more than my matcha, because this is a classic, sweet, delicious dessert. Nothing super fancy, but something you want to eat over and over again.

Matcha Nicolatole

soursop, shiso, basil

This was a dessert made for Yvonne. Not too sweet. Contains soursop. Green.

Congrats!

almond cake, passion fruit, raspberry sorbet, gold powder.

Pro tip: always say it’s your birthday/anniversary at a Michelin-starred restaurant, because they almost always have a special dish waiting for you. When we went to Pujol, it was legitimately a week before our anniversary, so we didn’t feel like we were cheating, but we may also celebrate our half-year anniversary and also maybe our dogs’ birthdays. This cake was worth it – who doesn’t love an almond cake with raspberry sorbet and gold dust on top? Happy third anniversary, big tuna!

Churro

We were DEAD at this point, literally couldn’t put anything else in our mouths, but then they bring out this churro and dear lord how could we say no? It was so good, I kept eating and literally thought i was going to have to call an ambulance. The outside was on the edge of crunchiness, and the inside was soft and moist like a baby’s bottom. It’s the best churro I’ve ever had, hands down.

Drink:

We are in the land of mezcal, tequila, and all varieties in between. You really haven’t had proper tequila or mezcal until you’ve been to Mexico, as there are hundred of varieties based on the type of agave plant, distillation process, and area of the country that the liquor is being produced. Probably the most interesting thing we learned was that you eat oranges with tequila, not lime. Lime is too acid and takes away all the flavor of the tequila, while oranges provide a more proper balance. It’s also traditional to dip the orange in salt, normally made with grasshoppers.

At Pujol we each got some mezcal to sip on during our meal, and I ordered a tamarind cocktail. Tamarind is one of my favorite tropical flavors, as it’s sweet and sour at the same time. Pujol had a variety of cocktails and liquors to choose from. All of which sounded and looked amazing.

Tamarind cocktail

Oranges served with our mezcal

Atmosphere:

Pujol feels like a place in one of those Dos Equis commercials, where you’ve got the Sultan of Brunei playing darts with Matthew Damon and the most mysterious man the world juggling balls of fire in front of women in long dresses. It’s got that kinetic, cool energy that makes you want just hang out and be a part of the action. The decor is pretty spartan – wood and concrete with simple, bold art on the wall, yet the vibe feels cozy and lively. That’s a hard combo to pull off, and I think it works because of the density of people and the movement of the waiters and staff. It’s got that “buzz” that only a few of the top notch restaurants in the world pull off.

The taco bar

Entrance

A portrait of a modern Mexican man (also the reception area)

The outdoor patio

Mexican Hospitality:

The staff great and attentive as one would expect at a high-caliber establishment like this. If your tortillas were running low, or you needed a drink, there was always someone there for you. It was the type of service that looking back six months later, you don’t really remember too much, which is normally a good thing. You want to remember the food and atmosphere, and normally if you remember the service it’s either really good or really bad. This one was on the good side, and went off without a hitch.

Frankie’s Notes:

Seriously kill us again if we try to do two tastings in one day. Don’t do it people. It’s not worth it; We pooped weird for a month after our Mexico trip, probably because we ate everything possible from street markets. Was it worth it? Yes - we’d do it again; Don’t be scared of the markets, this is where the magic happens, and it’s worth a little weird pooping for a bit; We saw one pug our whole trip to Mexico, but a ton of chihuahuas, go figure.

Rating:

Pujol lived up the hype and was definitely worth a visit. It’s clear that Pujol is trying to deliver the modern take on the traditional Mexican dishes, and they pull it off with a fervent intensity that even your Mexican grandma would appreciate. Next time we will try the taco bar, as it looked like there was a lot of cool stuff going on there, but we’d definitely do the tasting again too. If you’re in Mexico City, get yourself a reservation.

5 out of 5 with 2 Michigan Pugs

 

Top 25 Restaurants in Charlotte: 2019 Edition

We know you’ve all been waiting in major anticipation of the Pancake’s Top 25 Charlotte restaurant ranking to drop like it was the latest Star Wars, or, for you Bravo fans, Southern Charm season four million. We had to let 2019 come to an almost-close to give you our 25 best restaurants of the year.

Let's review the rules. First, we only ranked restaurants located in Charlotte proper. This means no Kindred, no places in Gastonia, etc. If you’re looking into Israel from Jordan, you are not in the promised land. Secondly, we didn’t rank any chains with locations outside of Charlotte. This means no Indaco, Hawkers, etc., but somewhere like Yafo can make the list because they only have Charlotte locations. Finally, we had to have eaten at the restaurant. We still haven’t been to Barrington’s, so unfortunately it’s still not going to make the list this year. Maybe we’ll eat there in 2020, who knows?

Without further ado, we present Scallionpancake's Best Charlotte Restaurants of the Year:

1. Bardo

Congratulations to Bardo, which is still the best restaurant in Charlotte, and nowhere else comes close. It remains the only restaurant in town to receive a coveted Michigan Pug. Everything on Mike Noll’s menu is excellent, and Amanda Britton’s cocktails are perfection. Also, how about 20% off on Mondays and Tuesdays at the bar? See you pancakes there.

2. The Stanley

The Stanley moves up to #2 on the list for 2019. Everything on the Verica’s menu is stellar, but if you haven’t tried their burger, which is hands down the best in Charlotte, then you haven’t lived. We are also very hype about Alex’s special brunch donut.

3. Haberdish

Haberdish is Jeff Tonidandel & Jamie Brown’s love note to Charlotte, and it serves up the best quintessential “Charlotte” food around. If we’re taking an out of town guest to one restaurant to give them a feel for Charlotte’s food scene, this is it. Of course, don’t you dare sleep on brunch or Colleen Hughes’ magical cocktails.

4. Peppervine

A newcomer to the Charlotte scene, Anita & Bill Greene (of Banner Elk’s Artisanal) opened up Peppervine in the spring and it has quickly become one of the best restaurants in Charlotte. Pimento cheese biscuits? Yes, please. Vadouvan Cauliflower? Meet you there in ten minutes.

5. Soul Gastrolounge

Soul has a special place in our hearts. It’s where we had our first date. It’s where we fell in love with peacocks as wall decor. It has everything, from sushi to pork belly tacos, and they pull every dish off spectacularly. The most fun hang in Charlotte, and still one of the best restaurants in town. Make sure you order something off the daily special menu!

6. Dot Dot Dot

Chef Daniel Wheeler took over the helm at this Park Road speakeasy, and the food has never been better. Chef Wheeler does a great job of gently introducing you to unique meats such rabbit and foie gras.

7. Uptown Yolk

Greg Collier moved his breakfast joint from Rock Hill to 7th Street Market, and dear lord baby Jesus is it incredible. Chef Collier’s Tennessee fries are the best potatoes in town, and where else can you eat James Beard nominated food out of a tin foil bowl?

8. futo Buta

Years ago, Chef Michael Shortino was one of the first chefs to show us all that Charlotte was ready for good food. Futo Buta serves up some of the best ramen in the Southeast. Our favorite is the Fire and Ice.

9. Kabab Je

Ever since Kabob Grill closed (RIP), Kabab Je holds the title of best Mediterranean food in town. The pita. THE PITA. It’s the best. Get the lamb kebab and lots of sides (especially the Batata Harra).

10. The Porter’s House

We’re always wary of steak places, but Chef Rob Clement is putting his mark on this Ballantyne chophouse. Get a steak for sure, but don’t sleep on his delicious smoked pasta, pimento cheese beignets, and creative ice cream flavors.

11. Lincoln’s Haberdashery

Chef Shortino did it again when he opened up Lincoln’s Haberdashery in early 2018. It’s one of the coolest hangouts in town, and everything on the menu is good. Our go-to is the 13th: house-made mozzarella, La Quercia prosciutto, fresh basil, and extra virgin olive oil.

12. 300 East

Ashley Boyd handed over the pastry duties to Laney Jahkel-Parish at the beginning of the year to focus on improving the savory side of the menu. The desserts are as top notch as ever, and the main menu improves every day. A classic Charlotte institution which is reinventing itself as we speak.

13. Sweet Lew’s BBQ

I judge a BBQ place based on its brisket, and Sweet Lew’s has the best brisket in town. This hole-in-the-wall, get-it-until-it’s sold-out joint has the best smoked meats you’ll find in Charlotte. Also, if you see bacon on the menu as a special, get it. It’s fantastic.

14. Crepe Cellar

Another gem from Jamie Brown and Jeff Tonidandel, Crepe Cellar serves up consistently delicious scratch-made dishes including pasta, burrata, ice cream, and more. It’s not just crepes at this NoDa staple (however, you should order Crêpes Suzette for good measure).

15. Yafo Kitchen

This isn’t your typical fast casual restaurant. Israeli Chef Shai Fargian makes everything from scratch with so much love, from the laffah bread to the chicken schnitzel. His Israeli hot chicken sandwich took Charlotte by storm and put any talk of “chicken sandwich wars” to rest for once and for all.

16. Lang Van

Lang Van is Charlotte’s best Vietnamese restaurant. The service is incredible. We’ve gone six months without eating here and they still remember our orders. The menu is huge, but there’s not a misstep in the bunch. Every order is a good one.

17. OmAGGIO

Daniel Siragusa has poured his heart and soul into this Midtown eatery, and his passion is evident in every bite. Our lives were forever changed by the pepperoni pizza with honey and espresso, not to mention the chestnut soup, tiramisu, garlic rolls…need we say more?

18. Fig Tree

The Fig Tree is a traditional yet solid choice for fine dining in the QC. We are particularly fond of Molly Coen’s inventive dessert offerings. The ambiance is romantic and the service is top-notch.

19. Flour Shop

The best pasta in Charlotte is at Flour Shop. Go sit at their gigantic bar and watch the chefs do their thing. Their house-made focaccia and burrata is a must order.

20. The Asbury

Putting Yvonne’s hatred of The Dunhill aside, The Asbury always has unique and fun plays on traditional southern cooking. They also have an excellent brunch and the second best burger in Charlotte after The Stanely. It’s our family’s go-to before a Panthers game.

21. Noble Smoke

Politics aside, we really dig the food at Noble Smoke. The ribs are incredible, and there’s no stopping the fried hand pies. We also think their selection of sides is standout, even though the brisket is still a second place finish to our sweet, Sweet Lew’s.

22. Angeline’s

Angeline’s has become our favorite upscale Uptown spot this year. From the pasta to whipped ricotta, we’ve never been disappointed. This is also a great pre-Panther’s game option.

23. Capishe

Capishe was the biggest surprise of 2019 for us. How could a fast casual Italian place be so delicious? Because it’s all made from scratch, and Chef Cavalier isn’t afraid of seasonings. Praise be the San Lorenzo pasta!

24. Flip-A-Lo’s

Flip-a-Lo’s is a hidden gem tucked away in an unassuming strip mall. With their homemade dough for breadsticks and buffalo pizza sticks and fresh-not-frozen wings, there’s no better caloric splurge in Charlotte.

25. Laurel market

Laurel Market has the Charlotte breakfast sandwich game wrapped up, and they are all between 4-6 dollars. We especially love the Mercado, which is bacon, egg, and pepper jack cheese with spicy chipotle spread.

Top Five Dishes of 2019

The happiest place on Earth is at the Carolina Renaissance Festival

Scallionpancake Top Dishes of 2019: 
In addition to our top five restaurants of 2019, we decided to spice things up and rate our top five dishes of 2019, like we did last year. Sometimes, we really love a particular dish at a certain restaurant, or something smaller at a casual place that is worthy of the title of "best dish," when "best restaurant" doesn't quite make the cut. Without further ado, here are our top five dishes of 2019! 

Jason

1. PARMIGIANO

Schwa, Chicago, IL

This dish blew our minds. Parmesan, banana, nori brittle, and honey combined for an overload of sensory experiences. I think about this dish at least once a day.

2. Salted and Dried berries from the summer

Noma, Copenhagen, Denmark

My favorite dish of the seafood season at Noma was the dessert of sheep’s milk and dried berries from the previous summer.

This dish reminded us of a dish we had at Noma Under the Bridge a few years before, except this was taken up to 100. A classic Noma dish - so simple, yet so complex.

3. Lamb Rump

Haar, St Andrews, Scotland

The surprise restaurant of the year for me was Haar in St Andrews, and would have made my top five restaurants list if we didn’t go to so many crazy places.

Everything here was amazing, but the lamb rump with cafe du Paris sauce was the clear winner for me. I ordered this twice in two days.

4. Octopus

Pujol, Mexico City, Mexico

We went to Quintonil and Pujol on the same day, Pujol being second which tarnished our experience because we were so full from Quintonil. But this Octopus was the single best thing I had in Mexico.

The octopus is smothered in a paste made of chintexle, which is a chile, and chapulines, which is grasshopper. Grasshoppers are served everywhere in Mexico, and they are delicious once you get over the whole eating bugs thing, which I admit did take me a few tries.

5. Hot Chicken Sandwich

Hattie B’s, Nashville, TN

It wouldn’t be a top five list for me without a sandwich, and this year’s best sandwich went to Hattie B’s hot chicken sandwich in Nashville.

Served with pickles, coleslaw, and comeback sauce, this sandwich lives up to all the hype. Even my dad liked it—enough said.

Yvonne

1. Salted & Dried Berries From the Summer

Noma, Copenhagen, Denmark

The baby pinecones are back, BABY. I freaking love dried fruit, and this was slightly dried, slightly macerated fruit goodness with those sweet and sour chewy pinecones and the sheep’s milk. DO NOT PASS GO DO NOT COLLECT $200. Ugh. I wish I could eat this every day of my life. Swoon.

2. Apricot

Schwa, Chicago, IL

I probably could have picked three things from Schwa (this, the banana/Parmesan, and the raviolo), but I’ll edit myself to just this one.

I loved the sweet apricot with the earthy Taleggio, and the light and floral wine sauce that pulled the whole thing together. Just fab.

3. Scallops in the Shell

The Kitchin, Edinburgh, Scotland

The Kitchin may have just one Michelin star, but I would like to go ahead and give this dish an honorary three stars.

The puff pastry was doughy, and the creamy sauce surrounding the scallops hit every single one of my tastebuds. And the presentation when it was cut open table-side?! OY VEY. A masterpiece. I think about this dish often.

4. Mole Madre

Pujol, Mexico City, Mexico

Even though Pujol didn’t make either of our top fives, it was still delicious. It just happened to be up against some real contenders this year. The mole madre alone, however, is worthy of a visit to Mexico City.

I loved the mole madre on its own, mixed with the new mole, on the fresh flour tortilla, and straight up on a spoon. To. Die. For.

5. Black Truffle Explosion

Alinea, Chicago, IL

Okay, okay – I know I snubbed Alinea on my top five. And I feel terrible about it, but overall it just didn’t wow me as much as it did Jason. It was all solid, but not over the top. The signature Black Truffle Explosion dish, however? Um, yup. Sufficiently blown away by the amount of flavor packed in this tiny bite. A++++.

I know Jason won’t be pleased at this, but I am going to do a secondary top five for my non-fancypants dishes. He would say they should all be on one list and that I should choose. Well, I won’t and I didn’t. SORRY JASON. Love you, tuna.

Yvonne’s Non-FancyPants Top Five

1. Greg Collier’s Chicken Skins

Charlotte, NC

I don’t know where I am going to get these now at Loft & Cellar is done for, maybe at Leah & Louise? I need them in my life. Chef!

They have a similar seasoning to his Tennessee fries, and they are so chewy yet crispy, savory yet sweet, and just intensely flavored. I LOVE THEM.

2. mushroom Toast

Borough Market, London, UK

A stall in London’s Borough Market sold mostly fresh fruits and vegetables, but they also had two hot food options. One was roasted asparagus with a cream sauce, and the other was a giant vat of the most beautiful mushrooms I’ve ever seen in my life.

They served the sautéed mushrooms with grated cheese, herbs, and a piece of sourdough toast. It was the coolest thing to watch, and one of the best comfort foods I’ve ever had. So simple and savory. I wish I could have this for lunch every day!

3. Buffalo Pizza Sticks

Flip-a-Lo’s, Charlotte, NC

I cant’t really overhype Flip-a-Lo’s Buffalo Pizza Sticks, because they are worthy of all of the praise anyone has to offer. Freshly made bread. Fresh (not frozen) chicken wing pieces, and gooey mozzarella. If you are in Charlotte and you haven’t tried Flip-a-Lo’s yet, you are missing out for real.

4. S’mores Cake

The Batchmaker, Charlotte, NC

There are not enough words in the English language to describe how sweet Cristina Rojas Agurcia is, or how decadently delicious her baked goods are. This is hands-down the best bakery we’ve ever had in Charlotte.

MOIST cakes (yeah, not only did I say the “m word,” I capitalized it), fun flavors, a perfect amount of sugar, interesting textures. Just good-gash-darn. She’s a bakery legend in her own time, and we’re lucky she calls Charlotte home.

5. San Lorenzo Pasta

Capishe, Charlotte, NC

It would be a shame if you slept on Capishe. Don’t let it get lost in the Charlotte restaurant waves, people. Everything is made fresh, and the amount of spice and love that Chef Cavalier puts into this San Lorenzo pasta gets me daydreaming about it on the reg. My favorite pasta in Charlotte, easy.

Top Five Restaurants of 2019

Roca Nation

It’s hard to believe, but this is our fifth year blogging. This year, of all the years, was exceptionally hard to pick our top five restaurants since we went to so many amazing places. But this is why we’re paid the big bucks - to make the hard choices. Which of them made our ultimate list for 2019? Read on to find out!

Jason

Clear Bread

1. ENIGMA

Barcelona, Spain

As I look back on the year, the most fun night of high end meals was at Enigma. The setting of the restaurant, the movement through different rooms, and the overall elevation of the food makes it my best restaurant of the year.

A play on a steak frites, with main dish being vegetable steak with a side of beef.

2. Blue Hill at Stone Barns

Tarrytown, NY

Blue Hill is the first high end restaurant we’ve been where each table got a different menu. The amount of skill and coordination it takes to pull this off is incredible. We wish we could have dined at a time other than 10:30pm, but alas you take what you can get.

Crab on crab on crab

3. Noma

Copenhagen, Denmark

We now make an annual trip to Copenhagen to visit Noma because we like Copenhagen and we like giving our money to Rene Redzepi. We thought the vegetable season in 2018 was better than the seafood season, but it was still an amazing meal and experience.

Look at this presentation!

4. AlINEA

Chicago, IL

I freaking loved everything about Alinea. It was two hours. Every course had a purpose. Everything on the table had a purpose. The balloon tasted better than expected. It was the rare top level restaurant that left you wanting more, and that’s the feeling I want when I leave a fine dining restaurant.

Duck taco

5. QUINTONIL

Mexico City, Mexico

Mexico was even better than expected for us, and Quintonil was the highlight of our trip. Each course was emaculate, and really showcased the abudence and magic of Mexican cooking. You could see Chef Jorge Vallejo’s influence from Noma and Pujol to create a menu unique his own.

I got to play St. Andrews this year, which was the ultimate highlight

Yvonne

HIT THE LINKS

TEE OFF

1. SCHWA

Chicago, IL

I know that Jason is going to be floored by my #1 pick, but I will not deny my love for Schwa. I had zero expectations going in, and Alinea was ostensibly the main event of the weekend, but this was the first restaurant other than Noma where I found every single dish over-the-top delicious.

Even the drinks were fun

2. ENIGMA

Barcelona, Spain

There isn’t a restaurant in the world like Enigma (well, that I know of). It’s hard for me to pick a standout dish from our meal, but the overall experience and interactive elements make this place so special.

This is pre-dinner, and already two hours past his bedtime

3. Blue Hill at Stone Barns

Tarrytown, NY

I hate that I always forget about Blue Hill since we were so tired from our 10:30 p.m. reservation. The whole thing feels like a fever dream, but when I reflect on the experience, it was truly exceptional in every way. That chocolate sourdough bread (and squash pie, pictured)!

Fresh to death even right after a flight overseas

4. El Celler De Can Roca

Girona, Spain

While you didn’t move around like at Enigma, El Celler de can Roca was so whimsical and creative. The desserts we had here were truly unforgettable, and I loved seeing my dad experience his first Michelin star restaurant.

Our family now includes chefs

5. Kitchen Table

London, UK

This was a hard pick for me as Alinea nearly edged it out, but I think the creativity and flavor – plus the awesome setting – make Kitchen Table the winner of my fifth spot. Some of our dining companions soured this one for me since they weren’t into the experience, but it really was incredible. And how often do you get face time with the chef like that?!

Honorable Mention: Anomaly

Charlotte, NC

Chef Sam Hart’s Anomaly pop-up was really something amazing, and it felt even more special since we attended his very first one. The energy was palpable and the food was top notch, especially considering everything was produced in a home kitchen. We can’t wait to see more at his first ticketed pop-up next week!

I hope 2020 has this many fun animals in it

Alinea: A Review of Grant Achatz's Flagship Chicago Restaurant

Background:

Alinea needs no introduction. You’ve probably seen Chef Grant Achatz’s Chef Table episode, or seen it perennially on the top 50 restaurants in the world list (as high as number 6 in 2011), or maybe you’ve read about its three stars in the Michelin Guide, or 2016 Outstanding Restaurant Award from the James Beard Foundation. Wherever you know it from, Alinea is famous among gastromologists (did I just make that word? Yes, because I hate the term “foodie”).

The restaurant has been around since 2005, which is an eternity for a restaurant, especially one of this caliber. It’s hard for a chef to maintain his edge and sharpness, especially after rising to the top of the food world. So, as we prepared for our dinner at Alinea, we wondered if we had missed its prime, like we felt after dining at The French Laundry. Achatz and his partner Nick Kokonas have thought a lot about this — how can you make Alinea relevant and fresh while still paying homage to your restaurant’s history? In 2016, they shut down and completely remodeled the restaurant, taking it from a whimsical, modern look to a more classical, timeless look. The experience also changed. Instead of a three to five hour dining experience, the new Alinea is much more fast paced, taking anywhere between 2 and 3 hours depending upon what part of the restaurant you are dining in.

"Do any of us want to have a five-hour meal anymore?" chef Achatz asked the Chicago Tribune recently. No, we don’t, and Alinea in particular taught us the magic of a two-hour “theatre” experience. We got in, waited for the proverbial curtain to open, and then spent the next two hours participating in a show that left us perfectly full and wanting slightly more at the end, which is exactly the feeling you want leaving a great restaurant. A lot of high end restaurants don’t spend enough time thinking about how to get the diner perfectly full at the end of the meal. This in itself is an art, and the only other restaurant that we’ve been to that’s gotten it right other than Alinea is Noma in Copenhagen.

Alinea has been able to do what few restaurants have done and changed with the times and kept itself relevant 14 years after opening. Was Alinea better in 2011? I don’t know, but it was damn good in 2019, and I would not hesitate to go back in a heartbeat.

Eat This:

Alinea now has three options when dining: The Salon ($210-$285/person) is a 10-14 course tasting menu on the second level of the restaurant. The Gallery ($305-$365/person) is a 16-18 course tasting menu on the main level. Finally, there is the Kitchen Table, which is $395/person and only allows for six people at a time, all booked under one party. We tried and tried for a Gallery reservation, but since there are only 16 seats and two seatings a night, it sells out within a few seconds upon opening. So we settled for the Salon, which wasn’t settling as we’d find out later. Any reservation for two is almost impossible to get, so I would suggest finding another couple to go with for a table of four, which is a much easier reservation to score. Also flexibility of dates is great, as there are normally some mid-week options available.

At the end of the night, we asked our waitress what the biggest differences were between The Gallery and The Salon. She said the courses were the same, but you are taken as a whole room into the kitchen for one course in The Gallery. Maybe she said it to be nice, but she made it seem like we didn’t miss anything on the 2nd floor. Phil Vettel of the Chicago Tribute seems to feel the same way, and plus, the Salon is more affordable and approachable for new gastromolists.

Focus

Trout roe, concord grape, parsnip tofu

It took us four years, but we finally decided to bring a notebook and take notes during the meal, so we could remember all the small details. I also just got the new iPhone 11 Pro, which is such a huge upgrade from the X, especially in low light. I can’t recommend that puppy enough.

The first bite was only three ingredients but packed a real punch. The grape infusion was a burst of fresh grape flavor, while the disparate textures of the tofu and roe made a great balance for the dish as a whole.

Smut

Huitlacoche, corn, pink pepper

What Alinea did was serve multiple courses at a time, almost like an act of a play. This allowed the experience to go quicker and for each progression of dishes to be more dramatic. Act one was corn, which consisted of two dishes. This one was the Smut cracker. Smut is another term for huitlacoche, which is a special fungus that grows on corn. The cracker was made of this fungus and then it was topped with corn and pink pepper.

Of course, we all know of Yvonne’s corn fear (see: Central in Peru), but she has persevered past that in our old age and now we both enjoy a nice corn dish. The cracker was excellent and provided a nice compliment to the corn soup, almost a play on an oyster cracker that you would put in corn chowder.

Maize

Husk, smoked ham

We were in town because I was running the Chicago Marathon, and I didn’t want to eat at Alinea before the marathon, so we booked it for the night of the Marathon as a celebration dinner. This was a good and bad idea. Good, in that I was really hungry, bad in that I could barely walk and was a little delirious. As we got this course I hiccuped extremely loudly, which as Yvonne noted in our notebook, “embarrassed the family.” I’m sorry about that.

But alas, onto the dish. Freeze dried corn was put on top of corn soup, which contained corn, smoked ham, goldenberries, and corn kernels. The textures were what made this dish special, as all the different variations of corn provided slightly different flavors to the dish.

Shell

Prawn & chili

The next act was a play on Southeast Asian street food. We were presented 4 small dishes and then what we thought was a table decorations was infused with dry ice to create an aroma of lemongrass, lime, and coconut.

Alinea’s plateware is incredible, especially on this dish. We drank out of a glass conch and ate crab out of a glass crab. One of my favorite bites was this prawn and coconut curry, which was one of the most flavorful, spicy, sweet, delicious curries I have had in my life.

The prawn puff was served with a vanilla bean as a utensil, which we were told multiple times not to eat, but I still wanted to. We immediately started looking up flights to Vietnam/Thailand after this bite.

Ink

Octopus, Korean barbecue

The second dish in this act was grilled octopus smothered and covered in a Korean barbecue sauce. I think this was a play on midwestern, Kansas City BBQ, except instead of the traditional beef/pork it was made with octopus. Delicious, tangy, and left you wanting more

King

King crab, coconut, culantro, mango

Look at the glass crab - this crab was made specifically for this dish, and probably won’t be used after. Shinnnnnny for you Moana fans out there.

The actually crab had a really nice, bright coconut taste. It accentuated the crab’s natural sweetness and brought the whole Southeastern act to a close in a dramatic flourish.

HeirLoom

Rabbit, beans, sassafras

The next act was focused on rabbit, and felt very 10,000BC/cave man/Fred Flinstone-ish. First, a large fire is lit on the table. Then we are presented with a rabbit pasta and a log with a roasting rabbit.

The pasta harkened back to a simpler time, when families sat around fires and ate good rabbit pasta, as all of our ancestors did in the past (right?). This one was a miss for me. The presentation was cool, but it had a lack of flavor and depth.

Bone

Mushroom, honey, barbecue

The rabbit was served on the bone with mushrooms and a honey BBQ sauce, all while roasting on an actual coal (don’t touch that coal!). Surrounding the bone was a cracker of celery root, sumac, chervil, and a truffle of rabbit liver, pine nut, and wojapi.

To me, the winner of this act and maybe the best bite of the night, was the truffle. The silky liver mixed perfectly with the sweet wojapi (Native American Berry) and the crunchy pine nuts. It was umami, sweet, salty, crunchy, tart – everything in one.

Trumpet

Cured, blueberry

The next act was fall, autumn, or, in Charlotte, the three days in between summer and winter. A large plate of oak leaves are presented with this dish, fall colors abound, to give us the sensory experiences - sight and smell - to along with the taste.

The trumpet mushroom was grilling all throughout the previous course. The waitress came over and took the mushroom off the grill, put it on our plate, and then put this thin layer of foie gras on top. It was served with a blueberry sauce.

To me the earthy, meaty mushroom mixed well with the soft layer of foie gras, and the blueberry added just the right amount of sweetness to the dish.

Dumpling

Duck, black garlic, brown spice

On top of the leaves were served a duck dumpling (You have to kind of hunt for it in the leaves – I wonder if this was intentional to feel like you were hunting for duck amongst the fall trees?) Fancy bao buns have been a feature popping up more and more in fine dining recently, and I wholeheartedly approve. Bring on more buns, hun.

Taco

Smoke, myoga

Sorry for the bad picture guys. I was doing so well up until this point! While the foie gras was melting onto the trumpet mushroom, we were instructed to have this fall taco, which consisted of mushrooms and Japanese ginger (myoga). It was a refreshing, yet ultimately forgettable bite.

Black truffle Explosion

This is an Alinea and chef Grant Achatz classic. It’s a tortellini of sorts that’s cooked with a truffle that’s solid in the middle and liquifies when cooked, so the entire center is truffle liquid gold. We were instructed to put the whole thing in our mouths before biting in, or else the truffle juice would go everywhere, and if you waste truffle juice you are sent to the basement dungeon at Alinea. An incredible bite, and one which no other table around us received. We felt VERY special about that.

Shout out to Alineaphile, who attempts to cook famous Alinea dishes at home. He does an awesome write up on this one.

Rossini

Ribeye, frites, fois gras, mushroom, truffle

We were first presented sheet music of the William Tell Overture, which was written by Gioachino Rossini, a famed Italian composer. Apparently, he was a big eater, and the French named a dish after him, which contained steak, truffles, and foie gras. This was Alinea’s play on the dish, which included the addition of a French fry emulsion (I audibly gasped when the waitress told us this), and mushrooms.

Look at the opulence of this plate! We felt like we were having a rich, decadent dish which we were. I feel that many Michelin Starred restaurants don’t do steak because it’s seen as passé, and that’s a shame, because it’s good – and when prepared like this, downright amazing. This was a perfect way to end the savory dishes on a high note, if you will.

Paint

Strawberry, banana, toasted jasmine

It’s dessert time. Alinea’s desserts are the most inventive in the world. I don’t think that’s really a hot take. I haven’t seen someone paint on my tablecloth or present me with an edible green apple balloon anyplace else in the world.

But what I was worried about was – would they taste good? The answer is an emphatic yes. The paint, with its combination of fruits and chocolate, really made for a fun, enjoyable, and delicious experience. My favorite bite was the gooey chocolate cake bites. It was moist and offered the perfect amount of chocolate to counter the fruity reductions.

Balloon

Helium, Green Apple

The most famous Alinea dish, the balloon. It’s a green apple taffy filled with helium. The string is made with an apple fruit leather.

Was it fun breathing in the helium and talking? Of course it was. Did it taste good? Yes it did, and even better than expected, I might add. The green apple added a nice, refreshing end of the meal smell and taste.

Drink:

Alinea offers a wine pairing, but no way in hell I could have done that post-marathon. Yvonne did a few wine by the glasses, and I had an excellent apple cider. The winner of the night to me though was the iced tea. This to me just exemplified the three Michelin Star experience. This wasn’t just a run of the mill black tea, it was a lychee imported tea from China that was the best iced tea I’ve ever had. It just shows that no detail, however small, goes unnoticed at Alinea. The sommelier was top notch, as expected. When Yvonne asked for a natural orange wine, the sommelier immediately brought her this German wine from Domaine Marcel Deiss, which she loved.

The best tea ever

German wine? Why not.

Atmosphere:

When we first walked in I thought, oh no, here we go again with a windowless, stuffy, museum-like experience. The walls are different shades of gray/blue, the art is modern, and it felt like we were back at Osteria Francescana, which we did not enjoy; however, the experience couldn’t have been more opposite. The restaurant was lively - people were having a good time. It felt like we could enjoy ourselves. We could laugh with the waiters/waitresses. I could make jokes. It was not stuffy at all. In fact, the setting made for a timeless moment that heightened the experience. Everything in the restaurant was set up to facilitate a memorable, once-in-a-lifetime moment, which is what we’re looking for when we go to Alinea or any other fine dining restaurant. We also didn’t feel like, as Yvonne puts it, we were fattened up like Geese to be turned into foie gras. We left the perfect amount of full and the perfect amount of happy.

Yvonne’s Hygge Room Face (PS: is that a Reformation dress?)

Chicago Hospitality:

The waiters/waitresses are what made Alinea special to us. From the moment we walked in they made us feel comfortable and at home. They knew when to talk, and when not to talk. They were personable and fun, while yet still maintaining a professional vibe. It was the perfect service, and reminded me a lot of the way Eleven Madison Park runs their hospitality. At the end of the day, when you go to a restaurant of this quality, you want to feel special walking in and out of the building, and Alinea pulls this off with the best of them.

Frankie’s Notes:

It’s a little silly to wear your Chicago Marathon Medal into Alinea; It’s okay to wear it walking back to your hotel, but after that let’s put it away because no one cares that you ran the marathon (this is coming from someone who ran the marathon); The only exception: if you win the marathon. Then you can wear it all you want; It’s fun to name the animals that are on your ribeye plates — I named my giraffe Joelle; Drinking tea out of a metal straw is the way tea was meant to be drunk; Gastromologist is going to catch on, and you heard it first here on scallionpancake.com.

Rating:

Alinea is up there with the best of the best, and is one of the few restaurants we’ve been to that has exceeded our expectations. I would go back in a heartbeat.

5 OUT OF 5 WITH 3 MICHIGAN PUGS

 

Chef James Knappett's Kitchen Table

The gang’s all here

Background:
Kitchen Table is tucked in the back of Bubbledogs, a hot dog and champagne bar in Camden, London. It only seats 19 people a night, which we were lucky enough to be a part of last May. Little did Chef James Knappett and the rest of the team know that he was getting a guy walking in with an NYU shirt, Santa Claus, and a millionaire who was going to refuse a £4 cup of tea because it was too expensive. Rumor has it he went on an immediate 2-week vacation where he contemplated his life and why he’s in the restaurant business. Sorry, Chef. We did our best to tame the olds, but sometimes they can’t be controlled.

But enough about our crazy family for now – let’s talk about Chef Knappett. He worked all over the world, from Noma to Per Se. He decided to open the restaurant with his wife Sandia Chang. Together, they own the front of the house hot dog bar Bubbledogs and the back of the house fine dining restaurant Kitchen Table (also, they just had a baby in April and she is adorable). Kitchen Table opened in 2014 and got its first Michelin Star in 2015. It received its second star in 2018, which the restaurant maintains today.

Eat This:
There is only one option at Kitchen Table, and that’s the multi-course tasting menu for £150. It’s a three and a half hour experience and show, as the kitchen and all the magic is happening right in front of you.

Oyster

The first dish was oyster panna cotta, horseradish ice cream, and wild nettle. This dish to me in a weird way reminded me of the oyster and the pearls dish at the French Laundry, but maybe that’s just because I know Chef Knappett worked with Thomas Keller at Per Se. I loved the cold/hot play of the horseradish ice cream with the oyster. What a great way to start the meal.

Quail

The second dish of the night was a smoked and picked quail egg with mushrooms, black vinegar infused with black truffles, and black garlic puree served on top of potatoes. All I can say is I wish it was more than one bite!

Ham

A play on the classic Italian ham and melon, the melon was compressed, seasoned, and displayed separately form the ham to deconstruct the two ingredients. The ham came from a local butcher who makes his meats specifically for Kitchen Table.

Chicken

The next snack was crispy chicken skin with rosemary-infused mascarpone and bacon jam. This was my favorite dish of the night. It reminded me of a Southern U.S. pork skin cracklin mixed with a British bacon butty.

Parkerhouse

Who doesn’t love a Parkerhouse roll served with house made mutton fat, tomato confit, and last year’s garlic. I believe they tried to take the butter away from us and Yvonne almost killed the chef. Again, we are sorry for our behavior.

Squid

Squid and scallops were in perfect season when we were in the U.K. This was Cornish squid cooked in chicken fat with fresh mint, wild sheep sorrel, salt and vinegar powder, fresh sour cream, Grelot (AKA pearl) onions, and green almonds. I am a squid lover, so this dish was a refreshing and lovely bridge between the starters and the mains.

Trout

Look at this beauty. You know what’s the worst? Overcooked fish, especially if it’s trout or salmon. Of course, this trout was cooked to perfection.

Scallop

This scallop was caught the day before and brought to the restaurant alive, where it was served simply with a little caviar on top.

Seabass

The Seabass was cooked in and topped with foie gras, and then sprinkled with a nice onion salad. I have done a 540 on foie gras recently. I loved it, hated it, and then loved it again. I think by itself, it’s tough to swallow (literally). However, when it’s added as a creamy, rich accent, it can turn a dish into a star, like in this dish where it accents the Seabass.

Asparagus

It’s an asparagus tart. Writing about this 3 months later, I honestly don’t have any recollection of this dish, so I guess it wasn’t too memorable.

Lobster

The lobster was slowly cooked over coal and served with a sauce from the lobster’s shell, fresh bbq peaches, tarragon, and tomato fondue. We had three great lobster dishes on our European trip, and this one was exceptional. The fresh peaches made this dish, adding the perfect amount of sweetness to the dish.

Lamb

The roast lamb belly was served with lamb sauce, garden mint oil, crème fraîche, sheep sorrel and mint.

Beef

Just take a look at this piece of meat and tell me you don’t want to put it directly into your mouth, don’t pass go, don’t ask questions. It was a delicious piece of meat, again, butchered specially for Kitchen Table.

Chilcote

Chilcote is a special goat cheese made in Staffordshire from Innes cheesemakers. People describe the cheese as having fudgy, hazelnut notes.

Beetroot

Beetroot marmalade, reduced beetroot juice with sweet woodruff, frozen and crushed woodruff tea dusted with dried beetroot skin on top of sour cream ice cream. I’m not a fan of sour cream, but even I enjoyed this dish. A great bridge dessert from the savory to the sweet section of the menu.

Cambridge Cream

Cambridge cream is the British version of a creme brûlée. It’s said that it originated from Cambridge college, where in the 1600s the college would burn in the logo on top of the vanilla custard. That’s so British and royal it’s hard not to get excited about that.

RHubarb

The rhubarb was served in two parts, one as a gelatin and one as an ice cream. This one wasn’t my favorite, but Yvonne loved it.

canelé

The canelé is made with Madagascar vanilla and rum. Vanilla is underrated – thanks for ruining it, crappy ice cream companies. Good vanilla is complex and flavorful. Add some rum to it and I think you have a nice dessert.

Fudge

Caramelized white chocolate and sea salt fudge. What more do you need to say?

Crepe

To finish it off we had a moist, decadent, crepe. A perfect bite to end our night.

Atmosphere:
My ideal setting for a meal is it at a well lit, small bar with one-on-one interaction with all the chefs, where you can see all of the cooking happening, so Kitchen Table was pretty much my ideal atmosphere. I love the intimacy. I love watching the precision of the chefs. I love the signatures of all the famous chefs who had eaten there. I love being high on a stool. I loved it all. It’s the modern show that I love and crave to go to and be a part of. To make this review as British as possible – it’s like seeing the Beatles at the Cavern Club in Liverpool.

The dining room, kitchen, and everything else in one picture.

We see you

Ferran Adria - no big deal

Just a few Michelin Men

English Hospitality:
For us foodies, It literally doesn’t get any cooler than being able to carry on a conversation with the chefs as they serve and prepare your meal. The meal was probably the most intimate we’ve ever had at a 2 Michelin Star restaurant. One of my favorite moments of the night was when Chef Knappett took this boy (pictured below) back behind to the kitchen so he could see how things are done and what was written on the kitchen table. It was the boy’s birthday, and instead of a party he wanted to come to Kitchen Table (last year his mom took him to a 3 Michelin Star Restaurant in Paris), which in itself is cool and something I wish i was mature enough to do when I was eight years old. The chefs could not have been more hospitable to him, and to everyone around the table.

We can’t get through the whole review without talking about my mom, who was here with us and was not enjoying herself. Ten minutes before the meal, she exclaimed she would rather spend her money on Escada than on food. This is not something you should say before you spend $200/person at a meal which is going to be small plates and you’re going to spend 3 hours at, but so it goes. At the end of the meal, the chefs came around and asked if we wanted tea. The tea takes about 2 minutes to explain, because it has multiple different types of herbs which you get to pick. The poor chef explains all of this to my mom, and then right as she is about it pick it out she asks THE question…”does this cost this extra?” The look the chef gave my mom was honestly the most confused, intense, and sad face I’ve ever seen, followed by, “Yes, it is extra.” “Nevermind then,” my mom says. Ten minutes later when we get the check, we find out that the tea was four pounds, or roughly what one stitch in an Escada dress costs. Yvonne and I have never been so embarrassed, but she is family and we love her. She will not, however, be attending our next Michelin Star meal.

Imagine instead of rolls, this was the chef explaining the tea to my mom

It’s not the best picture, but this was the tea plate with all the herbs

Frankie’s Notes:
Bubbledogs should be a bubble bath fun room for old pugs (copyright coming soon); One day, we’ll be able to walk into an Escada store and not immediately be escorted out; In England they drive on the wrong side of the road and they put their silverware on opposite sides to compensate; One of the men dining with us was friends with George Soros, and that’s impressive.

Ranking: 5 out of 5 with 2 Michigan Pugs
Kitchen Table is definitely worth of a trip if you’re in London. They use only the freshest ingredients from around the U.K. and offer some of the best modern British food around.

 

Enigma: A Review of Albert Adria's Barcelona Culinary Adventure

Background:
Albert Adrià is culinary royalty. Along with his brother Ferran, the Adrià brothers ran the most famous (and probably the most influential) restaurant in the world, El Bulli, which closed in 2011. El Bulli is where modern molecular gastronomy was born, and many of the world’s best chefs spent time at El Bulli, including Massimo Bottura, Rene Redzepi, the Roco Brothers, and Grant Achatz.

Once El Bulli closed, Albert decided to open up a series of restaurants in Barcelona under the El Barri group, the most famous being Tickets, which has been ranked in the top 20 in the world and is a modern play on Spanish Tapas. In 2016, Adrià opened Enigma, which only holds 24 people at one time. Enigma has one Michelin Star and is currently ranked #82 on the 2019 World’s 50 Best restaurant’s list.

Our journey to Enigma started in when we found out we were going to Scotland. We’ve been eyeing Barcelona for a while, because Barcelona is awesome and we like saying Barcelona with a lisp to each other. Plus, it’s one of the best food cities in the world. We were originally going to try to go to Tickets, but the reservation website for the El Barri group is, in a word, terrible. Apparently, in order for the system to accept your reservation, you have to set your computer’s calendar to Barcelona’s time zone. So we ended up “settling” for Enigma, which, spoiler alert, wasn’t settling. We also went with Yvonne’s dad, Wayne, who had never been to this type of restaurant prior to this. Except for the night before, when we went to El Cellar de Can Roca. Yes, we did El Cellar De Can Roca and Enigma on back to back nights. Do not try that at home boys and girls – leave that up to us professionals and Wayne.

Eat This:
Enigma is a tasting menu experience that involves traveling to different rooms throughout your time at the restaurant. The price is €220, which is not bad when you consider that you’re going to have between 25 and 40 dishes. Enigma was one of the most fun dining experiences we’ve ever had, as it truly was a journey through different rooms in what looked like The Penguin’s ice cave. When you make the reservation, you are given a code which is needed to get into the front door. As stupid Americans, we couldn’t figure out how to get the code to work (the numbers must have been in Spanish, ahem), so the hostess came down and helped us out. This was the only mishap of the whole night.

The entrance to Enigma

Once inside, you are brought to the first room, which is called La Cava. Here we were given our first few bites.

Sus

We were first handed a cocktail, which was gin and dry vermouth and a spray of Mandarin orange essence. Let’s get boozy, people. I think it’s nice when a restaurant starts you off with a drink, whether it be champagne or a cocktail. It’s a very welcoming sign that puts you in the mood. See pictures later for Yvonne’s mood.

Blini with Caviar

This was described as pancake air with caviar. It was good, but we aren’t going to remember this one.

Crystal Bread

Enigma served this dish at Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants festivities this past April in Macao. It’s a clear bread that is crunchy with truffles shaved on top. Clear bread was a new one for us – pretty cool and innovative – and we’re only three bites in.

Aonori with Sea urchin & Wasabi

This crunchy aonori canapé with sea urchin and fresh mediterranean wasabi was served as a one bite. Notice we’ve gone from caviar to truffle to sea urchin already. $$$$$$$$.

Orange Blossom Kakigori

To round out the first room, we were given an orange blossom sorbet, which was a nice homage to our sus drink at the beginning of this section. A great palate cleanser for our raw bar experience ahead.

Next we were taken to La Barra, which was the raw bar.

Squid Veil

We watched as our chef sliced the squid so thin that it was transparent. She then put a drop of olive oil and a drop of soy sauce on each of our pieces. One of my favorite bites of the night – so simple, yet so good.

Lobster Claw & Lobster Roe

This was not how the lobster was served, but it looked so cool on the plate that I decided to use this as the picture. The claw was cut sashimi style and then topped with its own roe.

Barnacle & Codium

Have you ever had goose barnacles with codium seaweed? I doubt it. The barnacle was served with a sauce made of seaweed and sunflower oil. It was then served with a side of “barnacle juice” and actual seaweed. This was, as my buddy Branden would say, a taste of the ocean.

Anchovies Foie

The foie gras was cured in an anchovy salt while we were waiting at the table. The actual salt is cured with anchovies for over a year to bring out the subtle, extra-salty anchovy flavor. So smooth and delicious.

Off to the next room, La Planxa. This was a hot bar, almost like what you’d see at a Hibachi Style Japanese steakhouse.

La Planxa

Oyster with Iberian Ham

The best part of visiting Spain is the Iberian Ham. Sorry Italy, but I think Spain delivers on the best ham in the world, and I try to eat it as much as possible when traveling there. And who doesn’t love a little oyster confit in Iberico fat with Iberico broth? Poach anything in Iberian ham and it will be good, but pair it with a nice fresh oyster, and it’s the best.

Pea “Calcot”

I think i’ve come 540 degrees on peas. I think the smooshed, non-flavorful peas I grew up on soured me to what an actual good pea can taste like. When they are this crunchy and cooked so well you realize the magic of the pea.

Rabbit Tamal

The chefs wouldn’t tell us what this one was, for fear that we wouldn’t eat it once we learned it was rabbit brain. Come on bros, you know we’re not going to freak out on a little rabbit brain. Where Wayne comes from (Kentucky), this is a delicacy.

Wagyu & Sea Urchin

My dad has recently asked me 100 times what Wagyu is. God bless him. It’s technically any of the four Japanese breeds of cattle, but you can also just call it “really good shit,” k? The mix of the sea urchin created an ultra-upscale surf and turf experience.

Mushroom & Black Truffle Chawanmushi

I’m not a hot soup fan, never have been. So this wasn’t my favorite. I do love the mushroom + black truffle one-two punch that has found itself on a lot of menus recently (see Eleven Madison Park). It was good, and I ate it all, but it wasn’t my favorite.

Now we’ve made it to the central dining room where our main courses and desserts were served. What was cool was that the dishes were brought out and we were asked to eat them and then guess what we were eating. This was a fun exercise for all, and started a lot of interesting conversations. Wayne even made up a new type of plant – a sea orchid. We think he was trying to say lily pad or water lily, but we’re still going through the tapes to figure out exactly what happened.

The main dining room.

Wagyu pâté en croûte

Let’s admire the plating for a second on not just this dish, but all the dishes. I adore a small bite placed on a large plate. I love to see where they place it and if there are any patterns, etc. I’ve also been obsessed with pâté en croûte recently, as it’s been showing up on fine dining menus often. A great first bite to the dinner portion.

Aged Lobster

This was the outstanding dish of the night to me. The lobster is cured in aged cow fat and had the most delicious, marbleized meat essence. Plus, they made this sweet music video to show how they make it. Try not to start dancing when you watch, I dare you.

“Bisque”

Again, Soup Nazi here, but I’m not a soup fan so it isn’t fair for me to comment on the lobster bisque and its roe. Again, I ate it all, because I’m not a loser, but I just didn’t care too much for it. Sorry, soup lovers.

Morels with Coconut

Morels are my favorite mushroom now – let’s get that on the record. I also love the refreshing flavor of coconut. I would have never thought to put these two things together, as I think of Morels as a cold, forrest ingredient and coconut as a tropical ingredient; however, they combined beautifully. East meets West – let’s solve some world problems through food, people.

Warm Spring Salad

This was sea anemone served with lettuce heart and a lettuce vinaigrette. This is the course where Wayne famously invented the term “Sea Orchid,” as he tried to guess what this dish entailed.

White Asparagus

This one looks innocuous, but it’s not. It’s actually 4 asparagus in one – raw, grilled, cooked, and smoked. You have to see the video to see how it’s done. Pretty amazing.

White Anchovies & Trout Roe Dango

Trout roe in a roasted anchovy dashi with tapioca balls. Kind of like a boba tea, but with trout. A great looking and great tasting dish.

Tres Leches

A fun play on a traditional Spanish dish. Tigre, coconut ,and soy milk were a great transition from savory to sweet. Dink Travel says the soy sauce is 30 years old, and they seem reputable, so let’s go with that.

Banana & Foie Gras

A combination I’ve never had - banana and foie gras. Momofuku Ko in NYC always has shaved foie gras on the dessert menu, and it’s a nice creamy compliment to the soft banana and star anise sauce.

Baby Beans, Wasabi, & Lime

Lime and wasabi ice cream – a great combination of spicy, sweet, and acidity. Then you add the crunchiness of the beans and it leads to a well-balanced dish.

Cacao Bean

This dish only contains chocolate - freeze-dried chocolate air, frozen cocoa kombucha rock, and confit cocoa beans. I am a chocolate lover, so this was naturally my favorite dessert.

Soya, Soya, Soya

There are only soy beans in this dish, from the cracker to the sauces.

The main dinner was over, and we were taken through the main kitchen into a dark room that looked like the exit. They opened the door and boom – we’re in the secret back 41 Degrees bar. How fun is that! And we’re given more snacks. It never ends!

Drunk face

Lyo-strawberry & Truffle Profiterol

Each of these snacks were served with a cocktail. Who doesn’t love a nice strawberry with a truffle profiterol? This was a fun bite.

Nori Candy

Hot take: I don’t like seaweed. It tastes like your brother dunking you in the ocean and you feel like you’re going to die. But maybe that’s my childhood talking.

Vegetal Ravioli

This ravioli was made with lychee, rose, and orange, and boy, was it good. It was a great bite to finish off the night.

Atmosphere:
We’ve been to a lot of restaurants all of the world, and Enigma is one of the coolest, most well-designed, fun restaurants we’ve ever been to. It feels like you’re in the dream from the moment you walk up the ramp to meet the hostess. I love the concept of moving around during a four hour tasting menu, because four hours is a long time for a millennial to sit in one place. We were at the restaurant for quite a long time, and it felt exhilarating and exciting for the entirety of our meal, which is a feat for any event of that length. Every detail and inch of space at Enigma was well thought out, and you can see why they’ve won numerous awards for their design.

The main kitchen

#elbarri4life

Some of us did the wine pairing

Did you know that Wayne is a full time Santa in his spare time?

Barthelona Hospitality:
The service from the moment you walked in was spectacular. Our main server was from Argentina, and it turns out she was only 20 or 21 years old. She was amazing, she knew every dish and every drink on the menu, and couldn’t have been more friendly. I know what I was doing when I was 20 years old, and there’s no way I could have been working at a place like Enigma, that’s for sure.

We don’t remember your name, but you were awesome

A little end of the night bar magic

Frankie’s Notes:
El Cellar de Can Roca and Enigma within 24 hours is almost as crazy as the time we did Maido and Astrid & Gaston tasting menus on the same day; Warning: only try this if you are a true eating professional; I felt like I was in The Penguin’s Lair in Batman Returns, and was half expecting an Emperor Penguin to walk across the room and hand us a glass of champagne; We couldn’t be prouder of Wayne for making it through two tasting menus and enjoying the experiences, plus he made up some fun new species along the way; Guessing what you’re eating is fun and should be done more often.

Rating: 5 out of 5 with 2 Michigan Pugs
Enigma’s overall experience is up there with the best of the best. In no other place we’ve been have we traveled through a restaurant as we did at Enigma. All the food was inventive. Some of the dishes were outstanding, some were forgettable, but none of them were bad. I wouldn’t put the food up there with Noma, but it was a close second for me.

 

The Updog Kombucha Origin Story

Olivia Wolff asked us to write an article on Updog Kombucha in exchange for a sick purple t-shirt. How could we say no to that? Instead of a lame article, we decided to write a short one act play in Shakespearean English. Feel free to read in a British accent.

A London Bar in the past

WILLIAM:

My Lady!

MARGARET:

My Lord!

WILLIAM:

I herald news not of your liking.

MARGARET:

Oh, Lord!

WILLIAM:

 ‘Tis Arthur. I am afraid his health and temperament have turned.

MARGARET:

Alas, I have feared such news for some fortnights.
My Arthur!
Why doth your health forsake thee?
Our love, in its spring and full of life.
Yet your illness stains the day.
By Jove, may this be a test?
For we shall not allow the King nor God
To cometh between our brave souls.
My William, ‘tis the prognosis?

WILLIAM:

‘Tis grim, my lady.
His gut doth protest too much.
The doctor, aged and wise
Has not viewed nor heard
Of a case this vile and less of hope.
My lady, my heart cries of sadness
To bring such news to thee. 

Lady Margaret begins to sob.

BARTENDER:

Friends, I suggest to thee a potion
From the Orient doth come.
Its power, witches envy;
Its magic, Merlin desires.
Your lover, deep in sorrow
Hope, forsaken thee.
Bring him to the brewpub
For his life is the stake.
’Tis the one last option
For your love, the risk is worth.

 William scurries out of the bar to go and retrieve the ailing body of Arthur.

 MARGARET:

Barkeep, this far east potion,
Of whose magic I doth hope,
Can save my lover’s biome
And thus, our future!
Doth it have a name? 

BARTENDER:

The shaman that delivered it
Hath named the potion Kombucha.
Of Japan, it’s origin

 MARGARET:

Dearest Kombucha!
May thy delivery to my lover
Remedy for his sickness.
So, once more, happiness doth cometh
In our house and in our hearts.

At this moment, Arthur is brought in on a stretcher, mumbling incoherently, William by his side.

MARGARET:

My Arthur!

WILLIAM:

‘Tis Grave.
Barkeep, deliver thy potion.  

BARTENDER:

Doth he prefer Mojito,
Or doth he prefer Hibiscus? 

MARGARET:

Give thee both,
For only god knoweth the preference.

The bartender drops in Arthur’s mouth two drops of each Kombucha. With each drop, Arthur’s body shakes dramatically. 

WILLIAM:

Up, my Arthur, my dog!

MARGARET:

Methinks his life has vanished.

 They all begin to leave the bar, with grave sadness. Then they hear a faint stirring.

BARTENDER:

Halt, thy friends!
Tis Arthur, his soul has vanished not!
Look! The ‘boocha’s magic
Has doth life brought back to thee.
A great miracle upon thy bar,
A life, doth saved.

 ARTHUR:

My Margaret!

 MARGARET:

A great miracle!
Even St Paul is shocked.
The Kombucha saved thee, my lover.
A great debt I doth owe to it.

ARTHUR:

We must spread thy word to all
Of the powers of the Boocha.
For my life is one,
Yet I shall dedicate myself
To the health of mine countrymen.
They shall all know the powers
This potion doth undertake.

 MARGARET:

A life together shared,
Full of love and full of drink.
To save thine with bacteria
Our health, we are sure to thank.

They embrace and curtains close.

And thus, Arthur and Margaret spent the rest of their lives spreading the good word of Kombucha, and a few years later Updog Kombucha is born.

Haar Restaurant: Dean Banks' St. Andrews Star

Background:
Dean Banks traveled the world for years working in Michelin starred restaurants, private chefing, and learning how to be awesome (my words not his) before he landed his big break on MasterChef UK in 2018, where he made it to the finals. He didn’t win, but his talent was made apparent to the UK. He landed his own restaurant in the 5 Star Kinnettles Hotel in St Andrews, which opened in early April 2019.

Of course, being stupid Americans, we didn’t know any of this. So, when we happened to be staying at the Kinnettles Hotel on our trip to St. Andrews in May and stumbled upon Haar, we had no background on Banks, or the restaurant. St Andrews is a small town with not a lot of restaurants, and we were tired the first night, so we decided we’d try the hotel’s restaurant on a whim, more out of convenience than anything else. Most restaurants we go to or review we’ve done research on before, so we at least know a little bit of what we’re getting into. This one we were flying blind, so there were literally no expectations. Oh, we were also with our parents on this trip, whom we affectionately termed “The Olds” about halfway through our week together. “The Olds are telling weird jokes again,” “The Olds can’t walk anymore,” you get the idea.

You know the feeling you get when you’re surprised, happy, and just kind of in awe of your luck for wandering into a magical place you had no idea existed 3 minutes ago? That’s the way we felt during and after the meals we had at Haar. Every dish, whether it was a side, entree, or dessert, were perfectly executed and full of flavor. Each dish left you wanting more and more (and more and more). This place is going to blow up, and we’re just happy that we were able to walk in and experience Chef Banks’ magic before there is a two- month long waiting list to get a reservation.

Eat This:
There were two options when we dined at Haar. You could do a chef’s tasting for £65 or you could do à la carte Both times we did à la carte, which was a nice way to meander through the menu and share with the table, especially since we were with our parents. Literally everything we had was incredible, so I don’t think you could go wrong if you tried.

Oyster, jalapeño, & Cucumber

We knew we were at a special place when the oysters came out in dry ice. The jalapeño added a nice spicy kick to the briny oyster.

Spiced Octopus, Citrus Barley, Burnt Tomato

This was the best octopus dish I think I’ve ever had. The octopus was cooked perfectly and served over a spicy tomato sauce with a nice helping of barley. The flavor of the octopus mixed with the tomato and barley was just incredible. This is the dish I think about the most and want again so badly that I’m considering a quick weekend trip to St. Andrews.

Scottish Grass Fed Beef, Black Garlic

Every sauce on every dish was a 12 out of 10. This black garlic sauce paired with the beef so perfectly it begged the question: “why don’t we always eat steak with a black garlic sauce?” Just incredible.

Fife Rare Breed Pork belly, Kimchi Puree

Chef Banks doesn’t have any “throw away” menu items. There is so much thought put into every dish. We were talking to Chef Banks and asked how he got inspired by his dishes. He said that most are inspired by his travel and watching street food vendors cook. This dish must have been inspired by a trip to Asia, but what is amazing about Banks is he puts a Scottish spin on everything (hence the Fife pork).

Lamb Rump, Café de Paris

Lamb and duck are my two favorite and go-to meats. The best part about Scotland is there is lamb everywhere (shout out Dolly), and Banks’ take of turning the lamb into a classic French steak dish was top notch. Besides the octopus, this was a favorite for me. What made it extra special? The potato straws, which soaked up the Café de Paris sauce and became soft and delicious.

Wild Halibut, Tomato Beurre Blanc, Sea Kale

My dad, aka Bernard, loves fish, but he normally stays away from Halibut because, in his words, “Halibut has no flavor.” I was interested to get his opinion on Haar’s take on the Halibut, and even he admitted that this was the best halibut he’s ever had. The Halibut was cooked perfectly and the tomato/kale sauce paired with the fish was just delightful.

Desserts

Rhubarb

This was a giant rhubarb ball that we poured whiskey over, which caused the ball to melt and turn everything into a kind of dessert soup. Normally i’m against a whiskey shot in a dessert, because all you can taste is the whiskey. But the whiskey merely added a nice edge to the dessert and definitely enhanced the experience.

Banofee

Banana seems to be a polarizing dessert. Olivia of Updog Kombucha throws up if she’s within 100 feet of a banana. I personally love them, and I loved this dessert, which mixed toffee, banana, chocolate, and whiskey together into a magical experience.

Drink:
Haar has a its own amazing bar in the back, with a wide variety of Scottish gins and whiskeys. Alex, the main bartender, let us try a variety of the best Scottish libations. The Ackermans’ new favorite Scottish Whiskey (they don’t call it Scotch in Scotland, FYI - don’t embarrass yourself America) is Dalwhinnie, a brewery located about two hours north of St Andrews. It’s a mild whiskey that went down smooth. We also discovered Aelder, which is a wild elderberry elixir made right in Scotland. It’s meant to be mixed with other drinks, but we drank it straight up and enjoyed the s*@t out of it.

Atmosphere:
Haar is easy to pass by, and is unassuming since it sits on the first floor of a hotel. But it has a very nice, casual vibe that makes you feel comfortable and really highlights the exceptional food. No frills, no bullshit –  just really freaking amazing food. St. Andrews is a golf town after all, so most people were wearing golf attire and that seemed to be the appropriate dress.

Scottish Hospitality:
Haar is located on the main floor of the Kinnettles Hotel, which only has 9 rooms. We were staying here so we got to know everyone working there, including all of the staff of Haar. Everyone could not have been nicer, especially to our parents who don’t understand that Old People American humor doesn’t necessarily translate well into Scottish. God bless them. Chef Banks himself came out to talk to us and ask how everything was (all of the Olds immediately said we had a food blog and embarrassed us), and spent about ten minutes talking with us about his story.

Frankie’s Notes:
It would be remiss to mention that Jason made a 60 foot birdie putt on the 18th hole of the Old Course and got a very large round of applause. He says this was one of the greatest moments of his life; The Olds would be a great TV show and would star George Clooney and Martin Sheen; Scotland’s food is underrated - don’t believe the myth that UK food is bad – it is if you go to a pub and eat there everyday, but if you seek out the good stuff, you’ll eat at restaurants that rival any other great food culture around the world.

The moment before the putt: The 60 foot make on the 18th hole at the Old Course.

Ranking: 5 out of 5 with 1 Michigan Pug
Haar deserves a Michelin Star. Every dish is incredible. It’s worth a trip to St Andrews just to visit Haar. Drink a whiskey at the bar and, of course, eat Chef Banks’ amazing food. If you’re planning a trip to Scotland in the near future, don’t miss out on Scotland’s newest star restaurant.

 

El Celler de Can Roca Review: The Roca Brothers Deliver

Background:
El Celler de Can Roca is considered by many to the crown jewel of Catalan cooking, taking over from El Bulli which closed in 2011 (and where the Roca brothers worked at El Bulli the late 1980s). The restaurant is led by the Roca brothers—Joan (head chef), Josep (sommelier), and Jordi (head pastry chef). Joan, the oldest, decided at an early age that he would become a chef after working at his parent’s restaurant, Can Roca, during his youth. Joan & Josep opened up El Cellar de Can Roca right next to their parent’s restaurant in 1986. The youngest brother, Jordi, joined the restaurant in 1997 at the age of 19 and the rest, well, is history. El Celler de Can Roca got its first Michelin Star in 1995, its second in 2002, and its third star in 2009, which it maintains today. It has been ranked #1 in the world twice, in 2013 & 2015, and has been in the top 4 since 2011.

Our journey to Girona started in January, when we planned to do a quick two day stop in Barcelona to get a little sun between our week in Scotland and London – oh, and also to try some of the best food in the world. Our main goal was to land a reservation at Tickets, but on a whim I decided to put us on the wait list for El Celler, which is about an hour drive north of Barcelona. El Celler opens up reservations 11 months in advance, quite a long time out for a restaurant, so we were way past this period. I figured nothing would come of it and went ahead making other plans in Barcelona. To my surprise, a few weeks passed, and we got an email saying that there had been a cancelation and asking if we’d like to reserve a table for three. When the #2 restaurant in the world emails, you accept that email and make the reservation work, no matter what hotels/restaurants/plans you had already made for that day. So, we were hopping off the plane in Barcelona and heading to Girona for less than 24 hours.

Our flight ended up being delayed into Barcelona (thanks, striking French air traffic controllers), so by the time we got to Girona, we had about 15 minutes to change and go to the restaurant. We can’t say we saw too much of the city, but from what we saw we wanted to go back and explore more. Until next time, Girona. Oh, you might have noticed I said a reservation for 3. That’s because Yvonne’s dad, Wayne, was joining us on this trip. More on this later, but let’s just say that he had never had a 20 course tasting menu before, so we were a little scared as to what his reaction would be, if he would make it through the meal, and whether he would wear a Traditions Golf Club sweater/jacket every meal. Spoiler alert - he only owns Traditions Golf Club branded clothing.

Eat This:
But enough about Wayne. When you walk into the El Celler compound, you walk through a courtyard to the reception area. There you are greeted by the hostess who takes you to the main dining area. El Celler has less than 40 seats, and the areas are arranged so that you feel secluded but still have a great view of the entire restaurant.

The patio outside the bar area

There are two options when dining at El Cellar de Can Roca, you can do the Classic tasting menu for €195/person or you can do the feast tasting menu for €215/person. There is also an optional wine pairing for €110/person. We did the feast menu, which I believe every table in the restaurant was doing, because if you come here you aren’t going to skimp out. We decided against the wine pairing because we were fresh off the plane and we probably would have fallen asleep mid-meal if we attempted that chicanery.

The World

Our first dish was an elaborate globe with dishes based on the Roca’s travels around the world. Mexico was represented by a taco, Singapore by a chili crab, Egypt by a pyramid, Turkey with lamb and yogurt, and Peru with a causa limeña. The last bite came with a lever which was used to guess whether the last dish was representing Peru or Turkey. If you turned the lever the correct way, the globe opened up and a sphere of edible seawater appeared!

Memory of a Bar in the Suburbs of Girona

Squids, Kidneys with Sherry, gentian and orange bonbon. Montse’s meat cannelloni, cod brandade

Here we’re taking a trip back to the Roca’s parents’ restaurant. These elaborate bites were meant to represent dishes which the Rocas grew up on.

Tuna belly with Ginger

Who doesn’t enjoy a perfect piece of tuna belly in ginger? The Roca’s play on a little sushi to cleanse the palate.

Pine pollen, Pine Nut, Avocado, Green asparagus, and pine cone vinaigrette

Notice that every dish has its own custom plates, cutlery, etc. We’ve seen custom dishes before, but never on every single dish. The attention to detail was amazing.

Scallionpancake is all in on the pine cone trend. We loved the subtle flavors, and this bite made us think we were in the forrest.

Green olive’s ice cream and black olive tempura

This is probably the signature dish of the restaurant. An olive tree is brought to the table with olives hanging from the tree. You pick them and eat them straight from the tree. The green ones were frozen and the black ones were fried. A “wow factor” dish if there ever was one.

Perretxicos consomé with cured veal

Consomé is a French dish of concentrated meat broth. This one is made with perretxicos (mushrooms) and a nice chunk of veal. This was good, but not one of our favorites of the night.

St George’s Mushroom Brioche

An amazing bite of mushroom flavor. This was mushroom forward, mushroom empowered, and a great step in the right direction for mushroom rights. We loved it.

Bread

So at this point, the bread man walks by with a tray of freshly made breads. Word to the wise—only take one. We have just started the meal and although these breads are amazing, they will fill you up and cause you problems later in the meal. Don’t be like us and exercise some self control.

Vegetable surf and turf

seaweeds, spring herbs, and flowers

Now the main courses have begun. The first two dishes are plays on salads, with the first being a surf and turf salad made with mushrooms and seaweed. A refreshing first main dish.

Orange Salad

This is also a classic dish of the restaurant which changes based on the seasons, but it’s always orange. This take included mullet roe, tuna jerky, sweet potato puree, carrot puree, saffron, Jerusalem artichoke, and mango. Basically everything that is or could be close to orange.

Spring pickles with walnut “romesco” sauce

I believe it’s a rule now that all the top restaurants in the world must serve a pickle dish. And why not when you can show off your fermentation skills? Plus, who doesn’t love a nice walnut sauce?

Charcoal-grilled green peas, emulsion of its pod and vanilla

This was my favorite dish of the night. Vanilla has kind of gone out of fashion, but I love the flavor of vanilla. The black “vanilla bean pod” on this dish is actually all made of green peas to look like a vanilla pod. The fresh pea balances the sweet vanilla perfectly in this plate. Also check out the custom plate with the greens specs embedded right in the glass!

Mackerel Ajoblanco

When is Spain, you should have Spanish mackerel. I believe it’s actually a law. Scallionpancake says, “Why not have it at the best restaurant in Spain?” Sorry we are using the third person so much in this post, we’ve been watching a lot of professional wrestling recently.

White asparagus with sea anemone

This is literally the most phallic dish we’ve ever seen. It’s kind of distracting in a way, especially from this angle. It is fun to eat sea anemone though - that’s something you don’t see on a menu every day.

Prawn marinated with Rice Vinegar

The prawn dish is also a signature of the restaurant, with its bright orange sauce and head of the prawn. In America we’ve taken the shrimp flavor out of shrimp, so we really only get the meat texture. This dish emphasis that flavor—the salty, ocean, seaweed taste that a great shrimp has.

Langoustine with Sagebrush, Vanilla Oil, and toasted butter

The vanilla flavor shows back up in this dish in the most subtle way, accenting the traditional lobster and butter flavors.

Semi cured hake, juice of its bones, asparagus and rocket pesto, and grilled piparras

This was the point in the meal where Wayne was asking the waiters to stop bringing dishes. He hadn’t trained for years for moments like this like we have. Little did he know we had 4 more of these meals coming in the next week.

Steamed Fresh-Caught Whole fish, stuffed with seaweeds and sea anemones

They brought to our table a whole fish which they said they were going to prepare for us. 10 minutes later, this baby comes out. You can see the progression of dishes, from bites, to salad, to fish. This was our final fish dish until we got to the last of our savory dishes - the meats.

Smoked Duck Nagret with Orange

Duck and lamb are my favorite meats, so whenever there is a duck on a menu I get excited. The smokiness really accentuated the duck flavor here – duck southern BBQ if we ever conceived of BBQing a duck.

Veal Pastrami with puree of celariac, marrow, and picked vegetables

Have you been to Katz or Langer’s? Then you know good pastrami. Add the tenderness of veal to a great pastrami flavor and you’ve got this guy. I would have eaten this on a #19 any day.

Petrichor

distilled earth, pine syrup ice cream, carob cookie, fir dust, cocoa biscuit

This dish is supposed to represent when the Rocas would play in the forrest. They have a full-time scientist on their staff, who they worked with to figure out how to get the essence of the earth edible. This dish tasted like your childhood in the mud, but in the best of ways.

whiskey Cake

This was one of the best tasting desserts I’ve ever had. The cake was so moist with the whiskey flavor, and whatever magical toppings they put on this balanced the cake out. I would have eaten this until I threw up, multiple times over.

White Flower

elderberry, acacia, orange blossom, soursop, lychee, and green apple

This silver globe contained edible flowers and a fruity ice cream. It was beautiful, delicate, and most importantly delicious. It was a perfectly refreshing course to end the meal.

At this point, the main courses are done, but then they wheel over not one, but two dessert carts that have a variety of chocolates, small pastries, and fruit desserts. We were full, but how could we say no to these? They also were kind enough to box up chocolates for us to have the next day, which we happily obliged.

Hello dessert cart my old friend

Golden balls that had pop rocks in them

Cranberry pastries

Atmosphere:
The details at El Cellar de Can Roca are unrivaled. Each dish has its own specific plates made specifically for that dish. Each table has three rocks on the table representing the three “Roca” brothers (Roca means “rock” in Spanish). It’s easy to see why both the Michelin Guide and the 50 World Best inspectors love this place. It’s fancy, but not pretentious. It’s modern, but still has the white tablecloths and servers in coats and ties that your grandma expects at a meal of this caliber and price point. The dining room is situated around a courtyard enclosed on glass, making the room feel open while still giving each table privacy, and there were a maximum of two tables near you. There was definitely a whimsical element to the place, with the dessert carts, inventive menu, and overall layout of the restaurant. It felt fun and not stuffy, yet still fancy. That’s really hard to pull off.

The view from our table into the courtyard.

Catalan Hospitality:
Everyone at the restaurant was amazing, from the greeter when you walk in to the three Roca brothers who were extremely friendly and signing books. Josep Roca walked around and asked how each table was doing, and took pictures with anyone who wanted. Our lead waiter was amazing and answered all of our questions, especially all of Wayne’s questions about Spanish politics and Donald Trump (j/k Wayne - you were well behaved and made us proud, unlike my parents). We felt welcomed and relaxed the whole meal, and had an overall fantastic experience.

Our awesome waiter showing us the freshly caught red mullet

The orb inside the globe

Us and the boss - Josep Roca

In the bathroom they had a jar from the Santa Maria Novella Pharmacy in Florence

Frankie’s Notes:
I wish I could travel with mom and dad but I guess I’ll stay home with my brother who attacks me relentlessly all day instead; Seaweed orbs are way better than weird alien orbs above New Mexico #webelieve; Wayne only wearing Traditions Golf Club attire no matter what the occasion is like when Jason only wears BNA logo apparel on every occasion; Girona is cool and we wish we could have spent more time there—thanks French Air Traffic Controllers; Roca meaning Rock is Spanish is way cooler than Ackerman meaning Farmer in German; Vanilla is underrated and was ruined by American mass consumption;

Rating: 5 out of 5 with 3 Michigan Pugs
Very few restaurants live up to the hype of top 5 restaurants in the world (looking at you, Osteria Francescana and Eleven Madison Park), but El Celler de Can Roca did. We were nervous taking Wayne here for his first top notch dining experience because spending €215 on a meal is a hard sell to anyone, but luckily for us El Celler de Can Roca did all the selling for us. It was a classic 3 Michelin Star experience from start to finish, and certainly a restaurant worth traveling across the world to dine at.

 

Noma: A Review of the Seafood Season Menu

Background:
We visited Noma last summer for the Vegetable Season (Read about the background of Noma and our experience here), and we had such a magical damn good time that we decided to fly to Copenhagen for 96 hours to go back for the Seafood Season. This is our first repeat of one of the top restaurants in the world, and part of us didn’t want to go back simply because we had what is the closest we’ve come to a perfect meal that we didn’t want to tarnish that experience. But thanks to the NBA All Star game coming to Charlotte, we made some nice AirBNB money renting out our condo to a fancy LA producer. And what better way to celebrate living with my parents for a week then to treat ourselves to a trip to Noma?

Pro Tip: People are always asking us how we score these reservations. A great way is to get on the restaurant’s mailing list. I’ve been on the Noma mailing list for 2 years and they email at least once a season saying that they are opening up a few additional days for shared tables or regular sittings.

This visit we did a shared table, which Noma offers from time to time in their private dining room. This meant that we would be sharing a table with 16 strangers. We’ve done this a few times, most notably at Noma Under the Bridge, and recently at the Hello Sailor/Buxton Hall collaboration dinner. We’ve enjoyed this in the past, as we’ve been able to make friends and share our dining experiences with other people who care as much about food as we do. This time 17 of the 18 at the table were amazing humans, but one guy got a little too drunk and became obnoxious and, to be honest, dampened the experience slightly. It’s a roll of the dice if you’re sitting at a table like this, and both Yvonne and I agree that if possible at Noma it’s better to have your own table. Noma is a fast-paced, frenetic show encompassing all of your senses. Just eating and observing the food takes up so much energy that trying to make conservation with strangers distracts you from your main objective, which is enjoying the experience. Of course, if the shared table is all you can get – don’t pass it up. And if you’re an extrovert, you might feel differently from us.

When we walked onto the grounds, we were all herded into one of the greenhouses until everyone at the shared table arrived. We were given some cider and allowed to hang out in the greenhouse or just outside. We went on a beautiful Copenhagen spring day, and there is nothing more fun than hanging out at Noma just taking in the magic. And magical it is. It’s hard to describe it, but as soon as you walk through the rope gate you feel like you’re in a special place.

Welcome to our greenhouse

Once everyone had arrived, we were escorted down the long path by the green houses, past the bee hives and the test kitchen where Rene Redzepi and team were working on the upcoming vegetable season, until we reached the front door to the main dining area. We were then paraded around the prep kitchen through the sea of servers and chefs to the private dining room.

Oh hi it’s us

The parade into the dining area

Eat This:
Noma has three distinct culinary seasons: Seafood, Vegetable, and Game. This being our second trip to Noma, it was interesting to see the similarities in the progression of dishes between the Vegetable and Seafood season. Both seasons built up a main larger course - the celeriac shawarma of the Vegetable Season and the Arctic King Crab of the Seafood Season. What was cool about the Seafood Season was that dishes were grouped into progressions based on the type of animal being served. First it was raw seafood, then shrimp, then fish, and finally finishing with crab before the dessert courses.

There is so much intricacy and thought put into everything at Noma, from the progression of dishes to the fact that a different type of wood is used in each of the dining areas (the shared table area is made entirely of Douglas Fir), that it’s pretty much impossible to take it all in. It’s a place worthy of study, and a place the more times you go you pick up on concepts and notice things you’ve never noticed before. This is the case for the food itself, and in particular with the Seafood Season. The Vegetable Season gave a “wow factor” with almost every dish. Comparatively, the Seafood Season was a much more subtle, slow-burning wow. There was so much going on with each dish beyond just the initial flavor and main ingredients that it’s going to take us a long time to fully comprehend what we ate. There are very few restaurants in the world that keep you thinking about the experience for so long after the meal, and as a patron of Noma you want that feeling to linger as long as possible.

Fresh Norwegian Scallop

As you walk in, you can see the chefs opening the scallops to keep them as fresh as possible. They were delivered to our table and we were instructed to use the top part of the shell as a fork to scrap off the scallop and eat it with its roe.

seafood Platter

Carpet Clam, Venus Clam, and Mahogany Clam

One of my favorite bites of the night was this Carpet Clam, which was served with a delicious paste underneath. The Mahogany Clam is a rare clam that lives to be over 100 year sold. The clams we ate were around 100 years old, and we were told we could count the rings on the shell to see the exact age. We got to about 10 before we gave up.

One of the coolest parts of the dish is we were given quince to squeeze over the clams like you would typically squeeze a lemon. A great unique Noma touch.

MarInated sweet shrimp

How cute are these little shrimps? Kristen Wile from Unpretentious Palate described them aptly as spooning the herbs/flowers. This bite reminded me so much of the shrimp tacos from Noma Under the Bridge we had a few years prior.

Grey Shrimp Cooked with sea Lettuce

This was described as a lettuce ravioli, and it was one of the best bites of the night. A danish shrimp ravioli.

Lumpfish roe & cured egg yolk

Lumpfish roe had just peaked in freshness, so this dish replaced the sea urchin dish served earlier in the seafood season. The roe was served with the egg yolk, Mirabelle blossoms, and rose oil. The rose oil added a great aftertaste to the savory and decadent lumpfish roe. This roe tasted like you were having the finest sturgeon caviar. We’re sad we missed the sea urchin, but we were very happy with this dish.

Ramps

Ramps had just been delivered to Noma, and the fermentation lab has been using hundreds of kilos for something exciting – probably for the vegetable season. We got to experience some as a side dish to the lumpfish roe, and they added a nice earthy balance to the richness of the roe.

cured Turbot

The turbot was served with a corn miso from the fermentation lab. The miso added a hint of sweetness to the dish that gave the fish a pineapple flavor, which I think is what Noma was going for with the tiny pine needles in the presentation. This was one of the coolest and most subtle dishes for me, but a lot of people at the table thought it lacked flavor.

medium rare Blue Shell Mussel

When we were given this dish we were instructed to eat the mussel and then drink a mushroom broth which was hidden underneath the seaweed. I am a sucker for these multi-sensory experiences, and I loved tasting the soup while smelling the seaweed. It felt like you were at the beach.

Cod bladder simmered with quince

This was the beginning of the cod sequence, which started with this cod bladder with quince. I’ve never had cod bladder before, but I really enjoyed it. It had the texture of a cross between pork belly and well cooked octopus.

cod Tongue Schnitzel

The cod tongue still on the bone had been deep fried and then covered with wasabi leaves. I think at this point it’s good to take a step back to understand how unique this dish is. Did you even know that Cods had tongues? Did you know they could be fried and served on it’s bone to taste like schnitzel? It’s easy at Noma become jaded by the uniqueness and amazingness of each dish, as that’s what you’re expecting, but hot damn, each dish is so good it’s just hard to wrap your head around it.

Salt Cod Pie

Here they made a cod pie out of milk skin, very similar to the caramelized milk and cheese dish we had during the Vegetable Season. This is served with oyster leaves on top. Why are they called oyster leaves? Because they actually have the flavor of oysters! So cool.

beach Crab Gel and Pinecones

Here we have a crab gel with pinecones. As you’ll see in the first dessert dish, the pinecone has become one of the best things we’ve eaten. The presentation of this dish was done in a hollowed out crab shelled that had been covered in wax. Naturally, this takes a long time to make, and the overall effect was well worth it.

Boiled brown Crab on Flatbread

This crab cracker was prepared using a technique that Noma had picked up in Tulum, Mexico. The cracker had been deep fried twice to allow for it to puff up and be able to be stuffed with the crab. This dish itself is so time consuming to make it – the crackers are hand cut to look like crabs and then hand stuffed.

hot smoked, then barbecued arctic King Crab

We’ve made it to the main dish, which is barbecued arctic king crab from Finnmark, which is basically the North Pole. Each crab was served with a QR code showing you when and where the crab was caught, its size, and who caught it. Ours was considered XXXLarge, weighing in at over 10 pounds! The crabs are kept alive on sight at Noma until they are ready to be served. The dish is served with a side of horseradish juice, and you could tell it was good because the table got quiet for five straight minutes as people were eating and enjoying their crabs.

Crab Salad

Right after the large crab meat was served we were presented with a warm crab salad. This was my favorite savory dish of the night. The salad was hot and delicious, and was just seasoned and dressed to perfection.

salted & dried berries from Summer

This dish was literally everything to us. It was both of our favorites, and I think maybe the most perfect dish I’ve ever had. We were served sheep’s milk cheese with last year’s preserves, including pine cones.

We had one of these pinecones on the Vegetable menu, and we had been dying the try them again. The fact that each of us had 4 or 5 of them made us so happy. The broth was perfect. The ratio of cheese to fruit to liquid was perfect. It was all just perfect. As Yvonne said, if she were allowed she would have unlimited quantities of this she would have eaten so much as to make herself sick. Weirdo.

Cardamom scented sea Star

Noma told us they tried hard to serve actual sea stars, but apparently they taste terrible. So they settled for the second best thing, which was a cardamom toffee sea star made to look and feel like an actual sea star. A great tasting, and fun play on the seafood theme. Overall, we felt that these desserts were stronger than the ones we had during the Vegetable Season.

Chocolate Cod Skin

You knew we had to end with seafood, and we ended with fried cod skin covered in chocolate from Mexico. It was served with a “dagger” to help cut up the skin. The chocolate was not too sweet, but provided a nice balance to the crunchy skin. A great last bite.

Drink:
At the shared table, we had to do either the wine or juice pairing. We both chose the juice pairing, because Jesus, who can drink ten glasses of wine during a meal and walk two miles home? I had the juice pairing during the Vegetable Season, and all of the juices had completed changed just as the menu had changed. We started off with green gooseberry, which is Yvonne’s favorite fruit of all time and was my favorite juice of the day. Yvonne really enjoyed the saffron and pumpkin kombucha, which was spicy, sweet, umami, savory, and bitter all at once. We both agreed that getting the juice pairing is like getting a whole other meal to itself. With the wine pairing you get wine, but it’s not like the wine is made at Noma. The juices are all house-made and curated just for the current menu and each one I’ve had at both meals have been incredible. Don’t be afraid - go non-alcoholic and you won’t regret it. You can get wine anywhere.

Apple and Herbs Juice

Tomato and Fig Leaf

Atmosphere:
This time, even more than the last, Noma felt so alive, bustling with service, the fermentation lab going full force, and the test kitchen preparing for the Vegetable Season. Noma is a science experiment with counterculture vibe and the best food in the world. No table cloths, you eat with your hands, guests are wearing polos, a million people are moving around, all the doors are open, and people are yelling “Yes, Chef” like it’s the chorus to a Justin Bieber song. It’s a sensory overload, yet everything fits together and makes sense. No moment is boring. It’s the dining show to rule them all.

The clock in the main kitchen that says “FASTER”

Rene Redzepi hangig out with us for a few minutes

A view of the main dining room with the power plant in the background.

The private dining room looking out to graffiti from Christiania.

Under the Sea Hospitality:
Now that we have a new logo, we’ve been creating Michigan Pug plaques for restaurants that have received a coveted Michigan Pug. Our first one was at Bardo in Charlotte, and I decided since we were going back to Noma that I would have one made and carry it over myself. I did not want to make a scene about it, so when we got to the gate I gave it to the greeter and explained that we had enjoyed our meal so much the past summer that we had a small token of our appreciation for them. The guy then took it and presumably told Rene Redzepi about it, who instructed them to put it up immediately in the private dining room. This was so amazing to us and something Noma didn’t have to do, but it make our time there that much more special. I’m sure they’ve moved it now, but just seeing the other diners and wait staff look at it throughout the meal made us so happy. A touch of class.

The overall service was top notch, except for a few snags. We did ask one of the waiters if we could keep the QR code as well as if we could take a picture of one of the drinks, and we never received an answer back, which is rather abnormal. It must have been the guy’s first day. Other than that, everything else went smoothly and without any incident.

The one thing we weren’t allowed to do on this trip was have a drink in the Hygge room. We figured this was because it was lunch and we were at the shared table, but it was still sad as that was one of our favorite experiences from our first visit.

Oh wow

Sorry we just ate your brothers bro

Frankie’s Notes:
The only thing that Noma is missing is a room full of pug puppies to hold and play with after the meal; if you’re sitting at a Noma shared table by yourself in your late 30s and are obnoxious the whole time, you’re probably going to be single forever; I didn’t record the entrance again, and I immediately regretted it again - next time; If anyone goes to Noma after reading this, let us know where the plaque is now! Yvonne has announced she’s moving to Copenhagen to open up Scallionpancake’s first satellite office dedicated to hygge and sweater weather.

Rating: 5 out of 5 with 3 Michigan Pugs
Yvonne flat-out at the end of the meal came out and said she enjoyed the Vegetable Season better than the Seafood. Upon reflection for me, our first experience was so magical and blew our expectations away so much that it was going to be almost impossible to come away feeling like the Seafood Season lived up to our lofty expectations. Both menus were so different, purposefully so, that it’s like comparing apples to oranges. Like the Vegetable Season, there was not a miss on the menu when it came to taste, and the experience felt as magical as before. All of that being said, I have to agree with Yvonne that I felt the Vegetable Season was a slight step above the Seafood Season. However, I also feel that the combination of the shared table and the fact that it was our second trip played a factor in this feeling.

 

Blue Hill at Stone Barns

Background:
Dan Barber’s Blue Hill at Stone Barnes needs no introduction, but if you want to get up to speed watch Season 1, Episode 2 of Netflix’s Chef’s Table or read the reviews by the NY Times, The Telegraph, or GQ. It’s currently ranked #12 in the world and the #2 restaurant in the US, only behind Eleven Madison Park, which, spoiler alert, we believe is a mistake.

Like most top 50 restaurants, Blue Hill is an exceptionally hard reservation to score, especially on a Friday or Saturday night. The reservations open up 60 days out, and literally they were all gone in seconds. I’ve scored reservations at Noma and Osteria Francescana, so it was a little surprising to see all the times gone so fast. I think part of the problem was that they were using Reserve, probably the worst of the big reservation systems on the market. However, last week Blue Hill switched to Tock, which is in my opinion the best system out right now.

A slight aside, but there has to be a better way for these top restaurants to do reservations. For the little guys like us, it’s extremely frustrating that it’s so hard to get a reservation, especially since it seems like people literally write computer programs to score these reservations right as they come out. I’d almost like to see a lottery system in place for a few tables, where a week or two out you could put your name in the lottery, putting everyone on the same playing field.

After a few minutes of trying we ended up getting a 10 p.m. reservation. A 10 p.m. reservation is bad enough, but Blue Hill at Stone Barnes is 30 miles north of the city, and the last train from Tarrytown, the closest train station, leaves at 1:00 a.m. This meant that in order to get back to the city after dinner we had to take an Uber. We were even debating renting a car, as we didn’t know what the Uber or cab situation would be like at that hour in Tarrytown. Luckily, there were ample Ubers available, and it only cost us about $45 to get back to the city. If you have a reservation this late, Uber is definitely the way to go.

The restaurant Blue Hill at Stone Barns is situated on Blue Hill Farms, an 80 acre farm and learning facility. Pulling into the facility, you feel like you’re approaching a palatial country estate in a Charles Dickens or Thomas Hardy novel. The restaurant is located in a castle-like building with a large courtyard. The actual dining room was formerly a cow barn! It’s quite the setting for a meal, even pulling up in the darkness. Although we wish we could have seen the farm in daylight, arriving at night only added to the mystique and charm.

We arrived two hours early, hoping we could eat a littler earlier, but we ended up spending the time in the bar area, complete with cozy chairs and a fireplace. A few drinks make the time pass quickly, and before we knew it we were at our table, which was situated against the back wall and overlooked the entire dining room. It felt like we were sitting in a theater watching a grand show take place on a culinary stage.

Eat This:
At Blue Hill you only have one option, and that’s a $258 tasting menu, including a mandatory 20% “administrative fee.” Tipping is not expected or allowed. Now that they are using Tock, the $258 is paid at booking, so you’re just in for the ride and whatever drinks you order (wines or cocktails by the glass, or you could do the $168 wine pairing) as soon as your table is booked. Each month has a theme based on what’s happening on the farm during that month. We dined in March, and our theme was “charcoal.”

The menu always consists of between 20 and 40 dishes. Many of them small, some of them big. Of all the top tasting menus we’ve done, we left this one the most full.

The food here is meant to showcase the farm, local ingredients, and pure cooking. Barber is most famous for his work with scientists and breeders to produce better tasting, more sustainable products. On the night we went they were highlighting the Badger beet, which was a collaboration with a scientist at Wisconsin (hence the name Badger) to make a beet taste less earthy. If you’ve seen the Chef’s Table episode, you know that Barber is famous for his butternut squash that he bred with vegetable breeder Michael Mazourek.

Blue Hill isn’t trying to do molecular gastronomy, like a lot of the other top restaurants in the world. Their cooking techniques are not high tech (a chef told me they almost never use a sous vide), and you’re tasting the ingredients in their pure form. This is not to downplay the cooking or the wow-factor of the dishes, because they were some of the coolest dishes we’ve ever had. The creativity of Blue Hill’s cooking is second to none.

What really surprised us is that not only is the menu each day different, each table in the restaurant got different dishes depending upon the availability of ingredients. The table next to us got a potato ceviche which we never got, and we got a squash burrata which only a few tables got. Normally, if a restaurant of this caliber changes the menu daily, everyone at the restaurant gets that set menu that day. It is extremely difficult to produce such a varied menu by table. Not only do the chefs need to be spot on with everything, but the front of the house has to be synchronized and in-tune with what’s coming out, so they can be sure they’re delivering the proper meal to the proper table. It is so easy to screw this up, and the ingenuity and creativity that everyone on the team has to have to execute each seating is something we have never seen.

What we had on this night no one else will have again, although there are some staples that seem to stay on the menu, like the liver and chocolate and, of course, the Barber wheat bread. So, even though on your visit you’ll get a different menu, rest assured that you, dear readers, were there with us, especially since we’re always eating for more than two (more like two dozen, if we’re being honest).

Vegetables from the Farm

A classic. They serve fresh picked vegetables from Blue Hill on some nails. No one got tetanus, but if we did, it would have been an honor. A great first few bites.

Flower Delivery

Right after we finished the vegetables, then the fireworks started. It was small dish after small dish all in a row and on top of one another other. We couldn’t even take a picture before the next two were out. For the flower delivery, a chef runs out and says “Flower Delivery,” and hands us a cup and instructed us to each pick out one of these carrots to eat whole. You don’t know carrots until you’ve had one of these carrots.

Beet Jerky

This really reminded me of Noma’s Vegetable Season. It was a dried beet jerky that tasted like a beef jerky. You’ll notice that beets played a heavy role in our entire meal,.

Needles in a Haystack

How fun is this! There were two breadsticks in here to eat. Yvonne couldn’t find them, so I had to do her work for her. Typical.

Chufa Milk and Sassafras

At this point, so many things were coming out I lost track of what I was taking pictures of, so this is the only one I got of the chufa milk. Chufa is apparently mentioned in the Bible (sorry, I only read it in Hebrew and didn’t know what I was reading, so we’ll take Blue Hill’s word for it). This was one of my favorite dishes, as the milk was so tasty, especially with the shaved sassafras. It tasted like a better-than-you’ve-ever-had almond milk.

Fermented sweet potato and stone barns lonza

Olivia Wolff from Updog Kombucha is the only other person we know that’s been to Blue Hill, and this reminded me of her saying soppressata like a Jersey girl. Lonza is a distant cousin of soppressatta, two times removed.

Sweet Potato and Fermented Leaves

The sweet potato was warm and savory. This bite was fantastic, and one of the sleepers of the early dishes.

Bresaola and Lettuce

Another house cured meet, first cousin to soppressata and second cousin to the Lonza. So much was happening at this point that we were thoroughly overwhelmed in the most wonderful way. Each bite seemed to be better than the next.

Lion’s Mane Nuggets and honey mustard

It looked like a freaking Chick-fil-A chicken nugget, yet it tasted 100 times better and was made from a mushroom. This dish could bring peace to the Middle East, it’s that good. I pushed it away from Yvonne to clear room for another plate and she almost chopped my hand off to get more of the honey mustard.

The wintermelon that wanted to be a watermelon

Wintermelon is much closer to a squash than a watermelon, so the texture was much more meaty than a watermelon. This one we thought was one of the disappointing bites of the night. Also, we’re not sure if it’s a nod or plagiarism, but this is very similar to the name of a dish at Athens’ Funky Gourmet, “The Feta that Wished to be a Beetroot.”

Liver and Chocolate

Duck liver, you sexy, underused liver. This tasted more like foie gras to me than liver. The sweetness of the chocolate added a perfect balance.

Cabbage Sushi

We forgot to mention that so far each dish had been eaten by hand, with no utensils in sight. When this one came out I was a little skeptical, because cabbage sushi doesn’t inherently sound appealing, but boy, was I wrong. They literally tried to take the plate when there was a grain of rice left, and that was a mistake on their part. I was still eating that, bro!

Eight Row Flint Corn tamale and cardamom Leaves

We all know of Yvonne’s corn fear, but she braved this little bite of Blue Hill corn. This corn variety had almost gone extinct, because although it’s very flavorful (people describe it as complex and buttery), the variety does not produce a lot of cobs, so it fell out of favor with mass producers. Barber and a seed enthusiast helped revive the corn at Blue Hill 15 years ago, and it’s still used today in a variety of ways. So many ingredients at Blue Hill have a story like this, and it feels as though you’re eating a history of the American farmer and the renaissance of the humble seed, whose poster boy is Chef Barber.

Last Year’s Preserves

We were then brought a jar of pickled fruits and vegetables. Some of these foods we’d never eaten pickled, including squash, strawberries, and a special red pepper. These were on the sweeter side, and provided a nice transition before the larger dishes.

Koginut Burrata and Malted bread

It’s time for THE squash, the famous Barber mutant squash that has gone mainstream (it’s now served at Sweetgreen locations around the country). This had just hit the menu, and our server said this was the dish she was most excited to try. We ride hard for burrata in any form, so adding the special squash and their malted bread to the equation made this dish one of the best bites of the night.

Badger Beet and Beef

This is our first introduction to the Badger Beet, a beet designed to taste less earthy and be more palatable to the masses. We are weird and like the earthiness of beets to begin with, so we were predisposed to like this dish from the beginning. As you’ll notice, Blue Hill loves to serve sides of meat with their main dishes, as if to remind us that the vegetables are the real stars here.

Winter fruits and Vegetables with Diver Scallops

To me, this was a great scallop with some fruit. It was well-prepared, of course, and the fruit mixed into the scallops was cool, but it didn’t wow me. Moving on.

Red Pepper egg, Nash’s Rye, and Cheddar

A few dishes before this, a chef walks out and says that we are going to play a game. Some of the hens on the farm had been feed grains with red pepper, turning their yolks red. This was done in an effort to prove “you are what you eat.”

Two raw, shelled eggs were presented, and one had red yolk inside and one was regular. We were asked to pick an egg and brand it somehow with a Sharpie to show it was ours. I let Yvonne pick first, because i’m a gentlemen. She ended up picking the regular yellow egg, so I got to have the red pepper one. The flavor of this egg was so amazing, and the pairing with the rye and cheddar just blew me away.

This was the outstanding dish of the night for me and the one that I thought epitomized Blue Hill the best. If you didn’t know the story, you would think this is just an egg, but literally from the hen to the plate, every flavor was beautifully planned to the nth degree.

Whole wheat einkorn bread/
white bread/
Whole Barber Wheat bread

At this point, we were asked if we’d like to go on an adventure. We were taken to the bread room, where all the bread is made not only for Stone Barns, but also their sister restaurant in NYC. We are told that not only do they make their own bread, they grind their own wheat. We were given a sampling of breads, including the famous Barber wheat.

Pheasant, Jerusalem artichoke and hazelnut

Okay so every picture I took of this dish is blurry, so you get a picture of an actual pheasant. Beautiful bird, eh? They brought out a dead one to show the table next to us, but I guess they thought we were too chicken (pheasant?) to handle the truth. This was our one meat dish, and I throughly enjoyed it. The Jerusalem artichoke and crunchy hazelnuts were great complements to the tender pheasant.

Bread and Butter

Our server brought the bread and butter to the table, finished churning the butter, and then plopped it onto the plate with a healthy pour of buttermilk, and said, go at it, young people. Go at it, we did. Is there anything better than freshly churned butter from Blue Hill? I don’t know if there is. Combine that with the Barber Wheat and you’ve got a great bread course. At this point in the meal, we are so full we could barely eat another bite, but we eventually finished it all because we aren’t quitters. Especially not when it comes to bread.

dry aged parsnip and carrot steak with blue hill farm beef

The main dish was a showcase of the farm’s vegetables, served with a side of beef steak. It was also served with “duck” chips, which were actually made from a root vegetable, though we can’t remember which one. Such a fun and unique dish that highlighted the magic that is Blue Hill.

The Stages of Maple Sap Reduction

Dessert time. Maple ice cream with a fermented maple jelly. Yvonne loved this one, but I didn’t care for it. To each their own.

Badger Flame Beet Pie

The beets are back! This time in pie form. It wasn’t too sweet and highlighted the flavors of the beet. It was right on the edge of being savory, yet it ended up being the perfect amount of dessert for this stage of the meal. A beautifully executed dish.

100% whole wheat chocolate cherry bread and milk jam

The last bite, and boy, was it a good one. The chocolate cherry bread was so moist it was basically like eating cake. Yvonne didn’t finish hers, and we should all judge her for this.

Drink:
Before you are led into the dining room you are brought to the bar, which includes a fireplace and fully stocked bar. The cocktail menu is presented as a map, where each part of the farm is made into a drink with ingredients from that part of the farm. How fun is that?! They also make most of their glassware from ground bones from late Blue Hill animals, so nothing goes to waste.

Blue Hill’s Cocktail Map

They had three non-alcoholic cocktails, and I tried all three. My favorite was the Silos, which had corn, quinoa, clove, and cinnamon. It tasted earthy, and carried the sweetness of the corn, the spiciness of the cinnamon, and the crunch of the quinoa flakes. Such a complex and unique cocktail. Yvonne had pink champagne, and two cocktails, the Apiary and the Vegetable Field. The apiary was brought out in jar lined with bees wax which you poured yourself into a glass. The flavor I think best could be described as drinking a potion from the woods. The Vegetable Field was her favorite, with a rich fattiness from the tallow and the siren song of her go-to spirit, mezcal.

Once seated at the table, you are offered a wine pairing for $168 or you can do a la cart wine or cocktails. We elected for the a la cart option, as who can have a full wine pairing at our age at 10:00 p.m.?

Vegetable Field

Herb Garden

The Silos

The Apiary

Atmosphere:
The attire says coats and tied preferred, absolutely no shorts. To me, that says you need to wear a lime green cashmere sweater from Uniqlo, which is about as dressy as I get, unless it’s a funeral. I was the only guest on the property without a tie. At first this scared me, as I thought that the experience was going to be stuffy and too serious, but the meal couldn’t have felt less stuffy. The setting was magnificent, but you could tell that the place had a real sense of humor and playfulness - not only with the activities and games we played with the servers, but also the plating and presentation of the dishes. It’s what we hoped the experience at Osteria Francescana would be like – fancy yet friendly. When you go to a top restaurant, you want to have an experience you remember for a lifetime. You don’t want to feel like you’re visiting a museum of food. Blue Hill pulled off the perfect experience.

The dining room, where the decor changes by the season.

Farm Hospitality:
The service here, as one would expect, is top notch. When you are waiting to be sat in the lounge, one of the heads of service comes and asks you how you are doing and gets to know you for a few minutes. What they glean from you - why you are there, where you are from, etc - is communicated to the rest of the team who continue the conservation throughout the night. There is a frenetic energy to the service, very similar to Noma, where there is constant activity throughout the dining room. The servers sometimes line up with your dish, then notice it’s not quite the right time, and will circle the room like bees until it’s the perfect moment to drop off the next dish. They also would answer any question you had and not seem pissed off that you were asking it. There was no snobbiness or no snootiness - everyone seemed genuinely happy to be working at Blue Hill and supportive of the mission.

Case in point: normally at the end, they print out a menu for you to take home. Their printer was down, so we asked if they could email us one. Not only did they email us one the next day they were open, but they also overnighted us a printed menu on their letterhead. That’s going above and beyond.

Frankie’s Notes:
Having dinner at 10 p.m. is insane and we’re still tired; I hope when I die my bones are ground up and made into Blue Hill bone china; We feel we made a lot of best friends in the servers at Blue Hill, and we hope the feeling is mutual; Bears, Badger beets, and Battlestar Galactica; When we get our palatial estate, our first pet will be a pheasant named Neville; Wearing a sweater to Blue Hill is definitely rich man/poor man scenario.

Rating: 5 out of 5 with 3 Michigan Pugs

Blue Hill is the best meal we’ve had in the US and nowhere else even comes close (we’re looking at you, Eleven Madison Park). The attention to detail, the creativity, setting, and overall experience are second to none (Okay, we still have Noma slightly ahead, but this was the first place we’ve been that gave it a run for its money). It’s tough to get to, but worth the visit. If you ever have the chance to dine at Blue Hill, it’s a can’t miss opportunity.

 

JuneBaby

Cake by the ocean

Background:
Chef/Owner Edouardo Jordan opened JuneBaby in April 2017 in the Ravenna neighborhood of Seattle. This is Jordan’s second restaurant in Seattle, his first is the slightly more upscale Salare. Last month, he opened his third restaurant, Lucinda Grain Bar.

Put some Seattle South in your mouth

Chef Jordan grew up poor in St. Petersburg, Florida, where he sold anything to make additional money, including pickles and what he calls “flips” – homemade popsicles. This is where he started developing his passion for cooking. Before opening his restaurants in Seattle, Jordan worked at Per Se and Lincoln in NYC, French Laundry in Yountville, CA, and Bar Sajor and Sitka & Spruce in Seattle. With JuneBaby, Jordan wants to tell the story of his Southern upbringing and introduce the Great Pacific Northwest to southern food, a trend that seems to be sweeping the great US of A.

Look at those freaking BUNS

Jordan & JuneBaby have won numerous awards, including two James Beard awards in 2018 for Best New Restaurant and Best Chef in the Northwest.

The day after JuneBaby took home the award for best new restaurant, the lines started stretching around the block. The lines have died down for a bit now, but prepare to wait a bit in order to experience the best southern food west of Texas.

Eat This:

Antebellum Buns

With honey butter

These buns and the butter were hands down my favorite part of the meal – partially because bread is my love language, but also because a good, southern yeast roll like this is something I haven’t had outside of Kentucky. Heck yes. I kept that butter with me throughout the meal and eventually finished it off with a spoon. It would be a crime to waste butter that good.

Pork Cracklin’

With pecan butter & BBQ spice

These were also just incredible. The sweetness of the pecan butter and the spice on the cracklins was just next level. I’ve been on a cracklin kick, and these were second to none.

Pimento Cheese

With pickles & homemade Saltine crackers

You had me at Saltine. As Jason knows, my death-row meal is just three sleeves of Saltines. I love them so much I don’t even buy them. But this homemade sheet of Saltine? Dear god. It was so buttery and rich, and the pimento cheese was super smooth. Also, I’ve never had pickled potatoes, which were served on the side with other pickled goodies, like okra.

NAshville Hot CHicken Gizzards

With bread & butter pickles & white BBQ sauce

These were Jason’s favorite. He had tried gizzards before, but I never had. They were so chewy and umami-forward. Honestly, my mouth is watering just thinking about these. Jordan is great with sauce – the hot sauce, the white BBQ, the different bottled varieties on the table that you could add to all of it – whew. The man knows a good sauce, and I love that about him.

Beef Brisket Sandwich

With coleslaw & house BBQ sauce

This was Jason’s, because I basically ate everything pictured above. Jason liked the sandwich, but he didn’t love it. He said he’s had better brisket in the south. He found it lacking in flavor and texture.

Dessert:

Grandma’s Pound Cake

With vanilla bourbon and lemon curd

This cake was very well done, though lemon isn’t my favorite. I would love to try some of Jordan’s other desserts.

Drinks:
They have a full bar, local beers, wine, and, of course, sweet tea. They also offer lemonade and an Arnold Palmer – so Southern! Jason had (gasp) unsweet tea, and I stuck with coffee. But I’d love to come back for dinner and get a cocktail.

Atmosphere:
JuneBaby is intimate – it probably seats about 50-60. The colors are warm, and I felt very comfortable and cozy.

Love their sign & logo

Seattle Southern Hospitality:
Our main server was great, and since they did team serving, we can safely say that all of the servers were very nice. We were asked if we wanted a Bloody Mary or mimosa within moments of sitting down, and he gave us space while we took our sweet time figuring out what to order and took tons of photos.

These are the Amazon Spheres – nowhere near JuneBaby, but aren’t they cool?

Frankie’s Notes:
Eating Southern food in Seattle is a strange and confusing experience; if you read about what a gizzard is, it might take away from how delicious they are – so no Googling if you’re squeamish; I think lemon should only be in potpourri and salad dressings and stay out of my desserts; You should have seen my face when our waiter tried to take my butter when there was a microscopic amount left in the ramekin; We walked five miles to get to JuneBaby, which is maybe top five farthest distances we’ve walked to get brunch, which is why I had to eat all of that butter.

Rating: 4 out of 5

 

Charlotte All Stars - NBA Edition

This week, Charlotte welcomes the NBA for All Star Weekend. Half of Scallionpancake is a huge NBA Fan. The other half does crosswords at sporting events. We’ll let you guys figure out which is which. But I digress. In honor of the best in basketball coming to the Queen City, we wanted to give our city’s visitors a guide to the restaurant scene in and around Uptown – but with a twist. Here’s a list of some of some of our favorite places within a 10 minute Uber/Lyft drive of Spectrum Center that have vibes similar to our favorite NBA All Star Starters.

Lamb Neck from Bardo

Lebron James:

Bardo

AL BELLO/GETTY IMAGES

The best player in the NBA deserves the best restaurant in Charlotte, and that’s Bardo. Take a cab down Mint Street, just a few minutes from Uptown, and enjoy the best meal Charlotte has to offer right now. They are only open for dinner, and you’ll probably want to get a reservation.

Reservations or Call 980-585-2433

Address: 1508 Unit B, S Mint St, Charlotte, NC 28203

Brunch Spread at Haberdish

Kemba Walker:
Haberdish

Image Courtesy of Sports Illustrated

The hometown hero represents the quintessential Charlotte restaurant, Haberdish. They’re serving up down-home southern cooking like your mom wishes she could make. If you’re from out of town and looking for a Southern meal, this is the spot for you. They don’t take reservations, so get there early or be prepared to wait a bit.

Address: 3106 N Davidson St, Charlotte, NC 28205

The pork belly tacos from Soul Gastrolounge

Joel Embiid:
Soul Gastrolounge

Image CSNPhilly.com

Joel Embiid is cool, hip, and wants to date Rihanna. There is no place cooler than Soul Gastrolounge. Rich Cho, the Hornets former GM, gave the the pork belly tacos at Soul a 5 out of 5, and we couldn’t agree more. Hang out under the peacock and try to find your own Rihanna. No reservations are available; however, they are on Yelp’s No Wait app.

Address: 1500 Central Ave, Charlotte, NC 28205

Giannis Antetokounmpo: SIGGY’s Good Food

Photo: sportingnews.com

Giannis is from Greece, and Siggy’s serves the best Mediterranean style food around. Also we call Siggy the Jewish Greek Freak (okay that’s not exactly true). If you’re looking for a healthy breakfast or brunch after a night of partying in Uptown, take the short uber to Siggy’s and fuel yourself for the day ahead.

Address: 1001 Belmont Ave, Charlotte, NC 28205

Paul George:

Loft & Cellar

Photo: Sports Illustrated

Paul George needed a change of scenery from Indiana to OKC to regain in mojo. The same can be said for Loft & Cellar, who hired Scallionpancake heartthrob Greg Collier to reimagine the struggling restaurant’s menu. Not only did Collier turn the restaurant around, but he made it one of our favorite places Uptown. Go there for brunch or dinner, either way you won’t be disappointed. If you want something more casual, head over to 7th Street Market for Collier’s other restaurant, The Yolk.

Reservations or call 704-817-9057

Address: 305 W 4th St, Charlotte, NC 28202

Steph Curry:

The Stanley

Photo: USA Today

Rumor has it that I held Steph Curry to 30 points in one game at Dell Curry’s basketball camp at the Jewish Community Center in the summer of 1999. Whether those rumors are true or not, what’s 100% fact is that Steph is an original Charlottean. Paul Verica was the first in Charlotte to really focus on local, farm to table ingredients at his old restaurant, The Heritage. Now he’s moved his digs to Elizabeth and rebranded to The Stanley, where you can get the best local farm to table offerings in the city. The atmosphere is homey and welcoming, but it’s really small. You’re going to need to make reservations.

Reservations or call 980-299-2741

Address: 1961 E 7th St, Charlotte, NC28204

Lamb Lollipops: Image Courtesy of FunnyLove Blog

James Harden: DANDELION MARKET

Photo: Yahoo Sports

James Harden has been known to like his share of clubs, and there’s no better place to have a meal and party than Dandelion. Go have a nice meal on the first floor and then make your way up to the top floor for some dancing and good times. Our favorites are the cherry-glazed lamb lollipops and the sliders.

Address: 118 West 5th St,Charlotte, NC 28202

Homemade Energy Bar and Blue Cheese and Parmesan Truffles

Kyrie Irving: Lincoln’s Haberdashery

Photo: Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports

Kyrie knows how to get buckets from every angle around the rim. Lincoln’s Haberdashery knows how serve great food of almost any variety – from breakfast, to amazing sandwiches, homemade ice creams, and all of their pastries. I could also see Kyrie hanging out in the upstairs room checking out Lincoln’s Mary Todd tattoos. Lincoln’s is a great lunch spot if you’re looking for a fresh sandwich or salad and you need a place to relax and have a quick All-Star regroup.

Address: 1300 South Blvd Suite S, Charlotte, NC 28203

Octopus, Scallops, and other magic from the Asbury

Kawhi Leonard:

The Asbury

Photo: Sporting News

Kawhi plays in Toronto, one of the best food cities in North America. He also has an aura of class and seems to like the finer things in life, as taught to him by his old coach in San Antonio, Gregg Popovich. The Asbury, located in the Dunhill Hotel, is serving up some of the best, most creative dishes in Charlotte. Also, their pastry Chef, Miranda Brown, makes some of the best desserts in town.

Reservations or call 704-342-1193

Address: 235 N Tryon St, Charlotte, NC 28202

The spread at Sweet Lew’s

Kevin Durant:

Sweet Lew’s BBQ

Photo: Sports Illustrated

Kevin Durant went to the University of Texas in Austin, where they have, in my opinion, the best BBQ brisket in the country. Sweet Lew’s is the closest thing Charlotte has to that beautiful Texas meat. They even slice it right in front of you, just like they do in Texas. Get the brisket or chopped pork, and then be prepared for a nice long nap.

Address: 923 Belmont Ave, Charlotte, NC 28205