1,000 Foods To Eat Before You Die: A Food Lover's Life List (141 page)

A world-famous, Michelin-starred Napa delight.

Thomas Keller, the impeccable chef-owner of the French Laundry in the eucalyptus-scented Napa Valley, is doubtlessly the most elegantly low-key member of the American “celebrity chefs.” He has no buzzwords to hurl, no slogans
to espouse, no signature plastic shoes. What he has instead is a legendary, almost spiritual quest for perfection, which manifests itself in his exquisite French-inspired, American-informed cooking. In the space of what was once actually a laundry, Keller opened his restaurant in 1994, after cooking in France (Taillevent, Guy Savoy), New York (Rakel), and Los Angeles (Checkers). And ever since, his ethereal food has won the kind of accolades that keep his fans booking reservations exactly two months in advance of their hoped-for dining dates.

Set in an utterly serene, peaceful wine country landscape, the old stone house filled with the glow of many candles bears an instant, low-key mystique. But the food, of course, trumps the atmosphere. From the beginning, Keller’s cooking has never been about convenience or shortcuts. His menu has always been built around many teasingly small courses, sublime and often whimsical, “tastes” meant to tease the palate and haunt it, simultaneously leaving you wanting more of what you had but eager and able to experience the next sensation. This was considered a revolutionary way to eat when Keller began, and diners took to it with abandon. Dining at the French Laundry became a symbol of food connoisseurship, and Keller was among the first chefs to take charge of exactly where his ingredients came from—often growing his herbs and vegetables in the gardens adjoining his restaurant, or importing from as far away as necessary to get what he considered the best.

Keller was also an early innovator in the realm of food puns that surprised and delighted the palate as they amused the mind. There was “tongue in cheek” (braised beef cheek and veal tongue served with horseradish cream, baby leeks, and garden greens), “oysters and pearls” (sabayon of pearl tapioca with poached Malpeque oysters and caviar), “coffee and doughnuts” (cappuccino semifreddo with fried dough topped with cinnamon and sugar), “macaroni and cheese” (butter-poached Maine lobster with mascarpone-enriched orzo) and “salmon tartare ice-cream cone” (smoked salmon and crème fraîche in a cornet of house-made crackers).

After winning every imaginable award for both his restaurant (his was the first in America to receive three stars from the Michelin guide) and his own wizardry (James Beard Foundation Chef of the Year), what’s a tireless perfectionist to do? Keller decided to take on New York City. In 2004, he opened Per Se in the Time Warner Center on Columbus Circle. To be sure of excellence in two places at once, he even linked the kitchens of both restaurants by live camera.

Per Se is an ethereal experience and an example of truly modern dining, with just sixteen tables overlooking the fountains of Columbus Circle and Central Park; it’s an oasis for calm, adult meals in a bustling town full of food-lust. Keller’s customers’ favorites can be found on the menu, all turned out beautifully. Still, the rarified ambience of the original stone house in Napa cannot be duplicated amid the hurly-burly of Gotham, so there can be only one French Laundry.

Where:
6640 Washington St., Yountville, CA, tel 707-944-2380,
frenchlaundry.com
; Per Se, 10 Columbus Circle, New York, NY, tel 212-823-9335,
perseny.com
.
Further information and recipes:
The French Laundry Cookbook
by Thomas Keller (1999).

A taste of the New England seaside.

The New England staple of crunchy, golden strips of fried clams piled high on a buttery, soft roll and sparked with a dab of tartar sauce or lemon juice (or both) is an icon of the American summer, but it’s a relatively recent addition to the food canon. Although fried clams can be seen on the 1865 menu of Boston’s famed Parker House hotel, local legend tells a different tale.

Lawrence “Chubby” Woodman, the owner of a roadside clam stand in Essex, Massachusetts, north of Boston on the Atlantic Coast, claimed that one day in 1916, he dipped some of the fresh soft-shell clams from the Essex River in a batter and deep-fried them as a lark, just to see what would happen. The rest is gastronomic history—Woodman’s has been an institution since that day, and the fried clam has become a classic. (Clearly the Parker House hotel didn’t stake its claim loudly enough.)

A few years later, one Thomas Soffron, a clam digger and businessman from Ipswich, Massachusetts, took Ipswich hard-shell clams and stretched their so-called “feet” (the longish muscular appendage outside the clam shell that is used for digging) and the soft inside “belly” to fry up the first batch of what he called clam strips. Soffron and his brothers went into business in 1932, marketing fried clam strips to folks who had never eaten fried clams before.

By chance, Howard Johnson, busily opening roadside restaurants in New England in the 1940s, was among the early fans of the new fried clams. He bought the clam strips, and the rights to them, from the Soffrons, and went on to create an empire of more than a thousand hotels and restaurants across the country, each one of them serving up fried clam “rolls”—the fried clam strips sandwiched in the sort of toasted hotdog buns known as “slices,” with tartar sauce and lemon wedges on the side.

Where:
In Essex, MA
, Woodman’s of Essex, tel 800-649-1773,
woodmans.com
;
in Ipswich, MA
, Clam Box, tel 978-356-9707,
ipswichma.com/clambox
;
in Boston and environs
, Jasper White’s Summer Shack,
summershackrestaurant.com
;
in Wellfleet, MA
, Mac’s Seafood, tel 800-214-0477,
macsseafood.com
;
in New York and Brooklyn
, Mary’s Fish Camp,
marysfishcamp.com
;
in Nassawadox, VA
, The Great Machipongo Clam Shack, tel 757-442-3800,
thegreatmachipongoclamshack.com
;
in Santa Barbara and Ventura, CA
, Brophy Bros. Restaurant and Clam Bar,
brophybros.com
.
Mail order:
SeaPak Shrimp & Seafood Co., tel 888-732-7251,
seapak.com
(search clam strips).
Further information and recipes:
Jasper White’s Cooking from New England
by Jasper White (1998);
The New England Clam Shack Cookbook
by Brooke Dojny (2008);
lobsters-online.com/lobsterfly
(search ipswich fried clam roll recipe);
seapak.com/recipes/new-england-clam-rolls
;
epicurious.com
(search fried clams).
Tip:
The authentic “slices” are not readily available to consumers. The best substitute is a Pepperidge Farm hot dog bun, lightly toasted and buttered.

Frontera Grill—style, pizzazz, great food.

The best thing to have happened to Mexican food in the U.S. over the past few decades may be a native of Oklahoma City named Rick Bayless, whose parents ran a barbecue restaurant and whose great-grandparents opened Oklahoma’s first grocery store. Bayless studied Spanish and Latin American studies and was working toward a PhD in anthropology when he was bitten by the (very serious, often incurable) Mexican food bug. Bayless and his wife Deann, who has long been his partner in life and food, spent the next few years in Mexico writing a cookbook they called
Authentic Mexican
, which was published to wide acclaim in 1987—and so a career was launched.

Upon their return to the U.S., the Baylesses settled in Chicago and opened Frontera Grill, a restaurant specializing in regional Mexican food. At the time it was unlike the general idea of a Mexican restaurant. The food wasn’t Tex-Mex and wasn’t covered in melted cheese, and the décor and ambience were colorful, bright, warm, and lively—but also classy and urbane. There were familiar dishes on the menu: possibly the most ethereal guacamole ever to be served in a restaurant north of the border, chunky and mouthwatering and always accompanied by homemade, freshly-fried tortilla chips; quesadillas filled with artisanal jack cheese and duck
carnitas
; and less familiar but still unintimidating offerings like yellowtail and cactus ceviche, or the Mexican casseroles known as
cazuelas
, filled with things like lamb shoulder in cascabel chile sauce and house-made fresh cheese.

The restaurant’s conviviality and novel yet authentic approach to presenting real Mexican food to Americans was so well received that the Baylesses opened an adjoining second: Topolobampo, a more upscale, more expensive and serious restaurant aimed at the fine-dining crowd. It serves some of those same now-cherished flavors, but dresses them up in unusual and innovative designs. The
carne asada
is made with wagyu rib eye and organic slow-roasted lamb, drenched in a mole of dark chiles, almonds, raisins, tomato, garlic, and avocado leaf and served with a chayote, green bean, and guero chile salad on the side. It’s no wonder that “Frontera for lunch, Topolo for dinner,” is the mantra of Chicago’s Mexican food buffs—natives and visitors alike.

The newest incarnation of the Baylesses’ growing empire is Xoco, a street food–inspired café that specializes in sandwiches, salads, and authentic Mexican hot chocolate. The sleek, modern-looking newcomer is physically connected to its two big sisters, and its
torta
made with wood-fired pork carnitas, pickled onions and black beans is an excellent way to sample Bayless for just ten dollars—without a reservation.

Where:
Frontera Grill and Topolobampo, 445 North Clark St., Chicago, tel 312-661-1434; Xoco, 449 North Clark St. and 1471 North Milwaukee Ave, Chicago.
Further information:
rickbayless.com
.
Tip:
Although most of the seating at Frontera Grill is on a first come–first served basis, the restaurant takes a limited number of reservations. At Topolobampo, reservations are necessary, and ought to be made six to eight weeks in advance.

A New York childhood may not be necessary to foster a longing for this ultracold, chewy, and chocolaty treat, but let the record show that the frozen confection is a local creation. The beauty of the frozen Milky Way is twofold. First, the freezing process mitigates some of the bar’s overly soft texture and over-the-top sweetness. Then, firmed up to an irresistible denseness, the layered candy provides an ecstatic rush of contrasts—the velvety tinge of chocolate, the brassiness of cooked sugar caramel, the soothing neutrality of cocoa nougat …

There’s no real science to the freezing process. Each Milky Way candy bar, with its chocolate covering and nougat and caramel layers, brown-green-and-white wrapper intact, is placed in the freezer, where it stays until frozen solid—at least twenty-four hours. Then the wrapper is peeled off (hopefully it won’t stick), and teeth cautiously wiggle into the firm, cold layers, the eater hoping not to mire fillings or dental crowns in the sublimely melting mass. It’s a pleasure best enjoyed outdoors, with a napkin or two on hand.