Throughout the Food & Wine Festival this weekend Eater is welcoming bloggers, journalists and food world personalities to our lounge, The Eater Lounge, at MILK Studios. As the peeps pass through, we're going to chat them up and spit out the dialogue here in this business, From the Eater Lounge.
As the editor-in-chief of Food and Wine, you've certainly been to your fair share of these festivals. What are the difference between this festival and the one in South Beach? Well, there are far fewer facelifts and boobjobs, for one. The great thing is that there are so many chefs that work in New York who can participate, and the quality of the restaurants and participants is fabulous—not that they aren't in South Beach or Aspen. In the Grand Tasting tent, there's some really great food—I had a sausage on a bun with pickled cauliflower and onions, and honestly it was the perfect food. Waldy Malouf is serving a foie gras and duck pate that I loved, too. Here in New York, it's a really passionate, focused audience. It's appointment viewing—you've got 350 people who do not talk as they watch the demos. That's fantastic.
Outside the festival, what are you loving in the New York restaurant scene right now? I love Convivio—especially the warm baby seafood salad that is, oh my gosh, amazing. I had a really amazing meal at Corton recently, too. The room is magnificent, completely understated, which has the effect of making Paul Liebrandt's food stand out as the most exciting thing in the joint. He's a very very creative chef, but you can see that Drew [Nieporent] has worked with him to create some astonishing dishes. The night I was there, they served a dish the size of a petri-dish—the bottom layer was creamed cauliflower that you couldn't see. That was topped by a sea of black gelee squid ink, then on top, sea urchin. Shocking colors. The sea and the earth, in this one dish. Really memorable.
