I made a decision this year to split my "favorite dishes" list between Miami and elsewhere. You can see the
25 best things I ate in Miami over here. This list (All lists! All the time! At least until the end of the year!) covers the best things I ate everywhere else in 2019.
We started the year in Marfa, Texas
[1] before taking a long drive to Austin, which is a really fun town where there's a taco truck, a BBQ place, a beer hall, and a live music venue on every block. There were brief visits to New York and San Francisco, and then a wonderful week in Italy (Rome and Venice, broken up by a day in Florence), where I practiced some immersion therapy to get over my biases against Italian food.
[2] Back to the Bay Area for a week. A long weekend in Los Angeles, making only the tiniest dent in the long list of places I want to visit in what may be the best eating town in the U.S. And finally, a late year return to N.Y. before the calendar flipped over.
Our first dinner in Austin was at chef Kevin Fink's
Emmer & Rye, a place with a focus on heirloom grains (as the name suggests), local seasonal products, carts circling the dining room with little snacks a la
State Bird Provisions, and generally speaking, some really creative stuff happening in the kitchen. I enjoyed everything, but especially this dish of charred cabbage, satsuma butter, trout roe and mustard greens. Savory, smoky, citrusy, and more, it was odd and delicious.
(See all my
pictures from Emmer & Rye.)
(continued ...)
My Austin to-do list was a long one, but did not inlcude
Pitchfork Pretty until the restaurant had been suggested to me by some chef-types. I was glad to have gotten the tip. Max Snyder's food was interesting, thoughtful, locally inspired, and fun. After seeing a surprising number of goat farms (and wineries!) on our drive through southwest Texas from Marfa to Austin, I was happy to finally find some on a menu. Instead of the usual long braise, here the goat's loin was seared to medium rare, basted with spiced ghee, and plated with grilled scallions, radishes and persimmon yogurt.
(See all my
pictures from Pitchfork Pretty.)
The past few years have seen a wave of new omakase sushi spots opening in New York City, at seemingly ever-increasing price points. I love this kind of meal (not necessarily the increasing cost of it), and we've tried a few of them. My favorite so far has been
Shoji at 69 Leonard Street. Chef Derek Wilcox took over at Shoji in mid-2018, after spending a decade in Japan at some of its top sushi and kaiseki spots. The training shows. I loved everything about our meal, but especially one of the best iterations I've had of one of my favorite neta: this beautiful, shiny-skinned, lightly cured kohada.
(See all my
pictures from Shoji at 69 Leonard Street.)
I'm pretty sure this dessert has been on the menu at
The NoMad since it opened, and for good reason: it's perfect. Ice cream that tastes of pure milk, richly flavored buckwheat honey, crunchy oat shortbread, crisp, airy honey brittle, fluffy dehydrated milk foam, a little bit of salt. I love it.
(See all my
pictures from The NoMad.)
I'm not even really a dessert person, but here's another knockout N.Y. dessert: the pistachio Paris-breste at
Frenchette. Crackly, airy pastry, and a mind-bogglingly rich, intense pistachio pastry cream.
(See all my
pictures from Frenchette.)
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| hen of the woods mushroom - Angler (SF) |
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| ice cream sundae - Angler (SF) |
Joshua Skenes has handed the chef reins at
Saison, which was once his flagship, over to Laurent Gras, while throwing his efforts into
Angler, which opened in San Francisco in September of last year and in L.A. June of this year. Angler is a kindred spirit to Saison in many ways, with the same focus on pristine ingredients and cooking methods using fire and smoke, but in an a la carte format that is easier to access than Saison (though still very expensive). I was there in March while visiting Frod Jr. and was pretty blown away. Among several great things, the standouts were a cluster of hen of the woods mushrooms slowly grilled to intensify and concentrate the flavors, then doused in a buttery hot sauce; and a sundae – very similar to the
one served at Saison – with creamy soft serve, bitter cacao nibs, and as much smoky caramel as you wish.
(See all my
pictures from Angler - San Francisco.)
During the same trip, I waited nearly two hours, as one does, to eat at
Nyum Bai, a highly celebrated Cambodian pop-up gone permanent in Oakland. On a cold, rainy night in the Bay Area, the prahok ktiss was delightfully warming: a dense, rich dip / stew of minced pork belly, coconut milk, kroeung (a Cambodian spice paste), prahok (fermented fish paste), lime leaf, palm sugar and chiles, served with crunchy fresh vegetables for scooping.
(See all my
pictures from Nyum Bai.)
The G-rated version of
my issue with Italian food is that I would rather not pay for something I can do reasonably well at home, unless it's going to be a lot better than my home version. Well, during a week of eating in Rome and Venice, I found plenty to fit that description, starting with a couple dishes at
Trattoria Da Cesare al Casaletto, which we visited on the solid recommendation of
Katie Parla. Da Cesare is off the touristy beaten path but worth finding for textbook classic pastas like this rigatoni alla carbonara. While some reviews I read suggested that the secondi piatti at Da Cesare were not on the same level as the fried antipasti (like the
gnocchetti fritti with cacio e pepe sauce, which were indeed wonderful) and the pastas, I also absolutely loved their trippa alla romana, which was light and delicate, brightened with a whiff of fresh mint, and showered in a blizzard of parmesan. Bonus points for a fantastic selection of natural wines like
Radikon Ribolla Gialla at very reasonable prices.
(See all my
pictures from Trattoria Da Cesare al Casaletto.)
Nearby the Mercato Testaccio is a spot called
Piatto Romano, where as you walk into the restaurant, the first thing you'll see is a
table set with some of the produce sourced from the market that day. Then as you sit in the dining room, you'll see a
cart with some freshly prepared vegetables to choose from as antipasti.These are good signs. I'd never had a good version of carciofi alla giudia (Jewish-style artichokes) until I had them here, where they use small, baby artichokes, marinated in lemon juice before they're fried into shattering-crisp flowers that eat like potato chips. Something else I'd never had: the
rigatoni alla pajata d'abbacchio, made with the tender intestines of milk-fed lambs, cleaned but still holding their contents, with emulsifies into a ricotta cheese like sauce.
(See all my
pictures from Piatto Romano.)
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| strawberry, pistachio gelato - Otaleg! (Rome) |
You can't go to Rome without eating gelato. And while I do not claim to have tried all the gelaterias in Rome, I can say that the best within my sample group was from
Otaleg: their pistachio had an intensity and richness of flavor like I'd never experienced before, as did their day-glo wild strawberry sorbet.
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| frittata of wild herbs and chicken offal - Retrobottega (Rome) |
My impression (from all of a few days there) is that dining in Rome skews more traditional than creative, but
Retrobottega goes against that grain. I liked my lunch there a lot – the menu format that lets you choose two antipasti, one primi, one secondi and one dessert for €55, the foraged ingredients that pop up throughout the menu, the communal tables that face the open kitchen, the servers who politely but pointedly corrected my terrible Italian pronunciations, but most of all, the really interesting and delicious food. Every course was great, but especially, this soft frittata of gently cooked chicken offal crowned with a bouquet of wild herbs.
(See all my
pictures from Retrobottega.)
I also loved everything about
Roscioli, a delightful combination salumeria / wine shop / restaurant near the Campo de' Fiori. The salumeria sources fantastic meats and cheeses which are used throughout the menu, and while everything we had was great, their cacio e pepe will now be the one by which all others are judged.
(See all my
pictures from Roscioli Salumeria con Cucina.)
Venice gets a bad rap as an eating town, and I don't doubt that it has more than its share of overpriced tourist traps. But we ate pretty well there, mostly nibbling cicchetti at places like
Cantina Do Mori and
All'Arco near the Rialto Bridge,
[3] and
El Refolo and Vecio Trani in the Castello neighborhood. We also had a really fun dinner at
Local, which takes a contemporary approach to traditional Venetian flavors and ingredients. Our meal started with a little "
mini cicchetti" plate including a tiny baccala sandwich and a shiny, fresh sardine on a cracker, and also featured a really great version of a classic, sweet and sour
fegato alla veneziana, but my favorite thing was a dish called "cuttlefish during spring" – fresh, translucent, almost paper-thin cuttlefish, with fresh peas in various forms and wispy herbs and sea beans. Clean, beautifully delicate, just a wonderful dish.
(See all my
pictures from Local - Venice.)
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| sardine "Sicilian sashimi" - Swan Oyster Depot (SF) |
Summer found us back in San Francisco where I revisited one of my favorite places: Swan Oyster Depot. I worked up a pretty good appetite waiting in line, then satisfied it with
oysters and clams, a
Mendocino sea urchin served right in its shell, a
combination seafood cocktail, and best of all, a "Sicilian sashimi" of fresh sardines, doused in olive oil and lemon juice, and showered with capers and diced red onion. May this place never change.
(See all my
pictures from Swan Oyster Depot.)
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| trout and peach nigiri - Robin (SF) |
For a West Coast sushi fix, we paid a visit to
Robin in Hayes Valley. I really enjoyed their omakase, which was untraditional, occasionally a bit over the top (i.e.,
nigiri topped with caviar and a potato chip), but mostly pretty great. I will not turn down
A5 wagyu showered with shaved frozen foie gras, but my favorite bite was one that highlighted local, seasonal flavors: Mt. Lassen trout, topped with a sliver of juicy, ripe, height-of-the-season peach.
(See all my
pictures from Robin - San Francisco.)
My to-do list for the Bay Area is ever-expanding, so it's pretty unusual to make a repeat visit to the same place within six months. And yet August found me back at Angler, this time with Mrs. F, Frod Jr. and his girlfriend along as well. Had some repeats: their fantastic
Parker House rolls with house-cultured butter,
that mushroom,
that sundae, and some new things. The best, and just a really ingenious dish, is the radicchio x.o.: a whole head of radicchio, the leaves gently teased apart, the whole thing doused in a vegetarian "x.o." sauce of reduced beet juice, soy sauce and alliums, for a heady, intense combination of bitter, sweet, salty and umami. It looks like a
crime scene once you break it down, and comes with a hefty knife for doing the dirty work plus bibs to keep you clean while doing it.
(See all my p
ictures from Angler - San Francisco.)
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| heirloom tomatoes, akabana kanpachi - SingleThread (Healdsburg, CA) |
Another repeat visit, though for
SingleThread it had been two years since
our first time. That first visit was about a half year after they'd opened, and before Michelin awarded two stars in 2018. (For 2019 they bumped it to three stars, a remarkably quick but well deserved ascent). We were in Healdsburg during a heat wave, and had a moment of panic when we got an email mid-day that their A/C had gone out. But a slew of portable units kept temperatures manageable in the dining room,
[4] and the kitchen didn't miss a beat. While the heat precluded the rooftop snacks that typically start a meal at SingleThread, the tableau laid out on the table – an assortment of seasonal seafoods and local vegetables in a kaleidoscopic variety of preparations, in the spirit of the "hassun" course of a Japanese kaiseki meal – was still a great opening track. The course that followed – peak of summer heirloom tomatoes with ribbons of akabana kanpachi, creamy white gazpacho, tomato gelee and pickled wasabi – also beautifully captured the season. And one of my favorite courses from our first meal was a favorite this time as well, though the components had changed: mirroring the rice and pickles that often concludes the savory portion of a Japanese meal, a bowl of Sonoma grains – here, caramelized mochi mugi – with braised lamb's tongue, slivered radishes and wispy mustard greens.
(See all my
pictures from SingleThread - August 2019.)
We've made several side trips to Inverness and Point Reyes when we've been in the Bay Area, and a couple times have stayed at a wonderful lodge up in the hills called Manka's. There was a restaurant at Manka's that was doing the locavore thing before it was a big thing, though we never ate there and it burned down in a fire a few years ago. But the owners of Manka's bought an inn in nearby Olema, and opened a restaurant there called
Sir and Star. Margaret Gradé and Daniel DeLong write menus that read like poetry, inspired by ingredients sourced from close to home. I especially enjoyed this "Ice Cream of Coastal Buffalo Milk Layered with Seaside Strawberries and Bites of Meringue," made with some crazy delicious water buffalo milk ice cream from
Double 8 Dairy.
(See all my
pictures from Sir and Star.)
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| roasted mushrooms, fresh cheese, potatoes, seeds, arugula - Destroyer (LA) |
You hear the word "disruptive" an awful lot on the West Coast. It's usually just some meaningless investment pitch claptrap for another business whose model is predicated on cheap independent contractor labor and a casual disregard for existing legal restrictions. But I will say this: Jordan Kahn's
Destroyer is unlike any restaurant I've ever seen. Located in Culver City across the street from Kahn's even more ambitious tasting menu tower,
Vespertine, Destroyer is serving incredibly thoughtful, thought-provoking, intricate food – in a fast-casual, order-at-the-counter format. This dish is listed as "roasted mushrooms, fresh cheese, baby potatoes, crunchy seeds, arugula" – which describes the order of the components from bottom to top, yielding a sort of time-release effect as you dig your way through the layers. Delicious, really clever, and just remarkable that they are doing this kind of food in this kind of setting.
(See all my
pictures from Destroyer.)
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| tortillas, refried lentils, whipped carnitas fat, tostada - Broken Spanish (LA) |
I ate my share of tacos while in L.A. for a long weekend, but none better than the tortillas at chef Ray Garcia's
Broken Spanish. The warm, freshly made heirloom corn tortillas rightfully get their own billing on the menu, and are offered with a choice of refried lentils or whipped carnitas fat. The call is obvious: get both. And just to gild the lily: get the pollo prensado too, an intensely flavored stew of chicken thighs, chicken skin and guajillo chile. And just so you can experience those tortillas in another form, get the tostada too, topped with creamy Meyer lemon infused requeson cheese, green beans, figs, and walnut salsa macha.
(See all my
pictures from Broken Spanish.)
Jeremy Fox's new Santa Monica restaurant,
Birdie G's, served my favorite meal of 2019. Inspired in equal parts by traditional Jewish food,
[5] California cuisine, and Midwestern supper club, it seems an unlikely combination but is one of those personal, autobiographical ventures that strikes a particularly resonant chord for me. I loved everything about it: the
heirloom cucumbers with dill pickle dressing, a fresh take on the traditional kosher dill; the
caviar platter with potato waffle latkes; the
kasha sauerkraut cakes with corned beef and gribenes; even the
artisan matzo with cultured butter. But a couple things especially: (1) the "Sloppy Jeremy Texas Toast," in which a fat slab of toasted, soft white bread is topped with an incredibly rich but bright beef and strawberry bolognese,
[6] perky arugula and a shower of peppery shaved "horsey goat" cheese; and (2) the "Hangtown Brei," a brilliant mash-up of the old school San Francisco "hangtown fry" and old school Jewish matzo brei, with soft scrambled eggs cooked in schmaltz with crumbled matzo, wood-grilled pork belly, crispy fried Pacific oysters, all enrobed in a hot sauce hollandaise.
(See all my
pictures from Birdie G's.)
In November we were able to squeeze in one more long weekend in New York, and concluded a late evening arrival with a visit to
Momofuku Ko Bar. The bar attached to Ko, David Chang's tasting menu venue in the Bowery, has an interesting selection of beverages and a short a la carte menu that serves in part as a sort of testing ground for concepts that may find their way onto the Ko menu. It also has what may be its own signature dish: the cold fried chicken. Battered three times, fried four times, brushed with a glaze of green tabasco, mirin and yuzu juice, and served cold for $6 a piece, it is every bit as delicious as everyone says.
(See all my
pictures from Momofuku Ko Bar.)
For some reason, soba is treated as ramen's red-headed step-sibling. Everyone loves ramen, and lists of the best ramen joints are assembled with the obsessiveness and devotion of true fanatics. How about some love for soba? New York's
Cocoron is doing its part, serving the hearty buckwheat noodles, made in-house, in a variety of different preparations. This bowl of sansai soba, stocked full of wild vegetables (bamboo shoots, flowering ferns, woodear mushrooms), kitsune (simmered and fried tofu), tempura flakes and scallions, all in a warming, umami-laden dashi broth, was particularly welcome on a cold, late fall day.
(See all my
pictures from Cocoron.)
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| lentils, creme fraiche, trout roe - Racines (NY) |
I missed the window of opportunity on chef Diego Moya's highly regarded restaurant Hemlock, which closed in mid-2018. But he's back and doing really exciting, vegetable-centric stuff at
Racines in Tribeca, which also has one of the most intriguing wine lists I've seen in a long time, a deep dive into the world of small production, biodynamic, natural, and eccentric juice.
[7] We sat at the kitchen counter and ate many very good things, the best of which was this deceptively simple bowl of lentils, enrobed in creme fraiche, bedazzled with a dollop of trout roe, and brightened with a vivid green bay leaf oil.
(See all my
pictures from Racines.)
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| egg, sea urchin, gim, heart of palm - Atoboy (NY) |
I really wanted to check out
Atomix, chef Junghyun Park and manager Ellia Park's Korean-inspired tasting menu venue, which opened May of last year and has been earning raves ever since. But despite diligently hammering away on the website immediately when the bookings opened up for the month, I had no luck scoring a reservation. So
Atoboy it was, their first restaurant, where they serve a banchan-inspired dinner in three courses with several choices for each round accompanied by rice and several little pickled things, plus optional add-ons like some really
excellent fried chicken. Dishes tend to pile up on the table, as they should during a good Korean meal (so, sorry for the messy photo), and while they were all great, the one that really stood out was this bowl of steamed egg and dashi custard, topped with sea urchin purée, crispy puffed quinoa, pickled heart of palm and crumbled gim (black seaweed). Just a great interplay of textures and flavors.
(See all my
pictures from Atoboy.)
So there you have it: all the best things I ate (outside of Miami) in 2019. A big thank you to all of the folks who kept me so well fed over the past year, and best wishes to everyone in the coming year. As my grandfather used to say: always better, never worse. Happy New Year!
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