Cobaya Five 0 with Chefs Jeremiah Bullfrog and H. Alexander Talbot

I will save most of the nostalgic reminiscences for another post, but this was a special one: our 50th Cobaya dinner. When we started this little experiment nearly six years ago, I had no idea if we'd get enough people to show up for a single dinner, much less be able to do it 49 more times. So it was particularly appropriate that we got to do Cobaya Five 0 with some people who have been a big part of our story.

Chef Jeremiah Bullfrog was one of the first people to reach out to us when we started on this endeavor – this was before gastroPod v.1.0, much less v.2.0 in a shipping container in Wynwood (and the new v.2.5 in Aventura Mall). He cooked for Experiment #2, made a return a couple years later for Experiment #19, and has helped out on countless other events.

H. Alexander Talbot – one of the co-creators, along with wife Aki Kamozawa, of the Ideas in Food blog, and co-author of "Ideas In Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work" and "Maximum Flavor: Recipes That Will Change the Way You Cook" – has been an inspiration and mentor to many of the chefs with whom we've worked. He was also back for a reunion with us after doing Experiment #10 almost exactly four years ago.

And Kurtis Jantz, Executive Chef at the Trump International Beach Resort in Sunny Isles, was really the original inspiration for these dinners. Before there was Cobaya, there were the "Paradigm" dinners that Kurtis and then-sous chef Chad Galiano were doing. It was while waiting in the valet circle at the Trump that the idea for this Cobaya thing was hatched. The Cobaya Gras dinner Kurtis and Chad put on remains one of my favorite of any of our events. So it was great to have him churning out the snacks for #50.

Another guy who was at Chef Jeremiah's Experiment #2: Steve Santana. Back then, he was a coder who had convinced his firm to play host to one of our dinners in a penthouse office in Midtown. Now he's the chef at Taquiza, a great taqueria in South Beach, and has also had a backstage hand in many of our events. I was really touched to hear in an interview on ChatChow.com that he credits that Cobaya dinner with steering him toward a career in the kitchen.

But I said I would save the trip down memory lane for another post, so let's talk about this dinner, because it was a great one.

(You can see all my pictures in this Cobaya Five 0 flickr set).

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Saison - San Francisco

There are few meals I've looked forward to with as much anticipation. Between the reports from trusted friends both virtual and flesh and blood, the three Michelin stars conferred late last year (which many thought were overdue), and myriad other raves and recognitions, my expectations for Saison were quite high.

Some reputations are so lofty that I fear the reality cannot possibly compare. But Saison did not disappoint.

Ingredients. Focus. Smoke. Pleasure.

These are the words that keep coming to mind as I look back on our meal.

Ingredients: With a menu that uses primarily seafood and vegetables, prepared in a minimalist style, every item that makes it to the plate has been selected with fanatical attention and care. Many are sourced from nearby: sea urchin from Fort Bragg, seaweeds from Mendocino, vegetables from the restaurant's own farm plot, milk "from our cow."

Focus: Instead of dozens of components thrown together, Saison's dishes have a unity of purpose: nearly every course is about one thing, how to bring out, concentrate, and enhance its flavor. Vegetables are cooked in their own juices, fish are served with sauces infused with their grilled bones, all with the goal of honing and focusing the flavor of the primary ingredient.

Smoke: Almost every dish here is kissed with smoke or fire: grilled over open flame, cooked in the wood-fired hearth, preserved in the smoke that makes its way up the hearth's chimney. This is not just some Luddite counter-reaction to the last decade's increasing focus on kitchen technology. Rather, it's a rediscovery that ancient ways of cooking have powerful ways of highlighting, punctuating, amplifying flavor and texture.

Pleasure: Maybe it's just because these are things that I really like to eat, but Saison's menu feels like it is designed to coddle rather than confront. No doubt, a tremendous amount of thought has gone into the preparation of the dishes; but it doesn't require a lot of thinking to enjoy them.This is not a meal whose purpose is to show you how clever the chef, Joshua Skenes, is. Rather, it's about how much pleasure the diner will take in his work.

(You can see all my pictures in this Saison - San Francisco flickr set).

The pleasure principle kicks in from the moment you enter Saison. There's something delightfully unstuffy about the restaurant. Yes, it's an elegant, beautiful space, filled with live edge wood tables and ornate flower displays; many of the seats are arranged to provide a vantage on a kitchen filled with more gleaming copper than a Mauviel warehouse.^[1] But there's also something about it that's very welcoming and even homey: the foyer area is framed by a woodpile, around the corner of which is a cozy little bar where you can start with a cocktail before your meal; that open kitchen feels not so much like a stage with cooks performing for an audience, and more like the open floor plan of a (very rich) friend's loft apartment.

After a pause at the bar, dinner begins with a sort of tea service: an infusion of "some herbs from our garden." Bound with twine, the herbs release a heady aroma as they are dropped into the hot water. The Japanese aesthetic sets the tone for the meal. It's a remarkable thing: there's no dish in particular that is overtly Japanese, but the overall impression is uncannily reminiscent of our meals there last year.^[2]

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Cobaya SoBe with Chefs Andrew Zimmern, Chris Cosentino, Michael Schwartz, Makoto Okuwa and Kaytlin Brakefield

It was more than three years ago that Lee Schrager – grand poobah of the South Beach Wine and Food Festival – joined us as a guest along with Andrew Zimmern for a Cobaya dinner featured on Zimmern's show, Bizarre Foods.^[1] A seed was planted then that took a while to germinate, but emerged in full bloom this past Friday.

We nearly did a dinner with the SoBeFest last year, but it didn't quite come together. This time around, all the pieces fell into place: Lee Schrager and the SoBe folks helped round up a great group of chefs and a gorgeous setting (at the Perez Art Museum Miami, which I think is one of Miami's most stunning pieces of architecture), and Andrew Zimmern did double duty as both chef and unofficial curator of the dinner lineup, which included Chris Cosentino (of San Francisco's Cockscomb), local hero Michael Schwartz (of Michael's Genuine), Makoto Okuwa (of Makoto in Bal Harbour, and an alumnus of Cobaya #32), and Kaytlin Brakefield (of Verde restaurant at PAMM). Though we couldn't follow our usual modus operandi of "Here's the date, here's the price, everything else is a surprise," this group put together an outstanding dinner that was still very much in the Cobaya spirit.

(You can see all my pictures in this Cobaya SOBEWFF flickr set).

As guests arrived, each chef had prepared a passed appetizer for a reception in the PAMM lobby: local tuna with puffed wild rice, pickled kohlrabi and tangy "green juice" from Michael Schwartz; sweet Island Creek oysters topped with a smoky, funky n'duja vinaigrette from Chris Cosentino; hamachi crudo with tomato, cucumber and basil from Kaytlin Brakefield; foie gras bonbons with a shiso cake and a neon-bright, cherry-red yamamomo berry glaze from Makoto, a great one-bite wonder; and haystacks of carciofi alla giudia (Jewish style fried artichokes) with a zippy aioli from Andrew Zimmern.

When we first saw a preview menu, I was a bit surprised to see this was Zimmern's chosen dish: the champion of food exotica doing something as pedestrian as fried artichokes? Then I tried them and I understood: crisp, browned petals giving way to that grassy artichoke flavor, cut through by a creamy but high-acid sauce? Sure, I'll have another.

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