Cobaya #55 on Floor 65 with Chef Aaron Brooks

In nearly six years, we've now done fifty five of these Cobaya dinners. I've missed two. One of them was Experiment #25 with Chef Aaron Brooks of Edge Steak and Bar, almost exactly three years ago. I was particularly disappointed to miss it because Chef Brooks is precisely the kind of chef we had in mind when we starting putting on these events. Edge is a very solid place  – good enough that locals will regularly make their way to the seventh floor of a Four Seasons resort on Brickell to visit – but the restrictions of running a hotel steakhouse limit the range of what Brooks can do there.

And his range is quite broad: he's an Australian native with an affinity for the flavors of Southeast Asia, which he put on full display in his last Cobaya dinner. He also has charcuterie skills that would rival anyone in South Florida, something you'd never know from a glance at the restaurant's menu. This time around, he kept things a bit closer to home, looking to the ingredients of his native continent for inspiration, and also put his charcuterie game on full display for us.

(You can see all my pictures in this Cobaya #55 @ F65 with Chef Aaron Brooks flickr set).

Experiment #55 started in the lobby of the Four Seasons, with flutes of champagne and a procession of little bites, some of which were enhanced by products from a soon-to-open tenant of the property: Caviar Russe. Anzac biscuits (the first hint of the Australian theme) topped with rounds of cured foie gras. Pork rillette grilled cheese sandwiches dolloped with caviar – an unlikely but delicious combination. Smoked salmon and ramp cream cheese layered between crepes and topped with everything spice. And at least one other that moved so fast I didn't get to taste it: toasts topped with morcilla and trout roe. Yet again, I miss out.

From there, the Four Seasons team led us out the front of the lobby, around the side of the property, into the entrances of the Residences, and up the elevator to the 65th floor. As we exited the elevator, we were welcomed into the open door of an empty condominium unit, with floor to ceiling windows on two sides looking out across the bay to Key Biscayne on one side, and down Brickell Avenue towards Coconut Grove on the other. Several round tables were set throughout the room; a DJ played in the corner. This was where we were to have our dinner.^[1]

As Chef Brooks and his crew finished plating the first course in the condo kitchen, our guinea pigs sipped some more champagne and ogled the views.

This inspired some ogling too: Chef Brooks' first round of charcuterie. Wow. What good stuff. From top to bottom: duck heart and Sicilian pistachio terrine; smoked hock and head cheese; truffle stuffed trotter; soy cured pig's face; chicken, eel and peanut terrine en croute; and foie gras, chicken liver and truffle pâté, encased in truffle butter. Between this and the charcuterie spread at our last Cobaya dinner at Quality Meats, I'm thinking a charcuterie showdown may be in order. Edge's downtown neighbor, DB Bistro Moderne, would surely be invited, and maybe their cousin Café Boulud in Palm Beach would come down too. Maybe Miami Smokers? Who else wants in?

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best thing i ate last week: charcuterie at Quality Meats

It wasn't any one thing in particular (though they were all pretty excellent); it was the sheer joyous abundance and variety of the charcuterie spread that Chef Patrick Rebholz laid out for his Cobaya dinner at Quality Meats last Tuesday.

There was a smoked soppressata, topped with a cornbread cream. There was suckling pig coppa di testa, topped with fried sage leaves. Cured foie gras torchon, rolled in malted barley and a mango gastrique. A hearty pork headcheese with rounds of slivered onion. Hickory smoked duck bacon. Coppa, topped with aerated mozzarella. Calf liver mousse with pickled ramps. Merguez "prosciutto" topped with preserved lemon. Pork jowl corn dogs with tabasco mayo. Popcorn drizzled with melted dry-aged beef fat. All of it made in-house, all laid out up and down a roll of butcher's paper stretched along a forty foot table as we entered the room.

It was the best thing I ate last week. (You can read more about the dinner here).

Quality Cobaya with Chef Patrick Rebholz

The scent – well, let's be more blunt – ripe, animal funk of cured meats as we entered the room was a good sign. It soon became apparent from whence it came: a spread of charcuterie laid on top of butcher paper that stretched all the way down a table set for forty guests.

We were in a private second-floor room in the old Bancroft Hotel on South Beach, a beautiful property whose Art Deco features have been pretty respectfully preserved. It's now the home of the Miami outpost of Quality Meats, a New York restaurant with some historical legacy itself: its owners opened the original Smith & Wollensky steakhouse in New York in 1977.^[1]

The chef was Patrick Rebholz. Before joining QM, Rebholz had spent most of the past decade cooking in Charleston, most recently as the chef de cuisine at the Peninsula Grill. We got a hint that Chef Rebholz had big plans for his Cobaya dinner when he asked for an early start time. Sure enough, we didn't wrap up until nearly four hours after our 6:30pm commencement. It was time very happily spent.

(You can see all my pictures from the dinner in this Quality Cobaya flickr set).

After milling around at the bar while our group assembled, we were escorted upstairs to the "Bancroft Room" and its wafting meaty aromas. Moscow Mules in gleaming copper mugs were handed out to everyone. All the chairs were pushed back from the table so that Rebholz and crew could more easily make their way through to apply some finishing touches: cornbread cream on top of the smoked soppressata; aerated mozzarella on top of the coppa.

There was plenty more: silky, intense cured foie gras torchon coated with malted barley and a mango gastrique; thin-sliced suckling pig coppa di testa and hearty headcheese; merguez "prosciutto" topped with preserved lemon; creamy calf liver mousse topped with pickled ramps; pork jowl pastrami; hickory smoked duck bacon; toasty pork jowl corn dogs with Tabasco mayo; popcorn dressed in dry-aged beef fat. Rebholz poured some of his house-brewed beer too, and it was a great match with the charcuterie.^[2]

It was a crazy good way to start a meal, and folks dug in pretty rapaciously. Then Chef Rebholz just rolled the paper down to clear the table.^[3]

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