All about Men and the women who love them!
We look back at the stories that appeared on Fine Dining Lovers during the week as well as a round up of stories from around the web that caught our attention.
The ultimate experience for ramen addicted in Atlanta, Gerogia: at Nakamura.ke Lumen Bar you can enjoy glowing dishes and beverages. Take a look!SURF AND TURF made in less than 30 min! The steak + scallops are so perfectly cooked with the best garlic butter sauce!
Is anyone else super excited about Valentine’s Day?
I mean, hello? We have steaks, scallops, garlic and so much butter! Things that are much better than flowers, chocolate and jewelry.
Am I right or am I right?
Well, on second thought, the flowers, chocolate and jewelry can’t hurt.
But this surf and turf dinner for two made in less than 30 minutes will make your night. It’s so good, you may get a proposal out of this.
I’m just saying. This garlic butter sauce has a lot of magic behind it.
SURF AND TURF made in less than 30 min! The steak + scallops are so perfectly cooked with the best garlic butter sauce!
Tag @damn_delicious on Instagram and hashtag it #damndelicious.
The post Garlic Butter Steak and Scallops appeared first on Damn Delicious.
You can’t celebrate Burns Night without a haggis. The much maligned savoury pudding has made a come back so here Michelin star chefs cook with haggis.It’s early in the morning in Mountain Lakes, N.J., and restaurateur Chris Cannon is the only one in his family awake. His first task of the day: get his teenage daughters, Sadie and Tess, out of bed.
“To get them out of bed is like, ‘Oh my god!’ If you left them alone, they wouldn’t get up until 1:30 p.m. So I’m the one who gets up in the morning and makes them breakfast,” Cannon says.
This is a decidedly different pace of life for Cannon, who grew up on Manhattan’s Upper East Side and made his name as a heavy hitter on the New York restaurant scene. In the 2000s, he was among the hottest restaurant moguls in Manhattan, launching highly acclaimed, ultra-chic eateries Alto, Convivio, Osteria Morini and Marea with chef Michael White under the Altamarea Group umbrella. But the partnership went south, and the two parted ways in 2010.
After a brief hiatus from the restaurant world following the split, Cannon and his family moved to his wife’s home state, New Jersey. There, he began a new chapter in his career, opening a 15,000-square-foot restaurant concept, Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence winner Jockey Hollow Bar & Kitchen, in 2014.
After the children leave for school, Cannon gets in a workout and checks emails before he hits the road to get to his restaurant in Morristown, the county seat, about 10 miles away.
Morristown’s history goes back further than the country’s; George Washington’s Continental Army encamped here twice, and, being only 35 miles west of Manhattan, the town has long been home to the city’s 1-percenters. Mansions and ornate buildings from the 19th and early 20th centuries are scattered throughout the town and surrounding areas. The Vail Mansion is a perfect example.
When Cannon first came across the Vail Mansion, located near the center of town on South Street (known as Millionaire’s Row in the late 1800s and early 1900s), it had been abandoned for over two decades. Constructed in 1916 in the Italian Renaissance style, it originally served as a museum and residence for Theodore Vail and his family. Vail was president of the American Telephone and Telegraph Co.—AT&T—and is considered by many to be the chief architect of the Bell System monopoly.
“I subsequently found out about two years ago that all the marble here is the exact same marble at the AT&T building in downtown Manhattan, which was built at the same time,” notes Cannon.
“When it came to the building, I walked in and immediately saw the possibilities,” he says; here, he decided, he’d begin anew as a restaurateur with Jockey Hollow Bar & Kitchen. Today, the mansion, designated a historical landmark, boasts many of its original grandiose features, such as the dramatic main marble staircase, the 17-foot-high ceilings, several fireplaces and substantial columns. Like Vail, Cannon is a collector of art. He curated and owns the eclectic art collection and decorations found throughout the mansion.
Jockey Hollow Bar & Kitchen comprises four different concepts on three floors: the more formal, seafood-driven daPesca on the top level, the Vail Bar and the Oyster Bar on the main level, and the Rathskeller, a beer hall and private event space, in the basement.
Carolyn DeFir-Hunter, a wine representative for importer and distributor Skurnik Wines, is no stranger to Cannon: She used to work for him at his restaurants in New York City. Their interaction is more akin to close friends than work professionals; Cannon finds out she hasn’t had lunch yet, so right away he orders her a dish of pasta from the kitchen.
In the Vail Bar, DeFir-Hunter sets up a line of wines for Cannon to taste through. The only other people in the room are bartenders preparing for the night’s opening. Cannon turns on some throwback crooner music before he and DeFir-Hunter begin the tasting, which includes grower Champagne and diverse South African, Portuguese and French wines.
When it comes to Jockey Hollow’s wine program, Cannon is the person in charge. Because of his expansive knowledge of wine and experience running wine-centric restaurants for over 30 years, Cannon has developed an acute vision of what he wants the Jockey Hollow wine program to be.
“Almost everything we buy ends up being under a 5,000-case production,” says Cannon. “It’s through continuing to taste and taste and taste that we found we always gravitate toward these kinds of wines. Most of these wines are pretty much organic, a lot are biodynamic. Some are maybe not organic or biodynamic because the wineries are so small that they cannot afford to certify themselves, but they basically are.” Cannon is also looking for wines that overdeliver for their price.
He comments as he tastes. Of the Mullineux Old Vines Swartland White 2017, he says, “I look at wines like this, and I’m like, ‘OK, this is a wine that someone who knows nothing about wine would say is delicious. And somebody who knows a ton about wine would be wowed.’”
Of the Domaine Vincent Dureuil-Janthial Rully Le Meix Cadot Vieilles Vignes 2016: “I’d rather sell you this than some shitty Meursault from some producer that’s not even that good … It’s got density, it’s got great balance.”
During these tastings, Cannon also keeps an eye out for wines that would be a fit for his Cannonball Blind Wine Dinner series, which the restaurant hosts every Friday night. Each dinner ($95 per person) consists of five courses with a different wine served blind for each course, picked by Cannon and his head sommelier, Adam Wechsler.
“It’s not a gimmick or anything,” says Cannon. “We want you to try this and that. We want you to try stuff that, the people behind this, you know this is their life. It’s not a beverage. All they think about is how they are going to make their wine better. And to me that’s magical and beautiful.”
After Cannon tastes a dozen or so wines, another wine rep appears with more off-the-beaten-path selections for Cannon to mull over. Kurt Fauerbach, a sales representative for another distributor, V.O.S. Selections, pours Cannon a splash of the Leah Jorgensen Blanc de Cabernet Franc 2017—a still white wine made from Cab Franc in Oregon—and Holus Bolus Roussanne from Black Sheep Finds in California’s Santa Maria Valley. “For a long time I hardly bought American wine,” he admits. “Now I am like, ‘Oh god there is so much good stuff!’ They finally hit their stride.”
With a wine list that changes constantly, it’s important for Jockey Hollow’s servers to be up to date and knowledgeable on the wine program, so Wechsler holds “class” for the servers every month or two. “The good thing about Chris is that nothing is so precious where we can’t open to taste it,” he says. “I have learned a ridiculous amount because he’s like, ‘Oh let me open this. Let me see what this is tasting like these days.’”
Today’s tasting focuses on South America, and Wechsler discusses the background, flavor profile and winemaking behind each wine.
“For me, part of it is about supporting the food; part of it is the pragmatic approach to running a restaurant,” says Wechsler after the session, of his job’s appeal. “Part of the fun of working here—especially in Morristown and not Brooklyn or Central Park South—is [it is] the future of great American restaurants. If you go to any weird, off-the-beaten path restaurant in a town that has less than 50,000 people, there’s a very good chance you are going to have an amazing culinary experience.”
Cannon has also come to appreciate the charms of smaller-town dining: “Because in New York you’re paying $250 a square foot, you can only have wines that are $90 and over on your list. You go to the best restaurants in New York and there’s nothing under $100, nothing. And here we have literally 150 wines under $60. When you’re paying 12 to 14 bucks [wholesale], you can open anything and just pour for somebody. You can just be hospitable. You’re in our house, we’re gonna pour you whatever the hell you want. Have a good time.
“In New York, it’s like a contract. ‘Hey, sit down, you’re gonna spend $300.'”
Cannonball Wine Dinner attendees sit among other diners upstairs in daPesca. Cannon or Wechsler pour wines from a decanter and keep mum about their identities. Once each course is complete, the wine is revealed, usually followed by guests saying, “Wow! I had no idea,” or, rarely, “I knew it!”
Tonight, Cannon can be seen working his way around the entire building: Between preparing a table for a dinner hosted by a newly minted CEO of a Fortune 500 company, talking to Cannonball Wine Dinner attendees, greeting people arriving on the main level, and overseeing the party in the basement, Cannon’s decades of experience as a multitasking master and hospitality guru show.
Time flies, and it’s not long before the clock strikes 10:30 p.m. Cannon leaves the restaurant and heads home to his family, as another day of discovering exciting wines and delivering one of the most singular dining experiences around awaits.
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Our first edition of #fdlMoment, our favourite photos on Instagram tagged with our hashtag for fine dining lovers.
What is pandan? And what is pandan flavor? 26 interesting facts and figures about this delicious tropical plant that is ingreasingly being used in kitchens.
While 2018 was a volatile year for Wall Street, it was a winning year for wine auctions. Bidders paid record prices for a host of rarities ranging from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Romanée-Conti 1945 to Sassicaia 1985 to The Macallan 60-year-old Whisky 1926.
In 2018, worldwide wine-auction totals (culled from sales conducted in the U.S., U.K., Geneva, Hong Kong and Shanghai markets, plus online sales) rose an impressive 26 percent to $479.7 million, up from $381.7 million in 2017, and narrowly eclipsing the previous global record of $478 million in 2011. The last quarter of 2018 more than matched the impressive performances in the first half and third quarter of the year.
Sales in the U.S. climbed nearly 20 percent over 2017 to $222 million. The combined London and Geneva markets rose 12 percent to $46.4 million. Hong Kong and Shanghai soared 40 percent to $137.2 million. Online totals rose a hefty 30 percent to $74.9 million, signaling the increased popularity of digital bidding.
Among the major auction houses, Acker Merrall & Condit led the pack with $105.2 million in overall sales, followed by Sotheby’s at $98.1 million and Zachys at $80.7 million. Hart Davis Hart realized $67.9 million in live auction sales, a record for them, and another $9.2 million in auctions on their mobile app, the highest combined domestic tally. For the eighth year in a row, the firm sold 100 percent of the lots on offer.
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What was driving the auction market? “I think the interest in the Burgundy market has brought the demand, as more people realize how great and rare these wines are, and the high prices have brought supply,” said Jamie Ritchie, worldwide head of Sotheby’s Wine, in an email. “People who purchase Burgundy generally buy it with the intention of drinking it, so they pay even closer attention to provenance and condition, which also gets reflected across the entire market, making mature Bordeaux and other wines more valuable.”
Jeff Zacharia, president of Zachys, concurred. “In 2017, we sold more Burgundy [by value] than Bordeaux for the first time ever, and that trend continued in 2018. What’s more, all of our top 10 wines in 2018 were Burgundy.”
The year’s top selling bottle was not a wine, but a whiskey. At Christie’s London last November, a lot of the exceedingly rare The Macallan 1926 60-Year-Old whisky, presented in a unique bottle painted by Irish artist Michael Dillon, sold for more than $1.5 million. It was the fourth bottle of The Macallan 1926 to go on the block in 2018, with the others selling for between $843,299 to $1.2 million.
Making major headlines at a Sotheby’s New York in October were two extremely scarce 750ml bottles of DRC Romanée-Conti 1945 (only 600 bottles were made), which shattered all previous records for wine lots. They sold for a staggering $558,000 and $496,000 respectively, far exceeding the prior top wine price of $310,700 paid for a jeroboam of Château Mouton-Rothschild 1945 at Sotheby’s in 2007.
The first bottle of ’45 DRC went to an anonymous bidder from Asia. The second was snapped up by veteran American collector and real-estate investor Rob Rosania. For a large part, provenance accounted for the stratospheric prices. All the wines in the sale were consigned from the personal cellar of famed Beaune viticulteur Robert Drouhin, whose family was a one-time distributor of DRC. The auction brought in a total of $7.3 million, more than five times the high estimate.
Case lots of DRC sold at a premium throughout the year. At Christie’s London last October, a dozen bottles of DRC Romanée-Conti 1988 brought a record $379,008 against a pre-sale high estimate of $250,000.
Rarely seen DRCs were offered in full force at Acker Merrall & Condit’s “Time Capsule” auction in November, consigned by an unnamed East Coast collector. A 12-bottle lot of DRC Romanée-Conti 1980, selling for $235,600, was followed by a dozen bottles of the 1982 at $173,600.
Zachys October sale “The Vault III” topped $20 million, the highest individual tally of the year. The auction set new records for bottles from G. Roumier, Armand Rousseau and Jean-Louis Chave. But it was Zachys’ Holiday Sale in late November that established an American first for the most expensive California wine ever sold: A six-liter bottle of the celebrated Heitz Martha’s Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 1974, one of only three made, sold for $96,330 against a top estimate of $80,000.
Hart Davis Hart’s “Celebration of Bordeaux” auction in November showed Bordeaux still sells too. The firm offered 1,461 lots of Bordeaux, which brought in more than $5.3 million in sales against a pre-sale estimate of $3.7 million to $5.5 million. The auction was choc-a-bloc with treasures: six magnums of Château Pétrus 2006 that sold for $28,680 (the pre-sale estimate was $16,000-24,000); six bottles of Château Léoville Las Cases 1986 which brought in $4,182 (estimate $1,600-2,400); and a double-magnum of Château Trotanoy 1982 which realized $4,541 (estimate $1,900-2,800).
Fortified wines and pre-Prohibition whiskey are becoming frequent components of wine auctions. Although expensive, they boast a longer shelf life than table wine, once opened. In December at the joint Christie’s and Wally’s New York sale, a 5-gallon demijohn of Old Sercial Madeira 1846 from The Liberty Hall Museum Collection of Historic Madeira sold for $39,200. A bottle of Lenox Madeira 1798 fetched $15,925 against an estimate of $6,000-8,000. Twelve quarts of pre-Prohibition Old Crow Bourbon 1912 sold for $22,050 against an estimate of $8,500-$10,000.
Stock market jitters have prompted many auction-goers to question the future of collectible wine in 2019. A bullish John Kapon, CEO of Acker Merrall & Condit, believes that history has proven any decreases in wine values are merely short-term hiccups, and that the world’s finest and rarest wines continue to be not only great beverages, but also great assets. “The [wine] market remains firm, active and healthy, and we expect another banner year,” he said in an email.
Sotheby’s Jamie Ritchie sounded a more cautious note. “In the short term the wine market tends to remain strong, but in the longer term it reacts to the financial markets and would be affected by uncertainty and volatility,” he said.
A classic wine remains a classic wine regardless of price. The question remains at what point it becomes a buy or a sell.
Napa-based Chardonnay specialist Rombauer Vineyards is staking a claim in California’s Gold Country. Wine Spectator has learned that the family-owned wine company has purchased the 65,000-square-foot Renwood winery in Amador County from Ren Acquisitions, Inc., an Argentine investment group whose owners include billionaire vintner Alejandro Bulgheroni and winemaking veteran Carlos Pulenta of Vistalba.
The sale includes the winery, a 20-acre estate vineyard planted mostly to Zinfandel, and a tasting room, but it does not include the Renwood brand. Rombauer will move production of its Zinfandel to the facility, which will reopen in April. The sale price was not disclosed.
Rombauer had been looking to increase its production capacity and approached Ren Acquisitions to buy the winery. “The demand for our Zinfandel is continuing to grow at a pace that really required us to do something in terms of capacity in the near-term,” Rombauer president Bob Knebel told Wine Spectator. Known for its fruit-forward and creamy Chardonnays, the winery has been developing its red wine program in recent years and produces five Zinfandels from the Sierra Foothills and Napa Valley. Rombauer currently produces 300,000 cases of wine a year.
“My dad loved the Sierra Foothills and always envisioned Rombauer crafting more wine from this unique and special area,” said second-generation proprietor Koerner “KR” Rombauer III, in a statement. His father, who died in 2018, attempted to buy the Renwood property eight years ago, but missed his chance when Ren Acquisitions purchased it.
Founded by Robert Smerling in 1993, Renwood is one of the largest producers in the Sierra Foothills, known for its Zinfandel, Barbera and Syrah. The company filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2009, and Ren Acquisitions bought it in 2011 for nearly $7 million.
In a statement, Renwood executives announced that the company will move production to a nearby facility. Renwood still owns Renwood Ranch, which includes 135 acres of vines.
The Renwood property provides Rombauer with a base of operations in the Sierra Foothills, long the leading source of grapes for its lineup of Zins. The late Rombauer began farming grapes and making Zin from the region starting in the mid-1990s. “He loved the fruit up here for its intensity, its richness and its complexity,” said Knebel. The winery purchased the Twin Rivers Vineyard in neighboring El Dorado County in 2010 and currently owns 148 acres of vines in the region.
Rombauer plans to develop the estate vineyard and invest in the winemaking facility. “It matches our current and anticipated needs for the next several years,” said Knebel.
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