marcopierrewhite.org

Marco Pierre White in Afghanistan

​One of the beautiful things about journalism, not unlike therapy, is that you get to talk to people about themselves. In this case, we have the enormous privilege of being able to take our notepads and recorders and iPhones into the kitchens and restaurants -- or hotel lobbies and neighborhood coffee houses -- of chefs and cookbook authors and other people in this industry. We ask them about their food, their projects, their lives, and they answer -- sometimes telling stories far beyond this plate or that menu. It is a joy, sometimes even an honor.

So to mark the end of the year (yeah, yeah, we're in full Dick-Clark-Anderson-Cooper mode here) we've collected 10 of our favorite interviews from 2011. Oh, and while it is true that one of these technically took place in 2010, once you see who it is, you'll get why we fudged the dates a bit. Wouldn't you?

More >>

Nanette Gonzales

David Larsen at play

​Orange County's Haven Gastropub has a reputation for rather maniacally obtaining their mercurial selection of craft brews. On one occasion, Beverage Director Wil Dee took a Smokey and the Bandit-style run up to San Francisco to bootleg a vanload from 21st Amendment Brewery, which has no wholesale distributor in Southern California. This level of dedication to bring interesting beers to Haven and their other Orange County restaurant, taco asylum, should tell you these boys seriously geek out on beer.

When their new Pasadena Haven Gastropub +Brewery opens on December 15, they'll finally have the ability to produce their own beers, as plebian or esoteric as they can dream up. Owing to delays in the liquor licensing, the first casks of their in-house beers may not be fully ready to tap next week, and in fact, we didn't get a chance to sample any for this interview. So what kinds of beers will they make? This week's Q & A with Haven's brewmaster, David Larsen, reveals on the one hand a pragmatist who'll craft populist styles including two I.P.A.'s. On the other hand, Larsen's vivid imagination longs to "dry pork" the adventurous and jaded with comfort zone-pushing ales and stouts that smell of leather, bacon, and toasted coconut.

More >>

Guzzle & Nosh

Wolfgang Puck at his eponymous restaurant at the Hotel Bel-Air.

​For anyone who's lived in Los Angeles longer than a decade, it's impossible not to feel caught in some sort of time-warp pulling up to the recently reopened Hotel Bel-Air. The swans still float serenely on the pond and wander the lush grounds, but the first thing you notice aren't the Cygnini, it's the valets: buff, young dudes in striped button-down shirts who look like they just left the Cobra Kai dojo. Like the Karate Kid, Sonny Crockett and Marty McFly, Wolfgang Puck rose to fame in the 1980s, so it makes perfect sense that he'd be helming the renovated Wolfgang Puck at the Hotel Bel-Air.

The restaurant boasts a large patio with alcoves for current and former movie execs to discreetly take business meetings. The bar is casual and open yet intimate enough for a sexy rendezvous. There's also a classic indoor dining room for formal dinners. Puck himself oversaw the menu along with key members of Team Wolfgang including pastry goddess Sherry Yard. Here, the Austrian-born chef sits down to discuss his restaurant empire, the perils of tailoring one's cuisine to a particular city and the challenges of running a hotel restaurant -- even as an old friend stops by the table.

[Photo gallery after the jump.]

More >>

Barbara Hansen

Chef John Sedlar (left), his corn flan with fish in curry sauce (right).

​John Sedlar, chef/owner of Rivera and Playa, once thought that Mexican food would take over the world. Now, the world is taking over Mexican food, he says. And this is not a good thing.

Today's hot young Mexican chefs want to show that they can compete on an international level. In their eagerness to shine, they are drawing away from their Mexican-ness, he laments. "Where is the epazote? Where are the calabacitas?" he wants to know.

Named Esquire's chef of the year for 2011, Rivera was mulling over what he saw at the recent Baja California Culinary Fest 2011, which brought chefs from all over Mexico to collaborate on showcase dinners.

More >>

pagedaily.com

Valerie Gordon

​Just when you get "Yeah, I'm pretty swamped" out of your mouth, you spend a little time with someone whom you are more than happy to concede that title -- people like Valerie Gordon, who along with her partner, Stan Weightman, Jr., own Valerie Confections. They opened the small chocolate shop seven years ago with a singular (and fantastic) line of chocolate-covered toffees.

Those solo fleur de sel dark chocolate-dipped toffee days may over -- although thankfully Gordon has not abandoned that original flavor, still one of our favorites -- but take a closer look around Valerie Confections' Koreatown workshop. It's pretty clear, even before Gordon tells us as much, they will soon outgrow the new upgraded space. Which, incidentally, is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday. And there is free chocolate for the taking (Who knew?). But we were talking about the reason for those bulging chocolate storage racks....

More >>

A. Scattergood

Jeffrey Cerciello at Farmshop

​
When Jeffrey Cerciello came to Los Angeles to open Farmshop in the Brentwood Country Mart, in the space formerly occupied by Maury Rubin's short-lived City Bakery, it was a homecoming of sorts. Cerciello, who was culinary director of Thomas Keller's casual dining division and worked for Keller for well over a decade, was born in Torrance and grew up in Laguna, and his grandmother once owned a shop not too far from where Cerciello's restaurant is now. Farmshop took a little longer to open than he'd imagined, with breakfast and lunch coming last November and dinner finally reaching the tables last week. As anyone who's opened a restaurant (or written about them opening) will know, the experience can be maddeningly slow. But good things come to those who wait, even, eventually, to those who wait for city expediters.

We recently caught up with Cerciello, who was looking disconcertingly happy. His beer and wine license had been approved. Dinner was being served. Fried chicken was on the menu. And his market was finally moving forward -- expect it to open in time for Thanksgiving. Yes, really. Turn the page, and check back later for a recipe.

More >>

A. Scattergood

Nancy Silverton and her new cookbook at Mozza

​
Nancy Silverton, who is an over-achiever in much the same way as is, say, Malcolm Gladwell, has had a productive summer even by her standards. Mozzas in Newport Beach and Singapore recently opened; Amy Pressman's burger project, Short Order, which Silverton consulted on, is coming next month; and her new cookbook is due out next week. The Mozza Cookbook is not your ordinary restaurant cookbook as much as a translation of technique and ethos, and a testament to attention. Written with Mozza executive chef Matt Molina and Carolynn Carreño, a Beard-winner who also co-wrote Silverton's A Twist of the Wrist, the book is a collection of the recipes, or most of them, from both the Pizzeria and the Osteria. Pizza dough! Gelato! That famous Butterscotch budino!

A little backstory for those of you who haven't spent the better part of the last decade or two on the bench between La Brea Bakery and Campanile, a sourdough boule beside you. Silverton grew up in Encino, went to college at Sonoma State ("I started cooking in the dorms") and dropped out in her senior year to cook somewhere outside of her dorm room. She went to Europe, cooked some more in the Valley ("pseudo-French bistros were very popular at the time") and then attended Le Cordon Bleu in London before coming back home and beginning her cooking career at Michael's, where she worked behind the cash register, of all places, before moving to the pastry kitchen. From Michael's to Spago to Campanile, with a few stops here and there, and thus to Mozza. For more about that, turn the page.

More >>

flickr user cherylknauer

Pinot or Chardonnay?

​When we popped by Fig in Santa Monica recently for a Happy Hour glass of wine, sommelier Matthew Lehman was happy to chat about the new Fig Pinot Noir we spied on the menu -- Lehman helped make it under the watchful eye of La Fenetre winemaker Joshua Klapper. These days, it's pretty old news when a restaurant partners with a winemaker to "make" their wine label. And we all know the winemaker is really still the one doing all the heavy lifting.

But things got interesting when we heard about the friendly sommelier-chef spat over whose wine is better (Fig chef Ray Garcia made a Chardonnay at the same time Lehman made that Pinot Noir, information conveniently left off the bottles). "Oh, his is good, too," Lehman said with his characteristic sly smile. Yeah, we know what that means.

More >>

A. Froug

Nickel Diner owners Kristen Trattner and Monica May

​
In part one of our interview with Monica May and Kristen Trattner, owners of downtown's Nickel Diner, the two ladies explained how they moved from a cafe with no kitchens to a diner with two of them. In the second part of the interview, May and Trattner talk about their gay pop tart, the Sugar Fairy Snap Tart, and the time Robocop faced off against the homeless Unabomber. And check back later for a recipe for Nickel Diner's pan roast pork chop with succotash and pepper jam.

More >>

A. Froug

Nickel Diner owners Kristen Trattner and Monica May

​ Skid Row, maple bacon donuts and chick food. If that doesn't make immediate sense to you, don't worry. Investors didn't initially understand Monica May and Kristen Trattner's vision for their Nickel Diner. They're now chef and general manager, respectively, as well as owners of the nouvelle diner, but it took years of running a cafe a block away before the community rallied behind them to open the Nickel. After all, the two had been serving coffee and sandwiches at Banquette, now shuttered, without ever having the benefit of a kitchen.

But the Nickel had two kitchens, plenty of space and together, these two realized the diner of their dreams -- where donuts are not just extraordinary for the bacon on top but for their brioche dough, the result of three days of labor -- and since 2008, they've seen lines out the door and nationwide media adoration. Along the way, their Skid Row address has brought them some funny stories that usually involve someone strung out wandering into their restaurant and refusing to leave. The two women share these and other stories, including how the maple bacon donut came to be, why farm to table is a bunch of nonsense, and what it means to cook chick food. Turn the page.

More >>