Dinner at Craft

I'm sure most of you reading this blog have at one point or another come across an episode of Top Chef, the reality cooking competition that pits relatively unknown yet talented chefs against each other in "Quick Fire Challenges" and "Restaurant Wars." Furthermore, I'm sure many of you recognize the head judge, Tom Colicchio, with his signature bald head and glaring stare. But perhaps many of you don't know Colicchio before Top Chef, and why he was called upon to do the TV series, why he was asked to be head judge...

Before there was ever a Top Chef, there was a restaurant named Rakel, where a young Colicchio served as sous chef to Thomas Keller, arguably America's best chef. The restaurant failed and Keller went on to Napa Valley, while Colicchio went on to open yet another failure--Mondrian. Finally luck stroke with Colicchio when he partnered with Danny Meyer to open Gramercy Tavern in Manhattan. Here he cooked beautiful, simple American food with local, organically farmed American ingredients. Coupled with Meyer's incredible sense of hospitality, Gramercy Tavern won countless awards, including New York's favorite restaurant countless years in a row. 

Following Gramercy's success, Colicchio ventured out on his own to open Craft, a restaurant named after the art or "Craft" of cooking. Since then, he has done Top Chef and opened many branches of Craft.

Again, he presents simple American ingredients in simple presentations, allowing patrons to savor how great ingredients do not need elaborate preparations to shine and taste good. The dishes are served family style, which makes for great value if you visit with a group. I had the inkling to visit Craft for a while, and got the chance to do so one Sunday winter evening when some family and friends were in town.

The night begins with hamachi crudo with piquillo peppers and a coarse-grained sea salt. Absolutely declicious! I loved the aggressive seasoning and crunchiness of the sea salt most.

We enjoyed 3 appetizers, including a salad.

The first dish here is a classic French dish called Pig Trotters. You take the feet of the pig, which are usually full of bones and cartilage, and transform them into something delicious by removing the bones, filling them with a farce (stuffing), and braising them. The classic method is to fill the boned out feet with sweetbreads, a dish most famously made by Pierre Kauffman, and later adapted by Marco Pierre White. Here we see a similar preparation, with the addition of a mustard sauce and a fried egg on top. You can find the recipe here.  

Up next is a Suckling Pig Ballotine. This is a cold dish that involves deboning the face of a pig, mixing it with other unused cuts from the animal, braising the meat, curing it overnight, then wrapping it in caul fat, and finally roasting and poaching it. Quite a labor intensive task! The result is pure, sweet pork flavor. 

As our main course, we had a Capon studded with black truffles. This is another dish with French roots. A Capon is a rooster that is castrated so it loses its testosterone and the meat becomes tender. In this preparation, the underside of the skin is filled with slices of black truffle. The meat is then roasted, garnished with rosemary sprigs, and served. This large piece of meat came from one animal, and was enough to feed all 5 of us!

 Accompaniments included creamy Polenta and Butternut Squash Puree. Quite possibly the best polenta I've ever had. The squash puree was fantastic as well, but lacked perhaps a bit of oil or butter to give it some creaminess.

We also enjoyed Risotto filled with Duck Cracklings, which was absolutely heavenly. The evening's wine was a bottle of Italian Dolcetto. It was a great alternative to a more expensive Barolo, giving many of the rustic Italian aromas I was looking for. 

Desserts were a Chocolate Pot de Creme and a Persimmon Pudding.

We also received parting gifts of home made muffins to enjoy for breakfast the next day.