97 Sullivan St.
(212) 274-0404

Today my law school roommate and co-founder of the Frost Street Dining Club Tony engaged me in a thorough discussion of everything we think is great about restaurants these days, and everything we think is wrong with restaurants these days. We were pretty much in agreement that the best thing that has happened to the restaurant scene in the past few years is the overriding emphasis on ingredients. We credit Mario Batali and his ilk for a lot of this recent trend here in the states, although it can certainly be traced back at least to Alice Waters. Across the pond you can find kindred impulses in Fergus Henderson's abbatoir cuisine. What it comes down to is respecting even the simplest, humblest ingredients, treating them as well as you can, and turning them into more than you thought they could be.

Case in point: Blue Ribbon's Marrow Bones with Oxtail Marmalade. Bones and tails, with stock vegetables and white toast -- the dish is nothing but odds and ends. But treated with care and skill, it becomes something totally, miraculously satisfying. Sweet, fatty, salty, meaty, all-around honest food. Food that doesn't apologize, and doesn't need to. Hearty, simple food you'd wait two hours for. This is exactly what the good restaurants are doing right for us these days.

Now if we can only learn to do it for ourselves, we'll be in business.