Links Wrap-Up
Alas, I’m well overdue in sharing some links, and they do pile up. Might end up being a two, or a three-parter… some good stuff though, despite older vintage of some. You’ll forgive me, I hope, if I start with this (from the website of European weekly magazine, Der Spiegel) — the Guolizhuang Restaurant in Beijing, covered by the BBC previously. Indeed, my colleague John Lethlean, a noted offal connoisseur, has written about this restaurant before. I wonder, though, if he’s seen Der Spiegel's photographs.
If you’re still with me, you’ll have the stomach to handle this in The Sydney Morning Herald, American artist Victoria Reynolds’ carnivorous art. As the story notes: “Indeed, meat has an uncanny hold for some in the artworld. Meatpaper is a quarterly magazine of art and ideas about meat.”
And then on to some great pieces about chefs and restaurants and meals I’d like to eat:
- Something else for John: The New York Times reports on the Montreal dining scene where “there has been a surge in quirky restaurants that are extensions of their chefs’ personal tastes and dedication to Montreal’s regional ingredients. At these restaurants, no part of the pig escapes the kitchen knife, whether it’s the ears (sliced and fried in a salad with frisée) or feet (braised, stuffed and roasted). And foie gras abounds, never far from marrowbones, sweetbreads and steaks so big they’d make a cowboy blush.”
- I've linked before to a story about Noma, a Copenhagen restaurant that set me thinking it was time I set off to explore my Danish ancestry. I’m thinking even more seriously about it thanks to Sunday's New York Times piece on Copenhagen Nordic cuisine — Noma again, plus Alberto K and Geranium (where they apparently smoke salmon at the table in front of you). A great slideshow here.
- The New York magazine covers, in almost interminable length, Alain Ducasse’s so-far unsuccessful attempts to conquer the city. “It could be that Ducasse, like a man trying to woo a distant lover, was simply trying too hard,” writer Alex Morris speculates.
- In an Independent newspaper blog, Australia’s own Terry Durack calls for a shake-up of the S.Pellegrino World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards (2008: El Bulli, 1, The Fat Duck, 2,Pierre Gagnaire, 3, Tetsuya’s, 9, Noma, 10, Alain Ducasse au Plaza Athénée, 18).
- And The New York Times again on restaurants in Bordeaux, where “where a cadre of experimental chefs have pulled Bordeaux into the 21st century”.
- In Slate, writer Lisa Abend asks of Spanish avant-garde cuisine — “isn’t anyone tired of this stuff by now?” She’s referring to “dishes” including “a fine plate of fish blood”, and chef such as “the Roca boys (who) painted swabs of truffle, hare, and dirt across a plate and called it "Winter." In Barcelona, Angel León used algae to clarify soup, Ramón Freixa turned liquid-nitrogenized pineapple into dessert, and Martin Berasategui talked about something called "synergetic elaboration."
- And finally for now, an "expose" on Iron Chef America. In The Village Voice, Robert Sietsema writes: “Iron Chef America is more bogus than even I had imagined.”
There, that’ll keep you busy … have a great weekend.



