Ann Bauer With most wines, I know right away: I like it or I don’t; it enhances the meal I’m eating or it doesn’t; it’s full or light or insipidly thin. But this one I had to taste for most of an evening — slowly, letting it breathe and change — with food between glass one and … Read more
I ran across this refreshingly blasphemous article in Denver’s Rocky Mountain News, titled Putting a Cork in Wine Snobs. It’s a good read and underscores a few of the points I’ve been making. Among them: The phrase room temperature refers to the cool interior of a drawing room in the French Alps, not a 90-degree … Read more
A reader contacted me this morning to ask if I had any restaurants to recommend for solo diners. A single woman who loves good food, she said she often feels self-conscious when seated at a table by herself. It doesn’t help, she added, when the server asks, “Will anyone be joining you tonight?” “Longfellow Grill … Read more
It has a refreshingly prosaic name — CMS Red — and a label that reminds me somehow of industrial equipment, with a stamp certifying it’s been approved by the Washington Wine Quality Alliance. But this wine is, in fact, a canny blend produced by Hedges Cellars, a mom-and-pop shop located on Red Mountain in Washington’s … Read more
It is a sad fact that every year Heartland, the restaurant and wine bar on St. Clair Avenue, closes its doors for two weeks in summer. This is because owner Lenny Russo (formerly the executive chef at Cue) and his wife, Mega Hoehn (the wine maven), work non-stop the other 50 weeks a year — … Read more
Alex Roberts’ much-awaited new restaurant, Brasa Rotisserie, opened today at 11 o’clock in the former Betty’s Bikes and Buns location, at 600 E. Hennepin in northeast Minneapolis. The food is locally sourced and organic, as it is at Brasa’s high-class sister restaurant Alma. But here you will find a mix of Latin American, Peruvian, and … Read more
Partners in the Sample Room announced today that they have promoted Peter Macaroni to executive chef. Macaroni worked at La Bec Fin in Philadelphia and Barlays in Atlanta, before coming west to serve as executive chef at Tiburon. He’s been sous chef at the Sample Room for a few months now — which, so far … Read more
I attended a wedding over the weekend — one of the loveliest I’ve ever seen, with a rose petal-strewn Japanese garden and a chuppa-like arbor under which the couple was joined. Topping off this perfect event was an exquisite wine: a delicate, slightly dry Pouilly-Fuissé from the house of Bouchard Aînés & Fils. If you … Read more
Tim Alevizos is a man who lives his art. Show up at his posh Uptown condo on a Saturday morning around 10. He will open the front door and take your coat. Then, if you’re someone he likes (and believe me, if you weren’t, you wouldn’t be here) he’ll usher you into the “owner’s suite” … Read more
There’s something about talking over a meal that makes people loosen up. It’s the proximity of your knees under the table, the intimacy of sharing food, the lubrication of a little wine. This is not a set-up for drunken confessions. It is a method for coaxing the truth out of public figures used to communicating … Read more