Tag Archives: Aldea

My Top 25 Restaurant Meals of 2011

I will say right at the top that I have never had a more incredible and deep year of dining than I had in 2011. With visits to a number of Europe’s very best temples of Gastronomy, including many of [...]

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Lunch at Aldea with Michael Talalaev

I had lunch the other day at Aldea, the first time I had been back in a little while – at least just to eat from the regular Aldea menu. Reports from my earlier meals can be read here and [...]

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My Top Five Restaurant Pasta Dishes of 2010

It's in my blood that I love pasta. To me, pasta is one of the most satisfying dishes that I can have. I cook it a lot and I eat it a lot in restaurants. I had plenty of outstanding [...]

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Pastry Chefs Cook Savory at Aldea

Johnny Iuzzini, Alex Stupak, George Mendes, Brooks Headley & Michael Laiskonis
Aldea is a special restaurant to me in so many ways. I love George Mendes' cooking. I love George Mendes – in addition to being a superb chef, he [...]

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noma Now…and Then – A Look Back During Lunch

In a sense, as modern diners, we have a restaurant in which can have our cake and can eat it too. We have a very sophisticated restaurant that comfortably allows us to deeply respond to deep primal culinary instincts.
Continue reading

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Sam Mason’s Greatest Hits at Aldea

Sam Mason first came to my attention when he opened WD-50 with Wylie Dufresne. At the time Sam was the pastry chef and was combining savory elements into his desserts in amazing ways, blurring the lines between them, [...]

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My Top 25 Restaurant Meals of 2009

So much for 2009 being a culinary waste land. With the Recession in
full swing and even very good restaurants seemingly dropping like
flies, the year was supposed to be a total disaster on the food-scape.
Instead, this may have been the greatest [...]

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George Mendes Cooks Cuttlefish – A Docsconz Video

After my most recent dinner at Aldea, described here, I asked Chef Mendes if he would cook a dish for me on camera. He kindly accepted and proceeded to cook one of my favorites from the night before, Baby Cuttlefish [...]

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Aldea Delights Again

My first visit to Aldea was right around its opening this past May. The food was great then. When I returned to NYC this past September, I wanted to see how George Mendes and the restaurant have fared over the [...]

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Top Three Restaurant Meals – September 2009

With a bit more than a full week in NYC and at a Chefs congress, no less, how could I not have eaten very well. My favorite meals were at two places at which I had also previously had outstanding [...]

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