January 1, 1985 | Vintage Insatiable

Vintage Insatiable Critic: 1985-1987

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THAT'S ITALIAN

January 28, 1985

New York has more Italian restaurants than any other kind – at least 2,000 by educated estimate. No one has ever eaten in all of them, but our Insatiable Critic has sampled scores for this definitive survey...more

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GOBBLING BREAD AT RAO'S

April 5, 1985

Anyway, we’re driving to the edge of the world, and just where it drops off, there’s Rao’s. First off, you’ve got to admire the décor: Christmas tinsel, a Valentine heart, dried hydrangeas, Sammy Davis Jr. plaster of Paris, a giant Labrador... more

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THE REAL THING

April 29, 1985

With its gently priced, informal, late-night celebration of la cucina italiana, Sandro’s provokes tickles of hope... more

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JAMES BEARD: THE FATHER OF US ALL

June 3, 1985

Before the new American cooking, chefs as superstars, and our great irrepressible gourmania…there was James Beard, our Big Daddy... more

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THE JOY OF PIZZA

July 1, 1985

Pizza, my twelve-year-old self-styled pizza authority, Joey Goldman, informs me, is like sex. “When it’s good, it’s great, and even when it’s not so good, it’s still pretty great.” Let me just note that having tasted 187 pizzas in the past three months, I’ve lost a certain adolescent innocence… more

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GAEL GRAZES

September 30, 1985

Nibbling and trolling -- grazing -- is our new mode of eating, and I rather like it. Taxiing to the edges of civilization in the quest for the new, the hungry New Yorker suddenly seems oddly tolerant, as if the point of eating were no longer culinary epiphany but rather just a bit of calcium and fiber to fuel the evening’s networking…more

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WESTWARD, HAUTE!

November 25, 1985

In another brief incarnation, this low-slung molded-plaster cave on East 60th Street was an Alpine ski hut, the less-than-adored Stamperl. Not for Joseph Santo such a compromising position... more

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HARRY CIPRIANO: TWICE IN LOVE WITH HARRY

January 1, 1986

Since it’s opening in November, Harry Cipriani, New World spore of Venice’s legendary Harry’s Bar, has been booked tight…more

 

LE BERNARDIN BEGUILES OUR CROCODILES

February 24, 1986

Cozy enough at Le Bernardin, their two-star, Brittany-sky-blue nook off the Champs Élysées, Maguy and Gilbert Le Coze never wanted anything but New York... more

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PALIO: GALLOPING CONSUMPTION

April 14, 1986

The Palio is a wild and reckless horse race run twice each summer around Siena’s Piazza del Campo… Amazing, isn’t it, that this 400-year-old mayhem has inspired what may be New York’s most beautiful new restaurant...more

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A COUPLE OF SWELLS

January 26, 1987

The bouquet of scents at Provence, its garlicky brandade and intoxicating soupe de poissons, transport you to France...

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BAROCCO: FLAUNTING UPSCALE ITALIAN

January 27, 1987

The art world has already discovered Barocco, a spare, minimally gussied-up trattoria in TribeCa, where it’s no trick to park or flaunt your limousine...more

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OUR LOCAL FRENCH REVOLUTION

March 23, 1987

Haute whisks change hands, deeds are bartered. Menus flutter and evolve. Halibut and the lowly skate are les poisons of the day, New York mouths fall in love with southern soul, southwestern heat, and California cool. But the grand affair with France sizzles on...more

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ADDING UP THE NEW '21'

June 1, 1987

Ken Aretsky is anxious. He gets up early every morning now so he can “get ready to be aggravated sooner.” But a perpetually nervous man makes a good restaurateur, because he never stops sniffing for disaster...And he doesn’t sleep much because he became the front man in the greening of ‘21.’ ... more

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RESTAURANT BOULEY: VAULTING AMBITION

September 5, 1987

Well, Bouley has heard the mutterings of discontent. Now he’s clocking the kitchen flow, and though the ceremony still moves with the pace (but not the confidence) or a British coronation, the kitchen is cutting loose. On my most recent visit, flavors are more emphatic…more

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DAVID K: HOME ON THE RANGE

November 11, 1987

For all the strange ways of the Western World that David Keh has mastered, his stomach remains unreformably Chinese. more

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REMEMBERING LE PAVILLON

December 21, 1987

Fame is cruelly mercurial. I think each time I pass the First Woman’s Bank, imagining its vault, a cold steel hulk in what was not long ago the town’s most celebrated kitchen -- with not even a few inches of bronze to mark where once Le Pavillon hummed...more

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