Then, after some hard-sell announcements about the French's line for the 6-year-olds ("French's doesn't just make fried onion rings!"), Ms. Erickson, the executive director of City Harvest, stepped in for her own pitch.
(Scare quotes necessary because the joint is owned by a guy named Ruggerio, employs an "executive chef," and features a fried frankfurter called a Devil Dog).
Executives at fried-chicken chain KFC could be forgiven for feeling unsteady at the thought of a worm being found in one of their products.
"Starchy, sweet, fried and basic," is the way Patrick Maurin, the French executive chef at Trump Ocean Club, described Panamanian food, and few would argue otherwise.
NINE Sam Talbot (left), the executive chef, offers a menu featuring seafood — fried oysters and king crab a la plancha — as well as cauliflower fritters and crispy lamb belly.
Feniger and executive chef and partner Kajsa Alger have overhauled the menu, with rustic dishes: fried chicken cobb salad, pumpkin ravioli with wild mushrooms, plus a selection of pizzas such as the Berliner with Gruyere cheese, bacon and braised leeks.
ARTHUR FRIED, a longtime city official who was most recently general counsel of the Social Security Administration, was named executive director.
"It's about low and slow," says Anne Burrell, the executive chef of Centro Vinoteca in Manhattan, where she studs her substantial lamb ragù with fried gnocchi.
The executive chef, Jarett Appell, seems to understand what is demanded from the department-store restaurant: nostalgia, fried calamari, chopped salads interesting enough to be entrées.
