After a quick bbq sampling over at Matt Greco's Char No 4 in Brooklyn, Carmellini and Co. made their way to Torrisi Italian Specialties, where chef Cesare Casella by rights the preeminent Italian culinary mind this side of the Vatican made an appearance with a large rosemary sprig in his pocket like a delicious boutonnierre.
Dining in Paso translates to seasonal specialties and chefs who care about fresh delicacies in diversity of styles.
To sample some of America's top regional cuisine, stop at the Hominy Grill for addictive shrimp-and-grits and buttermilk pie, or the fancier Peninsula Grill for fine wine paired with mouth-watering local specialties (the chefs here can make black-eyed peas taste like ambrosia).
Casoncelli alla bergamasca, a specialty that the chef, Stefano Terzi, has brought from his hometown of Bergamo, near Milan, stands out among the pasta dishes.
THE COMMONS CHELSEA Inventive sandwiches and toasts are the specialty of the chef, Sarah Wallace, in this vest-pocket cafe with white tile and bare wood tables: 128 Seventh Avenue (17th Street), (212) 92129333.
The waiter recommended veal rognons, a specialty of the chef, which turned out to be kidneys, something I didn't realize until after I'd eaten them, returned to the hotel and looked up the word.
A warm vegetable salad, a specialty of the chef, Keith M. Williams, consists of slices of up to twenty-one different baby vegetables, such as wax beans, sugar snap peas, summer squash, and radishes.
Remarkably, every item on that list remains on today's menu at La Maison Troisgros, with the single exception of the pâté, which decades ago was a specialty of the chef Fernand Point.
Mussels and other seafood, with frites, of course, are among the Belgian specialties by the chef, Marvin James, formerly of Gotham Bar and Grill.
These are broken up by meals prepared by a chef (specialties include lobster tail and osso bucco) and complemented by optional activities like massage, tennis lessons and equine therapy.
