Craft is probably best known for being one of Top Chef’s Tom Colicchio’s restaurants. Tom Colicchio was a renowned chef before the TV show, making a name for himself in the New York restaurant scene with Gramercy Tavern. While many TV-celebrity chef restaurants are pretty underwhelming, I think Craft is one of the better ones. It’s located in Century City with a concentrated business crowd, especially during lunch. The interior is full of natural light, a slick and modern space.
Aziza is a Moroccan restaurant – the only one I know of that has a Michelin star. As a result, I thought this would be a pretty interesting place to try as I don’t eat Moroccan food too often. It’s located in a residential neighborhood in the Richmond District of San Francisco, an unassuming area where you would not expect to find such a highly-regarded restaurant.
Since before I was born, my family has gathered at my aunt’s place in Alameda for lunch and at my grandmother’s for dinner (a very similar setup to Thanksgiving). This year was no different. LUNCH First off, was lunch in Alameda. The food is served buffet-style, and my aunt makes most of the dishes. There…
Fried chicken night. Served every other Monday, this is probably the most famous dish served at the restaurant. So popular, the chicken brine and mix is sold at Williams-Sonoma (which I’ve tried to make). So, I had to come out and try it here for myself…and I’m glad I did.
Continuing my tour of the food in the Napa Valley, a stop at The Restaurant at Meadowood was in order. Both The Restaurant at Meadowood and Cyrus are constantly compared to The French Laundry, as they are both two-starred establishments that have earned numerous accolades in their own right.
This restaurant is part of a large hotel and resort, the Meadowood. A lot of its produce is sourced from the gardens on the hotel grounds, and chef Christopher Kostow was recently named a “Best New Chef” by Food & Wine magazine in 2009.
I’ve wanted to try Michael Chiarello’s Bottega for a little while now. I used to watch his show Easy Entertaining on the Food Network every weekday morning as I got ready for work. I’m also a big fan of rustic Italian food, so a trip up to Bottega on my next trip to Yountville was in order. Even more exciting was that Chef Chiarello was in the restaurant for lunch this day.
For my first meal after The French Laundry, we went to Quince to celebrate my grandmother and aunt’s birthdays on Christmas Eve. The restaurant recently re-opened after relocating to a larger space in the Financial District of San Francisco. The space is very elegant and modern, and uniquely, one of the first things you see is the kitchen from the exterior.
The French Laundry is a food temple – a trek that any gourmand in America must make at least once in their lifetime. I first went in July of 2004, and it was easily the most anticipated meal of my life. I remember not being able to sleep much the night before. The restaurant had just gone through a renovation and had not announced an official re-opening date. I was playing around on OpenTable one night and stumbled upon an availability. I remembered having to wake my dad to tell him this news, and use his credit card in order to confirm this reservation.