Manolo’s Food Blog

A chef is master of fire, wielder of knives, and clanger of pans. In the post-contemporary, urbanized, ironized restaurant of trendy eating, however, a chef can become a tyrant, a scourge, and an annoying impediment to good eating.

There are sound psychological reasons why someone decides to pack knives for a living, reasons that usually involve an inability to sit still in class, a headstrong refusal to get-along go-along, and an innate prickliness even a mother can’t love.

Chefs are cantankerous. Why then, in the name of pleasure, in the name of all that promotes good digestion, should chefs conduct their bloody rites in front of you? Although watching chefs at work can be instructive, restaurants are not cooking classes.

At Momofuku Ko, a legendary downtown designation, scoring a reservation has become a mad video game. First you supply your e-mail, credit card, and password. The cognoscenti (not you) know that if you don’t log on precisely at 10:00 a.m. you’re sunk.

If you win their lottery and finally get there, you take your seat on a bar stool above a narrow galley where three chefs work literally in your face. The Delphic menu instructs you mysteriously that tonight in exchange for $100 you will be permitted to eat whatever the chef chooses. Your only decision is one of price for “pairings” of wine and sake beginning at $50.

Be careful not to speak to the chef as though he worked in a service industry. In addition to handmade Japanese knives, he has attitude. For your trouble in scoring the reservation, this chef might very well settle a score with you.

When Mr. Henry took his seat precisely at his precious reservation slot – 6:50 p.m. – there was no else in the place. “Will you be serving us tonight?” asked Mr. Henry. “I’ll be cooking your food tonight,” replied the chef with noticeable annoyance.

Mr. Henry was not intimidated. This was not his first rodeo. He asked the chef to turn down the volume on acid rock blaring from loudspeakers, assuming rashly that song selection and decibel level had been set for chef’s prep, not for customer satisfaction. The chef pretended to fiddle with the volume knob.

Head chef David Chang chooses the music himself and like with the menu you get unexpected combinations. For music as well as for food, weird pairings seem to be the only reliable theme. If you expect citrus, look for pine needle resin.

Many dishes were stupendous. Frozen foie gras grated atop jellied consommé and buttons of mochi was truly an ambrosia, a completely original and completely captivating entrée. The venison was superb, as were the sorbets.

For the final course, fried cheddar cheese balls were entirely too difficult to digest. By the time the chef slapped the final course down on the counter, however, the wine and sake pairings, imaginative choices skillfully and charmingly poured by genuine waitresses, had worked Mr. Henry into such a glow he no longer had sense enough to complain about too much salt or too many fried things.

Gluttony is one of the seven deadlies, one Mr. Henry did not regret until much later that evening.

Sauciness is a quality that should remain on the plate.

Once in a great while circumstances oblige Mr. Henry freely and without jealousy to admit that certain people simply have cool, that is to say they exude social intelligence without seeming to have studied for the test. Barack Obama has cool. Clint Eastwood has cool. Peter Hoffman of Savoy and Back Forty has it, too.

Almost 17 years ago, Mr. Henry and his faithful consort held their wedding rehearsal dinner at Savoy, filling the downstairs of the old one-story place (and lingering too long over the heavenly desserts, leaving a line of people with later reservations waiting outside in the rain). The salt-crust duck was served, as it will always be served at Savoy, because it is the celestial food of the gods.

From the cramped kitchen, a sweaty, smoky. apron-stained Peter emerged to greet his adoring diners. His tiny, beatific wife, Susan Rosenfeld, made the desserts, something with quince, if memory serves, and an inspired ice cream.

Now Peter and Susan have opened Back Forty, where you can eat a hamburger to rival Mr. Henry’s home-cooked favorite made from Australian organic grass-fed beef. Peter’s rosemary and coarse-salt french fries with homemade ketchup, however, are beyond fabulous, well beyond the capabilities of the Henry household. All this Mr. Henry admits freely and without a hint of jealousy.

What sets Peter apart from the pack are two principal virtues: 1) unlike the Mario Battalis and the Bobby Flays, he does not seek limelight but instead lets the food come first, and 2) he was an early adaptor of the local food movement, a pioneer of eating seasonally.

Permitting menu selections to change depending on what is freshest in the morning market, a new style when Peter and Susan founded Savoy, is now a style considered basic to any serious restaurant. It’s not enough to be ready on day one, you’ve got to be right, as well.