Brian Curtice breaks a tortilla chip into three pieces and lays them out on his napkin to represent three dinosaur bones. He’s explaining to me how he turned three dinosaurs into one, and pissed off the paleontological community to boot.”At the time, there were supposed to be three supergiants from…
To hear many native New Yorkers talk about it, you’d think they invented neighborhood-style Italian food. From antipasto to baked pasta, lasagna to ravioli and, of course, pizza, nobody does it better than the folks in the Big Apple. What gives? It’s not as if the requirements for back-East-style Italian…
Pack 40 of the nation’s top chefs into extremely close quarters, arm them with sharp knives, and what happens? Despite a rocky start in its disorganized planning stages, Saturday night’s Pleasures of the Palettes at the Phoenician turned out to be a success for its 800 or so very well-fed…
“Double-belled euphoniums and big bassoons . . .”It’s a lyric from “76 Trombones” in The Music Man, and if you’ve heard of Leslie Van Zee’s favorite musical instrument, there’s a good chance that’s where you’ve heard of it. Van Zee uses only a single bell, not a double, but she…
The dining scene for much of Sun City, Del Webb’s masterplanned commune for silver-haired citizens, is a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. Looking for exciting, cutting-edge cuisine? You won’t find it here. Area retirees tend to be armed with aging taste buds and delicate constitutions — they’re not looking for high-speed chases of…
Great chefs are not bred to be caged in corporate kitchens. There’s no keeping these talented souls confined with menus supervised by restaurant executives in business suits — their spirits yearn to run free. What else than a reckless urge for independence and self-expression would motivate a chef to leave…
We’ve never seen anything like it — a strange hybrid of animal and vegetable. Beneath a shiny crimson crown are segmented layers of pinkish crustacean abdomen, and below that, a bright red base like a big single foot, oozing out semiliquid. We stare at the unnatural thing between us, so…
The Valley’s own James Boyce was celebrated Saturday night at the James Beard House in Manhattan. Boyce, chef de cuisine at the Phoenician’s Mobil Five Star Mary Elaine’s, was invited to create a spectacular tribute to the late, legendary chef Auguste Escoffier, renowned as the innovator of modern French cuisine.I’d…
Upon hearing that I’m going to lunch with Lucianne Goldberg, one of my colleagues waggishly suggests, “You should have lunch with her over the phone and tape it.” Almost everyone else to whom I mention my date has to furrow his brow and be reminded of who Goldberg is –…
Rula Bula managing partner Steven Goumas hasn’t had the easiest go of it in getting his Irish pub and restaurant ready for business. Opened in late July inside Tempe’s historic Andre building, the Gaelic eatery debuted more than a year late, thanks to a fire that gutted its structure last…
Homebuilders everywhere have their boxers in a bunch over Proposition 202, a pending initiative that will severely limit urban sprawl across Arizona. They say turning off their bulldozers will destroy the economy. Supporters of 202, on the other hand, see the initiative as a way to limit subdivisions that are…
“This is as close as you’ll find to an Italian deli in New York out here.”Gesturing to glass cases gloriously piled full of dried sausages, Italian salads, Italian desserts, Italian everything, Patrick Lubrano says, “You can’t find stuff like this out here. I brought my mother-in-law in here, and she…
ZooFari is billed as one of the most important black-tie culinary events in the Valley. It’s always been an exciting opportunity to sample some of the best savories in town, at booths manned by the Valley’s top chefs. But this year, the food display at ZooFari looked like any intersection…
Pleasures of the Palettes, one of the Valley’s most exclusive culinary fund raisers being held later this month at the Phoenician, has been leaving a bitter taste in the mouths of some local chefs.Some chefs are unhappy that they’ve been asked to serve hors d’oeuvres at a reception instead of…
Tomaso’s — the elegant Italian restaurant that’s charmed Valley diners for almost two decades in its original 32nd Street and Camelback location — has set up a sister shop in the East Valley. That brings to three the number of Tomaso’s in the metro-Phoenix area, all sporting the exact same…
Imagine what the horrible result would be if Denny’s switched its all-American concept to contemporary Mexican cuisine. Just try to visualize the culinary disaster assured if Furr’s doctored its menu to include $15 plates of prickly pear barbecue cactus shrimp. And what, God forbid, would diners be in for if…
New Times’ annual Best of Phoenix just came out and, true to form, someone’s not happy about being named the best. Like, for instance, the clothing boutique that was incensed at being singled out as “best place for drag queens to go shopping.” This year, it’s the folks from Chez…
Al Gore invented the Internet. That we accept. But who would have thought that Richardson Browne, feisty owner of Richardson’s Cuisine of Phoenix, has a patent on New Mexican food? What else would explain his bizarre attacks on the owners of Carlsbad Tavern in Scottsdale and Blue Adobe Grille in…
The complaint I hear is all too frequent: There are no good, family-owned American restaurants in the West Valley. Mexican food, maybe, and national chains of all types, for sure. But where can a hungry diner find a delicious meat-and-potatoes meal, cooked with real love, after crossing into the Avenues?The…
Dinner and a movie will take on new meaning this February when Farrelli’s Cinema Supper Club opens on Scottsdale Road north of Thunderbird. Set in an old-fashioned-style moviehouse, the restaurant will partner big-screen movies with upscale dining.Stale popcorn and a box of Goobers? No way. Moviegoers at Farrelli’s will feast…
Eating healthful food lets us live longer. That’s something everybody agrees on. But what exactly is healthful? Scientists can’t agree on which kind of fat will kill us. We hear that alcohol is bad for us, and then nutritionists tell us to drink one or two glasses of wine each…
Bistro 24 executive chef John Johnstone has been one busy fellow lately. Over the past several months, he’s packed up his pots and pans, relocated from New York’s Tavern on the Green, dismantled and rebuilt the Phoenix Ritz-Carlton’s kitchen, brought in a new staff and introduced new lunch and dinner…
