Vol. 12
New year, new beans, same Smithereens
We’re not big believers of the whole “new year, new you” mentality. Making resolutions you’re not going to keep, changing up your entire routine to will something new into being. But we are a fan of iterating, of building off of something great to riff, lovingly, on the old and usher in the new.
In approaching a new year, or a new chapter, it may matter less where you’re headed than where you’ve been. Inspiration often coasts on memory to guide us forward. Take the latest version of the Smithees Beans™ gracing the menu—the storied origins of which date all the way back to a dish Chef Nick served at Momofuku Ko. Or Nikita’s new chapter of the wine program, rooted in her days working the floor of her parents’ wine shop and yearning for the chance to taste Coche-Dury. Read on for Nick and Nikita’s reflections on how old ways make way for the new.
But first up, to kick off this month we’re back with another installment of the Smithereens Book Club, welcoming Chef Brian Baxter (of The Catbird Seat fame) for one night only this Tuesday, January 13th. Just a handful of seats left to snag, so act fast!
Hope to see you soon, there’s a new fish in town that wants to say hello.
Happy New Year,
Smithereens
Brian Baxter x Smithereens
The Smithereens Book Club is back for the new year: this Tuesday, January 13th, we’re bringing in Chef Brian Baxter from Nashville. Baxter is hot off the heels of his fifth-iteration term as the exec chef of famed Nashville institution The Catbird Seat, which just won its first Michelin star. His culinary point of view, informed by time spent at fellow Nashville staples like McCrady’s, Husk, and Bastion, celebrates sustainable and seasonal ingredients. Expect dishes like Mafaldine with mussels and foie gras; tonkatsu with ikura; and horseradish panna cotta with raspberry, lychee, and pink peppercorn (he’s team freaky desserts).
Q&A: Chef Brian Baxter answers the Smithereens Questionnaire
Hailing from Florida, Brian Baxter attended the Culinary Institute of America before heading back down south to Charleston to work with Chef Sean Brock as Chef de Partie at McCrady’s. After two years there, he moved to Nashville to help open Husk as CDC, where he was honored as one of Forbes 30 under 30 and one of 5 Southern Chefs to Watch by OpenTable. He went on to work at Bastion and Cold Beer before returning to Nashville in 2020, helming the U-shaped kitchen at The Catbird Seat.
And did you catch the beautiful watercolor painting of Smithees that graces the poster for this event? That’s a Baxter original. After a surgery kept him off his feet for three months, sleepless binges of Bob Ross and a longing for a creative outlet led him to painting.
He put down his brushes to answer a couple questions for us.
What is one thing you will always order if you see it on a menu?
I would probably say raw scallops.
Where in the world would you most like to travel to at this moment?
This one is tough. Would say Spain or Japan.
It is your last meal on Earth, what are you having for dinner?
Buffalo wings, blue cheese dressing, curly fries and a pitcher of (NA) beer.
What is an ingredient that you can’t live without?
Butter.
What was the most formative time in your career?
My time working as a Chef de Partie at McCrady’s.
—
p.s. Baxter also wrote one of our most treasured cookbooks, In the Catbird Seat.
New Year, New Beans
Behind the Dish: Maine sea urchin with chickpeas and lemon thyme
—Nick Tamburo, Chef/Owner
My time spent working at Momofuku Ko was the most formative of my career. I had cooked in a number of restaurants up until that point but it was at Ko that I learned how to really think about food. In 2014, we closed the space at 163 1st avenue and moved the whole team over to 8 Extra Place (now the home of Kabawa). I’ve never worked harder in my entire life.
The early days were spent peeling plastic off of equipment and scraping stray grout off the kitchen floor with razor blades, making up for sloppy tile work. As the kitchen came together, we started working on the menu. Lots of ideas carried over from the original restaurant but most of them were brand new. The “Ko egg” was still there, as well as the frozen foie gras, but they were soon joined by a number of dishes that became icons of their own. The lobster paloise - small tubes of feuille de brick filled with lobster and flavored with mint. Razor clams, quickly charred on the French top and served in a chilled pineapple dashi with gelatinous basil seeds. The mackerel, pressed with rice and grilled over charcoal. These would all come and go. When the restaurant was still new, we were restless and ambitious and Ko was at its best. We used to change the main course every day and made sure that repeat guests never had the same thing twice. Through all of this, I struggled with the pressures of a new opening. During that first year I tried to quit on two separate occasions but Dave (Chang) and Sean (Gray) convinced me not to. I had some of the best years of my life in that restaurant and forged friendships that would last forever—somehow I ended up staying for almost three and a half years.
At the time, Momofuku was really invested in innovation. In 2012, Dave set up the “lab,” run by Daniel Burns, to work on new ideas. Eventually, they developed hozon and bonji, analogues for miso and shoyu. Rather than being made with soybean, these were made with a number of other grains and legumes like rye, spelt, pistachios, and chickpeas. This inspired a lot of new ideas across the various Momofuku restaurants. One of these ideas was the uni and chickpea dish at Ko.
One of the things that made Ko so special was how the kitchen interacted with the guests. Delivering dishes over the counter and describing the ingredients and techniques was as much a part of the job as cooking. Once the uni and chickpea dish went on the menu it stuck around, and the story of that dish is forever drilled into my brain after so many recitations.
The dish was created as an homage to the Italian chef, Fulvio Pierangelini, who, at the height of his success, closed his two-Michelin star restaurant Gambero Rosso in 2008. Momofuku Ko then recreated one of Pierangelini’s classic dishes: red prawns over a silky chickpea puree. The Ko version placed raw sea urchin alongside a smooth puree of chickpeas and chickpea hozon, simply finished with an ample amount of olive oil and lemon. Now one dish that was synonymous with a restaurant became emblematic of another.
And for yet another riff, here’s what we’ve been serving at Smithereens lately: sea urchin from Maine and a puree of chickpeas and chickpea miso emulsified with plenty of olive oil, just like before. But the two are served on top of some chickpeas in a warm broth, seasoned with plenty of lemon thyme.
It feels special to be able to tell the story of these dishes, and then add our very own chapter.
No Spitting
In Pursuit of Chardonnay
—Nikita Malhotra, Beverage Director/Partner
Growing up in my parents’ wine store, Pouilly-Fuissé and Chablis were names I heard often—they seemed to fuel the ladies of the Upper East Side long before Sancerre became the household name for ubiquitous white wine. My father preferred chenin blanc and sauvignon blanc, but I still got a training on chardonnay in my teenage years.
But true love for the grape came once I got to serve chardonnay in restaurants and wine bars. The American style of chardonnay was going through a transition, winemakers revolting against the buttery, oaky style. I felt like a foot soldier in this mission, convincing the Upper West Side clientele that they could trust a balanced chardonnay with a California label. Arnot-Roberts, Sandhi Wines and Tyler Winery helped my case. In my dogged pursuit to taste more chardonnay, I moved over to fine dining; I go around telling anyone who will listen that I went to work at Tribeca Grill because I wanted to taste Coche-Dury. But I also got to work at Bâtard during this time, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Tribeca named after one of the great Burgundy vineyards for chardonnay.
Working at those two restaurants meant I got to discover the nuances between different vineyards and producers in Burgundy, and be in dialogue with guests about premox (premature oxidation): an issue that dominated my initial years as a sommelier in the mid-2010s. I had one guest who would always come in for Ramonet and he would seek me out on the floor, knowing I would decant his bottle tableside on a guéridon, something the other sommeliers shunned. Premox bred distrust, so I was willing to do this sort of monkey business show to prove there were no compromises in our wine service. I was also the only one on my team who smiled when a guest ordered Aubert; we still had almost a case-worth of 2005 Ritchie Vineyard. Caramel and honeyed notes bend and twist into a luscious mouthfeel in that wine; it was big and completely counter to the reductive style the sommelier team gravitated towards.
Whenever Raj Parr would visit Bâtard, he would start off with a tea, and then order a bottle of Roulot. Back then, a Bourgogne Blanc was about $75, and at a collector's dinner I tasted a bottle of Roulot that haunts me still: a 1979 Les Meix Chavaux made by Jean-Marc’s father, Guy Roulot. Incredibly energetic, a masterpiece!
As the issue of premox waned and the demographics of collectors changed, I too ached for more reductive notes in my chardonnay. I shed a single tear of joy when I opened Coche-Dury Corton-Charlemagne 2011 during a brunch service for Jin Ahn; before he became an East Village fixture with Noreetuh, he was our Tribeca neighbor at Jungsik and would visit Tribeca Grill often. And I guess there was more Coche than Keller in his glass back in those days!
We served so much chardonnay, I never thought about it in the broad sense, and instead always broke it up by style or region, a decision that still influences how I tackle chardonnay today. As we approach this new chapter of the wine program, how do we plan to showcase chardonnay at Smithereens?
With a cellar full of Burgundy, we begin with a very traditional look at the grape. Nick loves reduction—well before chardonnay dominated our list, his staff pick was a bottle of Roulot. And the whole staff is enamored with the Jura, a region where chardonnay is distinct and yet works well with our Burgundy narrative. As we transition into other regions, we are keeping an eye on California, featuring some winemakers I truly adore. We also get to revisit a previous chapter from our journey—Champagne makes an appearance with all of our Blanc de Blancs being celebrated as another passage in the chardonnay chapter.
The story of chardonnay is epic and diverse; this is a grape that makes some of the most expensive wines in the world (Montrachet) and some of the most affordable (think Two Buck Chuck or Yellow Tail). This is a tale where we move from descriptors like creamy and buttery to steely and crisp, depending on the whims of each generation’s tastes and desires. At Smithereens, with our toughened Riesling palates, we prefer a more austere style—although reduction has meant there is a paradigm shift for sure.
From Burgundian chardonnays by way of Oregon, to geeky whites from Jura perfect for weathering the winter, here are three expressions we’re excited to be pouring these days.
Morgen Long Willamette Valley Chardonnay 2023 $140
Seth Morgen Long is at the helm of this project; his vineyard is the only one in Oregon solely dedicated to chardonnay. Seth’s journey in wine starts off in restaurants—his first job was as a prep cook in Eugene, Oregon. He became a sommelier in 2008, and as the restaurant industry took a hit during the financial crisis, he began to work harvests, first in Oregon, then further afield in New Zealand and Burgundy. He brought everything he learned back home to Oregon, and his love and dedication to chardonnay is worth seeking out. Only 500 cases of this wine were produced, and it shows balance, restraint, and a Burgundian profile. What sets it apart from its old-world counterpart is the soil type: marine, sedimentary, and volcanic soils.
Julien Guillot Macon-Cruzille ‘La Baume’ 2023 $125
What happens when you’re the oldest biodynamically farmed vineyard—not just in Burgundy, but maybe even all of France? The origins of Clos des Vignes du Maynes date back to 910, when the Abbey of Cluny was founded. Owned by the Lords of Château de Cruzille, the estate then belonged to five generations of farmers before being bought by Pierre and Jeanne Guillot in 1952. His family stopped using chemicals in 1954! La Baume is a chardonnay from the high-altitude vineyards of Cruzille in the northern Mâconnais, planted on limestone-rich soil that lends freshness and mineral precision. This is the type of wine that makes me put an “I Love Natty Wine” sticker on my notebook. Vibrant, fresh, and pure.
Tissot Arbois ‘Rose Massale’ Chardonnay 2023 $160
I remember the first time I sold this wine back at Momofuku Ko, the guest was crestfallen that this was not in fact a rosé! This is a white wine, but a very geeky white wine. Its name refers to its unique mutation—these grapes are entirely pink-skinned, born from a mutation of Tissot’s own chardonnay vines. Tissot continues preserving this mutation by Massal Selection, plantings are in four vineyards in Arbois: Bruyères, La Mailloche, Curon, and Vallière. The first vintage of this wine was released in 2015 and every year I look forward to it, as Tissot continues to plant in various vineyards, so the wine becomes more and more nuanced. I love the texture here; Jura is such a special place for chardonnay, allowing for a more dense and layered wine—something to crave in the winter months.
Bonus Round
More recs from Haran McElroy, sommelier
I’m really stoked about these bottles:
Domaine de Cassiopée Maranges ‘Les Plantes’ 2023 $175
I’ve talked of my love for Hugo (Mathurin) and Talloulah (Dubourg) before, and I will do it again. They truly execute what I think is one of the most impeccable styles of chardonnay in the criminally-overlooked appellation of Maranges. Their vines exist in the shadow of a mountain interspersed with forest, and they treat these surroundings with the utmost respect for the natural state of things. They say they make wine they want to drink, but they also make wine that I want to drink—so I think we should hang sometime soon.
Fumey-Chatelain Chardonnay ‘Le Zouave’ 2021 $95
The Jura, baby. So much can be said about this beautiful community in the mountains where the tallest building is an old clock tower. Marin (Fumey) is our winemaker and he is making himself more and more well known with each new vintage since taking over the estate in 2015. At first a humble family affair, Domaine Fumey-Chatelain has evolved into a larger project with 17 hectares in the heart of the Jura, next door to Domaine du Pélican, the famed estate operated by Marquis d’Angerville. This is quintessential Jura: a chardonnay that can weave in and out of plush textures and fresh citrus.
Le Puy de l’Ours Savigny Les Beaune ‘Les Goudelettes’ 2023 $155
We love love here. Especially when it leads to beautiful and singular wines from one of the cooler (figuratively & literally) regions in Burgundy, Savigny-lès-Beaune. Jean and Juliette bought some land from her grandmother back in 2020 and have really hit the ground running with a style of chardonnay that hides nothing and just absolutely unfurls in the glass. This bottling comes from limestone and it possesses acid that I just can’t get enough of because…I love acid. This wine delivers that and much more.
xx H
Before You Go...
We’ve been Goop’d!
Burgundy for all! We may be on to chardonnay, but don’t fret—we’re still talking up sake in VinePair.
Nikita reflects on her year of bucking trends over at Decanter.
Thrilled to see we made Ryan Sutton’s highlights of the year in The Lo Times!
Come on in for “Salem winter vibes” and Jacob’s wicked good “evil negroni.”
We so look forward to your thoughtful and informative Zines. You give so much care and thought into everything you prepare for us VERY BLESSED Smithereens fans. THANK YOU!