A Celebration of Chefs and Others

M.F.K. Fisher, the simultaneously subtle and brilliant food writer, devoted a chapter in her opus Serve It Forth to the importance of dining alone. She loved to cook and entertain guests which is beautifully rendered in her writing but she never forgot to make time for herself. Even when dining alone Fisher would treat her meal with the same delicate touch and refined style that she lavished on her guests. I totally agree with her notion that eating alone does not have to be a chore, bore, or quick fix of crappy food. She attributes this philosophy of eating well, even when alone, to a Roman noble named Lucullus. Lucullus was a grand gourmet notorious for the wealth he squandered on his food budget and opulent feasts.

One day he verbally abused his team of chefs when they served him leftovers, stale bread, and overly watered wine on an off day from his busy social schedule. When his staff stood apologetically before him they pleaded that since he was eating alone they assumed a lavish feast was not a necessity. He rebuked them by saying that when Lucullus dines with Lucullus the food should be at its very best, going above and beyond what they served his guests. Lucullus ate the finest foods and drank his most potent vintages when dining alone, because he was worth it. I agree wholeheartedly that it is warranted to treat yourself now and again to a special meal made especially for you.

Once Anthony Bourdain left The Food Network in a trail of acrimonious dust, he started a second television career on The Travel Channel. The show (”No Reservations”) was better (because, among other things, they allowed Anthony to be his acerbic, outrageous self) but he was gone from my life because the Travel Channel was not available from our cable company. We ordered episodes from Netflix, took them out of the library, and once, in a media coup that rivalled the day when my brother and I tuned in what we believed to be “porn”on the TV in the living room by fiddling rabbit ears and vertical hold, we found one episode of “No Reservations” on “On Demand,” and watched it with the fervor and intensity appropriate for a bootleg copy of Tommy and Pamela.

Then, one day, the Travel Channel appeared as I was flipping up towards the Premiums, bearing the portentous channel assignment “123.” (It’s portentous because I can remember it). We fell, that evening, under the spell of a young man named Adam Richman, and a show called “Man v. Food.” We fell hard. It is fabulous beyond all reckoning that we can now see “No Reservations” before the episodes are two years old, and there are a couple of other shows on the channel that we’ve enjoyed, but Richman is a revelation of how a network can combine really smart and really commercially appealing and create something that appeals to a large and diverse audience.

At first glance, the Hollywood restaurant Kate Mantilini's seems an unusual backdrop for life-sized pictures of Mad Men, a show set in 1960s New York. That is, until owner Marilyn Lewis provides the back story. 

Q: What's the history behind Kate Mantilini's and why did you put up the Mad Men display.

A: It's been 21 years since we opened Kate Mantilini's, which I named after my Uncle Rob's mistress. My mother wouldn't let me speak to her, nobody would allow us to mention her name, but she was a very strong woman and I wanted to name my restaurant after her. My husband was under contract with Warner Brothers, and he did 50 films in the 1940s before we went into the restaurant business.

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Steve Plotnicki and Opinionated About Dining are proud to announce the list of Top 100 Restaurants in America for 2012 as determined by the Opinionated About Dining Survey. Over 3,000 people, including many of the top food bloggers in the country, registered for this year’s survey and contributed more than 70,000 reviews.

The Opinionated About Dining approach to rating restaurants relies on tapping into the experience and opinions from diners who are passionate about where they eat and who describe how strongly they would recommend a restaurant and why. The methodology further gives weight to different kinds of restaurants and survey participants based on factors such as price point and number of restaurants reviewed.  The surveys that form the basis of the ratings are open to the general public and can be accessed via Opinionated About Dining.

“If these survey results have shown me anything, it’s that 2012 is and will continue to be an incredible year to dine at some of the most progressive and thoughtful restaurants in recent memory,” says Plotnicki. “Take the number one restaurant of the year, Manresa by David Kinch, a perfect example of a chef and restaurant that are pushing the boundaries and encouraging the culinary industry’s creativity and advancement.”