the dishTheLT
For luncheonette and diner habitués, the BLT is a year-round con-
cern, about as seasonal as a side of home fries. But a certain subset of
Greenmarket-going chefs (and eaters) insists the sandwich should
only make its annual appearance when local tomatoes reach their
peak. This philosophy is so ingrained at Danny Meyer’s Gramercy
café, Daily Provisions, that bacon is demoted from top billing to
optional add-on. And that’s not the only way the LT breaks with
convention: The bread is crusty ciabatta instead of toasted white.
Baby watercress replaces crunchy iceberg. And the star ingredient is
peeled and marinated pre-assembly, a technique
devised to solve a culinary mystery executive
sous-chef Donovan Tian describes thusly: “How
do you make tomatoes taste more like tomatoes
than before?” r.r.&r.p.scratchpadConcept, technique and execution, and
overall inventiveness add up to a very
decent 82.
bitesIDEAL MEAL:Escargot or frogs’ legs; beef-
tongue sando; salmon tartare; an assortment
of skewers including duck à l’orange, lobster,
lamb, chicken wing, pork belly, and spring
leeks; profiteroles with ginger and matcha.
NOTE:The bar serves only batched cocktails,
but you can get a slightly more diverse
selection of moderately priced wines (try the
excellent Séléné Beaujolais by the
biodyn go
with yo
Wedne 9.On the menu at
Daily Provisions; $12;
103 E. 19th St., nr. Park
Ave. S.; 212-488-1505LSee The Thousand Best at grubstreet.com^
for 999 more great places to eat and drink.of little nuggets of grilled chicken tender-
loin set in a pool of Julia Child–era sauce
Robert. That’s a brown sauce, in case you
didn’t know, made with white wine, plenty
of stock (pork in this case), and a touch
of mustard. It’s just one of a veritable
rainbow of old-fashioned, even archaic
recipes torn from the Child (and Anto-
nin Carême) canon that Baxtrom and
his cooks pair, depending on their mood
and what’s at the market, with tenderized
chunks of pork belly (Dijonnaise), rib eye
(Bordelaise), or lobster, which is mashed
into a single elongated meatball, the
way chicken is often served at standard
yakitori shops, poured with a rich, coral-
colored version of sauce américaine, and
stuck with a bamboo skewer.
Unlike many yakitori shops I remem-
ber patronizing in Tokyo, there’s only one
skewer per serving at this entertaining
bar-restaurant, which means the cost of
dinner (and drinks) can add up quickly.
The cloying richness of the endless succes-
sion of butter- and cream-mounted sauces
can begin to add up too, so for rationing
purposes, I recommend the lobster and
the lamb, and make sure you get a taste
of the signature house duck à l’orange,
which is another elongated meatball
skewer. It’s served with what appears to be
a raw egg yolk but turns out to be a sphere
of orange purée floating in a bowl of duck
jus mixed with sweetened soy sauce.
When choosing among Franco- Japanese
fusion desserts, it’s usually wise to skew
as French as you possibly can, which in
this case means stiff, sugar-topped prof-
iteroles stuffed with scoops of ginger ice
cream, instead of vanilla, and poured with
a green, slightly radioactive-looking sauce
flavored with matcha.Azest-heavylemon-
basil aïoliseeps
into the bread’s airy
nooks and crannies.
PHOTOGRAPH: STELLA BLACKMON/NEW YORK MAGAZINE
Beefsteak tomatoes from
Greenmarket’s Sycamore Farms are
blanched and peeled to better
absorb a marinade of fresh lemon
juice, pepper, and California olive oil.Crisp but still sufficiently soft,
ciabatta is baked in-house,
toasted in the high-powered
TurboChef oven, and rubbed with
a garlic clove while hot.Tian considers
watercress an underrated
green and “more
peppery than arugula.”61