better than me. Maybe I could get him sloshed, he'd start venting, make
injudicious comments about some of those culinary heroes he'd worked
for in the past.
I mentioned I'd eaten at Le Bernardin recently, the full-bore chef tasting.
An eyebrow went up. "Oh yeah? What did you have?"
When I told him, he looked happy, like I get when describing my first
oyster.
"You have the mackerel tartare, dude?" he asked.
"Yeah," I said, hesitating. "It was good . . . really good."
"Yeah," said Scott. "It is good, isn't it? What else did you have?"
I told him, the two of us talking about menus like some people talk about
the Miracle Mets or the Koufax-era Dodgers.
"Who's making food these days that interests you," I asked.
"Oh, let's see . . . Tom. Tom Collicchio at Gramercy Tavern. Tom makes
really good food . . . and Rocco di Spirito at Union Pacific is doing
interesting stuff."
"Have you seen this foam guy's shit?" I asked, talking about Ferran
Adrià's restaurant of the minute, El Bulli, in Spain.
"That foam guy is bogus," he smirked, "I ate there, dude—and it's like . .
. shock value. I had seawater sorbet!"
That was about as much bad-mouthing as I could get out of him. I
wanted to know what he likes to eat, "You know, after hours, you're half
in the bag and you get hungry. What do you want to eat?"