OCTOBER 2019 – 37
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LA
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LIV
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)
Away – The Road to the Hot 10
At Kāwi in New
York City, the
restaurant’s name
is actually a play
on the Korean
word for scissors.
“You use them to
cut barbecue and
fried food,” chef
Eunjo Park says.
“They’re integral
to Korean cooking.”
She pays tribute
to her heritage with
gold-plated shears,
which arrive with
the chopsticks and
spoons. We’ll spare
you the Edward
Scissorhands joke
and just say: We’re
into it. —ELYSE INAMINE
Part of what’s so
enjoyable about a tasting
menu is abdicating
responsibility for making
decisions and submitting
entirely to someone else’s
vision. But why is someone
else’s vision to feed me so
much food that I feel sick by
the end? The excessive egos
behind a few excessive
tasting menus started to
make me dismissive of the
whole genre. I don’t think I’m
alone. In fact, I know I’m not
because this year I saw so
many restaurants designing
tasting menus with diners’
various appetites in mind.
At Kumiko and Kikkō
in Chicago, the bar’s creative
director, Julia Momose,
customizes her cocktail
pairings to every diner’s
desires, and the few
extraordinary bites of food on
the omakase ($130), offered
downstairs, are truly meant
as sidecars to the beverages.
I similarly appreciated
Savage in St. Louis, where
I could sample chef Logan
Ely’s vision in a six-course
tasting ($55) rather than
commit to the full 12-course
version. If I’m hungry
afterward, I can eat a hot
dog—that’s my choice. —J.K.
The Tasting
Menu Is
No Longer
Trying
to Kill Me
Chicken Liver:
It’s What’s for Appetizer
It didn’t seem like anything could become
as ubiquitous on menus as steak tartare (with
potato chips! or mustard seeds!), and yet
it’s happening: Chicken-liver mousse has taken
over. I loved this Vietnamese-ish riff with
Set your table
à la Kāwi with
these Sunland
scissors. $11;
amazon.com
6
NO.
4
NO.
SCiSSORS > KNiVES
5
