Michael's Genuine Makes #4 On Bruni's List
Fourth. Not too shabby for Michael Schwartz, considering the really great restaurants he beat out. Here's what New York Times food critic Frank Bruni, who listed his top 10 best new restaurants outside of New York, had to say about Michael's Genuine Food & Drink:
And yet genuine is how this restaurant comes across. Once it leaves the dictionary behind, there are few games, no nonsense: just refreshingly straightforward cooking by a chef, Michael Schwartz, exercising an impulse shared by many peers these days. He’s ditching the haute for the homey and focusing more on sourcing than on saucing.Congratulations Michael! As for the rest of us, this is only going to make our lives more difficult — it's going to be impossible to get a reservation now.Don’t get me wrong: you most certainly can’t do this at home. You don’t have time to round up the range of ingredients that Mr. Schwartz has, especially the Florida black grouper, swordfish and pompano. And you’re highly unlikely to be equipped with a wood-fired oven, which is what he uses for a whole snapper ($15 a pound) with bulbs of fennel and, separately, a fat onion stuffed with cinnamon-scented ground lamb and apricots ($14).
But Mr. Schwartz is indeed going for the warmth and robustness of home cooking, along with its guiltiest, least sophisticated pleasures: chips (potato) and dip (onion) are on the menu, and you’d be lunatic not to order this ($6).
4. Michael's Genuine Food & Drink [New York Times]
Michael's Genuine Food & Drink [MenuPages]
Michael's Genuine Food & Drink [Official Site]
