Mise en Place

Wine, Food, and Other Vital Things

Tag: Babbo

Babbo, an old favorite of mine, is getting a new chef. (Photo by Heath Brandon)

What I’m Reading: Fake Champagne, Pesticide Dangers, and Henry Louis Gates Jr. on Jamaica Kincaid

September 3, 2025 / / 0 Comments

Didier Chopin’s life has been a touch hectic during the past several years. The winemaker was sent to jail this week for 18 months after being found guilty of selling hundreds of thousands of bottles of fake Champagne — or should I write “champagne”? He’s also facing sexual assault charges. He was sentenced in a court in Reims. Fake bubbles are not cool.

It was, for a long while, my favorite restaurant in New York. Wedding anniversaries and birthdays were all celebrated there, and I never had a bad time at the Waverly Place Italian destination, no matter if dining at the bar (where on one evening I had a long and pleasant conversation with Jay McInerney), upstairs in the former hay loft, or at “my” table at the far end (on the right) of the downstairs dining room. Babbo was the place — is the place. I sadly had my first awful experience at the restaurant back in 2019, the last time I was there for dinner, so am looking forward to seeing how Mark Ladner transforms the place. He knows it and its creator, Mario Batali, quite well, after all. I hope the Mint Love Letters are on his menu.

A new owner and chef for an old favorite of mine. (Photo by Heath Brandon)

Jess Lander has written a downright dystopian article in the San Francisco Chronicle about the 2025 harvest in California. “Tens of thousands of acres of vineyards have been ripped out across the state, and despite mostly ideal weather conditions this growing season, more than 100,000 tons of California wine grapes will likely be left on the vines to rot — for the second consecutive year,” Lander writes. Brutal, indeed.

To continue in the less-than-good-news category, proposed federal legislation that seeks to bar states from regulating pesticides and insecticides is in danger of being passed into law. A provision in the legislation, section 453, prohibits the EPA and adjacent agencies from updating production warning labels from original conclusions under the 1947 Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. According to WineBusiness.com, in an article written by Michelle Williams, section 453 would “grant immunity to all foreign and domestic manufacturers” of these products for failure to “warn about product hazards.” It does appear to be as bad as it seems. Want more glyphosate and paraquat on your vines?

In better news, the Texas Wine Month Passport 2025 is available for purchase now. It gives you access to tastings, discounts, events, and other good things going on at more than 45 Texas Hill Country wineries from October 1 through October 31. A portion of the proceeds from passport sales goes toward the Texas Hill Country Wine Industry Scholarship Fund, so your pleasure will also help others.

Jamaica Kincaid in 2029. (Jamaica Kincaid på Bokmässan 2019. Foto: Niklas Maupoix” by Bokmässan, CC BY-NC 2.0)

There is, of course, more to this world than wine. Mise en Place, my site, is subtitled “Wine, Food, and Other Vital Things,” and literature and books are two of those vital things in my life. Henry Louis Gates Jr. has written a wonderful piece on Jamaica Kincaid’s work and life in the current issue of The New York Review of Books, and I recommend it wholeheartedly, whether you are familiar with Kincaid or not. Gardening, writing, Black literature, a moving, tempestuous relationship with a mother, and a woman whose early years in Manhattan have long enthralled me. Kincaid is the real thing, and has been for decades.

This week’s reading roster ends on a book, one that should, I strongly posit, be in the library of anyone who respects French wine, its history and place in the world, and its present and future. Get yourself a copy of Jon Bonné’s The New French Wine and revel in Chablis, Pinot Noir, insightful and moving profiles of producers and winemakers, and maps and impressions and opinions. It’s a great book, and will provide you with a lot of reading pleasure. You’ll learn some good things, too.

We'll always have Paris.

She Said Yes, Sixty Floors Above Liberty Street: A Snapshot of Our Never-Ending Journey

November 25, 2018 / / 2 Comments

Angela and I lived around the corner from each other in Brooklyn Heights, a few years apart. We both worked at a financial publication in the Financial District, The Bond Buyer, at different times several years apart. Her apartment on Montague Street was small and cold in the winter, mine on Atlantic and Henry was small and too warm in the winter. Our paths never crossed in New York back then, but it seems they were destined to.

With hindsight, it seems only natural that Angela and I should have chosen to live in that Brooklyn neighborhood. Down the street is St. Anne’s School, and restaurants of all sorts, by the hundreds, are a short walk away.  Sahadi’s is there, and BAM is nearby. It’s a wonderful place, with fine views of Manhattan — Norman Mailer and Truman Capote, among other great writers and artists, called it home, and I sometimes think about all the adventures Angela and I would have had there if our lives had intersected earlier.

Our meeting had to wait a few more years. It was 2008, and I had been in the United Arab Emirates since February, working at an English-language daily based in Abu Dhabi. Angela arrived in December, having accepted a job on the business desk. I knew the ins and outs of what it took to get settled in the UAE (driver license, mobile-phone and bank accounts, social courtesies and etiquette, bureaucratic idiocy, etc.), so offered to help her get settled.

Early in 2009, we decided to move to Dubai. I was spending a lot of time in that emirate because my friend James lived there (it’s about an hour’s drive from Abu Dhabi straight through the desert), and our employer had dropped the ball regarding Angela’s promised Abu Dhabi lodgings. We settled on a large apartment on the 34th floor of a new high-rise complex with impressive views of the Arabian Gulf.

Here’s a photo gallery of some of the people, places, and things that mean the world to us:

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New friends (too many to mention here), old friends, dinner parties, excursions to Barracuda (a liquor emporium in the Ras al Khaimah desert) to stock up on wine and spirits, trips to Beirut and Oman and Umbria and Barcelona many other places, job changes — Angela and I departed the newspaper for which we moved to the Gulf, she to freelance for The New York Times, Time, and other publications, I to work at Al Arabiya — arguments, smiles, misunderstandings, the sadness and joy of love and life, human frailties … we experienced it all.

Then a farewell to the Emirates for both of us, after nearly five years, and adventures in Europe and India and Russia and Hong Kong and Japan and reunions with friends and an award for Angela in her parent’s ancestral homeland and work in several restaurants in Europe and so much more.

Our journey continued in 2013, back in the U.S. Angela had accepted a job as Texas editor of Xconomy; I spent February of that year in Hong Kong with my friend Dean Cox, then a week or so in Tokyo before heading to New York and a reunion with friends and visits to restaurants and places dear to me (Babbo, Palo Santo, Le Bernardin, the Met, Prospect Park, et al). I flew down to Florida to spend some time with my parents and ailing grandmother.  Angela met my parents, and she and I gathered with friends at a lake house in North Carolina, and at The Kentucky Derby (our stay in a haunted bed and breakfast overseen by an eccentric woman was full of spirit). Angela returned to Houston, and I to Florida, where we soon buried Ida, in my mother’s family cemetery next to my grandfather James.

I had begun searching for employment in Houston, and drove north and west from Florida, stopping along the way for a few days in New Orleans (a culinary sojourn, where I dined with a friend at Brigtsen’s, a friend whom I had not seen for years but whose distinctive voice had led me to him from across a crowded room in an artist’s Paris atelier a few years before our New Orleans dinner).

Angela’s parents were kind enough to put me up in their home while I looked for an apartment in Houston, and she and I renewed our adventures in Texas’ Hill Country, Dallas, Austin, Chicago, St. John, California, New Orleans, Berlin and Prague and Puglia. We started The Brockhaus, and took it to Nantucket, where I was hired by Constance and Alison to cook at their wedding  (just two of the fine people I’ve met through Angela). I got to know Angela’s family, we celebrated Indian and American holidays, and we travelled with friends (individuals full of art and spirit and soul and grace and love) and spent time with my family and adopted a cat. And we never stopped journeying.

A moment 10 years in the making.

In September of this year, Angela and I finally walked the streets of New York together, the city I love and lived in for 15 years,  where, 60 floors above Liberty Street, at the close of a long meal at Manhatta, she said yes.

Where will we venture next? I don’t know, but we can’t wait.

A little bit of my New York in Hong Kong

February 20, 2013 / / 0 Comments

I’ve been away from New York for a while, and I miss it, a lot, but our planet is a big one, and there’s a lot to see out here, and I’ve been lucky enough to see a lot of it lately. Still, every time I return to the city for a visit one of the places I always make sure to get to is Babbo, that magical restaurant on Waverly Place that has never failed to make me happy, never.

Whether I dine at a table upstairs – the quieter room – or downstairs, which is louder and busier, or at the bar, my favorite place at Babbo, from the moment I enter the former coach house’s door I become part of what I consider one of the best restaurants in New York, if not the world. (I’ve eaten in a lot of great dining rooms in many parts of the world, and my experiences at Babbo have always been right up at the top of the list.)

But this is not about Babbo, not really. And it’s not about New York. (On the other hand, it’s about both of those places, in a roundabout way.) It’s about Hong Kong, and Lupa, another restaurant created by the Bastianich and Batali empire. (There is, of course, a New York Lupa, another fine place to eat owned by Bastianich and Batali, which gives its name to the Hong Kong outpost.)

But it’s mainly about getting my Babbo fix. (And this is for another time, but I could also use some time at Casa Mono and Otto and, to a lesser degree, Esca and Del Posto. I shall return.)

Lupa opened in Hong Kong last year, and I was hoping that the kinks had been ironed out of service and the kitchen, because I know how difficult it is to take a concept and style and duplicate it in a country that shares nothing in common with the original location’s environment, and by environment I mean ingredients, customs, diner expectations and other, often ineffable, things.

I called for a table at the last minute, and had no trouble getting one. I was dining alone, something I love to do. (I can better take in a place that way; I don’t have to engage in conversation, and I don’t have to worry about my dining companion(s) liking – or not liking – the food.) Keep in mind that I was not under the illusion that Lupa Hong Kong would be an exact replica of the Lupa in Manhattan, or that the vibe and feel of Babbo would have been magically transported thousands of miles from Waverly Place to the Central neighborhood of Hong Kong. I was there for the food, food that I hoped would, for a few hours, allow me to taste Babbo again.

Judging by the food, I was not disappointed. In fact, I was very pleased, with the entire evening. The service was excellent, if a little too punctual. (It always annoys me when staff in a restaurant want to rush away one’s plate or bowl the second it seems to be almost empty; I like to have time to sop up the remaining sauce, or merely savor the dish fully. Swooping down on a table and whisking away the porcelain disrupts, to my mind, what should be a calming and rejuvenating experience for all of the senses.) The waiters seemed to know the wine list, though they acted a bit confused when I ordered a Negroni instead of immediately placing my food order.

A menu that takes me back to Babbo

A menu that takes me back to Babbo

As I sipped my apéritif, I looked at the menu, and my eye went immediately to the Pasta Tasting Menu, because I reckoned that would be a good representation of the kitchen’s work. I have enjoyed Babbo’s pasta tasting menu on many occasions, so that’s what I ordered.

A treat from the chef came first, two orecchietta filled with marrow. They were an excellent start to the meal: warm, perfectly al dente, and filled with rich, smooth marrow.

Marvelous marrow

Marvelous marrow

Next came a cold pasta, Tonarelli Freddi. A small piece of sea urchin graced the top of a mound of square spaghetti, loosely mixed into which was an abundant amount of tender – read “not overcooked” – crabmeat. Bringing all of the ingredients together was a jalapeño pesto, and its effect in the cold dish was stupendous – it was a bit spicy, a bit hot on the front of the tongue, but then heat evolved into warmth and deepness. Splendid. It made the crab better than it should have been.

Urchin, black spaghetti, and jalapeño pesto: what more could one desire?

Urchin, black spaghetti, and jalapeño pesto: what more could one desire?

I had ordered a quartino of one of Bastianich’s whites with the early part of the menu, and it was a good one: dry, but lively.

Postage stamps that one wants to lick over and over again

Postage stamps that one wants to lick over and over again

Next came Francobolli, or, as described on the menu, Caciocavallo-filled “Postage Stamps” with White Asparagus and Fava Beans. First, I love fresh favas, everything about them. I love preparing them, shelling them, removing the thin membrane … everything. Their bright green color (if they are blanched properly) are a treat for the eye, and their taste … their taste is often ethereal, a rich accompaniment to meats and pastas and nearly everything. The asparagus was crisp, the pasta was thin and allowed the sheep’s cheese to creep out in my mouth, and the sauce, which seemed to be butter and olive oil and cheese, added the right amount of richness to a successful dish. Mint supplied another flavor component, a proper one.

We were moving on from the seafood-pasta portion now, so I ordered a quartino of red, a nice and unassuming Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. And then came my favorite dish of the evening. It included pork sausage. And fennel pollen. And broccoli rabe. And it was excellent. House-made little ears, as the menu described it (and I hope all of the pastas at Lupa Hong Kong are made in the house). Mild sausage, sprinked with fennel pollen, in a dish studded with crisp rabe. I’d have it again, any time.

Ears that talk to my mouth

Ears that talk to my mouth

Now, unfortunately, came my least favorite plate of the night. And it’s a shame, because pigeon is one of my favorite things to eat. At Spring and Amador, two places I spent some time at last year, pigeon is done well, very well. As it should be. The pigeon I had at Lupa was, as I described to myself upon chewing the first piece, mealy. And I am hoping it was an anomaly, because I will try it again at Lupa in Hong Kong, because, as I said, I love pigeon. The plate was basically pappardelle, wide ribbon pasta, “in salmi,” and the sauce and the pasta were very good. But that pigeon.

Pappardelle and pigeon, which I am thinking will be better next time I try it

Pappardelle and pigeon, which I am thinking will be better next time I try it

I was then presented with a soft, runny, brie-like cheese, accompanied with truffled honey and thin brioche wafers, and the dessert wine I ordered, a Moscato d’Asti (Bricco Quaglia” La Spinetta 2011), made the plate sing. Rich cheese, rich honey, and truffles. Nothing better. Almost nothing better.

Dessert was rhubarb panna cotta, about which I had no qualms. I recall that it had a bit too much citrus taste for my palate, but I am not big on citrus desserts, and I bet that 99 out of 100 diners would find it wonderful.

The kitchen is run by Zach Allen, who has a long history with Batali and Bastianich, and Jeff Newman, the latter of whom I had a wide-ranging conversation with during dinner. We discussed Cantonese eating habits, culinary school, New York and the rigors of sourcing ingredients, among other topics. They seem to have the kitchen in tip-top shape, and in my opinion have done an excellent job in a fairly short period of time. Juan Gimenez, Lupa’s manager, has assembled perfect order in the dining room, and has put together a great service.

If you are in Hong Kong, go to Lupa. I am going again soon. And if you are in New York, keep my place at Babbo’s bar warm. I will be back there soon, ready for some Mint Love Letters, a sweetbread or two, and that sublime goose liver ravioli.

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