cuisine art
...ceviche nantu
b
c
a
k
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et
scallops
He starts with Champagne. The Champagne is the
easy part—a stalling tactic. A bottle for the table
before the agony sets in. His friends, they love
Champagne. They drink it quickly. Too quickly.
Before long, they’re looking at him and asking him
to pick a white.
“It drives me crazy,” he says. “I’ll be panicked
about the right white wine [to go] with the food.”
He’ll study the list and spend up to 30 minutes
deciding what to get. Then, it’s on to the Burgundy,
the Bordeaux, the dessert wine. “I will spend half
of my time deciding on the wine!” he laments.
Make that “would.” Because these days,
restaurant owner and award-winning director
Joe Pytka doesn’t have to agonize over selecting
wine. He doesn’t even have to select his food. Not
anymore. Not since he reopened Bastide.
“I’ve always felt that I’d like to have a restaurant
where you treat people as if they were your family
and—this sounds a little bit corny—but as guests in
your home,” Pytka says. At the new Bastide that’s
exactly how he treats them. Guests are given
only two
prix fixe
choices when it comes to the
food: four courses or seven. There is no requesting
the veal, no splitting a salad or having a second
round of oysters. The minimal descriptions of each
course (“rabbit,” “sweets”) rarely extend past one
word, and when they do (“Thai street food”), it
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