Turban de Langoustines en Spaghetti

In 1997 NBC ran an advertisement campaign with the slogan: If you haven’t seen it, it’s new to you. The goal of the commercial was to get viewers to watch the reruns of the fall TV shows in the following summer. This was the pre-streaming era when shows were not on demand. The campaign wasn’t successful but the slogan always stayed with me.

Instead of television, the tagline might be more applicable to food and restaurants. Just like everything in life, food and restaurants are subject to fashion. Marketeers and journalists are constantly promoting new things, which encourages the general public to chase after the latest trends. From fusion to molecular gastronomy to new Nordic, every few years bring a new must-eat creation or a must-travel-to restaurant.

As we seek to taste the latest creations from the celebrity chefs of the moment, we forget there are more dishes from the past that we never had before. For instance, many people of my age or younger never had the classic dishes such as, Poularde en Vessie, Coulibiac, Canard à la Presse, Chartreuse…etc. Instead of foraging, pouring liquid nitrogen, or eating insects, why not seek out the greatest hits of the culinary world?

One of the classics that have fascinated me for the past year is Turban de Langoustines en Spaghetti by Joël Robuchon. My interest in the Turban began shortly after Robuchon's passing last summer. In an interview Robuchon gave last year, he referred to a proverb that said, “when an old man dies, a library burns down”. Robuchon said, “I have seen so many good chefs — some famous, some not — who have gone and, with them, a part of knowledge and tradition is lost and nobody can take it back.”

With his words in my mind, I flipped through the pages of Grand Livre de Cuisine de Joël Robuchon to see how many dishes of his that I have never tried before. The Turban caught my eye because it is not only a dish from Robuchon’s first three-star restaurant, Jamin, but also one of the ten recipes in the Best of Robuchon book. The dish is also included in Simply French, the book on Robuchon by Patricia Wells. Besides the importance of the dish in Robuchon's repertoire, I am also attracted by the architectural shape of the dish, a torus sliced horizontally in half. Or perhaps I am just intrigued by the peculiar nature of the dish: a French chef using an Italian pasta for his signature creation. I tried to find the history of the dish, but I didn’t have much success. Ever since last summer I wondered whether one day I would be able to try the Turban.

Last October when Philippe Braun, one of Robuchon’s longest collaborators came to Taipei to visit, I asked him why doesn’t L’Atelier make the Turban or some of the other classics from the days of Jamin. Braun said the Turban is not for L’Atelier, where the dishes are meant to be a bit more casual and simple. The classic dishes such as the Turban are for the gastronomy restaurants such as the one in Macau, Tokyo, or Las Vegas; they take a lot more work to prepare. However when I looked online at the menus of the three gastronomy restaurants, I didn’t see the Turban either. The Chef de Cuisine of Taipei at the time, Olivier Jean, told me later that the Turban is not on any of the menus at Robuchon restaurants but only made during special dinners.

I didn’t know when the next special dinner would take place in Taipei, thus I thought I would try to make the Turban at home. After all I have the recipe in my collection of cookbooks. In the Best of Robuchon, there are even photos of each step of the preparation. My thinking was since I make architectural models at work, I ought to be able to assemble a half torus at home. By chance I have a few individual savarin molds at home. I bought them on sale a long time ago at JB Prince in New York. They are bigger than the ones Robuchon called for. But I figured the techniques are the same. Instead of a tasting menu portion I would just make a main course.

The first step of the recipe is to brush the insides of the savarin molds with soft butter and then place them in the fridge to firm up. In the meantime boil a pot of water to par cook the spaghetti for about six minutes. Afterwards rinse the pasta under cold water, drain, and set aside; cover the pasta with plastic wrap to prevent them from drying out. Then line the inside of the mold with a single strand of spaghetti starting at the bottom. The process of lining the mold is not easy with my large hands. I couldn’t quite lasso the spaghetti into the mold so I had to use my two hands to slowly layer and pack the spaghetti in. While it is harder than I imagined, it is definitely doable. Once the mold is completely lined with spaghetti, they go back into the fridge to be chilled.

As the molds are being chilled, I made the mousse. Instead of langoustine which is hard to source, I used shrimp. Simply brush the shrimp with soft butter and blend them with cream in a food processor. Once a mousse-like texture is achieved, brush the the mousse onto the chilled spaghetti in the mold. Then put the deveined and shelled shrimps in the mold. Cover the molds with a buttered aluminum foil and return the molds to the refrigerator again.

The recipe is tedious, but many of the steps can be done separately and beforehand. When it is time to serve the dish, simply take the molds out of the fridge and place them in a steamer and steam for around three minutes. Then quickly remove the aluminum foil and unmold onto a plate. When the turban of spaghetti is unmolded it is quite a sight. I cannot help but marvel at the dish. I don’t know what inspired Robuchon to line a savarin mould with spaghetti strands. It’s just an incredible creation. I asked my two daughters to try the dish and they loved it. Will they remember the dish when they grow older, I don’t know. Unlike me who has met Robuchon, they are are even further removed from the dish. I hope they will learn to love the classics.

Last March the team of chefs from the Robuchon group, headed by Robuchon’s righthand man Eric Bouchenoire, came to Taipei for their annual visit. They prepared a special dinner honoring Robuchon’s legacy. One of the dishes Bouchenoire chose to make was the Turban of Spaghetti. I finally had a chance to eat the dish. He said good langoustine wasn’t available so the filling was made with scallop instead. Nevertheless the dish was everything that I expected and more. There’s a delicacy to the flavors behind the architectural construction of the dish. The sauce for the dish was delicious, full of umami, or as the Chinese would say, xian-wei. The slices of truffle elevated the dish to another level. It was perfect.

After the dinner, I showed Bouchenoire the picture of my attempt at making the Turban. He looked closely and said it was good but I used too much butter. I didn’t think there was ever the possibility of too much butter in French food. I did use a lot of butter because I was afraid the spaghetti wouldn’t unmold properly. Bouchenoire said too much butter may make the spaghetti less stable. I know the reality is even with enough practice I probably cannot make the Turban as well as the restaurant. And I can make two or four nice turbans at a time, it is hard for me to imagine making 50 of them perfectly under time pressure like at the restaurant.

Looking at and eating the Turban I could feel Robuchon’s presence. While he may be gone, he has passed on his knowledge to his numerous collaborators. However, it is not enough to just retain the knowledge. For Robuchon’s DNA to truly live on, the diners need to demand to eat the classic dishes at the restaurants. We need to realize that we always stand in a timeline where the past is farther away from us than the future. The future may be unclear, however, vast parts of the past are just as fuzzy. While it is interesting to be part of the experimentation of the present, a classic is actually an experiment in the past that worked and lasted. If you never had it, it's new to you.

Dot Dot Dot

“Can I propose something for the vitrines at the counter?”, I asked Chef Olivier Jean of L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon Taipei a couple of months ago. He accepted my offer but was probably a bit puzzled by my interest. While similar to the vitrines at a sushi bar, the ones at L’Atelier are not for displaying the day’s ingredients, but extending the decoration surrounding the open kitchen. Conceived and installed by the front-of-house staff, the contents of the vitrines change to reflect the seasons or the holidays. Whenever I dine at the counter of L’Atelier I see the vitrines and ask myself what would I do.

Since I’m an architect I want to do a more architectural installation. The theme of my proposal is dot dot dot. Using dots as a point of departure comes from the dishes at L’Atelier. Dots of sauces are frequently used as the finishing touches on a dish. The most famous example is the lobster gelée with caviar and cauliflower. At the top of the dish there is a ring of perfectly spaced tiny green dots. When the restaurant critic of the New York Times reviewed L’Atelier in the City, he wrote, “Not one dot of sauce, and there are many, is out of place.“

Besides the culinary nature of the dots, the theme makes a reference to ellipsis, a literary device to indicate an unfinished thought. Chef Robuchon passed away unexpectedly last summer, leaving many unfinished ideas on the future of food and restaurants. As such this installation is also conceived as a tribute to him.

There are six vitrines spread out along the length of the counter at L’Atelier. Each vitrine contains a variation on the theme of dot dot dot: cave, cityscape, constellation, park, ruin, and wave. All of them are based on circular geometry and abstraction. Architecture, nature, and ideas are reimagined as dot dot dot.

“Puis-je proposer quelque chose pour les vitrines au comptoir?”, Ai-je demandé au chef Olivier Jean de L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon Taipei il ya deux mois. Il a accepté mon offre mais était probablement un peu perplexe par mon intérêt. Semblables aux vitrines des bars à sushis, celles de L’Atelier ne servent pas à afficher les ingrédients de la journée, mais à prolonger la décoration entourant la cuisine ouverte. Conçu et installé par le personnel d'accueil, le contenu des vitrines change pour refléter les saisons ou les fêtes. Chaque fois que je dîne au comptoir de L’Atelier, je vois les vitrines et je me demande ce que je ferais.

Depuis que je suis un architecte, je veux faire une installation plus architecturale. Le thème de ma proposition est point point point. L’utilisation des points comme point de départ provient des plats de L’Atelier. Des points de sauce sont fréquemment utilisés pour la finition d'un plat. L'exemple le plus célèbre est la gelée de caviar à la crème de chou-fleur. Au surface du plat, il y a un anneau de minuscules points verts parfaitement espacés. Lorsque le critique de restaurant du New York Times a examiné L’Atelier dans sa ville, il a écrit: “Pas un point de sauce, et il y en a beaucoup, n’est à sa place.”

En dehors de la nature culinaire des points, le thème fait référence à des points de suspension, un dispositif littéraire indiquant une pensée inachevée. Chef Robuchon est décédé subitement l'été dernier, laissant de nombreuses idées inachevées sur l'avenir de l'alimentation et des restaurants. En tant que telle, cette installation est également conçue comme un hommage à lui.

Six vitrines sont réparties le long du comptoir de L’Atelier. Chaque vitrine contient une variation sur le thème de point point point: grotte, paysage urbain, constellation, parc, ruine et vague. Tous sont basés sur la géométrie circulaire et l'abstraction. L'architecture, la nature et les idées sont réinventés en tant que point point point.

Impromptu by Paul Lee

As I sit down at the counter of Impromptu by Paul Lee, a server places a small white card with a light grey mat underneath in front of me. On the card is a definition of the word impromptu: done without being planned or rehearsed. I don’t know what compels the restaurant to remind the guests about the meaning of the word. I find the emphasis on the idea of impromptu a bit strange. Impromptu is actually a misnomer because everything done at the restaurant is planned. After the server removes the white card, the grey mat is meant for the diners to put their mobile phones; nothing should be out of place. The restaurant is about control.

The person controlling everything is chef Paul Lee. Tall and handsome, he wouldn’t be out of place on the movie set of Crazy Rich Asians. Standing in the open kitchen he is dressed not in the standard white chef’s jacket but in a dress shirt, similar to the three-Michelin-star chef Alain Passard. Except Passard is usually in a white apron while Lee is in a blue apron that is for the commis in a French kitchen. Perhaps Lee is signaling that he is still learning.

While he may be humble, Lee is a very experienced chef. Born in Taiwan and studied at California’s Blue Ribbon Culinary School, Lee trained at Joël Robuchon's restaurants in Las Vegas with Tomonori Danzaki and in New York City with Xavier Boyer. He also worked at Martin Berasatagui’s Michelin-three-star restaurant in Spain. Prior to returning to Taipei, Lee was the executive chef at the fine dining restaurant Patina in downtown Los Angeles. Working with Joachim Splichal he changed the menu at Patina to an all tasting menu format. At age 37, Lee is one of the few chefs working in Taiwan with extensive experience in fine dining restaurants.

Impromptu only has one tasting menu. Every diner eats what Lee wants to cook. For anyone imagining Impromptu as a place where one can have a conversation with the chef, and he would create a special or new dish on the spot, one would be wrong. This is not like Pierre Gagnaire where he may improvise in the middle of dinner service. After all Lee trained at Robuchon and Robuchon didn’t believe in running specials. Robuchon believed that frequent menu changes meant one is trading perfection for variety. The menu at Impromptu doesn't change everyday and not even every month. Even when the menu changes after a month or two, it is not wholesale.

As Impromptu doesn't offer an à la carte option, it is not a restaurant that one can visit frequently, unless one wants to eat the same dishes over and over. Since the restaurant opened in late summer of 2018, I have been there twice. The visits were six months apart with different menus but in a similar format. I enjoyed both of my dinners.

The restaurant is located at the southeast corner of the shopping mall in the basement of Regent Hotel. From the corridor of the mall, a sliding door of translucent tinted glass opens into the restaurant. On the right is a small bar that doesn’t seem to be used much by the guests. On the left are tables with banquettes. In the middle of the space and in full view of the diners is the kitchen and counter seating.

The restaurant is small. There are 14 seats at the counter and about the same number of seats at the tables. There is also a private room in the back that can seat up to ten people. The ceiling is a bit lower than one would like but this is not the fault of the restaurant; the ceiling of the entire shopping mall is too low. One design flaw of the restaurant is the choice of the chairs for the counter. The seat is not wide and is made more restrictive by the armrests. Armrests for the chairs at the table are fine because the diners are usually talking across the table. The situation at the counter is different as one’s dining companion is on the side. The armrests make turning to the side to talk quite restrictive and uncomfortable. It would be nicer to have seats without armrests like at L'Atelier de Joël Robuchon. The alternative would be to have swivel chairs.

The size and setup of the restaurant seem like a Japanese kappo restaurant, but the overall feel is not. The color palette of the restaurant is quite neutral with off-white, taupe, and light and dark wood. While wood is used for the surfaces, the appearance is not natural but more synthetic. The ceiling is mostly exposed except for the area above the counter. The design reminds me a bit of the restaurant designs by the late David Collins, albeit with a lesser budget. The table setting is simple, with no charger plate nor placemat. There’s just a napkin folded in a square, a water glass, and a wine glass. Small vases with flowers dot the counter. The overall feel of the restaurant is quite pleasant.

Depending on the season, the tasting menu starts with one or more cold dishes. For my first dinner in the summer, there are three cold dishes in a row. The first course is hamachi, watermelon, aguachile. The second is scallop, sakura shrimp, whey, and cucumber. The third is ayu fish, guava, and Sichuan peppercorns. The touch of Sichuan peppercorns is very interesting and done with great precision - just the right amount of numbness in the flavor profile. If one of the criteria for being a good chef is coming up with his or her own combinations of ingredients, then Lee certainly hits the marks.



Lee calls his food new American cuisine and this sounds like a good term. He is trained in the French tradition but his food is multi-cultural. He uses many Asian ingredients such as shaoxing wine, fermented black bean, Chinese sausages, Sichuan peppercorn. He also takes ideas from all sorts of cuisines. In a single tasting menu, there is Chinese noodle, Italian truffle pizza, yakitori, Vietnamese sandwich, French blood sausage, and South American chimichurri sauce. Throughout the dinner the ingredients don't repeat and all the different ideas and tastes go very well together. I really appreciate and like Lee's global outlook, which is more interesting than the narrow focus on Taiwanese flavors of some restaurants in Taipei.

After the cold dishes, bread is served as one of the course. The bread is way too hot as I can barely hold the bread comfortably with my bare hands. Anyone who made bread knows bread should not be eaten straight out of the oven. One needs the bread to cool down a bit for the crust to develop. I assume the bread at Impromptu is baked earlier in the day and reheated during service. While having a hot bread seems satisfying it doesn’t allow one to get the full taste of the bread. In my first dinner, the bread and butter are served as a stand-alone course, and as such they are not special enough. I don't understand why this type of bread or why just one bread. In my second dinner the same bread and butter are served with the soup, which makes more sense. Nevertheless, the role of the bread in the set menu is a bit unclear. It seems the restaurant feels a meal should include bread, but without a baker, the bread program seems a bit half-hearted.

One savory course in the set menu provides the diner with a choice. To choose an alternate entails a supplement. At both of my meals I go with the supplemental charge but I wish I hadn't. For my first dinner, instead of Taiwanese pork, I added NT$550 (a quarter of the price of the entire menu) to have a thin slice of Japanese wagyu beef of unknown grade. It turns out to be the worst dish of both dinners. My dining companion orders the pork and is much better. In the second dinner I forego the truffle pizza and instead spend an extra NT$380 for lobster noodle with burnt scallion. While the lobster noodle is better than the wagyu sukiyaki, the noodle isn't that interesting.

The sequence of dishes build up to the main course, a large format  protein dish that is shared by multiple diners. The first time I am there, the main course is roast goose. A cook presents the goose in the beginning of our dinner, prior to serving the amuse bouche. The large bird looks impressive, beautiful, and delicious looking.

However, by the time the goose is served, each guest only receives a very small portion - about the size of my two fingers. If the idea is to leave the diner wanting more, it certainly succeeded. The contrast of before and after is simply too jarring. Despite the size, the goose is very nice.

In my second dinner, the pièce de résistance is roast pork loin. Again the large pork loin is first presented whole to the guests.

The individual serving of the pork loin is bigger than the goose, but still a bit on the small side to my liking. The loin is nicely roasted and the boudin noir, eggplant, and kale on the side are all very nice. I just wish there is more of it.

A reinterpretation of bahn mi is served on the side. Instead of baguette the sandwich is with fried steamed bun. This is very delicious but again the portion is tiny -  more like a finger food served at a cocktail party.

The set menu has two desserts. One of them is a fruit. For my first dinner I have the fig with aiyu and shiso, which recalls David Chang's comment about figs on a  plate. The second time the fruit is strawberry with Sichuan peppercorn and lemon marigold. The fruit desserts provide some interesting flavor combination, but they are not technical.

At both of my dinners, six months apart, the main dessert is a white chocolate bread pudding with frozen foie gras. The dish reminds me a bit of the frozen foie gras at Momofuku Ko in New York City. At Impromptu, the foie is chilled quickly with liquid nitrogen in front of the diners. This must be a signature dessert of Lee since it stays on the menu. I enjoy the dessert, but I don't need to eat it twice in six months. Dessert at Impromptu is good but not elaborate and without much wow factor. I suppose the restaurant doesn't have a dedicated pastry chef.

After a petit four and a milk tea, Lee personally hands a menu to every guest and asks about their meal. Once service is over, Lee is more relaxed and happy to talk about his ideas. The menu comes in an envelope but is not printed à la minute. In one of my meals there is a glitch. Lee is not able to procure the sweetbread and serves a squid instead. However, the menu still says sweetbread. I wish Lee would really embrace the idea of impromptu to change and print the menu daily.

There’s a small wine list, totaling less than 30 bottles. The majority of the wines are between NT$2,000 and NT$4,000. The mark-ups of the wines are reasonable. For instance, a bottle of Billecart Salmon brut rose is on the list for NT$3,800. The same bottle is priced at NT$9,200 at Mandarin Oriental Taipei. The corkage fee is $750, less than other comparable restaurants. Wine or cocktail pairings are also available. The beverage program is friendly but, compared to the food, it is not as interesting.

The price of the menu is NT$2,200. This number seems to be carefully considered. While it may not be deemed as cheap, it doesn’t feel expensive for the number of courses offered. However, besides the aforementioned small portions, the ingredients are not expensive. With just one menu, Lee can offer a better price and be sure the quality is consistent for a small number of people. The restaurant is not big, but it is not small like a restaurant in Tokyo where the chef and an assistant can do everything. Perhaps at this point the restaurant simply doesn't have the staff and capacity to change the menu everyday.

Operating a western restaurant in Taipei is difficult. The business and personnel aspects of the restaurant will always be challenging, yet I cannot help but think the cooking part is a bit too easy for Lee. Impromptu just has dinner service and many of the dishes are not highly technical. Lee has the experience and talent to operate a grand restaurant. Maybe Taipei may never have the market for real luxury. But wouldn't it be nice if Lee can open a restaurant where I can have the lièvre à la royale, my friend can have the turbot, and we can order another dish to share? After being opened for less than a year, Lee has already gained one Michelin star. I want to know what's next?

10-Year Anniversary

Ten years is a long time. I find it hard to believe that I have been blogging for that long. While my output has decreased every year, I haven’t stopped.

I started blogging for three reasons. First, to let friends and family in New York City know what we were doing in Taipei; the inaugural blog post was about buying a television for my new home in Taipei. Second, to have a place to deposit ideas on design and architecture; I thought eventually I could develop some of them into articles to be published in a magazine. Third, to have an alternative to sharing the news on Facebook; I wanted more control over the graphic and format of the presentation of the information.

In the first few years, the blog contained various observations of Taipei, such as Paper and Plastic and Information Overload. Occasionally these observations were on food and restaurants, for instance the first of several blog posts on L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon Taipei. There were articles on design such as the furniture by Maarten van Severen and shirt by Comme des Garçons. There were also articles on my own architectural work including one of my favorites, Repeat. There was a mixture of subjects in the blog. I was once asked what was the theme of my blog? I answered that it was about me.

As the years passed, the subjects of the blog gradually shifted toward food and restaurants and focused less on design and architecture. This is mostly due to two factors. First, articles on design and architecture are hard to write, partly because it is my profession; I cannot pretend to be a dilettante. I feel that any articles that I write need to be good enough to be published in a trade magazine or an academic journal. Second, articles on design and architecture simply don’t receive as much interest from the general public. Google provides some rudimentary data on the number of hits each blog post get, and it is clear that the articles on food far exceed any other subjects.

In my earlier blogs on restaurants I didn’t post any photographs. I was against taking photographs during my meals in the restaurants. My reluctance was partly technical as I wasn’t able to take good photographs with my early iPhones; I certainly didn’t want to carry a large camera to a restaurant. I figured if people really want to see the images of the dishes I described, they could always find them on the Internet anyway.

Eventually I changed my mind. Many friends wanted to see pictures of the food. The camera on the iPhone improved significantly and took better photographs in low-light conditions. I also found that people in the restaurant industry took just as many photographs at restaurants as anyone else. I used to think the chef would be bothered if I take pictures of the food. A few years back some restaurants, such as Momofuku Ko in New York City, even banned the guests from taking photos of the food. Now if I don’t take a picture of the food, I wonder if the chef might be unhappy or thinks there’s something wrong.

While occasionally I still write about design, architecture, and fashion, for better or worse, the blog has become essentially a food blog. As a food blogger I have decided on some directions. In world of Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, where images and blurb dominate, I have opted for the long form. Behind every restaurant is a lot of hard work and a significant financial investment. Restaurants and their staff deserve a more nuanced and balanced judgment instead of a snap impression. As much as possible I try to visit a restaurant more than once before writing about it. Judging a restaurant based on a single visit is a bit unfair. Anyone can have a bad day at work. Furthermore, consistency is one of the most important quality at a restaurant, which requires more than one visit to determine.

I try to write criticism instead of just complaint. I try to find the sources of my dissatisfaction or pleasure. I try to be objective and put aside personal taste. I try to be factually correct about ingredients and prices. I try to put the food in context. I try to understand what the chef is looking to accomplish and to judge the results on his or her terms. I try to imbue each article with a theme, a thesis, or a main idea, so it is not just a documentation of a meal. I may not always succeed in all these attempts, but these are my aspirations.

I am never certain who really reads my blog since there is limited feedback; a critic can actually use some criticisms. In this fast digital age, I suspect few people will take the 15 minutes or so to read my articles. I am grateful to the people who enjoy reading my blog. I am not sure how much longer I will keep writing. Will there be another ten years of blogging? I don’t know. But as long as there are a few dedicated readers out there, I will continue.

Bencotto with Iacopo Frassi: The Mind and the Heart of Italian Cooking and Eating

"Because the French cook with their brains, it's intellectual. Look at the Italians, it's from the heart, isn't it? It's more emotional, and that's the difference between the two cuisines," remarked the great British chef Marco Pierre White. The observation is an oversimplification of the two cuisines, but there certainly are differences; just consider the French cuisine's tendency to recreate natural forms versus Italian's indifference towards imitating nature. However, since France and Italy share a border, most of the cuisines in the two countries fall between the two extremes. In making the claim, perhaps White was merely reflecting on himself as having the best of both worlds. He was born by an Italian mother but professionally trained by the French; even his names Marco and Pierre are a combination of the two languages. White's claim triggers a question in my mind, is the best kind of chef a combination of opposite approaches? In other words, is good cooking ultimately about finding a balance between the mind and the heart?

The question kept surfacing on my mind when I ate the food prepared by chef Iacopo Frassi at Bencotto, the Italian restaurant at Mandarin Oriental Taipei. Frassi took over Bencotto as the Chef de Cuisine in the late summer of 2018. The main concept of Frassi's cuisine is declared on Bencotto's website: "contemporary interpretation of timeless Italian culinary heritage". This statement seems to be a mind bender since the idea of timelessness is antithetical to modern re-interpretation. Nevertheless, Frassi is keen to creating new Italian cuisine by reworking the classics. This is a significant shift from the previous iterations of Bencotto, which touted itself as a place for "Home-cooked Italian Cuisine". There is a re-balance of the mind and the heart.

The previous chef of Bencotto, Loris Pistillo, has moved back to Seoul after less than two years in Taipei. Pistillo's cooking was simple and graceful. While Pistillo wasn't a traditionalist, he wasn't overtly trying to re-conceptualize Italian cuisine. The cooking felt from the heart. To emphasize the heart of Italian cooking, twice during his tenure, Pistillo even invited his mother Angela to make pasta at Bencotto. The pastas were delicious and everything one imagines Italian cuisine to be; truly the Italian nonna-style. As one ate the pasta, one didn't think about the need to re-invent Italian cuisine.

New ideas may be good and interesting, but they are not necessarily better or more delicious. Given that traditions in Italian cuisine are so strong, attempts to create new Italian dishes are extremely challenging. In contrast to Pistillo, Frassi is more of a risk taker and as such, the rewards might be bigger but so are the pitfalls. Notwithstanding, Frassi's food is more intriguing and poses more questions than answers for the minds of the diners.

Frassi is a young chef, not even 30 years old. He hails from Tuscany, Italy. Prior to coming to Taipei, he spent almost two years as the chef de cuisine at the Italian restaurant in the Four Seasons Hotel in Tianjin, China. The short stay in Asia hasn't impacted his cooking significantly yet. His cooking mainly reflects his training in Europe. It probably won't come as a surprise that Frassi not only trained with Italian chefs in Italy, but with a French chef. In his formative years, he was a chef de partie at Alain Ducasse's three-Michelin-star restaurant in London. The connection with France goes beyond Frassi himself. Frassi's masters in Italy also trained with French Michelin-star chefs: Antonio Guida with Pierre Gagnaire and Giuseppe Mancino with Alain Ducasse. While it is hard to quantify how much the French way of cooking and thinking have influenced Frassi, his cooking is different from a chef trained solely in the Italian traditions.

Since Frassi took over Bencotto, I have dined at the restaurant five times on various occasions: lunch with business associates, dinners with family and friends, dinner with a large group, with and without Frassi in the kitchen. I didn't like everything I ate. In fact my first time at the restaurant under his helm, I came away a little disappointed. I wondered to myself, did I order the wrong dishes? But in subsequent visits, I have increasingly come to like the food more. Perhaps I am starting to understand what the chef is trying to do.

Frassi proposed his first menu in October of 2018. Several dishes on the previous menu, more representative of traditional and simple Italian food, are no longer present; the salumi platter, mozzarella salad, pizza, panna cotta, have all disappeared. The new menu is more concise, and organized in the familiar four-course Italian cuisine of starter, pasta, main course and dessert. While many dishes on the menu sound familiar, such as Polpo e Patate, Astice alla Catalana, Diavola, Rossini, and Carbonara, they are not what they seem to be. Each of these classic dishes have been re-imagined.

Instead of the traditional Pollo alla Diavola seasoned with cayenne pepper, Frassi replaces the chicken with the more luxurious saddle of lamb. The meat is topped with a spicy pesto and a rustic Ndjua sauce. The Astice alla Catalana is enhanced by a corn sauce poured table side in addition to the lobster sauce in the middle. The combination of corn and lobster reminds me of the flavors in American cuisine. The presentation is quite elegant and is certainly not your average lobster tartare. These dishes show that Frassi has a tendency towards complexity by layering condiments with sauce or having two sauces in one dish. While I enjoyed these two dishes, some of Frassi's other twists of traditional dishes didn't work as well.

A dish that was more interesting in concept than in taste was the Ravioli alla Carbonara. The idea seems to be derived from the combination of two Italian classics: Spaghetti Carbonara and Tortellini en Brodo. Instead of coating the pasta on the outside with carbonara sauce, the egg mixture is encased inside. Instead of chicken stock, the soup is infused with pancetta. While there are only a few ingredients, the dish felt a bit much, mainly because of the combination of two types of sauces of different viscosities. The ravioli with a sauce inside is almost a bit like a soup dumpling. I don't think another soup is necessary on the outside.

For a ravioli dish I prefer Frassi's two-tone ravioli with shrimp and lemon. This dish is more complex than the Ravioli alla Carbonara, yet the taste has more clarity and is very nice.



Another dish that I understand in concept but not in taste is Baccala alla Rossini. As the name suggests the dish is inspired by the French classic Tournedos Rossini: filet mignon topped with seared foie gras and served with truffle and Madeira sauce. Instead of beef, Frassi reimagines the dish with black cod. Besides the classic ingredients, he adds the local spice Sebastan Plum Cordia (破布子), which the Taiwanese uses with steamed fish. Instead of crouton, the local vegetable under the dish provides a little crunch. The flavors are not balanced enough and taste is too sweet. Perhaps my palette is biased, but I don't like seafood with sweet sauce. While in the classic Rossini the filet is tender, the black cod is more tender, making the overall texture of the dish too soft. The use of local ingredients are nice, but they didn't really work for me. The dish seems too disconnected from Italy. My impression is Frassi thought too much about the concept of the dish and made it too complicated. Creativity and deliciousness don't aways go hand in hand.

I prefer the other fish dish on the menu, Dal Giappone alla Toscana, red garoupa with eggplant miso chutney, pickled vegetables, and Cacciucco sauce. While miso is not a traditional ingredient in Tuscany, the use of eggplant, pickled vegetable, and the Italian fish stew sauce certainly evokes Italy.

There are two risotto on the menu One is a reference to the ingredients of pizza while the other is with seafood. While both risotto are well executed, I prefer the one with seafood. The Risotto alla Pizzaiola looks fun and is a more interesting idea in terms of presentation. But at the same time, the effect is more forced and actually feels less Italian. Perhaps one of the reasons I like the seafood risotto better is the use of more luxurious ingredients of oyster, sea urchin and red shrimp; the dish is much more expensive. I also like the fact that the rice is served table side, and covered the seafood in a more natural and casual manner. It is as if the chef is saying the ingredients are good enough that he isn't worrying about the presentation.

One of Frassi's signature dishes on the menu is the Piccione Toscano. Just based on the appearance, one can tell this pigeon main course requires a lot of skills in the kitchen. While this is a multi-component dish that is complex, I like it. The pigeon is cooked very well and is very tasty. The only problem is with the small bites, the food doesn't stay hot enough.

Sometimes when Frassi doesn't overthink the dishes, the results are wonderful as in the main course Manzetta Tartufata, Australian Wagyu beef striploin with morel mushrooms, black truffle, and licorice mayonnaise. The beef is cooked well and the flavors are great.

Another spectacular dish at Bencotto is the pumpkin gnocchi with chestnut, cheese, and white truffle. The flavors of the seasonal ingredients go well together. And there is a simplicity and heartiness to the dish that make it deeply satisfying.

One problem I encountered over the many meals at Bencotto was the inconsistency in the the seasoning for the savory courses. A beef dish I had was a bit salty while the Osso Buco that accompanied the risotto was a bit under-seasoned. I suspect the reason is the chef hasn't been able to calibrate to the palette of the local diners. While I have a high tolerance for salt, most local diners do not. Many feedback from the local diners in the earlier months of the chef's tenure probably were about saltiness of the food. This issue happens to many foreign chefs when they first arrive in Taiwan, but will likely be resolved as time passes.

Desserts at Bencotto are more delicate now than before. I enjoyed a dish named Bianco Mangiare, or Eat White. The name doesn't reference another dish in Italian cuisine. As such I can simply enjoy the yogurt mousse, pine nuts, banana gelato, and crispy yuzu as the taste themselves. The white crisps are broken in pieces of different sizes and geometry that don't feel fussy, yet produce a sense of mystery that is nice.

In contrast, the dessert called Il Tiramisu is less interesting, and consists of a Mascarpone sphere with a quenelle of Italian espresso gelato, and pieces of sponge cake (perhaps made with the Albert Adrià microwave technique). The Tiramisu at Bencotto is technically more sophisticated than a classic Tiramisu, but not as satisfying to eat. The great thing about the classic Tiramisu is the sum is better than the parts. Together the mascarpone, sugar, egg, ladyfingers and cocoa powder create a bite of flavor that is magical. By separating the Tiramisu into distinctive parts, the presentation is elegant, but the taste is not better than the messy classic version. Once the components are separated, the Tiramsu loses its raison d'être. Bencotto’s version begs the question, at what point is the reference to the classic dish no longer valid or necessary?

In the four years that Bencotto has been in operation, many mid-range Italian restaurants have opened in Taipei: La Mole, Il Mercato, La Locanda, Botega del Vin, Cantina del Gio, Di Vino...etc. While the food and decor of these restaurants are not as posh as Bencotto, they are also not as expensive. In terms of value to the diners, the gap between them and Bencotto is not that far apart. This is perhaps one of the reasons that the management of Mandarin Oriental Taipei has decided to re-orient Bencotto as a fine dining restaurant. Another reason might be the arrival of the Michelin Guide in the spring of 2018. The hotel wants another star restaurant to bolster its standing as the best in Taipei. Bencotto already has the infrastructure for a fine dining restaurant: a fancy interior, a dedicated sommelier, and an experienced front of house team. The management of the hotel has also eliminated the buffet lunches on the weekend; I can finally go to Bencotto for lunch on the weekend again. The repositioning of Bencotto has already paid dividend as the restaurant was awarded one fork by Gambero Rosso in November of 2018.

A meal at Bencotto now starts with a trio of appetizing amuse-busches. This is followed by an excellent house-made bread served with a choice of three olive oils and two types of balsamic vinegars. Furthermore, when the bread and bread sticks are placed on the table, the server spritzes from a bottle made by Antonella Bondi to simulate the smell of freshly baked bread. The food fragrance is fun but a bit forced and gimmicky.

As with a Michelin-star restaurant, the meal ends with a trio of mignardises, which are all very good.

Elevating the food also means elevating the prices. The main courses at Bencotto used to average around NT$1,000. Now they are around NT$1,600 and with a pigeon dish exceeding NT$2,000 (around US$67). While not as expensive as the three-Michelin-star Italian restaurant in Hong Kong or at Frassi's mentor's restaurant in Milan, some of the prices at Bencotto are not too far off from other Michelin-starred Italian restaurants. For instance, a main course of striped bass or halibut at the two-Michelin-star Marea in New York City costs around US$58 (including tax and tip) or NT$1,800. The main course of garoupa at Bencotto is NT$1,738 (including service charge). A four-course meal à la carte at Bencotto now can easily run over NT$4,300 inclusive of the 10% service charge (around US$140): with a appetizer at NT$980, pasta at NT$880, main course at NT$1580, and dessert at NT$480.

Instead of ordering a la carte, the better way in terms of cost may be to go with the set menu at lunch time. The three-course lunch of appetizer, main course, and dessert is NT$1,488. All the dishes in the à la carte menu can be selected and are just served at smaller portions. There are no supplemental charges. So for anyone looking for the best value, just order a foie gras terrine to start, followed by the pigeon as the main course, and chocolate cake as the dessert.

The service at Bencotto has improved from the last time I wrote about the restaurant. Part of the reason has to be members who have been there since the opening have gained more experience and grown with the job. The sommelier Alex Tsai has also been at Bencotto since the opening. He has always been very professional and seems more relaxed now. I enjoy talking to him about wines.

The wine list at Bencotto has expanded and even received an award from Wine Spectator magazine. However, the wines at Bencotto are still too expensive. For instance, some of the bottles at Bencotto are more expensive than the three-Michelin-star restaurant Per Se in New York City. Consider a bottle of Barolo Carobric 2001 by Paolo Scavino. At Bencotto the price is NT$12,500 (including service charge), and at Per Se the same bottle is around NT$11,000 (including service charge and tax). The Barolo Brunate 2009 by Vietti is NT$16,500 at Bencotto and NT$15,800 at Per Se. Per Se has one of the highest mark-ups for wines in New York City, and it is unthinkable for Bencotto to be more expensive.

The prices at Bencotto are crazier if one compares them to restaurants less fancy than Per Se. For example, a bottle of the non-vintage Billecart-Salmon Brut Rose is NT$10,120 at Bencotto and around NT$7,600 at the two-Michelin-star Italian restaurant Marea in New York City. A bottle of Barolo 2013 from Pio Cesare is NT$9,350 at Bencotto, but NT$4,950 at a fine dining French restaurant in Taipei. The Pio Cesare Barolo 2013 can be purchased at icheers.tw, an online wine store in Taiwan for NT$2,635 (15% off the retail list price). Assuming Mandarin Oriental can buy the same bottle at wholesale price, the markup at Bencotto for the bottle is around 400%. Why do the prices at Bencotto have to be so high? I understand the need to mark-up wines at a restaurant, but at least do it at a reasonable rate that I can swallow.

​The corkage fee at Bencotto is NT$1,000 per bottle. The corkage fee at Per Se is around NT$4,600 (US$150). If Bencotto’s prices for wines are more expensive than Per Se, why not charge the same for corkage? The restaurant is basically encouraging the local diners to bring their own wines. I am not a tuhao (土豪) nor do I like bringing wines to a restaurant with a sommelier. Therefore, I usually just order a wine by the glass with my meal at Bencotto. It's unfortunate the pricing at Bencotto discourages the diners to order and enjoy the wines by the bottles.

While the cuisine and service at Bencotto have evolved, the physical environment has changed very little since I wrote about the restaurant four years ago. The uncomfortable chairs at the tables surrounding the center piece in the backroom are still there. The awkwardly located sitting area remains unoccupied by guests. At least the flat screen TV showing Italian football is thankfully no longer present (hidden behind the cabinet doors). The wine tasting room near the back entrance is now set up as a semi-private dining room. Previously this room with a beautiful wall of wines behind glass was just be a space to be admired rather than used. While the interior of Bencotto is nice, there is room for adjustment. After four years in operation, it is clear that some of the intended purposes and functions in the original design didn't pan out. And since the service at Bencotto is changing with the food, for instance more carts are wheeled around the dining room, it is time to rethink the interior layout. This may require more time, after all physical environment is more difficult to change than the menu.

Bencotto is in a period of transition. The restaurant is changing for the better and moving in the right direction, but it is not there yet. Frassi is a young chef but someone with passion and technical prowess. He is still developing his style. The desire to go beyond the classics and to create new dishes is necessary. After all, what is a classic but an invention that worked? The road to making new classics are paved with failed experiments. Re-inventing Italian cuisine is especially difficult because many iconic Italian dishes are so delicious and entrenched in people's minds, that often times the new dishes feel too foreign or pale by comparison.

Italian cuisine always seems to project a sense of tradition and an authenticity that does not change. However, this is not entirely true. Many things in Italian cuisine that we deem as sacred are not historical but modern inventions. For instance, Spaghetti Carbonara is not a dish from the 19th century but rather an invention from the 1950's. The Tiramisu was first created in the 1960's. The Ciabatta bread that we often see in Italian restaurants all over the world was created in the 1980's. None of these things are in Pellegrino Artusi's iconic book on Italian cuisine, Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well, published in the late 19th century.

Whether old or new, Italian cuisine is about finding the balance between creativity and simplicity. The mind and the heart are not always compatible. Frassi's cooking right now seems more conceptual than visceral. Many of the dishes are too complicated with too many components. The techniques and capabilities of the cooks are impressive, but they don't necessarily increase the level of deliciousness. Some of the dishes make references to the classics, but I don't know if the connections are necessary. By framing the dishes via the classics, the diners' reactions are bounded; diners are asked to intellectualize the dish (connect the dots) rather than react from the heart. However, eating is not always a rational act but also an emotional one. At Bencotto, I find myself wanting to just enjoy the food without thinking about them too much. The restaurant doesn't quite allow me to do that yet, but it is a very interesting place to dine. I am curious to see how Bencotto will evolve.