Two high profile restaurants are undergoing some shifts, and in both cases it means more seats and therefore more room for you and us to get reservations. At Coi, as the Scoop reports, chef-owner Daniel Patterson has decided to do away with the lounge area where an à la carte menu has been available since the restaurant opened, and making of it a second dining room. There will, henceforth, only be the $145, eleven-course prix fixe menu available, which chef de cuisine Evan Rich says will help create a “clearer vision” of Coi’s food. The restaurant will close for a few days from April 3 until April 7 or so for a remodel, which will include a “luminous glass box” in the new entryway.
Then, up in Yountville, Michael Chiarello’s Bottega writes to us about an expansion, and there’s been some chef shuffling there as well. They’ve added a new separate pastry and pasta kitchen, as well as a new private lounge and dining area, the “Banchetto,” that accommodate up to 40 people. Some new menu items, in the pasta department: Meyer lemon strozzapreti with Dungeness crab, lobster-fennel broth, basil, tarragon and crab butter ($21); black pepper bucatini alla carbonara with a soft-poached local duck egg, Parmigiano crema, shaved asparagus and guanciale ($20); and ‘nduja salami and lemon ricotta cappelletti with Calabrian broccoli rabe, tomato-pork jus and Mosto Oro olive oil ($16).
They’ve also hired Robert Hohmann as executive sous chef, after the job Hohmann was originally hired for — executive chef at Laura Cunningham’s maybe permanently delayed Vita — fell through. Hohmann comes from New York, where he was working at Per Se, Del Posto, and Jonathan Benno’s new Lincoln Center restaurant Lincoln. He’ll report to Chiarello’s protégé, chef de cuisine Nick Ritchie.
On Coi’s upcoming lounge remodel and Daniel Patterson’s food lab [Scoop]