Bar TartinePhoto: Grub Street
Today Grub Street learns of two just-announced New Year's Eve plans from Tartine HQ. First, over at Bar Tartine, chef Nick Balla tells us he'll be doing a special, one-off dinner that combines both his love of Japanese cuisine (he was formerly the much praised chef at Nombe, don't you know) and his current obsession with northern Europe. The menu will be a mashup of northern Japan and northern Denmark, he tells us, but the full complement of dishes still isn't finalized.
All we know is that the menu will be à la carte, and dishes will feature a number of cultured, preserved, and aged ingredients using the kind of traditional, season-extending, artisan techniques Balla has already become known for at Bar Tartine — think a lot of pickles, cured meats, etc. Influenced by recent meals Balla has had in Japan and Denmark, the NYE dinner will explore similar approaches to modern food that cooks are exploring in these regions — specifically from Hokkaido, in northern Japan, and Jutland in northern Denmark.
Meanwhile, Samin Nosrat announces on her blog that she'll be doing an intimate Tartine Afterhours dinner featuring "freshly shucked oysters, piles of Dungeness crab, big bowls of chicory salad and a huge batch of Liz's famous eggnog," as well as special loaves by master baker/owner Chad Robertson.
Tickets are $120 per person and bound to sell out fast, so snap one up here. Note, however, that the tickets are non-refundable, so the commitment-phobic please go to the back of the line.
For Bar Tartine's Japan-meets-Denmark meal, call for reservations at 415.487.1600.
