No. 768 Holidays

“SOUND BITES” MEET THE ZAKARIANS

CHEF TODD ENGLISH RECIPES + WINTER TRENDS

HOME AT THE PLAZA TARTINERY + VIN SUR VINGT

N o. 7 68 F O O D, D R I N K S & L I V I N G A T T H E P L A Z A

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FACE TO FACE: THE SAVOY & THE PLAZA EATING AROUND THE WORLD AT THE PLAZA

« PLUS! SEASONAL COCKTAILS TO KEEP US WARM & A MARKETPLACE GIFT GUIDE

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THE CULINARY HISTORY OF THE PLAZA

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FACE TO FACE Managing directors talk global strategy.

9 THERE IS A THREAD THAT RUNS THROUGH THIS ISSUE THAT HAS A DECIDEDLY

global feel. The Plaza has its roots firmly planted in New York and is part of the fiber of this great city, but it has an international reputation, and wherever we travel, when citing The Plaza as our home away from home, people instantly know of where we speak. In this issue, we explore our love affair with food and some fun culinary facts about this city. The Plaza is known for its afternoon tea experience, and we go around the world to examine tea traditions in other countries. The Plaza Food Hall is a melting pot of culinary options. Here we look at the roots of some of our favorite dishes and their origins.

We traveled across the pond to our sister hotel in London, The Savoy. Our managing director of The Plaza, George Cozonis, and Kiaran MacDonald, managing director of The Savoy, have a lot in common. They have come full circle in their respective cities to helm these iconic properties and lead them into the future. They share their insights on service, technology, and what it means to become part of the history of these iconic landmark institutions.

With over 25 shops in The Plaza Food Hall, there truly is something for everyone.

Two of our shops share some insight into their businesses, what it means to be here, and how great the “neighborhood” is.

Chef Todd English talks about pasta and gives us the ingredients to his classic, award-winning Bolognese. We send you on an epicurean journey throughout New York and share our favorite places for children this season.

Our culinary history is always of great interest to me. And with today’s fabulous dedication to terrific food programming, we are well on our way to creating more indelible food moments into the future.

Geoffrey and Margaret Zakarian share their tips to keeping food, family, and a fabulous business all moving forward, seemingly effortlessly! We don’t know how they do it!

EATING AROUND THE WORLD International dishes at The Plaza.

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THE PLAZA’S CULINARY HISTORY From the beginning, dining at The Plaza.

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WINTER TRENDS Chef Todd English on global happenings.

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THE PLAZA MARKETPLACE The ultimate shopping list.

— k r i st i n f r a n z e s e

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A CO N V E R S AT I O N WITH K I A R A N M AC D O N A L D, M A N AG I N G D I R E C TO R O F T H E S AVOY

L O N D O N

The Savoy FAC E

TO

FAC E

The Plaza Y O R K p hoto by pe r so n na m e h er e

W N E

+ G E O R G E COZO N I S , M A N AG I N G D I R E C TO R OF THE PLAZA I N T E RV I E W BY KRISTIN FRANZESE

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L A D Y M . C O M

UPPER EAST SIDE

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THE PLAZA

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B R YA N T PA R K

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LOS ANGELES

Iconic New York Dishes

p hoto by p er so n na m e

While some of the best known dishes from around the world might have had their humble beginnings in faraway places, they hit their stride right here in New York City — often as the result of a fusion of ingredients to create a new spin on a familiar recipe.

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© 2015 Nestlé Waters North America Inc.

Live in Italian™

FINE DINING ISN’T ALWAYS ON FINE CHINA. FROM TABLECLOTH TO SANDWICH SHOP, S.PELLEGRINO MAKES ANY MEAL AN OCCASION WITH ITS FINE BUBBLES AND UNIQUE TASTE.

SHOW US WHAT MAKES YOU A FOODIE AT THE INFINITE TABLE. SANPELLEGRINO.COM

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The Plaza Food Hall: A Global Tour

When it comes to culinary choices, The Plaza offers you the world — literally — at your fingertips, within its hallowed halls. Between dining options and food vendors, dishes represent every international cuisine and an array of foreign flavors.

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1. Bowery Kitchen The ultimate playground for chefs in terms of kitchen supplies, now located within Chelsea Market. bowerykitchens.com 2. Kitchen Arts & Letters Possibly the largest specialty cookbook store in the United States, boasting a highly knowledgeable staff that’s serious about helping people who are serious about food.

They have more than 12,000 titles in stock from all over the world in many languages. kitchenartsandletters.com

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3. Russ & Daughters Breakfast at its finest in the Lower East Side, Russ & Daughters is the real deal when it comes to lox and nova. More than 100 years old and run by four generations of the Russ family, it’s an institution when it comes to “appetizing” foods. russanddaughters.com

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NEW YORK FOOD ENTHUSIAST’S ITINERARY

4. Zabar’s Eight years at 80th and Broadway, Zabar’s is one of the oldest family food businesses in the city. Though its famous for bagels, smoked salmon, and coffee, you will also find a great gourmet food selection as well as kitchen appliances in its Upper West Side flagship location. zabars.com 5. Mast Brothers With tours running daily on the hour, Mast Brothers is Brooklyn chocolate making at its finest.

Designed as an open factory, the space is as inviting as it is edible. A must for anyone with a sweet tooth. mastbrothers.com 6. Museum of Food and Drink The New York location will not open until 2019, but in the meantime check out MOFAD Lab, the organization’s first brick-and-mortar home in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. mofad.org 7. Union Square Greenmarket Anyone who loves good food knows that it starts with great ingredients. At the Union

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Square Greenmarket, chat with farmers, mingle with chefs, and get a real sense of where NYC food comes from. grownyc.org 8. Murray’s Cheese If you love cheese, look no further. Murray’s assortment is staggering: hundreds of imported, local, and artisanal cheese and specialty foods too.

Definitely New York’s best and possibly oldest cheese monger.

Come marvel at the variety. murrayscheese.com 9. Kalustyan’s Spice fiends take note: in this Indian specialty shop, you’ll find every seasoning and spice under the sun, and a few beyond this world as well.

There’s also a wide variety of teas, rice, and cocktail bitters. kalustyans.com 10. Sahadi’s A mecca for all things Middle Eastern, from prepared foods and goods to hummus, falafel mix, Turkish delight, and spices in every shade and color. Grab dried fruit, nuts, and grains in bulk by the pound. sahadis.com

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D

ining at The Plaza has always been the ultimate gathered at their own proverbial watering hole: The Oak Room New York experience. With culinary master- — or the “Men’s Bar,” as it was known until Prohibition. After minds in the hotel kitchens, the food it has served that, it opened its doors to the “gentler sex” as well. throughout the years represents the same paralExclusively a male domain and home to an early version leled commitment to excellence for which the establishment of the “power breakfast,” which at that time included pigs has been known in terms of world-class hospitality and service. knuckles and lamb chops, The Men’s Cafe eventually became From the very beginning, The Plaza has employed known as The Plaza Restaurant in the 1940s. In 1955, it was award-winning chefs — starting in 1907 with the 70-year-old renamed the Edwardian Room and became the most elegant retired Eugene Laperruque, a French chef to the Rothschilds as of The Plaza dining rooms because of its décor — tall winwell as New York’s famed Delmonico’s and Hoffman House. dows draped in velvet — as well as its menu.

Laperruque’s successor, Albert Leopold Lattard, created Chef André René in 1963 became the youngest executive his most famous dish at The Plaza: Crabmeat Remick, named chef, at 39 years old, to join The Plaza. Under his command, for William H. Remick, president of the New York Stock The Plaza earned countless accolades, including the esteemed Exchange from 1919 to 1923. He also named Eggs Melba Chef of the Year distinction in 1968 from the Association of for Australian opera singer Nellie Melba: an artichoke bottom Master Chefs of France’s United States Delegation. topped with a hash of broiled mushrooms and poached eggs Trader Vic’s debuted in The Plaza’s basement in 1965. With with Hollandaise sauce and foie gras. its South Sea carvings and exotic decor, including the outrigOver the years, the restaurants at The Plaza would feature ger used in Mutiny on the Bounty, as well as Polynesian dishes, on its menus exotic foods from live Samoan fish, and sweet rum drinks lobsters and turtles to grouse, par— Trader Vic’s quickly became a tridge, and even kangaroo chops. hit with the in crowd. Jacqueline Signature recipes developed in the Onassis, Salvador Dalí, and Richard gleaming kitchens of the hotel would Nixon all ate there. Trader Vic’s find fame and glory on the tables of was the only restaurant in the hotel Americans everywhere. to have its own kitchen, including The original “Chef Boyardee,” Chinese smoke ovens. It closed in Hector Boiardi, worked in The 1993 after a 28-year run.

Plaza’s kitchen in 1915, along with In 1969, The Oyster Bar opened his brothers Paul and Mario. Hector at The Plaza in the style of an went on to develop his line of English seaside pub specializing in famous spaghetti and meat sauces every kind of seafood, from oysthat guests of The Plaza sometimes ters to sea urchins. It was a casual got to sample when brother Paul was affair and didn’t require a jacket, in charge of the Persian Room. reflecting the relaxed attitudes of A CULINARY Called the “home of millionaires” the times. It attracted a hip rock HISTORY when it first opened, The Plaza star crowd, and John Lennon and and its epicurean cuisine became as Yoko Ono were regulars. Today, famous as its tenants. Wealth and you can still find an oyster bar at fashion were on view every day and The Plaza, this time in the Todd all night in the hotel’s restaurants: from the Vanderbilts to the English Food Hall, which opened in 2010.

Wanamakers, the Cartiers to the Goulds. The Dining Room The Plaza continues to define and redefine epicurean — open until 1921 — was renowned for its lavish, opulent excellence. The Plaza Food Hall showcases associations with dinners that cost a wallet-stopping $50 back then! That space Michelin-starred chefs and some of New York’s brightest new later became what we know today as the Rose Club. food vendors alike. With Geoffrey Zakarian at the helm, dining The original Plaza Grill was the center of attention during at The Plaza has never been better. The Palm Court gleams the “tea dance” craze of the 1920s. It closed during Prohibition anew with a center bar and a true New Yorker approach to teabut was transformed into the Rendez-Vous in 1947, a Russian- time; The Oak Room will reopen with a handsome new look themed bôite modeled after a Czarist-themed supper club and and feel. What comes next, one never knows — but if it’s at presided over by well-known maître d’ Louis “Gigi” Molinari. The Plaza, it will be in history books to come.

The house signature was a flaming Caucasian shashlik, and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were counted among the REFERENCES restaurant’s regulars.

Although not officially named until the 1920s, The Palm Brown, Eve. The Plaza 1907–1967: Its Life And Times. New York: Court was always the ultimate “tearoom.” Having tea at The Meredith Press, 1967.

Plaza is the quintessential New York tradition, and Culinary Brown, Eve. The Plaza Cookbook. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1972.

Director Chef Geoffrey Zakarian has recently restored tea to its magical heyday, with an updated menu to match its redesign. Gathje, Curtis. At The Plaza: An Illustrated History of the World’s Most women held their social events at The Palm Court, men Famous Hotel. New York: St Martin’s Press, 2000. | No.768 18 As

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1965: Trader Vic’s quickly became a hit with the in crowd.

Jacqueline Onassis, Salvador Dalí, and Richard Nixon all ate there.

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Having tea at The Plaza is the quintessential New York tradition, and Culinary Director Chef Geoffrey Zakarian has recently restored tea to its magical heyday, with an updated menu to match its redesign.

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TARTINERY VIN SUR VINGT

JAPAN

CHINA

The Japanese tea ceremony is centered on bringing people together in the spirit of harmony and respect. The formal ceremony lasts several hours and involves a multicourse meal. Green tea is the most common choice, and teahouses are popular throughout Japan.

The first to discover the tea leaf, the Chinese see tea as a symbol of life. They created an elaborate system of teawares as drinking it became increasingly fashionable. The Gongfu Chรก tea service is a labor-intensive practice that enables drinkers to appreciate fine oolong teas by activating all the senses. There is no food involved.

ENGLAND While the tradition of afternoon tea was started by the Duchess of Bedford in the mid-1840s to stave off hunger between meals, tea was first introduced in England in the mid-1600s. Today, afternoon tea comes with all the pomp and circumstance you would expect of a fine British tradition, including an elaborate selection of sweet and savory.

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MOROCCO

INDIA

Drinking mint tea is a social activity in Morocco. A mix of green tea and mint leaves, the drink is heavily sweetened with sugar and served in dainty glasses.

The tea is traditionally made by the head male in the family and offered to guests as a sign of hospitality. It is considered impolite to refuse it. Tea bars are as popular in Morocco as regular bars are in the Western world.

India produces and consumes more tea than any other country in the world.

Chai is the national drink of India, and it is served on every street corner. Most Indians drink their tea with milk and sugar, thanks to the British introducing such customs at the start of the 20th century. Tea is consumed at all times of the day.

KUSMI TEA: A NOD TO HISTORY, A FOOT IN THE FUTURE Founded in 1867 by Pavel Kousmichoff in St. Petersburg, Kusmi Tea soon became the favorite tea of the tsars. After fleeing the Russian Revolution in 1917, the Kousmichoff family relocated to Paris, where likewise its business flourished. Now run by the Orebi brothers, Kusmi Tea is setting the standard as a worldwide icon in the tea world, with outposts in 35 countries and 57 shops in France alone.

Enhancing the secrets of historical Russian blends with a sense of modern needs, Kusmi introduced its trailblazing Beauty of Blends campaign last year, a wellness line that includes Kusmi Detox and its iced tea version, BB Detox Iced Tea. This past summer, Kusmi unveiled an exclusive collection designed by Jean Paul Gaultier, reinventing itself once again with a bold new look for the tea house’s oldest creations: Anastasia and Prince Vladimir.

RUSSIA A treaty in the late 1600s with China to trade tea for furs created the “Tea Road,” starting Russia’s love affair with tea. A strong brew is commonly made first, to which additional water can be added to individual cups. It is traditionally served with cakes and jam, crepes and caviar, and other savory items.

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Cocktails

THE LEAP YEAR

THE FITZGERALD COCKTAIL

NANNY’S SPECIAL NIGHTTIME TEA

From The Savoy Cocktail Book, this cocktail was created by Harry Craddock for leap year celebrations at The Savoy in London on February 29th, 1928. It is said to have been responsible for more proposals than any other cocktail that has ever been mixed.

The cocktail isn’t the only thing at The Plaza that nods to F. Scott Fitzgerald, one of it’s most famous patrons. There’s also a Fitzgerald suite designed by Academy Award winner Catherine Martin. The suite is a dramatic art deco space that channels the dynamism of the Jazz Age. It’s furnished to refl ect the luxury and style of the era, which captivated Fitzgerald and drew him to The Plaza, inspiring its inclusion in his great works.

The Plaza’s resident 6-year old, just celebrated her 60th year at The Plaza.

The book 365 Days of Eloise was recently released in honor of the occasion at a party thrown in The Palm Court, where Nanny’s Special Nighttime Tea was served for all of Eloise’s companions.

11/2 oz. Death’s Door Gin

1 tbs. honey

2 oz. of gin 1/2 oz. Grand Marnier 1/2 oz. sweet vermouth 1 dash fresh lemon juice

Pour ingredients into a cocktail shaker and fill with ice. Shake well for 10 seconds and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Twist a piece of lemon peel over the drink and use for garnish.

/4 oz. lemon juice 3

3/4 oz. simple syrup 2 dashes of Angostura Bitters

Shake all ingredients with ice. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass, or strain over fresh ice into a rocks glass. Garnish with a lemon peel. *Served in the Todd English Food Hall

1 cup water 5 cloves 1 tbs. apple tea 2 oz. spice-infused Jameson Irish Whiskey Orange Peel

Combine water and spices in a pot.

Bring water to a boil then remove from heat. Add tea. Steep for 4 minutes, then strain into a large mug. Stir in honey and Jameson. Garnish with orange peel.

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by the numbers

THE PLAZA & VOLUNTEERS OF AMERICA volunteers of america (voa) was founded in 1896 by social reformers Maud and Ballington Booth. They envisioned a movement dedicated to “reaching and uplifting” the American people. On behalf of the organization, the Booths pledged to “go wherever we are needed, and do whatever comes to hand.” That declaration continues to guide VOA’s outreach efforts today as a national nonprofit that addresses local needs in the NY metropolitan area.

Every year The Plaza teams up with this worthy cause to give back during the holiday season and beyond. This year, VOA was able to hold their Operation Backpack 2015 kickoff breakfast at The Oak Room courtesy of The Plaza, with food and staff provided generously by CPS Events.

35,000

Number of people helped by VOA in and around NYC every year.

1,800

Number of everyday New Yorkers making a difference by volunteering in a VOA program.

1,400 Number of paid

VOA staff.

365

Number of days VOA works around the clock to help the most vulnerable in our community.

200 Number of community

partners throughout NYC that supported Operation Backpack this year, including The Plaza, which hosted the kickoff breakfast.

119

Years since Maud and Ballington Booth announced the founding of VOA to a standing-room crowd in the Great Hall at Cooper Union in NYC.

90 Number of programs offered

by VOA in the NY metropolitan area.

19,400 Number of homeless $25 Donation that buys one children in NYC who received a new backpack full of grade-specific school supplies this year thanks to VOA’s Operation Backpack.

5,000 Number of gifts

VOA hopes to give to the children, veterans, and older adults in its programs this holiday season through Gifts of the Heart. (Visit voa-gny.org/ holidays for more information.)

Hope and Hearth Holiday Food Voucher for a NYC family in need so they can shop for a special holiday meal. (Learn more at crowdrise.com/ hopeandhearthnyc.)

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Chimneys used to collect donations for the city’s hungry in NYC this holiday season. And, yes, they are both at The Plaza!

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Date in December that VOA will once again host its annual gala, A New York Winter’s Eve, in the Grand Ballroom of The Plaza.

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Round up your bill at The Plaza Food Hall and other retail outlets at The Plaza, or make a donation when your children have photos taken with The Plaza Santa or while checking out of your room this holiday season to benefit the Hope and Hearth holiday food voucher program.

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A Fairmont Managed Hotel 34 | No.768

TH E GL A MOUR TH E CHA R A C TE R TH E S AVOY Welcome to a place where iconic elegance mingles with new-world sophistication.

A world-famous name, where Art Deco rubs shoulders with English Edwardian.

The definitive destination in the heart of London. The Savoy. www.fairmont.com/savoy No. 768 | 35

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