Page 20 of Aftertaste

“I guess not.”

“Tell me something. How’d it feel when you mixed that drink? Before the ghost shit. Just the act of making it.”

“Pretty amazing.”

Frankie nodded knowingly. He talked all the time about how the kitchen called to him, about how he’d been applying to business schools until he picked up a chef’s knife for the first time.

“Then you owe it to yourself to at least give it a shot. Nobody likes regret.”

Kostya didn’t like it, exactly, but regret was a sort of personal comfort zone. He’d spent years familiarizing himself with its terrain, its streets and alleyways and all the doors of Opportunity that populated them, locked and dead-bolted against some stupid whim he might one day have, to try to open them.

But maybe this wasn’t like that.

He even knew what dish he’d try, the aftertaste that mattered more than any of the others.

“Okay.” He nodded at Frankie. “What do you know about liver?”

Frankie grinned back. “Enough to be dangerous.”

HORS D’OEUVRESThe Konstantin Duhovny Culinary Experience

ALRIGHT, BOYS AND GIRLS.Let’s get serious. We’re gonna see where Konstantin trained up.

Our next stop’s just over here. Up on the left.

Through that old door with the big brass latch.

Anyone know this gem? Crown jewel of New York dining, run by a living legend?

No, man, that ain’t Bobby Flay! Read a cookbook. Anybody else?

How ’bout a hint?

She’s open for lunch and dinner, but don’t even think about walking in—they’re booked six months out, every seat taken. Those velvet curtains? They keep folks from peeping the set change between the communal tables at lunch and the dinner fine dine. And the stars in the window? That ain’t Yelp. Kitchens bust their balls to get just one nod from Michelin, and this beaut’s earned three.

Well? Any guesses?

Damn, you really make a guy work for it.

This here’s Saveur Fare.

MISE EN PLACES

THE DINING ROOMat Saveur Fare dazzles diners for ten immaculate hours a day, six days a week.

The front-of-house is legendary for making guests feel like they never want to leave. Before service, the waitstaff are painstakingly briefed on that night’s reservations, so that each of them can anticipate, like a modern-day haruspex in slinky black silk, their diners’ aversions and allergies and gastronomic inclinations without ever having to be told. During service, they charm and delight. They tell stories; they are quick with jokes. Most of the staff are recruited from the New York theater scene, but even the ones who are not give Tony-worthy performances night after night.

Saveur Fare employs three sommeliers, two of them Masters, which means you can blindfold them, give them a sip of wine, and receive an identification of the varietal, the vintage, the region and vineyard, no matter how obscure—we’re talking the difference between grapes grown on opposite sides of the same Burgundian hill here—just based on the characteristic qualities of that single taste. There’s also an award-winning mixologist available for bespoke cocktail pairings. You know, if wine isn’t your thing.

And that’s just the beverage program.

The main event—the food—is a Chef’s Tasting of twelve elaborate, palm-sized courses. The menu changes weekly to take greatest advantage of seasonal and micro-seasonal delicacies, and ingredients come from all over the world: sea urchin overnighted from Osaka, their spiny shells safeguarding briny, golden goo; black and white truffles from Provence and Piedmont, the smell of the cases like hay and Heaven; impossibly fine beads of beluga and sterlet, popping their tins like breathing the Caspian Sea. A partner farm in the Hudson Valley supplies local meat and produce; bread and pasta are made twice daily, in-house. The patisserie is on premises, with tarts and cakes and jams and petits fours changing daily to incorporate local delicacies—sour cherries from upstate New York; quince from a rare fruit-bearing tree in eastern Pennsylvania; winter cranberries hauled in, dripping wet, from New Jersey.

In the kitchen, a precise choreography is performed to support the curated dining experience that commands Michelin’s highest honor—three stars, four years running. Recently, management etched this award onto the enormous front window as a dare to the chef, the sous-chef, the line cooks, the wholebrigade de cuisine, a bastardly way of reminding them that the loss of so much as a star would ruin them—not to mention require the replacement of the entire vitrine.

But they’re not worried. What they do is pristine.

Their executive chef, Michel Beauchêne, works them like demigods, producing magic and miracles from the swipe of their fingers across a finishing plate with a towel, or the flick of their wrists as they sear and sauté. The portions are small, each ratio of salt and fat and acid, heat and sugar, umami and bite, perfected in miniature. There’s no room for excess or miscalculation. And it’s all done at speed; hundreds of plates served every night, rapid-fire. Consequently, the men and women in this kitchen—from the tippity top to the runners and bussers—are exceptional.

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