Books |
Welcome to Michael’s
Michael McCarty
By
Published: Nov 07, 2022
Category:
Food and Wine
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Every few months, I meet friends at Michael’s. That’s the sort of thing you do when you’re a sole proprietor of a media shop in Manhattan — you go where the Kool Kids go, just to remind them that you’re alive.
And then you have lunch.
If that sounds like an inverted set of priorities, you’re not a New York media professional. We get the reality: Michael’s is two establishments in one. The first is a media cafeteria for the extremely powerful and their court jesters. The other is a damn good restaurant. Everybody talks about the media cafeteria. The restaurant is noted mostly in passing. Both are misunderstood.
The powerhouse lunchroom is misunderstood because it is exclusive without being snooty. Michael’s has white tablecloths and huge flower arrangements and walls covered with Hockneys and Diebenkorns and excellent paintings by Kim McCarty, the proprietor’s better half. It’s on the expensive spectrum and getting more so with every menu change, but you can go there, even if you’re Nobody, and get a warm welcome. This is in dramatic contrast to another exclusive lunchroom, the now-departed Mortimer’s, where innocents routinely entered an empty dining room only to have the owner peer dismissively over his glasses and announce that his establishment was full.
The Michael’s formula — a welcoming staff, quality meals simply prepared — is a popular one now, but it was novel when Michael’s opened in Santa Monica 40 years ago. The New York success is even more impressive. Michael’s has owned the power lunch business in Manhattan for three decades and counting. That is not a record we will see broken in our lifetimes, and while it takes a village to raise a restaurant, most of the credit should go to the founder, Michael McCarty.
McCarty is such an exuberant guy — “Party on, dude!” is his signature line — that he’s the restaurant’s biggest misunderstanding of all. Alice Waters usually gets the major ink for inventing New American Cuisine, but McCarty was right there with her. And he has the credentials to prove it. After a privileged childhood of parties at summer resorts and ski retreats and an apprenticeship as a teenage gourmet at New York’s better restaurants, he rushed off to Europe. He returned with a Certificate d’Aptitude Professionelle from the Ecole Hoteliere de Paris, a Grand Diplome from the Cordon Bleu, and a diploma from the Academy du Vin — and a vision.
His vision was simple. He would streamline the eternally elegant recipes of France and prepare them using the freshest ingredients in America, then he’d serve his food in a room that was lovely but relaxed. As he puts it: “My cooking is presented simply, dramatically, with none of the fussiness you find in many fancy kitchens. Even those dishes that contain butter and cream, I use the light hand that modern sensibilities demand.”
What McCarty does not say: He’s a Rabelaisian spirit. Truffles? Pile them on! Fois gras? Thicker! So let’s be clear: This is not your everyday cookbook. It’s got some great twists on old favorites — like the salad of goat cheese, beets and lettuce dressed with a white wine-dijon vinaigrette — but for every grilled chicken with tarragon butter there’s a recipe for grilled chicken with duck foie gras and morels. If you’re not billing your life to your employer, you may have to restrain yourself. [To buy “Welcome to Michael’s” from Amazon, click here.]
But this cookbook has charms beyond food. It’s also a summary of Michael McCarty’s philosophy. Given his success, his obvious happiness and his uncanny ability to make the most neurotic people on the planet feel at home, that philosophy merits your attention. And, for good measure, some of the regulars offer their Michael’s stories, which are often as funny and irreverent as the owner.
The recipe to choose? I’m torn. I often order the roast chicken at Michael’s, an organic bird with a wonderfully crisp, herbed skin — and enough French fries for a kid’s birthday party. But let’s go with the most popular item on the menu: the Cobb salad. Formed like a cake, it is one massive — and yet low-cal — meal. I’ve never seen anybody finish one. But that’s because Michael’s customers all want to be television slim. Could that be because so many of them are on TV?
Cobb Salad
serves 4
1 and 1/2 cups olive oil
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1/4 cup chopped chives
1 pound chicken tenders, fat and sinew removed
3 tablespoons peanut oil
3/4 pound mesclun
l0 ounces cherry tomatoes, halved lengthwise
2 avocados, peeled and sliced
4 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and chopped
1/2 pound bacon lardons
1/2 pound crumbled Maytag blue cheese
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Combine the oil, vinegar and chives in a container with a tight-fitting lid. Season with salt and pepper. Cover and shake. Set aside.
Season the chicken with salt and pepper.
Heat the peanut oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. When very hot, add the chicken and sear, turning occasionally, for about 6 minutes or until browned and cooked through. Transfer to a platter and set aside.
To make the lardons: Cut the bacon crosswise into quarter-inch strips. Place the bacon in a large frying pan over medium-high head. Fry, stirring and turning frequently, for about five minutes, or until bacon is golden and crisp. Remove from the heat, place bacon on a double lay of paper towel to drain.
Place an equal amount of the mesclun into each of 4 large shallow soup bowls. Cut the chicken tenders crosswise into thin slices and arrange equal portions of the chicken down the center of the greens. Place a line of cherry tomatoes on one side of the chicken and a line of avocado down the other. Place a line of chopped egg next to the tomatoes and a line of lardons next to the avocado. Sprinkle blue cheese over all.
Service with the dressing on the side. Or drizzle a moderate amount over the top as you serve, asking guests to mix their salads immediately.
And don’t imagine how much better this would taste in the front room of Michael’s — consider how great it is to be serving it to friends at Table 1 of your home.
