![]() ![]() The first floor space they’ve dubbed the Wallace Room is now awash in pretty shades of gleaming emerald and chartreuse. The once cluttered, grandma-tavern aesthetic that enraptured fans of celebrities and burgers for sixteen years is gone with it, the once-ubiquitous pigs. What’s inside is rather nice, and the pre-entry pomp does it a disservice. What might have seemed impressive in 2006 is a naked affectation today, but this introduction is more than just an eye-roller. “We’re trying to create a clubhouse without being a membership club,” Abramcyk told The Wall Street Journal a conceit that, if landed, would only evoke the worst of both worlds. It’s dated, alienating and impractical, creating a truly goofy pseudo exclusively reminiscent of comical red velvet ropes rather than what I imagine is a stab at the gatekeeping of proprietor Matt Abramcyk’s early-aughts Beatrice Inn. He oversees every order that comes out of his kitchen.Approach The Golden Swan’s 11th Street address (the same one previously occupied by The Spotted Pig a restaurant that cycled through hospitality’s highest highs and its most disturbing lows before closing in disgrace in January of 2020), and a host stands guard outside. “Each ingredient demands its own precise timing and heat intensity,” the chef says. So fine are the holes that smoke enters while liquid stays in. Arguinzoniz’s most famous invention is a laser-perforated pan for cooking risotto. Caviar? In a double-tiered lidded mesh pan, at 122 degrees and just until it starts sweating oil. Can an egg yolk be grilled? Yes, in a little ringed fine sieve with removable sides, which looks like a miniature cake pan. (Arguinzoniz scrapes the grills every day anyway, to remove the scent of old carbon char and any accumulated drippings.) Rather, he cooks the food in various sievelike baskets and pans he’s created. ![]() Very few ingredients are grilled directly on grates. The grills are powered by wood coal that Arguinzoniz prepares himself, twice a day, in two 750-degree ovens. This way, the ingredients’ distance from heat can be regulated with perfect precision. The grates move up and down during cooking through an ingenious system of tracks and pulleys controlled by a wheel. Lining the entire wall of his kitchen are six custom-made, stainless steel grills. Since the necessary tools didn’t exist, Arguinzoniz designed them himself. Taking grill cuisine to unexpected places required a whole new set of equipment. ![]() They arrived at the table barely heated through and improbably succulent, with a touch of wood smoke. A few years later, he divined a way of grilling fresh anchovies, sandwiching two tender little butterflied fish together, misting them with Txakoli spray and then cooking them for a nanosecond. Instead, he invented a meshlike stainless steel saucepan and positioned it high above the hot coals. Actually, Arguinzoniz didn’t try to toss them onto the grate either. And so, in the late ’90s, he did the impossible: He grilled angulas, which are so fragile and miniscule no sane chef would ever toss them onto the grate. “What if delicacies like foie gras or spiny lobster met the grill?” he’d fantasize. The flavors were charred and delicious but one-dimensional, and eventually, inspired by the prime ingredients served at the white-tablecloth restaurants he occasionally visited, he wanted more. Initially, Arguinzoniz served iconic Basque asador (grill-house) dishes: chuletas (bone-in rib eyes), whole sea bream, cogote de merluza (hake neck). ![]()
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