To date, the New California Cuisine emerging from restaurants like Benu, Aziza, and Commonwealth has wrought dehydrated-vegetable powders, improbably succulent meats cooked at ultra-low temperatures, and tiny leaves and daubs of sauce placed on the plate to resemble a fairy landscape. It has been a cuisine of precision as well as unforeseen flavors, as much display as meal, and not universally loved. For every eater who gets excited about soup teeming with hydrocolloid-thickened strands of broth, there's another who just wants a pan-roasted filet of fish with a nice sauce and some veg. There's a reason that the Classic... More >>>