"MatthewWeingarten" news and stories

Before writing this piece, I checked the Slashfood archives to make sure that I wasn't repeating something that had recently been covered. I needn't have worried; while we've had a few posts on German food over the years, our coverage has tended to focus on chocolate cake, beer, and potato salad, in that order.

While unfortunate, this is totally understandable. Although once a respected cuisine, German food has fallen on hard times. Rich in flavor, it is also rich in fat and salt, and lacks the exuberant seasoning of Italian food or the light freshness of nouvelle cuisine. It is a warming cuisine for a cold climate and, with its emphasis on preserved vegetables and cheap cuts of meat, it seems out-of-place in our fast-paced, refrigerator-dependent world.

The thing is, German food is attractive, cheap, and flavorful. Easy to prepare and a pleasure to eat, it is home cooking in the most meaningful sense of the word. What's more, by reducing serving sizes, playing with accompaniments and adjusting ingredients, it is possible to enjoy the reassuring warmth of German seasoning without breaking our increasingly health-conscious American diets.

In many ways, New York's Inside Park restaurant could not have found a worse time to open. Located in a prime spot on Park Avenue, its first week was overshadowed by the excitement of the United Nations' General Assembly meeting. Moreover, the extensive security surrounding the delegates, many of whom were staying across the street at the Waldorf-Astoria, made it next to impossible for interested patrons to find their way to the restaurant's door. Over the following months, further events, ranging from the Jewish holidays to the downfall of the economy, conspired to tank the fledgling restaurant. Still, Inside Park soldiered on, determined to succeed in a falling market and a newly-restrained city, where a night on the town had started to seem like a luxury, instead of a birthright.

Luckily, Inside Park has a lot going for it. Located in the former community center of New York's St. Bartholomew's Church, the restaurant has undergone a multi-million dollar restoration that tranformed the old, battle-scarred institutional space into an elegant yet intimate venue. From the rafters painted in folk art-inspired designs to the the whitewashed walls that look like they belong in a monastery, to the dramatic stage that dominates the dining room, the restaurant exudes a kind of grandeur that seems a product of the twentieth, not the 21st century. The addition of a crisp, friendly-yet-efficient wait staff and a thoughtfully-prepared and innovative menu complete the picture.

Still, for all the ambiance of its space and skill of its staff, Inside Park has fought an uphill battle to find customers, particularly with a falling economy dictating that many New Yorkers are more inclined to eat in than go out. Over the past few months, the high prices and expensive delicacies that have so long fueled New York's fine dining scene have not been an easy sell. With that in mind, the restaurant has organized a series of "Heritage Cuisine Dinners." Priced at $35 per person, the three course dinners each focus on a distinctive regional food, offering a perfectly prepared meal at a price that is slightly less than that of a standard entree. Although the dinners, including cassoulet, paella, and bouillabase, have humble origins, Chef Matthew Weingarten's emphasis on local ingredients and thoughtful, respectful preparation elevates them to the level of fine dining.