Culinary Diplomacy on the Upper North Side: Newer, Better and Tastier

bout de papier, Vol. 17, No. 2 (2000) — Summer 2000 // Été 2000, pp. 35–37

by Michael Phillips, Kevin O’Shea, and Lianne Verheyden Photos: Greg Kinch Photography

The National Rifle Association created a stir recently by announcing at its national convention its intention to start a theme restaurant on Times Square. It would join the august ranks of the All Star Café, the ESPN Restaurant, Planet Hollywood and the World Wrestling Federation Restaurant at this fabled crossing.

To us the announcement was the sincerest form of flattery. It confirmed the ever-increasing importance of culinary diplomacy as a part of branding, marketing and public diplomacy. After all, it came only three months after our assault on the taste buds of New York with our Tastefully Canadian: Canada Cuisine Week in New York. Our slogan was not quite as aggressive as the NRA slogan, “From my cold, dead hands” but hey — it’s Canadian.

The Upper North Side: Canada in New York Season Redux

As an encore to our initial Upper North Side Season: Canada in New York, (see bout de papier, Volume 16, No. 2), the Consulate launched a sequel in September 1999. Like all good sequels, our second season of public diplomacy had the same plot — we would try to project a modern, vibrant image of Canada through a combination of packaging all Canadian events coming to New York, of creating new ones and of pulling it altogether in a nifty but cheap marketing plan.

So once again, as we did last year, we invented and got together events that would highlight the best of Canada and Canadian society. We would do a Canadian Conversation Series (with Peter Jennings, Bruce McCall and Julie Payette). We would repeat our Canadian Lecture Series (a Lionel Gelber lecture, a Marshall McLuhan lecture, a Glen Gould lecture). We would organize a three part E-Commerce in North America series to highlight Canadian IT capabilities.

We would highlight areas of Canadian policy leadership with conferences on “Culture in a World of Trade” in March at New York University and on “Landmines” in December at Columbia University.

To celebrate hockey’s entering the new millennium, we would do a Hockey 2000 Series, which would see us bringing down the Stanley Cup, prepare a film tribute to the best hockey films, and organize a panel on hockey’s best moments of the century.

As well, we would sponsor not one, not two, not three, but four Canadian film series. There was a tribute to the National Film Board’s 60th Anniversary at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), a Don McKellar Retrospective at the American Museum of the Moving Image (not bad for a guy who has directed only two films), a Canadian film festival in Brooklyn, and the three-week Canadian film festival at Lincoln Center – Blame Canada: Classic and Contemporary Films from North of the Border (the first film tribute to Canada in over ten years at this forum for film, featuring over 30 works from Canada).

And one last concept, culinary diplomacy — a Canadian restaurant week in New York!

Tastefully Canadian: Canadian Cuisine Week in New York, March 20-26

Our original idea in August 1999 was to convince a number of New York restaurants with a Canadian connection to have a Canadian menu for one week in March 2000. Four restaurants signed on right away — Estiatorio Milos, whose owner Costas Spiliadis runs a similarly named restaurant in Montreal, Fifty Seven Fifty Seven, in the Canadian-owned Four Seasons Hotel, the hip Grammercy Tavern, whose sommelier is Toronto’s Paul Greco, and Onieal’s Grand Street, whose general manager is Maritimer and former hockey player Gord Adams.

We saw this initiative as relatively labour-free. Get all restaurants to offer a Canadian menu and we would promote the week. Pretty simple, right? Wrong. We got carried away.

As the dates of the proposed Canada restaurant week approached, we upped the ante. We decided that maybe we should add a couple of events to profile the Canadian food and wine industry in general to the food and wine press in New York.

Northern Exposure: A Canadian Culinary Experience

The first new idea was to do a Canadian gourmet event showing off Canadian chefs and Canadian regional food products. We would target the food and wine media in New York and aim to get free promotion for the Canadian restaurant week.

We had three young and talented chefs already identified. In fact, they were figuratively waiting in the wings, if not in our kitchens. Elizabeth Manville of Victoria was the chef of the Canadian Consul General, Stewart Madden of Ottawa and a former dancer at the National Ballet School was the chef to our Ambassador to the United Nations, and Caroline McCann of Montreal was the 26-year-old chef of the Delegate General of Quebec.

Each would prepare one course in a three-course meal, which would capture the variety and regional span of Canadian foods. Stewart would do a Canadian coast-to-coast seafood appetizer plate that would include lobster, oysters, scallops and smoked black cod.

Caroline would do a main course of saddle of Quebec rabbit, confit of British Columbia tomatoes and wilted spinach and double-smoked bacon. And Liz would prepare a crème de farine pudding with Quebec maple syrup, beignet of Okanagan apple with Manitoba wild rice and Canadian Club ice cream. Clearly, this ain’t your mother’s meatloaf.

Culinary Diplomacy on the Upper North Side: Newer, Better and Tastier

We thought about various venues for the gourmet event. Should we do a progressive dinner and move all the guests after the end of each course to a different official residence? No, too hoity-toity! How about a demonstration at Bloomingdale’s? No, too retail! How about a cooking demonstration at the James Beard Foundation – ground zero of American cuisine? No, we did that last year!

We finally hit upon a concept: we would do this gourmet experience at Peter Kump’s New York Cooking School, the cooking school of record in New York. And we would invite 50 New York food and wine critics.

Canadian Wine Tasting

The second bright idea was to add a Canadian wine tasting event. This one was easier.

The Vintner’s Quality Alliance of Canada agreed to bring down owners of 16 different wineries in Canada and feature over 70 vintages, mainly from Ontario and British Columbia. We would invite media, restaurant sommeliers and wine distributers. And we would do it at the beginning of the Canadian restaurant week at one of the restaurants — Milos.

Canadian Tasting Menus at NY Restaurants

Finally, we decided to expand the number of participating restaurants and eliminate the criterion that they had to have a Canadian connection. We would just ask restaurants if they would create a special Canadian tasting menu which could be ordered at lunch or at dinner. And we would extend the range beyond Manhattan and hit the burbs.

So to the original four, we added Bouterin, a French restaurant on the Upper East Side, Black Bass Grille in Rye, the Larchmont Oyster House in Larchmont, DeRosa, an Italian restaurant in Westport Connecticut and Sixty-four Greenwich Avenue in Greenwich, Connecticut.

For good measure, two well-known Canadian chefs would come down to cook: Vancouver-born Ned Bell from Toronto’s acclaimed Senses, a wizard with seafood, would go to Milos, and Stefan Czapalay, the owner of Season in Thyme in Summerside PEI, to Onieal’s Grand Street.

All was set: the Gourmet Dinner, the visiting Canadian chefs, Canadian wine tasting and New York restaurants featuring the everyday normal Canadian fare one finds at home. Yukon caribou, Alberta bison, Quebec saddle of rabbit, Atlantic salmon and Arctic char.

Oh yes, and one more element. We would invite Chris Knight of the Great Canadian Cuisine Food Show to come down and host the Gourmet Dinner.

Culinary Diplomacy in Action

The Canadian forces of culinary diplomacy stood ready for deployment on that bright Monday, March 20, the official launch day of our Canadian cuisine week. Corkscrews, knives and forks glimmering in their freshly polished splendour. Our only objective was to brand Canada, highlight Canadian cuisine and take no prisoners.

The Canadian Wine Tasting Event on March 20 at Milos draws more than 70 media and buyers. T.J. Foderaro, a wine columnist from the New Jersey Star-Ledger approaches the trenches, tastes Canadian wine for the first time and spits it out (don’t panic, it’s a wine tasting, after all). “These are the first Canadian wines I have ever had, and I have been consistently impressed with both the whites and reds. I’d say I found most to be very good, and some to be truly fantastic.”

Matthew MacCartney, a manager at the oh so trendy Grammercy Tavern says, “Canadian wines are very well received. We are happy to have it on the list. People are very shocked, though, the first time we bring it to their attention.” And Cristina DeSousa of Sixty Four Greenwich, “Until today, I had never heard of Canadian wines, but I liked them.”

All in all, the Canadian vintners are delighted with the event. It is difficult to generate much interest south of the border. They agree to do this again next year. And they agree to bring a group of New York restaurant sommeliers up to the Niagara Recion The night is a success. The editors rave. They never knew about Canadian cheese, Canadian wine and some of the Canadian food products. In Canada, we get full-page coverage in the Globe and Mail and two-page coverage in the Weekend Style section of the Ottawa Citizen.

And the restaurant week? Poster boards adorn the nine restaurants. Ads run in Time Out New York and the listings are out there. New York Post, New York Times and a number of Web sites call attention to the Canada cursine experience.

Edificerex.com, the Web site for rich New York and New York co-op owners, runs a typical piece. “Check another exotic nation off the list: Canadian cuisine takes New York from March 20 through 26 in the week-long Tastefully Canadian celebration. Brainchild of the Canadian consulate, this series of events promises to familiarize us with indigenous dishes like smoked black cod in an ice wine emulsion and filet of caribou with wild mushrooms.”

But this being New York, there are disappointments. New York magazine originally wanted to do an exclusive but they back out. The New York Times wine columnist agrees to do a review of Canadian wines (which he loves) but his editors kill the story when it is discovered that very few retail stores in New York City carry Canadian wine, other than Inniskillin Ice Wine. And another New York Times food editor agrees to do a story on the Canadian food week if we can fly in daily the bread from Senses Restaurant in Toronto (because she loves it). So we do. And we arrange for someone from the Times to interview Senses chef Ned Bell who is here for the week. This is the story we get in the Times Food Stuff column, “Unusual breads from Senses, an excellent bakery and restaurant in Toronto, are being sold this week at Estiatorio Milos.” Sigh!

Ah, yes, culinary diplomacy, another quiver in the public diplomacy toolbox. Add that to hockey diplomacy, film diplomacy and summer music diplomacy.