Meadowood's 12 Days: Virgilio Martinez
The Restaurant at Meadowood’s annual 12 Days of Christmas guest chef series is underway. Here at Inside Scoop, we’re reviving our own tradition of tracking each night through the chefs’ words and their food — with a little help from Bonjwing Lee, a.k.a. the Ulterior Epicure, who is responsible for the gorgeous photos above.
You can check out past years here: 2013, 2012, 2011 and 2010.
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Virgilio Martínez took an unlikely path to become one of the world’s best chefs, and by proxy, a culinary ambassador for Peru. The Lima native is a lawyer by trade, and got his first cooking gig in Canada. He then went to traditional culinary school in London, and proceeded to work around the world.
In 2010, he opened his soon-to-be flagship in Lima. Named Central, it is currently ranked #15 of the list of San Pellegrino’s 50 Best Restaurants in the World and was named Best Restaurant in Latin America. He expanded to London soon thereafter and became the first Peruvian chef there to notch a Michelin star.
Here’s how San Pellegrino describes his cuisine:
Martínez’s unique take on Peruvian food includes using cushuro, an edible cyanobacteria harvested in Andean wetlands, or frozen potato, an ancient conservation method that brings out unexpected flavour from the most famous Peruvian crop, to create elegant but down-to-earth dishes that leave a lasting memory.
He brought a few of those tricks to the Restaurant at Meadowood this week, for the seventh dinner of the series:
Day Seven of the
Twelve Days of Christmas
December 13, 2014
scallop parsnip tiradito
central
squid matsutake pine grits
the restaurant
kohlrabi andean grains
central
clams dry potato quail egg
central
gem lettuce amaranth
central
veal shortrib tendon suc
celery gnudi
the restaurant
pear lees gjetost pudding spicebush
the restaurant
cacao and clay
central
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Domaine Laporte “Le Rochoy”
Sancerre 2012
Continuum 2005
Continuum 2008
Continuum 2011
Arnaud Margaine “Traditionelle”
Demi-Sec NV
Previously:
· Day One: Matthew Orlando, Amass (Copenhagen)
· Day Two: Frank Castronovo and Frank Falcinelli of Frankies Spuntino (Brooklyn)
· Day Three: Kobe Desramaults, In De Wulf (Dranouter)
· Day Four: Alexandre Gauthier, La Grenouillère (La Madelaine sous Montreuil)
· Day Five: Blaine Wetzel, The Willows Inn (Lummi Island)
·Day Six: Joshua McFadden, Ava Gene’s (Portland)