Omnivore

Archives | RSS

  |  
Pin It
Share

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Food & Life Deranged foodies gather for night two of Baton Supper Club with M. Wells

Posted by Brad Kaplan on Wed, Oct 26, 2011 at 10:46 AM

M. Wells at Baton Supper Series menu
In the small, tightly packed room, there was at least one Top Chef contestant, a restaurant critic or two, a few fanatical food bloggers, and seventeen or so other people who could best be described as deranged foodies. They had gathered in this place to take part in a semi-secret supper club involving liver, tongue, heart, and blood. Moans, incantations, and the sound of 1960's era Mick Jagger filled the room. It sounds almost like a scene from Eyes Wide Shut, but it was really just a rare opportunity for Atlanta to experience the food of Montreal-by-way-of-Queens chef Hugue Dufour and a few of his compatriots. The first night of the two night Baton Supper Series stint at Gato Bizco had been sparsely attended, but night two (last night) was packed after a few local foodie bloggers had shouted out their satisfaction with night one via Twitter and megaphone. Even still, it was a small room, and the number of people who got to experience the foie gras bread pudding, the beef tongue pot pie, was tiny in the scheme of things.

Which got me thinking... how many people in Atlanta have ever even heard of Hugue Dufour, or his recently shuttered and highly praised, but debated, Queens (as in New York) restaurant M. Wells? Or even the place where he made his name, Montreal's infamously insane Au Pied de Cochon?

Of the five million or so people in the Atlanta area, I'd be very surprised if more than a couple hundred (that's something like 0.004%) had ever heard of M. Wells. Not that there's anything wrong with that. You basically have to be a deranged foodie to live in Georgia and have any clue about a small, now closed, restaurant in Long Island City, Queens. THAT is arcane foodie knowledge that would easily stump the guy who won 74 straight episodes of Jeopardy. But there we were, a pack of hungry foodies eager to soak up an esoteric experience. Young and old, rich and poor, black and white, we are the 0.004%.

But, really, does it matter who in Atlanta has heard of M. Wells or Au Pied de Cochon? No. What matters is that we have a community of folks who really want to get to know our own local rock star chefs, our own people who are toiling behind the bar or hustling to get great things to our farmers' markets. Thanks to Bravo TV, a big chunk of Atlanta (and America) now knows who Richard Blais is, or Hugh Acheson. But it would be great if just as many knew the name of their local farmers and purveyors of real, good food. That may still be arcane foodie knowledge, but it's the kind of knowledge that can impact our daily lives, not just a bit of trivia.

(By the way, keep an eye out for our "We are the 0.004%" t-shirts, coming soon to an organic, grass-fed, offal-only butcher shoppe and micro-green emporium near you)

Tags: , ,

Comments (23)

Showing 1-23 of 23

Add a comment

 
Subscribe to this thread:
By Email
With RSS
Showing 1-23 of 23

Add a comment

Latest in Omnivore

More by Brad Kaplan

Search Events

all events
concerts
restaurants
movie times

Search Omnivore

Recent Comments

Top Commenters

Most Popular
Most Shared
Most Commented

© 2013 Creative Loafing Atlanta
Powered by Foundation