All photos by Zach Hyman, Billy Farrell Agency.
Imagine—a restaurant that opens only once and for 52 hours straight. There are 13 seatings, each with its own renown chef and unique menu. It is called Exquisite Corpse, after the practice in which multiple artists compose a picture or text together, each one starting where the last left off, building upon the work of previous artists.
In Le Grand Fooding’s culinary equivalent, which began Friday, September 23, each chef created a menu that incorporated one key ingredient from the previous chef’s meal. It all started with Andrew Carmellini and Hugue Dufour of Locanda Verde, The Dutch, and M. Wells, and it ended at 9pm on Sunday with Massimo Bottura of Osteria Francescana in Italy.
Whitewall arrived for the penultimate menu, prepared by Corey Lee, the chef at Benu in San Francisco. Sponsored by Pellegrino and Veuve Clicquot, Le Grand Fooding’s team transformed a raw event space in Chelsea into a chic eclectic dining room lit with hundreds of candles and a stunning chandelier made from 30 or 40 giant glass jugs hung from the ceiling.
Lee’s menu was perfect for an early Sunday dinner—sophisticated but not fussy. There was delicious lobster, a fantastic cut of slow roasted pork, and perhaps the most refreshing and elegant dessert ever invented: pine needle honey-infused sweet rice tea served just before a small plate that combined fig, balsamic vinegar, sake lees, and white chocolate. Exquisite indeed.
Keith Lieberthal and Julianna Margulies.
Sponsors Pellegrino and Veuve Clicquot.
