What does Wylie Dufresne (WD-50) eat?

M

Monk

#1
#1
New York Magazine does this feature from time to time where they ask someone to keep a diary of everything they eat for a week. You'd kind of expect Dufresne to eat some weird shit, considering his reputation. In fact, it's mostly fried chicken and frozen chocolate chip cookies:

http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2009/07/wylie_dufresne_maurads_his_kit.html?e=grubstreet--20090724

Added bonus:

While you're over there, check out this article in which they take a look back at 1970s menus from well known New York restaurants. The prices are particularly amusing.

http://newyork.grubstreet.com/2009/07/how_different_did_manhattans_m.html?e=grubstreet--20090724
 
J

justlooking

#2
#2
It's really not that surprising when you think about it, since for all the imposed weirdness a keystone of Wiley's style is tricked-up versions of middle-class vernacular cooking of his childhood.

Look at his current tasting menu. One dish is an express attempt to approximate cold leftover fried chicken taken from the refrigerator in the middle of the night.

Another dish features everything-bagel ice cream with some kind of weirded-out smoked salmon.

It's mostly riffs on the very kind of stuff he's saying he eats.
 
M

Monk

#3
#3
True. Although (and he did do a little of this on his days off), many of the other chefs they've profiled have taken every opportunity to sample food from their competition/friends at other restaurants, both for inspiration and to see what they're up against. And they'd usually gather large groups together so they could do a major sampling of the offerings at each place.

And, the more that I think about it, when I've been to WD-50, the dishes I had were extremely original and not necessarily riffs off of American classics. I'm not saying that those aren't on the menu, but there was a lot of more challenging stuff on the menu as well. When I think of chefs doing riffs on American classics, I think of the old An American Place, which, the one time I ate there, had a desert menu that read like something from a sleepaway camp canteen. It was all about nostalgia. I don't really see WD-50 as trading on that same sense of nostalgia. It's more about technology and combining flavors, with a sense of humor. (You know, there's something just a little ridiculous about wanting to figure out how to deep fry mayonnaise in the first place, for example.)
 
N

nychelsea

#8
#8
Excellent assessment of Wd-40 and Wilie's cuisine. It is truly a different menu IMHO. It doesn't always work but is always interesting! It helps to be an adventurous eater and/or an aspiring "foodie."

Each time I've been there has been quite satisfactory although many of my friends gave it mixed reviews or didn't care for it at all.

Yum,

Chels
 
V

vermeer

#9
#9
This guy is a pretentious load. Most of the items include carmelized semen form the mexican busboys who work there, as secret ingredient. Yummie! Only stupid white people eat there.
 
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