Thursday, July 19, 2012.
Dining Out For Life At Bosco's.
Lots of news on the restaurant front. A few days ago, Chef Duke Locicero broke with his partners in the new restaurant planned for West End. It was supposed to have opened on the Fourth of July, but the looks of site make one wonder whether it will open this year. (Off-site fabrication methods these days make rapid construction possible, however.)
Duke says that he and the developers had an irreconcilable difference on the direction of the project. This means, at the very least, that the restaurant's name will not be "Duke's on the Basin." Which wasn't a great name anyway. (Once again, I offer this free service to new restaurants: run the name past me before you put it into the official papers.)
So Duke is back at Cafe Giovanni, which remains solid. Why anyone would want to open a second restaurant is a mystery to me. Where's the fun? Having more than one place turns a chef into a businessman. I've seen it happen too many times to think otherwise.
At some point during the last ten days, Annunciation opened in the former Deanie's. (Maybe this will be the last time I write these words: Deanie's in the Warehouse District has never had a connection with the one in Bucktown.) Annunciation is headlined by Steve Manning (below), who for a long time (in two spates) was the executive chef at Clancy's. Clancy's is also on Annunciation Street, coincidentally.
I pass in front of the old Deanie's every day leaving the radio station. The renovation of the building has been extensive. It was not a bad-looking place for a 45-year-old restaurant serving workingmen for most of its history. But a look through the window shows a much nicer bistro ambience. I imagine the food will be along the lines of what Steve was doing Uptown. I look forward to my first meal there in January or February.
Mary Leigh is leaving town tomorrow for a week with friends on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. That was enough to keep me from going into town today, but I had other reasons. Last night's Eat Club dinner, which went late, has me on low power today. And a drenching rain was closing the Causeway off and on. Once again, the rig I use to broadcast the radio show from home proves to be the best hardware investment I ever made.
Dinner for the three of us at Bosco's, one of the only restaurants on the North Shore participating in the NOAids Task Force's annual Dining Our For Life evening. Since I'm one of the honorary chairpeople of the event (Poppy Tooker is the other), I would be a fraud if I didn't show up.
I didn't learn until we arrived that the Marys had already take a large meal today at their favorite eatery, La Carreta. This meant that they would say they weren't going to eat anything. Of course, they ate as much as I did. Mary Ann went through most of the Italian salad, which has enough salami and provolone in it to make a decent-sized muffuletta. ML behaved only slightly better, following a big green salad with a side of spaghetti al pomodoro. Which, at Bosco's, is of entree size.
I had one of their house salads myself. (It's one of the two or three best all-green salads in the area.) Then a pair of small soft-shell crabs with artichokes, mushrooms, and crabmeat. (I never get tired of that combination.)
Tony Bosco had a new dessert: Italian cheesecake. The Italian aspect, near as I could tell, was in the crust, made out of biscotti. Good idea!
Bosco's. Mandeville: 2040 La Hwy 59. 985-624-5066.
It's over three years since a day was missed in the Dining Diary. To browse through all of the entries since 2008, go here.
