Or, Flattery Will Get You This Blog Post
westchestermagazine.com, December 16, 2013
By Julia Sexton
At the moment that I wrote this post, I was writing monthly restaurant reviews, all Westchester's food features, and three columns—one monthly and two quarterly. Oh! And I had a side gig, I was writing a book. PS: The J. Sexton pie is still going strong at Burrata.
I wrote this weekly food blog for six years, from 2008-2014. In 2009, I won a prestigious CRMA (City and Regional Magazine Association) award for Best Blog, beating out runners up in all subjects from big city magazines—Boston Magazine, The Washingtonian, Chicago Magazine, etc. The judges wrote that my blog, "won us over with its big personality, breezy conversational tone and wonderful insider detail—the kind that makes the reader feel like an in-the-know foodie. Julia Sexton gave us a terrific behind-the-scenes look at restaurant kitchens and their complicated relationship with health codes ... And she served up a detailed, name-dropping review of a new restaurant. Thoroughly satisfying and fun." My editors were thrilled—this was a major win for WM.
Here’s the funny thing about being a restaurant critic: I seldom have the opportunity to revisit my favorite restaurants. For the few, intense weeks when I’m reviewing it, I’ll haunt a restaurant with visits, studying its food, menus, and the details of its décor. I’ll memorize chef bios and I’ll puzzle over the restaurant’s intentions until all that snooping and tasting pours into an 800-word review. Then, metaphorically, I smoke a cigarette and move on to my next assignment—only to be become immersed in that restaurant’s food, menu, and décor.
Still, I’d been hearing from three respected friends in the restaurant business that I really, really, really should revisit Burrata in Eastchester. Chef Chaz Anderson had always slung delicious, puffy, and carefully crafted wood-fired pies, but now, he was branching out into house-made pasta. And, let’s face it: Anderson is my hero. He slings an almost unspeakably delicious pie (the J. Sexton), which is a triumph of creamy deliciousness named for yours truly. The pie is Anderson’s supremely good-natured response to one of the few criticisms in my overwhelmingly positive review in Westchester Magazine—namely, that I thought burrata cheese ought never to be cooked. Folks, I am shameless: please send all your dirty jokes about my pie to the Eaterline. I stay up late.
Anyway, I dropped into Burrata last week and everything that I’ve been told is true. Anderson is still slinging those fluffy pies made with silky, lighter-than-air Caputo 00. He’s topping them with artisanal ingredients that play with textures, flavors, and, even, temperatures. For instance, that fabled J. Sexton pie offers warm, bursting, wood-fired cherry tomatoes on a hot round of puffy wood-fired crust—but those ingredients are countered by cool, milky burrata and spicy, raw arugula leaves. It’s warm and gooey, yet, also, cool and crunchy.
Plus, it's named after me.
Sure enough, there were Anderson’s pastas on the menu and I managed to check out three. The carnal, brown-butter slicked short rib agnolotti barely dodged being overwhelmingly rich with the smart addition of gritty toasted breadcrumbs. That little crunch was so simple and perfect. To be honest, I was loathe to stop eating the agnolotti and move onto the next dish, which was a wonderfully funky tagliatelle with black truffles, chives, and Fontina fonduta. The last is actually not an Italian porn star name—I mean, really, who knew?—but, instead, a creamy, slightly funky Fontina sauce that underscored the fragrance of those black truffles. Finally, there was the purist’s spaghetti with San Marzano tomato, local basil, garlic, and Parmigiano Reggiano—the resistance of the fresh, hand-made noodles to the bite was almost textbook-perfect.
So, in short—return to Burrata. It’s still good and, maybe even, getting better. While you’re there, don’t forget to eat my pie (an experience that comes waaaay too cheap at $16).
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