Hi folks, friends and patrons of Matisse 167! We’ve just created our new Winter menu. My head waiter Adrian has been after me for months and months, telling me everybody wanted to have the Reuben back. A Reuben is a pretty classic dish, and I wanted to put it twist on it. So, this time I decided, instead of the classic rye bread and some of the classic things that you think about, I decided to make a duck fat shortbread biscuit and it’s a pretty amazing biscuit. Love it! A lot of flavor. It’s interesting that the fat lends itself, the flavor is more intense than butter. So it’s really interesting little biscuit. All the ingredients are there. One of the twists I put on the dish is I added some smoked duck in with the pastrami, which gives it a little bit of smoky flavor. Then I did my own Cole slaw, which is some green cabbage with some julienne pickles in a little bit of pickle juice to get that acidity. Then we finish it with a hot mustard vinaigrette, so that’s the new pastrami Rubin. We have been getting a lot of response to this dish. I had someone come to the window the other night and said it’s the best bleep he ever had, so that was kind of fun :)!

Also the Sirloin. For this, we use a small farm through Dartagnian. They’re in Kansas and it’s interesting that it’s not so much about a piece of sirloin. It’s about the quality of the product that you start with. A lot of people comment on my sirloin, how good it is, and it really is about what we start with. If you start with great product and cook it right, you’re going to end up with a great meal. I enjoy doing it, and I’m glad when you enjoy it, too.

There’s another dish that has usually always been on my menu, and that’s the crabcake. Many people mention, when they walk past my window at the end of the day, that one of their favorite things that they had there that evening was the crab cake. I took it off the menu once and I had a revolt! So it stays on the menu. I’m currently working on developing it as a retail product. So if you can’t make it to the restaurant, you will be able to buy it to make at home soon. We are also writing some recipes for sauces that go with it. Hopefully that’s something you will look forward to in the future!

Chef Peter Matisse 167. Love you, and hope to see you soon!