Haute Dogs
At New York's High-End Restaurants, Hot Dogs Are Moving on Up.
Welcome to Hot Dog Week at The Mix!
All this week we will be posting hot dog content and nothing but, all the better to get everyone in that Summertime mood. Today’s stop: Midtown Manhattan!
In the past year, something’s happened to hot dogs. It’s the same thing that happened to burgers 20 years ago and fried chicken 10 years ago. Basically restaurants and chefs rediscovered a humble American staple and gave it an upgrade. High met low and burgers and chicken got fancy. Aïoli was involved and brioche buns (so many brioche buns), unusual cheeses and dipping sauces of unclear origin. Burgers got very thick or they got super smashed or they were joined by a second patty. Chicken fryers drew on the traditions of a dozen different countries.
Now, apparently, it’s time for hotdogs to get their glow up.
The main bat signal that announced this shift was the hot dog at the now-closed restaurant Mischa. Chef Alex Stupek answered all the $35 hamburgers in town with a $29 hot dog. It wasn’t a hot dog per se. It was sausage. But it was large and it was tucked in a big bun and had multiple condiments on the side as well as a serving of chili. So everything was big.
More recently, at the Portrait Bar inside the Fifth Avenue Hotel, chef Andrew Carmellini came up with the Hot Dog au Poivre. A grilled beef dog was tossed in au poivre sauce and chives, then placed in a toasted, split-top brioche bun with green peppercorn aïoli and a layer of crispy potatoes, and then topped with more sauce, chives, and discs of pickled onion. It costs $20. I wrote about this dog for Grub Street.
Let us call these specimens Haute Dogs.
In all these cases, we are talking about deconstructed hot dogs. They are either super big or super small. They’re hot dogs in that there is a sausage of some kind involved and it is in a bun. But other than that this genre is elastic. The category is not dissimilar to all the diverse cocktails out there right now presenting themselves as Martinis. They nod in the direction of the original cocktail’s blueprint, but don’t closely follow it.
The Bar Room at The Modern, however, might have all haute dog competitors beat in terms of swankiness. All it took was a little caviar.
The Modern was already known for caviar dishes when the Caviar Hot Dogs bowed on the bar menu about a year ago. One of chef Thomas Allan’s signature dishes is Eggs on Eggs on Eggs, a composition of caviar, egg yolk, and toasted brioche.
Two years ago, Allan received a call from Danny Meyer, the restaurateur behind The Modern. He was at a reception in the garden at the famous California restaurant French Laundry. There were several food stations at the event.
“One station was a caviar fountain,” recalled Allan. “Another station was like a traditional hot dog cart. Danny being Danny, he walked to the hot dog cart and then walked to the caviar station and started shoveling caviar on the hot dog.”
Meyer thought there might be something in that taste combination and asked Allan to consider it.
“I never thought I’d serve a hot dog at The Modern to be honest,” said Allan.
Allan considers the snack to be partly inspired by Eggs on Eggs on Eggs, a smaller version of which was long available at the bar.
The Caviar Hot Dogs are of the mini variety. The frank itself—a collaboration with Pat LeFrieda and Sabrett, the New Jersey hot dog maker—is the only thing about the dish that is not made in-house. It’s all beef and is delivered as tied-off links of a custom diameter. It is then cut by the kitchen into correct portions and inserted in a small, toasted, top-split brioche bun.
Under the hot dog is a stripe of the fried egg sauce used in Eggs on Eggs on Eggs, mixed with house-made mustard and sour beer. On top is dill, dill oil, three small pickled shallot rings and a teaspoon of caviar. The caviar is a Kaluga hybrid. Two mini-dogs will run you $38.
It’s a perfectly balanced bar snack, with a bit of salty and savory in every bite. The fresh dill adds a zing of garden freshness to the finish, while the egg-mustard sauce gives the whole thing an initial pop. I would recommend having it with a Martini, probably of the clean, cool vodka variety. I’m not a fan of vodka Martinis, but here it seems appropriate.
The Caviar Dogs are quite popular and Chef Allan now sees the wisdom of having the “quintessential snack of New York City” on the menu.
“What I’ve learned is it just makes people happy,” he said.
Recently I announced the arrival of the Simonson Dog at Crif Dogs and PDT in the East Village. PDT has long practiced the tradition of collaborating with chefs on custom hot dogs, which they serve at the bar. This is, as far as I know, the first time they’ve asked a food/drink journalist to devise a special dog.
I will get into the inspiration and nature of the Simonson Dog in posts on The Mix on Thursday and Friday. In the meantime, if you are in New York and want to check it out personally, the hot dog is available on the current menu at both Crif Dogs and PDT. If you try it, please let me know what you think!
Previously on Hot Dog Week:
🌭🌭🌭 Tired of Hot Dogs yet, Simonson?
Wow! Well it looks like your hard work on the lowly hotdog is beginning to off
: > ))