Getting away from stuffy French food.

Question: How has the New York food scene changed in your lifetime?

Dana Cowin: The time I have been here since birth but New York food scene at birth was very French oriented and as we know there are some closings of really classic, beautiful, wonderful old French-style restaurants. So there has been a huge shift in since then but let’s say since ---- coming to Food & Wine which is the mid ‘90s. First of all there are so many more choices. There is great food at every level. There is great value food. There was never great barbeque in New York. There was now some really fun barbeque. There are so many more fantastic Italian restaurants, the rise of the celebrity chef you can see the fingerprints of that all over New York City. I mean think of Mario Batali his amazing series of restaurants. I think that the number of cuisines that you can have and feel really great about has increased so much. There is no Spanish food. Now there is great Spanish food. Japanese food was all sushi and sort of tempera, but in the most basic Americanized sense and now your sushi options are phenomenal. Actually I should stop. I could go on because it’s really --- its sort of night and day the small pocket restaurants which have you know 60 seats, great quality, ok prices. That’s pretty new. How the avantguard cooking like inaudible There is none of that of course in the early ‘90s. So ---- and then there is the rock star you know high-end chefs that have been doing it a long time and are still sublime, John George at the name sake restaurant. Eric Repera at El Bernadin at his many many restaurants Daniel the flagship with Bar Boulud, Café Boulud. So, yeah, it’s endless.

Recorded on: 3/7/08