Comments (0) Best Fusion Restaurant - 2001
Affair by Prezzo
Chefs cringe when food writers use the word fusion these days to describe their innovative fare, and no doubt corporate chef Mennen Tekeli and executive chef Doug Barnhill are wincing as we write. But there's little other way to describe the meld of Italian-Asian flavors at this relatively new, high-end restaurant without resorting to the cutesie -- Asialian? Italasian? -- which merely wind up looking like a new word for Russian cuisine. So bear up, boys. Like you, we're sure dishes such as shrimp firecrackers with chili dipping sauce, smoked salmon with lemon-mascarpone risotto, rigatoni with grilled pork loin and roasted baby eggplant-tomato ragout and herbed ricotta, or miso-glazed sea bass with wasabi mashed potatoes and preserved lemon-basil nage deserve a better label than fusion. But as long as we also tag Prezzo Affair the best, is that really so bad?
