Review: Art is on ‘The Menu’ as biting satire serves up some mean cuisine
It’s a food item that’s not often found on the menu, although some might be surprised to learn it’s on KFSB chef and restaurateur Joe McAlister’s new show The Menu, which is on KFSB and Dish Network at 10 p.m. Sunday.”Biting satire” is how KFSB described the restaurant project in its press release announcing the two-hour-long pilot, which is set to air May 12. Here’s what to expect with The Menu.
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Food and drink: McAlister serves up his own style of satire and his new restaurant.
The show is based on McAlister’s experience as an executive chef at The New York City outpost of the popular Manhattan pub, The Knapp’s Bar & Restaurant. The New York City location was the first in the country to open restaurant The Knapp’s to full-service dining at a small, three-bar steakhouse that offered a menu of classic burgers and steaks. The Knapp’s took off nationally, with hundreds of restaurants opening nationally and internationally to take advantage of the success.
The Knapp’s went as high as No. 1 in rankings of “Best NYC Restaurants” by “New York” magazine, the highest ranking that the magazine has received. The New York Times declared “The New York City Knapp’s Bar & Restaurant” “America’s Favorite New Restaurant.” The “Times” even had a photo of the eatery on its cover.
The chef’s concept was to create a new concept for New York City. “The City of Knapp’s” began in 1976, when Joe McAlister opened the first location in the city. The Knapp’s Bar & Restaurant is now in 21 locations around the country.
McAlister says he came up with the concept of The Menu while sitting cross-legged in a restaurant on the Upper West Side of Manhattan during a visit to London last year.
“I thought, I’m going to go to London in a couple of weeks,” he says. “I was there for three months. I wasn’t really making an impression there.”
What’s happening in New York was “awesome,” he adds. “But there was a lot of talent and a lot of chefs out there doing their own thing