Today on "The Martha Stewart Podcast," I'm releasing my interesting and fun conversation with Chefs Riad Nasr and Lee Hanson on the opening of their restaurant Le Rock, a beautifully designed eatery at New York City's famed Rockefeller Center. Be sure to take some time to listen on the iHeart Media App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Riad and Lee have known each other for almost 30-years. They worked at Daniel, Balthazar, Pastis, and Minetta Tavern before opening Frenchette in 2018. With this newest endeavor, Le Rock, Riad and Lee are reinterpreting classic French dishes and breaking away from more traditional menu styles - offering "Cette Semaine" items that change weekly as well as "Tout Le Temps" or what is served "all the time." The night before we recorded my podcast, I had the opportunity to dine at Le Rock - the large and airy Art Deco space was pleasantly lit and every offering we tried was delicious.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
Le Rock is located inside Rockefeller Center’s International Building. On the exterior of the building is this grand carved-limestone relief entitled “The Story of Mankind” by Lee Lawrie and colorist Leon V. Solon. This art work screen is divided into 15 small rectangular spaces created to symbolize and chronicle mankind’s progress.
Le Rock features large windows, which let in lots of light from the plaza outside.
Here I am at the entrance to Le Rock the evening before my podcast.
Inside, guests are greeted by verdigris accents. Verdigris is the common name for blue-green, copper-based pigments that create the patina on copper, bronze, and brass.
Custom verdigris colored service shelves are both functional and ornamental.
Riad says “every seat is good seat.” He and Lee wanted the restaurant to feel both casual and grand, with plenty of space for every guest.
This is the bar, which also features Art Deco designed stools and background.
The menu includes their interpretation of many french dishes – broken down into specials and everyday favorites.
We enjoyed the bread service with radishes, butter, and crevelle de canut, a French cheese spread.
Look at this Dressed Crab, one of their appetizers. Everything was wonderfully fresh and flavorful.
Leeks Vinaigrette is from Le Rock’s Tout Le Temps menu.
We also tried Escargots Bourguignons – a traditional French dish originating from Burgundy. The dish consists of snails that are baked with garlic and butter.
This is Agnolotti Corn Chanterelles from the Cette Semaine menu. Agnolotti is a type of pasta made with small pieces of flattened pasta dough, folded over a filling.
And of course, there were fries. Listen to my podcast to find out what we thought about these fried potatoes.
For the entrée, we had Duck Aux Epices, or duck with spices.
And this Cote de Boeuf. If you remember, I invited Chefs Riad and Lee to join me in making Cote de Boeuf years ago on my television show, Living.
I was also very happy to get a personal tour through the kitchen, which is designed differently from traditional restaurant kitchens. Hear why it works for Le Rock on my podcast.
The next day, Riad, Lee, and myself met at Newsstand Studios, also at Rockefeller Center. It is a a state-of-the-art podcast studio built out of a retrofitted 1940s newsstand.
The studio was comfortable and looked out onto the lobby of the 45 Rockefeller Center – just steps from Le Rock.
So, be sure to listen to my podcast later today with Chefs Riad Nasr and Lee Hanson – it’s a wonderful discussion about their friendship, their restaurants, and their vision for Le Rock. And please visit Le Rock the next time you’re in New York City – you’ll love it.
I love visiting gardens around the country and around the world - especially when they are as enchanting and as beautiful as Wethersfield Estate & Garden in Amenia, New York.
Wethersfield was the country home of philanthropist, conservationist, and banking heir, Chauncey Devereux Stillman. In 1937, he bought two abandoned farms where he designed and developed his estate and eventually expanded the property to its current size of approximately 1,000 acres. Situated at the top of a hill with breathtaking mountain views, the home and land includes a three-acre formal garden, a seven-acre wilderness garden, a working farm, a carriage house and museum, and miles of woodland trails for hiking and horseback riding. Over the weekend, I toured the gardens and attended a lecture on Wethersfield hosted by the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art - a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting and preserving the practice, understanding, and appreciation of classical design. Wethersfield Garden is described as the finest classical garden in the United States built in the second half of the 20th century - I do hope you take the opportunity to visit it someday.
Here are some photos, enjoy.
This is the historic front gate at Wethersfield Estate & Garden. The leaded urns are topped with camels from the Stillman Family crest.
Visitors to Wethersfield Garden are able to view the property map, showing the formal garden near the main house.
Wethersfield’s Director of Horticulture Toshi Yano greets guests and thanks everyone for attending the ICAA’s Bunny Mellon Symposium.
Here, a tall limestone urn in the distance marks the boundary between the working and designed landscape. One can see the Taconic mountain range beyond.
This is the Tempietto at the Belvedere. From here, one can see distant views of the Berkshires and the Catskills. It was important to Chauncey that the design of his stately Georgian-style colonial home include sweeping views of the area.
Here, weeping beech trees are pruned into columns to mark the four corners of the East Garden. Look closely, and one can see Fuchsias overflowing from the leaded urns.
Fuchsias were among Chauncey’s favorite flowering plants. Fuchsia is a genus of tropical perennial plants that produce exotic-looking, two-toned flower blossoms.
Here is another view inside the East Garden with its handsomely manicured hedges.
This statue shows Cupid riding a dolphin in a lovely niche of shale and bluestone. The wall doubles as a rock garden filled with alpine plants.
This is a limestone finial atop a brick column at the Cutting Garden.
This is the “Schooling Field” where Chauncey would train his Hackney horses for four-in-hand carriage driving. A field that also has sweeping mountain views.
This statue is of a panned piper on one side of an arch cut into an arborvitae hedge.
This is a very well-executed ha-ha – a “blind fence,” or a recessed landscape design element that creates a vertical barrier. In the distance one can see the slight change in color toward the end of the lawn marking a four foot drop meant to keep the livestock out of the garden.
The swimming pool at Wethersfield has been converted into a reflecting pool.
The curvature of the oval reflecting pool is echoed in the steps where masses of scented geraniums fill the air with perfume.
I admired the cherub with a finger to his lips. Toshi says it suggests to visitors that “silence is golden.”
This is a living rug in bluestone and turf grass. It marks the entrance to an arborvitae allée. The Naiad fountain at the very end is by Swedish sculptor Carl Milles.
Wethersfield is filled with unusual limestone and lead ornaments – this one also caught my eye.
Urns designed by Stanford White are filled with Artemisia mauiensis, or Maui wormwood – a perennial plant native to the island of Maui with mounding, soft silvery foliage.
It also looks so beautiful in this parterre.
This is the goldfish pool at Wethersfield’s Pine Terrace. The shale retaining walls in the garden are made of stones from the farm’s historic field walls.
Sweet autumn clematis, Clematis terniflora, flows over a fence with its white fragrant blooms. The hills of the Taconic range can be seen in the distance.
This stone step mounting block shows visitors entering or exiting that the owner had horses, and in this case, a collection of riding carriages.
And this is the west side of the main house at Wethersfield, beautifully maintained inside and out. The entire property is now managed by the Wethersfield Foundation. Go to the website at Wethersfield.org to learn more about this fabulous estate and garden.
Whenever friends, family, and colleagues travel, I always encourage them to take lots of photos - it's always so much fun to see images from others taken during their vacations.
Earlier this month, my property manager, Doug White, and his girlfriend Amy Wilbur, spent a week in Northern California visiting family and friends. While there, they relaxed on the beaches of Trinidad, hiked the trails of Prairie Creek State Park lined with majestic old-growth redwoods, and drove along sections of the famous Pacific Coast Highway Route 101.
Here are some of their photos, enjoy.
Trinidad, California is a seaside town in Humboldt County, located on the Pacific Ocean and noted for its spectacular coastline of beaches and offshore rocks. Situated directly above its own natural harbor, Trinidad is one of California’s smallest incorporated cities. In 2010, it was recorded to have a population of 367 residents.
This is a view from Wedding Rock Point in Trinidad. Wedding Rock is a landmark at Patrick’s Point State Park. It was named after its original caretaker got married there in the early 1900s. From this vantage point, visitors from November through April may sometimes catch a sight of migrating California Grey Whales.
Doug and Amy stayed in a quaint bed and breakfast where they had breathtaking sunset views with the fog rolling over the ocean.
Here’s Doug at the base of one of the trees in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park – a 14,000 acre park and coastal sanctuary for old-growth Coast Redwood trees.
While hiking, they saw many trees previously damaged by forest fires. One can see the charred bark from remains of this redwood.
Here is another tree damaged by fire. Thankfully, many of the trees do survive.
Here is a wider view from one of the trails. Coast redwood, Sequoia sempervirens, and Douglas-fir, Pseudotsuga menziesii, are two of the dominant trees of the old-growth redwood forest. The park takes its name from Prairie Creek which flows near the western edge of the park.
Here is the base of another redwood. Many redwoods in the park have reached 300 feet tall.
The park is also home to luxuriant ferns and other shade and moisture-loving plants.
The trees are left in place after falling. Here, ladders are built on both sides of a tree that fell across the trail.
Here’s Doug standing in the middle of Newton B. Drury Scenic Parkway which passes through the heart of the old-growth redwood forest.
Have you ever seen one of these before? It’s a banana slug – a North American terrestrial slug of the genus Ariolimax. They’re often bright yellow, but they can also come in green, brown, tan, or white. Banana slugs are a very beneficial species because they help break down decomposing vegetation and return the nutrients to the soil. But don’t touch one – banana slug slime is also an anesthetic, so it could make one’s skin feel numb.
On this day, Doug and Amy drove along a stretch of US Route 101. Known as the Pacific Coast Highway, California U.S. Route 101, or Route 1 in some areas, runs directly along the Pacific Ocean for 790 miles, from San Diego all the way to the Oregon border.
Here’s another view from the road. US 101 was one of the original national routes established in 1926. Significant portions between the Los Angeles area and the San Francisco Bay Area follow El Camino Real, the commemorative route connecting the former Alta California’s 21 missions. When Fr. Junipero Serra began building his string of missions up the California coastline in the late 1700s, he needed a wagon road to connect them, so he constructed the state’s first highway. For nearly two centuries the road was the principal north-south route in California.
They stopped at Pelican State Beach, a five-acre beach known for its sandy dunes and driftwood. Many visitors come here for walking and beach-combing. Because of its remote location and easy-to-miss access road, it has been described as “the loneliest beach in California”.
This beach is in Jenner-By-The-Sea – a quaint oceanside Northern California village overlooking the mouth of the Russian River, where it meets the Pacific Ocean.
Another section along US Route 101 took Doug and Amy through this row of towering blue gum eucalyptus trees, Eucalyptus globulus – tall, fast-growing trees with blue-green leaves and shaggy bark.
And if you’ve ever been to Northern California, I am sure you are familiar with this bridge – the famous Golden Gate, a 4200-foot suspension bridge spanning the Golden Gate, the one-mile-wide strait connecting San Francisco Bay and the Pacific Ocean.
Here’s a view of San Francisco from Alcatraz Island, home of the well-known federal penitentiary which housed some of the most dangerous civilian prisoners.
And here is a view of Oakland – a city on the east side of San Francisco Bay and Doug and Amy’s last stop before returning home to the East Coast. Here, they captured another gorgeous sunset from their hotel room to close their memorable trip.
Martha Pins
Martha Tweets
