Irving Mill

November 21

You might remember that my first visit to Irving Mill, on its opening night, didn’t give me much insight into the food, as not much of it was served.
But last night I had an actual sit-down dinner there with the restaurant’s publicist, Steven Hall.
The restaurant was mostly full, and pretty star-studded. Management was a-twitter because Rachel Ray was eating there. They also seemed pleased that Chelsea Clinton was dining as well.
“Really?" I asked.
“She's sitting next to you,” Steven said, which was just a minor exaggeration. He and I were in a booth, Chelsea and co. were at an adjacent table.
Does that mean I had a better table than she did? I’m never sure how that works, or what it means.
Steven was one of the first publicists I met in New York, but we’d never dined together, and we had a good time talking about the blog phenomenon, his strategies for getting press in different key publications and my strategies for deciding what to write about.
Irving Mill will probably be getting more press soon: Florence Fabricant ate there recently, and Frank Bruni has been in at least once, according to management.

What we ate:

Grilled quail with green tomato relish, cheddar cheese grits and smoked paprika
Cauliflower ravioli with hazelnuts, capers, red onion and Parmesan
Atlantic cod with roasted Brussels sprouts, carrots, apple butter and cider
Roasted poussin with roasted shallots, green olive, garlic sausage, rosemary and potato purée
Greek yogurt panna cotta with stewed apricots, quince and pistachio
Zucchini cake with orange sorbet, orange marmalade and toffee walnuts.