More than once I've been asked if I ever tire of going out to restaurants or of eating so much of the same thing. The answer to the first question is absolutely not: Like everyone else I get hungry after six PM and still think that a good restaurant always offers the promise of something new and exciting. As for the second, while there is a lot of sameness and trendiness on menus, the good chefs know how to make people's favorite dishes their own. So, nothing is ever the same, and sometimes I come across a restaurant of such decorous appeal and a chef of such innovation that I realize all over again why I love what I do.
The brand-new Point Seven is a case in point and Chef Franklin Becker, whose career I've followed for decades, proves that the great ones never get bored-tired, perhaps, in a profession that takes its toll-but never blasé or lax about trying to give enormous pleasure to his or her guests. Becker is a very busy fellow: Brooklyn born as the son of a mother whose ethic was "always do better," he attended the Culinary Institute of America and first came to my notice at Capitale in Soho. He has devoted himself to healthy food causes, co-founding Little Beet and Hungryroot.com, and works with Columbia University on its food hall, as well as opening Oliva Tapas restaurant in Harlem.
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