首家米其林啤酒餐廳 紐約Luksus餐館

Daniel Burns talks about beer with the zeal of the recently converted. “There’s such a spectrum of flavour,” he says. “With beer, you can add whatever you think might work, you can play around. Wine is so dependent on terroir.”

丹尼埃爾•伯恩斯(Daniel Burns)最近成了啤酒的粉絲，因此侃起啤酒來頭頭是道。“啤酒有各種口感，”他說。“有了啤酒，可臨時添加自己喜歡的菜餚，還能‘肆意妄爲’一番。葡萄酒的口感則完全取決於土質。”

Burns is not a brewer but a chef: co-owner of Luksus in New York, the first beer-only restaurant to win a Michelin star. It’s unlikely to be the last. From the southern Indian restaurant Quilon in London, where beers begin the drinks list, to Eleven Madison Park in Manhattan, where the choices run to eight pages, beer has been invited to join the fine dining club.

伯恩斯並非釀酒師，而是位大廚：他是紐約Luksus餐館的共同擁有者，這是首家獲評米其林星級(Michelin)的啤酒餐廳，儘管“前無古人”，但肯定會有來者。從倫敦南印度風味的奎隆(Quilon)餐廳（其酒水單首當其衝就是各種啤酒）到美國曼哈頓的麥迪遜廣場十一號餐廳（Eleven Madison Park，各種品牌的啤酒單多達8頁），啤酒已登各大精品餐廳之大雅之堂。

Luksus, a joint venture between Burns and brewer Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergso, is found at the back of their bar Torst, a white-marble beer paradise in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, with 21 beers on tap. Though neighbour to takeaway joints and street-corner grocery stores, both Torst and Luksus are designed along clean Scandinavian lines (Luksus means “luxury” in Danish).

Luksus是由伯恩斯與釀酒師Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergso創辦的合資餐館，就設在Torst酒吧後面，Torst這座“啤酒樂園”位於布魯克林綠點區(Greenpoint, Brooklyn)的一幢由白色大理石建築內，有21種啤酒隨時可供飲用。儘管它們與外賣小店及街拐角雜貨店“比鄰而居”，但Torst酒吧與 Luksus餐館的設計均沿用簡潔的斯堪的納維亞風格的造型（Luksus在丹麥語中是“豪華”的意思）。

The 26-seat restaurant serves a delicate tasting menu ($95), which includes dishes such as cured mackerel, pickled radish and dill or parsnip parfait with malt and cranberry. Its beer matches ($45) are extraordinary, too, including Saison Cazeau, a spicy, elderflower-infused Belgian ale and Off Color Brewing’s Scurry, a dark honey ale made using oats. Wine is not on the menu.

定員26座的Luksus餐廳推出定價95美元的精緻套餐，包括醃鯖魚、醃蘿蔔以及加入麥芽與小紅莓的蒔蘿或防風草凍糕。啤酒賽（費用45美元）也美不勝收，其中就包括了Saison Cazeau（添加拉骨木花後釀製而成的辛辣味比利時啤酒）以及Off Color Brewing釀製的Scurry啤酒（用燕麥釀製的深色蜂蜜啤酒），然而酒水單上並無葡萄酒。

“We do a salted plum purée, which we’ve used with both duck and squab,” says the softly-spoken Burns, a Canadian who has worked at The Fat Duck, Noma and St John. “[To match] there’s a sour beer which has been aged in wine barrels with plums, made by [the Italian brewery] LoverBeer, that works perfectly.”

“我們使用鴨肉乳鴿，精心製作了鹹味李子泥，”說話細聲細語的伯恩斯說，伯恩斯是加拿大人，曾先後在The Fat Duck、Noma以及St John工作過。“爲了搭配這道佳餚，我們選中了陳年酸變啤酒，它與李子一起放在葡萄酒桶裏、由意大利知名啤酒廠LoverBeer精釀而成。”

Even in Paris, where wine is king, restaurants have started to incorporate beer into their offering, Most notably at hip bar-bistro Bones in the 11th arrondissement, which champions French breweries such as Craig Allan and Deck & Donohue. La Fine Mousse, a beer-matching bar-restaurant, opened last summer in the same neighbourhood. Romain Thieffry, one of the four co-owners, says: “It’s still difficult to make people come [here] . . . They are reluctant to try [beer with food] because they don’t know it.”

即便在貴爲“葡萄酒王國”的巴黎，很多高檔餐廳已開始讓啤酒登堂入室，最知名的當屬位於第11大區的時尚酒吧兼餐廳Bones，它大力推廣Craig Allan 與Deck & Donohue等法國國產啤酒品牌。去年夏天開業的La Fine Mousse，是一家專門舉辦啤酒賽的酒吧餐廳。羅曼•蒂埃弗裏(Romain Thieffry)是四名合夥人中的一個，他這樣說：“現在吸引顧客前來用餐仍有難度……他們不願用喝着啤酒享用美味佳餚，因爲他們不瞭解內情。”

Cheese is part of Thieffry’s strategy. “In France, we are programmed to think cheese goes with wine,” he says. “But in fact it’s difficult to make a pairing, especially with red wine. For cheese, the range of qualities that meet very well with beer are huge; it’s easy to make at least a correct pairing and it’s easier [than wine] to have a great one.” Such pairings might include Comté with the strong, sweet Brasserie Saint Rieul Grand Cru, or a smoked goat’s cheese with La Tourbée, a peated dark ale made by Brasserie du Mont Salève.

奶酪成爲蒂埃弗裏餐廳推行啤酒策略的一部分。“在法國，我們習慣於把奶酪與葡萄酒相搭配，”他說。“但實際上，兩者很難搭配好，尤其是紅葡萄酒。而與啤酒相配的高品質奶酪則非常多，至少很容易配上對，啤酒比葡萄酒更容易與奶酪實現‘珠聯璧合’”。完美的結合可能包括了孔泰奶酪(Comté)與濃郁味甘的Brasserie Saint Rieul Grand Cru啤酒、或是煙燻山羊奶酪與La Tourbée啤酒相搭配。這種泥煤味黑啤酒由Brasserie du Mont Salève酒廠釀製。

Suspicion of beer in the food world, Burns says, does not only relate to the diners. “I did this chef congress in New York, and one of the guys asked me: ‘Do you worry about people not coming because there’s no wine?’ It made me think — before you go to the Fat Duck or Hibiscus, do you think about what wine you’re going to drink? I get excited about the food, and the beverage is secondary. If it hinders people, that’s very short-sighted.”

伯恩斯說，餐飲界對啤酒的質疑並不僅僅與用餐者有關。“我曾在紐約開辦了這家合資餐廳，其中一位夥計問我：‘您不擔心客人由於餐廳沒有葡萄酒而不買賬嗎？’他的話讓我沉思良久——自己去Fat Duck與Hibiscus用餐之前，難道預先想好喝啥葡萄酒了嗎？自己最在意的是美食，酒水的重要性則退居次席。如果餐廳因爲客人望而止步而‘改弦更張’，目光就太短淺了。”

The energy of the brewing revolution may be enough to blow away any remaining doubts. Sriram Aylur, chef at Quilon, certainly thinks so. “When we see new trends, new brewers, we always want to work with them, especially if they’re doing something interesting,” he says. He highlights London breweries such as The Kernel, whose aromatic, low-alcohol Table Beer is on Quilon’s menu. “We’re very open, we’re not boxed in, we can change.”

啤酒業早已今非昔比，或許足以消除任何心中殘存的疑惑，奎隆餐廳主廚Sriram Aylur肯定也是這樣想的。“我們不斷目睹新餐飲時尚涌現，不斷有新啤酒品牌問世，就永遠希望能與生產商合作，尤其當對方釀製的啤酒不同凡響時。”他這樣解釋道。他重點提及了The Kernel等倫敦本地啤酒釀造廠，其推出的香氣四溢的Table Beer低度啤酒如今已正式榮登奎隆餐廳的酒水單。“我們完全持開放態度，並不會固步自封，願意因時而變。”