It’s a sentiment increasingly familiar to New York diners. In the past few years, offal—the animal parts that fall off the butcher table, like the entrails, head and feet—has progressed from a rare delicacy at risk-taking restaurants like Babbo, Prune and Michael White’s now-defunct Fiamma to a ubiquity of near–pork-belly proportions. Prime beef? Hopelessly minor league, not to mention kind of unenlightened. Call yourself a chef? Let’s see what you can do with a whole (locally raised, hormone-free, of course) carcass. Let’s see you braise a kidney.

Meanwhile, butcher shops like the Meat Hook in Williamsburg and Dickson’s Farmstand Meats in Chelsea Market sell ambitious amateurs everything from headcheese to chorizo-stuffed duck hearts. A blog called Nose to Tail at Home chronicles the Julie Powell–like adventures of a young foodie named Ryan Adams (not the singer) attempting to cook from the British chef Fergus Henderson’s seminal 2004 offal bible, The Whole Beast: Nose to Tail Eating. And last summer’s inevitable nationally televised offal street-food competition occurred not on Fear Factor but Top Chef Masters, with Chicago’s Rick Bayless’ tongue tacos triumphing.

“It shows a level of skill and also a care and concern,” said Seamus Mullen, chef at Boqueria in Soho and on 19th Street, who regularly serves pan-roasted sweetbreads, pork liver terrines, lamb kidneys and rabbit organs. Mr. Mullen said that the dishes, while not yet blockbusters, sell well, especially when he puts them in small, cheaper appetizer portions—less of a commitment. There is an obvious spirit of daring to the entrail enterprise. “When we first opened L’Artusi and even Dell’anima, all I wanted on the menu was funky, weird shit,” said Gabe Thompson, chef at the two West Village Italian restaurants, where he cooks sweetbreads and livers and has considered adding brains. “Cooks like to eat funky, weird shit, and cooks like to send other cooks out funky, weird shit.”

High on the Hog

Cesare Casella is currently serving plenty of guanciale and Sloppy Guisseppe (a sloppy Joe made of leftover parts like oxtail and bone marrow) at Salumeria Rosi Parmacotto on the Upper West Side. He served a veal brains special at the now-shuttered Maremma, along with Granelli—“otherwise known as Rocky Mountain Oysters or cow’s balls,” Mr. Casella said, but “brains were so much harder to sell than testicles. … For some reason, diners were more comfortable with the idea of eating balls.”

Mr. Batali, the primary auteur of fine dining’s current offalmania, has had better luck with his lamb’s brain “francobolli,” a staple since he put it on Babbo’s opening menu in 1998. “I used it because it was an inexpensive way to profit,” he told The Observer, “but also because it served to distinguish my restaurants from the rest of the Italian restaurants that pretty much had veal Milanese and ricotta ravioli with tomato sauce.” He also cites “philosophical responsibility.”

For all the balls-out (sorry) nature of offal, chefs offering it still tend to traffic in euphemism. A handy glossary: guanciale (pork jowl), trotters (pig’s feet), cod milt (cod sperm, once offered at the now-shuttered John Dory on 10th Avenue), tripe (stomach, though it sounds more like a mild white fish, which perhaps helps account for its popularity), Orielles de Christ (pig skin, available at the Vanderbilt in Brooklyn) and, of course, so-called sweetbreads (thymus and pancreas, available everywhere from Babbo to Prune to Little Italy). Some offal is more straightforward in name, such as fatback (literally, back fat) and caul fat (a fatty membrane surrounding pig intestines). And organs like the liver, kidney and brains have largely evaded semantic cover, though they also sometimes escape mention in terrines around town, where they add depth of flavor if not commercial appeal.

At the new Breslin at the Ace Hotel, April Bloomfield, a Brit and offal’s reigning high priestess, has dispensed with the niceties and is serving “Stuffed Pig’s Foot (for 2),” which Times critic Sam Sifton described as “the size of a toddler’s leg.” And possibly piggybacking (sorry again) on the favor for British cooking cultivated by Ms. Bloomfield, a new Scottish gastropub in the West Village called the Highlands has begun tempting/repulsing customers with haggis, the traditional Scottish delicacy involving boiling intestines in a sheep’s stomach. Mr. Thompson said the civilian clientele for offal consists of two distinct groups: “All these people who are 20 being like, ‘I eat everything!’; and people who are 60 saying, ‘I haven’t eaten sweetbreads since I was a little kid!’” At the Spotted Pig, where crispy pig’s ear is the sixth best-selling dish, owner Ken Friedman recently observed, “These people come in, mostly older English people, and they eat [chef Bloomfield’s] liver and onions and bacon, and they like have tears in their eyes.”

Sumptuous when cooked right and revolting when botched, offal is the perfect medium for showing off. “It’s all about stimulus,” said Saul Bolton, who is currently cooking real French andouille sausage—i.e., pork stomach blanched and slow-cooked and glued together with “hog gel” before being stuffed into pork large intestine, cold-smoked and poached—at the Vanderbilt. “It’s like TV: The textures are more varied, the flavors more varied, it’s a much more interesting eating experience all-around. If you allow yourself to spend the time to really get to know feet, tail and head, they’re so much tastier than any other part!”

Undoubtedly, some chefs relish offal’s aloofness and lack of appeal to the city’s growing vegetarian, allergenic population: David Chang, for one, an innards enthusiast who once famously excised his only vegetarian dish from the menu after being chastised for being insensitive to meat-avoiders; and Gabrielle Hamilton, who has served sweetbreads and bone marrow at Prune since 1999 (she also serves veal hearts and monkfish liver, and calves’ brains every Valentine’s Day). “It was this very efficient kind of mutual interview for a date,” she said of her offal. “Like, here’s my menu and it’s very plain what’s available here. It weeded out a clientele.”

Cheek Chic

But though the snob appeal of challenging organ meats cannot be denied, “people who say we’re an elitist movement are ignoring entire cultures that are based off lesser cuts,” said Patrick Martins, owner of Heritage Foods USA, which supplies pork from small farms to Mr. Batali, Mr. Chang, Ms. Bloomfield and Daniel Boulud, among others. In certain enclaves of the city, offal isn’t back so much as it never went anywhere; it’s a staple of, say, traditional Italian, Spanish, Dominican, Puerto Rican and Greek cuisines. Mr. Mullen of Boqueria describes having Dominican tripe that, touted as a hangover cure, “really tastes like cow gut,” on the Lower East Side; Mr. Gold, the author, often treks to Yakitori Totto, in midtown, for “chicken parts”—i.e., “hearts, livers, gizzards, bones, cartilage, the tail, crispy chicken tails, which are amazing crunchy little nuggets.” (He called this restaurant his “happy place.”)

A quick glance at a Gourmet cookbook first released in 1950 reveals the extent to which we’ve become squeamish eaters in a single generation: The book boasted 51 recipes for offal, most French; the most recent Gourmet cookbook, released in 2009, had two. Ms. Hamilton grew up eating a wide variety of organs cooked by her French mother in rural New Jersey; Mr. Batali was raised in Seattle on liver slathered in ketchup. “When I landed in New York City in ’92, I thought, ‘Wow, what an interesting place filled with a lot of steaks and tuna and chicken!’” he said.

Only in Manhattan could we pay premium prices for something once considered a culinary castoff. Farmers and purveyors used to send innards in bags attached to the carcasses for free, but offal has become a specialty item that is, in some cases, more expensive than filet mignon. “The stuff’s doubled,” said Pat LaFrieda, the famed third-generation meat man who keeps 600 of Manhattan’s best restaurants stocked. Mr. LaFrieda estimates that offal currently makes up 10 percent of his business, up from 5 percent five years ago and 2 percent 10 years ago. “I’m constantly speaking to the packers when I call and ask for offal, and they say, ‘What are you guys doing with it?’” said Mr. LaFrieda, who estimated that “lamb’s brains have gone from $2.50 to $5 a pound, veal cheeks have gone from $5 to $10 a pound in the last five years; pork livers are maybe up 50 percent.” (Filet mignon, meanwhile, goes for $7 or $8 a pound.) Calf livers are up about 30 percent in the past five years, Mr. LaFrieda added, and other veal items are the same price they were 20 years ago.

The rise of guts is good news for small farmers who once gave the stuff away, but it has decreased chefs’ margins on dishes that were once moneymakers. “These used to be the ones that might buy me a Mercedes-Benz, but now I’m definitely going to be in a Volkswagen forever,” bemoaned Ms. Hamilton, who now pays upward of $8 a pound for sweetbreads and anywhere from $9 to $19 a pound for monkfish liver, an expensive delicacy in Japan.

Still, Mr. LaFrieda said that offal’s limited regional appeal (currently, the revival has not spread beyond New York and a few other urban culinary centers) means that prices will only rise so much, because the supply of animals with organs to give is “not tapped out.”

In which case: Will we eventually tire of seeing hooves and intestines alongside salt cod and rib-eyes? Cheek is hot right now, but after that, what next? What is left to eat? Former Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl recently predicted via Twitter that “lamb necks might be the pork belly of 2010.” Mr. LaFrieda, for his part, is burning through 200 pounds of veal tongue a week and has been fielding requests for cock’s combs—currently on the menu at Michael White’s Alto. Mr. Martins of Heritage Foods admitted to selling the “bunghole”—that’s exactly what it sounds like—to a chef in Virginia, who uses it to make sausage casing. He also said that Mr. Batali has been recently begging him for pig’s bladder, currently banned by the U.S.D.A.

“He’s like, ‘I’ll pay you anything for pig’s bladder,’” said Mr. Martins. “I think he wants to cook stuff in it.” Ms. Hamilton, meanwhile, one of the original harbingers of the trend, is moving on, in her mind if not yet on her menu, from the modern obsession with cooking things “for the sake of being outlandish,” an attitude she described as “‘Hey, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to put pork snout on top of pork belly and then I’m going to fry it, man.’” What will she do instead? Perhaps “a little crab salad and a half an avocado and a glass of Lillet,” she said.

mbryan@observer.com

A Cuban? Never! “You’re too young to remember, but Ken Aretsky almost went to prison for that!” Mr. Nieporent said, referring to the proprietor of midtown’s Patroon whose well-stocked humidor was raided by customs agents back in 1998.

“[Publicist] Jennifer Baum has arranged for so many of my peeps to be interviewed over there, I have to smoke,” Mr. Nieporent explained, pointing to a tented red carpet area, where fellow culinary heavyweights Daniel Boulud, Jacques Pepin, and a George Hamilton-level tanned Stephen Starr, among others, were lined up for photos and interviews before the start of the 2009 James Beard Foundation Awards.

“This is not the Tribeca Film Festival!” Mr. Nieporent shouted. “One at a time!”

Hosted this year by the actor Stanley Tucci, co-star of the upcoming Julia Child biopic Julie & Julia, the annual Oscars of food invariably draws an eclectic mix of young attractive publicists in slinky gowns and lots of older fat guys in suits--and at least one wearing overalls and a Paul Reubens-style red bowtie. Chef Mario Batali showed up in a tux and bright, traffic-cone orange Crocs.

“I love this event,” said the dapperly dressed Mr. Nieporent, sporting a pink bowtie and yet another (perhaps celebratory) cigar, still wrapped in plastic, protruding from his breast pocket. “It’s really the only time that the industry allows us to self-promote on such a large scale. So why not? Fashion does it, movies do it.”

There are those who take issue with the self-promotion. Fellow restaurateur Keith McNally, for one, previously denounced the flashy ceremony as “ludicrous.” The eccentric operator of Pastis, Balthazar, and the newly refurbished Minetta Tavern, didn’t show up for this year’s awards, despite his nomination for outstanding restaurateur.

“I’ve paid off a few of the judges so I’m probably a shoo-in at this point. NO!” Mr. McNally told the Transom via email. “Can’t be there as I’m working at Minetta Tavern all night. Hope you enjoy it. It’s probably more fun than I’m willing to admit.”

Competing with Mr. McNally for the foundation’s most businessy prize was Mr. Nieporent, who, prior to the ceremony, described it as arguably the most precious. “There’s got to be two dozen chef awards,” he said. “Chef of the north, chef of the south, chef of the east, chef of the west, rising star, falling star, whatever. There’s only one category for restaurateur. One! And the participants in that category, every single one is worthy.”

Mr. Nieporent and his Myriad Restaurant Group--who’ve opened 32 restaurants in 24 years, he noted--have earned numerous James Beard nominations in recent years, though he lamented, “like in the Kentucky Derby, my horse finished last.” (He hasn't won since Nobu took outstanding restaurant honors in 1995.)

His newly opened Corton was also in the running this year for best new restaurant, though, from the outset, he pointed to maverick chef David Chang’s Momofuku Ko as “the Derby favorite.” (Turned out later, he was right.)

Mr. Chang and his self-described band of “young punks” soon arrived in the standard style, aboard a big rented party bus. (Just the single bus this time, not two like last year.) Chef Wylie Dufresne of wd-50 also deboarded the bus, clutching a plastic cup half full of liquid and otherwise stuffed with limes. “Will you sign my ticket?” the mockingly star-struck Mr. Dufresne asked his pal Mr. Chang for an autograph.

A number of other prominent cooks had been invited to board Mr. Chang’s bus of debauchery but declined. “I was shocked that he invited us, to be honest,” said Scott Conant, whose new eatery Scarpetta was also competing for honors against Mr. Chang’s Ko. “I’m here with my son and my wife and I don’t know if I want to expose them to the Chang party bus,” added Top Chef’s Tom Colicchio.

Inside, the awards show would drag on for nearly four hours, as various presenters repeatedly joked about all the food awaiting ravished attendees afterward in the lobby.

“People are so hungry, Lorraine Bracco is biting my ear behind me,” quipped Mr. Nieporent, finally taking the stage to accept his long-awaited medalion for outstanding restaurateur at about 9:30 p.m. (The show started at 6.) “Excuse me one second,” he told the crowd, “I’m Twittering. Don’t you hate that shit? You know, somebody twitted me that, in the time that we’ve been here, [Nashville restaurateur] Jack Arnold and his wife had another kid.”

Mr. Nieporent, who later hosted an after-party at his Midtown spot Nobu 57, had a strange feeling that he was going to win, he said. “You know why? My wife goes to bed very early. The lights were out. I tip-toed to the bed. And, suddenly, I stepped in dog shit--I swear to god! Two dogs! And, I screamed, ‘We’re going to win!’”

The Daily Transom phoned Ko owner David Chang that day to see if he was worried, but never heard back. And while ours was a mere prediction, it seems Mr. Chang really is stressed out by the economic meltdown, so much so that he has written about it for Esquire.

Mr. Chang tells the story of Michael the farmer who wears a John Deere hat in a non-ironic manner and raises "Tamworth" pigs in upstate New York. 

"America better prepare for some uncomfortable changes. Things might get really ugly," Michael the farmer told Mr. Chang. And now Mr. Chang is genuinely worried. 

"You've seen the articles, right there on the front page next to equally uplifting stories about oil, the economy, and the war: The cost of food--of producing and procuring it--is soaring," writes Mr. Chang. "In the restaurant world, it's all anyone can talk about."

Michael the farmer’s food costs have risen, machinery is aging and breaking down, and the restaurant industry is spending more and more on humanely raised meat, he writes. 

"It's depressing, this state of affairs, and sometimes I let myself wallow in it," confesses Mr. Chang. "But then I think about the opportunity this situation presents."

And what does Mr. Chang, the pork belly chef, suggest we do? Eat less meat, apparently.

"Hunting will be less about the buck points and more about the meat. Nose-to-tail eating will make a comeback--not because of fashion or Fergus Henderson (whom I love), but because of scarcity and price," he explains. "And small-scale farming—little vegetable gardens in the backyards of homes in cities, suburbs, and the countryside alike—will become not just economically sensible but cool. Hell, maybe foraging for mushrooms and wild fruits will become a seminormal skill again."

But the irony of Mr. Chang of all people asking us to look to vegetables and grains is not lost on him: "Yeah, I recognize the hypocrisy of me--Captain Fucking Pork Bun--telling you to eat more veggies and less meat. Guilty as charged. But don't get me wrong: My restaurants still won't kowtow to vegetarians. We will, however, focus more on vegetable and grain dishes in which meat adds flavor, not heft."

[Via GrubStreet] 

But while this blogger's meal sounds characteristically incredible—"fried nugget of black rice and pork belly" and "a huge mound of shaved foie gras over lychees, cubes of Riesling gelee, and pine nut brittle"—something was off at Ko last night.

"BTW, there were 8 empty seats. 3 different groups of people were no-shows," she wrote at the end of her post. "WTF? There were three (friendly, fun) chefs for the 4 of us there. We had the best night."

We thought the financial meltdown wasn't going to hit us yet, but here it is!

What could be a more accurate barometer of the flailing economy than empty seats at Ko? (Daily Transom has been logging on religiously for a reservation since May with no luck.)

But we think we side with Fran Lebowitz on this one. If the stock market crash means the hedge fund managers and stock brokers are abandoning their Ko seats, we'll gladly occupy those spots. Yay, meltdown!

(Daily Transom has contacted Momofuku Ko see if Mr. Chang sees last night's incident as a reflection of New York's current financial troubles. We'll update as soon as we hear back.)

[Via Grub Street]