Yunnan Kitchen Has a One-Star Advantage

whole crispy shrimp at yunnan kitchen - yana paskova for the ny timesPete Wells heads to Yunnan Kitchen on the Lower East Side for this week's review.  He explains the restaurant, previously featured on our Donde Dinner? column, "takes a farmers’ market approach to the cuisine of Yunnan Province in China."  This approach has already proved successful at the hands of Ed Schoenfeld and Joe Ng at RedFarm in the West Village.  Their website describes the food at RedFarm as "inspired Chinese cuisine with Greenmarket sensibilities."

At Yunnan Kitchen, "Mr. Post’s fresh, locavore sensibility leads to straightforward and uncomplicated cooking," Wells writes.  This sensibility in Travis Post ripened during his stint at Franny's in Brooklyn.  Overall, this approach to cooking, along with the access and captial to purchase quality products, plays a significant role not just in the success of Yunnan Kitchen, but restaurants city wide.  Wells describes it as a "revolution," and explains that it "hasn't reached all quarters.  Along Lexington Avenue, great Indian cooks are currying nondescript chicken; Thai chefs in Queens are making do with spongy pork; and in Brooklyn, Nigerian kitchens are stewing farmed fish that bears only a slight resemblance to the original article."  "Those Thai chefs," he continues, "can’t buy Berkshire pork if it means tripling prices and alienating core customers."

The review suggests a set of advantages found at Yunnan Kitchen and "restaurants that have the financing and the cultural wherewithal to bring in customers who will pay for premium ingredients."  Yunnan Kitchen may not serve food that has the same caliber of authenticity found at the likes of Andy Ricker's restaurants, which helped earn Pok Pok NY two stars, but the local, seasonal approach to cooking, coupled with access and funds to purchase quality ingredients from established purveyors is enough to elevate the restaurant to star quality.