Cooking with Cantillon is the online home of, me, Chef and Wine Consultant Curt Coughlin.  I have about 20 years of experience in the culinary arts and I love nothing more than finding the perfect place to have a beer. I also likes fine French cooking, the best wines, and meals at top restaurants, but my passion is in relating what I am eating and drinking to its historical or cultural origin.

Take for example brautwurst. You can have a hot dog from a kiosk in Chicago or go to KaDaWe in Berlin, Germany and have a braurtwurst mit sauerkraut, senf und ein weisbeer. Which is better? They are both incredible. The guy in Chicago fixes perhaps the best hot dog in America and KaDaWe’s brautwurst are as good as it gets in Germany. But both places serve up heaping platefuls of “sense of place.’ That is what Cooking with Cantillon is all about. It is about being on a constant search for food, beer, and wine that transcends the meal itself. It takes you to another place in time, forever marks the place you are at now, or stands on its own – creating a new place and time that will be remembered.

I once went on a culinary tour on NYC and after 5 days of French restaurants I went to DC to see a friend before going back to Chicago. We went out to Italian dinner at a place called “IL PizziCo” in Maryland. When we pulled up we were in a strip mall and the restaurant from the outside looked more like a Dominoes Pizza. When we went inside the atmosphere and the wine list were amazing. The knowledge of the staff first class, the service top notch, and the food magnifico. When I got back to Chicago and all my friends asked about the trip to New York I told them the best French restaurant in New York is an Italian place in Frederick, Maryland.

The point is that I like to be taken somewhere when I eat and drink. I want to find restaurants with old family recipes, beer and wine from a region – not a magazine, and a staff that takes pride in every plate they serve.

If you know of a restaurant or a beer or wine that you think I would like, please send me an email so I can try it. If that place is near Boston or New York City – even better.  Most of all, I hope you enjoy ‘Cooking with Cantillon’.

 –Curt