No Smoking in NY Eateries? Put some Tobacco in Your Soup!

Eatery Offers Menu for Tobacco-Deprived
Thu April 3, 2003 07:48 AM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York restaurant has cooked up a way to beat the city's tough new anti-tobacco ban.
The Italian restaurant Serafina Sandro unveiled a "Tobacco Special" menu on Wednesday, with such delicacies as gnocchi made with tobacco and filet mignon in a tobacco-wine sauce, garnished with dried tobacco.
Tobacco panna cotta -- an Italian cooked cream dish -- is available for dessert, followed by a strong glass of tobacco-infused grappa.
"I never thought tobacco would taste so good," said the restaurant's co-owner Fabio Granato of the rich tobacco flavor. "It tastes better than smoking."
His partner Vittorio Assaf said he tips his hat to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who pushed through the tough anti-smoking bill that took effect last Sunday, for his inspiration.
Under the new law, cigarettes and cigars are barred from almost every bar and restaurant in the city. It aims to protect workers in the 13,000 bars and restaurants that have allowed smoking.
"Bravo Bloomberg," he said. "It took Mayor Bloomberg to make us finally cook with tobacco in the kitchen. It's the invention of a new spice into the cuisine."
The tobacco recipes were the brainchild of chef Sandro Fioriti, a cigar smoker who mused "maybe a little more tobacco" as he sampled the panna cotta.
He's been testing the recipes on friends and staff for two months, he said. A lobster and shrimp salad with tobacco is in the works, while a salmon wrapped in tobacco leaves was rejected as too strong, he said.
Serafina Sandro isn't the only place aiming to placate tobacco-starved customers. The World Bar at Trump World Tower has introduced what it calls a smokeless Manhattan cocktail touted to taste like a cigarette.
Some bar owners are resorting to handing out pieces of nicotine chewing gum, and the city's Health Department announced it is offering free nicotine patches to the first 35,000 smokers who call a telephone hotline designed to help smokers quit.