The acclaimed and iconoclastic 32-year-old chef Paul Liebrandt is today the subject of a New York Times profile. The news: after years of working in restaurants all around the world, it seems as though the Zimbabwe-born, French and English-trained chef at Corton now considers New York City home. In its way, the article all but assures the dining public that because Liebrandt ♥ NY, his days of restless culinary experimentation are over (we certainly hope not). The article even ineluctably evokes the madcap memory of Papillon, a short-lived radical dining experience where Liebrandt once played Pinky and the Brain with pastry chef Will Goldfarb. That restaurant was all about courses like the one where guests were fuzzy handcuffed to their chairs while the dinner plates got all animated and Battlebots-like and fought each other to the death with whirring chainsaw forks. You were supposed to eat the victor. more ›