Despite Health Inspectors, Taste of the Seaport Called a 'Terrific Day'

Nelson Blue head chef Modesto Campos checks the temperature of his lamb stew for an unidentified city Health Department inspector. The stew passed the test. "You may think we just come and give violations," the inspector said. "We don't come and give violations, we come and do an inspection and ask questions and then we assess things. And then if it's wrong we give a violation." Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib

"We had such a terrific day," enthused Tami Kurtz, a Spruce Street School parent and co-chair of The Taste of the Seaport.

Indeed, this year's seventh annual event, on Saturday, Oct. 15, benefiting the Peck Slip and Spruce Street schools, lured 10,000 to 15,000 food and fun lovers. The KidZone was a hit, bands played non-stop on two stages and festival goers happily munched on the offerings of local restaurants, many of those eateries participating for the first time.

It might well have been a perfect day (weather included) had it not been for the five city health inspectors and one supervisor who descended on the event for the second year in a row in what organizers cited as unreasonable and unusual scrutiny that unsettled some restaurateurs.

A Department of Health spokeswoman called the inspections “routine.”

As inspectors fanned out over Front Street and Peck Slip, dipping thermometers in hot meat dishes and pouring over permits, the owners of at least three restaurants proactively closed their stands for fear of a $500 violation.

“I’m taking my display down,” said Peter O’Connell, who had prepared hundreds of Asian chicken wings and vegetarian spring rolls to give out in front of his Paris Cafe´at Peck Slip and South Street. “Out in the open we cannot guarantee that they are able to keep it at 140 degrees.” (The event lasted four hours.)

Nearby, Acqua owner Irina Kurdian had already cleared her stall, and the 1,200 Italian fried rice balls prepared for the festival were being offered free to customers at her restaurant. (She later returned to serve the dish cold.)

At last year’s festival, Phil Corhan, operations manager for the restaurant GRK, said, "we went through hell” with the inspectors.” This year, he said, pointing to a pot of chicken avgolemono soup, “we’re taking every precaution possible. Instead of going with your normal two Sternos, I’m going with eight Sternos. I can’t leave it up to chance.” The threat of fines caused four restaurants to pack up early last year, organizers said.

Taste of the Seaport’s main sponsor is the Howard Hughes Corp., the controversial developer in the area, and Kurtz said she is “quite certain” the Health Department was responding to a complaint from an opponent of Hughes’s plans for the Seaport. Asked if the Health Department had received complaints about the event, an agency spokeswoman did not directly respond, saying only that the department "routinely conducts inspections of street food festivals, fairs and similar events.”

(The Trib reached out to organizers of the Taste of Tribeca about inspections at their long-running event. “So far we have not been subject to any inspections,” said Taste of Tribeca co-chair Bettina Teodoro.)

Complaints by the Taste of Seaport organizers eventually led the inspectors to allow restaurants, for the day, to certify in writing that Steno-heated food had been at the required 140 degrees at the time it was set out.

No summonses were issued on Saturday (or last year, when 31 food stands were inspected), according to the Health Department.

Several days after the event, Kurtz, one of the founders of The Taste of the Seaport seven years ago, said the inspections had not left a bitter taste among the fair’s organizers.

"We are all feeling proud and pleased with the event overall," she wrote in an email to the Trib. "We love how it brings our families, local business owners and the community at large together for a fun day of great food, music and activities."