A bad baguette is about as bad as bread can get when it isn't Kleenex bread. There was a time when all you could buy in town tasted like towelling. Now baguettes are commonplace, we can be a bit more picky about our choice.The best - my opinion - are found at Wagshal's. Other people must think so too - they run out early. So phone and reserve. Firehooks' are okay, so are Marvelous Market's. Whole Foods baguettes are the least interesting, in my view.If you want to make your own, go to Vace and buy their 00 Italian flour.

The resume of Michael Santoro, new chef de cuisine at The Blue Duck Tavern, reads like a guide to good restaurants around the world. In England he’s worked at Heston Blumental's The Fat Duck and with bad-boy-but brilliant Tom Aiken, as well as Fergus Henderson. He’s been through the kitchens of the one-star Mugaritz Restaurant near San Sebastian, Spain. He’s worked at Mill’s Tavern in Providence, RI. He’s served as sous chef at the Michelin one-star Restaurant Gilt in New York. And before joining The Blue Duck Tavern he was chef de cuisine at Boqueria, a popular Spanish restaurant in Manhattan.