“I think my job is to make things that no one else would make,” Mr. Stupak told an interviewer not long ago. Today, with Victoria Blamey between gigs and Wylie Dufresne making pizza, Mr. Stupak may be the last chef in New York who regularly tries to bend reality as if it were ganache. The “deviled egg floating island” is neither. It’s a meringue cylinder with a dome of creamed yolk on top and an unsweetened crème anglaise around the base. You don’t get the mustardy sharpness of a real deviled egg or the sweetness of a real floating island, but it’s fine because the whole dish is really just an excuse to eat trout roe.

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Persons: Mr, Stupak, El, Stupak’s, Mischa, Victoria Blamey, Wylie Dufresne, don’t Locations: Alinea, Chicago, Empellón, New York