Opinionated About Dining

Monday Morning Agitator

Should I Be Able to Photograph My Food?

Due to the uproar that has stemmed from the new policy at Momofuku Ko whereby diners aren't allowed to take photographs of their food, I thought it was a good time to take a look at what has become an issue in the dining community. There was a post about it on Serious Eats, and the follow up comments do a good job of demonstrating how opinions are split on this topic. From my own perspective (not forgetting that I am biased since my blog is replete with photos of the food I have been served,) I think there are three issues at play here.

Should it be banned because it bothers other diners?

I've heard this one argued extensively, and despite the fact that I think that it should be banned if it indeed does bother other diners, I have yet to see a single diner complain about it. And I am someone who has taken thousands of photos at restaurants and never once have I ever had a single complaint. And I use a flash extensively. But the truth is, the range of a flash is so narrow that you can hardly see it at another seat at the table let alone another table. In fact a number of years ago there was a very long and contentious discussion about this on the OA discussion forum. Then one night there was a dinner at Eleven Madison Park where I was shooting photos with a flash, and the next day they turned up on the site and the person sitting directly across from me commented that they hadn't even realized that I was taking photos with a flash. So much for taking pictures actually bothering people.

But if I had to take a guess at what causes the split of opinion, it has to do with people wanting to control the environment that they eat in. Each of us have a different relationship with food. I believe that what causes people to say they are against photography in restaurants, even though they have never complained about people who are taking photos, is that they want their sensibilities about dining to dominate the social situation. I run into a similar problem when I discuss cuisine in terms of hierarchies in order to rate food. Some people simply want to enjoy their dinner and they are not interested into entering into a comparative discussion about where the meal ranks in the annals of dining. And while there is nothing wrong with that, why do they care if I like to do that? Yet you can't imagine how many times people have complained to me about it. It always makes me wonder, since they aren't interested in discussing cuisine from that perspective, why do they care that other people do it? But for some reason they feel threatened by the idea that people have a different relationship with the dining experience than they have, and if I had a Euro for every time someone interrupted a discussion to say something like "can't you just enjoy your food," I would be jetting off to have the tasting menu at Marc Veyrat this weekend. Taking photos in restaurants seems to fall under the same category. Lots of people who complain in concept, but I've never seen anyone actually complain, or articulate a legitimate reason why it should be banned.

Does a photo of food violate a copyright that is owned by the chef?

The simple answer is no. Yet some chefs try and claim that a plate of food has some sort of copyright protection. As someone who owns hundreds of copyrights and a number of different trademarks, I have yet to see someone state a case for it that makes sense. Still, I've been prevented from taking photos at Pierre Gagnaire because the restaurant was claiming that there was some type of intellectual property rights that they owned over the finished dishes. This explanation smelled fishy to me and I pressed the Captain on it until he finally admitted that he knew I was right. What the restaurant was actually trying to protect was their commercial rights which are discussed in the paragraph below.

Does a chef/restaurant owner have a valid commercial reason or right to ban photography?

The answer to this one is an unequivocal yes. But not because what they serve on a plate can be protected as intellectual property, but because they are allowed to control the environment in their restaurants for a number of commercial reasons that have nothing to do with whether photos bother other diners. First of all, they may view their cuisine as some type of trade secret, and they want to prevent competitors from easily copying their creations. This is why Starbucks doesn't allow you to take photos in their stores. They don't want their competitors to have easy access to how they put their installations together. If you walk into any department store like Macy's or Nordstrom's, you will find the same policy. But while I understand why Bloomingdale's would want to prevent Sak's Fifth Avenue from having photos of the way they are marketing certain designer goods, Gagnaire's thinking here is misguided. Unlike point of purchase displays, a chef's reputation relies on what he creates. Why would a chef want to cut off public access to his creations? The argument for it would be that if other chefs were able to see what Gagnaire was preparing, they would copy it and he would lose business as a result. But the fine dining community doesn't work that way because diners want to experience culinary creations at their source because of the unique hand of the chef. People interested in the arts don't want an imitation of Picasso, they want the real thing.

The other reasons have to do with public inspections by the health department etc. Let's say that a restaurant has a water circulate but has not been approved by their local health department to cook using sous vide, and photos make that easier for the health inspectors to spot. Or how about employees not wearing gloves when they are supposed to and they are caught on camera and the restaurant gets in trouble for it? I'm sure there are other back of the house reasons for banning photography that I'm overlooking but you get the idea that this could be a problem.

So Should They Allow it or Not?

Given the above, I just don't see the argument for not allowingphotography in restaurants. Even concerns about health departments are mitigated by the free publicity a restaurant gets by allowing bloggers to take photos of their delicious cuisine. And if that means that the staff needs to dress a certain way, or to use certain equipment to come within the code, or to get approval for certain cooking techniques, the trade-off for the free publicity seems more than worth it. And for those of you who object to the practice of diners taking photos of their food, even though you haven't been able to offer any evidence that the practice bothers you in any tangible way, I wish you good dining on your own terms, provided you wish the same for me on mine.

The 100 Places I would Like to Eat at in 2008

I always thought that posts on other blogs that included a list of where that blogger wanted to go eat were a bit cheesy. But given the number of reviews I have to write for the survey these days, and given how it is easier to write them after visiting a restaurant, I found myself compiling such a list over the weekend. Of course I'm so busy with the survey that it didn't take long for me to realize that it's a simple way to update the site, and by listing the names of lots of different restaurants, a good way to attract additional hits to your site. So forgive me if I get a little cheesy here but, here is a list of the 100 places I would like to eat at in 2008.

I'm sure some of you ware going to be surprised by some of the choices. Especially places that serve traditional French cuisine which anyone who reads this site knows, often makes me feel like I am drowning in a sea of veal demi-glace. So I feel it is important to explain myself. I like to think of myself as a dining martyr. Someone who will take consume gallons of gooey, over-reduced and over-salted stocks in order to take one for the team so to speak. But also, there is some benefit to sampling styles of cuisine that have become passe which is to understand what it was that made a chef important at the height of their culinary powers. And on occasion I come across a chef who has lightened his cuisine and is turning out some top-notch food. Witness my review of L'Auberge D'Ill below.

So without further delay, here is my list of 100 Restaurants I Would Like to Eat at in 2008. Of course if you happen to have been at any of the restaurants on this list, click the link at the bottom of the page and rate them for the survey.

Adour - New York City

Allen & Delancey - New York City

Amador - Langen, GR

L' Amphitryon - Lorient, FR

Arnolfo - Colle Val d' Elsa, IT

Au Pied de Cochon - Montreal

August - New Orleans

Bacchanalia - Atlanta

Back Bay Grill - Portland

La Bastide de Capelongue - Bonnieux, FR

Bernard Loiseau - Saulieu, FR

Bistrot d'Eygalières - Eygalieres, FR

Blackberry Farm - Walland, TN

Blackbird - Chicago

Botafumeiro - Barcelona

Botín Restaurante - Madrid

Cafe Annie  - Houston

Canlis  - Seattle

Carlos' - Highland Park, IL

Carré des Feuillants - Paris

Charleston - Baltimore

Château Cordeillan Bages  - Bordeaux

Cibrèo - Florence, IT

Le Cinq - Paris

City Grocery - 0xford, MS

Le Clos des Sens - Annecy. FR

Club Chasse et Pêche - Montreal

Coi - San Francisco

La Côte St-Jacques - Joigny, FR

Craigie Street Bistrot - Cambridge, MS

Da Fiore - Venice, IT

Dal Pescatore - Canneto sull'Oglio, IT

De Karmeliet - Brugges, BE

De Librije - Zwolle, NE

Dieter Mueller - Schloss Lerbach, GR

Dining Room, The - Pasadena

Eigensinn Farm - Singhampton, CA

El Calima - Marbella, SP

Eve - Alexandria, VA

Enoteca PinchiorrI - Florence, IT

Everest - Chicago

Fiamma Osteria - New York City

Frasca Food and Wine - Boulder, CO

Galatoire's - New Orleans

Gambero Rosso - San Vicenzo, IT

Graham Elliot - Chicago

Guggenheim Bilbao - Bilbao, SP

Guy Savoy - Las Vegas

Hatfield's - Los Angeles

Highlands Bar & Grill - Birmingham, AL

Hugo's - Portland, ME

Inn at Little Washington - Washington, VA

Le Jardin des Remparts - Beaune, FR

Joe Beef - Montreal

Joël - Atlanta

Joel Robuchon at The Mansion - Las Vegas

L2O - Chicago

La Rosetta - Rome

Lai Wah Heen - Toronto

Lameloise - Chagny, FR

Le Champignon Sauvage - Cheltenham, U.K.

Le Pont de Brent - Montreaux, SW

Lucques - Los Angeles

Madonnina del Pescatore - Senigalia, IT

Marc Veyrat, La Maison de - Annecy, FR

Marinus - Carmel, CA

Mélisse - Los Angeles

Michael's Genuine Cuisine - Miami

Michy's - Miami

Noma - Copenhagen

O Ya - Boston

Olivier Roellinger - Cancale, FR

Ortolan - Los Angeles

Osteria La Francescana - Modena, IT

Palena - Washington D.C.

Patrick Guilbaud - Dublin

Paul Bocuse - Lyon

Perbelini - Isola Rizza, IT

Le Petit Nice - Marseille, FR

Pic - Valence, FR

Primo - Rockland, ME

Quince - San Francisco

Régis et Jacques Marcon - St. Bonnet, FR

Restaurant Heinz Winkler - Aschau, GR

Sa Qua Na - Honfleur, FR

Schwa - Chicago

Schwarzwaldstube - Baiersbronn, GR

Sona - Los Angeles

Sooke Harbour House - Sooke, CA

Splendido - Toronto

Spring - Chicago

Texture - London

Toqué - Montreal

Torre del Saracino - Massa Lubrense, IT

La Tupina - Bordeaux

Ubuntu - Napa, CA

Vau - Berlin

Vendôme - Cologne, GR

Villa Crespi - Lake Orta, IT

Zalacain - Madrid

Opinionated About Dining Survey

 

Short Bites

Scarpetta and Benoit

(My apologies for not including photos with these short reviews. My camera went missing for a week or so and it turned out one of my sons had it. To think that he wanted to take photos of jam bands rather than food. The nerve.)

Scarpetta - Can you imagine if an author kept writing the same book over and over again? I don't mean a rewrite of the same themes, I mean a near copy of the exact same words. Well that's the best way to describe Scott Conant's restaurant, Scarpetta, where he has decided to serve the same food that he was cooking at L'Impero five years ago. One wonders whether Conant ever heard of the concept known as progress? Making matters worse are small portions and lackluster execution. Take Conant's goat entree. He uses a culinary trick that chefs often use to save money by shredding the meat off of the bone and composing it on the plate. Though it looks like a large amount of food, it's actually a small amount of food that is piled up to look substantial. Even worse, the goat meat gets dried out in the process of being manipulated. I have to say I was shocked at the mediocrity of the experience after reading some positive reviews of the restaurant. But I am sure that Frank Bruni will give the place two, or even three stars. After all, if it's Italian Bruni usually genuflects unless the restaurant's owner is named Ago. Acceptable (Barely)

Benoit - On the plus side, the food was perfectly fine. On the minus side, the idea of repackaging a classic Parisian bistro and bringing it to NYC makes my skin crawl. Aside from that, I was intrigued by the low price point (entrees in the $25 range.) But then my food arrived (I ordered a chef's salad and then salmon with sauce Choron) and I needed a magnifying glass to see the food. Actually the salad wasn't as small a portion but that was pretty much lettuces and leftover scraps. But my salmon brought new meaning to the word skimpy. Same with the steaks that my sons ordered. They were tasty but it was as if the the meat was sourced from miniature cows. However the food tasted (and the various sauces that came with the food were superb,) I couldn't help feeling as if I was eating at a bistro that was run by a large corporation where everything was pre-measured and geared towards making sure $X dropped to the bottom line. It's a great way to run a business, but it puts a damper on the spirit of the dining experience. As usual Mrs. P out it best when she gave it her vaunted "there's no reason to go back" rating. Acceptable 

Combal.Zero

For some reason that I couldn't completely comprehend, whenever I would tell people that I was planning on having dinner at David Scrabin's restaurant, Combal.Zero, they would shudder and then say something like, "what are you going there for?" It was if I was telling them I was going to eat at a restaurant that violated some precept of fine dining. Then I realized that the severe reactions were coming from those who I often describe as "ingredientistas," whose ideas of good eats is stuck in a time warp that still revolves around culinary concepts like a chicken being ready to eat when the juices run clear after being poked with a fork. Not that there is anything wrong with a good roast chicken -- in fact I had a pretty damn good one at L'Ami Louis the night before having dinner at Combal.Zero. But the truth is, as much as I enjoy a good roast chicken, I can make one at home. But when it comes to inhaling your dinner through a gas mask, now that wasn't in my Tante Gussie's repetoire.

The truth is that after reading about Combal.Zero a number of years ago, I was a bit reluctant to visit the restaurant myself. Though I'm a fan of modern cuisine, one could argue Scrabin took the concept of moderne a bit too far. But then the pastry chef, Will Goldfarb, told me that he thought the restaurant was a contender for the best in the world. and that tipped it for me. And given that they serve dinner on Sunday evenings, a rarity for important restaurants that are located in large European cities, it allowed me to easily fill a slot on our February trip that typically ends up with us having dinner at the local pizza place.

                                                                                            

Monday Morning Agitator

Santi Santamaria Throws His Two Pesetas Into the Ongoing Discussion Battle Between Traditional and Contemporary Cuisine

In a recent article in London's Telegraph newspaper, Santi Santamaria, chef/owner of El Raco de can Fabes in Sant Celoni, Spain, has accused El Bulli's Ferran Adria of "unethical" cooking practices because he uses additives like methylcellulose in his cuisine. Santamaria also implies that Adria's cooking is "dangerous" and has the potential to "poison" diners. He even delves into the aesthetics of cuisine by saying, "cooks should not be preoccupied with creating sculptures or painting pictures with their work. A table is not an art gallery." The full article is available here, Ferran Adria accused of 'poisoning' his diners.

Santamaria's arguments basically fall into two categories. He isn't the first person who has argued that food isn't art and in fact, my blog post, People Who Insist That Cuisine Needs to Be Representative Should Get Over it Already, addresses this very point. Sure the discussion the discussion is heated (take a look at the comments offered in response to my post by the person who goes by the name of Sailly Disciple, an Argentinian born chef by the name of Mariano Belinkey who lives in Barcelona and who claims to know a lot more about food than he actually does.) But Santamaria's charges of modern cuisine causing a health problem for diners, besides exhibiting a level of resentment towards Adria and the modern culinary movement that I personally find astonishing, takes the debate to a new level and it merits a response. First of all, which do you think is worse for your health, the amount of additives that Ferran Adria uses to form the artificial pearl he places atop the Gillardeau oyster he serves or the cholesteral in Santi's roast pork or lamb? Or take Wylie Dufresne's infamous pizza pebbles. Which do you think is less healthy, the pebbles or a greasy slice with sausage and extra cheese at Joe's Pizza on Sixth Avenue?

Given that the answer is obvious on its face, and given that Santamaria, whose restaurant is less than 100 kms down the road from Adria's, is perfectly free to use an oven to roast as he sees fit, why offer such charged statements? The answer is stature. Or I should say, a loss of stature for chefs serving Santamaria's style of cuisine within the fine dining community. Let's face it, while Santi can still roast a lamb with the best of them, 10 years ago, many more people would have yelled "hola" when his roasts came out of the oven than are yelling it today. But like other artisans who did not understand how their craft was changing, and who focused on the excesses and exagerations of a movement in an attenpt to delegitimize it as not complying with the rules, Santamaria misses the point as to what the movement is actually based on which is cleanliness and the ability to maximize the flavor of ingredients with a minimal use of fat.

I recently had the pleasure of  having a long, multi-course lunch at Casa Gerardo in Asturias, a restaurant that Santamaria should visit if he really wants to understand the differences between traditional and modern cuisine (I intend to post a seperate review of my delightful meal at the restaurant.) The final course was the house version of the classic dish of the region, fabadas, a white bean and sausage stew that is a not too distant cousin of cassoulet. It's a dish that is normally made with dried beans, and as is typical for a stew where dried beans form the basis of the dish, the beans are cooked with fatty meats for a long period of time so they can soften and absorb the flavor of the meat in the process. The result is a thick, heavy, viscose and hearty concoction whose leftovers could be used to heat your home in winter if you happen to run out of petrol. But unlike every other bean stew that I have eaten, the fabadas at Casa Gerardo is light in comparison and much easier to eat. In fact dare say, the dish tasted modern.

So I asked 28 year old Pedro Morain, the fifth generation of the family to run the restaurant's kitchen, how he does it and he was more than happy to share the family's secret. "It's a recipe we developed" he told me. "When the fadaba beans are fresh in September, we buy a years supply and freeze them. So because the beans aren't dried, they takes less time to cook and we can remove the sausages from the pan after 40 minutes and then the beans cook on their own for another 20 minutes. The shorter cooking time means less fat in the dish but we don't lose any flavor because the fresh beans absorb flavor more quickly than dried beans." And there it was, the secret of modern cuisine had nothing to do with turning lamb into foam, it had to do with developing culinary techniques that resulted in lighter and cleaner food. Even when preparing dishes that are hundreds of years old.

Santi Santamaria would serve himself well to revisit his comments. Maybe even to retract them. And if he would like to regain some of the stature he has lost over the last decade, maybe he should understand that if he wants to continue to cook in the image of Fernand Point, people might still eat, and enjoy, his food, but he won't play an important part in the ongoing discussion about cuisine. If that's what he wants, he is going to have to figure out how to make his cuisine more modern. That doesn't mean he has to cook a leg of lamb by inserting electric charges and detonating them, but it does mean that he has to make his cuisine lighter and cleaner, and most importantly, reduce the fat content in order to make it healthier.   

Two More in Spain

Etxebarri & El Capriccho

It's not easy finding a place that serves breakfast in Bilbao on a Sunday morning. Okay it was hardly morning. I woke up at 11:00 and Toby and I had plans to meet at noon so we could grab a cup of coffee before heading off for Etxebarri for lunch. We ended up walking from one end of the town and back before we finally sat down at a tapas bar that was around the corner from our hotel. Soon enough it was 1:15, and our taxi was going to be at the hotel at 1:30. We headed back to meet the others and after a bumpy ride because the driver couldn't find the restaurant, we arrived at Etxebarri around 2:15.

No other restaurant has been hyped as much as Etxebarri. Vedat Milor, of the blog Gastroville, was the first person to review the restaurant on the OA forum a number of years back. But since then countless people have raved about it, most notably the "Spanish contingent" that I referred to in my post about eating at Asador Ripa & Elkano. In fact they waxed so poetic about the place that they had the chutzpah to speak of chef, Victor Arguinzoniz, and Ferran Adria in the same sentence, implying that there was some sort of equivalence between the two in terms of their importance to Spanish cuisine. But they weren't the only ones, aside from one very picky friend of mine, everyone raved about it - including my friend Toby, who visited last July, and who is normally stingy when it comes to praising restaurants - and it's rating in the OA Survey made it a restaurant "Worth Planning a Trip Around.                                  

                                                                                             

Most Overrated Restaurants 2008

MOST OVERRATED RESTAURANTS 2008 NOW ONLINE!!!

Wise, witty, snippy and snarky - no I'm not talking about The Colbert Report - I'm talking about the Opinionated About Dining Most Overrated Restaurants of 2008. Click on the link below to read the ten most overrated in the following regions: New York City; United States; United Kingdom and Europe.

Most Overrated Restaurants 2008 

You can also now read the 100 Best Restaurants in North America & Europe online using our new cool and groovy flip-book technology. Just click on the link below and wait for the cover to loads. Then just click the top right corner to begin turning the pages.

100 Best Restaurants in Europe & North America

Happy reading and don't forget to rate as many restaurants as you can!

Opinionated About Dining Survey

A Perfect Day of Regional Spanish Cuisine

Asador Ripa & Elkano

Occasionally that magical food day comes along. In this instance it happened on my recent trip to the North of Spain. There were four restaurants on our itinerary: Elkano, which can stake a claim to being the best regional fish restaurant in the world, Etxebarri, which purportedly features a chef who can use a grill the way Joel Robuchon uses a saute pan, El Capricho, which Lydia Itoi and Jeffrey Steingarten claimed served world class beef, if not the best steaks in the world, and Casa Gerardo, a lonely restaurant in Asturias that serves a modernized version of the regional cuisine. They were all going to be new experiences for me, and my friend Scott and I (we were meeting two other hungry souls in Bilbao) boarded our Saturday morning flight at Gatwick excited about the next four days of eating. But four important meals over the next four days wasn't going to be enough for me - I had a trick up my sleeve. And while we were standing online in order to check in for our flight, I turned to Scott and said, "I booked a table at Asador Ripa for lunch at 3:00."

Asador Ripa, for as long as I can remember, was the highest rated asador, or was tied for being the highest rated, in Rafael Garcia Santos's Lo Mejor Guide. That was a recommendation that I didn't take lightly. In the past I had my differences with the way the guide rated fine dining establishments, but I always found their advice about regional dining to be valuable. But besides looking for one more delicious steak to eat, I had another even more important/secret motive. I wanted to lay down a marker and see how it stacked up against the asadors that had captured the imaginations of a number of people in the online community. Which in fact, ultimately led to the popularization of Etxebarri, and the articles about El Capricho which were written by Itoi and Steingarten.

                                                                  

       

               

Monday Morning Agitator

Let's All Pray For the End of Bourgeois Dining Experience

It was a time of celebration for the Plotnicki family as my twin sons turned 21 a week ago Sunday. To note the occasion, I booked a table at the Louis XV in Monte Carlo. I hadn't been at the restaurant since the late 1980's, and I have to say I wasn't that impressed by that meal. But since then, numerous people that I know have told me that they think it's the best restaurant in the world -- in fact in the OA survey, many people included that claim in their comments. So returning has been on my agenda for some time, and given that both of my sons spent their spring semester at university in London, we organized a family trip in Europe (family vacations are so hard to come by once your children get older) to celebrate this special occasion.

First of all I can say that we all enjoyed our meal. Sure we had various complaints that ranged from the style of the cuisine to the necessity of dining at that level of formality. But unlike other posts on this blog, I'm not really interested in talking about food in this post. I would like to concentrate on something I hardly ever discuss on these forums which is cost. In a word, the cost of a meal at the Louis XV can only be described one way. Outrageous. Sure, I know that I could have availed myself of the lunch menu which is a bargain compared to what they charge at dinner, but this was a birthday celebration that was to be followed by a trip to the casino (one of the privilages you gain when you turn 21) for the occasion so dinner was more appropriate.

Mrs P and I started our meal by splitting the Cocotte de Lugumes which were described as "fresh vegetables from the daily market in Nice." The dish, if I recall correctly, cost 104 Euros. What was served was a cast iron pot that contained a thin layer of vegetables in a reduced vegetable broth. Tasty yes but, could the actual ingredients in the pot cost more than a few dollars? In fact I believe I had the exact same ingredients at Mirazur for dinner on Thursday night where, and this is hard to believe, the cost of a nine course tasting menu was less than the cost of this single dish at Louis XV! And the outrageous cost at Louis XV didn't stop there as the gamberoni dish that Mrs P and I split (4 specimens and some clams, supions, vegetables in a lemon sauce) cost a whopping 121 Euros.

As I was eating my veggies, I was looking around the room and I tried to figure out the motivation for paying these types of prices for food. Sad to say I couldn't really find any. Sure the room was dripping with all of the indicia of luxury. And while I'm the first guy to enjoy a luxurious dining experience, it's more than a little ridiculous when the cost of luxury adds 80%-90%, or even more, to the cost of the food. No wonder that in order for this style of dining to continue to exist it needs to be subsidized by hotel chains, in this instance, by the Principality of Monaco who feel they need to have a Michelin 3 star restaurant within their borders, but restaurants like Le Cinq and Le Meurice in Paris, just to name two of them, are in the same boat. They simply wouldn't exist, nor would the chefs who man their kitchens cook in their current style, if they had to operate restaurants that were self sufficient and depended on a purely gastronomic audience.

At the heart of the development of any aesthetic is the notion of progress -- the concept that the techniques and materials that artisans use to craft their art are always progressing. But in France, because working capital has been disproportionately allocated into supporting restaurants that are intended to act as loss leaders for hotels or casinos, the evolution of culinary technique has been interrupted, and as a result. one can count the number of important French chefs that first appeared on the scene over the last 10 years on a single hand. 

In my perfect world, restaurants like the Louis XV would cease to exist (in fact I would consider asking Monsieur Ducasse to close all of his restaurants and take early retirement to Moustiers as his business strategy probably causes more problems for young chefs than any other chef in the world,) so that the delicious ingredients the restaurant sources could be redistributed amongst up and coming chefs, who run restaurants where the ratio of food to non-food costs is more reasonable, ultimately making them available to a broader group of diners. Then, because of the increased competition for diners among young chefs, young chefs would be motivated to create new ideas and French cuisine would become revitalized as a result. I know it's just a dream but ....

 

                          

The Monday Morning Agitator

People Who Insist That Cuisine Needs to Be Representative Should Get Over it Already 

Over the past few years, I have found myself in the midst of more than one argument about whether cuisine needs to be representative in order to have any value. Putting that it in simple terms, does food have to actually taste good in order to be considered good cuisine? It's a question that my friend Gary Allen Fine often asks. But then again, he's a sociologist so he is prone to asking those types of questions. But the truth is it's a valid question. Since the standard used by most food writers use is conclusory, meaning they base their review on the final taste of a dish, there is little room in their analysis for deconstructing a dish into its various parts in order to offer a more nuanced analysis. But this is not the case in other forms of criticism. How often do you see a review of a film where the writer lauds a single aspect of a film like the plot or the cinematography in the context of giving a film a mediocre, or even a bad review?

A dish that has the potential to inspire this debate in cuisine is Wylie Dufresne's foie gras knots. It's a simple enough concept. You take foie gras and add an enzyme that allows it to become flexible so you can cut it into long strands and tie it into knots. Those who insist on viewing cuisine though a lens of tradition would quickly dismiss the dish because the focus isn't on the quality of the ingredients, but on the effect caused by what has been added to the ingredient. And while I understand why people lodge that particular complaint (In fact I've offered it myself,) it's also wrongheaded to dismiss on that basis alone as the does make an aesthetic statement. In fact, my friend Gary and the other sociologists who are reading this post would say that the fact that Dufresne's dish has in part caused this discussion, is proof in and of itself of its aesthetic value. 

Monday Morning Agitator - When Restaurant Reservation Systems Are Unfair to Their Customers

If I read one more thing about the online reservation system at Momofuku Ko I think my eyes are going to bug out of my head. But despite the consternation surrounding the issue, it does give me the opportunity to discuss reservation systems in general, and how systems that impose some sort of limitation in terms of when you can reserve a table are inherently unfair to a customer. Yes I know, restaurateurs claim that systems that have an outside cutoff date are the fairest way to dole out reservations to those who want them. But as you will learn when we examine how these systems work and what they are really intended to accomplish, they have an intended purpose which has nothing to do with fairness.

There is a clear correlation between a restaurant taking reservations and the level of food that they serve. For example, people who go to Chinatown on a Saturday evening are perfectly willing to wait an hour and a half for a table because the delicious food comes at a delicious price (typically $30 a person or less.) But if the same people were going to spend $75 on dinner rather than $30, waiting in line for a table would be unheard of. That's because subsumed within the $75 price of a meal is the cost of a reservationist who answers the phone, and who inputs your reservation into the system. Like anything else in life, the more you pay, the more you usually get. If one were to amortize the cost of that reservationist and reservation system on a per meal basis, how much could it cost the restaurant? A few cents? Could it be $.50 or $1.00? I can't imagine that it would cost anywhere that much. So if the cost of offering your customers the ease that comes with a reservation system is so cheap, and the reality is, they end up paying for the cost because you pass it onto them anyway, why not make their lives easy and offer them the ability to make a reservation?

Monday Morning Agitator

Taking a Rest From Resto

Not that long ago, a new restaurant opening in New York City meant that investors had funded a seven figure installation as well as huge overhead for staffing the kitchen and the front of the house. But over the last few years, many young chefs and entrepreneurs have shunned large capital investments and instead have been opening smaller restaurants featuring cuisines that are based on top quality market ingredients combined with highly competent cooking. Restaurants like Prune, Tia Pol, Spotted Pig and Degustation are a few that come to mind, where the chef is talented enough to be running a kitchen that turns out 200 or more dinners a night, but who have chosen to work in a setting that is not much more than a bar or pub serving between 50-100 covers a night.

One of the best restaurants to open in the genre was Resto, which is sort of half bar/half restaurant, and which resides in the middle of E. 29th St, equi-distant from Park Avenue South and Curry Hill. Resto's chef is Ryan Skeen, who for some reason that has never been properly explained, decided to showcase his talent through the prism of Belgian cuisine. But for many of us who are familiar with the restaurant, the Belgian theme is almost an affect and the real draw at Resto is the superb ingredients that Skeen sources from various producers in the Northeast. For example, I have no hesitation to say that his 28-day aged Cote de Boeuf from Four Story Hill Farms is among the five best steaks one can get in New York City. That he serves it with a nice, bitter greeens, and some very good double cooked fries with mayonaisse (otherwise known as Belgian style,) only adds to the gustatory pleasure.

Top 100 in London

GET YOUR COPY TODAY!

GET A FREE COPY BY PARTICIPATING IN OUR 2009 SURVEY OR YOU CAN PURCHASE COPIES BY CLICKING ON THE LINK BELOW

The results of our 2008 Fine Dining Survey have now been published. Over 900 people participated in the survey, with 25% of them being located outside  of the U.S. The ratings are broken down into categories which correlate to how important a restaurant is.

London Update

Read Jay Rayner's  review of the survey in The Guardian

I just hung up the phone with DHL at Heathrow and the books are being delivered in the morning and they should be in various London shops by Monday or Tuesday. Also, it's not too late to get a free copy. Just click on the link for the homepage and register. As soon as you begin rating restaurants, our London office will put a copy of the guide in the mail to you.

Happy reading and eating!

Monday Morning Agitator

The Case Against Anonymity When Reviewing Restaurants

An issue came up last week in a review of the OA Fine Dining survey. A writer named Julia Thiel reviewed the guide for the Chicago Reader. In her review, Thiel, criticized my practice of not dining anonymously saying;

"According to the New York Sun, Plotnicki makes no attempt to dine anonymously--his goal, he says, is to "elicit the best possible meal that a restaurant has to offer and in that context anonymity actually hurts instead of helps." Of course it does. That's the point--if you're reviewing a restaurant, you should try to have the experience most diners are likely to have. Even if the quality of food and service are likely to vary from customer to customer, seeking preferential treatment is pretty sure to skew a review. Or a restaurant guide."

Later that day, a second review from a Chicago writer appeared, this time by Michael Nagrant who was writing for Hungrymag.com. Nagrant amplified that same theme, going as far as calling me a shill, and he even went as far as saying that you couldn't trust the way I tabulate the results of my survey because of my relationships with various chefs. Fortunately Josh Ozersky took them both to task in a short piece he wrote in response to Thiel's and Nagrant's posts on New York Magazine's Grub Street. Go Josh! Not only does New York City have better restaurants than Chicago (as determined by the OAD survey,) it appears it has better journalists!

But seriously, I'm sure both Thiel and Nagrant are nice enough people and meant no harm to anyone. And Nagrant was nice enough to post my response to him as a comment on his blog. But they both failed to grasp what is a significant distinction between the situation they are describing, where a journalist receives an atypical meal that is not generally available to the public, and what I do which is to search for the atypical meal that is generally available to the public, providing one knows how to ask for it. 

Back in the old days, when people knew a lot less about food and when a big night out meant eating a rack of veal with a fancy sauce at Chez Ordinaire which was run by some guy named Claude or Marcello, there was a concern that if a restaurant owner knew that a reviewer was in the house, he would run out replace his $4 a pound veal with $5 a pound veal in order to get a better write up. I always found that claim amusing as where on earth would you find $5 a pound veal at 9:30 at night? But in these times, when the competition between restaurants is so fierce, and where the purveyor of the ingredients is often printed right on the menu, and when critics are able to taste the difference between beef that is sourced from Niman Ranch as opposed to Brandt Ranch (at least they are supposed to be able to tell the difference,) why are we still concerned about a chef playing a shell game with their ingredients? I once discussed the topic with Tom Colicchio who told me, "What can I do if I know a reviewer is in the house, serve him a center cut veal chop rather than one of the ends?"

The truth is, the chefs and restaurant owners all know what the reviewers look like anyway. But even if they didn't, do we really think that chefs are dishonest? I know a lot of chefs and I can't think of a single one who would pull that type of stunt even if they could. I mean if there are culprits here, it certainly isn't food writers who are merely trying to convey information to diners. But I guess maybe Thiel and Nagrant really believe that chef's will cheat given the chance. Or maybe they already know some dishonest chefs. If that is the case, it's time to name names. Or maybe Thiel and Nagrant, and other food journalists, are blindly following a rule that is antiquated and doesn't make sense in a contemporary context. Isn't it time that the food press re-examined this silly practice?

The Monday Morning Agitator

Why Can't Frank Bruni Tell the Difference Between Dovetail and Eleven Madison Park (or Bouley For That Matter?)

I guess I will never learn my lesson. A few weeks back, Frank Bruni, gave Dovetail a 3-star review in the New York Times. Of course, though I am consistently disappointed when Bruni hands out a 3-star rating, especially when he is reviewing Italian restaurants, a rating of that magnitude left me no choice but to visit the restaurant. In fact I managed to miss eating at Compass, John Fraser's prior restaurant, as friends told me I wasn't missing anything . But this time there was a substantial buzz about the restaurant, and I succumbed, despite my better judgment. So after going to see the riveting film, The Counterfeiters, at Lincoln Plaza Cinemas on Saturday night, we strolled up Columbus Avenue and got a table for 2 as a walk-in at around 10:00.

Let me tell you, I have been to a lot of restaurants in my life (likely many more than Mr. Bruni) and I could sense that the restaurant didn't warrant the 3-star review as soon as I walked in. Of course sometimes looks are deceiving,  but in my experience, 3 star reviews (or 4 star) are the product of a substantial amount of capital invested into a restaurant, both in the kitchen as well as the front of the house And while there was certainly nothing wrong with the look and feel of the restaurant, it certainly wasn't up to the standards that you usually see at other restaurants that attract that rating. Case in point, all one has to do is walk a few blocks up Columbus Avenue and take a look at the installation at Ed Brown's new restaurant, Eighty One, to see a place that has all of the indicia to go along with a 3-star rating (unfortunately the food there is another story but we will leave that for another day.)

The 100 Best Restaurants in North America & Europe

GET YOUR COPY TODAY!

GET A FREE COPY BY PARTICIPATING IN OUR 2009 SURVEY OR YOU CAN PURCHASE COPIES BY CLICKING ON THE LINK BELOW

Opinionated About Dining Survey

The results of our 2008 Fine Dining Survey have now been published. Over 900 people participated in the survey, with 25% of them being located outside  of the U.S. The ratings are broken down into categories which correlate to how important a restaurant is. Though this guide only covers restaurants in the first three categories because of its limited scope. Here are the results:

Opinionated About Dining Top 50 Restaurants in North America with Rankings

Worth Planning a Trip Around

Urasawa, Beverly Hills, California 113
The French Laundry, Yountville, California 111
Jean Georges, New York, New York 109
Manresa, Los Gatos, California 109
Per Se, New York, New York 107
Alinea, Chicago, Illinois 106
McCrady’s, Charleston, South Carolina 106
Minibar, Washington, DC 105
Splendido, Toronto, Ontario 105

Worth Going Out of Your Way For

Le Bernardin, New York, New York 104
Providence, Los Angeles, California 104
Sushi Yasuda, New York, New York 104
Bouley, New York, New York 103
Hatfield’s, Los Angeles, California 103
Kuruma Zushi, New York, New York 103
Masa, New York, New York 103
Blue Hill at Stone Barns, Pocantico Hills, New York 102
Eleven Madison Park, New York, New York 102
Marinus, Carmel, California 102
Craft, New York, New York 101
Spago, Beverly Hills, California 101
Sugiyama, New York, New York 101
Chez Panisse, Berkeley, California 100
Il Grano, West Los Angeles, California 100
Uni, Boston, Massachusetts 100

Top Local Choices

Alex, Las Vegas, Nevada 99
Avenues, Chicago, Illinois 99
Blue Hill, New York, New York 99
Coi, San Francisco, California 99
Daniel, New York, New York 99
The Dining Room at the Langham, Pasadena, California 99
L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon, New York, New York 99
Michel Richard Citronelle, Washington, DC 99
Picasso, Las Vegas, Nevada 99
Sushi Seki, New York, New York 99
WD-50, New York, New York 99
Alan Wong’s, Honolulu, Hawaii 98
Fore Street, Portland, Maine 98
Lampreia, Seattle,Washington 98
Matsuhisa, Beverly Hills, California 98
Mistral, Seattle,Washington 98
Sona, Los Angeles, California 98
Susur, Toronto, Ontario 98
Joe’s Stone Crab, Miami Beach, Florida 97
Komi, Washington, DC 97
Masa’s, San Francisco, California 97
Morimoto, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 97
Troquet, Boston, Massachusetts 97
Boulevard, San Francisco, California 96
Cyrus, Healdsburg, California 96

Opinionated About Dining Top 50 Restaurants in Europe with Rankings

Worth Planning a Trip Around

Troisgros, Roanne, France 116
Bras, Laguiole, France 115
The Fat Duck, Bray-on-Thames, UK 114
L’Arpège, Paris, France 114
Pierre Gagnaire, Paris, France 114
El Bulli, Roses, Spain 112
L’Astrance, Paris, France 112
L’Arnsbourg, Baerenthal, France 111
El Poblet, Denia, Spain 110
Le Calandre, Sarmeola di Rubano, Italy 109
Les Ambassadeurs, Paris, France 109
Oud Sluis, Sluis, The Netherlands 109
Etxebarri, Axpe-Marzana, Spain 108
La Broche, Madrid, Spain 108
Le Louis XV–Alain Ducasse Monte Carlo, Monaco 108
Mugaritz, Errenteria, Spain 108
L’Ambroisie, Paris, France 107
El Celler de Can Roca, Girona, Spain 106
Noma, Copenhagen, Denmark 106
Arzak, Donostia–San Sebastián, Spain 105
La Pergola, Rome, Italy 105

Worth Going Out of Your Way For

El Racó de Can Fabes, Sant Celoni, Spain 104
Hof van Cleve, Kruishoutem, Belgium 104
L’Auberge de l’Ill, Illhaeusern, France 104
Les Maisons de Bricourt—Olivier Roellinger, Cancale, France 104
Pavillon Ledoyen, Paris, France 104
Taillevent, Paris, France 104
Comme Chez Soi, Brussels, Belgium 103
Elkano, Getaria, Spain 103
Lameloise, Chagny-en-Bourgogne, France 103
Guy Savoy, Paris, France 102
La Maison de Marc Veyrat, Veyrier du Lac, France 102
Le Bristol, Paris, France 102
Hibiscus, London, UK 100
The River Café, London, UK 100
Sant Pau, Sant Pol de Mar, Spain 100
The Square, London, UK 100

Top Local Choice

Apicius, Paris, France 99
Arnolfo, Colle di Val d’Elsa, Italy 99
Gordon Ramsay, London, UK 99
L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon, Paris, France 99
The Capital, London, UK 98
Enoteca Pinchiorri, Florence, Italy 98
Hispania, Arenys de Mar–Caldetes, Spain 98
L’Ami Louis, Paris, France 98
Le Champignon Sauvage, Cheltenham, UK 98
Tetou, Golfe-Juan, France 98
Cibrèo, Florence, Italy 97
Da Fiore, Venice, Italy 97
Tom Aikens, London, UK 97

If you participated in the survey, a copy will be mailed to you shortly. If you would like a free copy, you can get one by filling out our survey. Just click on the link to our homepage to register for the 2009 survey. If you would like to purchase copies, you can do so on the home page by using a PayPal account.

Thanks to everyone who helped make this happen. This is just the beginning. I am planning to expand the scope of the survey for 2009 to include moderate and inexpensive dining with the goal of publishing comprehensive guides to dining for bothe continents in the coming 12 months.

OPINIONATED ABOUT DINING SURVEY

David Chang's Challenge at Momofuku Ko

For a long time I have been trying to write about the expectations that diners have when they enter a restaurant. But each time I started a post on the subject, I ended up with a paragraph or two of intellectual gobbledy gook and I ultimately scrapped the piece. But David Chang's new restaurant, Momofuku Ko, has given me the unique opportunity to broach the subject in the context of a review of a restaurant. Well okay, it's not exactly a review, as the restaurant isn't officially open and I was invited to attend a friends and family meal. But though Chang is still fine tuning the restaurant's cuisine, there was enough meat on the plate to launch this discussion.

Chang hardly needs an introduction. First of all the guy's picture is everywhere. Even my non-foodie friends know who he is. For example, last year I took Chang to a Met game (after which we hit a few taco carts on Roosevelt Avenue checking to see which one serves the best carnitas) and a few games later the guy who has the seats in front of me at Shea turns around and says, "hey, was that your chef pal in New York Magazine this week?" And this year when he asked me if I had any extra seats for opening day, I told him "I'm bringing the chef" and he didn't even ask me who I was talking about.

At Home with Ideas in Food

I always found New Years to be a funny occasion to celebrate. Unlike other holidays, it isn't associated with a singular person like George Washington or Martin Luther King's birthday where it makes sense to close our schools and offices in order to recognize their profound contribution to society. Nor does it celebrate the result of a historical or social event like Independence or Labor Day. It simply celebrates the turning of a page of a calender that was artificially constructed by a bunch of Romans a few thousand years ago. And updated, arbitrarily, we might add, over the centuries. In fact to show you how lacking in reason the whole thing is, it doesn't even take place on what would be the logical date for the beginning of the new year which would be the first day after the Winter solstice.

Making matters worse, is that it costs more to celebrate this non-holiday/holiday than celebrations on other dates which can stake a better claim to adding value to a night out. For some reason that escapes me it costs more to go out to dinner or a concert on New Years Eve than it costs on other more important nights, like my birthday. For example, if I wanted to hire the private dining room at Per Se for New Years Eve, it would cost more than it would on my birthday, a clear example of how society has gotten their priorities all mixed up.