Fat Guy

All chefs are absentee chefs. The only variable is the extent of their absence. At nearly any restaurant, the chef cooks a very small percentage of the plates, if any. He is essentially absent from the cooking process, even if he is in the kitchen. As a supervisor, he can only see so many things happening at once. Likewise, in most restaurants, chefs have days off. When a chef ascends to the level where he has more than one restaurant, his level of absence increases. But it is simply an increase, not a fundamental theoretical shift in what he has been doing all along. The people who ran the kitchen on his days off now need to run the kitchen more often, and do more. The same cooks are cooking the food, however, and it is the same chef at the top of the organizational pyramid -- the pyramid is simply larger. As Robert Brown explained in his short but comprehensive post, some chefs can pull it off and some can't. I'd like to add something to that: I believe that when Pierre Gagnaire says his kitchen slips if he's away from it for a couple of days, he is describing a personal failure as a chef. There are a handful of very small restaurants in the world -- I've written at length about Sandor's in Seagrove Beach, Florida; John McPhee's account of chef "Otto" in New Jersey is legendary -- where the chef is the only cook or very much the head cook in a kitchen. Even in those cases, however, there are absences: at Sandor's, for example, the cold plates are prepared to order by the waitstaff while Sandor Zombori cooks the hot food. And of course Sandor didn't grow the vegetables, raise the animals, and mill the wheat or even bake the bread served at his restaurant. What is on your plate, even if cooked by Sandor, represents much that has happened in Sandor's absence.

Jonathan, thank you for that taxonomy of tasting menus. I do think it's important to distinguish among different types of tastings. Chapel's criticisms, some but not all of which I agree with, seem most fitting when applied to extreme Keller-esque more-small-tastes-than-you-can-count tasting menus as opposed to, say, a six-course tasting of half-portions. I might add some other tasting menu categories: seasonal, theme, single-ingredient, greatest-hits, etc. But I think with respect to Adria and his avant garde ilk, as you imply, we are looking at a different species of dining altogether -- a sensory experience that is somewhat divorced from traditional concepts of eating -- and Chapel's set of arguments become largely inapplicable. Another way of breaking down the arguments with respect to tasting menus is to look at their orientation: call them practical, aesthetic, and physical. The practical limitations have to do with the mechanics of the kitchen producing so many dishes per table, and with a chef's ability to design and source so many different dishes at once at a high level of quality. The aesthetic objections fall along the lines of the claim that little slices of meat cannot equal the experience of meat on the bone. And the physical limitations have to do with the diner's ability to enjoy the avalanche of flavors. I find the practical objection to be simply a challenge. If it can be overcome, it can be overcome. If it can't, it can't. There is no theoretical reason why a properly organized and sufficiently dogged chef can't pull it off. In reality, though, it is a rare achievement. With the aesthetic argument, I agree to the extent that I very much enjoy dishes that are true compositions. Which is not to say I see no place for tastes. But as Robert says, there are some things that, when cut up into little pieces, just aren't as good as the big piece. And there are combinations and contrasts that don't scale down to three bites. Most of all, the sensuous experience of eating a complete dish is something special. I hasten to add that a complete dish can be very small, and that some of Keller's small dishes are to my mind complete dishes. But too many are not. The physical limitation is, I find, common to experienced gastronomes who tend to be older. I recognize it but can't relate. At my age, bulk, and level of appetite, I have no problem dealing with the sensory input of a dozen courses and if they're good and well paced my palate will thoroughly enjoy the experience. There is an over-the-top, excessive, celebratory aspect to this kind of eating that I find enjoyably pornographic and extreme. I think there is another issue here, however, and it is no surprise at all to me that a super-experienced and historically grounded diner like Robert is leading the charge in bringing this deficiency to the fore: there has been, I'm quite sure, a certain decline of critical standards -- by critics and consumers -- that has resulted in Keller being considered by many to be the best chef in the world when, in my opinion, too many examples of his cuisine are slapdash, undisciplined, derivative, and repetitive. He is, no question, an excellent chef and an even better restaurateur. And he has pulled off some incredible things in his kitchens. But the cult-like accolades that are consistently rained down upon the French Laundry have always struck me as too forgiving, and lacking in certain culinary foundations. There is, I think, a bit of a smoke-and-mirrors aspect to Keller's tastings. When Keller says "All menus at the French Laundry revolve around the law of diminishing returns, such as the more you have of something the less you enjoy it," I can't help but imply a corrolary that if people ate more than three bites of Keller's dishes, they'd see a lot more flaws.

In the 2004 Zagat on pages 267-268 there's a list of the oldest restaurants in town, in date order from 1726-1954. Wo Hop is the oldest Chinese restaurant on that list at 1938. I'm not sure if the list is comprehensive, but it probably is close. (Wo Hop is operated by the original family.)

I'd like to go on the record as being officially in favor of nostalgia. But in my time and place -- turn of the 21st Century New York City -- nostalgia and authenticity are rarely synonymous. Indeed, I would prefer to have them be entirely separate concepts. I believe we can only be impoverished, culinarily and intellectually, by an overly nostalgic, derivative, and imitative view of authenticity. I'm content to live in a world where, in order to experience a place, you need to travel to that place. Not that I have a choice: as you say, John, it is very difficult if not impossible to reproduce even a hint of Venice outside of Venice. I think it's too easy to dwell on the imitative-authenticity aspect of Alain Ducasse New York and to say, as Mitchell Davis does, that ADNY is authentic because it “so accurately recreates the experience of eating in a Michelin three-star restaurant in France.” That assessment, to my mind, very much elevates form over substance. Because if you look at what ADNY actually serves, and if you start to explore Ducasse's writings and statements on the subject, what you will see is an homage to New York and to American ingredients. Ducasse's book, Harvesting Excellence, is an entire volume devoted to American ingredients and is rife with language along the lines of "With the enormous range of products in this country, the creative potential is boundless," and "the flare and individuality of the multiple cultural influences in the United States have set the stage for modern American cuisine." Ducasse's fine dining restaurants in New York, Paris, and Monaco offer much in the way of similarity, but to me what makes them authentic is Ducasse's insistence on adapting to local ingredients and culinary styles rather than forcing the unabridged Le Grand Livre de Cuisine d'Alain Ducasse on everybody everywhere. The affect of the United States on Ducasse cannot be overstated: as you move outside his fine dining empire and start examining his Spoon and Mix projects, the American influences are undeniable, as are the American influences on his management style and theories. Nor do I think it is any coincidence that the guy who was the top chef before Ducasse was the top chef, Joel Robuchon, is exhibiting New World Ducasse-like inspiration at his new Paris restaurants. But while Ducasse and Robuchon -- not to mention Ferran Adria and every other chef I can think of who could possibly lay claim to being at the top of the heap -- long ago moved on from obsolete imitative notions of authenticity, the food media and a large part of the consumer base are still applying a 19th Century system of analysis to the cuisine of the 21st Century. So Davis's otherwise excellent guide is almost unbearably suffused with self-conscious and defensive-seeming hedges like "The combination of the pasta and the entree in the same course (let alone on the same plate) is a bow to American eating preferences."

John, I think ultimately the answer to the question "is it authentic" should be "who gives a crap?" The question should be "is it good?" As long as food writers and consumers are handicapped by the now thoroughly outdated and inappropriate (at least for New York, and probably soon everywhere) view of imitation-as-authenticity and authenticity-as-goodness, authenticity will be a distraction from creative excellence rather than a component of it. And so, in thinking about how to rescue authenticity from the Smithsonian and use it as a living concept that supports excellence, it appears there is something common to the best inauthentic, polyglot, mutt-like, joyous New York restaurants: a sense of self-reliance, self-confidence, and conceptual independence and integrity that derives more from the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island than from the restaurants of Paris, Florence, or Tokyo.

Pan, I've got news for you: a lot of people, especially those on macrobiotic diets, still think tomatoes are poisonous! I'll be the first person to agree that most chefs fundamentally lack creative talent. And I'll also be the first to say that, if you lack that kind of talent, you should stick to the dishes that people with it already invented for you. But beyond that, once you get into the world of chefs with creative talent, I see no necessary correlation between historical fidelity and excellence. Certainly, when cooking off the grid, there's an element of risk that's not present when cooking from Le Guide Culinaire. Then again, Escoffier wrote in a different time and place -- he didn't work with American ingredients, he didn't work with a Spanish-speaking brigade from Latin America, he probably as has always been the case with most French gastronomes couldn't stand the slightest hint of capsicum. What, then, is so authentic about a chef in New York, who was perhaps born in Toledo, cooking from Escoffier's playbook? Where I think things really break down is when we get into reproductions of "authentic regional cuisine" thousands of miles from a given cuisine's place of origin. To me, that is not only inauthentic but perverse. The best Italian restaurants in New York -- and I think there is very strong unanimity among gourmets on this point -- are those of Mario Batali. And they happen to be the least authentic by the stodgy definitions that constipate the pages of Gourmet, Saveur, Food & Wine, and The Art of Eating. I see no need to tiptoe around Batali's rejection of tradition; I'm proud to support it. To me, Batali's use of New York and America's bounty in a New World style informed by an Italian aesthetic that is at the core of Mario's persona is far more authentic and respectable than the square-peg-in-round-hole attempts at regional cuisine by so many authentically bad Italian restaurants around town.

Bill, I think you can find pockets of it all over the New World, and to some extent in the Old World as well. Jose Andres in Washington, DC; Grant Achatz in Chicago; Susur Lee in Toronto; Ferran Adria in Spain; Pierre Gagnaire in France; and Tetsuya Wakuda in Australia are just a few of the most obvious examples of chefs whose primary notions of culinary fealty are derived from a strong sense of self. I think, however, that New York is unique in that it is defined by this impulse. Dining in DC, I can't escape the feeling that Jose Andres is a fluke, an outsider, someone who taps into a limited audience within a supervening meat-and-potatoes culinary culture. In New York, the counterculure is the culture.

As John Sconzo ("docsconz") mentioned in the Food Media & News forum, Issue Number 66 of Edward Behr's The Art of Eating contains a gazetteer of New York restaurant picks courtesy of the estimable Mitchell Davis. It is the cover story. The picks and commentary are solid. Making allowances for personal preference, space limitations, and a few outright blunders (Davis's love of the Second Avenue Deli, and omission of Katz's, would be wrong for any connoisseur but is doubly shocking for the author of The Mensch Chef), armed with this list a visitor to New York could eat very well indeed for many weeks. For its currency and intelligence, I would for for the time being call it an essential guide. More interesting to me, however, is Davis's overview of the New York dining scene, the core of which is a discussion of the phenomenon of authenticity as viewed through the lens of New York restaurants. Davis, who is the Director or Publications for the James Beard Foundation and who has written at length and with insight about restaurants all over the world, would seem to be uniquely situated to provide us with an interesting critical perspective. Davis's taxonomy holds that restaurants in New York fall “on a spectrum from totally authentic to wildly creative.” He defines the authentic end of the spectrum in terms of “places that recreate the food and often the eating environments of other parts of the world.” In other words, he views authenticity as reproduction. “An authentic restaurant,” he argues, “feels tied to a particular place or culture.” He is speaking mostly of “ethnic” restaurants – he mentions Korean, Vietnamese, and Japanese – but also sees Alain Ducasse New York as authentic because it “so accurately recreates the experience of eating in a Michelin three-star restaurant in France.” He defines the other end of the spectrum in terms of “restaurants that shun any sort of authenticity or tradition whatsoever.” Here he cites Nuevo Latino, a host of nouvelle Japanese restaurants, and the chef-driven restaurants of the Time Warner Center. He also sees, in the middle of the spectrum, a species of “hybrid restaurants,” in which he includes places such as Babbo and Nobu. “When the mix of authentic and creative is right,” contends Davis, “they offer excellent dining experiences.” To be sure, Davis also understands that authenticity is a “fraught concept.” He notes that authenticity can be defined in terms of the question “Would I find a restaurant or menu like this in India, in Hong Kong, or on the Lower East Side?” But he also sees a definition framed by “Would people from those places understand and appreciate this food, this style of service, the experience of eating here?” Further, he recognizes the difficulty of determining the “what and when of authenticity.” He does not believe cuisine should be frozen in time or place, and makes limited allowances for the authenticity of Japanese fusion, which after all “is popular these days in Tokyo.” I too have been thinking about authenticity of late, as well as off and on over the years. And while I appreciate Davis's points I fundamentally have a different take on the meaning of culinary authenticity, and on New York's relationship to it. Despite allowances made for some evolution, authenticity as commonly understood by culinary authorities like Davis refers to the preservation of "original" recipes, presented with some historical and cultural context. In the language of Merriam-Webster, authentic means “conforming to an original so as to reproduce essential features.” But what if evolution itself lies at the core of authenticity? In that regard, paying attention to how cuisine has evolved in modern times, it's hard not to notice that one city has led the pack: New York may be the most inauthentic eating town on the planet, yet it's also the most exciting. Davis senses that New York is “the best restaurant city in the world.” But his concept of authenticity forces him to argue from a creative deficit: “Sure, there are better French restaurants in France, better Japanese restaurants in Japan, better Italian restaurants in Italy,” he concedes. “But add up the huge number and the diversity of dining options available on any night in New York, factor in price and quality, and what you've got is the best restaurant city in the world.” Reading the glossy food magazines, the newsletters, and the Internet, and even when talking to educated gourmets who should know better, I get the sense that the authenticity police are everywhere these days. Have you ever dined in an Italian-American restaurant with friends who have just returned from Italy? "Oh, in Italy they never serve pasta as a main course," they'll inevitably say. Or, "Cappuccino after dinner? That would be unthinkable in Italy." (Amanda Hesser built a book on that premise.) Or, "You call this bolognese?" (There is nothing like a week in Europe or Asia to activate the authenticity chromosome.) This attitude stands in stark contrast to the basic facts with which we're all familiar: Italian cuisine did not spring into existence as a fully formed entity. There was no tomato sauce – and there were certainly no sun-dried tomatoes – until centuries after the tomato first reached Europe from the New World. When that beloved red fruit first appeared in Italy, did the local food cognoscenti protest, "We don't use these things in authentic Italian cuisine"? Such an objection would never be heard in a trattoria in Brooklyn, where the chef preparing the "red sauce" cuisine could easily be a Mexican who started his day with a bagel and a schmear. We could just as easily imagine knee-jerk authenticity-based complaints about chiles in China's Sichuan province, chocolate in France, and wine in Australia. If you dug really deep, you'd probably find that at some point in prehistory the very notion of cooking beasts over a fire instead of eating their bloody haunches raw was scorned for its inauthenticity, too. Since everything in the world of food likely had some precursory experience, wouldn't it be smarter for us to make allowances for what "authentic" really means? If you ask me, such tolerance is necessary when you dine out in a place like New York City. In what many rank as the world's hotbed of restaurant life, the top chefs collectively seem to scoff at the maintenance of traditional cuisines. Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Gray Kunz, the leading practitioners of fusion cuisine, run roughshod over culinary borders with the audacity of international arms dealers. Nobu Matsuhisa blends Peruvian, Japanese, and even seemingly extraterrestrial flavors together; take his signature squid "pasta": linguine-like strips of calamari with garlic sauce, asparagus, and shiitake mushrooms. Wylie Dufresne presses oysters into paperlike sheets. Mario Batali cooks pizzas on a griddle. I believe these cooks demonstrate that authenticity isn't a repetition of history. Real authenticity, to me, is grounded in being faithful to oneself. This is the last definition given by Merriam-Webster, but to me it is the most appropriate for cuisine: “true to one's own personality, spirit, or character.” That's why, despite their breaks with tradition, there's nothing inauthentic about the cuisines of Nobu, Jean-Georges, Wylie, and Mario. Change for its own sake is phony, but true originality is authentic. And what New York eschews in terms of historical fealty, it makes up many times over in originality: the big-name cuisiniers we hear so much about are just the most prominent soloists among a chorus of thousands of unsung chefs at every kind of restaurant from the traditional Little India curry shop to the post-modern dessert bar. To me, what makes New York City a supremely dynamic eating destination is exactly its unabashed dedication to what the old school writers would call inauthenticity: New York doesn't attempt to hide the actuality that human history is built on immigration, assimilation, and invention. I believe that New York chefs have assumed a lot more latitude when it comes to creativity than, say, the chefs working in Michelin-starred restaurants in France. When many of those try to incorporate such ingredients as curry and shiso in their food, the result often comes across as a strained attempt to be modern. Some New York chefs can't pull it off either, but their efforts to reinvent cuisine feel far more natural – maybe because there is no native culinary culture in Manhattan; the Zagat survey lists not a single Iroquois restaurant. Instead, New York has always served up an imported, repackaged version of everything. Rather than obsessing about historical notions of authenticity, I propose finding culinary validation within ourselves and accepting that tomorrow's authenticity is always the child of today's inauthenticity. Those who forget this lesson will, I think, be relegated to quibbling about trivialities, like faux quartermasters debating the historical accuracy of their Civil War reenactment uniforms.

Did I mention it's an axis of evil?

The best steak ever served at Sammy's wouldn't even be usable for wiping the ass of a steer destined for Luger's. I agree with the rest of the A-game/B-game comparison, however.

Bouley has long been the most profoundly dysfunctional top-tier restaurant I know of. Even Bouley's die-hard supporters occasionally walk out of the place saying "I can't believe I just had such a shitty meal." At the same time, once you've tasted Bouley at his best, you can dine for two weeks straight at Michelin three-star restaurants in France and never have a better meal. Is the chef aware of this? Of course he is. So is everybody who has ever worked there, and all but the most clueless of longtime customers. But it is part and parcel of his dysfunction that he has never been able to fix it.

This place is charging the same prices on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn that Otto is charging on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. It makes Otto look cheap. The challenge would be finding a more expensive pizzeria, especially when factoring in location. I'm not sure even Serafina is more expensive for similarly constituted pies (although they go to a higher maximum on account of the caviar pizza), and La Pizza Fresca (where the key ingredients are imported) also seems to be in this range. Those places -- Serafina, La Pizza Fresca, and Otto -- also sound much more like the appropriate points of comparison for a Neapolitan pizza fancier (the Kinsey/Sconzo/Bavuso axis strikes me as heavily predisposed to favor whatever seems most accurately Neapolitan). While I think all those places are capable of serving a delicious product, the style and cost issues combine to establish a rather distinct genre. To me, in any comparative analysis of a particular product -- pizza, burgers, frankfurters, bread, whatever -- the fundamental issues involve defining the styles and the criteria for excellence within those styles. This helps to differentiate between expressions of stylistic preference (liking ribeye better than porterhouse and therfore ranking all great ribeyes ahead of all great porterhouses) and qualitative analysis of stylistically similar products (liking one porterhouse better than another because it better fulfills the criteria for porterhouse excellence). The rest is just a question of harvesting experiences -- in my experience, once you break things down to a certain level of granularity, two experienced and level-headed tasters are not likely to disagree on the specifics of which samples met which criteria. Of course it's possible to define categories so narrowly that all comparison becomes impossible, or so broadly that all comparison becomes meaningless. The trick is striking the right balance. Sorry for rambling.

So really, at your $100 per couple price point, or even at the "economy" price point of $50 per couple, we're not talking about a pizzeria. We're talking about a restaurant that serves pizza. I think it's a distinction worth bearing in mind, as well as a whole 'nother category to explore.

If you're talking about the review of Spice Market in the New York Times, we had quite a lot of discussion of omissions here.

Sounds great. All those $14 price tags for what sound like tiny pizzas, however, might be cause for concern. And $9 for a crust brushed with olive oil, rosemary, and garlic? In Brooklyn? It looks as though a meal for two would easily cost $50+ at this place, and that's hard to swallow.

AES, the only way you can get an official answer is by asking the restaurant. All the people here can tell you is what they experienced as individuals. The restaurant has no obligation, absent a policy, to honor one table's arrangement with another table, so really a phone call is likely to be your best piece of research here -- and we'd love to hear what you learn.

Standard mise-en-place procedure for a tasting menu, in most any restaurant kitchen, is to prepare everything in multiples. The portions that go out to the tables are split portions: the piece of meat or fish is likely cooked in one pan, by one cook, and then sliced and allocated for service. That's how the kitchen can put out 10 or more courses: each plate that goes out to the table is a part of the whole. Assuming Per Se follows standard restaurant procedure, there's a world of difference between 2x2 tastings and 1x1 tastings. Or, rather, they are exactly the same, but half the food gets wasted in the 1x1 scenario. Since a table for 2 can order a tasting, and another table for 2 can order another tasting, there is no rational argument for a premium on a 2x2. Whereas, on a 1x1, a premium of nearly 100% could be understandable. Then again, it doesn't sound as though the restaurant has been entirely consistent here either. Perhaps someone will just ask what the policy is and the reasons for it.

Thanks for the report. I experienced the same texture problem with the ice cream.

For what it's worth (not much, but something) New York Magazine has some very favorable comments about Wolfgang's in the new issue: http://nymetro.com/nymetro/food/reviews/re...9211/index.html

They have some great stuff at the various Empire Szechuans, including a whole new menu of modern Sichuan cuisine meant to compete with the Grand Sichuan/Wu Liang Ye axis. The problem is that Empire is such a huge machine -- cranking out gazillions of meals 'til the wee hours -- that it takes a lot of effort to master and, even then, it struggles with major consistency problems. You've got to know which dishes they mail in and which ones they care about, and you've got to know the real chef's shifts and days off. Even then, you can get screwed.

Just had the tangerine beef from Wu Liang Ye on East 86th. Great stuff. It's presented as large crispy slices of beef perhaps 3-4" long on average (unless you are an absolute whiz with chopsticks, you need to eat the dish with a knife and fork), the sauce is not to sweet (it's a sweet dish, of course, but not over-the-top), and it has a great pepper kick. Wu Liang Ye, while not rock-solid consistent, is in my opinion an underrated Sichuan resource. It's firmly in the number 2 spot after Grand Sichuan, and has some dishes that are better than or not available at Grand Sichuan. And since I'm in the UES branch's delivery radius, it's nice and convenient.

I should note that at Cravath one was always allowed to remove one's tie after, oh, about 2am. And you weren't expected to put it back on until around 8am.

Even in the best of all possible worlds, assuming away all the other hypothetical challenges and assuming any meaningful scheme of quantifying such things, we would hardly ever expect something luxurious that costs three times as much as something less luxurious to be three times better. Improvements at the high end are a matter of diminishing returns. You might notice a massive improvement in quality from a $10 bottle of wine to a $50 bottle of wine. You'll notice a lot less of an improvement when you go from $50 to $100. And beyond that, as you start climbing towards the best, each of those increments buys you less and less. How you value the pursuit of the best and the rare is the primary factor in determining whether those increments are worth paying, not any sort of locked-in ratio of price to quality. This is where we as mostly middle class people can't really stay in the game that rich people are playing, and why the media tend to be uncomprehending about issues of price in the luxury markets. To look at it from the perspective of the person with essentially infinite money, though, is the ever any reason not to pay more for something better, even if that means paying double for something that's 1% better?

The premise still seems flawed: at $26 for chicken pot pie (what is essentially a traditional pub food dish), it needs to be extraordinary. Same for a macaroni side dish at $14. This is exactly the argument I made to the Ducasse team last night. The reality is that the chicken pot pie is extraordinary (or at least it was at Mix I) and the macaroni dish is spiked with truffles, but I don't think this case has been made to the dining public. Nor am I sure the case can be made to the target audience, who might be more enthusiastic about less luxury at a lower price point. The nouvelle comfort food perceived value trap can be difficult to escape.

“How does it compare to the old Mix?” It was the question being asked all over the room at the Mix relaunch media preview tasting last night. (Remind me sometime to talk more about the phenomenon of the media preview dinner.) I have no problem with answering that question – although there were some tremendously inane media groupthink howlers (“You needed a college degree to read the old menu”) – but what about a simpler question: “How's the food?” I'd rather start with that one. Not that a media dinner is the best format in which to taste food, but it's possible to develop at least some early impressions. In many cases, the food was terrific. (What were you expecting? That the food would be bad?) Four gigantic medium-rare scallops – their texture at once firm and gelatinous – sit in an earthenware crock surrounded by chanterelles and supported by a Meyer lemon marmalade (Ducasse's facility with marmalades is one of his signatures) that I wish I could get in a jar and carry with me everywhere: I'd eat by the spoonful while writing on the computer, watching TV, and engaging in alternate side of the street parking. A modernized take on duck a l'orange – the breast cooked sous vide to moist medium rare, the leg and thigh done as a confit with mini tangerine slices scattered about (each slice peeled, no less) and anchored with belgian endive – was the hit of the evening, a duck dish I'd use on anybody who says “I don't like duck.” The signature elbow macaroni with ham and truffle jus is one of the most seductive nouvelle comfort food dishes being served in New York right now. “Shellfish and chips,” probably a nod to the new chef Damon Gordon's UK background, is a paper cone full of beautifully fried bite-size crustaceans and mollusks with (American definition) freshly made potato chips and a velvety mustard sauce pinch-hitting for tartar. And a simple foie gras terrine demonstrates the kitchen's facility with basic technique, putting to shame most examples being foisted on diners around town. There were also a few clunkers, like a radically uninspired filet mignon au poivre with the second-worst fries I've had lately (the worst being the fries they sell as a side dish) and all of the desserts (save for the always enjoyable chocolate pizza). The new menu is a straight-up carte with appetizers (most in the mid- to high-teens), main courses (a big range, from $26 for chicken pot pie to $46 for “New Lobster Newburg,” which I didn't get to try), desserts (mostly $11), and side dishes (most $7-$11 with the elbow macaroni at $14). The cuisine is straightforward and accessible: smart dishes that will appeal to a wide audience but still satisfy the gourmet element on account of a healthy dose of advanced technique and strong (though not uniformly superb) product quality. I've been wrong too many times to make predictions anymore about the commercial successes of restaurants, but it certainly seems as though Mix is on a path that could attract and retain a steady, young, hip clientele. It will be interesting to see how the buzz develops over the next few weeks. The prices seem a little high – a full meal at Mix will cost you the same as a full meal at Gramercy Tavern – but you aren't locked into a full meal; I think that will appeal to Mix's target audience. Getting to the comparison: I mentioned that Mix will “satisfy” the gourmet element. By that I mean I'll always be happy to dine there. But there is a sense of loss associated with the new approach. The old Mix was – as those of us who became Psaltis-incarnation loyalists quickly figured out – one of the city's better haute cuisine restaurants masquerading as a hip, clubby joint. I imagine that's all over now, and that Mix is hewing to a narrower formula: it really is going to be a hip, clubby joint. I won't be dining there every week. Ducasse was in the house, as were an alarming number of people from his various global operations (you haven't truly scaled the heights of food journalism awkwardness until you've been cornered by Alain Ducasse and a gang of his assistants demanding an explanation of the Bay of Pigs metaphor). Although my primary concern is with food quality and not the politics of where Ducasse is on any given day, I confess I'm pleased that he has been in New York so much of late. It demonstrates a certain level of commitment, one that I worried had been called into question by recent events. That seems to have been a false alarm. I'm relatively anti-social and tend not to know many people at these events (nor do I often attend them). I only recognized one other writer out of dozens, so when my better-connected dining companion (she's a publicist and knows everybody) stepped away to talk to some people I didn't know, I wandered downstairs into the kitchen to get a look at Damon Gordon. I interrogated him about his background, which is no joke. I'll try to get an official bio on him but he's worked for Ducasse, Ramsay, Troisgras . . . I think that's what he said. I didn't recognize any of the key people in the kitchen; I think they've had a pretty major staff turnover. Back upstairs, I noticed no significant changes to the physical space, the utensils, or anything like that -- although the menu is now gloriously presented on white paper instead of under that bizarre orange plastic (which, though I have a college degree, I found borderline inscrutable). Service can't possibly be evaluated in an event setting, but a few of my favorite staff seemed still to be in action. I'll try to head back to Mix in a month or two, once Damon Gordon really gets his footing and the formula has time to settle in, and give a more comprehensive report.