robert brown

At Eli's you need a couple of days to get it. If my brother down in Princeton owned a gun, he could have bagged one for you in his backyard.

This reminds me that we enjoyed our lunch our last day (1996) at Guerard's inexpensive restaurant, La Ferme des Grieves, more than the two meals we had in his gourmand restaurant. It may still be worth a stop if one is close by or staying there long enough to have a second meal.

BLH, this is another fine write-up. You caught some details very well and with wit. I look forward to the rest of your reports.

BLH, that jibes with my impression as to what has happened. As one who was there in 1979 and several times before and after, it was a dream. We considered it (ca. 1979) with Troisgros and Chapel, one of our three favorite hangouts. We stopped going seven years ago when it became clear that the restaurant had started on a downward path. This jibes with a report from one of the eGullet departees who was there this spring. It's too bad because it was paradise on earth and the best address in France for food and relaxation.

I would try Albert's on Lex. around 63rd St. They often have game, wild animals, whatever. I'll try to remember to ask at Eli's when I am there this afternoon.

Putting the state of French "haute cuisine" in terms of a highfalutin Pillsbury Bake-Off such as Lubow or Gagnaire do misses seeing the forest through the trees. That French chefdom has been reduced to, or decimated into to a handful of interesting or innovative chefs is not the reason for Spain's ascendancy. Indeed, if it were true what Lubow wrote---"you can still eat very well in France, as you did 20 years ago. The problem is that almost everywhere you eat in France, it could still be 20 years ago. Nothing has changed"--- French chefs would have little to worry about. The problem is precisely that France is NOT where it was then, for if it were, I wouldn't be traveling to Northern Spain three times a year, but instead eating wherever would be the contemporary replacements for the departed Alain Chapel, Jean Troisgros, and Jacques Pic and a youthful Roger Verge, Paul Bocuse and Michel Guerard. (Gagnaire rightfully refers to 20 years ago as being a special time for French gastronomy, and I bet he wishes for the days when he could be the spontaneous, care-free wild man he was before moving to Paris). When my wife and I breathlessly downloaded and printed out Lubow's story on Adria, we summed up the Bake-Off part of the story by agreeing that it had become increasingly more difficult to get an honest meal in France, which may be the principal reason almost nobody cares what is happening in her culinary high-end . There, I suspect, looms the reason why increasingly more gastronomically curious are forsaking France and testing the waters of Spanish (and maybe even Italian) chefs. No one seems to speculate aloud anymore who will be the next three-star chef, and the whole layer of interesting chefs and restaurants below the three-star level is o longer burned into the brains of those who like to eat well. The ink that used to flow from the once edgy and provocative Gault-Millau magazines and guides is finished, and the gastronomic press (particularly the New York Times) is turning its attention more to other places and other kinds of restaurants. Gagnaire and others can cry foul or jawbone a situation in a way that does not square with what is happening in the real world. Talking this way will not make any tangible differences. It looks to me like the horse has left the barn and only deep-seated changes in French economic life will make France as compelling a gastronomic nation as it was a mere 20 years ago.

I have always subscribed to the notion, as Marina and Bux say in different ways, that restaurants have a personality of their own; that they are the end result of people's labor, talent, and sensibilities. In my upper-echelon dining experience, which I try to be modest about, but let's say is lengthy and intensive, there are restaurants that have had the rare quality of embracing me. Almost always these restaurants come close to perfection in every aspect. On our Donostia excursion, Arzak did that to me. In fact as we were about to leave, I said to me wife (with the four other restaurant visits still to come), "We're not going to find any restaurant better than this." As far as I was concerned, I was right. My wife, however, was most taken by Mugaritz, showing that exciting, innovative cuisine can minimze the negatives of bad service. Mugartiz, however Spartan the room and lacking the pizzazz and accoutrements of its higher-rated two and three star restaurants in the area, was not the least bit offensive in the way Berasategui was. As with Bux, I have been in several restaurants where the visit gets off to a bad start (Mugartiz was an example of a restaurant that committed the cardinal sin of leaving the client hanging in abandonment for many minutes after having been seated), but in the end the service staff redeems itself. At Berasategui, however, the damage was so heavy in the first 30 minutes and the ensuing service so dispassionate (and to be fair, the courses were well-timed once the meal got rolling) and the cuisine so unexciting that we never felt the restaurant had vindicated itself. To the two of us, we easily reached the inescapable conclusion that Berasategui was a restaurant experiencing structural difficulties, which is a feeling different than what we get when a restaurant is having a bad night. Pedro, thank you for your heartfelt post. Certainly this year with his retrospective menu, Berasategui can't be making more new dishes than Elena Arzak. Even so, how does it matter? The people at the next table also received their apertifs in short order, but with nothing to eat with them. As for Martin's logo, it is a case study for design students on how to make a trite, hackneyed, maladroit, and cornball one. The only person I can think of who is suitable for a logo of a spoon laid across someone's head is Uri Geller. Bux raises a point that gets right to the heart of "mind over palate", which is that if a diner is engaged with his dinner, he or she is less apt to notice what's going on in the background. Being restaurant junkies, my wife and I dining alone together tend to spend the entire meal commenting on all that is unfolding in our field of vision and range of hearing. I find that once we are dining with other people (who invariably don't care aboout the phenomenon of restaurants as much as we do), we obviously become oblivious or less attentive to the activity beyond us. On the other hand, I can be a sometimes-annoying group dining companion by reminding everone how long we have been waiting, pointing out some mistake or flaw, or questioning a server or a sommelier.

Viking, Docscons, Victor and Bux, thank you very much for liking my report. I am also indebted to Fat Guy for making it look like something an innocent person might think I got paid for!!!! To be serious, though, it is nice that even a relatively few people will factor it in when they go to Donostia, and I hope that they will also share their experiences and opinions after their visits. It looks like I struck a nerve with my less-than-enthusiastic view of our meal at Martin Berasatequi. I'm not sure if calling it an off-night is the operative phenomenon here. My reading of it was as a restaurant going through what seemed like a bad stretch. This was my opinion even before other reports concerning what was happening in the kitchen were posted. The telling part was having to wait 30 minutes for any food whatsoever (and we were not the first to arrive) as this suggested a kitchen having trouble being in synch. As I think I made clear in the piece, I don't dine with just my taste buds. Going to a restaurant of the highest echelon is for me an exercise in connoisseurship, and I found Berasategui to be rather "brut" in this regard. (What I didn't mention in the article was that somehow we ended up with two of these "moelleuses" desserts; one chocolate, the other coffee or caramel (if memory still serves me correctly) which is not what I would expect on a short dessert menu in a three-star restaurant.) With each of the five restaurants, I freely admit I had only one kick at the cat. At Akelare, which was my fourth favorite visit, I left with the possibility that had I ordered diffferently (though exactly what, I have no idea) I may have eaten better. Thus, I hope to return again. At Berasategui, it was more the feeling that there were deep-seated aspects that would prevent me from having a really memorable time no matter how often I went, (although this does not preclude ever returning. It is just that I don't think it will be soon.) Now it wasn't as if the dishes were not prepared right. Indeed they were executed as intended. It is just that when I compare being there to being at the only other three-star restaurant in the region, Restaurante Arzak, I see the difference between dining as a near-chore and dining as a affirmation of enjoying life.

Bux has it right in several ways, most so in bringing up the patience, discipline and exactitude of Spanish chefs. I have been much taken with another ingredient of nearly every fine Spanish chef I have been exposed to, which is integrity. I can't recall in what is now the several to many restaurants I have visited in Spain any, unlike in France and even in Italy, that have stinted, taken shortcuts or have tried to shortchange me. I hope that the pleasure and honesty I felt in my recent visit to San Sebastian comes out in what I wrote. I believe that the great French chefs still control the very top of the creative cooking pyramid, but it is a top that is getting smaller by the year. Once you drift away from this, then I believe it is better to be eating in Spain. One exchange I did not mention in my report of Restaurante Arzak was Juan Mari Arzak telling me that his cooking is Basque- based or inspired. I wish I had had the time to have him elaborate on this, as I perceived his and his daughter's dishes to be rooted in Basque products, but perhaps as much in French techniques. It is certainly a good idea to study up on Basque cuisine before visiting the Basque country. Nonetheless what comes through the most is the quality of the raw ingredients I encountered everywhere during my stay. They may have been the most consistently great I have had in years and as fine as what I come across in France or Italy. I mention the delicious herbs, but there is lamb as good as from Sisteron, the Limousin, or Cuneo; squab, squid, octopus, sole, mackerel and halibut in states as good as they are possible to be. And on and on it goes. To me produce is the great leveler and why it is much harder to get a great meal outside Spain, France and Italy. As to whether France will achieve its former place in the gastronomic firmament is far from being clear and hardly a sure thing. There seem to be too many economic and institutional impediments. The Spaniards, however, seem to have done something no one thought possible even a dozen years ago.

Do Germans stand on the platform, peer down the tracks and say, The ICE train cometh"?

Margaret, welcome on board (again). How do you find the SNCF website to be? I tried to get information about trains from Nice to Gerona and it wouldn't let me do it. Too many changes of trains, as I recall. Have you or others often been stymied by it. It's not my favorite travel site.

Viking, this is nicely planned. La Merenda could be problematic. It doesn't take reservations in advance and because it is a very small restaurant, the chances of getting a table for 12 is remote. If you can write or call, perhaps they can arrange something. It is also an uncomfortable place to eat as one sits on a stool with no back rest. I haven't been in five years or so since my last meal wasn't really good. Jonathan Day went there a few months ago, so his opinion would be more valid than mine. As I have written here before, I think La Petite Maison is the best for Nicoise cuisine. It is spacious and of solid comfort. Service can be slow, however. You might also consider Clement Bruno's (aka Bruno) La Terre de Truffes. It is small but somewhat elegant. You would not be all at one table. The menu is limited, but with the dishes that go well with truffles. Hope that they have good white truffles. It is a rich cuisine there, but in truffle season it is fun. I am also very fond of a small, year-old restaurant called Jouni. He's Finnish with a good CV: el Bulli, Ducasse in Monaco and Spoon in Tokyo, somewhere in Parma as well. If you called him or his partner Giovanni, he would no doubt be pleased to make you all a special meal you would most likely enjoy very much. It's a really relaxed place and a foodie oasis for good talk and information and opinion. The food tends to a blend of French and Northern Italian. However, you could discuss what you wanted Jouni to make. For your last night, the best restaurant in the Beaulieu-Eze area is La Reserve in Beaulieu. The chef, last I knew, is Robuchon-trained. It struck me as quite good, but not great, and overpriced unless you order the degustation. La Chevre d'Or lost its two-star chef to entrepreneurship and no one ever talks about Chateau Eza's cuisine. If you would be content tasting simpler wines of Provence and those made in the foothills of Nice (St. Romain de Belley), let me know. There is a wholesaler/retailer in Nice with nice premises and a smallish but well-chosen selection of good wine of the region (also Romanee-Conti, old Armagnacs, some Bordeaux and Ctoes-du-Rhones and other Burgundy). I will have missed you coming and going. By the way there is a Norwegian contingent who have bought villas in the Cap de Nice area.

We were in Asti a few weeks ago and were denied a return visit to Il Centro in Priocca d'Alba because the shmucks at the hotel Castello di Vila in Isola d'Asti didn't bother to make the reservation for us. We settled on Ciau de Tornavento and had a very good meal except for the very poor desserts. I wouldn't rule it out, but I would go to Enoteca and Il Centro before. These are where the great eating is around the Alba-Astil route. We had a mediocre meal at the new Guido in the San Maurizio, but it had opened just a few months before. Flipot was interesting as well. I don't see where it gets its second star, however. I liked more our meal in March at Il Centro. Lamb roasted in hay was remarkable. But don't stay there if you like decent accomodations.

Bux, life is a struggle and so is this piece!!!

I hadn't planned to reveal any impressions outside of, and before finishing, my San Sebastain overview. But I will say for now that the life you report in the kitchen affects what went on in the dining room when I was there.

What about us poor suckers who have to pay $400.-$600. a couple to dine at one of the few remaining truly great restaurants in France? Or to take John Whiting’s perceptive observation, $100. a couple for barebones menus and wine lists, minimal service, and often uninspired cuisine. There was a time, and Pierre Gagnaire knows it well, when almost any large village had a serious and delicious restaurant and the “big boys” provided a real and honest bacchanalia. As one who dined twice in Gagnaire’s first restaurant ( a funky, tasteful former photographer’s loft), I can tell you that he ran wild in the kitchen in a way that I doubt he can do now (Not having ever been to his Paris restaurant, this is an educated guess, but one that I am sure of, from what I read and what I hear from my friends who have dined there). He also knew first-hand from his second restaurant in St.Etienne what happens when the traffic slows down. The trouble with France is that the chefs should be talking about GASTRONOMY, which is eating in all its aspects. In this regard, it has been a disastrous 13 years for dining in restaurants in France. It’s not just about where one finds the most innovative cooking, but the French-born chefs leaving for other countries; the lack of sacrifice and unwillingness to be happy with less; classic French arrogance, and a government and society that refuses to support France’s most noble and historic institution. Ferran Adria, by turning cuisine on its head, is doing for Spain what Escoffier did for France. Great military powers come and go: the same for culinary ones, I guess.

Ginger Chef, I am sorry and disappointed I missed you. Where do you go next? I am in the midst of writing about my trip. For now, what did the waiters and waitresses think of us?

I just staggered in in the wee small hours from Paris (to Nice) and from five days in San Sebastian. We hit all five places. I have four menus and lots of notes. I hope I can add something in the next few days. Between the weather, guests and traveling, my eGullet work has suffered.

Francesco, I revisited Restaurant Alain Chapel two or three summers ago for the first time since Chapel died (1990). The current chef Philippe Jousse was Chapel's "second" for eight years before 1990. I was surprised that other than a cheaper version of the famous "Salade d'Homard", nothing of Chapel's was on the menu. My meal, as I recall, was certainly a two-star one, but frankly Jousse lacks Chapel extraordinary turn of mind, such that the dishes had no great conception in their totality. The place was a shadow of its former self and devoid of the "rock-em, sock-em, every one is grooving" quality it had. It was sad for me to be there, but that's because this is wheere I had more than half of my top twenty meals. Dining room director Herve Duronzier, who has been there since 1972, told me that if I phoned ahead, I could have Chapel dishes prepared for me and that their sources of supplies had not changed. I have always wanted to get a group of eight people together and have Jousse make an all-Chapel meal. That might be worthwhile. As for making a couple of dishes for two-four people, that might misfire. If you are in the region, it is worth a visit, though it is perplexing as to why there are no pictures of the great man (at least when I was there) and almost no other references to him.

Bux, I believe that explains the Marc Veyrat b.s. Why they arranged the guide by "Departments" instead of straight alphabetizing beats me. It's a pain the neck to find anything. I guess they hired a cheap designer or designed the guide in-house.

I will be passing through Paris for a night on 9/1. I see that only one member has admitted to have dined at La Grande Cascade. It looks intriguing if you read Gault-Millau. Yet it is clear it isn't on the gourmand Paris hit list. Who knows what about this restaurant? And while I am at it, has anyone been blown away recently by other restaurants not so obvious. Paris seems to be losing chef-owned restaurants and gaining in ethnic ones.

alanamoana, the kitchen at the Villa Fiordalisa appeared to be engaged in the kind of "meals" one buys in these specialized frozen food stores one finds, such as Picard in France, or Stauffer dishes. This is opposed to "sous-vide" cooking in which fresh food is put in plastic in order to be cooked in a certain way. But it would be interesting to hear what chefs think in terms of sous-vide cooking compared to using a pig's bladder ("en vessie") or sealing a dish with pastry dough. To what extent also is "sous-vide" cooking a shortcut?

My wife, an American friend and I spent an enjoyable weekend just past at the Villa Fiordalisa in Gardone Riviera, which is a lovely lakeside town on the western banks of the Lake of Garda. As we were walking to our rooms from the parking lot Saturday afternoon, we spotted one of the chefs carrying a large tray from the kitchen in the villa to an outbuilding that the staff used for storing food. As he past us, something fell from the tray, which our friend picked up off the ground. It was a plastic bag containing what he recognized as veal cheeks. He said to the sous-chef, "guanciale?" referring to the veal cheeks we had ordered the night before. There must have been about 50 of these “seal a meal” packets on the tray, which were going into one of the seven freezers we counted the next morning after curiosity drove us to look into the auxiliary kitchen building. My reaction was to say "Ah-ha, secrets of the shrinking brigade". To be fair, we found the veal cheeks quite acceptable at dinner, as did the couple we were dining with, the exceedingly-well-traveled gastronomes Vedat Milor, known on eGullet as “vmilor” and his wife Linda. Nothing about the veal cheeks or any of the other dishes we had hinted of having been frozen. Yet we couldn’t help wonder whether the restaurant has gone as far as it can go using these pouches, and whether Michelin would take away the Villa Fiordalisa's star were they able to confirm the restaurant’s use of seal-a-meal bags. Anyone who has dined regularly in Europe over the past 15 years will know that the number of workers in "haute cuisine” restaurant kitchens has been reduced by 50% or more over this period. Some restaurants that are a notch below the top tier get by with cooking staffs of six or less. An immediate symptom of this is the sharply reduced choice of dishes and the increasing use of fixed menus, sometimes to the point of offering little or no choice whatsoever. I am interested in the ways in which restaurateurs and chefs are getting by with smaller brigades through the use of technology and procedures in the kitchen. How you feel about the use of "boil a meal" bags, either as a diner or a chef? Do you feel that it is cheating to use them, or at least to use them without revealing it? What else do you know about short cuts in the kitchen and what they imply? Do you think that these techniques are a detriment to good and honest dining or that they are beneficial because they reduce the costs of providing good food?

Yesterday two friends of ours arrived from Paris at our house in Nice. The male of the pair said he felt weak and couldn’t eat very much at dinner because he had become sick in Paris. He blamed it on a serving of steak tartare. My wife told the story of how she had to sit and watch everyone eat last December during a long-anticipated return visit to her favorite three-star restaurant in Paris. This morning we collected our friend Louis at the airport who had flown into Nice from Boston. At lunch we also collected another story we had forgotten about: Also last December, Louis, who had taken his wife and daughter to Paris for Christmas, became sick and had to cancel their reservations at Ledoyen and Pierre Gagnaire. While this is an admittedly small sample of those struck down in Paris in the pursuit of gastronomic pleasure, it does seem a bit bizarre that becoming sick in Paris over the past nine months been a phenomenon that has happened to a large percentage of friends and family I know. Has becoming sick or experiencing food poisoning happened to you, or someone you know in Paris in the recent past, or is it just a coincidence that has entered my life and no one else’s?

Irene, I found Can Gaig uneven last month. The roast suckling pig, however, was terrific. Can Majo was mediocre paella-wise. Go out of town a bit to Arenas de Mar and lunch at Hispania. It may be the place for classic Catalan cuisine at its best. A restaurant that hardly gets mention, but that I and Marcus liked a lot is Casa Calvet. The chef there, whoever he is, is sober and focussed. Inventive, but not nutty. Also it is in a Gaudi house and the dining room is authentic Gaudi, but just before his flamboyant period. Nonetheless it adds an engaging dimension to the visit.