robert brown

Suzanne, was it in the town or on the lake? It rings a bell, but a faint one. I have spent a fair amount of time in the area, but I cn't quite place it. If it is/were a small one in town, I would have been less likely to have clearly remembered it.

How do we know if Parker's ability to taste has decreased with age? Also, is he taking medications that might affect his palate? This is stuff you have to know if you are going to renew your subscription.

Cyn, Senderens (Restaurant L'Archestrate) was where Arpege is now on Rue Varenne, a few blocks west of Boulevard Raspail. He received his third star in 1978 and took it with him in 1986 to Lucas-Carton. I only had his food one time, around 1978 or 1979. It was a very good meal; nice and intimate perhaps because our colleague's girlfriend knew Senederens quite well. I haven't been to Lucas Carton and never felt the desire to do so. I suspect the thrill is gone like a lot of other three star restaurants in France.

After you throw out all the bad ones among the thousands of restaurants Pepin refers to, what's left?

I've been to all the places mentioned, though some only once. However, I also am an admirer of Carletto where I have had lunch three or four times. It is serious and fastidious. Baja Benjamin seems like it has a lost a half a step. One or two non-Italian waiters are almost hostile; the wine list has deteriorated; and the food is less dependable. Nonetheless there is almost no more idyllic situation for lunch than outdoors in this semi-tropical surrounding right on the beach. We still go at least once every summer. For casual dining in San Remo, Da Vittoria on an L-shaped pedestrian piazza past the train station as you follow the harbor is friendly and has delicious, fresh, and down-to-earth cooking. Eat outdoors if you don't mind being harrassed rather constantly by the African lads selling fake designer handbags and carved animals. If you're lucky, you can watch them run away from the police.

During my graduate Mass Communications studies, we looked at how media portrayed national character. In other words, how did the universal characteristics or cultural stereotypes of a country get reflected in its film, radio, and television productions? I was recently discussing this idea with various eGullet members, transferred, of course, from media to cuisine. Lissome suggested the following topic: Lissome's note treats the subject as I had it in mind: that the stereotypical perceptions of a country, or regions of a country, and its people, carry over into the way we perceive their cuisines. For example, do you think of French food (and by this I am thinking of public, restaurant food as opposed to domestic or homemade food) as formal and elaborate in keeping with the French emphasis on decoration in architecture, applied arts and fashion? Do you experience Italian food as having the naturalness, expansiveness and earthiness of the Italian people? Does you see California cuisine as a reflection of Californians' casual approach to life? Jonathan Day reminded me that: However, he was skeptical about whether these supposed national personality traits would affect more than the ways that people in France, Italy, etc. go about their cooking: Instead, Jonathan focused more on the more external, tangible factors that might influence national cuisines: In your view, is it valid to draw comparisons between national character or cultural stereotypes and perceptions of a country's cuisine? Do you agree with Lissome's cultural perspective or, as Jonathan does, would you look for more tangible influences on a nation's cuisine?

To know about possible constraints on my objectivity towards Wylie Dufresne’s restaurant, WD50, you have to know some background about my pal Louis. Besides being a consummate gourmand (he wears his foodiness with a quiet confidence) and excellent amateur cook, Louis has also known Dewey Dufrene, Wylie's father, for 30 years. Since Louis is a talented and renown sculptor working in metal and glass, Dewey pressed Louis into serving on the design and building team for Wylie's restaurant. As part of his deal, Louis is the only person permitted to bring in his own wine. The upshot is that I can't tell you about the wine list, let alone criticize the significant part of the interior that Louis created; i.e. the gorgeous copper fireplace that evoked in my mind right way both the American Arts and Crafts and Prairie School movements; nor the amusing Pinocchio-inspired glass sconce to the right in the small entranceway, and the light-hearted hanging lamps that are on one side of the room, and over the bar, fashioned in monochromatic glass in conical shapes, amphora, and Dr Seuss hats. Like Wylie Dufresne's cuisine, the overall interior is eclectic , unexpected, and unlike any that you are apt to find in any restaurant.. As for the service, I am unable to evaluate it since everyone who waited on us was chatty and familiar with our host Louis.. WD50 is what one would call a high-risk operation. How much the choice of Clinton Street on the Lower East Side is because it became Wiley's neighborhood since his last job was at 71 Clinton Fresh Food, and that both Dewey and Wiley live in the neighborhood is hard to say. Given the nature of the cuisine, WD50 could easily be further uptown and in a "classier" part of town, although the informal and relaxed nature suggests more downtown. Getting to opening night was an arduous eight-month task, which is understandable once you see not only the interior, but also the kitchen, which is very large, well-equipped and extends into the basement. Above all, this is a serious restaurant operation that also has its own dessert chef (Sam Mason), a dozen in the kitchen, six servers and two coat-checkers. Given all that, the menu prices are a bargain for the level of cooking (the eight appetizers between $12 and $16; the eight main courses between $22 and $28; and the seven desserts $10. each) and it would not break my heart to see them go higher, if that is what is called for. Despite a full house that included Daniel Boulud and Gordon Ramsey as part of a large group celebrating Restaurant Daniel’s tenth anniversary, Wylie was relaxed and not the least bit distracted when he came to or table to meet us and chat with Louis. As if to drive the point home as to his control of the kitchen, every dish came to the table as intended. There was nothing to question, let alone send back. While we did not taste anything that transcended New York City restaurant cooking (we almost never have), what we did eat was some of the most interesting and challenging we have had here. So not only are the dishes prepared as intended, some of them look beautiful upon arrival. A case in point was the appetizer “Oysters, granny smith apple, dried olive, pistachio”. It was laid out like a carpaccio with the white and black of the oyster making an abstraction. Because the dish belonged to one of my dining mates, I only had one bite. Its taste reminded me instantly of the “Ostras con Alemendras Tiernas” (oysters with raw almonds) that I had had a few weeks ago at El Bulli: both dishes fresher-tasting than most oysters. My squid linguine, poached and served in a cup-like bowl with Asian pear, small pieces of Serrano ham, and sweet paprika was sophisticated comfort food and not fishy, which testified to its freshness. Louis and my wife, on Louis’s urging, had “Corned duck, rye crisp, purple mustard, horseradish cream” that also included strips of fresh horseradish. The duck was juicy, with the dish being a host of textures (crunchy, chewy, softness) that hit the palate at differing moments. Louis called the creation “harmonious”. I seemed to be the only person that felt a longish wait between courses, but nonetheless worth it. The lengthy pause was broken up with a “freebie” from Wylie of two small piece of rabbit sausage with pistachios that made you wish there were more. I had loin of lamb with thin slices of cucumber and wood sorrel served in a spiced pear consommé that gave it an Asian accent. I was at first flummoxed by the broth, feeling that it was more suitable for a fish dish. Soon, I found myself in synch and ended up highly pleased. My wife enjoyed the dish very much from her first taste. Louis ordered “Pork belly, black soy beans, turnips.” That he described as having layers of meat and fat with the fat being very sweet. Sturgeon with red lentils, fava beans and nori was meaty and full of diverse textures from the legumes and the nori. Another dish on the menu that Louis recommends, but which no one ordered is the panned-sautéed skate wing with tender and fleshy lemon gnocci made with preserved lemon. Pastry chef Sam Mason works in the omnipresent components style of desserts. Following Wylie’s dictate, desserts are not overly sweet. Two of the desserts had dyhydrated elements: roasted pineapple and a caramelized banana, which my wife felt were like a marathoner in need of water. Nonetheless the banana served on top of a tart with licorice sauce and chocolate ice cream was good; the roasted pineapple with Manchego cheese and pineapple sorbet less so. Among other desserts on the menu, Louis touted the “Citrus panna cotta, grapefruit sorbet, huckleberry sauce.”. I would like to think that my opinion of WD50 wasn’t any more than a bit tilted by dining in the company of a friend and collaborator of Wylie. For sure I will return with my wife on our own; and she is not one to have her head turned. Not only did she praise the integrity of WD50, but would not understand if this restaurant did not have the success of a Gramercy Tavern. In other words, this is adventurous, non-hand-holding dining for people who know where to go for cuisine that confronts the palate and makes you think and reflect upon what you are eating. And to think that at 32 years of age, Wylie (and his cuisine) is still a work-in-progress.

Does that mean my chocolate will get all melted?

Bux, I missed seeing your questions. We had a week including two nights in Roses. Barcelona is it for me. I think the only reason why Paris may be as interesting, or slightly more so, is simply the smaller size of Barcelona. I may also be a little presumptuous in that my sample of Barcelona eating is still small. Uet, you can tell a lot by visiting a market, seeing how the attitude and generosity of restaurants are, the integrity of the products, and even value for money. So far Barcelona is, in my small book, ahead in all those categories. I will be back in early July for a short visit and I'll see if anything changes my current sentiments. Right now France is fourth in my book:bheind, in alphabetical order, Italy, Japan and Spain. Attitude and integrity (or lack of) counts for a fair amount in addition to the amount of enjoyment of the meal. This is a lot more than chocolate, however.

LML, strictly because he and I used to watch baseball games in the basement of my gallery, I read the poet David Lehman's insightful, even riveting, book "Signs of the Times: Deconstruction and the Fall of Paul de Man". It told me why Deconstructionism is a crock of shit, as we say. So when Adria talks about it in relation to his food, I think he uses the wrong word. I like the word "displacement" in the music sense in which you take a theme and rearrange its basic components (melody, syncopation, harmony, meter) so that it comes out transformed but recognizable. ("Transformation" is a word I used in the Daily Gullet essay in my succinct description of his cooking). Most of all I like what my brother ( a scholar in the truest sense) said after he told me that food historians were "hot" in academia right now: "They are among those who have "deconstructed" the world and are putting it back together."

My fitness guy is from Bratislava. I'll ask him, but keep in mind he has been in the USA for a couple of years and isn't exactly "au courant". But he would know about markets and probably the best (or at least most luxe) restaurants. I will keep you posted.

Tarka, welcome back. There is a tendency to put Barcelona and environs on a Barcelona thread (this very one for now), and El Bulli reports on more dedicated thread such as the "TDG:Eight at El Bulli". If you want to join the Symposium discussion with comments about Adria or El Bulli in the context of the culinary avant-garde, then the current discussion in Symposium is the best place. Thus you have three forums you could post in.

I am dining at WD50 this Saturday with five others. Our host worked on the building of the restaurant. Nonetheless, I will try to be sober in, if nothing else, my evaluation. However, my wife recalls details of dishes as well as anyone, come rain or come moonshine. We will give it a go and try to write something both coherent and illuminating.

Lissome, to try to answer your questions about Adria and word play or linguistic puns, here are a few dishes from last year that we had at restaurant. I took them from my report of that meal in the Spain forum. In truth, it was more a case of clever titles for certain dishes that were not literal renderings of their names. I also believe this aspect was more present then than it was at our meal of three weeks ago. 4. “Pistachulines" de Yogur (2001): Adrai transformed yogurt into a crispy packet that resembled a crescent-shaped dumpling. This, too, dissolved and released or “revealed” a whole pistachio nut. 6. “Philopizza” (2000): A long, narrow rectangle of herb-infused phylo dough that was topped with shredded cheese-flavored flakes and intensely flavored powder of tomato. The cheese aspect of it brought to my mind Eli Zabar’s Parmesan toast; but there the resemblance ended to anything we had ever eaten except, of course, to the taste of pizza that Adria had captured in his unique way. 13. Tagliatelle de Consome a la Carbonara (1999): Consomme that was re-formed into long jellied strands about the size of fettuccini. It was served like a Carbonara. It had an egg and butter liquid sauce with tiny cubes of cheese (possibly Gruyere) and ham. We found this to be better in conception than in taste.

Grant, there weren't any chefs in the cars getting on and driving down the highway. I used the comparison simply to try to illustrate diffeence between approach and style. I will have (unless someone else comes along) my last word about style in making food: I am still waiting to eat something that tastes stylish. Let me say how grateful I am to you in writing, "Let's identify chefs' styles by their food personality not the techniques they use. It's more about the minds and less about the tools." because you describe a subject Adria is obsessed by, which is "sensibility". I know this from seeing him on France's Gourmet TV in which he goes into a long monologue about it and, on a personal note, his signing the El Bulli: 1998-2002 book I bought at the restaurant, " For Robert Brown, wishes for a good 2003. Thank you for your sensibility." What have you heard from Adria on the subject, if anything? Lissome, do you think there's a relationship between what you wrote about Asian art museums and Adria wrote below?: "I have no doubt that art can manifest itself in gastronomy, as much in the creation as in the perception of the diner. In my view, the true artists are the diners who are able to experience emotion as they confront a plate, to touch something that is difficult to conceive without resort to metaphor, or (and why not?) to bright ideas like that of a good Andalusian friend of mine: "Art is the experience of a shiver down the spine."

Given the dearth of interesting culinary resources in the east 80’s, we had our dinner the other night at the new outpost of Nick’s Pizza, whose Forest Hills branch we found quite satisfying several years ago. Having been apprised from a preceding post that Nick’s had a write-up in the current issue of New York Magazine, we arrived at 6:30 to avoid a possible wait in line. Customers had taken up a few tables before us, and by the time we left at 7:45 not many more had been claimed. This might have explained the very obsequious behavior of the young lads doing the service: Every waiter in the place must have asked us several times each if we were enjoying whatever it was we were eating. The interior at Nick’s is Upper East Side pizza restaurant bland. There’s a large bar as you enter, the chairs and tables are varnished to a glossy finish, and three gas-fired pizza ovens line the back wall. We shared a spinach leaf salad with reconstituted porcini mushrooms, supermarket ricotta salata, and small pieces of bacon that hadn’t seen heat in several hours. Our pizza, half white (ricotta and mozzarella) and half red (tomato sauce, sausage, and roasted red and yellow peppers) had an above-average crust that was neither thin nor thick, such that it was nicely chewy; but sub-par supermarket quality ingredients put the pizza in the middle of the pack, which means better than the Patsy’s chain and John’s East Side location, but noticeably inferior to DiFara’s and Grimaldi’s, which for us is still unrivalled, especially their pizzas with roasted red peppers. The apogee of the meal was dessert, for which we had an in-house cannoli, the ends of which were dusted with candied citrus and crushed pistachios, downed with a very nice cup of espresso. We’ll return, but only because Nick’s is in our neighborhood. Otherwise it’s $40.in cab fares to Grimaldi’s by the River Café.

Marina, sorry we missed you. Welcome to eGullet. I have been waiting for a new report on Can Roca, so many thanks. I hope you will keep on eating and reporting. Nicely written, too.

Grant, think of an approach as an entry ramp of a highway in which every one slowly moves forward, single file, in a unity of purpose to get onto the highway, and then each of them going off on their own driving in different ways and at different speeds according to their style of driving. Vedat, can you share some of your conversations and even experiences with Adria and El Bulli?

Here is one truth that is irrefutable: Even if Adria's cuisine fizzles out, he should be remembered for creating new ways of talking about the nature of cuisine. I really don't think that many of the concepts and insights that we are knocking around here would have been possible as recently as ten years ago. I want to test the notion here that chefs operate on two, and, arguably, three levels. Goals are universal, and in the cooking profession they can be as humble as the means to earn a living or as lofty as making every morsel as flavorful as one can make-- the latter being the privilege and purvey of the relative handful of history's greatest chefs. No one can argue about the applicability of that. It is when, however, we try to discuss the narrower concepts of approaches and style that the argument heats up, probably returning to the frequent debate we have, "Can food be art?" I contend that before circa 1990, it was much more difficult to describe the work of the great chefs (95% or so of them French) in terms of style. With the chefs of "La Nouvelle Cuisine", the primary goals were to create a meal that was significantly lighter than the classic French cuisine (although as one who ate more than his fair share, I can vouch that this wasn't always the case) and to cook with freshest ingredients possible. To achieve this, the chefs used certain approaches such as shorter cooking times for fish and vegetables and using less butter, flour, cream, fat and alcohol. Nonetheless, attempts at analysis become less clear-cut when one started to think of a chef's "style". Even though there were a few times I could correctly guess where a young chef served some his apprenticeship, I don't think I would be a high-percentage shooter if someone in theory arrayed a large group of freshly-made dishes and asked me which "Nouvelle Cuisine" master prepared it. The problem, I think, is that the primary function of cooking at any level is to provide nourishment. It is the major impediment as to why cooking is, at best (and even this may be stretching the point in some people's minds) an applied (or functional) art. In the interest of brevity, let us just recognize that there are too many intervening factors that permit cooking to be what the Europeans like to call "free" art. To a certain degree, however, Adria brings cuisine at least a step closer to cuisine as at least an applied art. The most salient factor about him is that he begins to allow us to talk about cooking in artistic terms. We can surely say that his work is artful and creative and that he has created an artistic-like revolution (the universal spreading of which is a goal) by turning topsy-turvey historic assumptions in the theory and practice about the way food should be prepared. But even so, it is about approaches and not about style, since Adria's work is not about style, even though he tempts us to think about it. There may be an element of style in what he is doing, but it is style in the sense of a cook who makes collard greens, yams, and fried chicken into a "Southern-style" meal.

Steve, I have to say that when I look at the El Bulli cookbook, I don't find myself thinking that the next time I see Ferran Adria that I will say to him,"Can yu make me #s 451, 618, 544, etc." I look at the book as a record of his conceptions, admire the photographs and assume I will never get to eat any of these dishes (although we did have #421 a few weeks ago). In terms of wanting any specific dishes when there were eight of us, my wife and I thought it would be fortuitous if he served again the Golden Egg (I will fill in a description when I get home and have the book to look at). But no, there are really no Adria signature dishes to speak of, and even if there were and you were served one, it would be an insignificant part of the meal. Adria has changed the entire dynamic and resonance of dining and has laid down a new set of goals for the aspiring chef. The problem is, however, that how many chefs who are their own boss have the luxury of experimenting and creating for six months a year without worrying how to feed a restaurant full of customers? I suspect that Adria's cuisine is more Catalan-based than it appears to the layman and that there are subtleties that escaped people like me. I think that these days chefs are so mobile and move around and away from where they were brought or trained that being wedded to a region is becoming rare. You can sense it a bit when you read a culinary guide book like the Gault-Millau that tells you what the roots are of many chefs. You can see how many chefs from the Southwest are working in Provence-Cote d'Azur, for example. Yet in my dining out career, there are chefs I would have a hard time imagining working in another part of France, let alone the United States, as either they were born where they work or have been in one place so long that it is hard to see them elsewhere. I think only in Italy do you still get a proponderance of chefs working where they grew up. Possibly Spain as well. You and others raise the matter of style and if it is appropriate to use to characterize or describe a chef. I hope I can join in that discussion later tonight. In the case of Adria and other younger chefs, is it more accurate to speak in terms of approach rather than style? I think the nature of creating cuisine is such that the notion of style is a secondary one.

You can also ask if we are looking at Adria as the smile on the Mona Lisa or the moustache. In other words will he become the Leonardo of the kitchen or the"one and only" aberration (but what an aberration!!), Marcel Duchamp? Other than making the dishes, the most important work Adria is doing is codifying and documenting his "oeuvre". The element that makes this unique is that this activity also is a record of what he has served at El Bulli, not simplified or simple dishes for publication in cookbooks. It must be the first time that a chef has done this. I remember asking Pierre Gagnaire in 1989 if he ever used recipes, to which he laughingly replied that he did not. Clearly the "record" of what a chef makes and serves resides almost entirely in titles preserved in old menus and in the heads of those who made them. In a perishable creation such as a plate of food, the notion of systematic notation and photography is decades overdue. I am afraid that not unlike the plundered art and cultural objects that were in the institutions of Iraq, we have "lost" the evolution and dynamic of the connecting links of great cuisine. This is why no one has been able to write a credible history of "La Nouvelle Cuisine". (As far as I know, no one is even engaged in creating an oral history by recording the recollections of chefs in their 70s and 80s that would facilitate such a endeavor, or at least help create a repository to cater to the growing field of culinary history). For purposes of the current discussion, I think it is reasonable to ask (since I don't really think we know) who is in the culinary avant-garde, what are its roots, and what are its precedents. To answer this we must rely on the partial record gleaned from recollections of inveterate diners, writers and restaurant professionals. Might Pierre Gagnaire in his "crazy" days in St.-Etienne during the 1980s done work in his kitchens that suggest a path to today's avant-garde? Only recollections in his head can tell us. Did the avant-garde also germinate in the hands of Michel Bras and Marc Veyrat over a dozen years ago, or were their creations made from products too local to have a universal impact? These are just a few of the questions that an increasing number of people want to study. Right now Adria's work seems like a quantum leap, cuisine's equivalent of Picasso's "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" or Ludwig van Beethoven's "Grosse Fugue". That Adria is creating a precise record of his artistry is an overdue step in the right direction. Unfortunately. it is long overdue one.

Joe, the obvious main reason my wife and I enjoyed our El Bulli meal more was that we had dishes that, had they been served in full portions, would have made for a memorable conventional meal, although many of the dishes, unlike the small portions of a la carte dishes you get in a tasting menu, lose their conceptual significance if served in larger portions. I suspect that Adria has let some increased sobriety come into his cooking. I am sorry you couldn't keep your reservation, but there is always next year.

Two interesting aspects of Adria are of interest to me. First, his culinary experience before he arrived at El Bulli appears hazy and contradictory. In the lengthy article about Adria in Esquire a few years ago, he told the writer that he blocked out earlier memories, which was, of course, putting the guy on. Second, I don't think he is at all interested in the restaurant business. It is not that the restaurant makes no money (which it doesn't), but rather it appears that chefs are given priority and do not have to e-mail the restaurant on a certain date (and only a certain date) to get a table. In a way,as Bux wrote, you do eat in an experimental laboratory. Furthermore, every dish is codified, photographed and fully explained. One question I regret having not asked Adria is if all the dishes served during each season have already been conceived, documented and photographed during the six months the group works at the laboratory in Barcelona. I will have to find this out with an e-mail unless someone out there knows. It is clear that Adria views himself as the Pied Piper of the new cuisine. He keeps no secrets and does all possible to disseminate his concepts, particularly through his series "El Bulli Cookbooks" that are beginning to be published. The ironic aspect is, however, that visiting El Bulli is making a trip to virtual perfection. It evokes the same sense of awe, integrity and admiration that one felt being at Alain Chapel, Les Freres Troisgros and Michel Guerard, and what Thomas Keller strives for and, in many eyes, also attains. Every dimension of El Bulli is what a discerning diner dreams of. The locale is breathtakingly rare, close to being unequalled in luxury dining; the attitude of everyone who works there is humble, down-to-earth and amiable; the architecture and decor are refined; the prices are gift-like and the cuisine is mind-boggling. It is why I wrote the sentiment that avant-garde cuisine,as represented by my meal, begins with roses and ends in Roses, at least until shown to me otherwise. Adria can reveal his culinary roadmap and keep no secrets, but there's no way of exporting his enormous abilities and the delicious house by the sea.

My brother has a menu from when he ate at Bocuse in 1968. That's quite amazing that you did that. We just bought the fleur de sel of the Camargue when we were there a few weeks ago. We like it a lot. It's real potent. Where are you going in France?

Sumac, the Old Timers' Club needs members. Welcome aboard now that we know you have lived through the Golden Age of Dining in France!!! Keep those posts coming. People such as you are vital resources to the site. Some people think they are God's gift to eGullet and without them, the site is nowhere. But then people such as you (and I could name others) find the site, start posting often and it's onward and upward.