robert brown

Carlsbad, I didn't see any Americans to speak of this summer except in Venice. It doesn't change the fact that Taillevent is known to be a hand-holding restaurant, as is the French Laundry. It is not chef-owned and has never had a top-echelon chef. People go there because Vrignat speaks fluent English and keeps one of the best wine cellars in the world. It's easy to see why he is Danny Meyer's biggest influence since he runs his restaurant impeccably. This hardly precludes the possibility of having a grand old time, but I don't think it will offer the kind of meal that will do much for ulterior epicure's curiosity and wanting to experience a great-chef meal. I have been a couple of times to the Monaco Table de Joel Robuchon. It is a sit-at-a-table version of the Atelier: same cooks and waiters I saw in Paris and who came down from Paris for the opening. Same dishes, just about, as well.

This week's truffle report talks of slowly improving quality in the face of short supply. Prices are 2250 euros a kilo for less than 500 grams and 2250 for more than 500 grams.

Of late I have had first-hand experience at Arpege and Ledoyen. The former can be fantastic, but is exhorbitant. Ledoyen is considerably cheaper and the 18th-century ambiance is rare and beautiful. I found the food delightfully a generation behind (and generous) and the service not too friendly. L'Ambroisie is next for me, and I have to say that everything I've heard about it has been positive. I met an American recently who had pretense to being well-dined. As soon as he said, "My two favorite retaurants are Taillevent and the French Laundry", I knew he was still wet behind the ears. If timidity is in your make-up, those two places won't let you be embarrased. Taillevent seems to live off Americans who don't know what's going on and what is worth patronzing in the chef and retaurant world. Another element to factor in is whether to order a tasting menu or order a la carte. Doing the latter to near-ultimate benefit is an acquired skill. The consensus seems to be order a la carte at Gagnaire, at least. I guess there are no tasting menus at L'Ambroisie, which is one reason why I am going there. At least I won't be forced into going along with people who have been brainwashed into believing the tasting menus is the only way to order.

Marc, please fill us in on the supposedly new Cesare in tersms of location, size, menu, service,etc. What did you end up having with your group?

My not commenting on Jonathan's post shouldn't imply any disagreement or disdain. I thought he put it well, especially in his second most recent. I buy and consult nearly all the Italian guide books. The only one I find to be reliable is the Osteri d'Italia, which nonetheless has led me to the occasional sub-standard establishment. However beyond dividing up certain geographic units into larger restaurants from smaller ones (cafes, wine bars, etc.) it makes no effort to rate or rank-order restaurants. This is why I use it with the high level of confidence that I don't have in the "quant" guide books. You don't have to be an ambitious restaurant-goer either to have your own little guide book in your head. It's the kind of tool you can develop by learning the restaurants in your neighborhood. Even on such a level, every diner should ultimately think of himself as his own best critic.

The Sultan of Dining is the Sultan of Dining. He is, after all, Turkey's greatest gastronome, of that I have no doubt. After our meeting up in Bergamo to visit the new premises of our favorite restaurant in Italy, da Vittorio, the Sultan, myself and our wives (the Sultan has just one) will return for the second straight fall to Antica Corona Reale da Renzo because we think that it and Cesare (where we go the day before) are two of the very best restaurants in Piemonte. (It’s with some trepidation that we return to the latter as we understand he has broken off from his son, moved his kitchen and dining room and is preparing fewer dishes). More out of convenience for the other couple we are traveling with who need to be near Malpensa for their flight back to Seattle, we are spending a night on the Lago di Orta and having dinner at the Villa Crespi. I’ll be glad to share my thoughts about it and Renzo I'm perfectly willing to leave myself open to a change of opinion on a second visit. The problem with Flipot is that if I do go back, it will have to be by myself since we found the town, the hotel-restaurant and the dining vibes desultory and, as I said, the meal uneven. As for all this quantitative guide book evocations, we all know that Italian guide book ratings are at best hit and miss. I reported here a worse than mediocre dinner this summer at Gambero Rosso, whose major guidebook ratings probably add up to the third or fourth highest in Italy and are certainly more than Flipot’s. I also haven't been completely enamored of any of the three-star restaurant meals I have had in Italy either. Invoking stars, shrimps, forks, x/20 and so forth to justify a personal opinion of a restaurant in Italy is hardly indicative of anything or of much consequence. Guidebooks are useful for their names and addresses and helping in forming a choice of where to dine. Ultimately in the long run and after enough experiences, each person becomes his own little guidebook.

The last report from the usually candid and reliable "Borso del Tartuffo" says that the truffles gathered so far are compromised by too much humidity. We'll see what the next one says, probably in a few days.

Okay everybody, don't pay attention to me, the Sultan of Dining (vmilor) and our wives, all of whom enjoyed Flipot, but hardly would call it one of our greatest dining experiences in Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland, and so forth.

Alberto, I don't think you peer into the soul of Italian restaurants until you get to Antica Corona da Renzo in Piemonte. What do you think? Regardless, thank you for giving us a preview.

this is the only relevant point in this too-long conversation. ← Including yours?

Pim's use of metaphor made me think of the old National Hockey League games when just prior to the dropping of the puck, the buzzer sounded and both teams formed a circle at each end, with one team skating clockwise and the other counter-clockwise. Here, it's the Psaltis's versus the Kellers. Nothing more and nothing less as far as wagon circling is concerned.

WHT, perhaps true enough in this instance. However, it should have come as no surprise that the Times' writer should have implied that big-name chefs protecting other big-names chefs was something brand new. Furthermore, it goes on in many other professions, particularly those that involve creativity, research, and scholarship. One of the problems here is that you shouldn't come out and say you shouldn't do it, like Pepin did. It's one of those phenomena that's best left unstated. Woops, maybe not true in this instance as Steven appears to have found an instance of sloppy journalism.

Who comes out looking good here (other than eGullet, that is)? And what does that say?

Since when is it a revelation that chefs at the top end are protective of their kind. It's been going on for as long as I can remember, which takes it back to the 1970s. They're just as hypocritical now as always. If a young chef with first-hand experience sees something in the kitchen of a great chef that's a negative, he has every right to talk or write about it. To say otherwise raises suspicions that "great" chefs might have something to hide.

I think that what’s driving the issues raised in Fat Guy’s post is what appears to me as the Catch-22 situation that Douglas appears to be in. He can’t have his own restaurant because he can’t get the wherewithal, and he can’t get the wherewithal because he has never had his own restaurant. If he had his own restaurant it would be hard to make excuses and lay them at the feet of others. He also could hardly be considered powerless as well since he would hold considerable power. In the last chapter he tantalizing mentioned in a sentence that he considered various offers from chefs and investors without going into any details. He states as his ultimate goal the obvious one of having a restaurant of his own. From the sound of Country, he and the dining world are still on hold. What people like myself are also wondering about and waiting for is if he has that rarest quality of possessing a culinary turn of mind or only the ability to flawlessly execute the mildly interesting: something we won’t know unless and until he truly has a place of his own. None of this, however, makes his book, and the writing of it, any less legitimate.

Who says that you have to be a towering figure, or one exuding gravitas, in a field to write a memoir/first-person expose? Indeed some of the best have come from those that aren’t, as witnessed by Tony Bourdain or the baseball players I mentioned above who also bring a high degree fo irreverance to their books. With the exception of politicians and statesmen, one could argue that it’s the people with smaller and “ work in progress” careers that are in a position to be more outspoken. Do you really think we’ll ever read a “tell it like it is” work from Ducasse or Keller? If so, it won’t be while they are active or have anything to lose. A lot of the malcontentedness (if there is such a word) comes from the fact that Psaltis poked a hole through the near-invincible media and PR armor of two of the handful of most revered chefs in the world. It’s not like you can’t make a case that higher-level restaurant chains (which are what these private investor agglomerations are) and hand-holding chefs are detrimental to great gastronomic experiences.

Tony, I defined the limits. My way of describing those who run interference for Thomas Keller is not open-ended so that people can slot in whomever they want for whatever purpose they want.

These days it’s getting more difficult to be single-handedly responsible for an ambitious restaurant to fail. I’m sure if you asked Jeffrey Chodorow why Mix failed, he wouldn’t blame the same people Doug Psaltis did. If Country bites the dust, you would probably get the same blame game dynamics. The point I was trying to make in my hurriedly-written post above is that the restaurant situation has changed so much that a chef who the likes of Alain Ducasse clearly thinks the world of can do no better than getting a chef’s position at a prix-fixe, family-style restaurant, some cuts above the average as it may be. Put Psaltis in a luxury restaurant that has a 25-30 man brigade kitchen; using the best available produce; formal, well-covered service and offering a modicum of choice on the menu, then success or failure might more likely fall on his shoulders. I’ll have a better idea of what Psaltis is dealing with when I go after the restaurant opens to the public, but based on its description, Psaltis seems for the moment to be rather hamstrung.

Doug Psaltis isn't just one of many chefs.

In terms of careers, American chefs rarely have great stories to tell. Doug Psaltis, however, is an exception, and with the opening of Country just days away, his unusual career adds an unusual element of human interest into the new restaurant’s mix. In “The Seasoning of a Chef: my journey from diner to Ducasse and beyond”, Psaltis lays out the story of how a life in restaurant kitchens formed him as a chef, all 20 years of it from when he was ten and working weekends in his Greek grandfather’s diner in Queens to his brief stay at the French Laundry. One wishes that the he was a better storyteller because the story is a good one, but unfortunately the telling of it is makes for something of a slog-through. Yet the reader can’t help but being in awe at the death-defying stamina and dedication Psaltis has put forth in making himself the best chef he can be. The commuting from Manhattan to Queens to grab a few hours sleep and the off-days spent working the line in restaurants he felt he could learn something from are but two examples. Nothing, however, rises in terms of great experience than the good chunk of time Psaltis worked for Alain Ducasse, starting out as a commis in his luxury New York restaurant to ultimately becoming head chef of Mix, the short-lived restaurant disaster, the blame for which Psaltis lays at the feet of Ducasse’s money-grubbing investors. Between Mix and Country Psaltis spent a few months in Napa Valley, ostensibly as chef de cuisine of the French Laundry. It was a post that didn’t work out for reasons Psaltis explains as the paucity of competent chefs due in part to the opening of Per Se in New York; the less-than-impeccable state of the kitchen; simply being a city boy bored in the country; and an approach to cuisine that Psaltis felt was meant for the heavy tourist trade of Napa, could easily be explained and whose sauces lacked flavor. Because of the rhetorical self-portrait that Psaltis creates---that of a cook who substituted intense practical experience for the Culinary Institute of America or some other trade school, working in a kitchen run by the most famous chef of his day, and handling the best ingredients available--- you begin to wonder if the admittedly outspoken Psaltis will ever find a restaurant kitchen to his liking. This is the story behind the story of the new restaurant named Country.

If only food could travel like people.

This kind of stuff and the reactions to it are germane to the genre. I have less than 100 pages to go, after which I'll put my two cents back in play again.

cinghale, thanks so much for sharing your pictures. Since I didn't take any, your recaptures some good memories for me.

If you want readers to decide on their own, why bother to ask the questions?

I'm not talking about any other piece of writing, individually or collectively, except "The Seasoning of a Chef". Muddying the waters about other kinds of writing isn't germane to what is meant to be a discussion of a specific book. I'm trying to have people look at the book as a literate work, not an alleged hatchet job on a favored chef. Douglas's opening himself up to questioning is no guarantee that he will, or even can, reveal all his motives. What he put down on paper in contemplation and solitude at the time of writing is the truest indication of whatever it is you would ever hope to learn from him.