marcus
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Posts posted by marcus
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On Aug 7, Ed Levine in the NYT described Bussola as producing probably the best gelato in the city and referred to their artisanal techniques. I stopped by yesterday, and discoved that Elenka plaques where plastered all over the shop, many with the names of individual flavors. I questioned the head guy as to what they do in the shop versus their use of the commercial Elenka base and he became quite defensive. He kept pointing to the ice cream machine in the back room, but I couldn't get a clear answer as to whether they do anything more than whip up the ice cream. I tried the pistachio and strawberry, which were good, quite intense, but not brilliant. I don't think that it's any better than Il Gelatone, but I haven't been there in quite awhile. Il Gelatone has a much larger number of flavors, the flavors at Bussola are quite basic, but those are the ones that I actually like the best when they're well executed. I am curious as to whether anyone knows whether Bussola produces just a commercial product, or whether they do add their own ingredients.
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I tend to follow Parker, especially for Bordeaux. For my taste, I find his scoring for Rhones to be incredibly inflated and out of the ballpark. For a Guigal single vintage Cote Rotie from a good year, a score of 97 would be low, and although I certainly like them, they're not that good. His assistant Pierre-Antoine Rovani who does Burgandies and a few other areas is even better than Parker. I find his ratings of white burgandies to be definitive.
I agree that the Wine Spectator verges on worthless. They are totally inconsistent and engage in obviously flawed practices such as merging scores derived from horizontal tastings into a vertical rating system. Looking at the scores for the 1982 versus the 1988 Haut Brion's is a good example.
Clive Coates is another serious wine rater who wrote a comprehensive review of Bordeaux a few years back. He rates on a 20 point system. He is well respected and considered serious. I believe that he has a genuine aesthetic and point of view, but I personally can't relate to his scores at all. I'm curious as to others' opinions on this.
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Robert, that was just around the time that I became interested in this stuff. I am curious as to whether Barrier (I think they called the restaurant La Negre back then??) is actually my 11th that I can't remember, or is actually #12, because the number did start going up around then.
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I don't believe so. I think that Paul Bocuse, Troisgros and Auberge de l'Ill all preceded L'Oasis, which was precedent breaking in that it was the first restaurant on the Riviera to get 3 stars. Common wisdom at that time held that you needed a great cheese service to get 3 stars and that this was not possible in that region. Pic may also have been ahead of l'Oasis, but admittedly this is all ancient history and muddled by the fog of time. Ferdinand Point at La Pyramide actually died in 1955, but his wife was allowed to keep the 3 stars until she retired sometime in the 1970s.
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Robert, I'm pretty sure that Barrier did not get 3 stars until the sometime in the 70s. I remember his terrine of 3 poissons de la loire as one of the greatest dishes from my culinary experience. The clarity and intensity of each flavor was monumental. I also remember an excellent eel in a brown sauce, but not the specifics. Barrier retired at some point and I don't remember whether he had already lost a star or not. He re-opened several years later with a simpler format and got one star and eventually possibly 2, but my recollection is not clear as I didn't actually go back.
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I was thinking back to first time I looked at the Michelin guide in the mid 60s and I remember clearly that there were 11 3 star restaurants in France pretty closely as follows:
Paris -- Maxim's, La Tour d'Argent, Laperouse, Lasserre
Provinces -- Hotel de la Poste in Avallon, Cote d'Or in Saulieu, Pyramide in Vienne, Auberge Pere Bise in Talloires, Auberges de Noves, Ousteau de Beaumaniere
The 11th may have been the original Lucas Carton in Paris, but I'm not sure.
It was several years before I started going, and my first 3 star meals were largely in other restaurants with the exception of Tour d'Argent and Lasserre, but I wonder if we were able to line up these restaurants side by side with today's 22 3 star restaurants (counting the 2 Veyrat restaurants as 1) that we would see this decline that is being accepted here as common knowledge. I'm not at all sure.
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Steve -- Ready to drink is a whole nother subject which I am going to defer debating with you.
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Maxence is a really excellent 1 star restaurant in the sixth and has a Flemish chef, probably Van Laer. I recommend the restaurant highly and suggest ordering a la carte rather than from the price fixed menu. My wife and I did one of each, and the a la carte dish was better in every case.
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Steve - Your comment regarding leading at the mediocre level is quite intriguing and novel and I need to think about it. I'm not sure whether or not it has any important implications for the overall question as to the state of French dining.
With regard to wine price comparisons, my observation is that Champagne and Rhone wines are significantly less expensive in France and Bordeaux are slightly more expensive. Robert Parker's influence has pushed Rhones to astronomical levels in the US, such that France can appear cheap. I had a bottle of 1990 Guigal La Turque for 1200 francs at Roellinger within the last 2 years. On the same trip, Ducasse had 1978 La Chapelle on his wine list for 2000 francs which has been selling at auction in NY for over $500 for the last 5 years. For Bordeaux, I find that first growths sell at a greater premium in France than in the US where vintage year and WS/WA ratings can have more of an effect. So if you know your super seconds and can pick through a wine list you will find values. I found a 1989 Clinet at La Tour D'Argent for 226 euros last December, but I would definitively not recommend the restaurant.
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Paris during its greatest restaurant years was always filled with mediocre restaurants. Jacques Melac and L'Affriole although they have a certain atmosphere and charm are mediocre. I don't believe that focusing on such restaurants provides any insight at all into the state of French gastronomy which is a question targeted at questions regarcing excellence and leadership.
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I'm not sure. Michelin, which is usually quite accurate, shows menus at 140-225 and from Steve's description I would guess the lower end. The high priced menu is usually based on super premium ingredients.
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Steve, you don't mean 300 Euros each, do you?
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I find this pinned down by price point argument unconvincing. I'm not at all sure that the chef at L'Affriole could do better at a higher price point. La Regalade is at that 30 euro price point and does great. I also consider it positive that a chef that could be at a starred restaurant has decided to devote himself to a bistro. How does one take this as an indicator of decline.
L'Ardoise serves very good food at an even lower price point, but admittedly it has no decor and they turn their tables rapidly.
The fact that Paris has all of these good and interesting choices is what makes it a great restaurant destination. I find it strange and ironic that one would describe decline in terms of so much goodness.
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L'Affriole only gets a 12 from Gault Millau which is quite a low score, even for a bistro. I think that if a restaurant as good as you describe receives this middling rating, then it speaks strongly to the overall depth and strength of the restaurants in Paris.
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Kerouac1964, My wife refuses to accept a carte without prices. She asks for the menu provided for men, and explains that she finds getting a menu without prices to be insulting, and although I'm sure that she doesn't win friends this way, she always gets it. She has done this tens of times in 2 and 3 star restaurants, and the only argument she ever got was 5-10 years ago at a mediocre 2 star restaurant in the southern Netherlands, and this was from the female owner.
I think that we are way overdoing what seems to be becoming received wisdom regarding the decline of quality in restaurants in France. We may not be at an apex, but overall France continues to tower over the rest of the world. I love the restaurants of Taipei and Bangkok, but I don't think that they are quite comparable. England is a joke, a mass of horrible places with a thin veneer of overpriced and overrated restaurants in London. Italy has many very fine regional restaurants, but I have never had a great meal at any of the nuovo cucina restaurants that get the stars from Aimo and Nadia in Milan to Enoteca Pinchiorri in Florence to the 3 star Dal Pescatore in the hinterlands of Lombardy. One of only two 3 star restaurants in Italy, it had the finest service I have ever experienced anywhere, but the food was distinctly unmemorable. I have the very highest regard for Arzak, but this restaurant has been around forever, and the Spanish Basque area has always been an extension of the French cooking region. I am willing to concede that Catalonia may be the up and coming region, and I'm planning to do my own tour next year, but no matter how good it is, it is still only a very small area compared to France overall. This brings me to New York. If New York and Paris were merged, I can't imagine that I would ever get to the point where I would go to one of the New York originated restaurants, and if I did it would likely be Chinese. Perhaps if I were looking for a seafood specialist, I might go to Le Bernardin, but this is a purely French restaurant anyhow. Daniel and Jean Georges would not make it into the top 10. Is there any bistro in New York that compares to La Regalade, or Benoit, or L'Ami Louis. I'm even giving you targets to shoot at. So, as some bemoan the decline of French leadership, I think that we need to maintain some perspective.
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Fat Guy, I've never tried Cones, but will when I'm in the area.
Wingding, I don't know much about how gelato is made, but I assume that the commercial base is not the entire product and that the fresh fruit or nuts used for the primary flavor are added by the gelateria. There is thus considerable opportunity for custiomization and enhancement of the final result. Am I mistaken in this assumption?
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I've tried Il Gelatone a number of times and found it good but underwhelming, the flavors lack the clarity and intensity of great gelato. I found it about as good as an average artisanal gelateria in Italy. It's not anywhere near the level, probably 3-4 distinct steps down from the great gelaterias such a La Sorbeteria in Bologna (my favorite) or San Crispino in Rome. I'm interested in trying Bussola, but would like to know whether people find it significantly better than Gelatone.
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You can't directly compare the GM toques to Michelin stars because they cover a much broader range of quality levels. My point was that you can be much more consistent if you relegate the large majority of the restaurants to no stars and focus on differentiating only among the very best. Although there is a lot of individual variation, their are Michelin one star restaurants that score as low as 13 in GM, I think that you will find that in general there is comparability as to numbers between 3 star 19, 2 star 18 and one star 17, with significant, maybe 35% of one star restaurants getting 16 or lower. Of course, there are also no star 17 restaurants, but this just represents variation in judgment. The bottom line is that in general Michelin starred restaurants receive 3 or 4 toques, so that 1 or 2 toques are in a different category and are not comparable.
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I also noticed that Ferme de Letty dropped out of the Gault Millau. It was 17 for a number of years, then dropped to 15 for a single year and finally was dropped altogether about 3 years ago. There is undoubtedly a story here, but I don't know what it is.
I'm not sure that it really matters, but I would definitely classify Roellinger as a fusion restaurant. Although he may be inspired by St Malo's having been a spice trading port in the 18th century, I don't believe that there is a continuous tradition to today, nor do I think that there are other restaurants in the area that directly inherit a local tradition of using Asian spices. He names many of his dishes for places in the east such as Goa or the Indes and my bet is that he reads recipes from that area and adapts the spicing to French technique learned at restaurants that he worked in such as Guy Savoy.
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On my last trip to Brittany, 2-3 years ago, I had dinner at Patrick Jaffroy when his restaurant was along the Autoroute before he moved to undoubtedly upgraded quarters in Carentec. He had a one star 16 at the time. I found it no better than OK, he crammed a very large number of flavors into each dish, and it was not under control. My impression was that he was young and still immature or just lacking in skill. I was very surprised when he received 2 stars, as I am usually in pretty good synch with Michelin.
Roellinger is somewhat controversial. The restaurant has received 2 stars 19 for many years and there are varying opinions. Certainly the chef is highly skilled and creates a fusion cuisine of French cooking techniques with Asian spicing. He certainly achieves his objectives. Everything was well prepared, but I personally disliked the actual flavors in each and every dish, and I'm not fundamentally opposed to fusion cooking, there are a number of restaurants in San Francisco that I do like. It certainly remains a must try and I wouldn't try to discourage anyone from going.
My favorite restaurant in Brittany was the Ferme de Letty in Benodet on the south coast of Finistiere. This is a one star restaurant that specializes in upscale, but not haut cuisine, fish and seafood dishes. A turbot dish for two with a brown sauce made a very strong impression, although I don't remember any more of the specifics. We found everything at this restaurant to be soul satisfying.
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Michelin and Gault Millau undoubtedly provide different scoring sheets to their inspectors which can yield different results. I would not call this a difference in style, but a difference in values. Michelin appears to emphasize execution as primary, and Gault Millau emphasizes the conception of the dish and gives more credit to creativity. You can look at the restaurants that are 3 star 18 (Alain Ducasse, Jardin de Sens, etc.) and 2 star 19 (Auberge Bretonne, Auberges des Cimes, Roellinger (I know that this one generates some heat, but I personally agree with Michelin)). Of course, 3 star 19 is the best recommendation of all.
The other key difference is that Gault Millau provides food ratings for all the restaurants that it includes which is very useful, while Michelin does not. However, by excluding 85% of restaurants from the rating system, Michelin is able to rate the remaining restaurants in a largely coherent fashion with which people can generally agree. Rating every restaurant inevitably leads to inconsistencies and anomalies and resulting audience dissatisfactions.
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Although Steve Plotnicki and I largely intuit the same perspective, I would express my opinion somewhat differently. When I refer to over-intellectualization, I really mean exactly that. Our intellects are essential for solving logical problems and for doing science and philosophy. Our intellects are inherently incapable of fully analyzing emotional processes and the appreciation of food, music and art are inherently emotional processes. I believe that one could teach every child in the world Schoenberg's music for 300 years and they might learn to tolerate it, even appreciate it, but the vast majority would never ever learn to love it. It is an over intellectualized approach to music that lacked an appreciation for how the brain is programmed. I use this example because I view it as quite closely analogous to our food topic, and one in which the results are really visible rather than just speculative. A movies example might be Kieslowski's Decalogue, interesting but unlovable, versus say the works of Fellini.
Obviously intellect is required for most human activities so it is a question of balance, but if we lose sight of our inborn understanding for what constitutes food, and treat its creation as solely an intellectual exercise, although the results might be interesting, people will not love it, and its our love of eating food that really draws us to this site. Without our love of food, we would probably find many other topics far more interesting.
Having never eaten at El Bulli I am at a disadvantage in discussing it, but Adria's own comparison of his creative processes to deconstruction and the multitude of first hand descriptions posted here certainly lead me to believe that his approach is highly intellectualized and thus seems to risk leading cooking in a direction where it could betray its essence and lose its soul.
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Bern's steaks are quite mediocre, they're not the heavily marbled tender steaks that we expect in New York, if you actually received one of these in any New York steak house you would be quite disappointed. The last few times I've been there I ordered fish. Overall though, the reason to go to Bern's is not the rather ordinary food but the wine. They have one of the largest selections of fine wine in the country and at least until recently were pricing it to their cost rather than to escalating market values. Examples that I remember are Evangile 82 for $176, Haut Brion 82 for $250 (we had this one) and Haut Brion 89 for $295. These are great prices. However, I've heard rumors, but nothing authoritative, that they've revised their pricing and now everything is much more expensive. I would be interested in hearing whether this is really so.
For the record, I'm of the PL school. PL steaks are the best in the world and hit the mark each and every time.
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There is an essence to food that goes beyond intellectualization that I think that Steve Plotnicki is getting at and that was my real point in my original post. The basic love and appreciation of food is genetically programmed, and this programming arose from from the sustenance value of real foods such as potatos. To the extent that cooking techniques enhance the essence of that experience in line with our programming, we will experience these as improvements. The history of cooking has followed this direction from Escoffier to Point to Bocuse to Guerard to Robuchon just as music progressed from Bach to Mozart to Beethoven to Wagner. The risk is that man has a tendency to overreach and to believe that through intellect he can leave behind his instinctual core. This leads to inevitable failure, and the question to which I don't have the definitive answer is, is Adria leading us down that path which has been initiated by chefs like Bras and at a much lesser level, Trotter. As someone very interested in food, I would certainly be interested in eating at Adria's and I'm sure that I'd find it interesting and stimultating. I can understand that a professional such as Steve Klc finds it to open exciting directions. However, all of the things that Steve Klc says about Adria's approaches including that it encompasses all that went before, was said by music professionals who jumped on board of Aaron Schoeneberg's innovations with 12 tone music. Music also has an underlying basis of genetic programming, which this over-intellectualized approach didn't satisfy, and now almost a hundred years later, classical music is in continuing decline and modern classical music attracts only the most minute audience.
Lucas Carton → Alain Senderens
in France: Dining
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Lucas Carton currently only receives 16 from the Gaut Millau which is unprecedented as far as I know for a 3 star restaurant. (Tour d'Argent which is 2 star receives a 15 and I can personally attest that it deserves no more.) I don't fully understand their French review, but there is a reference to the restaurant now existing to serve foreigners sitting side by side, with the implication that the French don't go there any longer. This could explain the apparent anomaly being commented upon of Lucas Carton being better a lunch than at dinner. I would guess that, considering its location and distinguished premises, that it does retain some French business clientele at lunchtime.