docsconz

Classic. Full article here. ← Bryan, when I first read this post, I was under the impression that Will was getting his desserts from elsewhere From the article: There is a difference between "outsourcing" and "providing outsourcing" In any case, I think it is a great idea. I would imagine that he is crafting specific desserts for specific restaurants, but I could be wrong.

I found this to be quite the appetite whetter. Will there be more here?

The presence of the cat doesn't really bother me (I have two cats at home who spend time in the kitchen) though I don't think the dining room of a restaurant is the best place for them. I can't say that I am enamored of the cigarette smoking bartender either. As for dirty being the new clean...enjoy it if that is your cup of tea in a restaurant I'm not the most fastidious person, but I prefer a restaurant that adheres to basic sanitation. That being said, if the food is phenomenal, that would cover a lot of sins.

According to this thread L'Astrance should be getting three stars from Michelin in 2007. I strongly recommend it. As for making reservations - this is where the American Express Platinum Concierge is useful.

The food would have to be really amazing for me to consider a place like that. Doesn't sound like it was.

I'll second (or third) the recommendation on the Borsao. I recently bought some at Bottle King for $4.99/bottle with my BK card - tremendous value. A good rule of thumb for inexpensive, yet excellent Spanish wines is to look at the importer. If it is a Jorge Ordonez Selection and it is under $15, buy it! You won't go wrong. Eric Solomon is another excellent importer of great value Spanish wines - Bottle King and Carlo Russo have excellent selections of both.

Gruzia, were you at The Modern or the Bar Room? Never having dined at either, it is not clear to me and not clearly specified in your post.

If I were going to include failures, I think Gilt was more important. Liebrandt's failure will probably make investors even more skittish about supporting a high-end avant-garde restaurant in New York. As many others have noted, Wylie Dufresne is the only chef that has succeeded here with that type of restaurant, but he did so in maybe the only neighborhood that could have supported it. What happened at Gilt could be a firewall that prevents more experiments of that kind in near future—just as its success would probably have encouraged others to tread more boldly. ← Maybe, but I believe that Paul Liebrandt is working on another restaurant project in NYC as we speak. I am sure that he has learned a few things from his Gilt experience and elsewhere. It will also be interesting to see how Tailor fits when it opens.

Maybe that review is one of the reasons the price was able to go up. There is a reason why restaurants consider the NYT or Michelin stars to be so important whether they admit it or not - a good position often enables them to charge more, while a disappointing review may preclude raising prices to a more economically viable level and even kill the restaurant.

Iacopo Fallai is a chef who certainly seems to fly below the eG radar.

I think Gilt can be considered as well even though Paul Liebrandt is no longer there.

What about Degustation and Tia Pol?

I find it interesting that Buddakan has been mentioned and Morimoto not.

Nary a steakhouse mentioned.

Though controversial and not as a whole in the league of some of the restaurants mentioned above, Varietal will be remembered more than many of the others as the place where Jordan Kahn got his first starring role.

He didn't really say anything new or special. Without naming names he said that there are chefs in essentially all styles and camps who are charlatans and others who are the real thing. I do appreciate being directed to the website - he has some interesting perspectives on specific restaurants. Notable by its absence on his scorecard is elBulli, though he does have a number of the satellites.

Any idea why? ← No. But I heard it from a vintner friend (and his wife) who was sold on the place and I've been seeing less than stellar reviews on CH and OA. ← Too bad if true. I obviously enjoyed my lunch there in November. If it is true, it may also be for a reversible reason - a transient situation.

Any idea why?

I think one of Pollan's principle points was that the idea of eating foods that were designed to be "healthy" just hasn't borne fruit, so to speak. Taking some of the perceived nutrients, isolating them and returning them in another package with a completely different package does not appear to work as it seemed it should have. The message that I took is that one shouldn't eat foods simply because they are supposed to be healthy.

Many if not most of these high end books are translated into at least a few languages. Nathan's point is that the production quality is so high that the books must be that expensive as they are extremely expensive to produce.

I will look forward to your reports on all the restaurants.

I also think that it works better in the order that it has than the reverse. Assuming the relative quality was the same, the reverse would seem a letdown not because it wasn't good, but because by that point people would either expect more or if they weren't into the more modern style in the first place, would have already been sour. I think that more people who enjoy creative cuisine at least tolerate and appreciate well done traditional cooking than the reverse. That is, I think people with a primary sensibility for the creative cuisine more likely to enjoy well done cuisine - period, than an ardent traditionalist is more likely to enjoy the creative.

Good question, indeed. For whatever reason, US publishers must not see enough of a market here and European publishers probably don't see US chefs as marketable to the bulk of their clientele. I don't think it is because of a lack of talent. There certainly are examples of Europeans marketing books for the amateur both in savory and pastry. Ferran Adria has books and videos for the mainstream Spanish market and Pierre Hermes English language books, as wonderful as they are, are geared towards the sophisticated amateur and have more in common with high-end American books and less with high-end European. Tghough I haven't studied it in detail, Susur Lee's book appears to have higher production values than most North American books. Even so, TFL's is probably the highest production value American book out there and I agree it still doesn't approach the European ideal.

I use it depending on where I will be dining. I find it especially useful for international bookings. I have had mixed results with it for actually procuring reservations. In the US I typically prefer to make them myself.

Thanks, Ted. I remember seeing Dessert Cuisine, but not the other. It's a beautiful book.