Bux

I'm not so sure it takes all that much talent or experience to be called a professional in most professions these days, but why couldn't one be a professional in two professions. Or three for that matter, as most professionals seem to automatically qualify for the world's oldest profession. Then again some of my most honorable friends are lawyers. Would you dismiss Steingarten as a culinary journalist or lawyer?

I think the connotation of "gourmet" to some, maybe to most, is "snob." I think the image of a gourmet to many is the guy who eats precious or pretentious food. The word has developed an almost perjorative meaning and if you don't know why, you might check the gouemt food aisles in your local supermarket. Still I'm not sure having a certain attitude is enough to make one a gourmet (in the good sense of the word). It should take a little knowledge and education in the field of gastronomy. Knowing what you like like doesn't seem enough to make one a connoisseur of art or food. "Gastronome" is a word I like, by the way. It has a nice ring to it. Understanding of, appreciation of and liking for, are three different things. I think there must have been a twenty year period in my life in which I don't think I've had a dozen burgers, yet recently they've become a staple again. Can one be a connoisseur of American coffee? I'd rather have a lousy espresso than the best American coffee. Do we all have limitations on what we can appreciate? Can some of these be claimed as proof of discriminating tastes.

Good question. It's not something that bothers me most of the time. I usually don't feel the need for more salt in the kinds of restaurants that don't provide salt shakers. They're most often absent from the tables at haute cuisine luxury restaurants, but I can't remember when they disappeared. I wonder where it happened first. My guess is that it's an imported habit in America. Did it start in France?

Perhaps I was lucky to discover travel at a tiime when the dollar was relatively strong and the European economy was very weak. The standard of living was lower in Europe as well so that middle class hotels with plumbing facilities down the hall were common. A rise in standards of living and the accompanying rise in the price of even dumpy hotels together with career choices for me, put travel out of the picture for a number of years. Thus it's not hard for me to understand why others haven't been abroad even if they share my desire. Nevertheless, it's travel that opened my eyes to the fact that there were many reasonable options to the way I lived and the way I was raised. More than anything else, food took on an importance I had never given it before. I was not alone, nor was my generation the first to be affected by a booming US post war economy combined with cheap hotels and incredible food in places such as France and Italy. American travelers returning from low budget (Europe on Five dollars a day) trips frequently on student charter flights. We produced an audience ripe for Julia Child and dining in America has never been the same since.

I'd be loathe to argue with Silly, for a number of reasons, although on a budget, I won't overlook l'Esguard as a rewarding experience. I'm glad the the location of l'Esguard has been settled. It's not a restaurant that's easy to find even once you're in the town. We had a lovely meal there some years ago, but we were dumbstruck over the fuss about micri. We had a few sauces that seemed to be suspensions of things lilke truffle or red pepper in a tasteless gel that served mostly to reduce the intensity and we longed for old fashioned haute cuisine sauces or just some jus de viande. Can Fabes may have been even earlier in our visits to Spain and thus perhaps not a reliable picture of what they're serving today, but it was a blockbuster meal. You'll also find some places open for lunch on Sunday, but closed for dinner. I think that applies to Sant Pau in Sant Pol de Mer. I mention it here because it's an excellent restaurant and because it's within sight and walking distance of the electric commuter rail line and thus one of the easiest places to get to by public transportation from downtown Barcelona. It is also, as I recall, expensive. One of our fall back restaurants in Barcelona is l'Olivé. I believe it's open on Sundays, though again only for lunch--note that Sunday lunch is a big meal in Spain. It offers good reliable modern Catalan food in a nice upscale environment. Its price point is excellent and its wine list is well stocked with inexpensive wines. If it were to exist around the corner from us here in NY, I'd be a regular patron. It is not in a class with most of the other restaurants we're talking about, but it shoudln't disappoint anyone.

I agree with John and Menton and would only add that as your trip is only two weeks away and many of the best restaurants are booked full perhaps as far as a month ahead, that will help narrow your choices. Margaret's point is often overlooked, especially by people who choose their restaurant for the wrong reason. Primary among wrong reasons is simply choosing the restaurant because someone else liked it. I'd add that many of my disappointments are at the best restaurants for a number of reasons but foremost may be that the expectations are so high, or simply that I've paid so much money. This is not to say that my greatest disappointments are not at the low end where from time to time I choose a restaurant simply because it's in the right place at the right time and it turns out to be a place that leaves me wondering how it stays in business.

Have you considered starting with two star restaurants and working your way up, or have you already had a couple of those under your belt? What could be bad about eating at a good restaurant. On the other hand it flies in the face of your decision to eat at the top. May I ask why you intend to dine at a three star restaurant in the first place? Is is for the overall experience or for some primary experience. I will tell you that although it varies from restaurant to restaurant, the experience of the lesser menus is not necessarily the same as having the tasting menu, or dining with abandon from the carte. Wisdom has always been that many a restaurant's reputation is based on its best dishes. They're not likely to be on the lunch special menu and as others have pointed out, at many three star restaurants, the tasting menu, if offered, and the a la carte menu is the same price at lunch as at dinner. My one experience with having a go for broke tasting menu at one of Paris' two star restaurants and then later having the lunch special menu was that it was as if I had eaten in two different restaurants with two different kitchens. The grand meal was comparable to many a three star restaurant for us, but the lunch was like that at an expensive restaurant, but not necessarily one of more than a star rating. Perhaps my biggest concern is simply that I am a bit at odds with the idea of eating at a three star restaurant or paying that price without some attending exictement at eating specifically at the restaurant of choice. Read about three star restaurants. Read what people say here, read magazines and read books. Look for articles that are more then reviews and look for reviews that are more than consumer reports. In my humble opinion, if you're on a budget, you're wasting your money if you're not excited about the particular restaurant in question at those prices. My other opinion is that, excepting caviar and those sort of items that are not the handiwork of the kitchen, you may find better value at the high end of the menu. Moby was good enough to take the time to answer your question in the spirit in which it was asked and he gave you his personal advice on each restaurant, but his best advice, in my opinion, was in his opening paragraph.

I think there's been a great consensus in these forums that in the past few years Can Roca has gone from being one of the more important places in Catalunya, to one of the great restaurants in the world. Vedat Milor's comment, "Catalunya has still some of the best cooking anywhere but the flag seems to have passed on to the 3 Roca brothers: the eldest Juan who is the chef, the middle Josep who is the equal of any top French sommelier and simply the best in Spain and the very talented 25 years Jordi whose desserts are sublime," was unfortunately stated as a closing to a review on elBulli, but it's an interesting observation that mirror comments by others. As for Valencia, we spent two nights there. A lunch at Ca'Sento was sublime. It's a simple but chic enough place with a restrained decor that's well designed to be minimal in a modernist sense. The location is a bit remote, but it's easily reached from the center of town by taxi or bus, and not that far a walk from some the Calatrava museum complex. For some reason we hit it off with Sento, the owner and father of the chef (the mother may be in the kitchen as well, if I'm not mistaken) and after rejecting the tasting menu of the day, which we rarely do, but wanting more variety than if we ordered a la carte, we managed with his help, which included making at least one trip to the kitchen to confer with the chef, to construct a long menu of courses, half courses and split course to make a menu that left us believing this was a prime destination restaurant. I would return to Valencia just to go there, but the city itself deserves a visit. If there are indeed better restaurants, I must return to Valencia very soon.

Be that as it may, the most disappointing oysters I can remember on at least two continents were in France at a cafe/restaurant that was part of a chain. Considering the potential for volume would assure freshness and that a number of branches would assure the need to be reputable, I figured the oysters would be a safe bet. Live and learn.

In other words, there is no New York style along similar lines to the Vancouver or California styles, which as Jamie pointed out aren't considered "fusion" anymore, but normal. That said, I'm sure Vancouverites, like Californians, enjoy "authentic" Thai food very much. ← Perhaps I should have used a different word than "craving." I'm sure there are Vancouverites of all persuasions who crave an authentic Thai meal just as much as any New Yorker, but do they insist on its authenticity all the time? Do they spurn it for not being authentic? Do they make a fetish of finding the most reputably authentic replica of home cooked Thai food in the manner of breeders of show dogs or bluebloods searching for the perfect mate for their heirs, or can they sit back and enjoy the amalgam that's developing. I certainly enjoy finding vestiges of authentic food the way I enjoy finding vestiges of any old civilization. All the better to find a living vestige. I am also a sharp critic of fusion food having had so many dishes that offend my palate. Nevertheless, I am excited by the new and by the flux in our culture. I am learning to understand why I should not be offended by western vegetables in dishes in Chinatown, nor by bok choy in French restaurants uptown. If a chef is judicious in his tastes why shouldn't he be adapting his foods to include those which are now native to him just as a generation of Italian immigrants adapted their diets to produce what could have been seen as the native food of perhaps something akin to a new province of Italy or a subculture of New Jersey and the Bronx and not differently than Italians taking the tomato into their homes centuries ago.

Think of the whole forum as a fabric.

I don't think I've ever heard anyone refer to flavors that actually fused on a plate (or more accurately on your palate) as fusion. That's what they call it when they're still experimenting. Spaghetti with tomato sauce there's a real fusion almost as good as steak frîtes. It's interesting that places such as Vancouver are developing an authentic Vancouver food. Here in NY we have fusion, and people still craving authentic Thai food.

Oysters, which require no cooking at all to be enjoyed, and perhaps enjoyed at their best, are exactly what a chain might be able to do best. And I think you've also hit upon a note that represents a change in dining. I suspect there was a time when oysters might be one of the prime foods at a fine restaurant, but I don't want to go to a restaurant with a staff of excellently trained and talented cooks and chefs. I want them to exercise their talents and cook for me. What I want when I'm in the mood for oysters, is fresh, and perhaps some talent in opening the damn things so I don't get lots of little pieces of broken shell. It's a one talent job in the kitchen, although you only need a bar and ice, not kitchen. In New York City there exists in Grand Central Station a famous restaurant where I've found every cooked dish to have over priced, not to mention disappointing at half the price, but the oysters are fresh and there's always a large selection. I'll go there at the drop of a hat and sit at the oyster bar order a beer or a bottle of a crisp chardonnay such as a Chablis, any number of sauvignon blancs from all over the world or a muscadet and start eating oysters and nothing else. It's a model for a chain and an argument for specialized restaurants for certain foods. And nothing dumb about a good oyster bar. Once you've located the source, good distribution is what's important.

I think it may depend on your definitions. Do you want a choice of many cars, or one basic car in many covers. I remember when Allvin Toffler's Future Shock appeared in paperback with a choice of covers in different colors to illustrate a point about the change from the industrial revolution. The choices increased even though it hardly made a difference what color the cover was and it could well be argued that there really wan't any more choice at all, just the one choice in many colors. Where do we stand on prepackaged easy to microwave meals. It shouldn't matter that the precooked rice can be bought in different colored bozes, but it does matter that consumers have a choice of Mexican rice, Asian rice, Spanish rice, Cajun Rice, Creole rice, etc. It doesn't even matter that neither Cajun rice nor Creole rice are true to their names, but they are different and you can nuke your favorite flavor or enjoy a new one every day of the week without chopping and cutting or owning any spices.

If this is the case, I have to wonder why then a pseudonym (Peter) was used for the chef/owner of the restaurant in which Psaltis worked under Alex Urena. I have to wonder also why Psaltis says in his book that he was "not certain how he [Peter] knew Alex." If Psaltis were as integral a part of the start up of that restaurant as he says he was in the book, I do not see how he could not know (it was also widely reported in the press) that the chef/owner and Alex were both Bouley alumni. Psaltis continues to ignore the chef/owner's kitchen experience: "Alex and I were the only ones at the table with considerable restaurant experience." Before starting his own catering company, the chef/owner not only worked at Bouley (before Psaltis worked at the later Bouley Bakery) but he also worked in the kitchens of restaurants in Paris, Southern France, and California (as is evident from looking at his bio on the restaurant's website). Perhaps the chef/owner is exceedingly humble, but it would seem Psaltis could not have been completely in the dark about his employer's past restaurant experience. I do not see how he could believe a chef with more experience at that level of cuisine would leave him, an employee, "cooking and running the kitchen," especially with Alex on board as well. Not only does the book lead one to believe that Psaltis was supposedly calling the shots with regards to the food, but it also inflates his role in choosing the décor of the restaurant. Psaltis writes: "The decor, silverware, plates and . . . had never been a concern of mine before, but now they were, and I ended up being involved in all of them." While a chef/owner might indeed include a sous chef in such matters to help build the spirit of teamwork, Psaltis overemphasizes his role by neglecting to mention that the complete design was the work of an architect who was a family member of the chef/owner. I also have to say that I find a later statement in the book that "no one was there to learn" offensive and for more than the racist comment I've referred to in a thread on Latino workers. There was definitely something to learn and I saw the bright young faces of cooks bent on a culinary career. If they didn't arrive until Psaltis left, that shouldn't be held as a mark against a brand new restaurant. Alex himself rose from being at the low end of the totem pole at River Café to someone who will soon be opening his eponymous restaurant, Urena. Just because someone's first language is Spanish or anything that's not English does not mean that they aren't interested in learning. For me, these factual omissions--which it has been established in this thread are not unique to this chapter--put the entire work into question. They seem to elevate Psaltis's position without painting a clear picture of what was going on at the time. I think the record needs to be set straight.

Point is, I believe, far more famous than Dumaine, although I'm not sure how great the difference in their reputations was when they were both alive and cooking. Publicity is, as Passionate implies, a key to fame and to the effect you will have on future generations. There's some snowballing of effect. We assume a certain connection between talent and fame, but there's rarely a direct connection. The more talented of two chefa may not be the more famous one. The more talented one may not get the most publicity. Publicity tends to get more publicity and that's what the famous have--more publicity. Escoffier didn't just write a cookbook however, as I understand it, he really codified the cooking of the day and by doing that, establlished a bible that would set his interpretation of cooking as the standard. As Russ says Point didn't write a book intended to be the same kind of bible or one that could be used as that kind of bible. Sometimes those codifications are written by a strong man, but often they're dependent on that strong man coming along at the right time. One needn't write a bible to be a seminal figure. Adrià may be as influential as Bocuse, Point or even Escoffier, but he's not published a codex. Rather his collection of recipes and ideas, far more inclusive and expansive than Escoffier's in its way, offers the opposite of guidelines. It offers freedom. It takes far more talent to build on freedom than on a good tight set of recipes. Adrià is not llikely to have the effect on cooking that Escoffier had. A great craftsman could run a great kitchen with Escoffier at hand. A good cook would be a better one relying on Escoffier. Adrià's DVDs are a great accomplishment in their own right, but almost useless to the average cook.

People who study a field and who are too closely related to that field often see it develop as a history unto itself. We all study a bit of history in school. It's really political or geopolitical history that is generally referred to has history. Some of us may get to study art history or music history and traditionally, or should I say historically, we often study more than one history without interrelating them. We see a painting or hear a musical composition performed and don't necessarily think of the historical context of wars and fallling governments or social upheavals. In a sense we're not bilingual the way some people hear a French word and think of the English equivalent, while others get the same meaning in their mind whenever they hear either language. When Pollack was dripping paint was the cold war beginning or ending. What did either of them contribute to the way people thought and how did the way people thought have an effect on either? Was Bocuse affected by the events of the times? Was the political thinking and the gastronomic thinking affected by the intellectual thoughts of the day. I find these all like chicken and egg questions. Even within a discipline, how accurately are those with handsight actually able to portray the intellectual process of creation. Barnett Newman once said that art history was for artists as ornithology was for the birds. Cooks will be cooks without thinking about it most of the time. All we can do is try to do is make sense of things after they happen.

The first thing I'd have to admit is that chefs and scientists are making me take a second look at ingredients. The first time I took a look at ingredients, it was to eliminate those chemicals that didn't seem very food-like from my diet. The second time around, I'm learning not to fear agar-agar and guar gum. Ice cream with gum in it can taste a llittle "gummy," but I'll make my decision on whether to buy it again on the taste factor and not simply because the product isn't all dairly and sugar. There's soluable fiber in that gum and it supposedly works against the cholesterol as well. When I buy a piint of ice cream, I really don't care how it's chilled. If it's stirred for nineteen hours as it freezes, or if it's the immediate result of stirring liquid notrogen into the cream mix, makes little difference to me. As for the use of liquid nitrogen as in Adrià's teppanitro where frozen deserts are made à la minute on a cold surface, it's harmless and entertaining theater and should last as long as flambeed desserts and waiters running around with flaming kebabs on a skewer. If you're the first kid on your block to experience it. If you're about to be the next to last, consider looking for the next fad and save yourself the disgrace of being the last. Perhaps more relevant, chefs still flambee things behind closed doors in the kitchen, they just don't sell it as show business any more. Liquid nitrogen may find it's legitimate place in the kichen.

I'm not clear on what you're saying. Are you saying there was some point to be made by citing the ethnicity of the workers? I don't get it. What's the point? if they "were just guys doing a job" why do we learn of their ethnicity? Would it matter if I went on to quote the author as saying "no one was there to learn?" Why should latino's be seen as less eager to learn on the job? What does ethnicity have to do with desire to learn and improve one's usefulness to an employer? Does the author want us to know that the kichen of a start up was not full of young eager CIA graduates? Why doesn't he say that? Would it be a surprise to learn that a start up low budget restaurant is not likely to attract stagiaires immediately. It certainly did after Doug left, but I wouldn't accuse his presence of being the factor that kept them away. As for KC or ACT mentioning the merits of Latino cooks, I never find the mention of merit to be a slur.

One difference between Blue Hill and Can Roca, perhaps even between Stone Barns and Can Roca, is that Can Roca impressed me as a much more formal restaurant, surprisingly so for it's provincial location. It reminded me at least of the more formal French provincial restaurants, if not of Paris. It's certainly a restaurant that would have a few more crossed forks and spoons than Blue Hill, if there was a Michelin guide to NY. I hear that should be out by November. Service was exceptional. If asked about the service at Blue Hill, I'd say it was good, but casual. Nobody loses points, but Can Roca operates the dining room at a higher level. Of course dress of the diners is far less formal than it used to be all over Spain. I'd say the same for NY and most of the US as well as France, in general.

Robert, that may be true but that was the choice of the employer who took that position to avoid a possible lawsuit. Nothing prevented the cook from telling the truth. ← It would explain why a chef might have a series of short term plum jobs on his resume. One might assume that when a chef leaves one prestigious restaurant for another, it's should be obvious that the second employer would have secured references from past employers. What's posted above is interesting in this context. Poor performance might get you a negative recommendation faster than outright criminal activity. Surely if that's the case and chef would be leary of saying anything to another chef in private, he'd be less likely to say anything on a public message board. This seems to support my earlier contention that the worse the truth might be, the less we'd be likely to see any of it here.

This is from The Seasoning of a Chef by Doug Psaltis with Michael Psaltis. This came to my attention because I thought it was an unfair put down of a restaurant started on a small budget by a chef with big ideas who was willing to start small, work in the kitchen and train an inexperienced staff. It was only after the second reading that I realized how gratuitous the mention of the ethnicity of the workers was. It's unnecessary, it doesn't add a thing, except to show the prejudices of a young white kid working in a New York restaurant kitchen. Worse yet, Doug Psaltis was working directly under executive chef Alex Urena, whose father was a reknowned butcher working with a number of New York's best restaurants and who himself was a second generation resdident.

I know of chefs whose flagship restaurant may be seen as advertising for other endeavors, but I don't know of any chefs who operate their business purely as a hobby, or without regard for the bottom line. My guess, based on human nature, would be that many chefs are willing to suffer an economic situation akin to poverty, simply out of the love of what they are doing in combination with the hope of establishing a reputation that will place them in a pantheon of chefs. This may be true whether they are salaried employees, or own their own restaurant. Once they've owned their own restaurant and it's become respected, my guess is that a certain challenge has been met. Having reached that goal, it would be natural for thoughts to turn to a new challenge. They've all had to become business men or their restaurants wouldn't have stayed open long enough to develop a reputation. One of the challenges of a business man is simply to make money. At some level in the back of any businessman's mind must be the question of how do I increase my profit. Having achieved a reputation, the urge to cut corners or expand beyond what you can control as tightly as a single restaurant where you can be in the kitchen as often as necessary, is more than understandable. Which is the greater achievement, to have one restaurant that may arguably be seen as the greatest restaurant in the world, or ten, five of which make the top twenty. I think it's a personal call, but having one, might make the other a challenge. That's why guys who own a chain of good and highly profitable restaurants often open one that aims to be great even if it has less chance of providing the same kind of profit margin as the others in the stable. A great chef is going to have a hard time running more than one great restaurant at its highest potential. Ducasse has slipped in the eyes of Michelin. An owner of a chain of profitable good restaurants is likely to have a hard making the decisions necessary to create that great retaurant as well, in my opinion.

Fat Guy has rather eloquently stated one of the downsides to the rise in popularity of food, dining, restaurants, chefs and perhaps most of all, culinary journalists and personalities. No need to love Tony Bourdain as a food journalist than as a chef, or as a culinary personality than a food journalist, or even as a talking head than as culinary personality, but that's the direction of the popularization of cuisine--in italics as it's become a loaded word. In my time, I've seen the Museum of Modern Art go from a rather small empty set of galleries occupied by students, scholars and artists. With the increase in art appreciation across our society, it's become, as one journalist called it, an agora for our times. It's become a center for social activity. A place a mother met her firends for lunch and the wisdom about art came perhaps solely from my four year old daughter who when asked what her daddy told her about the sculptures, relpied "don't touch." With this kind of shift in audience, cames a a shift in power from the scholar to the sort who doesn't know much about art (or food) but who knows what he likes. The result is that we have more chef driven restaurants to choose from, although many of these are striving to meet with the approval of an uneducated palate. There are positives and negatives to a democratic society. Ultimately, the diner's power is limited to choosing a restaurant.

Some people dislike table h'hote or even the concept of a fixed tasting menu, they need all the choice they can get. I am addled by menus that are all over the place. At diners and luncheonettes in NY I see so much choice that not only do I not know what to order, but I forget if I'm there for breakfast or dinner. I don't enjoy that. From there let me segue into your post which offers too much to discuss in one thread. I hope others will continue to start single topic threads by quoting a section of a post in this thread. I learned to dine, or at least to appreciate food, in France as much as any other place. It's not that I've spent so much time in France but that my exposure came at opportune moments in my life and quite frankly, just eating, let alone dining, in France was not only so much more pleasurable than it was back home, it made more sense every step of the way including the way diners held their knives and forks. Almost everything about dining in NY has improved so much since I first adopted my French prejudices. The greatest improvement is the food, I've had a half dozen meals in NY this year that would have qualified for at least two Michelin stars in terms of the food. That is to say, they were destination meals. I'd separate noise and light, they don't necessarily go together. I disllike both darkness, often carried to an extreme and excessive noise. That I put up with both may be some indication that my choices are still limited. I don't know. Indeed one of the restaurants I'd cite as destination and perhaps the one that served my single best meal, and the one I often find most intolerably dark is Blue Hill. The most outrageouosly noisy restaurant we visit regularly is Balthazar where I can barely hear the person in front of me. Then again when Mrs. B and I pop in for a hamburger because we've both had a hard day, maybe it's not so bad we can't hear each other vent about the day and by the time we're ready to leave, we've both had some wine and a good meal, and are ready to be sociable again. Hopscothing across your menu, hopefully with some continuity, The six or seven best meals I've had which I would classify as deserving to be at the end of a destination were at Daniel, Per Se, WD-50, Blue Hill and in the burbs, Stone Barns. A decade ago, I don't think I would have been able to put meals at a restaurant as informal as Blue Hill, or WD-50, in that class. I think this is a trend that will continue. I've gone from being a poor student and artist unable to afford the "better" restaurants, to learning to appreciate the refinements of a fine restaurant, which at first I begrudgingly paid for although I was simply in search of the food. In time however, I learned to appreciate the art of dining and moreso the art of serving and the performance of the servers, really a dance with the diners, most often with the waiter as an invisible partner. This became a large part of the joy of dining out and well worth the price, as the performance of a professionally ballet corps is not necessarily more enjoyable than one's daughter's school play but still worth the price of admission. Nevertheless, it's removed from the actual food and the food itself may be enjoyed in simpler surroundings and with somewhat more abrupt service. Fine food, if not fine dining, in casual restaurants is a trend that's increasing at the moment although this too may be cyclical, dependent on the economy or just a reflection of our broader culture. The latter may be most influential here. The appreciation of fine food may have been the province of the wealthy until recently and the service of such food reflected their lifestyle. In fact, I believe you've already said this much in one of your posts in the roundtable. Let me check. Ah, you've said something similar in both posts. This, I think is the closest to what I'm getting at here: