Arpege: dinner and lunch; 2002-2004

[Wilfrid]

I'm just surprised some people seem to hate Ducasse's cooking so vehemently. I have eaten it only once, and while it may have lacked some qualities mentioned above, it clearly rose to the level of very good indeed. And I am stunned by the implication that the cooking at Blue Hill (which I like well enough) is better. What motivates the contempt? Is anyone prepared to say that Ducasse's restaurants offer bad food?

[Wilfrid]

that's just a silly position to take against people who know more about cuisine than you do and have dined out more than you

Hey, now. I think Cabby's dined out enough to have an opinion, even if it's regarded as wrong. Don't start to sound like Plotters, please.

[Fat Guy]

Wilfrid, read the posts. She has forced the comparison by making the accusation.

[cabrales]

Cabrales you're the one who framed this in terms of connoisseurship and people's ability to appreciate cuisine: "Ducasse might be like a chain store that offers appropriate work clothes. However, other cuisiniers might be like Giorgio Armani black label or Cerrutti."

Steven -- Below is the context of my prior statement:

"May I add that Ducasse is self-aggrandizing and promotes himself, including through publicity received in the US in connection with opening up ADNY, the creation of his **array of misguided establishments,** etc. That is part of why the **public (speaking of the overall population of diners with respect to all restaurants) might know of his name better.** Ducasse might be like a chain store that offers appropriate work clothes. However, other cuisiniers might be like Giorgio Armani black label or Cerrutti with respect to work clothes -- **they don't seek to appeal to everybody** and in fact prefer **a more limited, but appropriately appreciative, audience.**"

You read the above to be framed in terms of connaisseurship. Note the references in the materials preceding the sentence you singled out to the number of establishments and Ducasse's broad exposure to the public (meaning everybody who is accessed by publicity) and name reconigition. So the chain store reference suggests that Ducasse has multiple establishments (including, as you know, facilities that are a joke with respect to haute cuisine and that do not purport to offer haute cuisine, like the Spoons and Bastide de Moustiers). Accordingly, I stated that Ducasse is better known (just as certain chain stores are better known than Cerrutti) and more widely available (including in different geographic locations, as Orik has pointed out).

Ducasse's cuisine has a chain store notion in another sense as well -- the general similarity of styles/dish composition across different establishments. After I dined the last time at PA this May, I compared my menu with robert brown, who had recently celebrated his birthday at ADNY. We noticed that many dishes utilized the same principal ingredient, and general framework for composition. In chain stores, similar products are offered. As of 2Q 2002, at least, PA and ADNY were not offering the same dishes, but they were offering not dissimilar dishes. When I revisited ADNY subsequent to May 2002, the dishes had changed, but then I did not have the then current dishes for PA.

Third, chain stores have names that are broadly known to the relevant potential client base and they sell to more products. Cerrutti does not -- it is small and does not produce very much. It makes things for people who have a particular aesthetic -- not that that aesthetic is necessarily superior, but it is *particular* (in the sense of speaking with conviction). Obviously, Ducasse with his introduction of a boulangerie/epicerie (whatever it is in Paris) is working to access a broader base of clients than certain other cuisiniers.

So, my chain store vs. Cerrutti analogy has been effective. It has gotten to many of the reasons that more people know about Ducasse (because he has more facilities), but why that is not necessarily positive, just like chain stores. Ducasse's food is like a well-oiled, relatively (note this word) available product -- it is functional, it is appropriate (or could be viewed as such), it appeals generally enough to most people who dine at his faciilties presumably, and it is marketed well.

By the way, supervising people and having multiple establishments are not necessarily negatives. Gordon Ramsay does it on a less egregious scale. Howver, GR has somehow managed to preserve something special at RHR.

[Fat Guy]

More wishful thinking, Cabrales. If you had meant to make the comparison you now say you meant to make, you would not have chosen the example of "appropriate work clothes" versus Armani black label. Indeed, if anybody represents the Armani black label end of the culinary spectrum, it is Ducasse. Passard is more like a bad custom tailor by comparison.

[cabrales]

And that's just a silly position to take against people who know more about cuisine than you do and have dined out more than you.

Steven -- So that's the attitude you adopt vis-a-vis members on this site? How much people have dined out with respect to frequency and how much they know about cuisine?

I might or might not stack up in the ways you describe, and I do not have an inflated ego from this perspective, but I object to the way your remark is framed. Totally detaching this from Steve Klc and Bux, each of whom I respect incredibly as diners and as people passionate and knowledgeable about cuisine, and from me.

So your calculus would go like this, or how would it go? Diner C is younger than Diner X, so Diner C must have dined out less. Other than by age, how do you know I have dined out less? If it's by age, wouldn't the quality of the estabilshments frequented be at least somewhat relevant to dining experience. Note that I am not saying either Diner C or Diner X might have quality or quantity in terms of experience. I'm saying that the comparison should not be framed in such terms. If Diner C cares about the cuisine he is sampling, is very attentive and thinks a lot about food, he could have the same appreciation for it as Diner X. Or Diner C might choose not to care so much about analysis of the food. Either way, Diner C is not necessarily weaker than Diner X when it comes to appreciating food.

Or consider Diner C, who lives in a regino where there are not that many good restaurants. Diner X lives in Paris. That does not mean Diner C's viewpoints are any less valid.

Also, I object to the notion of "dining out" as the relevant standard, as highlighted in your post. Diner C might be an excellent home cook, and therefore not eat out as much as Diner X. That does not make Diner C's perceptions any less valid than Diner X's.

[Jinmyo]

ediot:

Whoops.

[Wilfrid]

Wilfrid, read the posts.

Thanks for the tip, Steven. That's very useful.

Do you really want to send out the message that people need to have had considerably more experience of restaurants than Cabrales before they can participate in an eGullet discussion? Trying to reduce the membership for some reason? Or did you just get out of the wrong side of bed?

[Steve Plotnicki]

Gee this thread is all over the place. Let me see if I can say the same thing in a less adversarial way.

There are a number of ways to evaluate a restaurant (we're talking Michelin starred cuisine here, or the equivelent.) First there is the food and it's virtues. For example, certain people value creative cuisine and others value simple but perfectly executed cuisine more than creativity. People who like Taillevent as their favorite restaurant would be an example of this. While an enjoyable place, one can hardly make the case that Taillevent serves the world's best food. So obviously if it's your favorite restaurant cutting edge food is not your top priority. Then of course there are people who weigh the entire experience. What kind of flowers are on the table, what China they use, how excessive the service is and how many desserts are on the trolly. It means something to them. Then there are people who are interested in cutting edge food. They go to the restaurant to have the chef communicate something to them about what they are eating, and even more importantly, something about themselves. Those people have yet a third way to prioritize the dining experience.

So if I am in the third category, and if my fellow diners who have similar sentiments allow me to ask this on their behalf, exactly what is it that Ducasse is communicating to his diners? Because I have no quarrel with his technique, his proficiency, his ability to run a restaurant, or anything else he does. But none of that is important to me because it doesn't seem to make any statement other then "I am a great chef." And no matter what you want to call the group of people who feel that way, whether it be discerning diners, people of "good taste," or people who look at haute cuisine as art, so far nobody has answered the question of how Ducasse can be a great chef without offering an interesting aesthetic? And when you say that he is considered the greates chef in the world by X, Y & Z, those are all groups of people who have adopted a different standard then we have. Because the way we measure it, he's just a luxury chain restaurant. And that is because when we have dined there Ducasse failed to express something of himself on a personal level. But Passard, who in your own words is not as good a chef as Ducasse, not as technically proficient and who runs an establishment that is clearly inferior to the grandiosity of Ducasse, is someone who has a unique point of view. What unique point of view has Ducasse expressed?

[Fat Guy]

Do you really want to send out the message that people need to have had considerably more experience of restaurants than Cabrales before they can participate in an eGullet discussion?  Trying to reduce the membership for some reason?  Or did you just get out of the wrong side of bed?

You're completely missing the point here, Wilfrid, and I'm surprised you would make such a sloppy conceptual leap. Quote one thing I said that supports this. What's going on here is very simple: Plotnicki and Cabrales, having been backed into a corner, have nothing left to do but accuse those who like Ducasse of having a lesser ability to judge cuisine than they do. Yet by any standard plenty of people who know more than they do think Ducasse is the best chef in the world. So they're hoist on their own petard. It is their arrogance, not mine, that got us here.

[Jinmyo]

Egad.

ediot:

Front of the house stuff is scary. I'm going back to the sharp blades, fires, and hot fat where it's safe.

[Fat Guy]

Plotnicki, I'll wait to read your report on Gagnaire before I draw any conclusions about this new set of arguments.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Fat Guy - It's not a new set of arguments, it's the same old argument. What aesthetic message does Ducasse offer his diners? And it has nothing to do with arrogance, it has to do with how we view the world and what our priorities our. What I do say is that history shows that he who has the greatest technique and who applies it in the most original and creative way is the one who is best remembered. That is why I keep asking what Ducasse will be remembered for. Being the greatest chef of his time? I can't accept that answer because to me the proof is in the pudding and I can't taste that from his food. And despite my requests, nobody can enlighten me as to exactly what it is that I am missing and what the aesthetic is that he will be remembered for.

[Wilfrid]

And that's just a silly position to take against people who know more about cuisine than you do and have dined out more than you.

That's what you said, Steven. I agree it's reminiscent of some things Plotters has said in the past, but I don't think we all need to adopt his idiosyncracies.

By the way, I just received a PM describing your tone as "pompous and presumptuous." Love these PMs.

[Fat Guy]

Read it one more time, Wilfrid. What is the position to which I refer? Can't you see how it calls for the response I gave?

[Steve Plotnicki]

One more thing, there isn't anybody I know who has more experience eating at three star restaurants then Robert B. and Cabrales. Not only have they probably gone more times then anyone, they are not eating set menus and are asking the chefs to prepare the whole hog for them. So the claim that Bux or Steve Klc or anyone erlse has more experience is a little outrageous. And Marcus seems to have been eating this stuff since the 60's too.

It's funny because during the time she's been away, I've been getting Liziee's notes from France by email. Amazingly, they mostly echo all of the sentiments that my side of the argument has been making. Wait until you read her reviews of Arpege, Ducasse and a few others.

[tommy]

One more thing,

why do i doubt that.

[Fat Guy]

One more thing, there isn't anybody I know who has more experience eating at three star restaurants then Robert B. and Cabrales.

Do you see, Wilfrid? He totally buys into this. He can't conceptualize it in any other way. This is why we're having so much fun: By all of Plotnicki's standards stated so often all over these boards in such arrogant and absolutist terms, he should like Ducasse. But he doesn't. So now he has to create a whole new framework to escape his own reasoning. But again it's coming back to expertise. And guess who has more expertise and experience dining in three star restaurants than Robert Brown, Cabrales, and Plotnicki combined? Patricia Wells, that's who. You see, there's always someone who knows more than you do, so it's always a copout to say your views are based on superior appreciation (not that Mr. Brown has ever suggested this on his own part). You have to make real arguments (which Mr. Brown always does). And while I'm happy to get into it with Plotnicki and Cabrales about what exactly makes Ducasse's restaurants so great, it's important to dispense with all this other craziness first.

[Steve Plotnicki]

And guess who has more expertise and experience dining in three star restaurants than Robert Brown, Cabrales, and Plotnicki combined? Patricia Wells, that's who.

Fat Guy - In my best lawyerly retort, I didn't offer Cabrales and Robert B. as proof that I'm right. I offered their experience in response to your statement that Bux and Steve Klc have more experience then we have as diners. As a fact you asserted, I'm not sure that your statement is true. In fact I think your statement is not true. But what I will say about Robert and Cabrales is that we approach this issue from the same perspective and we usually agree on these things more often then we disagree. But I offered that fact two posts ago and you haven't responded to it. Some nonesense about waiting for my Gagnaire review.

[lxt]

Lxt - But there are many different types acadamys. There is the Chicago School of Business and what a disaster the world would be if their view was the exclusive school of thought. Then there is the UC Davis school of winemaking and look how their philosophy took the joy and complexity out of the finished product of wine. Then if you have been reading your recent publications, there is the Columbia School of Journalism who is the loftiest in its field and who managed to make their degree worthless. Then of course there are places like the Bauhaus where the contribution of the "Acadamy" is enormous.

Steve, I wasn't talking about Academies per say. The word was in quotes, not capitalized and the reference was made rather toward a large group of professionals. I may agree that specific Academies in your sense may represent a negative force in the development of certain businesses. However, it is not unreasonable to assume that the ones who are better equipped to evaluate may have an advantage in the process of assessment.

Of course, like in any profession, there are people whose stagnant views and knowledge may even stand in the way of the progressive, but percentage wise, if I have to trust a professional vs. an amateur, unless an amateur manages to persuade me that he is better, I tend to go to the certified surgeon rather than to a vet both of whom performed multiple heart surgeries. And even among surgeons themselves, would you not trust a Board Certified surgeon more then the one who never bothered to take the exam?

I have said that Ducasse, in spite of his technical proficiency does not convert it into an intersting aesthetic.

And I value your opinion tremendously. However, I don't find the assertion of not "converting it into an interesting aesthetic" enough to persuade me that Ducasse's food is uninteresting even before I sample it, considering that there are multiple assertions on the subject from people with similar experience in the area. What you said is rather generic and still forces one to ask "Why?" and wonder what is an "interesting aesthetic" in your view, aside from "it didn't make me want to go back." A valid example may just do it. However, your current statement sounds as nothing more but a subjective account.

All the positive posts about Ducasse on this thread add up to one thing, luxury (and proficency is part of luxury.)

Proficency is not part of luxury; it is a mean to achieve quality. Luxury is part of that same aesthetic that you state Ducasse's food lacks.

As I read marcus's evaluation, "The food however provided one of my greatest meals in terms of overall succulence and execution. Admittedly, it did not strive for complexity, but I don't find this to be a problem, it was far from simple." it seem that Ducasse's cuisine strives rather for perfection. Complexity may not equal creativity, and marcus did mention that "it was far from simple."

[Orik]

Orik -- The chance that a meal at any Ducasse establishment would be better in the manner you describe: 0%.

I think if you examine the universe of all possible meals at these establishments, you will find that there is a non-zero probability of eating one meal at PA that is better than one meal at L'Arpege. Certainly you can eat very poorly at PG if you make the wrong menu choices. I agree that 20% may be a high estimate, but when dealing with unknown probablility distributions I tend to think of:

impossible - 5%

quite unlikely - 20-25%

no clue - 50%

quite likely - 75-80%

certain - 95%

In any event, it would be unfair to me to make a similar statement to yours regarding Blue Hill vs ADNY, but I guess that comparing the number of dinners in both establishments (probably 30 in BH vs 0 in ADNY) would indicate that our preferences are similar

[Steve Plotnicki]

Lxt - I am not using aesthetic that way. I am using it to describe something cerebral. Yes they can be combined. Like having expensive fabrics in your home is a certain aesthetic that pertains to luxury. But I'm using aesthetics in a way that describes a cerebral component that is above and beyond simply being luxurious. And I wouldn't expect you to reach a conclusion about Ducasse's food just based on my opinion of it. But I have my suspicions about whether you would like it or not based on what I know about you.

[Wilfrid]

Do you see, Wilfrid?

Oh, you're parodying him. Didn't you know you're supposed to start your posts with "Gee" when you do that? eGullet etiquette.

[Fat Guy]

Oh, you're parodying him.

Obviously I'm not doing a very good job on that front. I guess I should just go back to facing the argument head on. Although I did get some encouraging PMs.

[cabrales]

Steven -- Why have you mentioned twice the PMs you received? Are lurkers PM'ing you, and, if not, why are the members not setting forth the discussion for others to respond?