Michelin 2003 results ...Promotions and Demotions

[Steve Plotnicki]

I've read your response and is your position that the ingredients are available to the French or are they not? Or are they available and the French don't use them? That wouldn't make sense because if they are importing snails and frog's legs, why not superior products from Spain?

[Bux]

I don't know that I have a position on this nor am I party to what sort of thinking goes on in heads of Chefs in France. We are seeing more and more imported products in French restaurant kitchens and on French tables. San Pelligrino now seems to be one of the more popular sparkling waters in French restaurants. From reports I've read here, the French are currently infatuated with Asia, soy sauce and balsamic vinegar, not to mention Italian olive oil. I am seeing more and more Spanish hams and cured meats and they seem to appear further north in France these days.

There are any number of reasons why more products don't cross the Pyrenees. I can only make wild guess and stabs in the dark. As I mentioned, many Spanish products seem to have limited distribution in Spain. I don't know if that's due to limited quantities or the insularity of the Spanish tastes. In fact, I don't know why that is at all. At the grass roots level, France is succumbing to international trends such as pizza and fast food hamburger chains. At the level of haute cuisine, French chefs are propably not at all interested in looking at a neighbor's rustic regional food supply and especially not interested in one that isn't supported by the Escoffier dominated traditional practices. It's also one thing to build on a native food esthetic or gestalt and quite another to incorporate the rustic base that the Spanish build upon into a haute cuisine that's been looking towards Japan for ideas on how to make the food lighter and more delicate.

As I've said, I have few answers and many questions myself, but if the French are importing exactly the foods they used to grow or raise domestically, it doesn't follow at all that they are looking for superior products. They are looking for what they used to have at home.

[cabrales]

When you bypass the Spanish three star restaurants, you begin to get a sense of how rustic the food can be in Spain and how much if varies from region to region and how dependant it often is on local ingredients or traditions. **Then return to the multistarred places and I think you will see the influences of tradition.** Visit the **multistarred places in France** and **it's harder not only to tell** what part of France you are in, **but if you are in France at all.**

Bux -- I cannot subscribe to that argument, including for the following reasons:

-- There are only four three-starred places in Spain, and more than twenty in France. There are likewise obviously far fewer two-stars in Spain than in France. Therefore, focusing on whether it is easier to tell *what part* of France one is in, when there are many more restaurants at any given level (three-star or two-star) is arguably unfair.

-- While I have never eaten at El Bulli or Can Fabes (the latter reputedly does try to incorporate elements of Catalan cuisine), I ask whether Berasategui is *strongly* influenced by traditional Basque cuisine. If he is, please advise how you view Berasategui's cuisine as doing so.

-- Regardless of whether high-quality French ingredients are less abundant than they used to be or not, when we are addressing French three stars and two-stars, they will have access to even the more limited quantity of top French ingredients. Therefore, arguing about diminished access to ingredients is not informative about the ingredients typically available to three stars and most two stars.

-- I strongly disagree that when one visits a French three-star, one can't tell one is in France. One can tell one is not in any part of the world other than Western Europe (which has other countries that, as we have discussed previously, have embraced the French cuisine model for haute cuisine). One can tell one is clearly not in the US or Asia. The only reason one might not be able to tell apart the cuisines of, say, Bruneau near Brussels and a French three-star is that Bruneau has adopted many French techiques and prepares a French-based cuisine.

-- It is true that French three stars vary in quality. However, that is a function of there being (appropriately) more French three stars than three stars in other countries. Given the distinctive features of each restaurant, particularly at this level, it is natural that a larger number of restaurants at a given level would have a more diverse profile overall.

[vserna]

Let's see......

There are far more Michelin three-starred and two-starred restaurants in France than anywhere else because, a) France is the foremost culinary nation in the world, 2) Michelin is a French guide.

It's obvious, I know, but both factors play a role. I would never dream of saying Spain or Italy have overtaken France. It's just that the trend in some countries (Spain is an obvious case, and I think the UK, the United States or Australia also are) is clearly positive as far as restaurant quality goes, whereas in others it's negative. France is indeed in this second group. I think there are sveeral reasons: 1) a creative exhaustion and apathy which after 1990 followed the great outbursts of the 1970s and 1980s; 2) indeed, the terrible crisis of rural France and the disappearance or real 'home cooking' and local tradition after the last 'mères' retired in the early 1980s and the newer generations were strictly formed in cooking schools and professional kitchens; 3) the financial crisis of 'haute cuisine', which makes it difficult for anyone but powerful hotel chains to keep it up.

Top products are available to most every cook in Europe (Spanish products are thoroughly commonplace in France now - from Guijuelo ham to piquillo peppers), but thta's not the crux of the problem.

BTW, Cabrales - El Bulli is not French or Spanish, it's Adrià, take it or leave it. (Most of us take it.) And his derring-do is a key, key, key factor in the overall thrust to greater creativity and no ptrejudice in newly-affluent Spain. But Martín Berasategui has strong Basque roots in addition to his great creative talents.

[cabrales]

vserna -- Could you discuss Berasategui's Basque roots and how those are manifested in his cuisine (apart from using Basque ingredients, given the availability of top ingredients to restaurants at this level)? Also, I am not knowledgeable about Basque cuisine -- could you provide some information on that as well?

Your point that Adria is not Spanish (or French) tends to support the position that this Spanish three-star-chef does not ground his cuisine in regional Spanish cuisine -- which is the point I was supporting.

You mention trends. I find that analysis not to be dispositive. For example, a person with 1 M&M has more M&Ms when she gets one more M&M. However, another person that had 100 M&Ms (not that that is the discrepancy with respect to the restaurants) might be on a "downward" trend by losing two M&Ms.

Edited February 12, 2003 by cabrales (log)

[Bux]

It might be more appropriate to talk of macarons than M&Ms, might it not and they taste better too.

I don't actually see the relevance between the number of multistarred places in either country and an ability to find the rustic in the haute cuisine of each. If anything in France you'll get more opportunites to prove me wrong. The better argument is that the whole world is moving towards homgenization. My arguments are meant to be seen with that knowledge in mind. These differences are decreasing and the sameness becomes more pervasive. France had a lot to lose in this regard and it happened rather quickly.

What I see less of in Berasategui and Adria and more of in France, is the borrowing of international cliches. Balsamic vinegar and soy sauce have become cliches in America and yet still being discovered by French chefs. At least this is a perception of mine. Where the Basques and the Catalans depart from tradition they seem to follow no model at all and become wildly creative. I've not always thought of the Spanish as creative. When I visited in the sixties, I found an oppressed country with an oppressive atmosphere under Franco.

You make a good point that France has lost part of it's identity as a place for a special kind of food precisely because French food has become the international standard for at least much of the western world. I don't know what factor the dependance of haute cuisine on foreign tourists has played in all this. As one progresses through the stars one sees more and more foreigners dining. This is true at El Bulli and Berasategui as well however. It's also a fact that a Spanish pioneer such as Arzak owes much to the haute cuisine of France, so there's a debt I think new cooking in Spain owes to the French. There's little that's black and while, but a lot that's very good to taste.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Gee we need ChefG on this thread because we have backed into our favorite topic, regionalism. I believe that the Spanish restaurants are not as well known internationally because the cuisine isn't as heavily based in regionalism as French cuisine is. Even in restaurants that do not have a strong regional aspect to them like Lucas-Carton, they appear as some type of logical extension of a great cooking tradition practiced by both the Meres that Vserna spoke of and the Fernand Points of the world. The Spanish chefs, do not appear to be as strongly based in their regional cuisine. But to be honest, Basque and Catalan cuisine are not as pervasive as the cooking is from a number of regions in France. I'm not sure that this fact is fatal in any way. It just will take them a longer time to inform the rest of the world about it.

[Bux]

I believe that the Spanish restaurants are not as well known  internationally  because the cuisine isn't as heavily based in regionalism as French cuisine is.

You've not traveled and eaten in Spain, I gather. On a more serious note, why do you say that?

[vmilor]

Is it possible to make the claim that when some chefs in Spain are looking for international recognition they are moving away from their regional roots. In my most recent trip to Donostia I noticed that Berasategui had become more" Japanese", less Basque. This was also true for Arzak with with his daughter at the helm. Unfortunately, even Zuberoa was moving in the same direction.

On another note: for any meaningful comparison one has to state the baseline. Spain( and why not Hungary?) is a newcomer, so their rate of improvement will be higher than the French.

My main qualm about the French is the polarization. I alluded to it. Bux thought it resonated with his own experience. Steve, in a different thread, complained about the absence of upper middle in France and hit the bull's eye. It will take a dissertation to give justice to the topic but French cuisine is threatened by this increasing polarization. Their loss will be our loss.

[cabrales]

In my most recent trip to Donostia I noticed that Berasategui had become more" Japanese", less Basque. This was also true for Arzak with with his daughter at the helm.  Unfortunately, even Zuberoa was moving in the same direction.

vmilor -- Could you consider discussing the "Japanese" effects you mentioned?

[Steve Plotnicki]

Yes what he said.

[vserna]

I believe that the Spanish restaurants are not as well known  internationally  because the cuisine isn't as heavily based in regionalism as French cuisine is.

You've not traveled and eaten in Spain, I gather. On a more serious note, why do you say that?

Mysterious indeed.

Some addresses Cabrales and Plotnicki would have to check up on before deciding where the Spanish restaurant scene is at:

Echaurren, at Ezcaray (La Rioja).

Hispania, at Arenys de Mar (Catalonia).

Las Rejas, at Las Pedroñeras (Castilla-La Mancha).

Zuberoa, at Oiartzun (Basque Country).

Atrio, at Cáceres (Extremadura).

Ca Sento, at Valencia.

Rotilio, at Sanxenxo (Galicia).

Regional influence simply oozes out of most modern Spanish restaurants. Yes, Ferran Adrià's influence goes deep. But roots run deeper still...

[cabrales]

vserna -- Below is a link to my take on Zuberoa:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...ST&f=38&t=12115

Also note that I do not purport to understand restaurants in Spain. Some of my questions in this thread have literally been questions grounded in ignornace.

[vmilor]

vmilor -- Could you consider discussing the "Japanese" effects you mentioned? 

I did this posting in the new thread started by Bux under regional cuisine Spain which is a better fit.

I apologize for a late response What happened is that I typed my response a few days ago. When I tried to edit it, I realized that my computer was in an overstrike mode. I didn't know how to get out of this mode, and the more I typed, the more my original message was erased... I got frustrate and deleted the whole message. Sometimes, I wish computers were never invented!!!

[vserna]

vserna -- Below is a link to my take on Zuberoa:

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?act=ST...ST&f=38&t=12115

Also note that I do not purport to understand restaurants in Spain. Some of my questions in this thread have literally been questions grounded in ignornace. 

More about it in the Spain section...

[BigboyDan]

Just wanted this back up front