Blais: 17 course degustation, $49, in Atlanta ?

[jeffj]

Well, this really bites. I'm flying out from California in less than a week and a half specifically to eat at Blais. Guess I need to make new plans.

BTW, my OpenTable reservation has not been automatically cancelled as of yet.

-j

[Gifted Gourmet]

This is the article which appears in tomorrow's Atlanta Journal Constitution on Blais ... I am posting it here because it is more appropriate to this thread than my weekly Southeastern Media Digests:

WEDNESDAY PEACH BUZZ

Daring eatery Blais shuts its doors

By RICHARD L. ELDREDGE

BLAIS The restaurant that made a name for its humorous, unlikely and sometimes brilliant food innovations -- closed its doors suddenly on Monday night, just shy of its six month birthday.

Chef Richard Blais hit the scene last year in a modernist renovation of the old Peachtree Cafe space in Buckhead. His off-the-wall menu appealed intensely to an adventurous segment of the dining public but scared off many.

this is just an excerpt from the full article ...

Edited May 12, 2004 by Gifted Gourmet (log)

[bleachboy]

Thanks, Gifted Gourmet. This is truly a shame.

[Dave the Cook]

Here's a link to the article (free registration required). Gifted Gourmet tried to post it last night, but we had to wait for the AJC to provide a URL that wasn't two blocks long.

Peach Buzz

It will probably change after today; we'll try to keep the link up to date.

[chefseanbrock]

????

Edited May 13, 2004 by chefseanbrock (log)

[blueapron]

Dave

That link is as dead. Heard Gerry Klasky(ms) is taking over the space and will open in June as a med/spain tapas bar. The resto that was there before blais was also a tapas bar from Paul Luna,who owns two other successful tapas bars in ATL, but it closed in 6 months also like Blais. Better luck for Gerry hopefully!

[Dave the Cook]

Dave

That link is as dead. Heard Gerry Klasky(ms) is taking over the space and will open in June as a med/spain tapas bar. The resto that was there before blais was also a tapas bar from Paul Luna,who owns two other successful tapas bars in ATL, but it closed in 6 months also like Blais. Better luck for Gerry hopefully!

Yeah, it's dead, and I can't find it in the AJC labyrinth.

The article said essentially what you've been saying: that the closing was abrupt, and the space will be redeveloped for Klaskala.

Personally, I don't think it's a good space for anything upscale or adventurous. The problem is that the property is either owned by the "We're Cookin'" group, or by one of its partners, David Davoudpour (CEO of Best American, the country's largest Church's Fried Chicken franchisor), and they, or he, has made a public commitment to devote resources to upgrade the area. This means that another bar, which could almost certainly be successful, is not in the offing.

I commend them for sticking to their priciples, but I'm surprised at the quick hatchet they dropped on Blais. Between Davoudpour and George McKerrow (one of the other two partners in We're Cookin', and the founder of Longhorn Steaks), this group has an amazing amount of restaurant experience. McKerrow's comment that they we're closing Blais after investing "close to a million dollars" strikes me as disingenuous. A million dollars seems modest for a venture like this -- I'm guessing a Church's or Longhorn franchise costs a million before you even open the doors.

Had they asked me (no reason they should have, but what the hell), I would have told them that if they only had a million to invest, they shouldn't bother.

[ecruz1026]

What's wrong with us? I live in Miami, and while admittedly it is considered the South in geography alone, we had the chance to show the world (read: NYC) that not only could we compete, but possibly surpass, the culinary creativity envelope in this country. But alas, La Broche, sister restaurant to the Madrid eatery of the same name, closed after one year in the Brickell area of Miami. The reasons cited are similar to those for Blais -- the food was too cutting edge and the city was not ready for it. Is there something wrong with our culinary sensibilities in the South that we can't keep places like La Broche and Blais running? At least we both have aiports with frequent flights to Spain.

[robyn]

What's wrong with us?  I live in Miami, and while admittedly it is considered the South in geography alone, we had the chance to show the world (read: NYC) that not only could we compete, but possibly surpass, the culinary creativity envelope in this country.  But alas, La Broche, sister restaurant to the Madrid eatery of the same name, closed after one year in the Brickell area of Miami.  The reasons cited are similar to those for Blais -- the food was too cutting edge and the city was not ready for it.  Is there something wrong with our culinary sensibilities in the South that we can't keep places like La Broche and Blais running?  At least we both have aiports with frequent flights to Spain.

I don't think there's anything wrong with us (I used to live in Miami - don't now - but I get there about once/twice a year and think it's a fine/fun eating town).

Ask yourself which restaurants of this type have really achieved success? Can you name one in a major city that relies essentially on local clientele (as opposed to being a "destination restaurant")? Can you name one in New York? London? (And Fat Duck doesn't count because it isn't in London proper - it's a destination restaurant outside of London - it would be the equivalent of going to Massapequa for dinner if you were staying in midtown Manhattan). I think what customers in lots of places are basically saying is they might want an experience like this once - but it's not worth a return visit. So the restaurants that serve this kind of food - and haven't achieved "destination" status - don't have "legs".

On my part - I think there's some fine dining in Atlanta (I don't live there but last trip we dined twice at the Dining Room at the Ritz Carlton in Buckhead and thought it was world class). Robyn

[blueapron]

How about Moto or Trio in Chicago burbs or WD-50 in New York city?>

Can't really comment on London cause I am across the pond. Or how about Michel Bras in L'aguoile. France

The Ritz is great-one of only 14 Mobile 5 Star dining rooms in North America.Another Is Seegers- Also in atlanta but losing popularity with locals

Edited May 20, 2004 by blueapron (log)

[robyn]

How about Moto or Trio in Chicago burbs or WD-50 in New York city?>

Can't really comment on London cause I am across the pond. Or how about Michel Bras in L'aguoile. France

The Ritz is great-one of only 14 Mobile 5 Star dining rooms in North America.Another Is Seegers- Also in atlanta but losing popularity with locals

I've never eaten in Moto, Trio or wd50 - so perhaps someone who has can tell us whether they serve "Adria" type food. Robyn

[Gifted Gourmet]

I've never eaten in Moto, Trio or wd50 - so perhaps someone who has can tell us whether they serve "Adria" type food.  Robyn

I know that Moto and Trio do serve "Adria" type of food and we had a thread which refers to this fact:(scroll upward here)

The Thread on this genre of restaurant

Moto in Chicago

Avant-garde cuisine and inventive presentations have Chicago foodies talking about this Fulton Market dining experience.

http://www.trio-restaurant.com/

Edited May 21, 2004 by Gifted Gourmet (log)

[Dave the Cook]

I don't think you could call Trio or Moto destination restaurants in the sense that Robyn is talking about. If you define a destination restaurant as one that is worth travelling to solely for the opporunity to eat there, there is only one in North America, and that is the French Laundry. Other places might qualify: ADNY, Chez Panisse, Charlie Trotter's come to mind; I'm sure there are other candidates. But they won't be tested, because their proximity to other attractions makes their individual drawing power impossible to assess.

What's wrong with us? Despite the fact that Atlantans spend more dollars dining out than the national average, apparently there is not a sufficient population to support an adventurous high-end dining subset -- you need only look at the Buckhead Life restaurants to see that what succeeds is stuff that's about two steps behind the bleeding edge. Right now, there are probably only two ways to do what they were trying to do: put it in a big city like Chicago, Philadelphia, NYC or LA; or churn the PR machine to make Blais a destination -- a restaurant that can be just about anywhere. They did neither, and so the place failed.

But cash flow seems to have been a problem as well. Would the investors have stuck it out longer if Blais had been generating larger grosses? Surely, they knew that a place like Blais was going to take a while to catch on, so they must have had patience in mind.

In another life (circa 1980), I was Assistant Food and Beverage Manager at the Sonesta Atlanta (in Tower Place; I think it's a Doubletree now). We had Dom Perignon on the wine list at about $45, priced according to our standard formula. One evening, I went down to Billy's (who remembers Billy's?), a meat market that, by the looks of Buckhead now, was positively prescient. They were going through a case of Dom a night at $100 a bottle. The next day, I asked my boss how much we were selling -- two bottles a week, was his answer. How many would we sell at a hundred bucks? I asked. Um, probably two bottles a week, he said. So it couldn't get any worse.

We reprinted the wine list (well, a supplier did it for us), raising the price of Dom Perignon to $99. We moved a case the next week, and topped out at two (most of them through room service). The point is this: Blais was charging $49 for their tasting menu -- about $100 with matched wine. What would have happened if they had charged $150 + $75? I doubt they'd have gotten that many fewer people, and the perceived value would have been greatly enhanced. I suspect cash flow would have improved considerably, and that would have kept the doors open.

[blueapron]

I dont think anything is wrong with "us" either.What exactly defines a destination restaurant? Does a hillbilly driving out of the boon-docks to the closest Applebees count? Or how about a suburbanite who drives to the city to eat at a Buckhead Life restaurant? Just because a place is not in your backyard dosn't automatically make it a destination restaurant.

As most of us know the owners of Blais had/have very,very deep pockets so I dont think cash flow was a problem. Technically - these guys could have kept this placing going for years despite losses. I think they saw that the restaurant just was not going to be successfil and pulled the plug before taking a bath.

It seems to be just an example of the cold hard fact that only 60% or so of restaurant ventures end up making it - regardless of cuisine. How many run of the mill type restaurants have you seen open and close its doors?In a perfect world every restaurant would make it, but there are so many dynamics that come into play that when you dont get all factors to homogenize-things simply break apart.

Price points? Good question, but does price make the food or does the food set the price?

[robyn]

I don't think you could call Trio or Moto destination restaurants in the sense that Robyn is talking about...

They aren't - for the simple reason that - to me - a "destination restaurant" is a restaurant that I go to when there's no other reason to go to the place where it's located. Therefore - Trois Gros in Roanne is a destination restaurant - Alain Ducasse in New York is not. I'd never go to Roanne - and then think about making a reservation or stopping in at Trois Gros - whereas I'd go to New York and perhaps consider the possibility of trying to eat at Alain Ducasse (wouldn't expect to get in - but it wouldn't ruin my trip if I didn't get in). They are both excellent restaurants (at least Trois Gros used to be - I can't speak for what it's like it today) - but one is a "destination" restaurant - and the other is a great restaurant in a great city that has lots of other things to offer.

I used to go to "destination" restaurants when I was younger. It was frequently a lot of fun. But - as I've gotten older - I find that I prefer traveling to world class cities - and doing things in addition to eating (be it museums, theater, shopping, whatever). I have even gotten to the age where an afternoon being pampered in a spa is an attractive proposition . Part of it has to do with the fact that I simply can't do a week of nothing but eating in a place like France - eating in a 1 star one night - a 2 star the next night - and a 3 star the next night. It's just too much food! And too much driving (when you live in a slurby city - like most cities in Florida - the last thing you want to do on vacation is spend half of your vacation driving - I need to walk at least 2-3 miles a day to get in shape for fine dining these days ). So I say - enjoy these places when you're relatively young.

As for Trio and Moto in Chicago - I can recall thinking of trying Trio when my husband and I were in Chicago a couple of years ago - and I frankly can't remember why we didn't. We wound up at MK instead for our so-called "big deal meal". In retrospect - I wish we had tried Trio - but those are the breaks. In any event - that trip was during "architecture week" in the spring - and the events/tours that week would have made the trip worthwhile even if all we had eaten was frozen pizza.

As for Blais - I'm sorry I missed it (we get to Atlanta about once every year or so and would have liked to try it). From what I've read of this chef - perhaps he could try perfecting the stuff he's working on - and then find a decent home in a corporate environment - like a high end hotel. Don't laugh. A lot of the better high end restaurants we're finding these days are in corporate/hotel environments (just look at the restaurants in the AOL/Time Warner building in New York - including Per Se - it sure doesn't hurt that patrons from the Mandarin Oriental can take an elevator to the restaurant).

And Dave - as for Atlanta in the early 80's - I remember those days! I used to travel there perhaps 10 times a year to argue in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals downtown - stayed at the Peachtree Plaza. And I cursed the court administrators who had come up with the idea of the 11th Circuit (before then - I used to go to the 5th Circuit in New Orleans). All I can say is that between then and now - Atlanta has come a long way. Robyn

[chefseanbrock]

does anyone know where blais i going to end up???????????

[Gifted Gourmet]

At his point, rumors are flying rampantly around town ... hopefully, and I believe this will happen ultimately, he will remain in this vicinity .. talent like his is something we can always enjoy here in Atlanta!

[micropundit]

According to a post in the employment section of atlantacuisine.com,Richard Blais is advertising for employees for a Midtown(Atlanta) operation that "...is coming together quickly".

[Painting]

Richard better bow before and kiss my shiney metal ass for losing funding at his restaurant a couple days befor my reservation when he opens up again :-)

[bleachboy]

kiss my shiney metal ass

Nice "Futurama" reference!

[Painting]

just admit it, you love me ;-)

[micropundit]

Tomorrow's AJC(6-19-04) will have the latest on Blais.It will be interesting... .

Edited June 18, 2004 by micropundit (log)

[therese]

You're not going to share?

[Gifted Gourmet]

You're not going to share?

What and preclude our purchasing the AJC in its hard copy form??

If micropundit shared now, the shock would be lost ... and then we'd have to go back to our chitlins and barbecue ....

[Painting]

mmmm, and grits too!