The New Time Warner Center

[Bux]

- the best tuna was about $20 per piece (and it was worth it - the kind of tuna I've had at the best places out west isn't anything like I've found in the east).

Whether something is worth it or not, is going to be very subjective. That the price is justifiable is something else. The relative value in things lies as much in our ability to appreciate them as anything. The connoisseur is always going to be willing to pay a bit more.

For what it's worth - my favorite Japanese isn't sushi - it's the long formal dinner composed of many small courses.  There is a specific name for it - but I forget what it is.  A lot of the dishes I've had were so exquisite they didn't even look like food.  And don't forget all the costs in addition to food (like 12 table settings for each diner - you really need a lot of dishes - and they have to be really nice dishes to boot).  Robyn

Kaiseki? What is often referred to as tea ceremony food. It's probably a high art form and most definitely not overtly concerned with sating a large appetite. I think there's a fair amount of elegant food and restaurant food that approaches the ideal, but requires less rigorous appreciation and is less expensive. For most people that's a close as they may want to get. The meat and potatoes guy will find a falling off in value right away. Those who complain about portion sizes in nouvelle cuisine tasting menus should probably avoid kaiseki if they get the chance. Here's a web site that's probably not an ideal explanation, but at least it's an introduction. If it were not past my bed time, I might do better.

[robyn]

Kunz has been saying for years that he wants to open a casual place, and people have been saying for years that he wouldn't know casual dining if it jumped up and bit him in the nose. It will be interesting to see what Kunz's interpretation of casual dining is, and it will also be interesting to see what direction the public pushes the restaurant in. After all, restaurant pricing in the abstract tends to run in a much narrower range than people assume. As an absolute matter, there is no restaurant in New York that charges more than $200 for food (with the exception of truffle tasting menus and the like). So really, most middle-class people could afford to do that more than once a year. Not to mention, even the four-star places usually have $50-or-less option: I think you can have lunch at Jean Georges or Bouley for about $36, can't you? What really distinguishes pricing is the way people use a restaurant. That the dinner prix-fixe at Gramercy Tavern is $65 while the prix-fixe at Jean Georges is $85 doesn't really tell the whole story. What happens from there is that people see Jean Georges as a fancier restaurant, so they spend more on wine, they are more likely to order add-ons, etc. So all of a sudden Gramercy Tavern may be collecting half the amount of money per cover as Jean Georges, even though there's only a $20 difference in menu pricing. Cafe Gray may sell $30 entrees -- just as a hypothetical price point -- but does that mean the check average will be $30, or will the customers eat lengthy, elaborate meals with serious wine and average in closer to the Jean Georges level of things? The better Kunz cooks at this place, the harder it will be for him to realize his casual goals. Look, for example, at Cafe Boulud -- I think it's safe to say that the customers took that decision out of Daniel Boulud's hands. He talked a lot about a cafe, and about how people could go in jeans, but I've never seen anybody there wearing in jeans and all the foodies who go there spend about the same amount of money on dinner as they would at Daniel.

Do you like Cafe Boulud? My husband and I ate there a few years ago (we were staying at the hotel it's connected to). We were not impressed. It was - like you say - supposed to be a "Cafe" - and it was just about as expensive as Daniel. Plus the tables were so squished together we could hear everything the people next to us were talking about. Which turned out to be a hoot - beause they were lawyers discussing details of a case in Florida that friends of ours happened to be on the other side of. At some point though - we told them who we were - and told them to shut up - because what they were saying became too intimate. Anyway - considering the prices - we were underwhelmed.

On the other hand - we went to Boulud's new restaurant in Palm Beach in August and liked it a lot. The place - in our opinion - struck the right balance in terms of food and atmosphere for Palm Beach. The food was exactly right in terms of scale and flavors for hot tropical nights - and not only is the room very pretty - it's every designer's dream of how a Palm Beach dining establishment should look. Also - the service was excellent. On the other hand - we were there in August - dead low season. Places that are very agreeable in Palm Beach in August can be intolerable in February - when 20 groups of diners are competing for the same table. So we'll see how the place is reviewed come high season. Robyn

[Fat Guy]

Cafe Boulud NY is hard to pin down. The tasting menus I've had at Cafe Boulud have been better than the ones I've had at Daniel, which has caused me to think of the place as one of the most underrated restaurants in America. At the same time, the standard menu items are less impressive. And certainly the room is cramped and unpleasant -- I'd think that even were it not ugly. Service can be hit-or-miss. I'd love to check out the Palm Beach location. I'm sure the space alone makes the dining experience much more pleasant, and I think Andrew is down there running the kitchen for the time being. With the Cafe Boulud NY experience behind them, I bet they've been able to start off well in Palm Beach. I wonder if the food is different, and if so how.

[rozrapp]

I wonder what the $500 refers to, exactly. Is that a minimum, a maximum, or an average? Is there also a $50 lunch, or can you really just not go to the restaurant unless you have $500 to spend? This is the sort of comment -- "where he will be pleased to serve a $500 dinner" -- that seems calculated to drive both the liberal-guilt audience and the New York Post audience through the roof, but it's sufficiently vague to leave me wondering what it really means.

I came across a post from someone on Chowhound who just had dinner at Asiate -- a 3-course prix-fixe for $65. (Bloviatrix included this amount in her price listing of the mall's restaurants.) The meal included 2 amuses and a "freebie" between the first and main courses. According to this diner, there is also a 7-course tasting menu for $85.

Edited November 17, 2003 by rozrapp (log)

[robyn]

- the best tuna was about $20 per piece (and it was worth it - the kind of tuna I've had at the best places out west isn't anything like I've found in the east).

Whether something is worth it or not, is going to be very subjective. That the price is justifiable is something else. The relative value in things lies as much in our ability to appreciate them as anything. The connoisseur is always going to be willing to pay a bit more.

For what it's worth - my favorite Japanese isn't sushi - it's the long formal dinner composed of many small courses.  There is a specific name for it - but I forget what it is.  A lot of the dishes I've had were so exquisite they didn't even look like food.  And don't forget all the costs in addition to food (like 12 table settings for each diner - you really need a lot of dishes - and they have to be really nice dishes to boot).  Robyn

Kaiseki? What is often referred to as tea ceremony food. It's probably a high art form and most definitely not overtly concerned with sating a large appetite. I think there's a fair amount of elegant food and restaurant food that approaches the ideal, but requires less rigorous appreciation and is less expensive. For most people that's a close as they may want to get. The meat and potatoes guy will find a falling off in value right away. Those who complain about portion sizes in nouvelle cuisine tasting menus should probably avoid kaiseki if they get the chance. Here's a web site that's probably not an ideal explanation, but at least it's an introduction. If it were not past my bed time, I might do better.

Well - I suppose all of these things are subjective :). Most of the people I know where I live think that spending anything more than they usually spend at Ruby Tuesdays for dinner is a waste of money.

As for Kaiseki (I seem to recall that's the correct word) - I don't have a huge appetite. Mind you - it's not tiny (not like my 60 year old cousin who's still a size 4 and will only eat salad without dressing no matter how terrific the restaurant is) - but when I see and read about something like the French Laundry - well I think I'd be finished about 1/3 of the way through. Think 10 courses of anything is at least twice as much as I usually eat (like the burger I'm throwing on the grill tonight). And 3 courses of anything that includes a fair portion of meat and starch is more than enough.

Also - I love "beautiful" food. Especially when each course is arranged on a different kind of dish designed to enhance its beauty.

Thanks for the web site reference. Robyn

[robyn]

Cafe Boulud NY is hard to pin down. The tasting menus I've had at Cafe Boulud have been better than the ones I've had at Daniel, which has caused me to think of the place as one of the most underrated restaurants in America. At the same time, the standard menu items are less impressive. And certainly the room is cramped and unpleasant -- I'd think that even were it not ugly. Service can be hit-or-miss. I'd love to check out the Palm Beach location. I'm sure the space alone makes the dining experience much more pleasant, and I think Andrew is down there running the kitchen for the time being. With the Cafe Boulud NY experience behind them, I bet they've been able to start off well in Palm Beach. I wonder if the food is different, and if so how.

Daniel Boulud has a web site with menus for all his restaurants. Don't know if they're current - but the ones that are posted show the differences between New York and Florida. In Florida - they weren't doing dinner for homesick New Yorker's - they were trying to take advantage of the ingredients (especially fish and tropical fruits) which are more available - and fresher - than they are in New York. And I think they were kind of getting into the swing of south Florida fusion cuisine.

The room is kind of a shocker for Palm Beach. Most restaurants in Palm Beach are - in my opinion - at best elegant - in a slightly dowdy kind of way. Many are just plain dowdy. This room was completely different. It wasn't cool and hip and cold - more like "fun guys with lots of money do a tropical look". It was very eye-pleasing and comfy.

If you do get to Palm Beach - we were surprised that our dinner at the Breakers was better than our dinner at the Boulud Cafe. There's a new chef in the kitchen. Forget his name - but dinner was outstanding. I also recommend Echo. It's owned by the Breakers - but off premises. Fusion Asian - kind of casual.

Perhaps my most serious recommendation is that if you do go to Palm Beach - unless you are the CEO of a Fortune 500 company - go in low season - or shoulder season (November and December apart from the holidays are a good time to travel if you don't like sweating a lot). Not only will you save about 1/2-2/3 on your hotel room - but staff who wouldn't give you a 5 pm reservation in high season will seat you at 8 pm and fall all over you. A restaurant like Cafe Boulud isn't very large - it's likely to be a hot ticket in a town with tons of money which doesn't have many good restaurants - and when 100 CEOs fight for tables in February - ordinary people with net worths of 7 figures or lower (like you and me) will simply be ignored. In August - the ocean is warm - the evenings are perfumed and romantic - they embrace you - and you can do just about whatever you want on 24 hours notice or less. Robyn

P.S. I've never been to Daniel. I don't get to New York that often - and it was never high on my list of "I have to go there".

[alacarte]

Last night I attended a 92nd St Y panel. The guests were Andre Soltner (formerly of Lutece), and food writers Amanda Hesser & Raymond Sokolov.

Both Hesser and Sokolov said they expect the Culinary Mall to fail -- Sokolov was particularly outspoken on this. Said Hesser, "Just the words 'food court' are depressing." Soltner didn't have much to say on the topic.

[Fat Guy]

I expect it to be wildly successful, but if I had any business acumen I'd be creating businesses instead of writing about them.

[sammy]

My prediction is that it fails. It just sounds so "Las Vegas" to me, with offshoots of restaurants from throughout the country. The only reason the Las Vegas restaurants succeed is that they are subsidized by the casinos. I don't believe many of the retaurants there (Le Cirque, Aureole, Acqua, etc) could succeed off-site.

The investment numbers being thrown around seem too big to recoup. Plus, I don't believe the NY economy is in such good shape to support this many new high-end expensive restaurants at once.

[bloviatrix]

Last night I attended a 92nd St Y panel. The guests were Andre Soltner (formerly of Lutece), and food writers Amanda Hesser & Raymond Sokolov.

Both Hesser and Sokolov said they expect the Culinary Mall to fail -- Sokolov was particularly outspoken on this. Said Hesser, "Just the words 'food court' are depressing." Soltner didn't have much to say on the topic.

I was there last night as well. Sokolov was particularly disdainful, pointing out the chefs won't be in the kitchens so the food won't be examplary. We've had plenty of discussions about the "modern" chef who travels between his assorted properies, making sure the kitchen adheres to his vision.

Why is it a problem? Look at Ducasse.

[sammy]

It's only a problem if the restaurant group does not manage each restaurant with the same zeal as the original. Some are able to do it without a hitch. Most can't.

Right here in NYC, there are a number of restaurants that are not running to as high a standard as they did before their chef/owners were running around the country opening up new places. As for NYC based groups, I think Daniel Boulud is the only "Chef" that has kept his operations running on all cylinders. Maybe Jean-George is a close second but I've heard that Jojo isn't nearly as good as it used to be.

Can anyone think of any other "Chefs" that have expanded successfully without a drop-off in the quality of the dining experience?

[Pan]

Sammy, Jo Jo used to be my favorite restaurant in the pre-renovation days. I went once or twice after the renovation and found the food a little off pre-renovation standards, but the service really deteriorated. Mind you, this is all at least several years ago and doesn't cover a large number of visits. Jo Jo used to be my family's favorite birthday restaurant, and there are 4 members of my immediate family, so that might have amounted to 3-4 visits a year at most.

[sammy]

I think we should play a game:

Let's predict which ones are still around three years from now.

I think we should wait until they open to comment on each one but I'll stand by my original prediction of widespread failure.

After reading in the media (including here and other websites) about so many lackluster dining experiences at high-end places, it is hard to be optimistic.

[Pan]

Well, Sammy, they may indeed fail, but I had mediocre meals at Lutece, Chanterelle, and Bouley after they had been given 4 stars by the New York Times. Have any of those places closed? Restaurants don't even have to serve all comers good food, let alone great food, in order to stay in business. All they have to do is please enough people enough of the time. And I do think that sometimes, upper-end restaurants pay special attention to "big shots" and don't care about "ordinary" people. Of course, whether that will be true of these new restaurants, we can't possibly know in advance. There are some places that really do have pride in their work and serve wonderful meals to people who may never have a chance to come back (for example, Grand Vefour in Paris), and I hope the new places are among these. If they are, I hope they do succeed and flourish in New York.

[Felonius]

I'm sure the space alone makes the dining experience much more pleasant, and I think Andrew is down there running the kitchen for the time being.

Andrew has been away from NYC for a while, and I think the food at Cafe Boulud has suffered as a result.

And despite the fact that the average diner wears a tie or at least a jacket at CB, I have dined there in jeans on many occasions. Daniel said he wanted it to be more casual, so I figured I might as well do my part.

[MDB-LA]

I joined eGullet today, in order to provide (uhh...hopefully) a little context to the earlier discussion in this thread concerning Masa Takayama's new restaurant Asayoshi. I was a customer of his Ginza Sushi-Ko in Beverly Hills. What Takayama-san provides is a modified Kaiseki cuisine tailored to Westerners. I've eaten traditional Kaiseki in Japan on many occasions, including a few visits to the more formal restaurants where foreigners (& most Japanese, for that matter) are rarely welcomed. Takayama-san's cuisine is more playful and relaxed than the traditional Kaiseki. His use of foie gras or beluga caviar would be heresy to purists in Japan. As for his $500 prix fixe, while this might seem outlandishly expensive in America, it's perhaps 30% cheaper than the same meal in Tokyo. My favorite restaurant in Tokyo, Sadaya, usually averages $800 per person without wine. What could possibly justify such prices? The ingredients that both Sadaya-san and Takayama-san employ in their cooking are breathtakingly expensive. At Sadaya, the wagyu (Kobe) beef is the finest served anywhere. And Sadaya pays almost two hundred dollars a pound for the center of the ribeye. Takayama serves what I feel is the only great o-toro in the US. I can't even imagine what his o-toro costs per pound, since I've never seen anything (even in Japan) that compares in quality. His o-toro is pinkish-white and has the consistency of soft butter, whereas most "toro" served here is just better quality tuna. My point is this... as a fan of great Japanese food, I'd rather have one truly fantastic meal for $500, than five good ones for the same money. While there are certainly better bargains in great cuisine, such as E Bulli (or even 17th Street Bar & Grill), there are few experiences that can match what Takayama provides. And he's a very nice guy, too. Thanks for letting me join the eGullet community. --Michael

[Suzanne F]

Michael, Welcome! And thanks for providing your perspective. Hope you'll have a look around and participate more.

[robert40]

http://www.departures.com/bb/bb_0104_vintner.html

Eric Lilavois of City Hall restaurant will be appointed sommelier of Per Se.

See above link.

RR

[robert40]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/21/dining/21TIME.html

It wont be long now.

[bloviatrix]

January's issue of Travel and Leisure has an article on Manhattan's "newest neighborhood" aka Columbus Circle. There's mention of the restaurants opening at Time Warner if you're will to wade through.

Click here to read.

[robert40]

Who believe's that Per Se will be the N.Y. Times next four star restaurant?

And also who expects it to be four stars right out the gate like Jean George?

Get your vote's in.

[Chad]

Latest news on the Columbus Circle opening in todays NY Times: Read More Here

Chad

[bloviatrix]

It's not available online, but if you have a chance to read the new issue (Feb 2 cover) of The New York Observer, Bryan Miller writes an article titled Will New Yorkers Climb for Their Supper?

Essentially he wonders whether we'll be willing to enter a building a take elevators to dine rather than walking into a restaurant right off the street.

[Bux]

We took the elevator to Asiate the other day, but it had a view. Did the Rainbow Room have a view? I've never been there. I didn't find the elevator ride any more objectionable than having to pass through a hotel lobby on my way to a restaurant. At Lespinasse, I had to walk up several steps and pass though a hotel space. In Chicago I had to ride an elevator and then pass though the lobby of a hotel--I seem to recall it was the Four Seasons--to get the restaurant and I wasn't staying at the hotel. In Chinatown, there are any number of restaurants that have drawn a clientele in the basement and the second floor. Personally, I much prefer to climb to my dinner than descend. If it's a destination restaurant, I don't think it makes any difference at all not being on the street. For a walk in restaurant, it could hurt. On the otherhand, does anyone know how many people are going to be living in those towers. I have a strong impression that most of those people are likely to dine out more often than the average New Yorker. Just guessing at the number of cancellations restaurants get on blizzard nights, this "food court" has a pretty good build in clientele. No overcoat, no umbrella, no galoshes for dinner sounds like an idea whose time has come, at least this month.

I've made reservatations at restaurants above the ground floor in cities all over the world and never thought twice about it. The idea that New Yorkers are so provincial that they can't adapt to new concepts is absurd and an opinion that there aren't enough of us willing to go three or four floors out of our way for a destination restaurant is almost insulting. Per Se, if it lives up to even a major degree of expectation will be a draw for gastronomic tourism and those making their reservations from out of state or overseas won't even consider it's location, let alone think of it as a drawback.

[bloviatrix]

Here are some quotes from the Miller piece.

Regarding the defunct Lespinasse:

Lespinasse, in the St. Regis, which I estimate lost in the neighborhood of $2 million despite a Times four-star rating, abruptly closed last spirng, citing lack of business.  To get to Lespinasse, you sometimes had to jostle around bag-toting guests, walk down a corridor, then traverse a large terrace lounge to find the entrance.

But, Miller also quotes the designer David Rockwell:

"I think [the Time Warner complex] is definitely going to require New Yorkers to develop different habits," siad David Rockwell, whose company designed Cafe Gray.  He added that if the complex - which required walking across a wide esplanade to the escalators (an elevator to the restaurants is reached from 60th Street) - is to suceed, it needs to offer a strong payoff.

"And this project does," he averred.

Miller ends by pointing out thateven though not all off-street restaurants are duds, highlighting the success of ADNY, Hudson Cafeteria, and 44 at the Royalton, the odds are still against them.