Where we may be going wrong

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Patricia Wells revisits a "darling" restaurant and finds it lacking.Hirumatsu

What Wells reports about Hiramatsu is not nearly so telling as her opening paragraphs:

 

"PARIS -- One wonders if Paris is not becoming too much like New York, where trendiness and “of the moment” mean more than gastronomic quality or true fidelity to a favorite restaurant.

I have many friends who have probably never visited a restaurant more than once. Or a restaurant that’s been open more than a millisecond. They play “the first to know first to go” game in restaurant land. But no matter how much they praise the place, they never go back. Who has time if one is obsessed with only the new?"

I know that I am guilty. Many of us are. As often as we visit Paris, there is little time to return to more than a handful of favorites that demand our loyalty.

How does a beginning chef sustain his momentum in the face of this trend? Interesting question.

[Bux]

Good question Margaret, but I don't think it's up to us tourists to keep restaurants afloat, at least not singlehandedly. I know I just don't have time to explore new restaurants and revisit old ones in foreign cities, even those I return to regularly, as I do at home. Here in NY, when a restaurant opens, I know I can take my time about eating there. It will still be there later in the year and if not, it probably wan't worth my time and money anyway. In Paris, I don't know if I'll return again that year, or even the next. The problem is not in deciding where to eat, but in deciding where not to eat. The last time I was in Paris I had a few reservations and a list of other places that interested me. I didn't make all of them and the list grew as I was there. At home, however I often return to favorite restaurants. In fact, I feel the need to take friends and visitors to them so I'm bound to return.

[BigboyDan]

Ah, the shallow lives of the shallow...

[John Whiting]

Patricia Wells does not habitually move among those who keep neighborhood bistros solvent, even though she may visit them from time to time. I try to search out unfamiliar ones when I go to Paris, chosen by means of a bit of advance research. Most typically, I find that the other diners seem to know the waiters by name.

This whole milieu is the foundation on which the shakier structure of fashionable restaurants is built. The social butterflies who pride themselves on never supping twice at the same flower are the same followers of fashion who used to boast that they never missed a week at, say, Maxim's. Given the growing instability of society worldwide, it's encouraging to find so much continuity still prevailing on the fringes (in the fridges?) of Paris.

Edited February 18, 2004 by John Whiting (log)

[Freckles]

I believe that there are, indeed plenty of diners who are only in search of the latest, trendiest, freshest restaurant. However, perhaps they provide a welcome counter-weight to the numerous diners who insist on eating only dishes they have tried a hundred times before, in a venue they have been frequenting for the past 18 years. It's sort of like the "Does Starbucks belong in Paris, or should we only have traditional cafes?" question... I would say that our city is rich and diverse enough to support both.

[PaulaJK]

We are among those locally [uSA] who return to our favorite few

restaurants alhtough we also have friends who must try only the

newest and infrequently return. However, when we return to Paris

we are always torn between revisits and visiting those we have been

reading so much about. Perhaps others share this bind.

[Busboy]

My suspicion is much of this has to do with dining and food knowledge becoming fashionable in the international monied class. An alignment of social and economic forces (fewer and later kids, growing incomes among college-educated types, less time and knowledge for cooking, etc) has unleashed a cadre of "fine diners" on the restaurant world who bring serious cash and a reasonably adventurous palate to the table, but relatively less real knowledge of or desire for truly memorable cooking.

In the U.S., especially, they know much more about food that their parents did, but it isn't of primary importance to them. In France, I can't judge -- maybe it's part of their love/hate relationship with the U.S. or a fashionable desire to be more "global."

The thing that joins them, though, is that they are in search of an experience, rather than a meal -- something new, something odd, something outrageous. And, because they have cash, restaurants cater to them: spending zillions on design; attempting to lure celebreties and beautiful people; turning chefs into celebrities; fusing, deconstrucing and foaming the hell out of whatevers on the plate.

The upside is that it gives chefs a lot more leeway to experiment and change. The downside is that it promotes novelty for novelty's sake or, worse, subverts the cooking in favor of the "scene." And, oh yeah, it drives up the price of a decent meal by driving demand for hip ingredients, jacking up rents, squeezing smaller restaurants out, and putting the bottom line in the hands of investors.

Edited February 18, 2004 by Busboy (log)

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Busboy, well said. Living in an area that enjoyed enormous dot.com income and expenditure, we are well aware of the extraordinary boon to local chefs, coupled with the fickle and often callow palates of these windfall diners.

[Jonathan Day]

I started to write a reply to Margaret's opening question -- which seemed interesting, exactly the sort of thing we should be discussing here. Then I realised that I wasn't quite sure what the question or concern was.

Is it that gastro-tourists are overly focused on "scoring" reservations at L'Astrance, or el Bulli, or the French Laundry -- the handful of restaurants that have climbed to the top of the international foodie desirability pyramid? And that aspiring chefs therefore have some difficulty breaking into this magic circle?

Or is it that we tend to return to old favourites in Paris (or anywhere in France for that matter) and are therefore likely to miss the work of innovators?

I am struck by the difficulty of travelling a long distance to a particular place, with an aim of eating at specific restaurants and limited time in which to cover them all. Even at the very top, there is a randomness about cuisine and service at restaurants that means that a single visit is unlikely to give a definitive sense of how a place will deliver over time.

For me the way out of this dilemma means either many brief visits to the same place or spending significant time in one place. The latter has the advantage that you have some chance of getting to know local residents, who of course are motivated by considerations other than "scoring" hard-to-get reservations.

[Busboy]

I think that the question is, are diners -- tourists or locals -- so focused on novelty and "buzz", that the restaurants' focuses shifts away from quality food and service.

"PARIS -- One wonders if Paris is not becoming too much like New York, where trendiness and “of the moment” mean more than gastronomic quality or true fidelity to a favorite restaurant. "

In other words, in a kind of gastronomic Gresham's Law, are bad (or high gloss, as opposed to high quality) restaurants driving out the good.

The subtext being, are we -- you, me, New Yorkers and glitz-guided gastro-tourists -- part of the problem?

Edited February 20, 2004 by Busboy (log)

[tony h]

"where we may be going wrong"

in my case its not earning enough money to afford the lifestile egullet has got me accustomed to

Edited February 20, 2004 by blind lemon higgins (log)

[Katherine]

The subtext being, are we -- you, me, New Yorkers and glitz-guided gastro-tourists -- part of the problem.

Does that mean that people like me who live in a culinary backwater and rarely eat out are part of the solution?

[Busboy]

The subtext being, are we -- you, me, New Yorkers and glitz-guided gastro-tourists -- part of the problem.

Does that mean that people like me who live in a culinary backwater and rarely eat out are part of the solution?

Sadly, no. To be part of the solution, I'm afraid you will have to spend the next six months travelling to Paris bistros, Tuscan trattoria, Carolina rib joints, New England lobster shacks and the Zuni Cafe, spending money on excellent, wholesome food served in homey surroundings and avoiding the latest laquered boits opened by American TV chefs and Frenchmen who accumulate Micheline stars the way Larry King accumulates ex-wives.

Otherwise, when these places go out of business, it's your fault.

It's a tough job, but we're counting on you. In the mean time, boycott Applebee's.

Edited February 20, 2004 by Busboy (log)

[Katherine]

The subtext being, are we -- you, me, New Yorkers and glitz-guided gastro-tourists -- part of the problem.

Does that mean that people like me who live in a culinary backwater and rarely eat out are part of the solution?

Sadly, no. To be part of the solution, I'm afraid you will have to spend the next six months travelling to Paris bistros, Tuscan trattoria, Carolina rib joints, New England lobster shacks and the Zuni Cafe, spending money on excellent, wholesome food served in homey surroundings and avoiding the latest laquered boits opened by American TV chefs and Frenchmen who accumulate Micheline stars the way Larry King accumulates ex-wives.

Otherwise, when these places go out of business, it's your fault.

It's a tough job, but we're counting on you. In the mean time, boycott Applebee's.

The only time I ever stepped foot in Applebee's was when they paid me to do so. And I didn't eat there. So I ended up taking money from them.

Is that part of the solution? Chain restaurants as a mechanism for redistribution of wealth?

[Busboy]

Straying further off topic...

Actually, I think chains -- at the top and bottom of the food chain, as it were -- are part of the problem. At the Applebee's end, a mon and pop owner who accumulate equity, respect and the profits are replaced by non-equity-owning, poorly paid management and minimum wage staff. Psychic losses -- the difference between being an owner and an employee, are high, as well.

At the top, virus like replication of high-style social scenes that double as restaurants -- as good as many of them may be -- breed the kind of gustatory thrill-seeking that Margaret referenced in her original post, arguably (probably?) at the expense of restaurants with real heart and good food.

[mdibiaso]

I think I understand what Wells is hinting at. I am in Paris about two times a year. I go to Lucas Carton at least once sometimes twice each trip. While the meal at LC is not always, but often, the most memorable meal in Paris, I am convinced I enjoy my meals there much more than others because I have been there so often. The frequency means better service but as a frame of reference on the cooking and more importantly the ability to just relax and enjoy the food rather than trying to analyse the experience. Sure, there are many places in Paris I don't get to try and will never get to try. But I enjoy my meals, why look for more than that. I think what Wells is saying is why not enjoy what we have rather than worried about what we may have missed. And if you think about it how would life be if we did the same with friends, always looking for new ones to replace the old ones.

[Bux]

mdibiaso, Well said.

[DRColby]

I watch the way the French eat. What they can afford and it is not the Patricia Wells style, or NY-Herald Tribune-now-NY Times.

I watch the French lunch in Luxemborg Gardens, and on weekends and evening in places like de la Soi,l or whatever the name is of the bistro by the Porte de Clgnancourt flea market is (Margaret, I think you put us on to this place). Seeing this I don't worry too much about French food.

I think the world-wide problem is too much discressionary income that goes to resturants, and a lack of home cooking skills or apprecation of home cooking. When the French start losing their butchers - and especially offal butchers - I am going to worry.

I'd like to see us with more Anne Willans and Jaques Pepins, fewer Patricial Wells and NY Herald-NY Times reviewers. I'd also like to see more real butchers in this country and less big box beef procssors like Tyson and IA Beef Packers.

If that happened we'd have better food and better resturants.

But, then, that's just my take.

dave

[marcus]

Firstly, Wells is clearly talking about residents of Paris, not us visitors, who clearly operate on a different set of principles away from home than we would on our home territories.

She is trying to make a point about the emerging ephemeral nature of trendiness in Paris, but unfortunately uses Hiramatsu as an example. She describes Hiramatsu as being not so good, and also as having treated its customers horribly when it was in vogue. It appears to me that its fall from grace is well deserved and not to be blamed on the fickleness of the Parisians.

What she has done is tacked-on an irrelevant argument, in an attempt to spice-up her review of this restaurant, and we have been focusing on this argument rather than on the actual review. If she really wanted to make the argument, she should have named a number of restaurants and shown how they make her case. There are certainly counter examples, Astrance, serving hypertrendy food, has been going strong for about 4 years and is still the most difficult reservation in Paris. Restaurants have always been a Darwinian enterprise, independent of geography.

Finally, I have been visiting Paris for more years than I care to count and there has always been the restaurant of the moment, the small place with the new young chef, where it is impossible to make a reservation. I don't see this as anything fundamentally new.

[John Whiting]

I do think we're talking about two different culinary worlds, which to some extent overlap. Paris has always been a city of fashion; it has also been a collection of neighborhoods in which people live local lives with local loyalties (in both respects, not unlike NYC). The former are served by Michelin stars, the latter by local bistros. There are perhaps a dozen of the latter that become trendy, but many dozen which simply serve their local population. Some are ordinary, some very good indeed. It's always a joy to discover them, and the search is relatively painless if you just walk around an unfamiliar area using your eyes and your nose. With time enough, who needs published guides?

[BigboyDan]

John Whiting,

It goes deeper than that . I don't live in New York nor Paris. When I visit each I am always a tourist. Tourists do touristy things. ADPA, Le Cinq, Gangiere, etc. are in Hotels. Now, the Traveler may spend more time in a foreign city than that of a tourist. Like you. It's your money that determines whether a one star survives.

By the way, chains do serve a purpose: they keep the masses out of my favorite bargain-but-wow-what-great-food places.

[Louisa Chu]

Dan, those restaurants are in hotels because they're subsidized by hotels - not because they're for tourists. And it's not tourist money that decides whether or not one-stars - two-stars, three-stars, no stars - survive - it's local and/or regulars' money. Tourist money is very much appreciated but it's the gravy.

John, I know we're on the same side, but can I just clarify that Michelin stars do not only serve the fashionable - followers, etc. - that there are a lot of Michelin starred restaurants that are not much more than bistros - and maybe that says more about the leveling of bistros and restaurants now in Paris.

marcus, it's not clear to me that PW is not talking about tourists - and talking about resident Parisians - and if that means French or expats or whatever. But I do totally agree that this may or may even be a valid argument about so-called trendiness in Paris - and certainly irrelevant, distracting, and dangerous tacked on to a review of Hiramatsu. And I know what you mean - but if I can just make another semantic clarification - for those who don't know as you do - L'Astrance is not hypertrendy food - it's so not about trends. I went out to Rungis with M. Barbot a couple of weeks ago and had a head-spinning, heated, traffic jam discussion - literally, the traffic was backed up coming back into Paris. At some point he just kind of almost shouted at me "Mine! It's just a normal restaurant!" Yeah - right! But later - I had to concede - I know what he means - fundamentally his is just a normal restaurant. But what he's too modest to even acknowledge is that it's with an extraordinary chef.

Dave, you're thinking of Le Soleil.

But here's my serious - serious - concern with the Hiramatsu review. But let me say that I have not been - but a couple of the guys from ADPA had gone a couple of months ago and thought it was very good - it's generally considered quite good by the current top chefs. The review proclaims "How the Mighty Fall" - leads with a provocative, irrelevant argument, claims hearsay as fact with alleged cancelled reservations, backhand compliments even a good dish, says that the chef got it right only half of the time - but the only - only - serious complaint was with the veal dish - saying it tasted fishy and was way overcooked. OK. But with such a damning - crippling - review I'd expect to see something gravely - gravely - wrong. So - what gives? I'm not saying - yeah, rush out and go to Hiramatsu - but why the viscious - fatal - attack on Hiramatsu?

[BigboyDan]

Lou,

The Red Guide IS FOR TOURISTS, it IS a tourist guide!

The present-day life of a two or three star restaurant very much depends on tourists. There are only a few exceptions: Lassere, Laurent? Why would a hotel invest in a high-profile chef and his/her restaurant? Because they have tourists staying in their hotels. Locals don't pay 300 euros for dinner very often. Philippe Groult who owns Amphycles lost half his patronage after losing both of his two stars, saying, that "the Japanese and Americans don't come anymore." I did my stages at Alain Chapel and Tour d'Argent (when both had three stars each) in 1979 and 1980 respectively. Because I spoke English I spent much time telling English speaking tourists all about what they were eating.

[marcus]

but if I can just make another semantic clarification - for those who don't know as you do - L'Astrance is not hypertrendy food - it's so not about trends. I went out to Rungis with M. Barbot a couple of weeks ago and had a head-spinning, heated, traffic jam discussion - literally, the traffic was backed up coming back into Paris. At some point he just kind of almost shouted at me "Mine! It's just a normal restaurant!"

I stand by my statement that it is hypertrendy, but I meant that in the sense of trend setting, not trend following; however, the proof is what's on the plate, hypertrendy food. Perhaps after 4+ years it is now not quite as shocking as when the restaurant first opened. Note that my characterization is not intended in any way as a criticism of the restaurant. With regard to Barbot's comment re "normal restaurant", I can't imagine any French chef saying anything different, it is a response that inevitably will result out of the French cultural mindset. Journalistically, you need to dig deeper to get at the essence of L'Astrance which is not just a normal restaurant serving particularly good food. For example, the restaurant appears to be Adria influenced, is this direct or indirect, what has been the level of his contact with El Bulli? Is he willing to admit it?

I assume that you will agree that El Bulli is hypertrendy. If not, we have an issue of sematics as well.

[John Whiting]

John Whiting,

It goes deeper than that . I don't live in New York nor Paris. When I visit each I am always a tourist. Tourists do touristy things. ADPA, Le Cinq, Gangiere, etc. are in Hotels. Now, the Traveler may spend more time in a foreign city than that of a tourist. Like you.  It's your money that determines whether a one star survives.

I would have called it shallower. The foundation on which neighborhood bistros rest is their neighborhood. These are the restaurants that tell you where in the world you are without your having to ask someone.

By the way, chains do serve a purpose: they keep the masses out of my favorite bargain-but-wow-what-great-food places.

The purpose is superficial and temporary. The tastes promoted and perpetuated by the chains make the survival of the unique all the more uncertain.

EDIT: I become impatient with discussions of Michelin stars as if, like military ranks, they were the sole determinent of status. There are some restaurants which just go along their chosen paths quite independently of who comes along and sticks medals on them. If I remember correctly, a couple of London restaurants renounced their stars a couple of years ago because they were just too much trouble to maintain. They wanted to define themslves.

Edited February 22, 2004 by John Whiting (log)