Bouley

[Holly Moore]

I've not dined at Bouley - just read Bruni's review.

If it wasn't the Times, I'd suspect new critic syndrome. Trumpet one's presence by butchering a sacred cow or two. I still suspect that, but hope the Times would not condone such posturing.

My other concern:

About the desserts at Bouley, there can be little complaint...

It may be just the way the guy turns a phrase, but I sensed a bit of disappointment on Bruni's part. A critic whose mission was to find fault but couldn't - at least not with the desserts.

[rich]

My other concern:

About the desserts at Bouley, there can be little complaint...

It may be just the way the guy turns a phrase, but I sensed a bit of disappointment on Bruni's part. A critic whose mission was to find fault but couldn't - at least not with the desserts.

Excellent Holly. Beware of someone who gives a compliment in the negative.

[Fat Guy]

Everybody who is invested in good food in the United States is invested in Bouley, voluntarily or not. We're not talking about some schmuck with an irrelevant little restaurant on a hard-to-find block in TriBeCa. We're talking about the only American-born four-star chef as of this Tuesday, and one of the most talented cuisiniers on these shores. And while Ducasse and Keller have certainly raised the bar in terms of luxury, Bouley was raising the bar before Ducasse had his Michelin stars and when Thomas Keller was slinking out of New York, tail between his legs, after the failure of Rakel and before the idea for the French Laundry even existed. He has cooked and can cook at the Ducasse and Keller level -- or, more accurately, at the Joel Robuchon level (among his other mentors are Roger Verge, Paul Bocuse, Gaston Lenotre, and Fredy Girardet) -- and his cuisine has a personal, manic edge to it that has made many in my generation and the previous generation of critics and customers swoon. I think if you asked the current fraternity of four-star chefs whether Bouley is a member of that group, every one of them would issue forth with a resounding yes. And I think there's little question that the whole idea of morphing Bouley Bakery back into Bouley was to bring the physical plant up to four-star standards (the kitchen was always intended to be there). Now, if his restaurant doesn't deserve four stars, it doesn't deserve four stars. Were I in the position of awarding stars, maybe I'd also be issuing a demotion. Or maybe I'd never have given Bouley Bakery four stars in the first place. But I'd feel compelled to approach Bouley from a certain direction, a direction that I don't think Frank Bruni has any sense of. Just because you miss the party doesn't mean you can't try to understand what transpired there. I missed Woodstock, but I can understand why it was important.

[Pan]

Holly and rich: Wasn't the context that he was discussing desserts after discussing savory dishes, about which he found some complaint?

[mikeyrad]

Aug. 4, 1966 (interesting that eGullet and I have the same birthday, albeit years apart).

My birthday is also an Aug. 4. Cool.

[Holly Moore]

Holly and rich: Wasn't the context that he was discussing desserts after discussing savory dishes, about which he found some complaint?

I took the context to be that he had been complaining all through the review but couldn't come up with a reason to complain about the dessert. More broadly, that Bruni's agenda that evening was to unearth flaws and Bouley's desserts presented no such opportunity.

But like I said, it may just be his phrasing.

[xyz123]

I don't believe that an impartial reviewer would grant Bouley more than 3-stars. The standard has been raised considerably since Bouley first came on the scene.

Well put fat guy

The standards have not been raised but imitated.

Bouley along with The Quilted Giraffe

Have set the standards that every 4 star restaurant uses today across the country.

Yes including French Laundry and Charlie Trotter’s.

Every heavy hitter in US including

Jean Georges, Charlie Trotter, Daniel Boulud, Thomas Keller etc, have praised or called Bouley a genius.

[docsconz]

No one here or Frank Bruni is denigrating David Bouley's importance to the history of cuisine in New York, the United States or even the world. The man is and has been a giant. The question at hand, though is how is his eponymous restaurant performing now? By most accounts here and according to Mr. Bruni it is at the three star level. History is important, but goes only so far. This may be the best thing for Mr. Bouley and for his dining public in the long run if it inspires him to renewed and further greatness.

[Fat Guy]

I do hope that's the happy ending in all this. I have no fundamental problem with the three-star ranking -- I could go either way depending on the points of emphasis. I just think Frank Bruni comes to it from the wrong direction.

[robyn]

Bux, one additional piece of context on the Bouley/Red-Cross issue: it's true that many, many restaurants and institutions opened up their kitchens to provide food for the relief workers, but that was mostly in the short term. Bouley took on a much more significant and long-term burden of feeding the crews for much of the duration of the cleanup. You can find some of the statistics in the Observer piece.

The thing is, none of this was explored in the Frank Bruni review. There was just that little damning hint of a crisis of morality. It seems to me that, if there is a story to be told that is truly relevant to Bouley today, it has to do with Bouley's relationships with suppliers. All those lawsuits and collections . . . is he currently able to get the best products or not? And for that matter, is he able to attract the best employees? If the answer to each question is yes, it would seem to negate the comments Frank Bruni chose to present. If the answer to either question is no, it would have been important to say so.

Thanks to everyone for the links on the Red Cross situation. And I also did a bit of reading on my own today.

I have to tell you that as a stranger to the situation - the implication I got from the article (and I'm no dummy) was that Bouley had stolen or misappropriated money from the Red Cross. And that simply isn't true. What is true is he was the low bidder on the Red Cross contract - and he apparently made quite a bit of money on it. There are allegations that he was able to come up with the low bid because he was using volunteer help and donated food - but I don't know the truth. And there apparently were employees and suppliers who were unhappy at not being paid at the time he was making money under the contract. Then there is the lawsuit against his insurance company which was settled last year - where the insurance company alleged that he overstated his 9/11 losses by not divulging the Red Cross contract proceeds as income (he claimed the legal entities for the restaurant and the contract were separate).

Overall - I can't see how any of this is relevant except possibly to the extent that he engendered some bad blood in the employee and supplier community - and is therefore at a (possible) disadvantage now when it comes to hiring staff or buying supplies. I don't like people who don't pay their employees - or their bills. But that's a far cry from stealing money from the Red Cross.

Note that I used to write for a living - and I always tried to get my facts straight. Any editor at the NYT should have known this stuff - and any responsible editor (in my opinion) should have redlined that part of the review as written. I have noticed a certain sloppiness in recent years in the NYT when it comes to grammar and spelling. Apparently that sloppiness is now working its way into factual content. Robyn

[robyn]

I missed Woodstock, but I can understand why it was important.

My claim to fame among my young nieces is that I went to Woodstock . You wouldn't have liked it (there wasn't much food - and what there was wasn't very good - except the BBQ chicken I brought from home - which I traded for drugs ). Robyn

[victornet]

I often disagree with fatguy, but when he said:

I missed Woodstock, but I can understand why it was important.

he hit David Bouley on the head. ( I missed it too - I had tickets for the last day, by which time you could not get within 100 miles). But we're still talking about it over 30 years later. There are few NY chefs besides Bouley about whom you will be able to say this. He made history. His restaurant may not rate 4 stars, but the review does not convey how high a bar it clears at points.

The 3 stars is consistent with my last meal there ( a 4 star chef in a 3 star restaurant), and I agree with the sense that Bruni must not have been in NY during his glory days (I always felt Bouley was (at least at times - Charlie Trotter has had his transcendental moments as well) the best chef I had experienced short of Robouchon, who changed my life in 1 meal back inthe original Jamin).

The problem with the review is indeed its failure to convey how great the best dishes are. Reading it, my suspicion was that it was a prelude to elevating Per Se to 4 stars while maintaining his toughness. And my sister spent a lot of time volunteering in Bouley's kitchen after 9/11, so I'm unsympathetic to the whole idea of putting Bouley down for what he did to feed the rescuers for months - whether he covered his financial ass or not.

No one has mentioned the lamps! The thing I always hated about the original Bouley (besides the jacket and tie requirement) was the funky little lamps on each table, who's cords inevitably got mixed up with the dishes. Funny how Bouley's taste for lamps raises its ugly head.

Without disagreeing on ratings, I agree Bruni is off to a rough start. I always marked Grimes reviews up by a star, but his texts were good. It's too early to decide about Bruni.

[BSpielman]

In my opinion, four-star cooking can too often be subverted by significantly less than four-star service. A restaurant of the caliber of Bouley (or The French Laundry, for that matter; see my recent post) that presents the check coffee shop-style before it is requested under no circumstances deserves four stars, reverential comments hereabouts about the chef notwithstanding.

[ErinB]

I have to say that I am not convinced that Bouley is even aiming to be a 4-star restaurant. I see it as a 3-star restaurant that is capable of delivering a 4-star experience. In my estimation Bouley should be compared to Grammercy Tavern or Babbo rather than ADNY, Per Se or Daniel.

One thing to consider, that hasn't been mentioned. A tasting menu at Bouley is $75. A tasting menu at Per Se is $150. I'm not sure about Jean-Georges and ADNY, and I know that Bouley is in Tribeca, but honestly, if Bouley was aiming for more, I'd think he'd have to raise his prices. Or, maybe I'm wrong.

Part of the reason why I'm going is because $75 is a relative bargain .... as long as the meals not off. *fingers crossed*

[greenfield]

I really thought today's review was well written and very interesting. I have considered eating at Bouley, but a couple of my friends have had very poor experiences there. They found that the service was poor and unprofessional and the food was inconsistent. This has been over the past year or two.

This isn't to say that Bouley has never been a four-star restaurant. In fact, all of my friends who went there felt that the restaurant went downhill. They enjoyed the previous incarnations of Bouley quite a bit more. Interestingly, my friends' experiences mirrored those of Bruni.

I thought it was a well-timed review. Was Bouley ready for a re-review? E-Gullet members seemed to think so; check out the four star thread. Bouley was definitely a restaurant that people were discussing. I certainly wanted to know Bruni's opinion, and I am an avid NY Times reader.

I definitely agree that the review read as more of a two-star review than a three-star review. I get the feeling that Bruni was quite underwhelmed. While it may have been nice to read more about the dishes he liked, I'm not sure that would have been compelling or necessary.

[Licious]

I know that Bouley has been around for quite awhile and I have to assume that he is spending less time in the kitchen. Where is his Chef de Cuisine through all of this. Not once have I heard mention of him. Certainly this does not mean that Bouley is cleared of his responsibility to run his restaurant and spend his time to make sure that it runs the way he wants it to, but when you have a Chef de Cuisine a great deal of that responsibility falls on his shoulders. Lets face it Daniel is not always in the kitchen either.

[oakapple]

Without disagreeing on ratings, I agree Bruni is off to a rough start. I always marked Grimes reviews up by a star, but his texts were good. It's too early to decide about Bruni.

What's interesting is that the arguments here are about the quality of the writing. Nobody has made a passionate case that Bruni got the actual rating wrong. And I don't think he's gotten one wrong yet.

One thing to consider, that hasn't been mentioned. A tasting menu at Bouley is $75. A tasting menu at Per Se is $150. I'm not sure about Jean-Georges and ADNY, and I know that Bouley is in Tribeca, but honestly, if Bouley was aiming for more, I'd think he'd have to raise his prices. Or, maybe I'm wrong.

Fascinating observation. Bouley's tasting menu is indeed priced below, and in some cases considerably below, the current four-stars. But do restaurants get high ratings just because they're expensive, or do high expenses allow restaurants to do the things that win four-star ratings? I think it's the latter.

Someone suggested that Bouley isn't even striving for four stars. You wouldn't know it from the devastated reaction of chopjwu12 and his colleagues who work there.

In my opinion, four-star cooking can too often be subverted by significantly less than four-star service. A restaurant of the caliber of Bouley (or The French Laundry, for that matter; see my recent post) that presents the check coffee shop-style before it is requested under no circumstances deserves four stars, reverential comments hereabouts about the chef notwithstanding.

I wouldn't say "under no circumstances," but to borrow a phrase from Mr. Bruni, that gaffe was emblematic of why Bouley is no longer operating at that level.

Edited June 24, 2004 by oakapple (log)

[GordonCooks]

One thing to consider, that hasn't been mentioned. A tasting menu at Bouley is $75. A tasting menu at Per Se is $150. I'm not sure about Jean-Georges and ADNY, and I know that Bouley is in Tribeca, but honestly, if Bouley was aiming for more, I'd think he'd have to raise his prices. Or, maybe I'm wrong.

The Chef's seasonal tasting is 110.00-120.00 is memory serves. I think the wine pairing was 75.00 a person as well.

[Fat Guy]

Bouley does offer excellent value, which is not the same as saying the tasting menu costs less than at the other restaurants in its league -- rather, the point is that you get a lot of excellence and expertise for what you pay. But a four-star rating isn't about value or price. Still, both are always worth highlighting in a review to the extent they vary from the norm, whether the number of stars being awarded is four, three, two, one, or zero. There are plenty of things worth mentioning in reviews that don't ultimately impact the star rating.

One of many things that might have been worth mentioning vis-a-vis Bouley's uniqueness, in addition to David Bouley's now-former status as last-remaining American-born four-star chef, is the mening of the restaurant's location in terms of factors other than the Red Cross "scandal." All the other four-star restaurants are in or near Midtown. Bouley, even more so than the formerly four-star Chanterelle, has always been a different kind of four-star restaurant: less formal, more relaxed, less expensive, more approachable, less opulent. As William Grimes explained Bouley Bakery, "Bouley Bakery retains the feel of a small neighborhood restaurant. Diners feel comfortable showing up in shirtsleeves, and the staff shrewdly maintains a delicate balance between informality and the more disciplined level of service implicit in the food and decor." This kind of four-star informality dovetails with comments Amanda Hesser made in one of the only good things she wrote during her interim critic stint, the "No Tablecloth? This Is Fine Dining?" piece.

So I think expectations regarding the formal-restaurant-service model need to be somewhat modified with respect to a venture that is simultaneously trying to be a four-star restaurant yet maintain a cultural and attitudinal attachment to its own location. Likewise, I think the real story with respect to 9/11 is not the Red Cross story but the economic one that persists to this day. There are still something like 60,000 office workers who are no longer working in the Ground Zero area. Despite some remarkable recoveries by local businesses, the economic strain continues.

Bouley has been struggling against this reality now for almost three years -- there is no option to raise prices -- and now of course with the loss of a star there will be additional economic pressure. Not that such economic factors would ever justify giving a restaurant a higher rating than it deserves. But what they might justify is forbearance on a re-review, especially if it can be established that the restaurant is in the process of righting itself. In Bouley's case, the word on the street for months now has been that David Bouley is well aware of the restaurant's vulnerability and has been hauling ass to bring on additional staff and push for higher performance. So while the three-star rating as of today is not likely to be subject to much debate, the decision to review the restaurant at this time on a snapshot basis -- and I think as a means to an end (which may be okay when you're reaffirming ratings but not when you're demoting a restaurant) -- is one I'd have considered not making. I'd probably have waited a couple of months, revisited a couple of times, and looked for some improvement. If the restaurant was trending upwards I'd continue to hold off on the review.

Does anybody here know David Bouley personally? Or have you overheard him in a conversation ever? I can just imagine him on the phone with Frank Bruni, "What do you want me to do, Frank? Pull a four-star restaurant out of my ass with no money?"

[ahr]

Might there be a budding thread in here about the responsibilities, if any, of a restaurant reviewer -- or any critic -- to parties other than his readers, i.e., beyond providing the best evaluation and recommendations of which he is capable?

[marcus]

Might there be a budding thread in here about the responsibilities, if any, of a restaurant reviewer -- or any critic -- to parties other than his readers, i.e., beyond providing the best evaluation and recommendations of which he is capable?

Yes, this is the key point. The newspaper reviewer, for whatever discipline, is only responsible to the public. Worrying about impact on the industry, advertizers, or other parties with a business interest is a slippery slope that, in my opinion, should never be contemplated.

[marcus]

The Chef's seasonal tasting is 110.00-120.00 is memory serves. I think the wine pairing was 75.00 a person as well.

Bouley offers a number of menu options, the $75 tasting menu, for example, is not really a tasting menu, but a four course option with slightly reduced portion sizes. The top of the line menu, which is chef's choice, is composed of 6 savory dishes in half portion size chosen from the chef's finest offerings and is composed of dishes selected from the menu and off-menu as well. This is followed by 3 deserts. It costs $135 and is probably most comparable to the Per Se 9 course tasting menu for $150.

Edited June 24, 2004 by marcus (log)

[Fat Guy]

Might there be a budding thread in here about the responsibilities, if any, of a restaurant reviewer -- or any critic -- to parties other than his readers, i.e., beyond providing the best evaluation and recommendations of which he is capable?

Yes, this is the key point. The newspaper reviewer, for whatever discipline, is only responsible to the public. Worrying about impact on the industry, advertizers, or other parties with a business interest is a slippery slope that, in my opinion, should never be contemplated.

Likewise, saying the critic is purely responsible to the public is a slippery slope that leads to lowest-common-denominator pandering. The way I see it, a critic isn't responsible to the readers or anybody else at all. The critic is not the newspaper's equivalent of the city's Public Advocate or the paper's Reader's Editor. Rather, the critic, as a critic, is responsible to the cause of excellence in his field and, as a journalist, is responsible to the cause of excellent journalism as circumscribed by the somewhat different mission a critic has from a news reporter. So I don't really see a critic as having direct obligations to the public, the paper, the restaurant industry, etc. The commitment to excellence dictates everything else.

[marcus]

Likewise, saying the critic is purely responsible to the public is a slippery slope that leads to lowest-common-denominator pandering.

This just doesn't follow. Providing best service to one's customer is not pandering and does not lead to pandering when done properly. I would be interested as to what a NYT critic would say regarding this question.

[R Washburn]

Will losing a star have any significant financial impact on Bouley? I don't think so. I know it makes no difference to my decision whether or not to dine there. Star ratings are going to mean a lot more to a new restaurant that is still trying to establish themself. There is no doubt in my mind that David Bouley is a four star chef, but I don't think he has a 4-star venue.

Whatever Bouley's Zagat rating is would have a much bigger impact than a NYTimes star ranking. I am sure alot of diners check out the top rated Zagat restaurants as a starting point for deciding what might be the best restaurant to try.

Whether or not Bruni properly handled the review I do think it was important to either demote Bouley to 3-stars, since it did not meet the standards opf a 4-star restaurant in all categories. It is unfair to hold Bouley to a lower standard then ADNY or Daniel.