Back to the Future II: Top NYC restaurants of 1968

[alacarte]

We've asked to have that feature added to version 2.0 of the software.

?? spell check? time travel?

[rich]

I just noticed on a re-read that Luchow's had three stars in 1968. I was there (at the 14th Street location) about three or four times and always during the Christmas season. The decorations were spectacular and I recall the food being quite tasty. It was truly a magnificent dining space.

Someone should re-create it. I still have a Luchow's cookbook with a 1938 publishing date. I've made a few things from it with a varying degree of success.

Edited August 26, 2004 by rich (log)

[docsconz]

I wonder how many, if any, of those restaurants would have three stars in today's New York even if they performed at their height? I think restaurant culture has come a long way since then. I wonder how many would generate even one or two stars?

[phaelon56]

I will say that Craig Claiborne seemed to have no problems handing out stars to all sorts of things.  For example, I think Chock Full of Nuts got one star and I doubt that would be possible in the current NYT.  He seemed to be very interested in food and willing to give stars based on the food, not which country the food came from and whether there were white tableclothes.  For example, several bars came out well in his reviews.  He also clearly liked both Chinese and Japanese food.

This reminds me of a small Chinese restaurant in Lyndhurst NJ on Ridge Road (Route 17) just south of Rte 3. When I first walked by it a few summers ago my attention was drawn to a photocopied and enlarged NYT review that was displayed in their fromt window. If I recall correctly it awarded them 2 1/2 stars and was rather a glowing review. Noticing that the paper on the display seemed a bit faded I looked for the original review date: 1977!

I have both eaten there and had takeout. 2 1/2 stars it ain't but it's unquestionably better than competing Chinese restaurants in the area but I have to wonder..... have tastes changed and the bar been raised or was this place really that god back in the day?

[Fat Guy]

There is at least one fairly new high end Chinese restaurant in town: Mr. K's.

Mr. K's is a good example, however, of form over substance. A three- or even borderline-four-star dining room, geared up for a potential level of service and opulence that could have competed with the Shun Lee Dynasty and Uncle Tai's type places of old, but without culinary ambition. I think it was David Rosengarten's review -- someone correct me if I'm wrong -- that was all about how Mr. K's was great so long as you ordered nothing from the menu. I believe that if Mr. K had combined the form of his restaurant concept with the substance of truly great Chinese cuisine he'd have had a three-star restaurant on his hands.

For example, if you walk on Broadway between 72nd and 86th, there are at least 3 and maybe 4 food stores that I think pre-date WWII and not one restaurant: Fairway, Zabar's, Citerlla and Murry's Sturgeon.

Murray's I can certainly believe has remained just about unchanged since opening day. It definitely feels that way. The others, though, are I think mostly creations of the 1970s and forward, driven by the renaissance of the Upper West Side that resulted from the construction of Lincoln Center.

Fairway is I think a post-war establishment -- something like 1947 -- but that's only a question of technical ownership of the original produce shop. The Fairway we know today didn't come into existence until I was in the first grade (1975), when Howard Glickberg, Harold Seybert, Dave Sneddon took over and reoriented the place towards being a Zabar's competitor but with the addition of produce.

Zabar's dates to 1934 but, again, it's not until the 1970s with the opening of the mezzanine and the Murray Klein era that it became what we today consider Zabar's to be.

Citarella, although the corporate name dates back to 1912 and the Sugar Hill store, didn't come into Joe Gurrera's hands until 1983 -- there I have a clear before and after memory of two different types of operations: a small traditional fish market versus something much more ambitious.

The point being, to address both your point and oakapple's response, these markets in their current conceptions are not too terribly old and are more personality-driven than most people might give them credit for.

In terms of the neighborhood's restaurants, that situation has to be looked at in the context of the neighborhood. How could there possibly have been a successful fine-dining restaurant on the Upper West Side around 1970, when most of the neighborhood was borderline in terms of safety and prosperity? It's barely possible to sustain such a restaurant there today, when it's one of the wealthier and safer neighborhoods in the world. Likewise, with gentrification one sees turnover in the types of establishments that service a neighborhood. A food market can adapt; it's much harder to adapt a restaurant. So the old red-sauce Italian place gives way to a more upscale "Northern Italian" place with a sidewalk cafe -- which may very well have the same owner but no way in hell is it going to have the same name.

Meanwhile, there do seem to be plenty of hangers-on at the low-end in the neighborhood: I recognize several of the same bars and diners that were there in the early 1970s (my earliest memories) and they already seemed old then.

[Pan]

This is a fascinating thread! I was born in 1965, so I don't have much to add to the central topic of this thread but would like to address a couple of tangents.

South of Canal, I can think of two restaurants off-hand that date back considerably before 1968 and are still in existence: Nam Wah Tea House on Doyers and Wo Hop on Mott St. Whether they were in a New York Times book, though, I wouldn't know.

On the subject of where a 3- or perhaps even 4-star Chinese restaurant could be opened and survive in New York today, I'd speculate that a large space some distance from the center of Flushing (Main/Roosevelt) with good parking space is the likeliest place for that, and most of its clientele would be wealthy Chinese-Americans with superb taste in food and folks from that community (by which I don't mean just Flushing Chinese, by any means) who demand the best for their wedding (etc.) banquets. And my guess is that we'll see that within the next 10 years, but then, I've never held myself up as a successful prophet...

[oakapple]

On the subject of where a 3- or perhaps even 4-star Chinese restaurant could be opened and survive in New York today, I'd speculate that a large space some distance from the center of Flushing (Main/Roosevelt) with good parking space is the likeliest place for that, and most of its clientele would be wealthy Chinese-Americans with superb taste in food and folks from that community....

A four-star Chinese restaurant would require a significant paradigm shift, since there have been no four-star Chinese restaurants in recent times. I suspect it would need to be in Manhattan, to have access to the largest number people who are willing to invest $150+pp on a meal. But because it would be a paradigm shift, it would also be a huge risk.

(I am not saying that price of meal is what determines the rating — Megu is a great example showing it does not — but a four-star rating simply requires a level of luxury that doesn't come cheap.)

[Pan]

Oakapple, my feeling is that a 3- or 4-star Chinese restaurant would have to be anchored by a wealthy Chinese clientele, not a non-Chinese clientele. But this discussion at the moment is purely theoretical. I wonder if there's already a truly expensive luxe Chinese restaurant somewhere on the West Coast with fantastic food that would arguably fit the profile of a 4-star restaurant. I think some discussions in the California Forum have alluded to places that might be candidates. There was some "going all-out for Chinese in the San Gabriel (?) Valley" thread that I can't find.

[Todd36]

By price, there are already 4 star Chinese and Japanese restaurants in town. In Chinatown, I mostly eat at Oriental Garden, and although you can't tell from the menu, you could spend well over a $100 a person there on food without difficulty. It is a seafood place, and most of the better stuff isn't on the menu. Start with the live shrimp and just go from there. It's got white tableclothes, and more service staff than usual in Chinatown, but not exactly 4 stars. My guess is that adding 4 star service would increase prices significantly, and that may be one reason why they haven't done it. I know based on conversations with the owner of a high end Japanese place that creating 4 star service would increases prices beyond what his customers would pay (they will barely pay the current price). I have a little guess as to why four star restaurants in NYC are French or French-like: WINE! Chinese and Japanese restaurants are never going to be able to sell highly marked up wine, which I suspect is a very main source of profit at say Jean-Georges. How many three and four stars are BYOB?

But this entire conversation has me a bit concerned. Two of my favorite foods in NYC are cold borscht and lima-bean stew (each about $3 a bowl) at a very not nice to look at restaurant. In fact, they are better made than some food I have had at very expensive places, places that get three and four stars. I go to a restaurant for the food, not to see how expensive the tableware is. The idea that fancy service is more critical than the food, or even as critical as the food, seems bizarre to me, and brings back 19th century notions of canned food from S.S. Pierce served in silver toureens.

[Fat Guy]

I don't see it as "more critical." The food always forms the baseline. You can never make bad food into four-star food by improving decor and service. In this regard stars can serve to distinguish restaurants with equally excellent food but with variance in service, decor, culinary aesthetics, etc. As I've mentioned a few times on eGullet, it's best not to view the stars as a value judgment about one thing being morally superior to another. Rather, the stars are a classification system that attempts to be communicative. It is no insult to be a one-star restaurant if you offer a food/decor/service package at a certain price point and level of ambition. Under those circumstances it's high praise to get a star, because it means you've succeeded at what you set out to do.

In terms of four-star Chinese restaurants, I see two levels to the inquiry. First, there is the matter of recapturing the level of Chinese dining that existed at Shun Lee Dynasty, Uncle Tai's, et al. -- in other words just getting back to the level we were at 35 years ago. Second, there is the matter of context: 35 years ago the four-star bar was simply lower. So if Shun Lee Dynasty could be imported in its entirety from the past to today, it would probably at best get one star less than it got back then. In order to push it to four, it would need to have an additional uptick in food and service -- although they could still use the Russel Wright tableware.

I agree with Oakapple that a paradigm shift of sorts would be needed to get to a four-star Chinese restaurant. But to be clear the paradigm shift would need to occur among restaurateurs and consumers. The critics are and have long been completely ready to give four stars to non-French restaurants. Craig Claiborne did it. Ruth Reichl wanted nothing more than to do it but couldn't find a serious candidate (she nonetheless pushed all bounds of credibility by giving three stars to places that deserved one or none), and Frank Bruni has explicitly indicated a willingness to consider any and all cuisines for four stars. So I think sometimes when people suggest that the star system is rigged against non-French restaurants they put the cart before the horse. It seems to me that the non-French/non-nouvelle-American four-star restaurants just aren't being built, not because restaurateurs think they won't get enough stars but because they think that no matter how many stars they get they won't be able to fill a $150 per head Chinese restaurant every night.

Sure, there are plenty of Chinese restaurants like Oriental Garden where it's possible to spend $150 a head, or even $1000+ a head if you get into exotic ingredients like the various levels of abalone and shark fin. But st most of those restaurants you can also have dinner for $25 per person based on entrees that range from $8 to $18, not to mention you can get a $5.95 General Tso's chicken lunch special with choice of white rice or brown rice, soup or egg roll. The question isn't can you spend $150 at a Chinese restaurant; the question is can a Chinese restaurant succeed if everybody who walks through the door has to spend $150 or more.

I have no doubt that a Chinese luxury restaurant would sell less wine than Daniel does, but it could sell a decent amount of wine through an ambitious wine program. It could also make up the shortfall in other areas: just as in any given luxury dining room most people are spending less than $100 on wine and a few rich folks are spending $5000, in a Chinese luxury dining room you can have most people spending $150 on food but a few rich folks spending thousands of dollars on abalone and the like -- and of course a luxury environment encourages that sort of spending one-upsmanship.

It will be interesting to see what happens if and when 66 hits its stride and gets re-reviewed, preferably by a critic with a clue. With improvement, 66 could no doubt be a three-star Chinese restaurant. At that point, once the template for three-star Chinese dining circa 2005 is created, it's mostly a question of money and ambition to modify that template in order to push across into four-star territory. I do think that if we have a four-star restaurant between now and 2010 it will be more like 66 than Shun Lee Dynasty, and that if we have a four-star Japanese restaurant it will not grow out of Sushi Yasuda and Kuruma Zushi (which I think may have reached the apex of that genre unless one thinks Masa should get four stars) but, rather, out of a modernized version of Sugiyama or Inagiku, or a smaller and more disciplined version of Megu.

[Todd36]

I don't have that 1968 book handy (I left it in the office), but it lists a number of large and expensive sounding places in the Lincoln Center area, none of which exist today. Most of Broadway betwen about 60th and 71st is covered with large high rise modern buildings. Of course, you can argue if that is the upper west side!!! In any case, on the east side of Broadway from about 60th to about 69th, I think every building is post 1965, and perhaps 1970. The west side of the street isn't much better. If there ever were any decent restaurants in that area, they probably didn't survive losing their buildings. Not to mention Lincoln Towers, which blew up 10 or so blocks. In fact, from 59th to 70th and west of Broadway, all the way to the river, almost nothing pre-dates WWII. Between Lincoln Center, Lincoln Towers, the largish public housing complex and apartment buildings on Broadway, almost nothing pre-dates WWII. In fact, the public housing is one of the few things that pre-dates 1965. Maybe this is one of the reasons why restaurants don't last long in NYC.

[David Lerner]

I guess my father really was a foodie...several of the places on the 3 star list were our family haunts in the 60s...of them, only Copenhagen was upscale in terms of service or ambience.

Bo Bo (Chinese)

first dim sum restaurant in New York, only on Sundays. Also great steamed pork buns

Copenhagen (Danish)

Amazing (for a kid) buffet on weekends...probably what you'd find in a fancy hotel these days

El Faro (Spanish)

Chicken vilarroy, paella, Pork with almond sauce, beef with green sauce, fantastic natillia...

(So why was pork a featured item at two of three places my family went after Sunday School at Temple Emanuel?)

[Todd36]

I think there has always been some money on the upper west side, and I think the area must have always supported something that was expensive. Depends on what you define as the upper west side, but Cafe Des Artistes has been around for a while.....and it isn't cheap. And while Zabar's et al may have changed over time, I'm not sure what that means. Few places stand really still. Canned peas would have been acceptable in 1930 in winter...think they still are? Tastes change, I admit. But to this day, one of Zabar's strongest points is its smoked fish, something Fairway is decent at and Citarella is bad at. Citarella is still strongest at Fish, and now meat. Since Citarella is part of I think the second largest fish wholesaler in the city, I think is still is a fish market. And push come to shove, Fairway still is a fruit and vegtable stand at its core. My grandfather probably took me to Zabar's first in the late 1970's. Even at that point, it was a very famous store.

In terms of how important is the decor, the moment you say a place needs Limoges you answer the question: to you, decor is more important. What you seem to be saying is: no matter how good the food is, if the decor and service are not good enough, it can't get four stars. So if for example, Jean Georges shut down all of his places, and took over All State Cafe (which has a well equipped kitchen for a bar), kept the current slightly competent wait staff, spent 10 hours in the kitchen every day and charged say $100 for a pre fix, and changed nothing but the food from the current All State Cafe, it couldn't rate 4 stars under your system. I suspect that if Jean Georges really did this, the food would be better than at any of his current restaurants. But the profits to him would be much lower. To me, it would be a four star restaurant (although I admit I would prefer better service for the money).

[Fat Guy]

But that doesn't make decor more important than food. One way to think of it is to say that concerns of decor and service operate at the margins: you need the foundation of food to bring you up to the category threshold but you need the other bits to push you across into the next category. Although, I think of the system as more holistic than that in practice. But it's not "my" system anyway. I'm describing the system that exists, not only for the New York Times but also for Michelin and pretty much any major organization that has devoted the time and effort to developing a star-based rating system -- it always comes out the same way. You could design a different system where you could get four stars for serving great food on paper plates, and you could like that system better, but it wouldn't be the system.

Now it so happens that I think the system, in addition to actually being the system, makes a lot of sense -- it's no coincidence that whether you're Michelin, the Times, Mobil, or AAA, once you approach this sort of thing institutionally over time you wind up with similar systems. And as a result I know that a NYT four-star/Michelin three-star/AAA five diamond/whatever restaurant is going to provide a certain level of experience: a luxury package of food, decor, and service. I don't have to worry that I'm going to show up at a four-star restaurant and it's going to be the All State Cafe with Jean-Georges's food. Not that it would bother me if I did, but radical foodies like me are not any successful business's target audience. And since no such restaurant exists, we don't currently need a system that describes it. The closest thing we have is a restaurant like Masa, which presents a quirky challenge to the star system, but such an example doesn't justify uprooting the whole system, which works for most restaurants that are likely to be the subject of review -- indeed the (questionable) strategy thus far has been to review Masa but not to give it a rating at all.

Then again in 1968 Peter Luger presented a challenge (best-of-its-kind food served unartfully) and seems to have been given four stars despite its non-decor and at-best-utilitarian service, but from a normative standpoint I have to think that rating was a glitch and has to do with the system at the time being under development and lacking in institutional precedent. Either that, or Peter Luger was a very different restaurant at that time, surrounded by a context that's even more different than I'm giving it credit for.

I've tried to be a well-behaved manager of content by splitting the Upper West Side restaurant history issue off into its own topic. In terms of the star system, I'm dreading what will happen to me when Sam Kinsey wakes up and finds another star system debate on a topic that wasn't supposed to be about that, so I better duck out of that one except insofar as the 1968 versus 2004 sub-issue is concerned.