The power of Michelin - Merged topics

[Ptipois]

That said I can quite easily cook basic food like galettes and cheeseburgers at home so I am less focussed on searching this type of food when I visit restaurants. If I, or my friends (to Margaret's point),  can produce the food why pay a premium to enjoy it in a restaurant?

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Well, good question. Why indeed?

There are plenty of options between "basic food" (which cheeseburgers are perhaps, but I wouldn't be so sure about galettes, given the skill it takes to make them right) and overpriced, hit-and-miss restaurant food of nowadays.

Why indeed? That question I have asked myself countless times going out of restaurants, particularly in Paris these days (because it is where I live). Taking several factors in account:

1. The general poor quality/price ratio of restaurant meals in Paris, especially in a dangerous layer of pricing that would be, say, between 40 and 100 € — apart from exceptions like L'Ami Jean (I'll go back to that), it has become very rare to find a really yummy meal under that pricing;

2. The near-total disappearance of the low-priced/honestly cooked restaurant meal in Paris, i.e. of the cheap bistrot, to the benefit of the quaint, hyped and overpriced;

3. The near-total disappearance of traditional service to the benefit of fancy platings and therefore "assembly line"-type food (come on guys, nouvelle cuisine was 40 years ago... If you can't think of something new, why not find your inspiration in earlier periods after all?).

4. The hype maintained around some "sacred" addresses long after they have stopped being of any interest, Camdeborde's Comptoir being the cas d'école but Mon Vieil Ami being another good example;

5. The fact that when you go to a 1-2-3-starred restaurant you are not guaranteed to get a truly satisfying meal; it could be stellar and make you happy, or boring and heavy and make you furious, and there's nothing to differentiate that in advance (unless you have the experience), and in both cases it costs the same; and the related fact that even going to a 1-starred restaurant (like Auguste in Paris for instance) you may be served a stale steak of charolais that stinks because someone out there has decided that lean, unmarbled meat could be aged. Or worse, because someone out there just served you stale meat. Okay, not such a big deal, but seriously — 1 star?

And other reasons that I don't have in mind right now, lead me gradually, out of precaution, to stick to good places serving non-French cooking (Chinese, Maghrebi, Japanese, Southeast Asian, African) and avoid French food at Parisian restaurants. Why is that? Because those places, even when they have a style of their own and a chef with a personality, are content with interpreting their classics and stay within the repertoire of their traditional cooking styles. And I don't give a damn whether it's innovative, creative or not; I only want it to be good. I wish many French restaurants would go back to these principles, but do they still have access to them?

Why are places like L'Ami Jean or Racines so precious? Because, while certainly not being stuck in the past, they have retained the link with the cooking styles of former generations and the very French, family style of cooking which is directly linked to good cuisine bourgeoise, authentic bistrot cooking and the essence of true traditional haute cuisine. They have "it". And notwithstanding the chefs' skills and expertise, a large portion of their dishes could be done at home in the best conditions, by an able traditional cook as the "cuisinières de maison" used to be. The keywords are simplicity, honesty and taste. It is a sad fact that among so-called "medium-priced" Parisian restaurants those that offer that kind of quality can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

I am now studying a cheapie book I picked up at the abbaye de Saint-Wandrille monastic shop the other day (books, jams, honeys, wood polish, etc.). The book is on traditional Norman cooking and the contents are obtained from many sources, apparently verbatim, and seem to date back to the first half of the 20th century. It cost me 9 euros. Printed on cheap paper, no pictures, the cover photo stinks, plenty of typos in the text with the odd ingredient missing from the recipes, but what a treasure! Simple, straightforward, superior home cooking based on excellent products. Now that was predictable. What was not predictable is the art of taste that shines through those recipes: the way certain jus and fonds are made, sometimes through very quick reductions, little details that make all the difference. In one word, age-old wisdom, tours de main, secret tricks. This is "popular food", country food, and in some ways what you would call "basic food"; and reading those recipes made me remember exactly why they have always been unequalled: because of details you can taste and smell but do not show when the dish is finished. In most restaurants nowadays, this is completely absent.

In early 21st century France, who still does that? A few starred chefs still do, a few chefs in country auberges and bistrots all over France still do, and some people in their home kitchens still do (I do), which is my point when I write that most medium-priced (and some higher-priced) restaurant food is no longer worth the premium.

Edited August 15, 2008 by Ptipois (log)

[Margaret Pilgrim]

....the art of taste that shines through those recipes: the way certain jus and fonds are made, sometimes through very quick reductions, little details that make all the difference. In one word, age-old wisdom, tours de main, secret tricks. This is "popular food", country food, and in some ways what you would call "basic food"; and reading those recipes made me remember exactly why they have always been unequalled: because of details you can taste and smell but do not show when the dish is finished. In most restaurants nowadays, this is completely absent.

In early 21st century France, who still does that? A few starred chefs still do, a few chefs in country auberges and bistrots all over France still do, and some people in their home kitchens still do (I do), which is my point when I write that most medium-priced (and some higher-priced) restaurant food is no longer worth the premium.

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And for the past several years I have been taking this personally, that I was choosing our restaurants and ordering our meals badly. I can't decide whether your comments are reassuring or devastating.

Edited August 15, 2008 by Margaret Pilgrim (log)

[Ptipois]

And for the past several years I have been taking this personally, that I was choosing our restaurants and ordering our meals badly.  I can't decide whether your comments are reassuring or devastating.

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Well, at least in my professional life, I can tell you they're close to devastating my reputation.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

And for the past several years I have been taking this personally, that I was choosing our restaurants and ordering our meals badly.  I can't decide whether your comments are reassuring or devastating.

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Well, at least in my professional life, I can tell you they're close to devastating my reputation.

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I'm not sure that I interpret your comments correctly, but I would hope that we, the visiting, dining and cooking public, can depend on reading your on target reflections. If others think that their toes are being stepped on, perhaps they should rethink their product and presentation.

[Ptipois]

I'm not sure that I interpret your comments correctly, but I would hope that we, the visiting, dining and cooking public, can depend on reading your on target reflections.  If others think that their toes are being stepped on, perhaps they should rethink their product and presentation.

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No worry about that, I only meant that my position about those questions is rather an isolated one among the "food commentators" professions. Innovation and creativity are considered supreme values without ever being analysed and questioned seriously as to why and how. Apparently no one is willing to acknowledge the obvious emperor's-new-clothes phenomenon that we see now in most "new and exciting" restaurants: the more originality is sought, the more uniformity is produced. Originality has to be applied to such a narrow conceptual frame, which is the same all over the world, that everybody ends up doing the same thing. And originality that can only be produced along certain lines is the contrary of originality. Originality should be at least a little surprising; when was the last time you were actually surprised in a good way by anything served in a contemporary restaurant or néo-bistrot?

During my meal at Sa.qua.na last month, there were about 10 or 12 services and only the 3 first services did trigger a reaction in me. Other services seemed dull because the first thing I sensed was how much brain juice went into them. The only dessert worth mentioning was a mignardise, a strawberry on a toothpick, lightly covered in meringue. So, say, only 4 items out of 12. And nobody around me finds that particularly inacceptable, everybody's used to that. I think something went wrong with the notion of creativity somewhere along the way. When "creative cooking" goes that way, I think it is time for someone to pull the alarm sign. (Not to mention the fact that we were in the heart of Normandy and the butter they served was Breton.)

A young chef who would study the recipes I am reading in that cheap old Norman book, or even a good book of 1930's économie domestique and propose an updated, personal version of them without looking at what others do would, in my mind, be truly innovative. Forget the style. Forget how chic it should be. Forget the social acceptability, the so-called universality which is nothing more than the globalized levelling to the demands of a certain class. Just think of the taste.

Edited August 16, 2008 by Ptipois (log)

[Abra]

I agree 99% that the more they try, the more they all try the same thing. But here's the meal we had in January at La Cabro D'Or, in Les Baux de Provence. There they have a star, and the food resembles to some extent the very food I was complaining about, with one small exception: every bite was stunningly delicious. The entire meal makes reference to tradition, but updates the flavors and ingredients just the right amount. That's what I'm always looking for.

[Ptipois]

I admired your meal at La Cabro d'Or when you posted it. Everything looks utterly delicious by my standards. But it is not particularly representative of what I mean by "new and exciting" restaurant. The plating is not even show-offy, it only conveys that the main concern of the chef was to please his guests. In my book, this isn't the repetitive, globalized cuisine I'm complaining about.

[Abra]

No, me either! In fact I referred to it to show that it's possible to have a star and avoid all those other traps we were talking about.

[Dave Hatfield]

Seems to me that it was a long time ago, if there ever was such a time when the food was THE far most important aspect of gaining a Michelin Star. These days I would contend that other factors count for as much, if not more,than the originality and taste of the actual food.

Plating (for the snappers), the fancy plates, cutlery and other acrutriments, the décor all seem to count for a lot. In a lot of cases I ask myself; which came first, the pretty & unusual plate or the ideal dish to serve upon it? Are there on tap potters available just to design special plates for the chef's latest coup de folie?

I don't know, but I do feel that something has been lost when it comes to Michelin praising truly great food.

Still, most of the starred restaurants I have visited in the past few years have offered an experience that was worth the cost & effort of going. Michael Bra's was an exception, but only because the wine prices were so far over the top as to be nearly criminal. If you go strictly for the food I suspect that you will be disappointed quite a lot of the time. If you go for the experience of high end dining you are more likely to leave satisfied.

Michelin is far too slow to catch the rising stars before everyone knows they're a star. Given the way they work there's no way they can keep up. Far better that people like those on eGullet discover them early & quietly spread the word.

All in all I prefer the places that still do real food of their region perhaps with a new twist or I like to try the experimenters who don't always get it right, but do try and are true to themselves. The future Hestons & Adrians will come from this group.

[Ptipois]

All in all I prefer the places that still do real food of their region perhaps with a new twist or I like to try the experimenters who don't always get it right, but do try and are true to themselves. The future Hestons & Adrians will come from this group.

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I could not agree more. This is exactly how I feel. Some people have trouble understanding my equal worship of ancestral, regional, earthy cooking and of "experimental" cooks like Ferran or Heston. To me it makes a lot of sense, the keyword is sincerity; in both cases they are playing with real food, not with hype, competition or economical priorities. I am perfectly happy when a chef delights my senses in a genuine, modest, down-to-earth way, and I am no less happy when some crazy/wise man blows my mind, using my sense of taste to reveal connections in my brain that I did not know existed before, if he does it with a true sense of research and sincerity, not to impress the bourgeois.

To me, these are two perfectly respectable ways of dealing with food. The trouble, when it arises, lies in between.

Edited August 16, 2008 by Ptipois (log)