British Restaurant 'Critics'

[Sackville]

Forgive me if this has already been mentioned and I've missed it but my response to the "why do they only go once" question is: Why should they?

The customer will not go back again if the food and service is rotten just to give the restaurant a "second chance" out of the goodness of their heart and the restaurant should be capable of serving good food reliably. I don't want eating out to be like a game of roulette.

[jamiemaw]

Forgive me if this has already been mentioned and I've missed it but my response to the "why do they only go once" question is: Why should they?

The customer will not go back again if the food and service is rotten just to give the restaurant a "second chance" out of the goodness of their heart and the restaurant should be capable of serving good food reliably. I don't want eating out to be like a game of roulette.

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You are forgiven.

[rme7]

Despite featuring in Savuer magazine, are we really sure that Jay Rayner is the best person to answer the question, "why are British restaurant critics so crap?"

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[marlena spieler]

The low quality of much British restaurant reviewing arises from the low esteem in which food writing is held by British newspapers. Food is not a 'serious' subject. Therefore it's acceptable to have an ignoramus reviewing restaurants [or writing recipes].

Richard

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so true. the requirements for writing about food, either in the reviewing or recipe-writing-food-writing sphere in my experience has come down to this question alone:

"who do you know?"

(having said that, our own jay rayner and our kitchen goddess marina o'loughlin (circeplum) are total gems! i'd follow them anywhere! ).

[Dirk Wheelan]

Despite featuring in Savuer magazine, are we really sure that Jay Rayner is the best person to answer the question, "why are British restaurant critics so crap?"

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I haven't seen Jay Rayner's piece in Saveur, but I can reply with confidence to this question. He is the right person to talk about the state of British restaurant reviewing because he is one of the small handful who do the job well. He knows about food, he is attentive to detail, he writes very well, and he doesn't go in for the gratuitous nastiness that some other reviewers regard as evidence of wit and sophistication.Richard

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I don't know if I'm allowed to say this but I don't much care for Jay Rayner's reviewing. I don't think he does know a great deal about food; I don't feel his unreserved enthusiasm for molecular gastronomy has a firm basis in the actual eating of it; and I don't find him very entertaining to read.

Sorry

Edited March 6, 2005 by Dirk Wheelan (log)

[Andy Lynes]

I don't know if I'm allowed to say this .....

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Of course you are, and others are allowed to disagree.

[Suzi Edwards]

I don't know if I'm allowed to say this but I don't much care for Jay Rayner's reviewing. I don't think he does know a great deal about food; I don't feel his unreserved enthusiasm for molecular gastronomy has a firm basis in the actual eating of it; and I don't find him very entertaining to read.

I didn't realise that Jay had an unreserved enthusiasm for molecular gastronomy. What's your evidence for this statement Dirk? I'd love it if you could outline what "a firm basis in the actual eating of it" is. Maybe list for me where you need to have eaten to have an opinion that would be a considered one? Cheers.

[Dirk Wheelan]

I don't know if I'm allowed to say this but I don't much care for Jay Rayner's reviewing. I don't think he does know a great deal about food; I don't feel his unreserved enthusiasm for molecular gastronomy has a firm basis in the actual eating of it; and I don't find him very entertaining to read.

I didn't realise that Jay had an unreserved enthusiasm for molecular gastronomy. What's your evidence for this statement Dirk? I'd love it if you could outline what "a firm basis in the actual eating of it" is. Maybe list for me where you need to have eaten to have an opinion that would be a considered one? Cheers.

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Just to give you an idea, MG's obvious, and best, proponent is Heston who Jay rates above anyone else. My experiences with the Fat Duck are that it's a great place to eat (once or twice), but that the static nature of the menus suggests that there's not much behind MG except a handful of new techniques. In other words, I think MG has failed to deliver, because it sounds a lot more interesting than it actually is. I think Jay, like a lot of people, has been caught up in the excitement of MG, and hasn't treated it with a critical eye.

Otherwise, I'm sure that Jay's a great guy, I just don't rate the consistency of his taste (probably because it has little in common with my own).

Edited March 6, 2005 by Dirk Wheelan (log)

[jayrayner]

Obviously the 'cool' thing would be to say nothing, but it seems rather peculiar to have people misrepresenting my views when I'm around and reading so...

I have never been a proponent of Molecular Gastronomy for its own sake. Indeed, on a number of occasions in my column I have expressed the fear that terrible things will be done in its name by young chefs watching the likes of blumenthal, Adria et al and thinking metoo. I've referred to it as the 'liver in lager' moment and it will happen. (For what its worth I've also said that I am probably happiest eating in the classic French bistro, than anywhere else; hardly makes me a goggle-eyed supporter of the foams and jellies brigade.)

I have though referred to MG with regards to the Fat Duck and Blumenthal's cooking, because others have referred to it in that way and it is a useful label for what is a base style of cooking that is a development on (but not removed from) the traditonal French method. Yes I am a huge fan of the Fat Duck. The Fat Duck is MG. therefore I am a fan of MG. No, not quite. Blumenthal has said time and time again that his method counts for nothing if the food doesn't taste nice, and it does taste nice. very. that's why I like it.

Re the menu, yes there are a number of dishes which, according to their description, have remained the same for a number of years. But all of them have evolved over that time. (The quail jelly, with pea puree and foie gras parfait today is nothing like it was four or five years ago) They are constantly changing and being refined. In any case so many of the FD's dishes are so good - so far ahead of many of those offered by competitors - I'd be distraught if they came off the menu. There is also very little difference between the maintanence of those core dishes at the FD, and what they do at, say, the Auberge d L'ill where some of the offerings have been on the menu for over 40 years. As with the Auberge - which I adored on my one visit - I am attracted to a restaurant and a chef who knows what he wants to do and does it surpemely well.

Yes of course, if you wanted to go there six times a year, you might find it limiting. But that is not the way either I or the readers of my column in the Observer think about three star restaurnats. That is a fetish that only a very few could either afford or enjoy.

As to me not entertaining you, well Dick, there's nowt I can do about that save for put tassels on my nipples and strart siging the score from Gypsy, but I really don't have the hips for it. Not any more.

[Dirk Wheelan]

My own opinion is that media cacophony created by MG is just not there on the plate. Sure, the Fat Duck and its clones are great for a one off meal, but I certainly wouldn't want to eat there more than once a year, let alone six. It's one thing producing food that can be talked about, but if I could eat at the Waterside Inn every meal of the rest of my life I'd die happy.

As I said before, and despite the many claims made about it, MG doesn't deliver the goods in a similar way that knowing the scientific principles behind the internal combustion engine doesn't make you a better driver.

But anyway, thanks for humouring me Jay.

[jackal10]

I should declare bias as list manager of the Molecular Gastronomy mailing list.

There seems to be some confusion between Molecular Gastronomy as the science and understanding of food and its perception, and a gastronomic style.

MG as a science is I'm sure what Nikolas Kurti has in mind when he coined the name, and what Herve This teaches and holds seminars about. Knowing more about the how food cooks is something useful to all.

The better understanding leads to a new range of techniques and dishes. These techniques can also be used to re-create or create classical inspired dishes - lighter mousses, for example. However like any technique they can be applied with skill and imagination by a talented chef, or misapplied or used out of context by a poor one.

[the count of monte christo]

I should declare bias as list manager of the Molecular Gastronomy mailing list.

There seems to be some confusion between Molecular Gastronomy as the science and understanding of food and its perception, and a gastronomic style.

MG as a science is I'm sure what Nikolas Kurti has in mind when he coined the name, and what Herve This teaches and holds seminars about. Knowing more about the how food cooks is something useful to all.

The better understanding leads to a new range of techniques and dishes. These techniques can also be used to re-create or create classical inspired dishes - lighter mousses, for example. However like any technique they can be applied with skill and imagination  by a talented chef, or misapplied or used out of context by a poor one.

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Are you implying that any new cooking technique, discovered by any chef, falls under the guise of M/G ? If not, then what does a new technique discovered by a chef fall under ? It seems to me that M/G is a term for a very old process called cooking. What is the difference between discovering how to make burre blanc and how to make an escuma ? A science paper maybe ?

[fabienpe]

It seems to me that M/G is a term for a very old process called cooking. What is the difference between discovering how to make burre blanc and how to make an escuma ? A science paper maybe ?

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I think MG is not about discovering processes (whisking oil in egg yoke gives an interesting thick substance), it’s about understanding why this works at the molecular level (formation and understanding of colloids). Understanding can lead to new ideas (why egg yoke? why oil?).

[culinary bear]

How did Wittgenstein put it? "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world". An individual's perception of what molecular gastronomy means is probably highly personal and based on their own experiences, or more likely, their own reading. Being a relatively novel term, it is by nature perceived to be more fluid than, for example, 'cuisine de terroir', 'cuisine minceur', 'nouvelle cuisine', all terms of longer standing.

Having been both a professional scientist and being a professional cook, it could be said that I have a foot in both camps.

My grandmother makes sublime cakes. She knows precisely bugger all about molecular chemistry and the textbook physics of making a victoria sponge. She more than likely thinks that Heston Blumenthal is the Jewish gentleman who spent his time hunting down Josef Mengele and his ilk after the war. The ignorance of science, or at least the ignorance of science as 'scientific knowledge' as an entity in itself, is no crime; it does not mark you down as a modern culinary infidel. My grandmother knows that if you use a copper bowl for beating egg whites, it works better; she has no clue why, nor does she need to know.

Arthur C Clarke said that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic", and when I quote him I'm not trying to highlight the shortcomings of those who are either unable or unwilling to understand these new technologies; I am merely saying that those in the vanguard of new (or newly adopted) techniques are worthy of our attempts to try and understand where they're coming from.

Dirk : understanding the principles of the combustion engine may not make you a better driver - I would in any case maintain that your analogy is flawed and that a better one would be understanding how your car works overall, from steering wheel to exhaust - but it may one day prevent you from standing at the side of the road, steam belching from your engine, waiting for the mechanic to come as you watch the rest of the world go by.

Edited March 6, 2005 by culinary bear (log)

[Dirk Wheelan]

I'll believe MG (the cooking style) has something to offer when it can usurp the primacy of good ingredients. Until then I maintain that MG is too often an excuse for many chefs to serve up personality bites (usually expressed in novelty forms) instead of food.

About a month ago I went to the River Cafe after an absence of four years. I had forgotten how good food can taste ... can't tell you the name of the chef though.

[culinary bear]

Until then I maintain that MG is too often an excuse for many chefs to serve up personality bites (usually expressed in novelty forms) instead of food.

I agree wholeheartedly... the trick is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. See the thread on Chicago's 'moto' restaurant and their tricks with filling an inkjet printer with essences and printing a photo of sushi on to rice paper. This being a course in your meal, or at least part of it. To my mind, smoke and mirrors, but I digress.

With thread digression comes the great entity Andylynes, who will punish the foolish by insisting we move the thread (rightly).

We could liken this to art. You may not have liked Warhol, you might have a fondness for Titian or Boticelli, even Michelangelo. When it comes to the food on my plate, 'ars gratia artis' - art for art's sake - repels me. Dali was a sublime draughstman and a superb classical painter before his later creative diversions, though I do agree that not all of those cooking today may have the solid grouding in the classics that I personally think is needed before you can start to creatively fuck around with the food on your plate.

Don't worry though - we won't all be eating Mapplethorpe in twenty years.

[Suzi Edwards]

How about this for a concept?

Molecular gastrononmy isn't a movement. It isn't a way of cooking. It's a pigeon hole.

Punk was a movement. A group of people spotted a sprit of the times* and came together to create something that was different. A rejecting of what had gone before. That meant a lot to them. The term punk was self-embraced and self-chosen.

Let's compare punk with Brit-pop. The former being a movement and the latter being a catch-all term created by the media that encompassed both Blur and Oasis. Every single chef I've met that other people would call Molecular Gastronomists would be clear in their distancing themselves from that label.

If the only thing we can say about Jay is that he has enjoyed a meal at the Fat Duck and written about how he enjoyed it, well, I'd hardly call him Herve This.

* I'd say Zeitgeist but then I'd have to stab myself through the fingers. And then put a safety pin through it.

[Suzi Edwards]

About a month ago I went to the River Cafe after an absence of four years. I had forgotten how good food can taste ... can't tell you the name of the chef though.

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Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray, maybe? I doubt they're on the line every night, but that's whose "concept" you are eating.

[Dirk Wheelan]

How about this for a concept?

Molecular gastrononmy isn't a movement. It isn't a way of cooking. It's a pigeon hole.

Every single chef I've met that other people would call Molecular Gastronomists would be clear in their distancing themselves from that label.

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I'm not aware of Heston Blumenthal distancing himself from Molecular Gastronomy, quite the opposite. Although I agree that Simon Rogan and Antony Flinn reject the term as applicable to their work, and having eaten at both restaurants I'd entirely agree with them.

It's not my fault that the term is mis-applied or over-used by journalists, but then neither is true that it is a 'pigeon hole' and 'not a style of cooking'; unless John Campbell, Heston Blumenthal, etc. are desperate to pigeon-hole themselves.

I'd concede that perhaps it isn't a movement (out of wishful thinking more than anything else), but either way the MG doctrine that good cooking is a science, and that by learning that science you will become a good cook is clearly nonsense if one considers that just about all good cooks are not molecular gastronomers. Unfortunately, it has the trappings of a movement if only because it allows its exponents to vaunt technique over anything else; in other words it makes what chefs do to the food more important than the food itself, which makes it irresistibly attractive to publicity seeking chefs. I would argue that globally, the quantity and influence of those wishing to invert the traditional respect for ingredients in favour of directing attention to themselves is such that it constitutes a powerful restaurant trend. We can argue about the correct terminology for this trend as much as you like, but I'd much prefer to argue about the value of the trend itself if you don't mind.

[jackal10]

the MG doctrine that good cooking is a science, and that by learning that science you will become a good cook

I think you have it backwards. Nobody makes that claim. Good cooking is at least as much about inspiration, feeling. Its like having good ingredients; a bad cook willstill spoil them.

What I think is claimed is that by understanding the molecular basis of the process you may get additional insight which a good cook can use to their advantage.

[Dirk Wheelan]

About a month ago I went to the River Cafe after an absence of four years. I had forgotten how good food can taste ... can't tell you the name of the chef though.

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Ruth Rogers and Rose Gray, maybe? I doubt they're on the line every night, but that's whose "concept" you are eating.

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The point I was trying to make is that the food was magnificent, and not at all eclipsed by the personality of the person preparing it; the antithesis of MG.

Also, I am not so terribly cynical as to think of simply prepared high quality food as a 'concept'.

[Dirk Wheelan]

the MG doctrine that good cooking is a science, and that by learning that science you will become a good cook

I think you have it backwards. Nobody makes that claim. Good cooking is at least as much about inspiration, feeling. Its like having good ingredients; a bad cook willstill spoil them.

What I think is claimed is that by understanding the molecular basis of the process you may get additional insight which a good cook can use to their advantage.

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I'm not talking about This and Kurti, I'm talking about chefs who make a fetish of expounding on everything via its molecular explanation. MG is like a Pacojet, it opens up some interesting possibilities but it doesn't actually make everything else obsolete. Chefs have been applying scientific principles to their cooking with every relevant new technological development that has arrived on the market (the thermometer, for instance). It's only now that an public interest in what chefs do has aligned with some new technology to coalesce into the 'style of cooking known as MG', which seem to be just as much a style of self promotion as anything else.

[Suzi Edwards]

I want to make sure I understand your frame of reference Dirk. Can you list who you would call Molecular Gastronomists for us?

[Dirk Wheelan]

I want to make sure I understand your frame of reference Dirk. Can you list who you would call Molecular Gastronomists for us?

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I entirely understand if you don't want to contribute to this discussion or reply to anything I've said, but for my part I think I've put my case as succinctly as I can, so can you please stop demanding that I write you lists?

Edited March 7, 2005 by Dirk Wheelan (log)

[MobyP]

I'm not aware of Heston Blumenthal distancing himself from Molecular Gastronomy, quite the opposite.

MG is not the destination, it's the means of delivery. Actually, in several interviews Heston B has now said that he's not a fan of the term, but that he acknowledges his relationship to the movement. This movement has nothing to do with a culinary style, but rather a series of academic studies - initiated by Nikolas Kurti, and later popularised by those such as Herve This - delving into the physical and bio-chemical reactions of foodstuffs under different circumstances. The application of this term as related to a food movement is only something used by the press as a tag, and so misappropriated by the public as a style of preparation.

Which is to say: you can use all of the principles as outlined by the various MG studies, and come up with an end result that you would otherwise call Nouvelle Cuisine. Keller uses MG information, as does Ducasse (in most of his restaurants). Neither could accurately be called a part of the MG movement.

It's not my fault that the term is mis-applied or over-used by journalists,

No, but we've all decided to blame you. I'm sure you'll understand (it was my turn last week).

but then neither is true that it is a 'pigeon hole' and 'not a style of cooking'

Are you saying it isn't a pigeon hole and it is a style of cooking. Too many double negatives.

the MG doctrine that good cooking is a science, and that by learning that science you will become a good cook is clearly nonsense if one considers that just about all good cooks are not molecular gastronomers.

There is no MG doctrine. If there was, it certainly wouldn't be this one. A good cook is a good cook. A bad cook is my mother-in-law. Someone who suspends a piece of protein in a vacuum at 58 degrees centigrade for 3 days is trying to alter the internal structure of the collagen to the strands of muscle fibre. See the difference?

I would argue that   globally, the quantity and influence of those wishing to invert the traditional respect for ingredients in favour of directing attention to themselves is such that it constitutes a powerful restaurant trend.

You don't mean this. The idea that the best chefs in the world (be they influenced by MG or not) spend less time trying to source the best ingredients, or having done so, wish to obfuscate their importance - well, I can't think of a single one. Are there many? Are there any? Have the papers been told? Heston is as obsessive over his ingredients as any other 3 star chef. He doesn't do a 'Keller' - listing the farm, farmer, field, and last meal of each ingredient on the plate, but few people do - and many are just as fatigued with that sort of presentation.

Edited March 7, 2005 by MobyP (log)