Evaluation and comparison of restaurants

[melkor]

I'm not saying it's impossible to compare two restaurants if they aren't after the same goal, I'm saying that the end result of such comparisons is of questionable value. I think in general people consider restaurants on a linear scale (stars/points/whatever) and that completely misses the point for everything but the top end of the restaurant spectrum. If you're looking for a burrito what value is it that the French Laundry has more *'s or Zagat points or whatever than the Mexican joint in the Ferry Plaza? The same holds true for regional Italian cuisine - if I'm in the mood for a NY style Italian red sauce joint Incanto is a crap choice. The menus at Lupa and Incanto have some similarly worded dishes, but in execution they differ significantly. The escarole salad at Incanto is a base of shaved buddha's hand with a bit of dressed escarole topped with cured anchovies, the focus of the dish is how the anchovies work with the buddha's hand. Having not had the escarole salad at Lupa I'm not certain, but I'd expect it to be more of a green salad.

I'm not saying one is better than the other mind you, they are just different. I'm thrilled that Batali's chefs are shopping at the green market and supporting sustainable producers, but different markets yield hugely different products. Countless Italian restaurants shop at the NY green market, they all do different things with the product they buy. There are way too many variables for sourcing and culinary country of origin to be the entire basis for comparison. Besides, since when is ricotta gnocchi similar to handkerchief pasta?

[ingridsf]

The original Incanto/Lupa judgement in the CA thread was that Incanto was unoriginal and uncreative. Lupa was named as a preferred restaurant. I can appreciate that some people travel enough to make a comparison like this useful but when a restaurant's guiding principles include a focus on local products, it seems logical that its standing in the local community out to be worth a mention.

Incanto promotes using the whole animal, does not feature local wines, and has a spacious, easily navigable design. I don't know of another Italian restaurant in the area at a similar price range offering the same or better dining experience or one that's having a Head to Tail Dinner soon.

I don't know. Maybe I'm being touchy because there have been a number of complaints recently about how uncreative Bay Area chefs and diners are. One person's "uncreative" is another person's "simplicity." But that's a whole other conversation.

[ingridsf]

On those narrow grounds, you're right that it's unlikely that a restaurant in New York would rate higher, but I don't think anyone is arguing that Lupa is a better California regional restaurant than Incanto.

In terms of similar cuisines with different values, I would say that each of us has personal values related to our individual tastes. I care what the different values of different cuisines or chefs are only to the extent that they coincide with the bounds of my individual taste.

I wasn't talking about personal values, I was talking about the restaurant's values. Or if you prefer, it's culinary principles. Incanto identifies itself with the principle of seasonality, which works well because we have better growing seasons to work with. A NYC restaurant can try but it's never going to do as well in this area. It can't find an equivalent range of truly local, seasonal products. For all I know, this may be why cold-weather locales like NYC and Chicago have embraced the values and principles of avant-garde cuisine, which is so dependent on technique.

[Pan]

You might be right about Chicago, but there isn't that much of an avant-garde presence in New York. Easily 99.99%+ of our restaurants are not avant-garde, and even if one restricts consideration to high-end restaurants, I suppose that depending on who you talk to, those in the avant-garde category may have doubled to two with the opening of Urena.

In terms of a restaurant's standing among other people in a community, I'm not sure if I'm understanding your point correctly. I don't care much about how well a restaurant succeeds in a community if I don't think much of its cuisine -- unless I'm an investor. My opinion is not a popularity contest, though if it were, I'd be praising McDonalds, not a restaurant that charges $70 a head, or whatever Incanto charges. Now if any establishment deserves admiration for meeting its goals, surely McDonalds does. But does that make me admire the chain's food? Nope.

[...]One person's "uncreative" is another person's "simplicity."  But that's a whole other conversation.

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I don't think that's offtopic for this thread at all. It goes to a question of criteria.

[...]Incanto identifies itself with the principle of seasonality, which works well because we have better growing seasons to work with.  A NYC restaurant can try but it's never going to do as well in this area.  It can't find an equivalent range of truly local, seasonal products.[...]

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Your argument about the lengths of growing seasons is well-reasoned, but I'm not sure that your conclusion actually follows from your argument. Lupa changes its menu with the seasons, as do many other New York restaurants. Do none of them in fact do as well as Incanto? Using what criteria? Yep, it comes back to criteria. To reiterate: I'm not arguing that Incanto is or is better or worse than any other restaurant; I've never been there! It may well be the greatest Italian restaurant on this side of the Atlantic for all I know. But to establish that, I'd have to compare it to other Italian restaurants. And my main criteria would likely be taste and price, with service and wine list also in the mix.

[Stu-i-moto]

The last thing the food industry needs is people like Robert Parker -

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I'll also note that you appear to be someone inside the food industry. I think industry people's interests may be different from consumers'. Maybe what I think I need is different from what's in your interest for me to get. (I'm not accusing you of being underhanded or anything; I just mean it's natural for people in a position to be judged to have different feelings about the judging process than those who make use of the judgments.)

Moreover, I'm not really sure what you mean by "a Robert Parker". Certainly, one can support one's opinions analytically without assuming the power of a tyrant.

I just don't see what use a sort of cozy "I like it cuz it makes me feel good" is supposed to be to anyone.

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Fair which is why I added the following to my summary statement approach:

For me, deciding whether I would go back comes down to:

- Value: how much I pay vs. the quality of the food - this is why a hole in the wall dim sum place can score as highly as a high-end cal cuisine restaurant;

- The execution of the dishes: do the flavors, textures, colors, aromas work well for me or not? Are the ingredients fresh, homemade? Do the flavors marry well together?

- Service: this is usually the difference maker between a good restaurant and a great one.

- I'm low maintenance, so the decor is less important to me than the food & service - although it should be clean.

- Does the chef show some degree of chutzpah (couldn't think of a better word) in putting dishes on the menu that express his/her creativity vs. that sell lots of entrees -

My comment about Robert Parker was just meant to point out that if a superanalytical approach is taken to an extreme degree (like assigning wines a "score" based on a numerical scale), and if there were an idea about what would make a wine "ideal", it would be unfortunate because there is too much variability inherent in the system, and we'd end up in an arms race to make the highest scoring wine vs. the best tasting, best with food, etc. That kind of application in the food industry would ultimately hurt the industry, in my opinion.

You can already see some effects of this; in San Francisco, it is common knowledge that Michael Bauer likes to see banquettes in restaurants. Who knows why, but take a look around at how many SF restaurants are designed with banquettes in them -

[Stu-i-moto]

I'll offer some of the best advice I've gotten anywhere, about anything. It came from a man I met when I was traveling in China, who said "Don't compare China to what you know from the United States, but appreciate us for our uniqueness."[...]

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So when you have Chinese food in the US, are you able to completely block out your awareness that the Chinese food you had in China was (presumably) generally a lot better?

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No. But instead of trying to compare all the Chinese food I eat in the U.S. to what I ate in China, I appreciate the Chinese food here for what it is.

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And you don't think your opinion of American Chinese food is better-informed, and worthy of more respect, than the opinion of someone like me who's never eaten Chinese food in China?

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I actually spent some time thinking about this question, because it is a good one. In the end, I feel that my experiences with food in China did one primary thing for me: they helped me to understand what "authentic" Chinese cuisine was like. So when I go to Chinese restaurants anywhere outside of China, I know whether it is trying to be authentic, trying to cater to the local tastes/palate, or trying to take a traditional base and apply it in modern ways. I suppose I would preface my comments about a particular Chinese restaurant on the fact that I've eaten Chinese food in China, so I have a good sense of what's authentic.

That said, I can also say that I have recommended Chinese places to people and realized that what they want is not authentic Chinese food; rather, they want Chinese food that agrees with their palate's sense of Chinese food.

Sometimes it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks, this illustrious (and well-informed) company excluded of course...

[athinaeos]

For me, deciding whether I would go back comes down to:

- Value: how much I pay vs. the quality of the food - this is why a hole in the wall dim sum place can score as highly as a high-end cal cuisine restaurant;

- The execution of the dishes: do the flavors, textures, colors, aromas work well for me or not? Are the ingredients fresh, homemade? Do the flavors marry well together?

- Service: this is usually the difference maker between a good restaurant and a great one.

- I'm low maintenance, so the decor is less important to me than the food & service - although it should be clean.

- Does the chef show some degree of chutzpah (couldn't think of a better word) in putting dishes on the menu that express his/her creativity vs. that sell lots of entrees -

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i have isolated the above as a set of evaluation criteria and will present mine with notes that identify common elements

location and ambience: it is not just the decor, but the overall fell of the place - this is important for me, and has nothing to do with the luxury level of the place

food concept: the mission of a dish or menu, its unique features and attributes, as they exist in the mind of the chef, and how often the concept changes and reinvents itself - this is the artistic part - going back to the original question of comparing restaurants, one has to work hard to find a consistent way to evaluate and compare food concepts - but it needs to be done, and of course varies from one person to another, wether it is a formal criterion or not

execution of the dish: the food concept may be good, but the execution poor - this can be because of poor ingredients, the chef's quarrel with his wife, and so on

the divinity factor: in the odd case, you may encounter divinity in the shape and texture and smell and colors and taste of a dish - it is either there or not (related to chutzpah as stated above?)

service: i am looking for uniformity and consistency across the board - i prefer to have a low 8 (max 10) level that is consistent rather than a head waiter who is 10, and waiters who are 5 - therefore, here i use two criteria: average service level and service uniformity and consistency

value for money: this is the commercial aspect of the experience, and is very much relevant to the country or state and city or town where the restaurant is located

overall experience: i sum it all up by assigning a weighting factor to each criterion and then adding them all up - this helps me keep track of all the evaluations in a consistent way

cheers