Season of the Switch. Part Three

[robert brown]

Liz, thanks for the suggestion. The Michelin people are on to eGullet, but how assiduously I have no idea. However, I will send them an e-mail and see if they wish to clarify a rather ambiguous situation.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Bux - When I say "absolutely delicious" I mean the word of mouth is great. The word of mouth about Spanish restaurants isn't at a really high level among Americans who travel to Europe. Among chefs yes. But not the next tier of people who throw in one or two 3 star type experiences when they travel. One of the reasons the three star restuaurants in France became so popular is that many of them were laid out on the France/Nice axis. Or you could head east and stop at Boyer and Auberge d'Ill. But it usually revolved around Paris being the point of entry and/or the point of departure. Spain isn't as well organized as the most logical city to fly to from here (Madrid) doesn't have any of the top places and is not anywhere close to either city that houses the three star restaurants.

[Steve Klc]

Steve P--your point about easy access to the hubs of Spanish cooking is valid. But it's not just the American chefs that have been to Spain, the major gastronomes and power brokers of the media have been there as well. They've already decided it's the next HUGE thing. Wondergrrl Amanda Hesser filed her "Ashleigh Banfield on location" thing already. (And I'm not talking huge like Indian fusion was huge in NYC one year and then two years later all the food writers and chefs in satellite cities like Corby Kummer and Mantra in Boston caught up.) The media--that's all that counts. Right now they are plotting just how to phase Spanish cooking and paella into the American scene in order to make it accessible, popular and the next Italian cooking and risotto. We have only seen the beginning of the coming two-tiered tidal wave. There's enough there for the high end re: Adria and all the Spanish Michelin three-stars and there's enough there for the Saveur mag authenticity purists who want to apply 20 different definitions of the the word "simple" to a cuisine a la Richard Olney or John Thorne. America discovers Spain will be with us for a long time: it's the next haute cuisine/cuisine bourgeosie imbroglio. (Something Italy could never provide! Sorry Robert S.)

And I expect right about the time the full impact hits--when Wolfgang Puck releases his line of microwaveable frozen paella pizza--you'll be posting on eGullet that Ferran Adria is the greatest chef of all time. (It's an open question whether you post this on the eGullet preferred user VIP site or one of the tiered premium access versions. I'm not sure how that whole paid premium archive online thing is going to shake out. I'm much more confident about the pre-eminence of Spanish cooking as the next wave.)

This doesn't have anything to do with Robert's excellent post--but thought it as good a time as any to get it in print first. There will be the hierarchies of people JD referred to who will be able to experience elite Spanish cooking in situ--but because of the inherent travel disadvantages Steve P and others mention, it will be less accessible giving fewer numbers of people with jaded palates the opportunity NOT to be wowed--and then the rest of the New Yorkers will have to make due with the NYC Spanish equivalent of Babbo, which almost certainly Richard Melman will open a knock-off version in other cities around the US as well, all the existing Nuevo latino chefs and chefettes and Mexican purists will tweak what they do to reflect some newly discovered authentic regional Spanish cuisine because we're bored with what they're doing already, the Brits will come to NYC to try the Spanish "Babbo" and say their Indian cooking is much more interesting and cheaper anyway and boy, you should see Heston Blumenthal's deconstructed paella churned in a washing machine, and Middle America will make do with Paella box mixes by Kraft, Chef-Boy-ar-Dee paella in a can, the Wolfgang puck microwaveable containers and the chain restaurants which will have paella specials of the day with hot dog and Jimmy Dean sausage bits. Not to mention Fresh Fields/Whole Foods Markets will have their organic vegan brown rice curry paella abomination. To go!

The word of mouth is so great it's inevitable--and since it won't be easy to go to Spain it will come to us. But...who will be our Mario? Lets hope it's not Douglas Rodriguez.

[Steve Plotnicki]

Steve Klc - Boy you must had hadf a joyful lunch today

It would help the Spanish very much if other aesthetic disciplines like clothing and furniture design kicked in. That they put the Guggenheim up in Bilboa seems like such a mistake. Maybe it will work for them long term but, if they put it on the Costa Brava near all those restaurants, they would all be famous already and they would be bulding new hotels to meet the demand.

[Steve Klc]

No, I just thought I'd stretch the muscles a bit. For lunch I fed sunflower seeds to the finches and nuthatches along the windowsill ledge of my condo. I guess it was joyful in an austere way.

[Bux]

Point and Dumaine provided wonderful food at logical stopping points along the way from Paris to Nice, but that drive has been a one day drive since high speed cars and the autoroute. As Loiseau realized, Saulieu was now an easy drive away from Paris, and he had to provide R&C rooms as well as a three star restaurant to make it a destination for Parisians. The town itself offers nothing and it's no longer on the main road. Nevertheless, people make a point of going there as they do to Bras in the middle of nowhere and the rest of the three star restaurants that rely on tourists for the bulk of their business. So it's a matter of established pattern and of luxury inns at the end of the road. Arzak is far from the center of San Sebastian, Martin Berasategui is in a suburb of some town not far from San Sebastian, but far enough away not to be a suburb. Can Roca is on the outskirts of Gerona (a lovely enough city worth a day of sightseeing). Lesguard and Sant Pau didn't seem to be near any hotels that looked inviting although Sant Pau is right at the train station. El Bulli is not even in the town of Roses. At none of these places can you stumble well oiled from dinner to bed. You have to dedicate yourself to eating in them. The appeal is reduced for those who can afford to make the trip.

I've read that Roellinger's clients asked if he had rooms when they reserved for dinner. Santamaria is adding rooms. Maybe others will, but the proper atmosphere isn't there yet. Dining in France has a legendary history. Spain hasn't drawn the same kind of visitor from the U.S. Read the articles in the NY Times. Jacqueline Friedrich writes about the food in France. Penelope Casas writes about the hotel accomodations in Paradors, but the food is secondary. There are Americans at El Bulli, but at the other places I've mentioned, there was far less English heard and many empty tables at a weekday lunch at some places.

[Steve Klc]

Maybe so, Bux, but that doesn't necessarily mean there will be a correlation of impact in the US. And don't forget Alexander Lobrano (the Paris Zagat guy) weighed in on Martin Berasategui and Jacqueline Friedrich served up Seville in the April 2002 Gourmet. Yes she gushed predictably over Hiramatsu but I don't expect that swoon to have legs. If that wasn't enough, there was a flamenco and food piece in that issue as well, which included the obligatory bunuelos dipped in hot chocolate.

If Friedrich is savyy, she's already pitched and filed a few more Spanish pieces--for the Journal, Gourmet, et al--since Amanda got the Spain beat for the Times. 

[Bux]

Friedrich just did a piece on Portugal. I haven't read it. Esilda's been hankering to go there for some time and she's clipped the article for me. I gather the essence of the article is that you do better in the inexpensive places serving local foods. My feeling about Spain is that the same thing may be true in many areas. I didn't find it true in the Basque area where I found excellent haute cusine, but the little places weren't as satisfying as in France. In Catalunya, I found compelling haute cuisine and superb local food, at least in Barcelona. I'd be careful about the less expensive places in the coastal cities catering to tourists. As for Jacqueline Friedrich, I wouldn't be surprised to find her name on the byline about an article covering both ends of Catalunya. Galica is another place of interest to me. Some good seafood, but not much interest in the nueva.

One of the key things over looked by us all is the development of road food in France and not in Spain--hey, three star R&C inns are the road food of France. --is that the French were travelers in their own country, if xenophobic about the rest of the world for most of the 20th century. The Spanish seem far less so. Through most of the automobile age, they've had fewer roads and cars and it seems less desire to go anywhere. I remember reading about an area in the northwest where the people are known for their reluctance to travel. Wouldn't you guess that we traveled west from Bilbao and when the Michelin road map we bought in France gave out, we couldn't find a shop that sold maps of more than the town in which we were at the time. I think we reached Santiago de Compostela without finding a map, but it didn't matter as there were so few side roads and we had a small scale tourist board handout map.

Too many different issues to handle in one thread let alone one post and I'm hardly an expert on Spain--one is sorely needed here.

[lizziee]

Catalunya is an impossible place to navigate. When we were there last year, ALL the route numbers had just been changed. As a result there were no up-to-date maps so no route numbers corresponded to the map.

Also, Bux is quite correct that going to a destination restaurant is very difficult. Unlike France, these are generally free-standing restaurants which necessitates finding a place to stay plus figuring out what mode of transportation to and from the restaurant.

At the moment, the San Sebastian side of Spain as well as the Costa Brava have the excitement of the "new" chefs. It is as if Spain needs to catch up to this culinary bonaza and create the supporting aspects of hospitatlity ie. R & C type establishments.