The Four Seasons

[ngatti]

Should we have a thread on club food?

sure. Go ahead and start it. But you may find that I'll agree with you. Much dismal dreck out there!

Nick

[Fat Guy]

Done. It's in "General."

[llwb]

I don't know if you can find that sort of perfectly cooked French food today. Part of the problem is that, there are few diners who want that option more than from time to time.

You know, it's funny you picked up on the phrase "from time to time" - it wasn't in the original message - I felt I had to add it so you would not think me unredeemably "stodgy" not to say troglodyte...

I've often felt there was use for a museum restaurant--not a restaurant in a museum, but one that cooked food no longer in style. Just as museums have special exhibits, this restaurant could present the food of la Pyramid or l'Hotel de la Cote d'Or from the 50's as a special offering for two week period.

This is such a sweet idea.  Personally I believe that sooner or later the pendulum is bound to swing back the other way and people will discover that food no longer in style is once again in style...

Good luck on your hunt and please let us know if you find what you are looking for, where you find it, and how good it was.

Will do. Currently leaning toward Cafe Boulud or...Le Perigord....

[Wilfrid]

I remembered I started a thread on that Wine Spectator issue. It was right here all the time.

[llwb]

The end-result was that six of us had a very jovial and delicious dinner at Cafe Boulud. There has been some debate about the "decor" - we all liked it alot - it is, pleasingly, the very opposite of "edgy." And there was another very welcome lack of trendiness - we could converse in normal speaking tones in spite of the fact that every table was taken. Each one of us was enthusiastic about his/her dinner choices, and only the bread, I felt, although there was a variety of it, left something to be desired. I personally singled out the SALADE DE PISSENLIT - Warm Salad with French Dandelion, Chicken Livers, Lardons and Croutons $16 which I thought was extemely tasty. The POTATO RÖESTI Shallots and Rosemary $6 got general special mention. I tried a glass of the white Chateau-neuf-du-pape $13 referenced in another thread and it is good (but I am no expert).

Everything conduced to a fine evening!

[gaf]

De-Lovely New York City Entry #50

What did the beau monde so love about The Four Seasons? It was Cole Porter with grub.

The Philip Johnson-designed restaurant embodied the power lunch and the public tryst, encased within Mies van der Rohe's stunning Seagram Building, an exemplar of the boxy International Style. More than this, The Four Seasons was our celebrity clubhouse hosting a museum quality art collection by Jackson Pollock, Joan Miro, Frank Stella, and Pablo Picasso. The restaurant exuded élan from its opening in 1959. JFK spent his 45th birthday in the restaurant, chowing down shortly before Marilyn Monroe's breathy serenade. The Four Seasons - less dowager than roué - has had its up-and-downs, and perhaps it will rise again.

Despite the artwork and the architecture, the Four Seasons depressed me. Our meal was not a train wreck, but it could not bear the freight. Continental cuisine, like the International Style in architecture, died in the dust of the Berlin Wall. It was the attempt of Americans on the march to prove that they were citizens of the world, more sophisticated than their dour Soviet rivals. Unlike the flowering mid-century French cuisine at La Grenouille build on classical techniques, the Four Seasons relies on bourgeois standards, gussied up to create an illusion of elegance.

We reserved a table in the Pool Room, a space dominated by a square pond - perhaps ten feet on a side. Sitting by its edge I tried to recall what made it once feel sublime. All we needed was a few Jewish matrons and we could have had a mikvah.

The pool is framed by four tall artificial pine trees, scraggly and lifeless. The space feels forlorn. Only the shimmering window chains captures what this place must have meant to Jack and Marilyn. Johnson designed the room for diners to see and be seen, a paparazzi dream.

Continental cuisine traditionally places as much attention on the server's performance as on the skills of those hidden behind the kitchen door. Although Christian Albin has spent over thirty years at the Seasons as Sous Chef and Executive Chef, he is hardly a presence in the New York dining scene.

We began with Caesar Salad, composed table-side. Our waiter, surely a lifer at his station, performed gamely, and the results were a sturdy rendition of this classic. My wife has a gimlet eye for Caesar Salad: my mother-in-law was a sublime practitioner of this art. The lettuce, cheese and raw egg yolk dressing were first-rate (although light on the Worcestershire), but the croutons were dry and hard, not richly buttered, and the salad was served without requisite bits of anchovy. As a disconcerting touch our waiter spooned some mustard from a bottle of Grey Poupon mustard: one of life's finer pleasures for Kraft execs. The Caesar was respectable and the most satisfying dish of the night.

My wife and I both selected seafood for our main course. This was probably a mistake, but scallops, one of my wife's favorites, was a special and I daydream about Dover Sole Meuniere. The problem with seafood as cooked in the continental style is that it is routinely, traditionally, and thoughtlessly dredged in flour, giving even the freshest fish a touch of glue, a sin in the age of essences.

Nantucket Scallops were served with cauliflower puree and two types of baby cauliflower (white and purple). As a bow to the Twentieth-First Century a few springs of micro-greens decorated the plate. The scallops were fresh, although cooked to a degree of doneness not often found at a moment when the line between sushi and saute is increasingly smudged. I applaud the tiny florets and the creamy puree - the most idyllic sensation of the evening.

My sole was an impressively large filet. The problem, again, was the dredging. The sole looked golden, but I would have preferred a golden taste. Passe and pasty. On the side was a mild and smooth sauce that I took to be a Sorrel Cream Sauce (a lovely sea-foam green). The sauce was not listed on the menu; when I called I was shunted to several cooks, none of whom seemed familiar with the dish. (Had I been treated like royalty or was this bearnaise from the back of the fridge?) The implausible conclusion was that I had been served a lemon parsley beurre blanc.

For dessert we ordered a pair of souffles - Pear William and Grand Marnier - identical except for the sauce. After nearly half a century one would imagine that the Four Seasons might have perfected the souffle. Yet the aroma of the souffles seemed heavy with flour (or, perhaps, cornstarch) and being somewhat overcooked seemed more eggy than airy. Lacking wings, the dessert was pedestrian. Neither sauce had a kick.

At the end of the meal we were presented a plate of cookies and truffles. They had been tossed on the plate, some lying on their side. Forgettable all.

As at La Grenouille, I had hoped that this meal would recapture those magical dining experiences to which I had been early exposed. I wanted to be transfixed. Yet, La Grenouille constructs its dishes on deservedly classic techniques. In contrast, The Four Seasons is fancy food for rich folk. The Pool Room may deserve historical preservation, but it hasn't aged well as a dining place. Some architects create timeless spaces; the Pool Room's grandeur was oh-so-timely.

To experience how the beau monde supped during the Kennedy presidency the Four Seasons is a good choice. The Four Seasons freeze-dries opulence, but lacks the dynamic soul of cuisine. At prices that match restaurants with a heart and a brain, serving food that merely has a past is insufficient. De-luxe and de-lovely.

The Four Seasons

99 East 52nd Street (at Lexington Avenue)

Manhattan (Midtown)

212-754-9494

My Webpage: Vealcheeks

[oakapple]

The Four Seasons has one of the better restaurant websites. For a place that is apparently snoozing in the kitchen, and has no trouble filling its tables every night, it's surprising they went to such expense and effort on the web.

In the Pool Room, appetizers are priced $15-36 (excluding caviar dishes), and most are $22 or more. Main courses are priced $38 (Maryland crab cakes) to $72 (lobster), and most are $42 or more.

In the slightly less formal Grill room, appetizers are also in the $15-36 range, but there are several reasonable options at the lower end of that range. Mains are priced at $34 (a Bison Burger or an Ahi Tuna Burger) to $72 (lobster again).

Is there any restaurant in New York with a more expensive a la carte menu? I can think of several that are more expensive, but they are prix fixe.

[docsconz]

I have had some excellent meals there in the past, but I haven't been in quite some time. I have been receiving a lot of promotional materiel from them re: wine dinners and the like. I love the space, although it is a bit cold feeling (not in temperature). I would go to some of these events as I have in the past if they coincided with my schedule. Alas they do not and there are too many other restaurants in NYC that I would like to visit when I am there.

[flinflon28]

My last meal there was last year and as lovely as the space is, it is a rstaurant that just seems to be going through the motions. It felt like eating in the hotel from The Shining....it is a shell of its former self.