Should You Wait A Year To Visit A New Restaurant?

[Fat Guy]

The rule definitely needs restatement following this discussion. Perhaps we can handle this the way the mathematicians dealt with the work of that wacky Russian recluse.

[Sneakeater]

The rule definitely needs restatement following this discussion. Perhaps we can handle this the way the mathematicians dealt with the work of that wacky Russian recluse.

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Although I hope it doesn't mean you disappear in the end.

[jsmeeker]

If time and money were not a factor, neither would waiting a year be.

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To me, that's the crux of it. The choice of where to eat is zero sum: you have a finite number of nice meals out per year, and any time you choose to dine at one restaurant, you're also choosing not to dine at any other restaurant for that meal.

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Is your general suggestion mostly aimed at "fine dining" establishments?

In my case that we discussed previously, I had a list of fine dining places I wanted to try in Dallas. My friend really wanted to try Craft (started to talk about it before it even opened). I *did* try to suggest these other places, so I guess in a way I really *was* doing (trying to, at least) what you suggested.

You are right that I have limited opportunities for the high end fine dining. I suspect Craft will be around for a while. Did I waste one of my fine dining opportunites at a *different* place that *I* was interested in? I dunno. Maybe. But we had a very good experience at Craft, so it wasn't like it was a big bust.

[chow guy]

The market is such here, that most new places really need early patronage to stay open. Name recogntition helps star chefs get folks in early, in larger markets (often in droves), but I think even a big name like Jean George, would have name recognition problems with the masses here.

I always watch for the shakedown phenom that happens with a new place. It usually takes about 3-4 months for first shift. The owner finds out how much those diver scallops cost, how few Kobe beef steaks are being sold, how slow the garde-manger is, how much the chef drinks, how snooty the waiters turned out to be, etc. etc. etc. There are often lots of changes in staff, menu and even decor. The bottom line for me, is hearing an indepth report about a new place from any number of well informed friends; whoose opinion I respect. There are certain people who share my tastes and biases and when they rave...I dine.

[Sneakeater]

I guess that one of the points that I was trying to make, though, is that the shake-down process can cut two ways. Sometimes after a few months the restaurant drops items or even whole concepts solely because they weren't economically feasible, either because the ingredients and/or process turned out to be more expensive than they had realized or because the appeal of the concept or item was too specialized.

Now of course sometimes this just means that they're recognizing and correcting a folly, and we're all better off. But sometimes it means that something was too much of a good deal for them to continue to offer it (and so it's not such a great thing for you, as a consumer, to have missed it). Or sometimes it means they've had to drop something that really appealed to you in particular, but the appeal of which just wasn't wide enough to justify retention on the menu (I'm thinking here of the many offal dishes, and the offal tasting menu, originally offered at Omera in New York).

I guess what I advocate is what Simon_S said above. More a balancing test than a bright-line rule. Of course, I now understand that that's more what Fat Guy has been advocating all along as well.

Edited August 30, 2006 by Sneakeater (log)

[Fat Guy]

Certainly, there are instances where restaurants are better when they first open than they are a year later. But in my experience that happens one in twenty or thirty or more instances. So it's not a particularly good bet.

I don't think I'm just advocating a balancing act -- I'm advocating a heavy bias against new places. There are ways to overcome that bias, for example 1- the place is not expensive (so there's little financial risk), 2- you go for a meal that's not expensive (Restaurant Week, lunch, some sort of promo), 3- some rich friend is paying, 4- you want to support the culinary avant garde or some other worthy something, 5- you have so much money you don't care. Or you could have any of a bunch of non-food reasons for wanting to go, but then don't kid yourself into thinking that you're going for culinary reasons (as in, getting the best possible meal).

[docsconz]

Certainly, there are instances where restaurants are better when they first open than they are a year later. But in my experience that happens one in twenty or thirty or more instances. So it's not a particularly good bet.

I don't think I'm just advocating a balancing act -- I'm advocating a heavy bias against new places. There are ways to overcome that bias, for example 1- the place is not expensive (so there's little financial risk), 2- you go for a meal that's not expensive (Restaurant Week, lunch, some sort of promo), 3- some rich friend is paying, 4- you want to support the culinary avant garde or some other worthy something, 5- you have so much money you don't care. Or you could have any of a bunch of non-food reasons for wanting to go, but then don't kid yourself into thinking that you're going for culinary reasons (as in, getting the best possible meal).

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Your bias may be heavy, but at least it is no longer total. I can see where you are coming from. I wouldn't expect the greatest possible meal unless I had outside reason to such as a trusted recommendation. I have, however, had some truly outstanding meals at new restaurants suc as at Alinea and The Inn at Erlowest when matt Secich was there. Sometimes the gamble itself is fun.

[Sneakeater]

Certainly, there are instances where restaurants are better when they first open than they are a year later. But in my experience that happens one in twenty or thirty or more instances. So it's not a particularly good bet.

I don't think I'm just advocating a balancing act -- I'm advocating a heavy bias against new places. There are ways to overcome that bias, for example 1- the place is not expensive (so there's little financial risk), 2- you go for a meal that's not expensive (Restaurant Week, lunch, some sort of promo), 3- some rich friend is paying, 4- you want to support the culinary avant garde or some other worthy something, 5- you have so much money you don't care. Or you could have any of a bunch of non-food reasons for wanting to go, but then don't kid yourself into thinking that you're going for culinary reasons (as in, getting the best possible meal).

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I think my disagreement with you, then -- and I hope it isn't necessary to state that I offer this with the greatest possible respect, verging on awe -- is that I think you define "culinary reasons" too narrowly, and err in your emphasis on the "best possible meal."

Let's take Gilt again. As I keep saying, I didn't go there because I made a policy decision to "support the avant-garde". I went out of curiosity. Having only eaten at WD-50, and not being a regular travelor to Chicago (or ever expecting to win the El Bulli reservations lottery), I wanted to see what a luxe version of "avant-garde" cuisine would taste like. (And it was clear from the start -- and certainly after Frank Bruni's two-star NYT review -- that the enterprise might not last long.) To me, that seems like a "culinary reason". I don't think it's the senseless knee-jerk pursuit of novelty you sometimes seem to suggest that people who go to new restaurants indulge in.

I also disagree with your emphasis on getting "the best possible meal" every time you go out. You might instead want to get an "interesting" meal, or a meal that has parts that are fabulously good in a way that really appeals to you even if other parts of it are only ordinary. The music critic and composer Virgil Thomson called the point of view to which you seem to be subscribing the "masterpiece syndrome." Every work doesn't have to hit a home run. It can be inconsitent but compelling. It can be imperfect but, for some reason peculiar to you, incredibly moving. It can be minor, but very appealing. I'll further note that you have strongly advocated viewing cuisine as art. I think most art lovers -- I mean real art lovers, not the cadavers who populate the first tier and orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera -- approach art with the spirit of curiosity that I'm advocating, rather than the spirit of maximizing returns that you seem to be advocating.

Which is why I've kept harping on "people on who are really interested in food." I think it's pretty clear that, in the totality of your behavior, you may not follow your own advice. Your journalistic and other activities must get you out to a number of meals, maybe which you don't pay for, that can satisfy your culinary curiosity, so that you can rely on safe bets without missing out on too much when you're spending your own money on your own time. (I mean, if you almost never go to restaurants that are less than a year old, how do you know that you like Paul Liebrandt's cooking? I may be wrong on the facts, but I don't think any of his efforts in New York have made it to the one-year mark, or at least not much beyond it.)

But if you assume that your readership here (as opposed to in the Law Journal or of your book) is almost as interested in food as you are, then why disparage their motives for being as curious about unfamiliar experiences as you are, or discourage them from indulging their curiosity? If we're willing to risk our own money on new experiences -- despite the risk that, if we gave them more time, they would probably get better if they don't disappear instead -- that seems to me to be a justifiable choice for us to make.

Edited August 30, 2006 by Sneakeater (log)

[Fat Guy]

You're hung up on this music analogy, but we're talking about restaurants. Once you accept that with very few exceptions restaurants get better over the course of the year after opening, once you accept that as a general rule each time you visit the same restaurant your experience improves, the case for patience and focus is clear cut.

I've done this both ways: I've been a restaurant reviewer and visited every major new restaurant to open over a period of years; and I've also been, as I am now, much more like a normal consumer because most of my writing is not about individual new restaurants anymore. I assure you, I eat better now and my meals are more interesting than when I tried every new place, so much so that I now routinely reject invitations to try new restaurants FOR FREE. Yes, when I was trying all the newest places I was exposed to some interesting stuff, but the best of it could have been had, and had better, a year later. Yes, I missed out on Gilt, but I still haven't heard anybody argue that I missed out on this incredible thing, plus if people had been saying that then I'd likely have gone anyway. In the meantime, by visiting a small number of restaurants many times each, I've had many wonderful dining experiences that just aren't available to first-timers.

[Sneakeater]

You're hung up on this music analogy, but we're talking about restaurants. Once you accept that with very few exceptions restaurants get better over the course of the year after opening, once you accept that as a general rule each time you visit the same restaurant your experience improves, the case for patience and focus is clear cut.

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Though to be fair to me, I thought I used that analogy this time in way that had nothing to do with whether a piece of music (or a restaurant) improves after a year, but rather dealt with what you should or shouldn't expect from what might pompously be called an esthetic experience.

(Don't need to draw out the rest of this stuff any further. Thanks for responding.)

(Although based on my own experience -- which concededly is so much less than yours as to be incomparable -- I think you underestimate the chances of restaurants' changing for the worse or just disappearing in less than a year.)

Edited August 30, 2006 by Sneakeater (log)

[Fat Guy]

To focus on that point a bit, I think it's important to emphasize that the aesthetic experience of dining in a restaurant is sui generis. I mean, you take ballet, opera, the symphony, a Broadway show . . . and they're all different than one another but they also share a lot of overarching commonalities. They're all performing arts, there's an audience watching the performance on a stage, etc. A restaurant meal is, first and foremost, something you eat. It's also individualized to an extent that no stage performance can be. Certainly, each member of the audience at the opera experiences that opera in a different way, but they're all watching the same performance -- whereas each person in a restaurant is eating different food, having different interactions with servers, etc.

The individual nature of the restaurant experience is something that a lot of folks have trouble grappling with, and some even resent it. But what I keep trying to explain in as many places as I can is that with a little (very little) cleverness you can use this property of restaurant meals to great advantage. You can be the person in the room having a better meal experience than everybody else. I've found that, even among the super-sophisticated eGullet Society membership, most people have never really explored the possibilities of a deep, years-long, dozens-of-visits relationship with a great restaurant. That's the transcendent aesthetic experience that makes restaurant dining my passion.

[chiantiglace]

I just love food. I will appreciate it any way it comes. So the argument between you two seems foreign to me.

I agree with it all, just let me have some great food.

[Pan]

Fat Guy, didn't you make the point that being an early customer of a restaurant makes you particularly appreciated? I don't eat at Madras Cafe as often as I used to, but I always get a friendly greeting when I go there, because without any self-importance, I can say that I helped to enable the restaurant to survive and eventually prosper -- not mainly because of my faithful patronage, but more importantly, because I recommended it by word of mouth and postings and brought friends there, all of whom really liked the place (except for one kid who couldn't tolerate any spiciness whatsoever).

[Fat Guy]

Fat Guy, didn't you make the point that being an early customer of a restaurant makes you particularly appreciated?

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Yes. If you do wind up going to new restaurants, there are some advantages.

[Mikeb19]

I think you should give new restaurants your business. It's completely unfair to everyone involved in the opening of a new restaurant to wait a year before visiting... More often than not, it's been the older restaurants that have been disappointing to me, since they've made their name, and rest on their laurels without any ambition to put out a good product. New, ambitious restaurants can often times be the best to visit. There are exceptions to both these rules, nothing is certain in the restaurant business or life in general...

It would be very disappointing for a very good new restaurant to go bankrupt in a year because no one gave them a chance....

[Simon_S]

It seems to me that the discussion has veered somewhat away from Steven's original "How to Dine" course into something a little different. After all, that course is titled "getting the most from restaurants", and it seems clear to me that what's being discussed there is how a diner can better ensure that masterpiece/home run dinner. So the opening premise there seems a little different to some posts in this thread.

Of course, many of us have different goals in mind when dining, we may not need the home run, we may want to support a new restaurant, we may want to take a risk, we may want to see what the fuss is about, etc. But I think Steven's article is about playing the percentages to ensure a top-notch meal. Against that backdrop I can't argue that going to more mature well-regarded restaurants will, all else being equal, be more likely to produce a consistently good meal. Is it guaranteed? No. Does it mean you can't have a good experience at new places? Of course not. But as a general rule for those diners who lack the restaurant karma Steven mentions, it seems sensible.

Bear in mind, there are a lot of non-seasoned diners out there who, on deciding to splash out for a "special" meal, go to the new, hot place that all the talk is about. When they leave disappointed (as can easily happen) the temptation is to assume the Emperor has no clothes in all this high-end dining. I know many people who have fallen into this trap. So for everyone who misses out on a blockbuster meal early in the life of a restaurant, I think there are far more who ate there when it first opened and will never return.

Si

[Sneakeater]

That was a great (and illuminating) post, and I think you're absolutely right.

The only thing I'll point out is your reference in your last paragraph to "non-seasoned diners." The point I've been trying to make is that a different approach may be warranted for the people here, who most assuredly tend to be well-seasoned (and in fact probably very tasty).

Edited August 31, 2006 by Sneakeater (log)

[chiantiglace]

My gastronomy professor, who um, lets just say hes qualified to be a critic, eghh hemm..... emphasized how many chances in life you have to eat a meal, and to not be so careful in your choices. He then further emphasized that there may be a lot of bad meals you may soon forget, but a great meal you will strive for again and again.

now before anyone gets bent out of shape and tells me that they have had a meal here and will never forget how horrible it was, or they couldnt believe the service here and will never return, let me just say one thing... GET OVER IT.

Mentally, its not healthy for a person to hold such a grudge, or to care so much about something bad.

So please, spare me the stories, I hold no value to it.

Edited September 1, 2006 by chiantiglace (log)

[Fat Guy]

More often than not, it's been the older restaurants that have been disappointing to me

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Certainly, not every well-established restaurant is good. The point is, rather, that with a little research you can find out which of the well-established places are not resting on their laurels but, rather, are at the height of their powers. In addition, we're not talking about trying a different well-established restaurant every time you go out. We're talking about choosing a few -- the best restaurants for you -- and developing deep, long-term relationships with them.

I've got to say it again, or maybe I should ask it: everybody who is getting all agitated about my bias against new restaurants, have you ever had the pleasure of a long-term, deep relationship with an excellent restaurant -- dozens of visits over a period of years? I can't imagine that anybody who has had that experience would say new restaurants are the holy grail. Not for diners at any level of seasoning.

Nobody is going to put new restaurants out of business here. There will always be plenty of people who flock to what's new. The question is what should you do if you want the best meals, and the answer is go to places where you know you'll get the best meals. It couldn't be simpler.

[Fat Guy]

The point I've been trying to make is that a different approach may be warranted for the people here, who most assuredly tend to be well-seasoned (and in fact probably very tasty).

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You have my permission, my blessing and my support for your decision to visit new restaurants. It's obviously something you love to do, and it's not my goal to deny anybody his or her pleasure. I appreciate that you're willing to spend your money on new restaurants, and write about them here, so I don't have to. You're the best friend or guinea pig a guy could have. I love you, man.

[azlee]

I've got to say it again, or maybe I should ask it: everybody who is getting all agitated about my bias against new restaurants, have you ever had the pleasure of a long-term, deep relationship with an excellent restaurant -- dozens of visits over a period of years? I can't imagine that anybody who has had that experience would say new restaurants are the holy grail. Not for diners at any level of seasoning.

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every great established restaurant was new, at some point. if noone had bothered to eat at them before they were established, they almost certainly would have been closed rather than established. and an early and loyal customer at a new but great restaurant is more likely to recognized as a valued regular than someone who starts to frequent an established place 10 years into its success, unless of course they are a known food writer, food critic, or celebrity. it happens, of course, but it takes alot more effort on the unknown diner's part at a long established place to be welcomed in that way.

[Sneakeater]

I am really touched.

[Sneakeater]

PS -- If it's all the same with you, I think I prefer "truffle hound" to "guinea pig".

Edited September 1, 2006 by Sneakeater (log)

[Fat Guy]

A reporter from the National Post (Canada) got wind of this discussion, or perhaps the eGCI class that incited it, or something, and called me the other day. Her piece on the subject is titled The allure of the usual.

I also suggested she contact Lesley C(hesterman), who has some interesting quotes towards the end of the story.

[Sneakeater]

Lespinasse was some French bistro.