Critical Mass?

[Nathan]

by "regular" I mean more than 6 times a year (I wasn't planning on picking a hard number but I mean more than a couple times a year)...

but that's irrelevant to the point

[Fat Guy]

I have no idea the percentage of regulars at Jean Georges at a given service, however when I was researching Turning the Tables and talking to dozens of restaurateurs about their businesses it was common for them to tell me that 50-75 (one said 85) percent of their business on any given day was repeat business. I don't think anybody ever told me less than 50 percent. Now, there's probably a gap between "repeat business" and "regular who comes 6+ times a year," but still.

[Eatmywords]

EatMyWords:

Several times I have heard comments from people (primarily in other cities) about that "great NY restaurant" -- Tao.  I imagine that there is some sort of word of mouth effect as well. 

For example, Batali famously doesn't hire PR firms.  But he doesn't need to.  Never discount the celeb effect.  That seems to be very important to tourists and the B&T.  (never mind that actually finding a celeb eating out in NY on the weekend is pretty darn rare -- although I did recently see a certain personage eating with someone not his wife and forty years his younger at the Spotted Pig on a Saturday evening (but it was also at least one in the morning).

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If your going for drinks, aesthetics and ambience Tao most certainly can be a "great restaurant".

Btw, that was very considerate of you to keep the cellebrity anonymous!

[Nathan]

its called "liability" issues.

I'm sure his wife knows.

[Fat Guy]

This isn't exactly applicable to the $100-plus restaurant universe -- I don't think there's a ton of serious market research on that sector -- but the National Restaurant Association said this about repeat business:

Tableservice operators with an average check size of less than $8 report that repeat business accounts for roughly 80 percent of their annual sales. Operators of restaurants with an average check size of $25 or more are only slightly less dependent on those frequent diners, reporting that repeat customers contribute 60 percent of their total revenue.

http://www.restaurant.org/rusa/magArticle.cfm?ArticleID=284

[Fat Guy]

Here's the thing about regulars: a restaurant isn't likely to survive without them. So no matter what happens with reviews, the see-and-be-seen crowd, trends or anything else, a restaurant has to start attracting a significant amount of repeat business to survive.

And the pool of potential regulars is small relative to the pool of all customers. It includes a small percentage of the Greater New York Metro Area population (whether they're the people with expense accounts, the foodies with disposable income or others) plus a small percentage of out-of-town visitors who come here regularly. If you can't attract your share of that pool, you're dead unless you're a total tourist restaurant like the WWE wrestling restaurant or whatever.

So I do think, as Nathan and Sneakeater have suggested, that there's a finite market here for restaurants in the $100+ per person category. As a result, it's not likely possible for every such restaurant that opens to succeed -- it wouldn't be possible even if they were all great restaurants.

Then again, they're not all great restaurants. So the question of market size may not be all that relevant: there may currently be fewer great restaurants than the market can bear, and there may not be enough great ones opening to satisfy the demand. There are lots of expensive restaurants opening, but if they're all bad it doesn't prove anything about the market except that the market isn't stupid.

[Pan]

I have no idea the percentage of regulars at Jean Georges at a given service, however when I was researching Turning the Tables and talking to dozens of restaurateurs about their businesses it was common for them to tell me that 50-75 (one said 85) percent of their business on any given day was repeat business. I don't think anybody ever told me less than 50 percent. Now, there's probably a gap between "repeat business" and "regular who comes 6+ times a year," but still.

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For several years, my family would go to Jo Jo for perhaps three birthdays a year (my birthday, my mother's or father's birthday, my brother's birthday). We were repeat business, but I didn't consider us regulars. I am a regular at Teresa's, where I eat perhaps an average of once a week. I don't know if it's worth discussing what "regular" means in another thread.

Edited December 22, 2006 by Pan (log)

[slkinsey]

I can definitely think of some perfectly good restaurants that ultimately failed (@SQC comes to mind) because they were not good at retaining regulars. Interestingly, this strikes me as one area of a restaurant's success -- perhaps the most important area -- that is 90% in the hands of FOH. There are plenty of restaurants that seem able to retain a critical mass of regulars where the BOH is not turning out distinguished food.

[Fat Guy]

I'd have imagined that there used to be more stability, but maybe I'm just imagining a past that never existed.  (Certainly, things still stay fairly stable at the very top:  it's not like it's that easy to get into JG or Daniel.)

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Things aren't necessarily all that stable at the top. Four-star restaurants close, as do Michelin three-star restaurants. Jean Georges, Daniel and Le Bernardin have been stable, but Ducasse and Lespinasse have not. Even Le Bernardin, the longest-running of the current top places, is only 20 years old. Compare that to now-shuttered places like La Caravelle, which ran for 43 years. It's hard to imagine that Per Se will have a 43-year run. I guess it might.

I don't really know what a statistical analysis of past high-end restaurant longevity would demonstrate, but I too imagine that restaurants of that sort had a longer life span. There are probably a few reasons for this. For one thing, it was a lot less expensive to open and staff such places. For another thing, customer expectations of food were low. And for still another thing, there wasn't much focus on chefs. Still, there may be some factors that skew our perspective. For example, the only restaurants we remember from way back are the ones that endured for a long time -- we don't remember all the ones that went out of business. I think there has long been a cycle in New York City that would be totally recognizable today, where new places open, their press agents (now publicists) put out the word, a trendy and star-studded crowd descends for a few months, and then that group moves on and the restaurant stands or falls based on what kind of clientele it can retain long term.

[Chris Amirault]

Things aren't necessarily all that stable at the top. Four-star restaurants close, as do Michelin three-star restaurants. Jean Georges, Daniel and Le Bernardin have been stable, but Ducasse and Lespinasse have not. Even Le Bernardin, the longest-running of the current top places, is only 20 years old. Compare that to now-shuttered places like La Caravelle, which ran for 43 years. It's hard to imagine that Per Se will have a 43-year run. I guess it might.

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When I read the quote above, I thought, "How long is Keller going to live?" and I can't imagine I'd be the only possible diner who would think such a thing. It seems that the celebrity chef trend might well have a detrimental effect on the longevity of some four-star NYC restaurants, for many of the reasons detailed elsewhere in eG Forums. Per Se is tied so explicitly to Keller the Star that it's hard to imagine it continuing into the 2040s. Compare that to Le Bernardin, whose longevity was extended when Maguy brought in the relatively new US arrival Ripert in the early 1990s to get the restaurant back up to snuff.

[Fat Guy]

Thomas Keller is 51, so he could live 50 more years -- but there's no way he's going to maintain his current level of activity in the kitchen for more than another ten or so.

But the question for Keller's restaurants is more than just whether they'll be able to survive a succession. I mean, there are examples of chef-driven restaurants that have survived just fine. Le Bernardin was totally identified with Gilbert Le Coze before he died, and a lot of people didn't think Eric Ripert could pull it off -- yet today pretty much all those people (me included) identify Le Bernardin totally with Ripert and think of him as one of the top chefs in the business. Likewise, Lespinasse made the transition from Gray Kunz to Christian Delouvrier with at least initial success -- a four-star review -- and Ducasse sort of survived through two chef changes. (There are also restaurants, like the Danny Meyer restaurants, that barely feel it when they change chefs.)

But even if Keller plans well for succession, and even if Jonathan Benno without Keller is as good or better than Jonathan Benno with Keller, will Per Se remain relevant for that long? One issue we haven't touched upon is that for most of the 20th Century the pace of change in cuisine was glacial. Now it's supersonic. Can any restaurant keep up for an extended period of time?

[Nathan]

I wouldn't count Ducasse because people think of Ducasse as the chef.

its true that people in NY identify LB with Ripert, but some older people in other parts of the U.S. still identify it with Le Coze

(see Robyn's remark awhile back on how she refuses to eat at LB because she had poor service at the (now closed) Brassiere Le Coze in Miami -- (LB has no connection whatsoever (except in ownership) to BLC))

but as to your larger point, I think you're right that the branding of chefs will mitigate against restaurant life. still, the connection can be quite tenuous.

I have heard it claimed by knowledgeable people that JG Shanghai is the best restaurant in Asia. JG Shanghai is a franchise and not part of the JG empire. He was contracted to train the staff and lend his name. considering this, I wonder if it is possible that the JG empire will survive his demise. I can see how it could.

[Sneakeater]

But even if Keller plans well for succession, and even if Jonathan Benno without Keller is as good or better than Jonathan Benno with Keller, will Per Se remain relevant for that long? One issue we haven't touched upon is that for most of the 20th Century the pace of change in cuisine was glacial. Now it's supersonic. Can any restaurant keep up for an extended period of time?

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I think your large point about accellerated change is very salient.

But on a micro rather than a macro level, you wrote a few years ago that you thought that JG could have already been losing its relevance. Do you still think so? I think it's maintained its preeminence (with the POSSIBLE exception of the superpremium Per Se, where I've never been so I don't know) to an extent that's almost surprising.

Edited December 22, 2006 by Sneakeater (log)

[Nathan]

are the changes in cuisine today as drastic as they really were in the 70's?

I wasn't really around then but I think one could assert that nouvelle cuisine and the advent of Asian foods in the West were more far-reaching.

ditto for the aftermatch of WWII. (by way of comparison, the two great eras for cocktail development were Prohibition and post-WWII (although WW II was also perniciously responsible for vodka consumption in the U.S.)

cuisine change in the U.S. over the last ten years can be readily attributed to two primary factors: the Food Network and the revolution in the grocery supply chain (and these two factors are interrelated).

Sure, El Bulli and the like have had a certain effect at the uppermost tiers of fine-dining -- but we're only now seeing the trickle-down effect across ordinary restaurants.

The far larger change in cuisine is, I think, irrefutably, globalization. And that began in the 60's and 70's....although it has come to fruition more recently. the pace of globalization has quickened and thefore quickened in food as well...but I think cuisine is simply following larger trends...which tend to be cyclical

[Fat Guy]

But on a micro rather than a macro level, you wrote a few years ago that you thought that JG could have already been losing its relevance.  Do you still think so?  I think it's maintained its preeminence (with the POSSIBLE exception of the superpremium Per Se, where I've never been so I don't know) to an extent that's almost surprising.

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Preeminence and relevance are two different things. I love dining at Jean Georges. It's my go-to place for four-star dining, because Ducasse and Per Se -- the only two places I think are arguably better -- are not affordable (and Ducasse is closing, and hasn't been open for lunch in years). But the food at Jean Georges in many ways seems downright old fashioned now. It maintains its appeal because it's really great and has continued to improve, but has at the same time been losing the part of its appeal that came from being really new.

[Nathan]

if you find JG becoming tired, try Perry Street...there's clearly more a direct commitment to innovation in the kitchen there.

but on the chart of fine dining I'm not sure JG really is that old-hat.

for example, Alinea is almost as close to JG in sensibility as it is to wd-50. indeed, on an "inovation" continuum I would place Alinea exactly halfway in between JG and WD-50. (the place-settings at Alinea are far more drastically creative than anything in NY but the food is quite a bit restrained from WD-50).

And Alinea is perhaps the most-discussed restaurant in the U.S. today.

[slkinsey]

ditto for the aftermatch of WWII.  (by way of comparison, the two great eras for cocktail development were Prohibition and post-WWII (although WW II was also perniciously responsible for vodka consumption in the U.S.)

I'm not sure this comparison carries. Although it is getting somewhat off the topic, despite the popular identification in this country of prohibition with cocktail culture, this was most decidedly not a great time of cocktail development -- unless by "development" you mean "drastic loss of complexity, variety and tradition combined with a major exodus of mixological talent and expertise." In general, I'd say that Prohibition was the beginning of a great slide in the mixological arts, which depression has only begun to turn around in relatively recent times (I don't view things like the Highball as much of a development).

[Nathan]

Prohibition was not a great era for cocktail development in the U.S.

however, it was one abroad as mixologists went to Paris and London.

I should have been more clear.

Edited December 22, 2006 by Nathan (log)

[docsconz]

if you find JG becoming tired, try Perry Street...there's clearly more a direct commitment to innovation in the kitchen there.

but on the chart of fine dining I'm not sure JG really is that old-hat. 

for example, Alinea is almost as close to JG in sensibility as it is to wd-50.  indeed, on an "inovation" continuum I would place Alinea exactly halfway in between JG and WD-50.  (the place-settings at Alinea are far more drastically creative than anything in NY but the food is quite a bit restrained from WD-50). 

And Alinea is perhaps the most-discussed restaurant in the U.S. today.

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I don't think J-G is a dinosaur, but I disagree as to where you place Alinea on the spectrum. The food is much more creative than one might think based on how satisfying it is. The combinations are quite novel even if Grant Achatz doesn't overutilize new techniques for their own sake. I also think that one of the things that sets Alinea apart on the creative/innovative side is how often the menu evolves. I know of no other restaurant in this country whose menu evolves more continuously than Alinea.

To bring this back on topic and relate to the point I made regarding Alinea, one thing I think that has changed in the rarified atmosphere of fine dining is the premium placed on newness and creativity.Though some top restaurants can (and do) get by with minimal menu flux and evolution, the dining public more than ever craves variety and newness (for better or worse). It happens to be incredibly difficult to continuously come up with new dishes and new techniques. The variation that one sees on most NY restaurants (and elsewhere in the US and beyond) is mostly minor. It is a rare thing to see the continued creativity of a Grant Achatz. Some of the top restaurants will occassionally come out with a new dish, though most are content to rest on their "signatures." If a restaurant has developed a sufficient reputation for those signatures this can be successful and so long as those signatures don't get too far behind fashion, will likely be even more successful over time than a restaurant that is constantly evolving (with exceptions). The problem is that fashion changes have outstripped a lot of restaurants and others have simply run out of creativity.

[Nathan]

Alinea is the best restaurant I have ever eaten in.

But there is no question in my mind that it is nowhere near as radical as WD-50 or Moto. This is a good thing in the sense that flavor is still the first priority at Alinea. So yeah, I do see it as being roughly halfway between JG and WD-50 in terms of the radical creativity of its food.

Many things at JG only seem familiar because they are copied so much. They were innovative when done at JG.

[Fat Guy]

there is no question in my mind that it is nowhere near as radical as WD-50

Perhaps, but you're the only person I've ever heard make that claim.

Many things at JG only seem familiar because they are copied so much.  They were innovative when done at JG.

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That's exactly the point.

[Nathan]

I would be flabbergasted to hear anyone who has been to both Alinea and WD-50 claim that Alinea is anywhere near as radically innovative as WD-50 in terms of food (not tableware!).

Alinea is, of course, a much better restaurant than WD-50 but Wylie consistently goes places where Achatz pulls back (and rightfully so).

As rough analogue to the style of food at Alinea, imagine if each item at Perry Street was pared down to a tiny portion. Then imagine a meal of 24 of those items. The culinary aesthetic would be very very similar.

(the thing is, people who haven't been to Alinea would be surprised (theatrics aside) how blissfully simple each individual course is at Alinea. Just a primary flavor, a secondary flavor that plays with it -- often unusally so, and a hint of something else for depth. That's it. Achatz strives not for complexity, but for perfection (and usually hits it).

The difference is that the food at PS is very, very good while that at Alinea is existentially transcendent.

Edited December 22, 2006 by Nathan (log)

[docsconz]

I would be flabbergasted to hear anyone who has been to both Alinea and WD-50 claim that Alinea is anywhere near as radically innovative as WD-50 in terms of food (not tableware!).

Alinea is, of course, a much better restaurant than WD-50 but Wylie consistently goes places where Achatz pulls back (and rightfully so).

As rough analogue to the style of food at Alinea, imagine if each item at Perry Street was pared down to a tiny portion.  Then imagine a meal of 24 of those items.  The culinary aesthetic would be very very similar.

(the thing is, people who haven't been to Alinea would be surprised (theatrics aside) how blissfully simple each individual course is at Alinea.  Just a primary flavor, a secondary flavor that plays with it -- often unusally so, and a hint of something else for depth.  That's it.  Achatz strives not for complexity, but for perfection (and usually hits it). 

The difference is that the food at PS is very, very good while that at Alinea is existentially transcendent.

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Given that this question is way off-topic for this thread, let's for now just agree to disagree on this. Alinea and WD-50 are two of my favorite restaurants. You are correct that the styles are quite different, but I disagree that Grant doesn't strive for complexity. I think Alinea is much more like WD-50 than either Perry street or J-G (both of which I also adore). We could certainly get into an extended discussion on this, but this is not the right place for it. The last point I will make here is that just because something tastes great doesn't mean that it isn't innovative. To put this back on topic, I think that ultimately the most culinarily successful restaurants are those that are consistently and frequently innovative with pleasing food. The other element is that they have to be able to sell it to the public.

[oakapple]

Things aren't necessarily all that stable at the top. Four-star restaurants close, as do Michelin three-star restaurants. Jean Georges, Daniel and Le Bernardin have been stable, but Ducasse and Lespinasse have not. Even Le Bernardin, the longest-running of the current top places, is only 20 years old. Compare that to now-shuttered places like La Caravelle, which ran for 43 years. It's hard to imagine that Per Se will have a 43-year run. I guess it might.

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Of the five restaurants currently carrying four stars from the Times, I suspect that at least four will not long survive the death or retirement of the current chef. That's probably true of most of the three-star restaurants too. Edited December 22, 2006 by oakapple (log)

[Fat Guy]

Or, if they do survive, will they still be four-star restaurants? Or will they become barely star-worthy restaurants like the Four Seasons, which was once by all accounts among the best restaurants in America and is now taken seriously by exactly zero percent of the serious foodies I know; or even if they maintain their current standards will that be enough to merit four stars in 2020, 2030 and 2040?