371 replies to this topic

[Adrian]

You are using a clam bar in Bay Shore to support the argument that places like Torrisi with chefs from top tier kitchens strike out on their own doing fine dining food in a room that looks like an old school lunch place in little italy is a very traditional idea? Really? That's a logically sound argument to you?

Since that clam bar no longer exists, we have no idea what pedigree its chef(s) may have had. The only proposition the clam bar stands for, is that The Times has a very long history of giving two stars based on the food alone, to restaurants that lack the traditional trappings of fine dining. You don't like the clam bar? Fine. There are a hundred more.

In any event, the original Torrisi food didn't seem like fine dining to me at all. It was just rustic, hearty Italian food, of a sort readily available all over town with a lot less waiting time. A number of MF'ers had the same reaction, so I know I am not alone.

Even thought the food at Torrisi 1.0 was rustic, it was notably chefier than other "rustic Italian two-stars" - there's c-vapping and sous vide and a focus on provenance, for better or worse. You could make the argument that their multi-step process applied to a fancy turkey made no difference in terms of the end product, but when you combine that stuff with their Restaurant by Subterfuge Espionage Stealth, it seems new.

[Sneakeater]

1. I went to Gil Clark's more than once when I was a boy. I wouldn't put any money on the pedigree of the chefs. I don't think most people who went there thought they had chefs. (It would be like asking who the chef is at Peter Luger's.)

2. Torissi wasn't taken as -- and didn't become the phenomenon it did because of any perception it was -- rustic Italian. Rather, it was more like "Italian-American Goes Momofuku" (or maybe that's "Momofuku Goes Italian-American"). That's very different. (What people here thought of it is kind of irrelevant, since we weren't the people who made it such a phenomenon.)

Sam Sifton, for example, didn't think it was "poetry" because it reminded him of eating in Italy (the reason for Pete Wells's wild overrating of IBA). Sam Sifton thought it was "poetry" because it purportedly had all these chefly elements applied to simple, even facially cliched, food.

[oakapple]

1. I went to Gil Clark's more than once when I was a boy. I wouldn't put any money on the pedigree of the chefs. I don't think most people who went there thought they had chefs. (It would be like asking who the chef is at Peter Luger's.)

Of course, that was a different era, and the cult of the chef was many years in the future.

But I assume that if Claiborne gave three stars to that place, he must have considered it way more than just the average good clam shack that you could find at any beach. (Later on, I think he gave Luger four stars.) I don't know how he arrived at that judgment, but given his reputation, you've got to assume there was something to it.

[Orik]

The lack of choices of dishes on the menu potentially lets Frej's kitchen perform at a higher level, though.

Also, the lack of approachability of Frej's food is at least in principle something idiosyncratic, no? Or is your claim that, because the limited number of covers that Frej does, they can afford to appeal to a more niche audience and trade off approachability for quality?

My claim is that if the average Frej diner feels satisfied to hat Frej's food once a month, and if they change the menu once a month, then everyone is happy and there's no need to offer any choice - it's just not a traditional neighborhood restaurant or bourgeois dining room that needs to appeal to very regular diners.

I think the objections (not by Wilfrid, he never said that) to unreal restaurants are a mixture of an objection to this idea and an admiration of business success that leads to a rejection of projects that are clearly not fully formed businesses (Roberta's tasting table, Frej)

I wonder when Acme will introduce a chef's tasting for $150. Not that they need it business wise, but prestige wise...

[Adrian]

1. I went to Gil Clark's more than once when I was a boy. I wouldn't put any money on the pedigree of the chefs. I don't think most people who went there thought they had chefs. (It would be like asking who the chef is at Peter Luger's.)

Of course, that was a different era, and the cult of the chef was many years in the future.

But I assume that if Claiborne gave three stars to that place, he must have considered it way more than just the average good clam shack that you could find at any beach. (Later on, I think he gave Luger four stars.) I don't know how he arrived at that judgment, but given his reputation, you've got to assume there was something to it.

The argument is not that there have never been traditional informal restaurants that cook excellent food. You're picking up a shift in the nature of the star system not evidence that it's a traditional idea to serve Real Restaurant food in an unreal environment.

[taion]

My claim is that if the average Frej diner feels satisfied to hat Frej's food once a month, and if they change the menu once a month, then everyone is happy and there's no need to offer any choice - it's just not a traditional neighborhood restaurant or bourgeois dining room that needs to appeal to very regular diners.

My original point is just that only needing to cook a half dozen or so dishes during any single service potentially allows a restaurant to cook at a higher level versus having to serve a full menu.

All else being the same, then, you'd get less out of re-visiting such a restaurant between menu changes. If it works out fine that the marginal diner wouldn't want to eat at Frej more often than the menu changes anyway, then that's good for them, but one can certainly imagine some sort of Frej' (say, one serving Italian food or something) where, all else being the same, only offering one set menu for an entire month would be a downside.

In other words, contingent on Frej serving food that one would only want to eat once a month anyway, their changing the single menu monthly is not a problem, but in general this model would have downsides for other genres of food.

[Sneakeater]

1. I went to Gil Clark's more than once when I was a boy. I wouldn't put any money on the pedigree of the chefs. I don't think most people who went there thought they had chefs. (It would be like asking who the chef is at Peter Luger's.)

Of course, that was a different era, and the cult of the chef was many years in the future.

But I assume that if Claiborne gave three stars to that place, he must have considered it way more than just the average good clam shack that you could find at any beach. (Later on, I think he gave Luger four stars.) I don't know how he arrived at that judgment, but given his reputation, you've got to assume there was something to it.

That's the point.

Giving Gil Clark's three stars was EXACTLY the same as giving Luger's four stars.

It's giving what was, at the time, an unassailable naive local vernacular institution the highest available rating. (This was at a time when Long Island Shoreside Seafood Restaurants were an established local genre. I should know: my hometown made a mint off that genre, when it existed.) Showing both that the reviewer was hooked into popular dining, and that popular dining fit into the review criteria.

This has NOTHING to do with a place like Torrisi's getting two stars and called "poetry". It's a whole different thing.

Say what you will about the Torrisi guys, they're not naive.

[Wilfrid]

Hell, look at Degustation (at least in its earlier years). It was a fine restaurant, but no one would have said it was on the Per Se level. But it was really really hard to get a seat there. For obvious reasons.

Actually, someone did.

[Wilfrid]

Exactly. We need enough Frejs so that they aren't a hassle to get a table at places like that. The Robertas/bf model is quite different and much less plausible a solution to what's wrong with NYC restos.

It would be interesting to try to unpack what that means. What would count as lots of Frejs? Do you mean lots of places where the food is as good, and the prices as low? Or - more likely - do you mean semi-permanent pop-ups? Restaurants opening in ready-configured spaces and saving the money of fitting them out and affording a lease?

That sounds like hotel restaurants. Maybe we need lots of hotel restaurants not in hotels.

Anyway, just opening it up for discussion.

[Wilfrid]

I don't believe anyone, whether a fan or not, has ever suggested that Torrisi wasn't a "real restaurant".

Right. This meme is getting confusing.

[Anthony Bonner]

Exactly. We need enough Frejs so that they aren't a hassle to get a table at places like that. The Robertas/bf model is quite different and much less plausible a solution to what's wrong with NYC restos.

It would be interesting to try to unpack what that means. What would count as lots of Frejs? Do you mean lots of places where the food is as good, and the prices as low? Or - more likely - do you mean semi-permanent pop-ups? Restaurants opening in ready-configured spaces and saving the money of fitting them out and affording a lease?

That sounds like hotel restaurants. Maybe we need lots of hotel restaurants not in hotels.

Anyway, just opening it up for discussion.

Places where the capital invested in the build out is minimized and the menu short. The kind of places you might eat at semi-regularly, not an occasional tasting menu blowout. Permanence has nothing to do with it.

ETA: Hotel restaurants are the antithesis of this.

[Anthony Bonner]

I don't believe anyone, whether a fan or not, has ever suggested that Torrisi wasn't a "real restaurant".

Right. This meme is getting confusing.

No - none of you ever said "Torrisi" wasn't a real restaurant. But the original variation def fit into the idea of "restaurant by stealth" - and if you think they did that because they had limited access to capital it fits into the meme. If you think it was all schtick than you wouldn't.

[Wilfrid]

I think the objections (not by Wilfrid, he never said that) to unreal restaurants are a mixture of an objection to this idea and an admiration of business success that leads to a rejection of projects that are clearly not fully formed businesses (Roberta's tasting table, Frej)

I am struggling with this sentence. Maybe too many negatives.

Why does anyone think I have any objection whatsoever to Frej? Truly bizarre (if that's what's being said here).

[oakapple]

My original point is just that only needing to cook a half dozen or so dishes during any single service potentially allows a restaurant to cook at a higher level versus having to serve a full menu.

Except it's not all that original. A number of reviewers have made a similar comment about such places: it's clearly a lower degree of difficulty when you allow the diner no choice.

And I'll give the Torrisi boys this much credit: they DO change their menu every day, to at least some extent.

[Anthony Bonner]

My original point is just that only needing to cook a half dozen or so dishes during any single service potentially allows a restaurant to cook at a higher level versus having to serve a full menu.

Except it's not all that original. A number of reviewers have made a similar comment about such places: it's clearly a lower degree of difficulty when you allow the diner no choice.

Of course we agree with that. But why do you care as long as you like the choices on the carte? why does that make it a less worthwhile restaurant? Or make them lesser restauranteurs.