371 replies to this topic

[Wilfrid]

I want more tides. their room was too fancy tho. Also the food started to decline.

I emphasize heyday.

Why does a cheap seafood restaurant need to invest a quarter of a million bucks in stupid decor that ends up looking outmoded (not to mention, falling apart) just a couple of years later?

I think that was a mistake, although it drove media attention for a few weeks.

But other than the stalactites, it was a stripped-down operation.

[Anthony Bonner]

I think that was a mistake, although it drove media attention for a few weeks.

Agreed - but surely hiring a pr person to do a tiny bit of work for you must be cheaper than gluing 475,000 popsicles sticks to a ceiling.

[Daisy]

Ah, but there is a segment of the market that is driven by decor. AvroKo has made a nice pile of money off this factor.

[Anthony Bonner]

Ah, but there is a segment of the market that is driven by decor. AvroKo has made a nice pile of money off this factor.

Yes, but isn't that a symptom of what's wrong? AvroKo is good at the decor thing, and their general rep is that they put out better food than they need to for their scene - but with a few exceptions they aren't doing much interesting on the food side.

There's a place for design driven restaurants, but right now everything it seems like is somehow design driven.

[Wilfrid]

I think what I wanted to say was I'd like to see more restaurants like Tides without the stalactites.

[Daisy]

Ah, but there is a segment of the market that is driven by decor. AvroKo has made a nice pile of money off this factor.

Yes, but isn't that a symptom of what's wrong? AvroKo is good at the decor thing, and their general rep is that they put out better food than they need to for their scene - but with a few exceptions they aren't doing much interesting on the food side.

There's a place for design driven restaurants, but right now everything it seems like is somehow design driven.

Absolutely.

[oakapple]

There is a segment of the market that is driven by decor. AvroKo has made a nice pile of money off this factor.

This isn't exactly new. Look at the Four Seasons, which opened in the late 1950s, where the decor was such a hit that they landmarked it. And the custom is far older than that.

[Anthony Bonner]

I don't think anyone here is pretending like its a new thing.

[Wilfrid]

I think the idea of doing ambitious, or at least serious and grown up food, with relatively stripped down ambience and FoH (stalactites aside) has been around a little while (not counting Chang). Degustation comes to mind too. Maybe we'd all agree that this has been a good thing.

[Orik]

:rubbing eyes with disbelief:

[Wilfrid]

:should read my blog:

[oakapple]

I don't think anyone here is pretending like its a new thing.

"...right now everything it seems like is somehow design driven" sure sounds like the writer thinks this is a new development.

[Anthony Bonner]

I don't think anyone here is pretending like its a new thing.

"...right now everything it seems like is somehow design driven" sure sounds like the writer thinks this is a new development.

are you actually really and truly serious?

[taion]

I think the idea of doing ambitious, or at least serious and grown up food, with relatively stripped down ambience and FoH (stalactites aside) has been around a little while (not counting Chang). Degustation comes to mind too. Maybe we'd all agree that this has been a good thing.

The problem is that a lot of those places don't really outperform on food the way that Ssam in its heyday or Frej do (and Degustation as well, but I'm biased there). And even then, for whatever reason the outperformance on food seldom lasts.

Each Michael White opening so far has been less exciting than the last. No thanks.

For a while, there was talk that Liebrandt might open a "small plates Corton" type of place. Some folks thought it might happen in the nearby Tribakery/Mai House space, which Nieporent also controlled. But that space is now Kutscher's, and there's been no word of expansion lately. I think he is more focused on getting another star at Corton.

Maybe this is revisionist history, but isn't Liebrandt's food more complex and more aggressively not dumbed down than White's has ever been? Sure, he cooks in a different genre, but but so what?

[oakapple]

Each Michael White opening so far has been less exciting than the last. No thanks.

For a while, there was talk that Liebrandt might open a "small plates Corton" type of place. Some folks thought it might happen in the nearby Tribakery/Mai House space, which Nieporent also controlled. But that space is now Kutscher's, and there's been no word of expansion lately. I think he is more focused on getting another star at Corton.

Maybe this is revisionist history, but isn't Liebrandt's food more complex and more aggressively not dumbed down than White's has ever been? Sure, he cooks in a different genre, but but so what?

To compare the two requires a skill I won't pretend to have. But to call White's best work "dumbed down" sounds wrong to me. When he was at his Michelin star places exclusively, who in NYC was making better Italian food than he? If anything, White's cuisine was gussied up, rather than dumbed down, from the more rustic Italian models he started with.

Actually, it was Liebrandt who simplified his earlier work in order to get Corton open. Some of us thought that Gilt should have had four stars, and no one suggested that of Corton at the beginning. I haven't been to Corton in a couple of years, and he may have started amping it up again, now that he's safe from Frank Bruni. But initially, Corton was pretty tame (although still very good) by comparison to Liebrandt's earlier stuff.

A big difference, though, is that White is now up to seven restaurants and counting, while Liebrandt, to my knowledge, has never been in more than one at a time. At this point, he is becoming a brand, like Batali, Boulud, Vongerichten, etc. I can't imagine that the next thing he opens will be better than, or even as good as, his best work to date.

I contrast, I could imagine a "small plates Corton" being really exciting, if it were close enough that he could keep an eye on both.