371 replies to this topic

[taion]

With Frej and Torrisi, the other thing is that Manhattan-related constraints aside, the total number of dishes produced by the kitchen is rather small, so even given the same kitchen, you'd expect a better meal on average since they're only cooking their 5-8 best dishes, instead of e.g. the 20 or so that you'd see on even a small menu. Presumably alongside this they have (relatively) higher food costs and lower kitchen labor costs v. something like Ssäm Bar, but it's not obvious to me which of these factors are the most relevant.

[oakapple]

Would Torrisi go in the same category as Frej?

I don't see great similarities, but there are some.

Frej is currently $45, the same price as Torrisi 1.0, but that was several years ago: the same menu is now $65.

Frej serves five courses with no choices. Torrisi always had two entrée choices, though the rest was fixed.

Frej is open three days a week; Torrisi is open seven days.

Frej requires reservations, and I think they do a much lower volume on any given evening. Torrisi was originally all walk-ins (they've since started taking reservations), and they turn a TON of tables.

Then, there's the question of quality. Most of Mouthfuls thinks the original Torrisi menu is WAY overrated. Not that it was bad, but that it didn't deserve the waves of rapture coming from the likes of Sam Sifton and Kate Krader.

Torrisi has since introduced a 20-course $180 tasting menu, which is obviously more comparable (in duration and price) to Roberta's, not Frej.

[Anthony Bonner]

I think that misses the point. I'm not a Torrisi fan but.....

If the root cause of why they did the things that made them "not a real restaurant" was a lack of capital and a need to do things on the cheap then yes it qualifies for this genre.

I guess the two things that give me pause are their location and their pr. Tho I may just be uneducated wrt the relative costs of real estate in nolita

[oakapple]

I think that misses the point. I'm not a Torrisi fan but.....

If the root cause of why they did the things that made them "not a real restaurant" was a lack of capital and a need to do things on the cheap then yes it qualifies for this genre.

Some folks, and I am one of them, called Frej "not a real restaurant" because it's open only Mondays through Wednesdays. I thought "pop-up" was the more accurate description, and Pete Wells thought so too.

Wilfrid had similar comments about the original Roberta's tasting menu:

This option is neither advertised on their website, shown on the menus at the restaurant, nor offered by servers when you arrive. You need to have been told about it by someone or to have read about it here or on some blog. This is not invented.

Whether there is exclusivity once you've been told you need to pick up a phone, I've no idea. Presumably there isn't a code word you have to use?

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

[Anthony Bonner]

I think the "not a real restaurant" meme doesn't mean what you think it means. It's just shorthand for anyplace that doesn't hew exactly to a traditional dining concept.

[oakapple]

I think the "not a real restaurant" meme doesn't mean what you think it means. It's just shorthand for anyplace that doesn't hew exactly to a traditional dining concept.

Even by that definition, there's nothing untraditional about Torrisi. Both the table d'hôte and the lack of reservations are ancient ideas.

[Anthony Bonner]

So its traditional to serve a 2 star menu in a place with a drinks cooler sitting in the dining room?

Frej is much much closer to a traditional restaurant than was the original iteration of Torrisi

[oakapple]

So its traditional to serve a 2 star menu in a place with a drinks cooler sitting in the dining room?

By the time Torrisi got its two stars, scores of restaurants lacking traditional amenities had received that rating. Here's a reminder from Pete Wells's recent Craig Claiborne retrospective:

In a basement near Battery Park, Jimmy’s Greek American Restaurant prepared moussaka and braised lamb for lunch customers who served themselves by walking right into the kitchen. Claiborne gave the place two stars.

A few weeks later, he gave his top rating(*) of three stars to Gil Clark’s, a clam bar on the marina in Bay Shore on Long Island, where the main courses came with French fries and a salad.

(*) ETA: The original top rating at The Times was three stars; the fourth star came later.

My objection to the second star for Torrisi was not on account of the ambiance, but because I didn't think the food was that great.

[Anthony Bonner]

So its traditional to serve a 2 star menu in a place with a drinks cooler sitting in the dining room?

By the time Torrisi got its two stars, scores of restaurants lacking traditional amenities had received that rating. Here's a reminder from Pete Wells's recent Craig Claiborne retrospective:

In a basement near Battery Park, Jimmy’s Greek American Restaurant prepared moussaka and braised lamb for lunch customers who served themselves by walking right into the kitchen. Claiborne gave the place two stars.

A few weeks later, he gave his top rating(*) of three stars to Gil Clark’s, a clam bar on the marina in Bay Shore on Long Island, where the main courses came with French fries and a salad.

(*) ETA: The original top rating at The Times was three stars; the fourth star came later.

If you can't tell the difference between what Torrisi is doing and what Sripraphai is doing or what those places were doing then I can't help you.

[oakapple]

If you can't tell the difference between what Torrisi is doing and what Sripraphai is doing or what those places were doing then I can't help you.

Slice and dice it any way you want. There was nothing untraditional about Torrisi. If anything, it was retro. One critic's erroneous rating is beside the point. Critics make mistakes all the time. Would we be having this conversation if he'd given it the correct rating of one star?

[Orik]

A friend of mine had (maybe still has) a standing weekly reservation at Frej; while monotonous is not the right word, there's some element of that which is not ideal. For Hearth, at least we can order different dishes on different visits.

I don't think it's the choice of dishes on the menu that makes the difference - if Frej changed all the dishes they serve your weird friend every week, it'd still not really be food your non-weird friends would want to eat on a very regular basis. I think it's better food, but it's food that demands attention and that relies less on the elements that make Italian food delicious but also very limited. Like, a 6 year old would love most of the food at Hearth but would probably send almost everything back to the kitchen at Frej.

[Anthony Bonner]

If you can't tell the difference between what Torrisi is doing and what Sripraphai is doing or what those places were doing then I can't help you.

Slice and dice it any way you want. There was nothing untraditional about Torrisi. If anything, it was retro. One critic's erroneous rating is beside the point. Critics make mistakes all the time. Would we be having this conversation if he'd given it the correct rating of one star?

I'm slicing and dicing? are you kidding me? 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?

[taion]

A friend of mine had (maybe still has) a standing weekly reservation at Frej; while monotonous is not the right word, there's some element of that which is not ideal. For Hearth, at least we can order different dishes on different visits.

I don't think it's the choice of dishes on the menu that makes the difference - if Frej changed all the dishes they serve your weird friend every week, it'd still not really be food your non-weird friends would want to eat on a very regular basis. I think it's better food, but it's food that demands attention and that relies less on the elements that make Italian food delicious but also very limited. Like, a 6 year old would love most of the food at Hearth but would probably send almost everything back to the kitchen at Frej.

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?

[taion]

If you can't tell the difference between what Torrisi is doing and what Sripraphai is doing or what those places were doing then I can't help you.

Slice and dice it any way you want. There was nothing untraditional about Torrisi. If anything, it was retro. One critic's erroneous rating is beside the point. Critics make mistakes all the time. Would we be having this conversation if he'd given it the correct rating of one star?

Quality of food aside, what Frej and Torrisi have in common was that both serve about a half dozen courses on a menu at a low price point with very limited choice for the diner, in a very pared-back environment but with a well-credentialed kitchen. This was distinct from, say, Ssäm Bar, which offered more or less a full menu, though it kept the pared-down decor. Novel or not, I can't think of any other restaurants in the conversation that do this. I think these are meaningful aspects.

Further, judgments of quality aside, Frej is different from Torrisi in that it's "not a real restaurant", in that it's only open on weird days and as a consequence presumably pays significantly less in rent and required a lot less capital to open. This is indeed unique and interesting and I'd love it if some random ramen places near us turned into interesting restaurants during the early half of the week, but it's not the only thing that separates Frej from the rest of the crowd.

[oakapple]

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.