[Sneakeater]

I don't mean to be argumentative, nux.

I just find it frustrating that it's hard for me to convey mildly liking something. Meaning that it's hard for me to convey when I think something is good, but not the absolute my-favoritest best. It always comes out either more favorable than I want it to, or (as here) less. It's hard for me to get it right.

It's a shortcoming of my writing, for which I apologize.

[Nathan]

That's sort of my point.

These guys come here, and we're all told, like, this is the biggest chef in Charlotte (and with all those banks there, you know he has a high-class clientele), everybody there is just crazy for his food -- and then it turns out (if everybody is lucky) to be perfectly fine just-below-what-we're-used-to-getting-here stuff.

At least, that's how people perceive it.

(I'm one of the few people who liked Lonesome Dove, BTW.)

let's be blunt. Outside of NY, Chicago, SF, London, Tokyo, Paris and Spain, the best restaurant in a city is almost never on the NY playing field. Take a McRadys for example. Yes, it's a perfectly fine restaurant with a talented kitchen. It would be lucky to crack the top 30 in NY.

Why? Big fish, small pond. You have talented chefs who do not have the competition necessary to push them to the NY standard.

[Sneakeater]

Thanks for saying what I was beating around the bush with.

ETA -- Which is not to say, of course, that these guys don't deserve a chance to try here. Just that they'd all be better served if their PR handlers forewent the unsuccessful trope of trying to get us excited because a big chef from some secondary market is coming here.

It's become a turn-off. Not because I say so, but because the evidence is pretty clear.

[Suzanne F]

That's sort of my point.

These guys come here, and we're all told, like, this is the biggest chef in Charlotte (and with all those banks there, you know he has a high-class clientele), everybody there is just crazy for his food -- and then it turns out (if everybody is lucky) to be perfectly fine just-below-what-we're-used-to-getting-here stuff.

At least, that's how people perceive it.

(I'm one of the few people who liked Lonesome Dove, BTW.)

let's be blunt. Outside of NY, Chicago, SF, London, Tokyo, Paris and Spain, the best restaurant in a city is almost never on the NY playing field. Take a McRadys for example. Yes, it's a perfectly fine restaurant with a talented kitchen. It would be lucky to crack the top 30 in NY.

Why? Big fish, small pond. You have talented chefs who do not have the competition necessary to push them to the NY standard.

WTF? Is New York is the only place where diners care about what they eat, and chefs only care if they have competition? That's nonsense.

I take back what I said: some NYers aren't just provincial, they are arrogant xenophobic snobs. And that goes for some NY residents who have moved on to other places where things aren't up to their "NY" standards.

There's a prejudice that comes rejecting the hype that surrounds an outsider, and therefore rejecting the outsider as "not worthy" of the hype. Imo, hype should always be ignored, and the chef judged on the merits of the food produced. Period. What's the first Cartesian principle? Doubt everything. And the last? When you're done analyzing the problems from simple to complex, go back and check your reasoning.


If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with. Or cook for yourself.


(This is not meant to be an attack on any individual[s], but rather on an unwarranted attitude. I daresay any place that has a strong food culture -- and there are many all over the world -- engenders the same attitude in some of its residents. But who has a right to say that only their one location of the many can claim to be so great? Pish.)

[oakapple]

let's be blunt. Outside of NY, Chicago, SF, London, Tokyo, Paris and Spain, the best restaurant in a city is almost never on the NY playing field. Take a McRadys for example. Yes, it's a perfectly fine restaurant with a talented kitchen. It would be lucky to crack the top 30 in NY.

Why? Big fish, small pond. You have talented chefs who do not have the competition necessary to push them to the NY standard.

As Nathan no longer posts here very often, some of us may have forgotten his penchant for outrageous exaggeration. As applied to world cities, the comment is so clearly not true that it is laughable. Could Nathan really believe that no French city outside of Paris has restaurants on par with New York's best? Don't get me started on Italy and Scandinavia, or I'll be here all night.

[Sneakeater]

But there's a kernal of truth there.

Not just because of the lack of competition among chefs in secondary markets, but also because of a lack of knowledge and perhaps seriousness among patrons. That's not a value judgment: it's not their fault, because they don't have access to the best the cutting edge has to offer. (And probably more important than anything else, the lack of capitalization for restaurants outside major markets.)

As an example, take my home borough of Brooklyn. "Locals" get excited about the restaurant Saul. But if Saul opened in Manhattan, it would seem unexciting, unchallenging, and second rate. It would not be anything like the major place some Brooklyn locals claim.

With all due respect to my friends in Montclair, I'd say the same thing about the restaurants there. You hear these great things about them, but they all tend to be places that, if they were in Manhattan, would seem out-of-date and second-rate. That's not to say these places are bad. They're often very good. They're just not at anything near the highest level of excellence.

I'm sure the same goes for other locations that don't happen to be across various rivers (or estuaries) from Manhattan.

[Nathan]

"WTF? Is New York is the only place where diners care about what they eat, and chefs only care if they have competition? That's nonsense."

that would indeed be a nonsensical statement. Which is why I said absolutely nothing of the kind. I suggest reading.

What I did say is that excellence requires competition.

[Sneakeater]

Is there a restaurant in Atlanta as good as Jean Georges?

(I'm not saying there aren't excellent restaurants in Atlanta. I'm asking a very specific question.)

[Nathan]

let's be blunt. Outside of NY, Chicago, SF, London, Tokyo, Paris and Spain, the best restaurant in a city is almost never on the NY playing field. Take a McRadys for example. Yes, it's a perfectly fine restaurant with a talented kitchen. It would be lucky to crack the top 30 in NY.

Why? Big fish, small pond. You have talented chefs who do not have the competition necessary to push them to the NY standard.

As Nathan no longer posts here very often, some of us may have forgotten his penchant for outrageous exaggeration. As applied to world cities, the comment is so clearly not true that it is laughable. Could Nathan really believe that no French city outside of Paris has restaurants on par with New York's best? Don't get me started on Italy and Scandinavia, or I'll be here all night.

I should have said France along with Spain but I'm posting on an iPhone and my time and patience for editing is limited.
As for Italy...good luck finding non-Italian restaurants that match up. Btw, I meant to add Sydney, Singapore and Hong Kong but figured my use of the word "almost" was enough of a qualifier.

[Nathan]

Is there a restaurant in Atlanta as good as Jean Georges?

(I'm not saying there aren't excellent restaurants in Atlanta. I'm asking a very specific question.)

no. Bacchanalia is good but not even close.

Part of the problem might be that when I eat in US cities outside of NY, SF, Chicago and Vegas I find that people get excited about dishes and combinations that are a little dated.

[Nathan]

I mean Sanford D'Amato is a talented chef but unless a Milwaukee diner is eating at high end restaurants in Chicago several nights a week they don't have the context to judge how he really compares.

[Sneakeater]

Right.

And it's not that we're "better" than they are. It's that we have exposure to things that they don't.

[oakapple]

Part of the problem might be that when I eat in US cities outside of NY, SF, Chicago and Vegas I find that people get excited about dishes and combinations that are a little dated.

There is no such thing as dated cuisine, except in a few people's minds, but I do agree that very few North American cities have a restaurant that would crack the top 30 in New York. I think Susur Lee's experience is instructive. I liked Shang much better than the critics, but even I did not think it was a top-30 place, yet in Toronto he was (and is) the top of the heap. And Toronto is a cosmopolitan city.

[Sneakeater]

That's really all we're saying. It seems to be a pretty demonstrable fact.

[Sneakeater]

I mean, would anybody get offended if I said, "aside from possibly Chicago, the theater in New York tends to be much better than in any other American city"?

Or would you just take it as a self-evident truth, one of the reasons that people put up with living in New York?