247 replies to this topic

[Sneakeater]

I don't think so. Luger's is a full-scale formal restaurant. Sure, brusqueness on the part of the waiters may be part of the schtick, but -- except for the fact that your table is never ready on time -- the service model isn't really below that of any three-star restaurant.

[Nathan]

I don't think so. Luger's is a full-scale formal restaurant. Sure, bruskness on the part of the waiters may be part of the schtick, but -- except for the fact that your table is never ready on time -- the service model isn't really below that of any three-star restaurant.

talking about the food....but point taken.

[oakapple]

It seems to me that since historically Luger's has had 3 stars (and not just because of that)....the NY Times 3 star paradigm you all keep discussing has never actually existed and is merely a construct put forth by MF contributors

The most you can claim, is that Luger's was an exception. If you don't think there was ever a three-star norm, then I have to wonder what you have been reading.

[Wilfrid]

I don't think anyone would say that ham or bread or butter has zero culinary significance. But I point to history again. Restaurants began as places where a menu of prepared dishes was served. They differentiated themselves from inns or hostels where you ate whatever you were given, and from stores where you could buy meat and bread and stuff your face with it.

Restaurant reviewing, as a practice, has its roots in evaluating both the food and the rituals surrounding its service in these new-fangled restaurants.

Wells can redefine restaurants and restaurant reviewing - no law against it - but he should be careful what he's throwing out, and wary of confounding the general reader's expectations.

[Orik]

hostels where you ate whatever you were given

Like Per Se, BF, Ko...

eta: I agree with you, of course

[Wilfrid]

Well, quite seriously, leaving aside those fancy-boots joints, this trend towards just offering steak for two or chicken for two is historically retrograde.

[oakapple]

Wells can redefine restaurants and restaurant reviewing - no law against it - but he should be careful what he's throwing out, and wary of confounding the general reader's expectations.

I don't mind re-thinking what it means to be a three-star restaurant. After all, fewer of the traditional three-star restaurants are opening. Without a re-think, the genre would soon be extinct.

But the one thing he hasn't done is to change standard blurb at the bottom of each review, which states that three stars means "excellent". In my book, excellence needs to be scarce, or you are setting the bar too low. And I just haven't seen the argument from anyone other than Wells, that IBA is excellent. Indeed, even he didn't really explain it very well.

[Wilfrid]

IBA might well be excellent if one takes account of products which - I argue - are peripheral to the restaurant experience as we usually understand it. I've done some limited sampling of their bread and salume, and in it's own terms it is excellent.

Yes, the concept of a three star restaurant needs to be flexible. But not this flexible.

[Adrian]

Yes, the concept of a three star restaurant needs to be flexible. But not this flexible.

Yes. The flexibility needs to come with regard to the non-food parts of the restaurant and not from the core evaluation of the labour, creativity, and judgment of the chef.

[Orik]

Well, quite seriously, leaving aside those fancy-boots joints, this trend towards just offering steak for two or chicken for two is historically retrograde.

I don't think so. If you look at the list of 2-3 michelin star restaurants in the world today, you'll see that many of them offer little or no choice. This is true for some in nyc (Ko, Masa, BF, Kajitsu, Per Se, anyone else?) and Paris (l'Astrance, P53, Bigarrade, Agape Substance (not multi starred yet, but...)), and for practically all of them in Asia (actually it's funny but many 3 star French places in Japan offer a carte because they feel they have to, but nobody ever orders anything but the tasting menu)

Of course you could claim that for you an excellent restaurant is one that offers a menu to choose from, and that it's a serious defect if it doesn't, but if you're the nytimes critic you'll find yourself faced with a reality where you're unable to award three or four stars to many new restaurants that offer excellent food in an environment that most people are happy with and that makes economic sense.

eta: also, I stand by my assertion that once you've picked a restaurant out of every restaurant in the world to have dinner at tonight, the limited choice offered by a menu isn't important, and is for the most part an illusion - if Adour offers either steak or steamed halibut, are you ever going to choose the halibut?

[Wilfrid]

No, I didn't mean my comment to apply to the kinds of places you're talking about. I am thinking of the low-to-mid-scale New York restaurants which, by severely limiting menu choices, take us in the coaching-inn direction.

I don't see anything limiting in the kinds of menus you're talking about, choice or no choice. That's an evolution, rather than a de-evolution.

[Adrian]

Yes, the change is in terms of the environment that you're eating in not in terms of what actually goes into the food. The food may have changed stylistically, but the fact that the food is technical, labour intensive, etc. has stayed constant. These things get controversial not when a place with an informal atmosphere is rewarded with three stars, but when food that doesn't meet these other standards does.

[Sneakeater]

Right. Whether you agreed with the rating or not, it was one thing to award Ssam Bar three stars, and quite another IBA.

[mitchells]

It would be interesting to see what Ssam would have gotten if all they served was bread, butter, 4 or 5 different hams and buns.

[Sneakeater]

But that isn't all IBA serves. They have a full composed food menu. (Again, NOT saying IBA in any ways deserves three stars.)