371 replies to this topic

[Adrian]

The lack of choice is an innovation. It's totally irrelevant whether or not restaurants in France were serving a no choice table d'hote in 1862 (or in Montreal or Paris in 2002, for that matter).

[Anthony Bonner]

So guys - I guess this is as good a place as any to announce it - I'm opening a new restaurant and our story is going to be we pile every dish on the carte on to your table as soon as drinks arrive. The food media will buy our line that its "to make dinner more of a party, more social. Not interrupted by servers" and they'll hail us as innovators. But you guys, you guys will see right through it. Wilf will tell everyone we're just too cheap to hire wait staff, and Oakapple will tell us that was all done before, its just service à la française.

I expect a hundred page thread when we are still Friends and Family.

[Anthony Bonner]

The lack of choice is an innovation. It's totally irrelevant whether or not restaurants in France were serving a no choice table d'hote in 1862 (or in Montreal or Paris in 2002, for that matter).

Hmm. I don't think its an innovation, I think its a result of other decisions that were made.

[Anthony Bonner]

I think we're just splitting hairs here. "Lower level of difficulty" and "innovations that allow them to serve food of higher quality" are different sides of the same coin.

I don't think so (sort of, kind of). The issue isn't that it's "easy" to serve the food that these places serve - in fact, it's quite hard and requires a tremendous amount of talent - but that these guys can't serve that food any other way. I mean, yes, it's a "lower level of difficulty" to serve modern, complex, Michelin level food with a small kitchen and three guys cooking but I don't think it's any "easier" than what Real Restaurants do. The point is that these guys either 1) can't get the capital to do what Real Restaurants do or 2) don't want to operate in a Real Restaurant environment or 3) both. So there is a tradeoff between "large kitchen, lots of capital, $100 million buildout" and "no capital, small kitchen, multi-purpose space". Is it any less difficult to serve a complex, multi-course menu in an ad hoc space with two guys than to serve a simpler or comparable standard length menu with a full brigade and a custom kitchen? I doubt it. Which I think is slightly different than the above point.

Perhaps difficulty is the wrong word then. What I mean is that the Frej model likely wouldn't scale up well to a "real restaurant" that also tried to do things like offer diners choice in what they ate. But I think it's not unreasonable to say that if the kind of food they're serving wouldn't work well in a "real restaurant", then tautologically a different restaurant format that does make it possible to serve that kind of food "lowers the difficulty" of doing so.

But what I'm really trying to say is that I don't mean this as some sort of value judgment - it's just the observation that this restaurant format goes well with this kind of food for reasons beyond just the vagaries of funding or whatever.

Well what would make Frej a "real restaurant" - how many choices on the carte? 2 for each course? Why do you suppose they couldn't scale up to that? Its a few more cheap induction burners and maybe one more staff member? What makes Frej work is the low cost of the (small) room, the ressy only policy, and the very small FOH. I think that's something that works for all types of cuisine. Think about what a lot of places in Europe are like? The model isn't a new one, its just a new one here.

ETA: Define "this type of food"

[Adrian]

The lack of choice is an innovation. It's totally irrelevant whether or not restaurants in France were serving a no choice table d'hote in 1862 (or in Montreal or Paris in 2002, for that matter).

Hmm. I don't think its an innovation, I think its a result of other decisions that were made.

Sure. The point is more that it's different from what came before because it comes from a totally different place.

ETA: innovation in the sense that it's a new(ish) technique for allowing chefs to serve Michelin level food without easy access to capital. Which is pretty much what you're saying.

[oakapple]

The lack of choice is an innovation. It's totally irrelevant whether or not restaurants in France were serving a no choice table d'hote in 1862 (or in Montreal or Paris in 2002, for that matter).

Sorry, I'm just not getting it. The word innovation has specific meaning: something that hasn't been done before. The best it could be is a revival, if they were bringing back a long-dormant idea, but not even that is true here. Restaurants with set menus have been around more-or-less continuously since...almost forever.

[mitchells]

Maybe it is an innovation for Brooklyn.

[Adrian]

The lack of choice is an innovation. It's totally irrelevant whether or not restaurants in France were serving a no choice table d'hote in 1862 (or in Montreal or Paris in 2002, for that matter).

Sorry, I'm just not getting it. The word innovation has specific meaning: something that hasn't been done before. The best it could be is a revival, if they were bringing back a long-dormant idea, but not even that is true here. Restaurants with set menus have been around more-or-less continuously since...almost forever.

Innovation refers (or can refer to keep things non-exclusive) to method. Either the use or application of new methods or the act of doing something in a new way. Think "innovative use". It's different from invention. The innovation is to use the fixed price, no choice menu as a way to deliver Michelin quality food without access to capital. These guys didn't invent either the fixed price menu or Michelin quality food, no one is claiming that.

[Sneakeater]

Tables d'hote were just regular meals where you didn't get to choose what you got.

They weren't mandatory multi-course tasting menus. (Of course, I guess Frej doesn't serve THAT many courses.)

[Orik]

Tables d'hote were just regular meals where you didn't get to choose what you got.

They weren't mandatory multi-course tasting menus. (Of course, I guess Frej doesn't serve THAT many courses.)

Seven courses if you count the amuse and the extra course, that's plenty (think about it, that's like $7 per course )

[Sneakeater]

I had a feeling that might be the case.

Anyway, to state it another way (although I guess Adrian already said this):

Tables d'hote were a feature at fairly homey restaurants featuring communal dining. They weren't a way for restaurants to serve very fancy food without commensurate capital costs.

[Sneakeater]

To grasp whether this is an innovation, you have to factor in all the different elements:

Mandatory long set menu of very fancy high-end food in modest surroundings with modest service.

[Orik]

Not an innovation in Tokyo, but an innovation in nyc.

[Wilfrid]

A $180 tasting menu to be eaten at a counter in a Bushwick basement in a modern, clearly elegant and attractive restaurant

Have you been to Roberta's? Can you see the difference between Roberta's and Blanc?

L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, by the way, favored counter dining.

[Sneakeater]

Right. Exactly.