Adrian

I think everyone needs to go back a bit in this conversation. take yourself out of it, breathe deeply for a second. AC doesn't owe you anything. I think he's opening restaurants like the Dutch and Lafayette because it's what he wants to do. Read his book, see where his pleasure cortex is. And if it happens to intersect with the profitable ( nee Luke and Josh) more power to him. I dont begrudge wealth and happiness to anyone who's put their time in behind the line, regardless of how you judge their capabilities.

as a critical public, it's fair to say a guy putting a product out is under-performing his abilities. i don't see why food is any different than other things we criticize in that respect. as i said earlier, no one here would be complaining if these places were great versions of the restaurants they are, it's that people here think that they're not.

but you're also right that its AC doing what he wants, for whatever reasons, and not him being forced into these places by an unappreciative public.

But really, what makes anyone think it's easier to run a restaurant like Lafayette than it is to run a 30-seat 3-star place?  I bet it's harder.
 

+1

harder to run v. harder to cook. we're muddying a distinction maybe but:

it's probably harder to churn out best sellers consistently than to write a great novel, but it would still be somewhat unfortunate (for me, as a consumer) if, idk, zadie smith turned her back on literature and started writing romances.

eta: ori and sneak already got there.

I think Adrian was using the term "4 star" in the traditional and meaningful sense, not in the opinion of Bruni, Wells, Sifton, who everyone here seems to agree fucked it up royally.

Four gold stars.

I'm not talking about theatrics - I'm talking about attendant elements - the sloppily plated hunk of well roasted meat at Joe Beef will never be awarded four stars over the labour intensive tweezer plates at EMP, even if the technical cooking is better (not taking a position on that one). To get four stars, you've got to be cooking more complex, labour intensive food with a certain type of presentation. Even if the roasting is better at Joe Beef, the complexity and presentation of the dishes at EMP means that it can be four stars when Joe Beef can't.

I actually agree with that. 

ETA: which all doubles back to my point about formal criteria. high end food is judged on a formal criteria, generally coming out of the french tradition (but not necessarily - see japan, etc), that bears a partial, but not complete, relation to how good the food tastes. if you don't meet those criteria, your food can't be four nyt/three michelin stars. even if it tastes better based on your subjective standard.**

The fancy food at Brooklyn Fare and Blanca is very idiosyncratic. Has Carmellini evidenced any interest in that? If your description of him is correct (I'll confess I didn't click all the links), he's not particularly a counter-culturalist. At his best, he was a superb traditionalist 3F chef.

I haven't looked up Mirarchi's background, but César Ramirez has a 3F background much like Carmellini. His first solo venture (the underwhelming Bar Blanc) gave no hint that he was going to do anything like Brooklyn Fare.
 

 

I'm not talking about background. I'm talking about personalities and inclinations. Ramirez, we now know, is not a "straight" (culturally, not sexually). Carmellini apparently is.

I think Carmellini's interest in running an idiosyncratic place in Brooklyn approaches zero.

carmellini could easily do the nomad or find a spot in the west village to serve chateaubriand with bernaise to six tables to fantastic acclaim from eater, nynad and all the blogs. easily. he chooses not to. that's fine. but it's not that there isn't a market.

It so happens that F3 is what AC has proven he can do. But bear in mind, Wylie Dufresne was trained in F3, as well. There are a lot of directions you can go, without appealing to a lower common denominator.

 

For my part, I'm more interested in the fact that AC works below his talent level, not the reasons for it. Wilfrid's point certainly has some merit: would you seriously claim that there is the identical market for F3 as for what AC is now doing, and therefore it's purely a matter of preference?

uh-huh. hence my assumption. identical market? no. is there a market for high end food cooked by F3 chefs? yeah, even if it's been somewhat supplanted by modern australian. emp is serving a modern variation on F3, could AC do something more traditional and have it be successful? i see no reason why not if he wanted to give it a shot.

Three- and Four-star food is a quality judgment. Do you seriously think that Frank Bruni and Pete Wells are in thrall to the theatrics? Nothing would have pleased Frank Bruni more, than to give four stars to a restaurant that broke the F3 mold, like Momofuku Ko. He just couldn't bring himself to do it, though Lord knows, he tried. He certainly broke the 3-star model on several occasions.

 

Even Ruth Reichl was dying to do it. She said she would have loved to award four stars to a restaurant that broke the F3 model [she didn't use that term, but clearly meant that], but was unable to find one.

yes, four star is a style as well as a quality and taste judgment.* orik had a post some while ago where he flatly said that they cook better at joe beef than per se. that doesn't change the fact that, even accepting that assessment, joe beef could never gain four stars and per se can, even if joe beef is cooking better technically and making better tasting food than per se.

*just look at the carbone debate