The NoMad

[Orik]

I don't understand the stool thing. Well, I understand it, but I don't understand why some women react (or should react) to it in the manner Adrian describes, nor do I understand why it's considered to be "formal" or funny. Could someone explain?

 

(FWIW, I prefer a basket-cloth combo to a stool)

 

You're used to Japan, but where the Japanese concept is based on the horror of you touching the purse that had touched the floor where the waiter may have previously stepped with the same shoes he wears outside (and in the bathroom), I think the European based meaning is slightly different, probably hinting at the fact that your purse is Prada or something.

[prasantrin]

I don't understand the stool thing. Well, I understand it, but I don't understand why some women react (or should react) to it in the manner Adrian describes, nor do I understand why it's considered to be "formal" or funny. Could someone explain?

 

(FWIW, I prefer a basket-cloth combo to a stool)

 

Because you're sitting there perfectly comfortably with your purse wherever you put it and suddenly some server rushes up, plops a stool next to you, and ceremoniously places your purse on it, as if whatever you'd been forced to do with it before was doing both you and your purse the greatest dishonor imaginable. It just makes you smile.

 

I guess I'm too familiar with that kind of service to feel that way. I do smile when it happens, but only as a polite "thank you", not for any other reason. (It's not an uncommon practice in Japan, even in casual restaurants, though the basket-cloth combo is probably more common.)

[prasantrin]

I don't understand the stool thing. Well, I understand it, but I don't understand why some women react (or should react) to it in the manner Adrian describes, nor do I understand why it's considered to be "formal" or funny. Could someone explain?

 

(FWIW, I prefer a basket-cloth combo to a stool)

 

You're used to Japan, but where the Japanese concept is based on the horror of you touching the purse that had touched the floor where the waiter may have previously stepped with the same shoes he wears outside (and in the bathroom), I think the European based meaning is slightly different, probably hinting at the fact that your purse is Prada or something.

 

You're too smart, orik. (see my post made simultaneously to yours)

 

eta--in Europe, would they still give me a stool even if my purse were really just a bag a former student's grandmother made for me?

[Orik]

They have bottle service?

 

Yeah...

 

Seems much more refined than that bizarre thing with the cheap booze at EMP... There you go folks, we know you're wondering what just happened here, because a three star meal it was not, but why don't you just booze yourselves up now and let's part ways as friends.

 

Taillevent reference.

 

Yeah, well...

[Orik]

I don't understand the stool thing. Well, I understand it, but I don't understand why some women react (or should react) to it in the manner Adrian describes, nor do I understand why it's considered to be "formal" or funny. Could someone explain?

 

(FWIW, I prefer a basket-cloth combo to a stool)

 

You're used to Japan, but where the Japanese concept is based on the horror of you touching the purse that had touched the floor where the waiter may have previously stepped with the same shoes he wears outside (and in the bathroom), I think the European based meaning is slightly different, probably hinting at the fact that your purse is Prada or something.

 

You're too smart, orik. (see my post made simultaneously to yours)

 

eta--in Europe, would they still give me a stool even if my purse were really just a bag a former student's grandmother made for me?

 

Yes, but they would turn around and laugh at the situation behind your back.

[prasantrin]

I don't understand the stool thing. Well, I understand it, but I don't understand why some women react (or should react) to it in the manner Adrian describes, nor do I understand why it's considered to be "formal" or funny. Could someone explain?

 

(FWIW, I prefer a basket-cloth combo to a stool)

 

You're used to Japan, but where the Japanese concept is based on the horror of you touching the purse that had touched the floor where the waiter may have previously stepped with the same shoes he wears outside (and in the bathroom), I think the European based meaning is slightly different, probably hinting at the fact that your purse is Prada or something.

 

You're too smart, orik. (see my post made simultaneously to yours)

 

eta--in Europe, would they still give me a stool even if my purse were really just a bag a former student's grandmother made for me?

 

Yes, but they would turn around and laugh at the situation behind your back.

 

They'd probably laugh in my face. It's quilted (but at least it's black! And even though it's quilted, I still love it because of the sentiment involved)

[Sneakeater]

At per se they'd all coo over it. (And then probably laugh behind your back.) (Or put in a memoir/expose.)

[Adrian]

They have bottle service?

 

Yeah...

 

Seems much more refined than that bizarre thing with the cheap booze at EMP... There you go folks, we know you're wondering what just happened here, because a three star meal it was not, but why don't you just booze yourselves up now and let's part ways as friends.

 

Taillevent reference.

 

Yeah, well...

 

I'm giving you an explanation, not a justification.

[Sneakeater]

Let's put it this way: if she'd come home with me after having been subjected to a roomful of MFers talking intensely about internet fights in the early '00s, she'll probably come home with me even if I nix the bottle service.

Oh, that was her???

 

Just so you don't get the wrong idea about anyone, I don't think you guys were in the particular room I was talking about (if I'm remembering right).

[prasantrin]

At per se they'd all coo over it. (And then probably laugh behind your back.) (Or put in a memoir/expose.)

 

It has faux leather straps and the lining is black with little white polka dots. It even has a little cell phone pocket.

 

(I prefer to think of myself as worldly rather than jaded, but only because no one else would ever think of me as worldly )

[Anthony Bonner]

I love the "temples to food" for myself, and with my more food-obsessed friends. They're really my favored kind of spots. But when you're going out with friends or a date who are perhaps not as food-obsessed as you are, they seem a little ridiculous.

 

up against the wall with you.

[Anthony Bonner]

(BTW this is exactly the sort of place my manifesto rejects)

 

Hmmmm. I'm not sure how productive that is. Merits of the bottle service excepted, so what if Humm and co. want to build a place that's a little bit decadent and a little bit frivolous? Part of the fun of fine dining is it's frivolity and its generosity - it's a patently ridiculous exercise. I think a lot of people in their mid to late twenties and, I guess, now their 30s (though that's, thankfully, not me yet) who came of age during the whole American bistro revolution, mistake fine dining's absurdity for a joke being played at their expense. But you're supposed to laugh with it if it's good; it doesn't laugh at you. When Ducasse brought a stool for someone's purse (or so I hear), the girl is supposed to crack a smile, maybe laugh a bit, not bristle at the formality of it all. This is, of course, when it's done well. If it's done poorly, it's fussy, stodgy, staid, uncomfortable, and unpleasant. The flip side is the new, austere art project restaurant which, and I think Wilfrid's largely right here, is more of a "temple to food" than the old guard restaurants ever where. I love these places for the economic reason Bonner suggests. I also love them because they represent interesting, creative, and often fun, expressions of fine dining outside of a traditional model. To reject either strikes me as counter-productive.

because you can't permit such fripperies when the dining scenes need to be purified.

 

To be serious for a moment - buildouts like this are a symptom of what's wrong with NYC. Taken on its own merits it might be exactly as Adrian describes it, but the whole thing speaks to what is wrong with fine dining in NYC.

[Lex]

(BTW this is exactly the sort of place my manifesto rejects)

Didn't you threaten us with a manifesto Thursday and then edit that away?

 

 

Manifesto! Manifesto! Manifesto!

[Anthony Bonner]

(BTW this is exactly the sort of place my manifesto rejects)

 

Hmmmm. I'm not sure how productive that is. Merits of the bottle service excepted, so what if Humm and co. want to build a place that's a little bit decadent and a little bit frivolous? Part of the fun of fine dining is it's frivolity and its generosity - it's a patently ridiculous exercise. I think a lot of people in their mid to late twenties and, I guess, now their 30s (though that's, thankfully, not me yet) who came of age during the whole American bistro revolution, mistake fine dining's absurdity for a joke being played at their expense. But you're supposed to laugh with it if it's good; it doesn't laugh at you. When Ducasse brought a stool for someone's purse (or so I hear), the girl is supposed to crack a smile, maybe laugh a bit, not bristle at the formality of it all. This is, of course, when it's done well. If it's done poorly, it's fussy, stodgy, staid, uncomfortable, and unpleasant. The flip side is the new, austere art project restaurant which, and I think Wilfrid's largely right here, is more of a "temple to food" than the old guard restaurants ever where. I love these places for the economic reason Bonner suggests. I also love them because they represent interesting, creative, and often fun, expressions of fine dining outside of a traditional model. To reject either strikes me as counter-productive.

Eh isn't your obsession with Montreal trash food sort evidence that you can have that fun decadent frivolous party in a room where the build out wasn't in to the seven figures?

 

A stripped down room doesn't have to be "a temple to food" - indeed if your low capital costs allow you to operate at a lower price point its a bit the opposite.

 

NYC does not need another restaurant like NoMad. And I like the food at EMP. I don't say this out of some aversion to their food.

[Adrian]

I don't disagree, though those restaurants are bistros. I'm talking about the Ko-type places - austere, fine dining joints stripped of more traditional amenities. I had a great experience at Ko, but the comment that it's a more reverent sort of experience is, I think, accurate. I think these places tend to be more necessarily food focused - I can imagine a meal at Jean Georges where you don't pay any attention to what's on the plate, it's hard to think of Ko in the same way.

 

I'd like to hear Wilfrid's thoughts on a place like Club Chasse et Peche, which is ostensibly a fine dining restaurant with linens and such, but borrows heavily from more casual places in terms of attitude, service, and even menu style. The result is a much more "fun" (for lack of a better word) meal than at other linened places.