What Is Fine Dining These Days - at Least Here in NYC?

[Sneakeater]

You know, I never wrote up One White Street because I couldn't figure out what I thought of it.  But now @Orik has pretty brilliantly explained why.

One White Street serves an elaborate tasting menu and still uses luxe ingredients (although they are not of the best).  But they serve it in a stripped-down room with no amenities.  (@small h, if no one else, will note the shift there from singular to plural.)  And service, while it mimes being "friendly" in the Brooklyn style (this restaurant is in Tribeca), is awful.  They simply are not there when you need them.

What I now see is that the physical discomfort and the bad service made it hard for me to focus on the food enough to evaluate it.  I don't think I thought it was very good -- but under the circumstances, could I tell?

See, this was a case where there wasn't "intimacy and personal service" to overcome the discomfort and lack of "haute signifiers" (I mean Jesus Christ in an expensive tasting menu place I'm just supposed to dump my hat and backpack on the floor between my table and the [highly proximate] next one??????).

[small h]

10 minutes ago, Sneakeater said:

@small h, if no one else, will note the shift there from plural to singular.

I did, and it somehow reminded me that it was time to clean Laszlo's litterbox. An odd yet positive outcome.

[Wilfrid]

I didn’t explain it? 😢

[Sneakeater]

OK, @Orik and @Wilfrid.

[joethefoodie]

8 hours ago, Sneakeater said:

I mean Jesus Christ in an expensive tasting menu place I'm just supposed to dump my hat and backpack

No - you're supposed to plop them on the bar.

[Neocon maudit]

In autumn 2021, I just want to know where the good food good eats at. Though not if I must suffer 'physical discomfort and the bad service' with it. [Does a birria truck in Queens count as 'physical discomfort'? I suspect in my case yes.]

Realistically, I expect it will be months, probably longer, before a new economic and cultural equilibrium is established in post-pandemic dining. And, pessimistically [realistically?], I do not expect the new equilibrium to favour my own chances.

[Orik]

I just figured the last time I saw a tablecloth in a NYC restaurant was November 2020 (Aska) whereas practically every place in Madrid (ex DiverXo) has them. 

[Wilfrid]

I bet the servers wear jackets and bow-ties too.

So I was thinking about this in the context of Le Crocodile. The food is good, but not life-changing. In fact, the dinner I had last night is something I could re-create (for the most part) at home. And dinner there is far from cheap.

A major reason I keep going is that the ambience and service are big positives for me. I wouldn't pay these prices for this food in a converted garage with wooden benches and Black Sabbath turned up loud. 

[joethefoodie]

1 hour ago, Wilfrid said:

The food is good, but not life-changing. In fact, the dinner I had last night is something I could re-create (for the most part) at home. And dinner there is far from cheap.

A major reason I keep going is that the ambience and service are big positives for me.

This has practically become the standard where are we going for dinner for us.

[Sneakeater]

But if Le Crocodile is considered Fine Dining, the concept has lost all meaning.

[Wilfrid]

I was continuing the train of thought about the significance of amenities other than the food. Le Crocodile may not be fine dining, but it has enough good things going for it off the plate that I have been going regularly. 

Of course, it also seems to me like a new restaurant as I didn't go before 2020 was canceled. (Which is beside the point, I know.)

[rozrapp]

6 hours ago, Orik said:

I just figured the last time I saw a tablecloth in a NYC restaurant was November 2020 (Aska) whereas practically every place in Madrid (ex DiverXo) has them. 

When we ate outdoors at Kreuther, Majorelle, and Union Square Cafe this summer, there were tablecloths.

[voyager]

The qualifiers in the topic been addressed:    fine dining these days" and "NYC".      Perhaps it might be valuable to discuss late 20th C diners' tables vs what we now expect or demand.    IMHO, many of the old standards have been supplanted with new.   And how many of the old no longer suffice.    

[Diancecht]

i don’t know if my tastes have changed all that much but after our experience last night, i really appreciated being in a place where tablecloths were the norm.

[Sneakeater]

It's interesting that this topic should be revived now.  Because I've been thinking over the last few days about what it was I meant a couple of days ago when I called Mitica, a new restaurant in Greenpoint, "almost Fine Dining".

Mitica is clearly a pretty casual-looking place.  Not only aren't there table cloths, there isn't a possibility of table cloths.  Service is strictly in the non-uniformed street-clothes Brooklyn Mode, where the servers -- and there aren't a lot of them -- act like friendly, knowledgeable peers rather than subservients.

But I am calling it "almost Fine Dining" because the food is ambitious, thought-out, somewhat complex, not recreations of trad dishes, etc.

I think it's interesting that we've come to the point where I'd think that.  I'm pretty sure that 10 years ago I'd have called it a casual restaurant serving ambitious food.