I’m sure you have your opinions on this one, but the view from my wineglass tells me that we are way past the rococo period of the last few decades. You know, where every menu involved footnotes. Every server rattled off recitations of designer ingredients that might have been lifted from a Dean & Deluca catalog.
Dinners in which one felt like a philistine for daring to destroy the visual narrative on the plate—where perhaps genuflection would have been more appropriate than actually spearing the innocent hyper-mediated vegetables with a fork!
Oh I enjoyed the Late Baroque of dining chic as much as the next woman—and I have the track record to prove it. But I am beginning to think that the ever-more-precious approach to ingredients, presentation and culinary style has had its day.
Here was one moment when I glimpsed the fetid reality behind the façade of gastronomic surrealism. It occurred at a much-ballyhooed dining room in Paso Robles.
We were seated outdoors in a front courtyard where tables were closely-enough spaced to force casual eavesdropping. Next to us sat two young women, absolutely exhausted from a day of winetasting, texting vigorously as they ordered aps, entrees, desserts and more wine.
The waitress rattled off her convoluted list of what the chef thought we needed, always prefacing each entry in her log with “tonight the chef hopes you will enjoy….” (name your high-priced ingredient). She failed to pronounce correctly any of the Italian-inspired dishes—and this was an alleged Italian restaurant. She had not been trained to understand the words she was spouting, or how these elaborate dishes had been made. Later in the meal she broke one of my sacred rules by whisking away glasses before that last, perfect sip of wine could be savored. She also removed appetizer plates while our forks were still en route to our mouths. [Flipping the tables, thereby maximizing clientele turnover, has become a blood sport in American restaurants.]
But here’s where the paradigm shifted enough for me to realize that this whole gourmet game had grown repulsive. And terminally pretentious. A table of four across from us filled with two couples, each dressed in flip flops, shorts and t-shirts. One woman, wearing a fanny pack turned toward her stomach, loudly requested more water, more napkins, more of anything. Then I noticed her hands. On this grunting sloth, eager to consume a meal she was hell-bent on making memorable, was a small fortune in Elizabeth Gage diamond and emerald rings. Just let that sink in for a moment. Fanny packs and diamonds.
A veil had been ripped from my eyes. I was witnessing the slow avalanche that has begun at the very edge of taste, tact and common blooming sense.
It was a split second of that kind of dissonance that forces genuine reconsideration of just where you want to be spending your time—and money (Cf. Nietzsche).
– to be continued
I’d love to comment on this, but the thought police might object …
Ah Christina, my soul sister! This is exactly what drives us crazy…the slobby diners, the uninformed servers, the list goes on. However, I do think that there is still room for places like Manresa, that do have a dress code, somewhat. But more importantly I think is that their waitstaff is very informed and knowledgeable about what David K. is up to. Of course, we pay for this, but as a producer of a ‘luxury’ product myself, I can accept that.
Fine dining as I define it is very much alive and well around here at Manresa and Le Cigare Volant, two restaurants at which still practice precious plating and ingredient worship. In fact, the newly rechristened LCV has been moving towards that style for a few years now, and seems to be better for it.
There is no shortage of restaurants throughout wine country that bill themselves as fine dining and yet welcome people who are dressed casually. I don’t see how it makes them more pretentious. If anything it makes them more democratic.
It sounds to me like you made an unfortunate choice of restaurant: one where the tables are too close together and at wait staff is not well trained. Restaurant design and service are certainly an important part of the dining experience. Ambience is important too, and if sharing space with people you consider insufficiently chic makes you unhappy, then you definitely picked the wrong place. There is one more factor that I would have expected to play a part in your assessment of a dining experience, but you didn’t mention it…
How was the food?
The food was decent, beautifully presented and rapidly taken away – while forks were still raised and glasses not quite empty.
I don’t mind dining with folks in casual attire. Not one bit. It was the metaphysical disconnect of the fanny pack and the gold and diamond jewelry that pushed me over the edge.
I am a big fan of the new Le Cigare Volant, but again I’m just topped out on “tricky” dishes and precious recipes.
Somehow those rustic, crisp pizzas at Main Street Garden and la Posta fit my palate like a Mediterranean glove these days.
Christina
In Emily’s comment above, she appears to conflate fine dining with two factors, or practices: Precious Plating and Ingredient Worship.
Far be it from me to deny anyone their preference for preciousness or worship, but what happened to FLAVOR?
And since when did these two factors come to define GOOD dining? Should we let the “Fine” be the enemy of the “Good”, by creating a value scale which imposes things like Precious Plating and Ingredient Worship on more traditional notions of a dining experience. Cuisine Minceur is, after all, a deviation.
Maybe I’m the only one who finds much of this preciousness and worship a media-generated trendiness which obscures more basic and traditional aspects of dining, “fine” or otherwise. No problem, I’m used to that!
I just want to eat and drink; the rest is just fluff. To me that fluff is for the 1% which everry restaurant, hotel and winery hopes will grace their place. I believe in the neighborhood restaurant, family run, where food is paramount and service comes because it is natural for them. I like presentation, but it is way below my priorities and if it is not there and if it means a lesser price for the food, all the best. At a later time, ii will list some more restaurants with good eats, the basis for going out in the first place later,without the fluff.
Bob, you and I see eye to eye on this: we just want to eat and drink … although not necessarily in that order!
I’d like to add that the “fluff” is not just for the 1% you describe. I think many decent, solid cooks and chefs add that “fluff” because of the way the media influences them, and their customers.
Food-oriented media by its very nature seeks out that which is “unusual”, or “peak experience”, and tailors its discourses to these. This creates “buzz” and “trends”, and pretty soon everyone thinks they have to have 3 lonely snow peas arranged in a fan on the plate, or they aren’t “with it” culinarily speaking. Pretty soon it becomes a game of one-upsmanship to see who can distort their cooking to fit what the media says we should all want.
That leaves a lot of Good Eatin’ out in the cold, unattended to by media; basically sent the message that they aren’t really important because they aren’t doing what “celebrity chefs” are doing, or are supposed to do.
Fashion and Trends are often the enemy of real culture, and not just culinary culture. Fashion and Trends are creatures of the media, and they are not the friend of tradition-based culinary cultures, of any kind.
I applaud your suggestions of places where diners can get at least ONE good dish. I think that where there’s one, there’s more. In fact, I’d be willing to bet that EVERY restaurant which isn’t corporate fast food, and has a real COOK, or maybe even that elusive creature, a chef, has at least one good dish.
If the food media would take this approach, your approach, rather than trying to make a name for themselves by spotlighting establishments based on how much they are like whoever was in the latest issue of Cuisine or Gourmet … we might have a food media which was doing us a flavor (!), sans ‘fluff”.
Thanks for your comments Bob!
“I believe in the neighborhood restaurant, family run, where food is paramount and service comes because it is natural for them.”
Bob: YES YES YES!
Did I forget to mention YES?