Where Have All The Diners Gone?

For those skeptics who believed that New York would become a culinary wasteland in the wake of the economic tsunami, well, you're not all wrong.  The recent closings/announced closings of restaurants like Fiamma and Fleur de Sel speaks to a market oversaturated with haute cuisine and undersaturated with cheap eats.  Every day a new closing hits the press, and even the most hailed and established spots are not immune.  Yesterday's New York Times reported that Chanterelle and Gotham Bar and Grill, two New York landmarks, have experienced marked sales drops this January.  And by marked, I mean a drop in sales between 10 and 15 percent.  These restaurants have survived decades of muddy city water.  But survival, even for the fittest, looks bleaker and bleaker these days. 

I'm going to throw a little blame in the direction of the New York Times.  I believe that this moment in time is different from any other moment in the past 20 years.  I believe that this is no mere changed current of economic insecurity; it's a veritable tidal wave.  I believe that New York has to do what it can to stay in the black, even if that means switching out truffles for tacos.  

But I also believe that a complete shift away from fine dining will mean a final and inevitable change in the way we dine.  The luxuries of sitting in a quiet room with nice things will no longer be a luxury afforded the average American.  Do we really want the Chanterelles and Gotham Bar and Grills of the world to close?  Do we really want to sever all ties with the uncommon opulence of classic restaurants? 

These places are sanctuaries and, like any other sanctuaries, they deserve our attention and attempts at preservation.  We put plaques in the silliest of places, honoring the land that our forefathers tread upon hundreds of years ago.  But we dismiss the importance of dining rooms that have played host to our most important Americans, our presidents, our writers, our personal heroes.  No one would ever dream of suggesting we fell the Metropolitan Museum of Art, no matter how bad things get.  Why, then, do we ignore our restaurants when they, too, preserve memories and artifacts of life in this city?

It's Frank Bruni I really want to take to task here.  Week after week, Mr. Bruni reviews tirelessly, offering a do-or-die opinion of New York's scene.  Lately, his reviews have become downright predictable.  If you happen to run a restaurant in the east village, and if your aim is more causal and less haute, you, too can receive two stars from the New York Times.  For the past few years, Bruni has tried his hardest to reestablish the criteria for good eating in the city.  And while such brute ambition is admirable, ambition for ambition's sake alone is not enough.  I understand wanting to make food and restaurants more approachable.  I understand plebian-izing fine dining.  Ok.  I get it.  I do not, however, understand why making the lower end cool must come at the cost of making the higher end suffer. 

I consider yesterday's review the perfect example.  Every review I have stumbled across touted the virtues of the recently renovated and reopened Oak Room in the Plaza Hotel.  It's a restaurant that speaks volumes of New York's history; what little girl didn't own Eloise growing up?

The Oak Room also happens to be the quintessential old New York dining experience, replete with ornate dining room touches, tablecloths, silver, china.  It is the kind of restaurant that is supposed to remind us of the kind of place that this city used to be: dazzling, majestic, opulent, fancy.  It is the kind of restaurant that no doubt stirs in people the same nostalgia I feel when I think back on all the lovely and fancy Chinese restaurants I dined at as a child back before Chinese meant greasy takeout, where the bowls were porcelain and the chopsticks like ivory, where Shirley Temples came in fluted glasses, where lychees and stemmed maraschino cherries arrived with the check.  There is a certain other-worldliness to places like these, reminding us of a past that has all but disappeared in this fast and furious digital age. 

Mr. Bruni gave the Oak Room--who was no doubt reaching for three fine stars--a pathetic one.  Despite all of those other reviews I read, the ones that discussed the technical brilliance of the Oak Room's food, Bruni's single star may be the review that resonates.  

And so people will stop going because, in an economy like this, why would they waste their time and money on a place that Mr. Bruni believes is far from achieving greatness?  And as our critic continues to review the cheaper haunts on the New York beat, people will stop caring about the finer restaurants because they will believe that in an era like this you aren't supposed to care about things like fine dining. The thing is, the cheaper places, well, they would have survived anyway, just like the local pubs will do just fine.  Now, more than ever, it's the pricier places that need a plug.  

I hold critics to high standards.  I've seen how a critics 500 words can affect the welfare of a restaurant.  The juggernaut of economic loss cannot be controlled or remedied by any one person, but if we value the style of dining that has defined us as a city and if we believe that the future holds a place for these restaurants just as it holds a place for the funkier and fussier molecular gastronomy hangouts, we have to protect what is ours.  In that respect, I think Mr. Bruni has failed miserably in communicating what it will mean if the most important places here cease to exist.  

I love ramen just as much as the next blogger, but I'm not prepared to face a Tokoyan future, where tablecloths are replaced with quick-fix noodle bowls and pork buns.  There is room in this fragile world for remembrance of decadence past.  It is a small window, but it still exists.  For now. 

Star Struck

No doubt the following rant will make me wildly unpopular with some equal-opportunity foodists in New York, but I've never been afraid of a few divergent opinions. I feel it my obligation to delve a little deeper into the three-star phenomenon that has now officially bludgeoned the City.

Here's the thing: I'm a liberal, a democrat, a socialist when it comes to all things, well, social. Anyone who knows me would probably think that, in accordance with all of my other political views, I would support a system that encourages a larger cross-section of the population to enjoy extraordinary dining experiences. My confession? I am a food elitist. I do not believe that every Tom, Dick, and Harry is equally entitled to the so-called scene because, frankly (no reference to Mr. Bruni here, I swear), not every Tom, Dick, and Harry really appreciates food.

Do I believe that every American, regardless of income, should have at his or her disposal healthy, sustainable food? Of course. But the attempt to level the playing field of fine dining is nothing short of ridiculous. Changing the structure means an overhaul of the way things are and some of us still have fond memories of nice meals out, back when Chinese restaurants used real china and tablecloths, back when ordering a Shirley Temple served in a tall crystal glass with extra cherries epitomized luxury.

The process of awarding stars to restaurants based on their excellence was never an attempt to bring restaurants to the people. Refinement, class, luxury: these tenets established the framework for fine dining in New York. Three and four-star spots were meant to provide respite from the hectic world outside. A dining experience should be two hours of uninterrupted grace. The materials that don't surround us at home--silver, crystal, truffles, caviar, fine linen--surround us in nice restaurants. What we gain when we go out to eat at a nice restaurant is an experience, something that cannot be replicated and something that exceeds the corporeal need to feed our stomachs. Good restaurants feed something diminished in the human psyche.

Which is precisely why I take umbrage at the elevation of Momofuku Ssam Bar to three stars. The food is unparalleled, it really and truly is. And for the most part, it is consistent, although you can bet your pork buns that you're getting better treatment if you're Frank Bruni and you can also bet that the buns at 10pm are much better than the lackluster ones served to drunk foodies at 1am. But what you get when you enter Ssam Bar is not an experience; it's good food prepared well and it's cool and hip and yes, you will probably run into that food celebrity you've been stalking if you hang out there long enough. That's food for the stomach. That's food worth remembering. That isn't, however, the two hour meal without the clamor and clang of real life. All that Ssam Bar isn't--refined, delicate, service-oriented--is all that separates two-star dining from three.

The best two-star restaurants are an extention of our living rooms, and that's always how I regarded the Momofukus (with the exception of Ko, of course). That system wasn't so bad. At the end of the day, most of us seasoned diners visited two-star restaurants with the most frequency. Three and four-star dining was a treat, reserved for birthdays and other special occasions. So where does one draw the line? If backless stools and rude waiters have become our milieu, what will happen to the antique dining traditions that our parents and grandparents enjoyed?

I am an elitist, yes, but I am also a preservationist. Our culture demands immediacy, constant stimulation, babying. Our position as cultural critics, or conscious eaters, or lazy Americans, even, should be to care about preserving the way things were as we usher in a new era. Ten years from now, it might be impossible to sit down at a table in New York where you can still hear conversation over the din, where you can enjoy two uninterrupted hours of time with friends and lovers before returning to the real world. That predictive reality would be a sad thing, indeed.

Have You No Decency, Sir?

Dear Frank,

I feel like I can speak honestly and freely with you. We've had all of these intimate encounters, after all. Remember that time I poured you Budweiser from the bottle? Remember the time I accidentally poured Saratoga sparkling into your tap? How many times have we met now, five? Six? How many times did you pass up the corporate American Express card under the name John Maroni?

There they are. Three stars in the New York Times for Momofuku Ssam Bar. Three stars! Frank, I really feel you've betrayed me. Worse, I feel you've betrayed New York. We all looked the other way when you started awarding three stars to restaurants without tablecloths. We all looked the other way when you practically made out with Mario Batali on the page every effing time the man opened a restaurant. And we all hoped that the unhealthy David Chang obsession would end with last April's Ko review.

Don't get me wrong, Frank. I love Ssam Bar just as much as the next offal addict. I loved the grilled sweetbreads so much it broke my heart to see them go. I hold every pork up to the Chang standard and I never eat butter at other restaurants because the butter just isn't as good. But do I believe--honestly believe--that Ssam Bar, a haven created for the carnal enjoyment of overworked restaurant employees, is worthy of the same number of stars as, say, Babbo, or Bouley, or Blue Hill Stone Barns?

No. No, it isn't.

Anyway, have you ever heard of a PX? Personne Extraordinaire. That's restaurant-speak for really really damned VIP. Have you ever heard the term 'soignee'? Soignee. Root: French. Definition: Polished and well-groomed; showing sophistication and grace. Applicable translation? A small piece of paper alerting restaurant staff to the presence of a PX. Other applicable translation? Service that is so disgustingly over the top in its execution that no restaurant critic could ever write a bad review afterwards.

My point? They know you and your fake names over there, dear friend. So if you think you can be objective, tossing extra stars out because you think everything is so vastly different this time around, you have another think coming. Not everyone gets that extra-special Macari poured tableside. Trust me, I know soignees and you were one soigneed cat.

And awarding three stars, Frank, well, it's going to change absolutely everything in New York. Congratulations. Your vigilante-ism will 1.) destroy a place that some of us actually enjoy eating at, 2.) encourage industry a-holes to employ the Ssam Bar method of service (see guest; act rude; throw plates in plastic bins; refuse to offer second drink; drop check), and 3.) perpetuate the already rampant 'too cool for school' fallacy of the East Village. So thanks, Frank. Thanks a lot. For those of us who actually respect what we in the FOH (front of house) call POS (points of service), the New York Times has now proven itself the least reliable source of food-related information.

I mean really, FB. Three f@*$&ing stars? Are you f@*$&ing crazy?

Love Always,

Genavieve