Thoughts on Eating Out
Posted: Wed Sep 30, 2020 6:58 am
I've been a fan of eating out since I was knee high to a grasshopper. I've wasted more money in restaurants than I care to think about and spent inordinate amounts on single meals so that I can experience what the finest artists of the kitchen (because make no mistake - food at it's highest level is most definitely art) can produce. Here's some of what I've learned.
First - a meal out is a performance. It starts at the moment you walk in through the front door and ends at the moment you walk out. Everything in between needs to be choreographed to perfection. If a restaurant is really on the ball, they, like a good masseuse, will never take a hand of you and they will never drop a stitch. Of thousands of meals out (I'd guess - certainly too numerous to count) I've had....mmmmm.......say half a dozen that achieve this level of perfection. On these occasions the food has to be sublime, the timing to perfection, the service good but not intrusive and the whole thing seamless. You have to leave thinking "that was the best meal I've ever had". Because if it's good - really good - the last meal you had will always be the best meal you have ever had. That's just the way that the mind works.
Now onto the meal itself. Over the years of my experience food fashion has changed beyond recognition. We went from the classic seventies dishes of duck a'l'orange and black forrest pudding through nouvelle cuisine to molecular gastronomy (thanks Ferran Adria for that). The trick with menu building is to design it so that people can reach the end. If ever anyone says to me "the food was brilliant - we couldn't eat dessert" I stop listening to them and avoid the place like a plague. What kind of a composer would write an opera that drove you out in the middle? A film maker that threw so much mud at the wall in the first half that you were forced to abandon the end of the film? The performance has been destroyed; the aesthetic lost. What you have been doing is satisfying your biology, not engaging in art.
No, the trick is that each course should build on the last, to finish with a triumphant flourish in the dessert (cheese is taken before dessert and on occasion, converted into an actual dish rather than just plonked on a board) - prior to a good coffe and petit four just to sum it all up. If your man knows his stuff, at that point you will be sated but never stuffed. The meal will have been enough for you to finish without problem, with bread used to fill the gaps where necessary (but not so as you are aware). At no point from the moment you sit until the moment you get up will the invisible hand of the service staff be off you. Your wine glass will never be empty - unless you have finished your wine and declined an offer of more - your bread bowl similarly. The gaps between courses will be timed so that you don't notice them; this means they are neither too short (so that the meal has the impression of being rushed) nor too long (in which case the natural flow of conversation will suddenly cease as you all realise that you are waiting for something). As I say, timed perfectly, you will not even be aware of the gaps between courses - but errors either way will be picked up instantly.
Now I'm not a fan of the new (ish) trend for 'sample' or 'signiture' menus; to my mind, the meal needs to build up to a 'main event' and then scale back down to a sweet fanfare at the end. This seems to me to give the performance a direction that the succession of small dishes of a tasting menu never achieves. But without question, the presentation of food is a million miles from where it used to be. The eye is used to wash the taste buds and dishes these days, in the best restaurants, are works of art. But style must never rule over substance. If a dish looks a million dollars but is indifferent in its tasting then it has failed. Taste must always come first! This is a golden rule. The truth is that even the best chefs cannot do better than you can do in your own kitchen. The umami hit of a crispy bacon sandwich, oozing in butter and hot English mustard will never be approached by anything other than - a crispy bacon sandwich oozing with butter and mustard.....but they will try and approach it and the attempt is worth paying for.
And as to cost - some people balk at paying huge sums to eat in high end restaurants, but I take the long view. I eat three times a day every day of my life. If someone can serve me one of the top five dishes I've eaten in all of those thousands of meals then I'll pay for it. If the performance comes off, if you leave walking on a cloud, then it is worth every penny as much as any ballet or opera - and just as high art. I'd be afraid to tell you how much I've spent on a single meal - ashamed and embarrassed - but I have no regrets. I've come closer to heaven on a plate than I ever managed in a church and you can't say fairer than that.
One last aside - a personal thing really - but I'm getting a bit bored with this top end fashion of beautifully intricate dishes of delightful tasting food. Not being funny but they are ten a penny and pretty standard across the Michelin star restaurants these days. All the dishes are beautiful - they all hit the spot and every one of them would earn a star in its own right. But there is a thing that is really rare, and an absolute joy when you come across it. There is a kind of French cuisine, almost peasant based, not slopped onto a plate but not fine-dinning either, where simple everyday things are just elevated to almost God like levels on the plate. Where new, unknown flavour combinations burst out of the dishes and the meals are both rustic and elevated at the same time. Such chefs are rare birds indeed - I knew one who served asparagus with chive mayonnaise, nothing else, but it was like the first time you had ever eaten it .... and his plain chicken breast!!! These are the guys I want to feed me these days. Simple restaurants with check tablecloths and bone handled knives - and food that makes you want to kneel down and kiss the ground before it. Give me that and I'll be happy!
First - a meal out is a performance. It starts at the moment you walk in through the front door and ends at the moment you walk out. Everything in between needs to be choreographed to perfection. If a restaurant is really on the ball, they, like a good masseuse, will never take a hand of you and they will never drop a stitch. Of thousands of meals out (I'd guess - certainly too numerous to count) I've had....mmmmm.......say half a dozen that achieve this level of perfection. On these occasions the food has to be sublime, the timing to perfection, the service good but not intrusive and the whole thing seamless. You have to leave thinking "that was the best meal I've ever had". Because if it's good - really good - the last meal you had will always be the best meal you have ever had. That's just the way that the mind works.
Now onto the meal itself. Over the years of my experience food fashion has changed beyond recognition. We went from the classic seventies dishes of duck a'l'orange and black forrest pudding through nouvelle cuisine to molecular gastronomy (thanks Ferran Adria for that). The trick with menu building is to design it so that people can reach the end. If ever anyone says to me "the food was brilliant - we couldn't eat dessert" I stop listening to them and avoid the place like a plague. What kind of a composer would write an opera that drove you out in the middle? A film maker that threw so much mud at the wall in the first half that you were forced to abandon the end of the film? The performance has been destroyed; the aesthetic lost. What you have been doing is satisfying your biology, not engaging in art.
No, the trick is that each course should build on the last, to finish with a triumphant flourish in the dessert (cheese is taken before dessert and on occasion, converted into an actual dish rather than just plonked on a board) - prior to a good coffe and petit four just to sum it all up. If your man knows his stuff, at that point you will be sated but never stuffed. The meal will have been enough for you to finish without problem, with bread used to fill the gaps where necessary (but not so as you are aware). At no point from the moment you sit until the moment you get up will the invisible hand of the service staff be off you. Your wine glass will never be empty - unless you have finished your wine and declined an offer of more - your bread bowl similarly. The gaps between courses will be timed so that you don't notice them; this means they are neither too short (so that the meal has the impression of being rushed) nor too long (in which case the natural flow of conversation will suddenly cease as you all realise that you are waiting for something). As I say, timed perfectly, you will not even be aware of the gaps between courses - but errors either way will be picked up instantly.
Now I'm not a fan of the new (ish) trend for 'sample' or 'signiture' menus; to my mind, the meal needs to build up to a 'main event' and then scale back down to a sweet fanfare at the end. This seems to me to give the performance a direction that the succession of small dishes of a tasting menu never achieves. But without question, the presentation of food is a million miles from where it used to be. The eye is used to wash the taste buds and dishes these days, in the best restaurants, are works of art. But style must never rule over substance. If a dish looks a million dollars but is indifferent in its tasting then it has failed. Taste must always come first! This is a golden rule. The truth is that even the best chefs cannot do better than you can do in your own kitchen. The umami hit of a crispy bacon sandwich, oozing in butter and hot English mustard will never be approached by anything other than - a crispy bacon sandwich oozing with butter and mustard.....but they will try and approach it and the attempt is worth paying for.
And as to cost - some people balk at paying huge sums to eat in high end restaurants, but I take the long view. I eat three times a day every day of my life. If someone can serve me one of the top five dishes I've eaten in all of those thousands of meals then I'll pay for it. If the performance comes off, if you leave walking on a cloud, then it is worth every penny as much as any ballet or opera - and just as high art. I'd be afraid to tell you how much I've spent on a single meal - ashamed and embarrassed - but I have no regrets. I've come closer to heaven on a plate than I ever managed in a church and you can't say fairer than that.
One last aside - a personal thing really - but I'm getting a bit bored with this top end fashion of beautifully intricate dishes of delightful tasting food. Not being funny but they are ten a penny and pretty standard across the Michelin star restaurants these days. All the dishes are beautiful - they all hit the spot and every one of them would earn a star in its own right. But there is a thing that is really rare, and an absolute joy when you come across it. There is a kind of French cuisine, almost peasant based, not slopped onto a plate but not fine-dinning either, where simple everyday things are just elevated to almost God like levels on the plate. Where new, unknown flavour combinations burst out of the dishes and the meals are both rustic and elevated at the same time. Such chefs are rare birds indeed - I knew one who served asparagus with chive mayonnaise, nothing else, but it was like the first time you had ever eaten it .... and his plain chicken breast!!! These are the guys I want to feed me these days. Simple restaurants with check tablecloths and bone handled knives - and food that makes you want to kneel down and kiss the ground before it. Give me that and I'll be happy!
) are often cover for what are pretty standard fare when broken up on a plate. The candle turned out to be a chocolate ganache, of mediocre quality that all the gimmicks in the world were not going to make into good eating. (As an example of how it should be done, in a place in Bruges once, I had a few slices of fruit neatly arrayed in some juice that when you put into your mouth was like a taste of Shangri-la rolling over your tongue.)
)
to start.
chops
pudding for dessert
