MARIANI’S

  November 28, 2004                                                         NEWSLETTER

                                   Autumn Cabbage, 2004                                           Galina Stepanoff-Dargery

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~                                                                                                                                                             ~
EDITOR'S NOTE:  Readers may access an Archive of all past newsletters--each annotated--dating back to July, 2003, by simply clicking on   ARCHIVE .

WAITER, WAITER EVERYWHERE
by John Mariani

     A good waiter is one who is always seen and rarely heard. Which is to say that he or she should always be within eyeshot in case I need something, but never hovering over my table to ask if I do.  I can’t tell you the number of time I’ve been telling a joke and coming to the punchline--"So the doctor says to the guy with two heads--" when Mr. My-Name-Is-Fred-and-I’m-Your-Server-Tonight bounds over to the table to interrupt me with yet another, “Is there anything else I can get you?” 
    Worse still are those waiters who come to the table, announce themselves, then say, “I’ll be back to take your drink order,” instead of just taking the damn drink order right then and there.  This same personality is likely to deliver menus several minutes later, then describe almost everything on them ad nauseam, noting that this dish has a “killer Cabernet sauce” or that a dish will “blow your doors off,” which, if I had doors, would be the last thing I’d want to have happen at my table. Of course, such a waiter is very likely to tell me precisely which dishes are his favorites, as if I could care less.  He is also likely to stick his finger or pen about one-quarter inch from my food when he delivers it so he can describe to me what I've already ordered.
      Mind you, I have nothing but the highest admiration for a professional waiter who does his or her job well (I’ve waited tables and both my sons work as waiters on weekends in restaurants).  Indeed, I am delighted how knowledgeable and gracious so many young waiters can be, especially in the U.S., where there is rarely any pretension about service.  But waiters should be there for me, not all over me.  And I wish they’d drop those alternative neologisms like “server” and “waitron” instead of using a perfectly good and reasonable word like “waiter.”

NEW YORK CORNER

A Somewhat Lengthy (But I Hope Enlightening) Review of Thomas Keller's Per Se
by John Mariani

       Curious readers of this newsletter may well wonder why it has taken me so long to review one of the most important new restaurants of the year--Thomas Keller's Per Se, located on the fourth floor of the Time-Warner Center at Columbus Circle (left). After all, I have reviewed Masa and Bar Masa, V Steakhouse, and Asiate in this space, and soon will be writing about Gray Kunz's long awaited Cafe Gray.
      More widely read readers may even have noticed a certain schizoid reportage on my part by my recommending Per Se in the current issue of Town & Country Travel, while in the November issue of Esquire, Per Se was not among my picks for "Best New Restaurants of 2004," with a comment on the editor's page to the effect that, after enduring "three and a half grueling hours" at the restaurant, I concluded that "This is not the way people want to eat out today."  Let me explain.
      To begin, I am among many who consider Thomas Keller, a California native, now 48, to be one of the finest chefs in the world, and the acclaim lavished on  his enchanting Napa Valley restaurant, The French Laundry, is as well deserved as his influence on American gastronomy is indisputable.  Keller, who was trained at both Taillevent and Guy Savoy in Paris,  made an early splash in NYC as of 1986 at a restaurant named Rakel, where his inventiveness was undeniable but his ability to serve a meal in a reasonable amount of time was always questionable.  He moved to Los Angeles where his work at Checkers was immediately recognized as strikingly different from anyone else's in California, but the downtown hotel venue was far from ideal, and he left to pursue a career in consulting and making olive oil. 
     Upon opening The French Laundry in Yountville ten years ago, his eminence was immediately established.  The intensity of his flavors, the insistence on the finest ingredients (whether or not they came from California), and his inquiries into how a classic dish can be deconstructed, then reconstructed for maximum flavor--far better than the original--all put him in a class by himself.
     Buoyed by a superb, dedicated staff and wine program, The French Laundry became not just the quintessential wine country restaurant but a restaurant of extraordinary influence.  Keller's culinary concepts never strayed into the eccentric.  You did not go to The French Laundry for shrimp ice cream and candied cheese lollipops; you went for red wine sauces reduced six or seven times to an intensity unimaginable before Keller did it.  You came for textures and flavors no one had brought to such a level of exquisiteness.  And you came for long, long dinners that could go on for ten, twelve, or twenty courses over three, four, or five hours.
     Keller's commitment was so total that he spoke of waking up in the kitchen hours after he'd closed the restaurant and cleaned it from top to bottom. Indeed, his mania for cleanliness has become legendary.  His insistence that he needed to be in the kitchen cooking at all times,  despite a brigade of faithful cooks to support him,  ran counter to all those hyped-up chefs in California and elsewhere who long ago shrugged off any  interest in ever being in their kitchens, in favor of promoting themselves in restaurant chains around the world.  Keller was the compleat chef, and I have never heard a single one of his colleagues ever say a single word in criticism of his talents, his intelligence, his commitment, or his gentlemanliness--virtues for which I have often held up Keller as a paragon as a chef.
     His opening in 1998 of a nearby bistro in Napa named Bouchon and Bouchon Bakery in 2003 did nothing to alter my or anyone else's estimate of Keller's dedication,  but the announcement two years ago that he would open a fine dining restaurant in the Time-Warner Center (below) gave me and others distinct pause, followed by definite angst when he announced he would also open a Bouchon bistro in Las Vegas.  Had the lure of lucre finally broken down Keller's resolve never to leave his French Laundry kitchen?  Was the challenge of returning to NYC too much to turn down?  Was the thrill of competing in the same complex with star chefs like Masa Takayama, Jean-George Vongerichten, Gray Kunz, and (as of next year) Charlie Trotter too much to resist?
    According to the NY Times, the company that signed on these chefs, Related Urban Development, offered Keller a partnership he would find difficult to refuse,  guaranteeing the kind of money that went to build what is rumored to be a $12 million to $15 million restaurant, along with giving him an advisory role in selecting the other restaurants in the building. His 1,200-foot space was to have just 16 tables and 64 seats, plus two private dining rooms.  Do the math: Can anyone possibly make a profit on such a small scale restaurant that cost $12 million or more? 
    Rather than tempt fate by naming the NYC restaurant "The French Laundry II" or "The French Laundry East," Keller christened it "Per Se," because he found himself telling people, "It will not be The French Laundry per se, but with the same kind of food and service." With his usual determination, Keller actually closed The French Laundry for four months in order to get the NYC operation up and running on all cylinders, bringing 25 of his staff to the Big Apple to work or train the new people.  Nevertheless, the opening of the restaurant lagged and lagged, finally debuting last February, by which time it was already taking reservations two months in advance.  The anticipation among the media and foodies reached a fevered pitch, and even before the restaurant opened people were already gloating that they'd snagged a table at Per Se.  There was an opening night party no one invited dared turn down.  Then disaster struck.
     Just days after opening there was a serious fire in the $5 million kitchen, shutting down the brand new restaurant for six weeks.  By the time Per Se re-opened, there had already been personnel changes, and Keller was shuttling back and forth between California and New York, with stops in between to Las Vegas.  Then there was a new book coming out that needed his time and promotion. Keller was caught in a consuming whirlwind.
     Still, the early reviews from the NY Times (four stars), whose critic even flew to Napa to compare Per Se with The French Laundry, New York Magazine ("beautifully conceived, elegantly presented"), and the L.A. Times ("A meal every bit as good as as those I've had at the French Laundry") were raves, and Per Se became impossible to get into, making it one of those very special places for people anticipating a very special evening.  Indeed it is.
      And here's where I came in.  I waited until I felt Per Se was over its opening jitters and post-conflagration anxieties.  My visit was in July, and I'd been waiting to be wowed.  Still, I had a niggling feeling that Per Se was a risky venture, not because it would fail but because it could not live up to the near perfection of the beloved French Laundry.  Having seen too many chefs stretch themselves too thin, while others simply metastasized into another form, I feared Keller would lose his focus or try to overcompensate.  On my first visit, my fears for the latter seemed confirmed.
       Keller was not at Per Se the night I visited, but it didn't seem to matter much in the cooking, which was very definitely in the Keller style.  Richness, intensity, novelty born of persistent inquiry into the nature of food, and generosity of spirit--all the Keller hallmarks were all there under chef Jonathan Benno.  But Per Se that night was certainly not The French Laundry per se; instead it seemed almost a satire on the darling way one is taken care of in Yountville in that pretty wooden house on Washington Street. 
        The cosmopolitan design of Per Se, by Adam Tihany, bears no resemblance, of course, to that of The French Laundry, but it is a somewhat staid atmosphere for something set so dramatically overlooking Central Park.  The façade has two immense doors that, for reasons I cannot imagine, don't open; adjacent glass doors do. The lobby and lounge (right) are long and spacious to no particular avail. The main dining room (below), set on two levels, is done mainly in tones of brown, and lighting is low.  The space between tables is dreamily generous. 
    The service staff, at that point in time, was effusive to the point of annoyance (see "Waiter, Waiter Everywhere" above), pretentious in their incessant bonhomie, downright silly in their presentation of several salts on a plate about an hour into the meal, with descriptions like, "This salt is picked by tiny red birds in Tasmanian caves only once every sixteen years when el niño blows across the Australian waters," or "This salt is consumed only by the royal family of Japan when they want to conceive a son."  (I'm exaggerating only slightly.)  And they don't even tell you what each salt is good for.
        Knowing how lengthy a Keller meal can be, I asked in advance to spend no more than three hours at the table, yet after more than, oh, I don't know, 11, 12, 15 courses?, it was already after 11 PM and we still hadn't had the pre-dessert.  The meal started with "an array" (make that, parade) of canapés, and, having asked the sommelier to choose the wines, it seemed we got a different bottle with every course, including a rare, very expensive sake served with a caviar course, a combination I loathed. 
       Hour after hour and dish after dish slogged by, some glorious, some mundane, all small.  There were glories: pan-roasted sea scallop with endive cooked Sous-vide, with edamame, red radish, spiced almonds, and an Earl Grey-Madras curry gastrique; custard infused with white truffle oil and a ragoût of black truffles; and a  dégustation of pork with caraway bread pudding, dill pickled carrots, and whole grain mustard sauce. Other items were ho-hum, like frozen cavaillon melon with osietra caviar as a first course.  But by the time we had struggled into our third hour of eating and drinking, we had no critical acumen left. Everything had become a blur, and so did we, exiting into a warm New York night vowing never to go through that again.
       The next day I spoke with Keller and told him my reaction, to which he said that it was a style of food and service that is supposed to be special, not an every-night dining experience.  I protested that one can easily have a superb, multi-course meal at, say, Daniel or Le Bernardin or Alain Ducasse in NYC and leave feeling satisfied and glowing, not overloaded and bewildered--a reaction I have heard from many who have dined at Per Se.  I tried to sum up my exasperation at the meal by asking him point blank, "Thomas, if you are going to bring out four salts or eight salts to display, why not ten, why not twelve, why not twenty?"  When is too much, too too much?  There is method to his madness, but there also seems madness in his method.
          To be fair, many of my colleagues and many friends who have dined at Per Se reveled in the orgy-like experience, but I felt that perhaps Per Se needed time to find its balance. So I returned last week, again requesting a) the meal not last more than three hours, b) the courses number no more than ten or twelve (since there would be four of us who would each receive a different tasting menu, the total would actually be closer to 40), and c) the wines would be French, Italian, or Spanish, and more reds than whites.  
 
     Let me cut to the chase and say that my second visit to Per Se was a far, far more pleasurable experience than the first.  The pretensions of the summer service seemed to drop away in favor of amiable attentiveness; the wines were well chosen; we left the table exactly three hours from when we sat down; there was no salt exhibition. And the meal was, on the whole, superb.  Let me count the ways.
        Chef de cuisine Benno's replication of Keller's culinary vision is complete.  It would take me pages to describe the pages of dishes four of us ate, which were set in categories of canapés, soups, caviar, eggs, pasta, lobster, meat, cheese, sorbet and desserts, with each of us getting a  different item in most courses.  We all began with a gobble of Atlantic salmon and crème fraîche in the most fragile of ice cream cones, which had the immediate effect of letting us know the lucullan nature of what was to follow.  Among the soups was a lovely Jerusalem artichoke, another with celery root purée.  Cauliflower panna cotta with caviar had too strong a taste, but the same caviar was delightful on Haas avocado with a slick of  pistachio oil.  The caviar melted, however, atop a butter braised langoustine, and when caviar melts, all tastes fishy.
    That marvelous white truffle custard from July reappeared this evening, along with one of the most delicious dishes I've ever had--scrambled egg with truffle purée, which made a soft boiled egg with the same purée pale by comparison. I liked every one of the pastas, from risotto and tagliatelle to potato gnocchi and potato agnolotti with parmesan cream; all had excellent, highly aromatic white truffles generously shaved over them, an extravagance about which I have no complaint except that tossing around so many luxury items--so much caviar, so many truffles--is piling on: one becomes helpless to criticize anything. But there was one gaffe: Dover sole, for the four of us, with endive and a sauce maltaise (a  hollandaise blended with orange juice and rind, with diced vegetables), which was very good but came to the table barely tepid, when it should have been hot.
      By this point no one at our table was flagging, and the courses came at such a civilized pace that all thoughts of an endless evening were banished as a lobster fricassée hit the table with my favorite food in the whole world--sweet Nantucket bay scallops--with chestnuts.  Roast foie gras followed with poached quince and a vanilla gastrique, then the various meat dishes: A ribeye with Swiss chard and sauce bordelaise; saddle of perfect lamb with carrots and mushrooms; filet mignon of veal with celery root purée, and a flavorful pork chop with chestnuts and  huckleberries.
The dishes had grown somewhat simpler as the meal moved on, as well they should before the superb cheeses we then enjoyed, including a pecorino with mushrooms and Harvest Moon with grapefruit marmalade.
     Then began the desserts, with four tangy-sweet sorbets.  Patîssier Sébastien Rouxel's ideas on dessert match impeccably Keller's ideas on what should precede them.  They are wondrous but not fantastical, deeply flavorful but never cloying.  There was a tower of chocolate with peanut soup and wheat beer genoise and candied corn nuts (Crackerjacks to you and me); a hazelnut and chocolate mousse with milk sorbet, and an Asian pear tart with rose sorbet. And, of course, the usual mignardises. Every one was fabulous.
      Wine director for Per Se and The French Laundry is Paul Roberts, whose commitment to finding a wine to go with Keller's dishes is total. (This time there was no sake, thank God.)  And he is just as concerned about the ideal temperature wine should be at, so various wines will be removed from the temperature-controlled storerooms and allowed to come to what he believes is the best temperature for that particular wine.  I was fascinated by his explanation that a Clelia Romano Fiano di Avellino, "Colli di Lapio" '02 he had chosen to go with the truffled dishes was served almost at room temperature, because he believed that that temperature brought out the truffle aromas of the wine; had it been another dish, he might have served it cooler, which emphasizes the citrus and acid of that same wine.            
     Other choices were masterful selections, including a palate-sharpening Larmandier-Bernier, "Special Club," Blanc de Blancs, Vertus '97;  a lush Sylvain Cathiard, Vosne Romanée  '02; a big, silky Benjamin Romeo, "La Cueva del Contador" Rioja  '01;  a complex Damilano, "Cannubi" Barolo '00;  pleasingly sweet Gini Recioto di Soave, "Col Foscarin," Vento  '00; and   woody Cossart Gordon, Bual 10 Year Madeira. 

      All of which is to say that Per Se is a very, very fine restaurant, certainly not for everyone, and certainly not for a casual evening out.  One must accept the wait for a reservation weeks, even months, in advance (although Per Se does have cancellations and even the occasional no show, hard as that is to believe).  And one must go with an open palate.  One should also not go expecting the déja-vu of  a night at The French Laundry, for Per Se is indeed a very different thing, as a great Italian soprano is from a great German soprano, even when singing the same opera. One might very well have a preference for one over the other, but  they are both worthy   of one's highest applause.   If you're lucky or persistent enough to get one of the 16 tables at Per Se, you may have one of the great meals of your life.  It will certainly be one of the most unusual.

      The more troubling question is how all this will affect Thomas Keller himself (above, left), who on my second visit was in Washington, DC, promoting his new book.  Can a man who once swore he simply could not leave his only kitchen now oversee two fine dining rooms and one bistro on two coasts, as well as another bistro in the steamy atmosphere of a Las Vegas casino-hotel?  What toll does such a work load put on a man who admits to being a workaholic with "no personal life" and who needs to be in complete control of every detail?  The rigors of bi-coastal air travel are far rougher on a working chef than on a business executive or Secretary of State, who get some downtime between appointments; a chef like Keller, with restaurants in three cities does not--at least if he  intends to live up to his own exacting standards of perfection, which, of course, will always elude perfectionists.  I know Per Se will succeed and get better and better.  But I fervently hope Thomas Keller will settle himself.  The allures of becoming a show biz chef can be irresistible.  What was it Bob Dylan  said? "Money doesn't talk; it screams." He should know. Hey, even he played Vegas. 
     
Per Se is located at 10 Columbus Circle; 212-823-9335; www.perseny.com. Tastings menus at $125 (5 courses), $125 (9 vegetarian courses), $150 (9 courses).

    While reading Anthony Bourdain's new cookbook I recalled the story of the scorpion who asked a frog to take him across the river, promising he would not sting the frog lest both drown. But halfway across the scorpion does sting the frog and both begin to sink. The frog cried out, "Why would you do such a thing and kill us both?" "Because," replied the drowning scorpion, "It is my nature."
     Please don't take the fable too seriously: I don't mean that Bourdain is a scorpion, though in his frank, best-selling memoir, Kitchen Confidential, he certainly showed a long-term self-destructive streak, doing a lot more than simple recreational drug-taking.  My allusion is to Bourdain's apparent necessity always to show off his snarkiness, as if ever betraying a moment of sweetness would kill him.  Maybe, like  Emeril "Oh, Yeah, Babe" Lagasse and others on the TV Food Network, Bourdain is just playing a part.  Maybe he's really a teddy bear, cordial, a gentlemen to women, a kisser of children. But watching him on TV traipse through the backstreets of Oriental cities in search of weird food is not unlike enduring an episode of "Fear Factor," except that Bourdain does not wear a bikini when he eats bugs. He seems capable of eating anything, however, and apparently loves most of it, rarely pushing away a plate of something that bears a strong resemblance to, and perhaps the odor of, road kill. 
    Bourdain does Bourdain perfectly: he'd make a terrific defense attorney on  "Law & Order."   His admirable, refreshing candor and his good writing have made him rich, but his persona has made him famous, and now he can't seem to back away from it, even a little.
     Which wouldn't matter if his new book was another hilarious memoir of his wild times in restaurant kitchens or eating around the world.  But this new one, written with two co-authors (which should tell you something), is a cookbook, for heaven's sakes--"Strategies, Recipes, and Techniques of Classic Bistro Cooking," 110 very good, workable recipes ranging from whole roasted fish Basquaise and soupe de poisson to poule au pot and clafoutis.   The headnotes are helpful, the photos only O.K., and the lay-out is fine for the home kitchen.  It is a book of recipes I'd recommend to anyone serious about French bistro-style cooking. 
   But why must Bourdain ever play the street tough? His awkwardly concocted throwaway remarks about having "plenty of time to catch up on the taped episodes of The Simpsons you've been meaning to watch" while making a seven-hour lamb dish seem just plain flat.    But by what force does he feel the need to tell the reader, "if, from time to time, I refer to you as a `useless screwhead,' I will expect you to understand--and not take it personally"?  Ri-i-i-ght. Does he find it churlish to write of a cassoulet recipe, "Jesus! Look at all those ingredients! Don't sweat it, amigo."  Then, brandishing an Abby Hoffman-like spirit as a Sixties kinda-guy, he writes, "The enjoyment of a long lunch--at table with good friends, tearing into the good stuff made with love and pride--that, arguably is in the blood, or at least in your cultural heritage.  But you've got that already, right?  Otherwise you wouldn't be here.  You wouldn't have forked over thirty-five bucks to some publishing conglomerate for this book.  Would you?  Well?  Would you? Speak up! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!" 
     Is this supposed to be fun?  Or funny? How about this, as a headnote to Foie Gras aux Pruneaux: "Dumb-ass men's magazines--you know the ones: cars, B-list actresses in bikinis--are always asking me to do insipid articles on dishes `guaranteed to get you laid' or about `the food of seduction.'" Which has nothing to do with his recipe for foie gras and prunes.   On the next page over he promises to turning you into "an ass-kicking, name-taking charcutier"--just the thing most home cooks yearn to be!  Then, a cowboy's exaltation: "Yee-hah! Rack of lamb!"  How embarrassing. Bourdain seems soon to tire of this stuff, too; as the book goes on, his headnotes become fewer and less "kick-ass."
      So my question is, why does a chef of such talent and obvious passion act like such a putz in print talking about a rack of lamb or duck liver with prunes?  It seems a crude pose, one probably encouraged by the kind of publishing conglomerate that has made him a household word. 
      Buy the book; it's a very good cookbook.  But Anthony, drop the posturing.  The frogs won't buy it forever.

WORST NEW SUB-TITLE                     FOR A TRAVEL BOOK

AND PENNSYLVANIANS STILL VOTED FOR THIS GUY?

EDITOR'S NOTE: This newsletter is also available on the very comprehensive food site www.sautewednesday.com
which has dozens of other links to food articles from around the world, and also at www.Gayot.com. New York Corner reviews are also available at
 www.nycvisit.com/johnmariani

MARIANI'S VIRTUAL GOURMET NEWSLETTER is published weekly.  Editor/Publisher: John Mariani. Contributing Writers: Robert Mariani,  Naomi  Kooker, Kirsten Skogerson,  Edward Brivio, Mort Hochstein, Lucy Gordan, Suzanne Wright. Contributing Photographers: Galina Stepanoff-Dargery,  Bobby Pirillo. Technical Advisor: Gerry McLoughlin.

 John Mariani is a columnist for Esquire, Wine Spectator, Diversion and the Harper Collection. He is author of The Encyclopedia of American Food & Drink (Lebhar-Friedman), The Dictionary of Italian Food and Drink (Broadway), and, with his wife Galina, the award-winning new Italian-American Cookbook (Harvard Common Press).   To  purchase from amazon.com, click on the image below.

 

copyright John Mariani 2004