haltz wrote:I was at a wine dinner at a steak house a few years ago, and my friend asked the chef (former Niche cook) if he used pink salt to age the cuts and he said "of course I [expletive] do. Are you [expletive] joking? Jesus Christ."
And there's what's wrong, in a lot of ways, with fine dining in general.
Guest: "ooh, let me show you my erudition, chef, by asking a technical question."
Chef: "ooh, you big jerk, don't be such a big dummy jerk, you dummy layman."
Snobbery. Gross.
Christ. Reminds me of a thing a few years ago where a guest--a pretentious a-hole--asked to talk to our chef and then wanted to know his temp for sous vide-ing a piece of meat. Our chef says 154 or whatever, and the guest looks to the sky and says "hmmm...I keep my sous vide machine in celsius, so 154 would be...." Same thing, opposite sides. If our chef wanted to be a pretentious jerk back, he'd say "your sous vide machine? I don't use that overpriced consumer [expletive] marketed toward wealthy foodies. I use an
immersion circulator in a [expletive]
Lexan, now take your mobile foodie apps and GTFO."
The Michelin Stars came out in Chicago today. I went to a friend's place for a snack and wine at the bar, a place that deserves a star but isn't even a Bib Gourmand, and he was agonizing over the Michelin stuff. He has a popular place that has received good press, a great wine program, and frankly food that if I were a Michelin inspector I would insist is star-worthy. But he gets no love from them. Whatever. I could honestly give half a crap, since Michelin is really a gauge for how you do Restaurant Food*. I'd rather go off their Bibs than their stars, the Bib Gourmand places are the places I like to eat--Avec, Fat Rice, Angry Crab, A10, Balena, Arami, Kai Zan, Lula, are among my favorite restaurants. When people ask me where they should eat in Chicago, for a nice dinner out I recommend four places: Fat Rice (Bib Gourmand), Avec (Bib Gourmand), La Sirena Clandestina (no Michelin recognition), Lula Cafe (Bib Gourmand). White tablecloth, stuffy dining is pretty much dead except for hyper-niche places like Grace and Alinea and 11 Madison Park and French Laundry and maybe 15 other places in the US, so when it comes to Michelin Stars I don't really care who the Alinea Jrs. are because they're not exceptional so who gives a crap.
*And I submit that Restaurant Food is what's wrong with Food Culture in America. All our Food Culture now is Restaurant Culture. We make celebs of chefs--blue-collar guys--and turn them into rock stars, and we make places trendy or cool or whatever based on what we've read on the internet and we post pictures on social media of our dinner the way 25 years ago we'd brag about getting that rare vinyl release and now there's no culture of "this is how my gramma cooked for me"** or "this is how my mom pickled tomatoes" it's just restaurants as food culture and it's kinda gross. In a couple months you can walk into any of a dozen reputable Chicago restaurants and get a beet salad, octopus a la planxa, chicken liver crostini, and four other dishes that are all on their menus and that make their restaurants barely distinguishable from one another. Because they're all doing the same Restaurant Food--we have to support local farmers, this is what local farmers have, so we all do the same ingredient but just a different way, and hey look how great we are.
**Of course there are exceptions. Sean Brock, with Husk in Charleston and Nashville. Fat Rice in Chicago. 610 Magnolia in Louisville. Places interested in preserving/celebrating the culture of the food they grew up on and a way of family cooking instead of following restaurant trends. These are few and far between, and IMO should be celebrated and supported.
