Best Food Writing 2015 (8 page)

When pressed, Onwuachi acknowledges it can sometimes be tough. “I think food is objective. And it can be hard to get the feedback. It's like an artist making an elaborate painting and, when it's done, someone coming in and saying, ‘I think it could use a little more green.' But in
the end, we're in the hospitality industry, and what people have to say does matter.”

All the chefs on the tour are men, but when I asked Bordainick if he's worried about diversity, he thinks I mean diversity in the food. He also says this is only the first in what he hopes will become an endless series of tours, an ongoing platform to find and develop talent.

“We are constantly looking for chefs,” he says. “Next time we'll do better. Next time, hopefully, we'll have some women on tour. This is just the beginning.”

The one question that keeps nagging at me, though, was whether the public should really have that much of a say in how, and what, is cooked in a restaurant. Bordainick talks a lot about “bringing people into contact with new ideas in food,” but that food must have populist appeal, by definition, to make it in this system.

I'm also not convinced that the type of people who relish the idea of dining at a pop-up where they get to play critic are the same people who would support a regular restaurant night after night. In fact, many of the guests I speak to at Dinner Lab dinners admit that they
aren't
those customers—they are people who seek out one-off experiences, the very opposite of return customers. One couple has sworn off restaurant meals altogether in favor of pop-ups. These diners might love the trendiness of octopus, but are their tastes representative of what sustains a neighborhood restaurant?

Which brings us back to the computer/typewriter quandary. The way people are eating is changing. Special dinners can sell out in minutes, even at restaurants that usually are half empty. Food festivals are more and more popular. Noma and the Fat Duck, two of the world's most lauded restaurants, are taking their show on the road in the coming year, popping up for extended stays in countries outside their own. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see traveling food circuses within the next few years. But restaurants? They continue to thrive or fail at a fairly steady rate.

If Dinner Lab manages to open a successful restaurant that has longevity, it will be because the company found a very good chef who runs a tight ship. Just like anyone else.

The fact that Bordainick has feedback from hundreds of diners in 10
different cities is sure to help convince investors. But does that make it a data-driven restaurant, or just the most elaborate market-testing scheme ever?

And is that market feedback always a good thing? Bordainick says that, even after the Dinner Lab restaurant opens, the feedback component will remain, allowing chefs to tweak and adjust the food they're serving, just as they're doing now on the tour. “Feedback will always be a part of anything Dinner Lab does,” he says.

Sitting at Dinner Lab's dinners feels to me like sinking into Yelp soup, being surrounded by people picking every dish apart and gleefully scribbling criticism. It seems the opposite of what a meal out ought to be, the antithesis of the relaxing experience of being swept up in the joy of dining, of letting pleasure find you, of not thinking too hard about it.

As a full-time restaurant critic, I realize that distaste for enthusiastic dinnertime analysis might sound strange. But no matter what's going on in my head as I do my job, I try never to let the parsing and negativity seep into the experience itself. Perhaps, with Yelp and blogs and the constant flow of pop-ups, this is just the direction dining is taking in general. All food will be rated and parsed; all cooking will be a competition.

Dinner Lab may have hit on a formula that allows restaurants constant feedback, but what's lost is the ritual of uncomplicated hospitality.

I'm also not convinced that feedback always yields the greatest results. The greatest chefs show us something we didn't know we wanted in the first place, and make us question our preconceived notions of what is good and what isn't.

Aaron Grosskopf's duck egg custard, for instance, was close to brilliant when I ate it. The people around me disagreed, but, when pressed, their reasons seemed superficial. One woman, when questioned about her reasoning, admitted that, really, she just doesn't like grapes.

Grosskopf tells me the duck egg custard was one of the dishes where the feedback element has helped him the most. In fact, he has now tweaked the recipe, and its scores have risen considerably as a result.

But the way in which Grosskopf has achieved that success will not surprise anyone who has spent time deeply mired in the world of food trends, or hung out with epicures whose enthusiasm trumps their palate. “Now,” he says, “I put bacon on it.”

At Your Service?
At Your Service?

B
Y
O
LIVER
S
TRAND

From
Fool

          
Oliver Strand's coffee-culture writings for the
New York Times
and other publications have made him a hero to java geeks. But he's also a shrewd observer of restaurant culture—and in this essay for the Sweden-based magazine
Fool
, he reminds us of the difference that one crucial dining element can make.

Two years ago, the chef of a small, ambitious Stockholm restaurant that had recently been named one of the World's 50 Best Restaurants sent out the following tweet: “Seriously?! 7 tables and 7 Different allergies or special diets . . . Come on . . .” He posted a photo of a reservation printout that listed everybody's names (redacted here), and everybody's needs. You can still find it on the internet, and see that somebody at H's table was lactose intolerant but could handle a little butter, that somebody at D's table was allergic to shellfish. P, party of two, didn't have any dietary restrictions, but it was their wedding day, and they asked for a private table. Seriously?! Come on. I wasn't surprised that the chef publicly shamed his guests because their allergies—or, in the case of the newly married couple, their happiness—might mess up his flow, and throw off what could otherwise be a flawless night for the kitchen. I had been crushed by his perfectionism a few weeks earlier, when my wife and I ate at the restaurant. We went for a 21-course tasting menu that lasted more than three hours and started 40 minutes late. We arrived on time and took our seats at the counter, but the chef wouldn't feed us because it would spoil the meal of the two
strangers who reserved the places to our left, and who were delayed for reasons never explained to us—he didn't want them to see what they were going to eat. Instead, my wife and I sat opposite the chef, watching him expedite dishes, and saw what we were going to eat. Our obvious discomfort didn't seem to matter to him. He stood over us, as unsmiling as Marina Abramović, refusing us bread (which was considered a course), or any other food (that might fill us up). When he wasn't looking, my wife snacked on almonds she found in the bottom of her purse.

A few months earlier, I was sitting at the counter of Ishikawa, a small, serene Tokyo restaurant first awarded three stars by the
Michelin Guide
in 2009. I arrived 20 minutes late. Tokyo is a famously difficult city to navigate, even for taxi drivers—my hotel gave me a map to hand the driver, but he missed one turn, then another, and after shutting off the meter and apologizing for his mistakes, he made a few anxious calls to the restaurant. We finally found the street, where a woman in a kimono standing in front of the restaurant was waiting for me. Inside, I took my seat at the counter across from Hideki Ishikawa, the chef and owner, who was using a knife the size of a sword to slice a radish into tissue-thin sheets. I tried to apologize, but he just smiled and he welcomed me as if he knew me, using his careful English to ask me what I wanted to drink.

Setting aside the obvious geographical differences, these two restaurants have much in common: they are intimate, modern, fastidious. Both are expensive, and only serve intricate tasting menus that aim to challenge and seduce you. If you were to chart all of the restaurants of the world on a scatter plot, these two would be crowded together over on the farthest end, the two dots so close as to be indistinguishable. Yet one of them served me one of the most memorable meals in my life, and the other one of the most miserable. The single, greatest factor setting the two apart? The service.

Ishikawa was practising what in Japan is called
omotenashi
, a term that is usually translated as “hospitality,” which is a little like saying that Hermès sells bags—it's a bland word for something so exquisite and refined that it's a source of obsession among some. Hospitality is regarded as an extra, a bonus, a bit of pleasantry that is enjoyable, but in the end, superfluous to the transaction at hand. It isn't essential, especially in a restaurant: service is a footnote to the food and the room.
Omotenashi
describes a comprehensive approach to human interaction
that values courtesy and helpfulness, and that integrates professionalism and how one conducts oneself—grace and attentiveness are respected as much as skill and technique. In a restaurant,
omotenashi
isn't on the periphery, it's central: service is as important as the food and the room. To put it another way, it's illogical to say that a meal was fantastic even though the food was disgusting, because the food is the meal; once you understand
omotenashi
, it's just as nonsensical to say that a meal was fantastic even through the staff was rude, because the experience is the meal.

Omotenashi
is complemented by
omoiyari
, which is often translated as “empathy” but refers to a sensitivity so acute that you can anticipate the needs and desires of others. It's not enough to be kind and polite, you should also be attuned to what that particular person wants. Ishikawa not only welcomed me into his restaurant, ignoring that I was late, but when he saw that I was flustered he sincerely wanted me to relax, have a drink, and start eating only when I was ready to enjoy it. I was always a little buzzed on
omotenashi
and
omoiyari
when I was in Tokyo, but I didn't realize it at the time. I just thought it was wonderful and strange to wander around the largest city in the world and feel so good about myself. Almost every interaction was a pleasure, every transaction a delight. It was true not only in the expensive establishments where you might expect to find it, but even at the places where the prices were more modest: the yakatori stall under the train tracks by Ueno Station, the Omotesando Koffee bar on the ground floor of a private home on a quiet side street. Once, I rented a bicycle from an elderly gentleman who meticulously checked every gear and cable with me before he walked me to the street, bowed deeply and wished me well. The rate: $2.50 for three days.

After I left, I talked with Merry White, author of
Coffee Life in Japan
and professor of anthropology at Boston University, who explained
omotenashi
and
omoiyari
and put terms to what I experienced. The words also gave me a vocabulary to describe what is sometimes missing. That restaurant in Stockholm might have had a sense of purpose, but there was little
omotenashi
, and absolutely no
omoiyari
. Sitting there at the counter that night, I was watching a chef so focused on getting the food exactly right he didn't see how much else he was getting wrong.

In 1975, the keyboardist Gary Wright released the single
Dream Weaver
. It was his biggest solo hit. Wright played on George Harrison's album
All Things Must Pass
, and the two artists followed a similar spiritual path—
Dream Weaver
is about cosmic enlightenment, or maybe drugs, or a night of really good sex, or a combination of the three. You might not be able to conjure up the song from memory, but if you were to hear it you would recognize the tune when Wright's tenor takes up the chorus:

Oh Dream Weaver, I believe you can get me through the night
.

Oh Dream Weaver, I believe we can reach the morning light
.

One afternoon this summer, Will Guidara, one of the owners of Eleven Madison Park in New York, sang those words to me, searching my face to see if I could place the melody. “Still nothing?” he asked.

Not exactly. I knew the song, but Guidara's serenade didn't answer my question: what does a Dream Weaver do? I was sitting in on a conference in which he and Daniel Humm, the chef and co-owner of Eleven Madison Park, met with the restaurant's two top managers and two head chefs to discuss what they called Strategic Planning, but what seemed more like an unusually enthusiastic response to the employee suggestion box. Several weeks earlier, every member of the staff had been asked how the restaurant could be improved, fine-tuned or completely rethought; the submissions were consolidated into a six-page, single-spaced document with 136 items. Guidara and Humm took it seriously. That day, they made it as far as #23.

Suggestion #16 was a “curveball” course to be served to a few randomly selected tables every night, an unexpected gift from the kitchen. Guidara didn't like it. “I feel that's what the Dream Weaver does,” he said. “A course isn't necessarily food. I want to talk about that at premeal tonight.”

When I asked what, in fact, the Dream Weaver does, Guidara broke into song.

The Dream Weaver, I learned after a long and example-filled discussion, is a combination of concierge, prop stylist, research assistant and artist-in-residence. The Dream Weaver responds to whatever it is a guest might want or need. Sometimes, those wants and needs are practical: directions, ibuprofen, a couple of minutes with a needle and thread to repair a dress.

Sometimes, those wants and needs invite more creative endeavors. During a winter storm, a couple from Spain mentioned that their children, who were back at the hotel, had never seen so much snow; the Dream Weaver went to an all-night hardware store, picked up two sleds, painted the four-leaf logo of Eleven Madison Park down the middle, and gave them to the couple so that the children could go sledding in Central Park in the morning. Another time, a couple joked that New York's urban wildlife was always rustling underfoot; the Dream Weaver stitched together a small squirrel. When someone wants to keep a wine label too fragile to be removed, the Dream Weaver will paint a water-color of the bottle on thick paper. The more tipsy the conversation, the more fluid the response. One couple joked about loving the pizza from a particular uptown slice joint; the Dream Weaver jumped in a taxi—the slices of pizza were presented as if a part of the tasting menu.

The Dream Weaver is a position usually filled by Christine McGrath, who studied fashion at art school and minored in architecture. She keeps a set of paints at the restaurant, along with a sewing kit and an engraver. She is in charge of the Warby Parker reading glasses loaned to diners having trouble making out the wine list, and the late-night tickets to the Empire State Building observation deck given to moony couples. She manages the “plus-one” documents that form part of the restaurant's institutional memory—if a guest asks about the history of the building, or the distinctions between different rums, or where to get a drink later that night, or the best place to go for a run in Manhattan, or where to buy maternity clothes, or which New Orleans hotels are comfortable and not too rowdy, the waiter will return with a reply printed on heavy-stock paper. At latest count, there were more than 800 plus-ones in the system.

Not all of what the Dream Weaver does is improvised. After you make a reservation, a captain will call to confirm the time and number of people, and to see if it is a special occasion such as a birthday or anniversary. Sometimes, the meal is the special occasion, or the reason for a trip to New York. All of this information is fed into the Guest Notes, a database that lists the particular habits, preferences and pleasures of every person who has been to the restaurant. There's not much to go on for first-time visitors, but if you return your entry starts to fill up. Every week Guidara and Humm will look at reservations flagged by the
captains. Then, before each meal, the captains and sommeliers will go over the Guest Notes, distributing a 15-page document filled with astonishing detail. The night I was there, they discussed every table, all 107 covers. For a couple coming in for a last meal before moving to Toronto, they batted around ideas that might make the night more special.
Poutine
? That's Montreal. Something jokey about Mayor Robert Ford? Too off-color. They decided to put together a guide to Toronto restaurants and bars. The Dream Weaver would be tasked with getting in touch with the chefs, mixologists and journalists the restaurant trusts, formatting their recommendations into a bound book, and painting a red maple leaf on the cover. It was an extra course that wasn't food.

Which was the point that Guidara made later that afternoon at premeal, the briefing he gives before service starts to the more than 40 staff members working on the floor. After going over a short version of the Guest Notes, Guidara brought up the suggestions discussed in the meeting earlier that day. “There was an idea in there that we should have a curveball course that just a handful of guests get to eat. The idea is to make a few tables feel special. I hated that idea, and I want to tell you why not to make whoever came up with that idea feel badly, but because I want to talk about what we want to accomplish at the restaurant,” he said.

“I feel it's lazy to expect the kitchen to come up with an extra course that we can use to make the diner feel special. If we're going to call somebody out, and make them feel loved, let's come up with something that's unique to them. Is lobster prepared in a certain way going to make them feel more special? It's not spontaneous, so it's not authentic,” Guidara said. “I really want to make this point super clear. We use Christine to come up with special things to do for the tables. That's what the curveball should be. Rather than just hope for another dish from the kitchen, we should be finding opportunities for her to do her work.”