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I still have my notes of the first review I wrote for the FT. God, I was so serious! I scribble observations on the quality and number of bathrooms, and stained the pages with dessert. Something more also stood out on the page. Recently I discovered Jim Harrison, the poet, writer and American food. Sadly he died in 2016, but exerted an immense influence on me. There in the notes, I have laboriously transcribed an appointment: “The distance from food preparation poises the soul with cold abstractions.”
When I began to think about how to criticize the restaurants, I had questioned which my own tastes were, my own strongly full prejudices, and I realized that what really ignited me was sitting in a counter somewhere and observing my food. Apparently, Harrison had hit me on the goal.
It seemed to me that everything that is put between kitchens and dining rooms: reserve systems, overloaded service droids, “concepts”, artificially administered exclusivity, ridiculous prices, fashion, rigid culinary dogma, uncomfortable formality, any framework imposed for the objective analysis of the “quality”, the ego-ego-ego-ego-ego-ego chefs erudidal abstractions. But how is that basis for restaurant criticism?
Anything, from a bacon bap to a state banquet, can be “perfect”, or with the same ease, you can fail cold. When the road is shorter between Cook and Eater, there are fewer places to ruin. So, if you are looking for your critic a council of Valedictory Bankic, it is inspired by Harrison. Observe your prepared food, see your hands on your way to you. Eat at the counter where you can.
When they discover what people do, people presume some kind of supreme palate or exceptional experience. They usually ask what criteria apply when they criticize, that is whether they are educated. The most direct approach is: “What does the right give you?” I still don’t have an answer.
However, I have found myself writing the word “hospitality” more and more. I have focused more on this and less on the obvious elements of food/service/place, possibly to the point of the obsession. This has made the work more difficult, because, although critics have moved away gently and with a reason to perfectly lacerate criticism, there seems to be less places that offer authentic hospitality. Some of my favorite restaurants, St John, Bouchon Racine, Brutto, Ciao Bella, Noble Rot, Andrew Edmunds, seem to be based on hospitality. But a few irritants seem to prioritize it in the same way. Perhaps, as metropolitan restaurants have become more serious commercial investments, it is not easy to justify in a spreadsheet. Maybe I am naively romantic.
Going out to eat is an exchange of hospitality framed in a commercial transaction. People make food that they like and take care to serve it in a pleasant way. You eat and enjoy the experience. An equitable sum changes hands. But all in the transaction, from the moment the restaurant is conceived until the moment the diner leaves the facilities, need to understand what hospitality is and commit to provide it.
Do not confuse hospitality with the service. Trust me, a restaurant with sufficient resources will pierce a crew until the service is perfect. However, the place can still feel without a soul. The food can be as Michelin approved as you want, but that only helps you feel that you have taken a prudent choice and a financial disbursement. That his judgment was validated, not to be loved. Feeling loved requires genuine hospitality. I have found it in tasting concepts of 14 dishes (rarely), as well as on hamburgers cars (often surprisingly). In my experience, it has been more common in independent restaurants than in chains. And perhaps it is the easiest to achieve in projects based on vague and wrong love and enthusiasm. Again . . . I am not qualifying at the top of the critical objectivity here.
The obvious truth is that there is no objective way of measuring a restaurant, and the subjective opinion of the critic has almost no real value. We all know this. We don’t have it tattooed, but we could also. But if you believe, like me, in hospitality, judging how well a restaurant does notice a little to do with fashion ingredients, innovative technique or new combinations of flavors.
So what is a critic for? This is the second appointment in my notebook. It is in each notebook because I always write it on the first page: “Find a topic that cares and that you feel that others should care. It is this affectionate genuine, and not its games with language, which will be the most convincing and seductive element in its style. “Kurt vonnegut.
From next week, I can write more deeply about the parts of the kitchen that really matters to me (starting with an indecent obsession with egg sandwiches), but I have always felt that people care about hospitality. They may not know. They may think that compliance is to abandon their money in a “concept” executed remotely under the brand of a famous chef. But I know when they have received it. They can’t help it. This is because the impulse of nourishing and nourishing is innate, a atavistic impulse that defines us as human beings. If we have provided hospitality, we are validated. We know we have done something good. When we receive it, we feel loved, honest, protected.
Then, in the end, everything returns to Jim Harrison and the narrowing of the distance between us and the food, which, for me, from now on, will mean not only being close enough to criticize, but, instead, have my hands in it.
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