What seems lost isn’t fine dining so much as the audience that made experimentation possible. Once the economics force the room toward a global elite, the restaurant doesn’t just cost more; it starts optimizing for a different guest, and eventually becomes a different product.
Well said. I think when we can no longer look out at the dining room and see young cooks excited to be eating and learning from other people who are also excited we have lost our true audience. Obviously we all cook for our own reasons, joy, craft, recognition, and drive, but feeling as if the diner views us as something else they can just “buy”, we have lost any chance of fulfillment.
I agree with so much of this. my passion for cooking drew me into luxury hotels.
back then their restaurants offered food I had never imagined ... in a world of luxury and exclusivity that made the whole experience feel like a discovery.
I personally see figures like Ferran Adrià as the culinary equivalent of Michelangelo or Picasso. that kind of imagination can change what a whole craft considers possible.
we can learn from it, but most of us cannot build a restaurant on the assumption that we will possess it.
your point about spreadsheets cutting the poetry raises a hard question for those running a restaurant as a business meant to last, rather than a hobby or somewhere to put an ego.
how do we protect that sense of discovery while paying for it?
for years I thought the food was the main answer. some of the most successful chefs I have known helped change my mind.
they spent time with guests, knew their regulars' preferences and would happily cook plain pasta with oil and cheese for a child, even in a Michelin-starred restaurant.
I came to respect that as part of their skill.
your point about carrying the plate matters here. meeting the chef is a pleasure for the guest. the chef also learns something. from the pass you see the order. in the room you see who it is for.
I used to judge a chef mainly by what they could persuade me to try. now I also notice how they respond when someone asks for something simple.
your description of fun dining, with chefs and guests meeting more as equals, connects with something I have wondered about: playful dining.
even a few condiments left on the table would let each person finish a dish to their taste. the dish leaves the kitchen one way. every bite after that can be a different one. the chef would have to be comfortable with that.
that does not solve the loss of affordability you describe. but it brings me back to the word.
what a restaurant can do is adapt. change the format, give the guest more room, keep a discovery in the evening at a price people can pay.
changing what people expect from the words “fine dining” is a larger challenge.
for many of us, fine may still carry the old picture, but is that what guests expect today?
that part may need someone like Ferran Adrià again ... someone who can create the kind of restaurant the rest of us would never have thought to open.
thank you for your very thoughtful reply. I have to make a point about the spreadsheets though, as it might be misunderstood. I am all about having eyes on the numbers, no restaurant can survive otherwise, but the spreadsheets should serve the art and the craft. When big biz takes over, the opposite tends to happen and the little wiggle room we have for poetry and vision is reduced to none.
Dont let the black pill take you nothing is ever "over" and the current issue is that people would rather just "pay" then engage. Look, everything you have said can be also applied to marriage. It is not isolated to cooking and cooking actually is one of the better resistance centers. Chefs can do anything and have, they made it through the French revolution there were no chefs before then , they can make it through another Republican episode. [which is all this failure is; they do fail to do this]
What seems lost isn’t fine dining so much as the audience that made experimentation possible. Once the economics force the room toward a global elite, the restaurant doesn’t just cost more; it starts optimizing for a different guest, and eventually becomes a different product.
exactly
Well said. I think when we can no longer look out at the dining room and see young cooks excited to be eating and learning from other people who are also excited we have lost our true audience. Obviously we all cook for our own reasons, joy, craft, recognition, and drive, but feeling as if the diner views us as something else they can just “buy”, we have lost any chance of fulfillment.
Great point. My absolute favorite diner was always cooks, colleagues and industry peers.
I agree with so much of this. my passion for cooking drew me into luxury hotels.
back then their restaurants offered food I had never imagined ... in a world of luxury and exclusivity that made the whole experience feel like a discovery.
I personally see figures like Ferran Adrià as the culinary equivalent of Michelangelo or Picasso. that kind of imagination can change what a whole craft considers possible.
we can learn from it, but most of us cannot build a restaurant on the assumption that we will possess it.
your point about spreadsheets cutting the poetry raises a hard question for those running a restaurant as a business meant to last, rather than a hobby or somewhere to put an ego.
how do we protect that sense of discovery while paying for it?
for years I thought the food was the main answer. some of the most successful chefs I have known helped change my mind.
they spent time with guests, knew their regulars' preferences and would happily cook plain pasta with oil and cheese for a child, even in a Michelin-starred restaurant.
I came to respect that as part of their skill.
your point about carrying the plate matters here. meeting the chef is a pleasure for the guest. the chef also learns something. from the pass you see the order. in the room you see who it is for.
I used to judge a chef mainly by what they could persuade me to try. now I also notice how they respond when someone asks for something simple.
your description of fun dining, with chefs and guests meeting more as equals, connects with something I have wondered about: playful dining.
even a few condiments left on the table would let each person finish a dish to their taste. the dish leaves the kitchen one way. every bite after that can be a different one. the chef would have to be comfortable with that.
that does not solve the loss of affordability you describe. but it brings me back to the word.
what a restaurant can do is adapt. change the format, give the guest more room, keep a discovery in the evening at a price people can pay.
changing what people expect from the words “fine dining” is a larger challenge.
for many of us, fine may still carry the old picture, but is that what guests expect today?
that part may need someone like Ferran Adrià again ... someone who can create the kind of restaurant the rest of us would never have thought to open.
thank you for your very thoughtful reply. I have to make a point about the spreadsheets though, as it might be misunderstood. I am all about having eyes on the numbers, no restaurant can survive otherwise, but the spreadsheets should serve the art and the craft. When big biz takes over, the opposite tends to happen and the little wiggle room we have for poetry and vision is reduced to none.
Dont let the black pill take you nothing is ever "over" and the current issue is that people would rather just "pay" then engage. Look, everything you have said can be also applied to marriage. It is not isolated to cooking and cooking actually is one of the better resistance centers. Chefs can do anything and have, they made it through the French revolution there were no chefs before then , they can make it through another Republican episode. [which is all this failure is; they do fail to do this]
I’m sorry about your marriage. ☹️
Its not my marriage ,it is all society marriage is disappearing from