€1,500 per head for dinner? Really?

I recently bought Gastrophysics at a bookstore in Heathrow and it turned out to be interesting in several ways.  One is that the UK version, which I purchased, has an entirely different cover than the US version, available from Amazon.  The US version is pictured at the left.

Another is that the author in the UK is Professor Charles Spence but in the US it’s plain ol’ Charles Spence.  Do titles mean that much in the UK or is the US that anti-credential?

I bought it after browsing the first few chapters where Spence discusses the interrelationships among the five senses in terms of eating and how they add to or take away from our dining pleasure. Good stuff, but then he goes in a different direction.  Spence is the head of the Crossmodal Research Laboratory at Oxford and has consulted with many multinational companies on a variety of topics.  The second two-thirds of the book read like a promo piece for a consultant who specializes in global high-end restaurants. The introduction to the Experiential Meal chapter was where I learned about Sublimotion, a restaurant in Ibiza that charges €1,500 but limits seating to twelve each evening.

So the other day I decided to watch Chef’s Table, a Netflix series on the world’s top chefs.  Episode one was about Massimo Bottura whose Osteria Francescana in Modena has been mentioned as one of the three best restaurants in the world.  It’s a charming show about how Bottura, an incredibly passionate and focused chef who transforms the amazing flavors of Modena through his inspired creativity.  The closest analogy I can come up with is something like Béla Bartók incorporating Hungarian folk songs into his classical compositions or John Coltrane using the blues as a foundation for his improvisations. If I had some training in visual art I’m sure that there must be an equivalent analogy in painting or sculpture.

What are we to make of this? There are chefs whose primary intent is to express their personal vision, there are restaurants that approach a meal as performance art, and consultants who combine the tradition of Ernest Dichter with varying degrees of “science” to help distinguish their clients. Michelin stars are uber-credentials and TV shows like Top Chef and Iron Chef elevate innovation (and speed, curiously) to the exclusion of almost everything else.  Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking by Nathan Myhrvold sells for $500 on Amazon.

It’s easy to make fun of all this but that would be like making fun of egg-headed long-haired classical music when good three minute pop songs are available.  Is this trend towards innovation and creativity an indication that the preparation of food rightly inhabits a space that is more than functional?

I’ve dined once in this stratosphere.  I’ve been watching Top Chef since it first came on and in 2014, Philadelphia chef Nicholas Elmi was the winner.  He used the money and momentum to open Laurel Restaurant, an extraordinarily creative French/American restaurant featuring a tasting menu of about seven courses.  It rapidly became one of the hardest reservations in Philadelphia but we did get a table one brilliant spring afternoon a year ago.

First things first.  The food was absolutely delicious.  It was full of depth – every bite of every dish revealed a new flavor or texture. Each plate was like a miniature work or art and in some inexplicable way, the flavor of the food had echoes of the visual presentation.  The first time I recognized that it was a bit mind-blowing.

But it doesn’t end there.  This was the second most expensive meal we’ve ever had.  The other was classic French over-the-top luxury dining in a luxury hotel experience with white-gloved waiters.

And I’m also reminded of a story my father told me. He and my mother visited the first sushi restaurant in Framingham in the western suburbs of Boston. After having what my mother described as “really tasty” sushi, they stopped at a Wendy’s on the way home for a couple of burgers.

I’m not elevating Wendy’s to the level of high cuisine (I question its value as plain food, in fact) but I know what he meant.  I found the food at Laurel to be delicious and dazzling but not entirely satisfying.  I felt the urge for a perfectly cooked steak the next night.

I was thinking about all of this after writing about my failure with spaghetti caci e pepe yesterday and how good that dish was in Rome.  Five ingredients – fresh spaghetti, romano cheese, pecorino cheese, fresh black pepper, and olive oil – assembled and timed perfectly to produce a brilliantly simple dish, usually priced at €15 or less.