skilful
There’s a wonderful passage in Fuschia Dunlop’s Shark’s Fin and Szechuan Pepper, a book full of wonderful passages, somewhere close to the end:
Many Chinese friends have spoken to me over the last few years of a historical progression from ‘eating to fill your belly’ (chi bao), through ‘eating plenty of rich food’ (chi hao), to ‘eating skilfully’ (chi qiao).
She’s describing the shifting relationship with food as China has developed and modernised: millennia of relative scarcity, yielding to ‘the thrill of plenty’, and finally, recently, a more discerning class of gourmets. It’s about the Chinese writ large – not as some exceptionless rule, of course, but a general trend – and, in Dunlop’s memoirs, is part of the pivot to the moment of redemption, when her gaudy, ethically questionable excess gives way to an altogether more thoughtful, discerning approach.
It’s a great book, her cookbooks are even better, and I’ll review them all here in more detail some time soon. But, for now, I’d like to ponder this transition as it applies to individuals.
As I walked to Osteria Francescana, I felt nervous. I felt nervous because my expectations were high – higher than I think they’ve ever been. What if it wasn’t worth the price? What if, after spending more more on one meal than I do on my rent, my experience was mediocre, my response lukewarm. What would I say to people? How could I justify it? It always made sense before, even when I knew I couldn’t really afford it. This is what I do. This is what I care about. I’ve never felt nervous before. But I did this time.
The restaurants that I really love, those I go back to time and again for purely gastronomic reasons, are not really comparable with Osteria Francescana, because they’re doing completely different things. Even when you compare it to other restaurants doing the same thing, the comparators are unclear.
When you get to the level that Bottura and team are competing at, I’m not entirely sure there is a meaningful standard at all against which you can judge them. The meal might not be what you wanted, or expected, or might not be what you’d be willing to pay anywhere else, but that’s not really the point. You’re going for the experience, broadly construed, and you’re going for the brand name. You’re going to say you’ve been, but you’re also going just to go. You see?
Let me try to put it another way. On every tasting menu, the meal is allowed to be hit-and-miss, because the chef isn’t cooking for you. She’s cooking for herself, and you go to get a glimpse of what she’s thinking about and trying to express; if you enjoy the food, it’s a bonus, rather than the point.
But that’s also an easy way to sidestep and ignore real problems, cover for an experience that should be, in its totality, pretty fucking spectacular, thank-you-very-much. Was Francescana pretty fucking spectacular? Honestly? No, not really.
It was technically impressive, for sure. After a couple of amuses bouche, we were served ‘Pollution Revolution’, a light clam consommé, salty and rich in umami, sat atop a wild sea herb sludge, thick and green. It was evocative and tasty, beautifully served in an oyster shell. Spaghettini was next, a deeply fishy, buttery, sea urchin broth, over raw Hokkaido scallop. Fish courses were carefully cooked and wines thoughtfully paired.
It was conceptually clever. When I asked him about Alinea and how he would compare his food to Achatz’s, Bottura told me that "we're doing different things; he does theatre, my food is more conceptual". And he was right: there was some incredibly clever moves. ‘When north meets south’ was a southern pizza made from northern ingredients: burnt polenta chips, a mozzarella risotto and a rich tomato passata; it looked nothing and tasted everything like a slice of Neapolitan Margherita. ‘Pasta al pesto in abstract’ was a good facsimile of penne al peso, pesto soup pock-marked by little chunks of semolina (or was it potato? I honestly can’t remember.) The much-lauded ‘Five Ages of Parmigiano Reggiano’ was a little underwhelming, but that may be because I cook with parmesan most days and use it as a substitute for salt; I’m a saturated in it, and could have lost the subtleties as a result.
But in spite of all of the technical achievement, conceptual cleverness, creative whimsy, I found myself almost forcing myself to enjoy it. The room was bare, cool, table lit by a harsh overhanging lamp. Entering the restaurant, ringing the doorbell and waiting for entrance, didn’t add an exclusive allure but rather inconvenience and a disorienting lack of charm. A huge Damien Hirst (Bottura proudly proclaiming a part of his own personal collection) hung in my periphery. I wasn’t comfortable.
And there were dishes that, in retrospect, I just didn’t like very much. ‘Wagyu non wagyu’ would have been better named ‘Pork and chewy lardo’. ‘The crunchy part of the lasagna’, added as a surprise course, was underwhelming. Visually beautiful, the cracker stained with the colours of the Repubblicà, but served with a paltry spoonful of under-seasoned ragù and a béchamel which had already sodden the crunch out of the cracker before it had even arrived at our table.
None of it was bad — I’d bloody hope not, too — but with the label ‘best restaurant in the world’ hanging over the whole experience, it didn’t represent an order of magnitude better food than that at, say, Bright, or Le Servan (neither of which have one Michelin star, let alone three.) Of course it’s apples and oranges; I don’t want to compare them. But you can’t help it. And, when dealing with restaurants so important, high on lists that make a claim to objectivity, you definitely should.
Do you remember the first time? I’ve been eating quite seriously for quite a few years, and my first proper tasting menu (Midsummer House, December 2015) was a revelation. All of a sudden, this wasn’t food-as-convenience, Café Rouge, hurried to table with a surly sigh. This was flavour, and artistry. It was the sort of food that made me laugh and cheer and blush at the price tag. It was a wine pairing – my first Au Bon Climat – and hospitality that felt like an unrivalled joy, not a surly sigh in sight.
But now I’m eating at really excellent restaurants a lot of the time, and tasting menus feel overwrought, especially against a backdrop of plates at P Franco, bowls of nouilles dan dan at Trois Fois Plus de Piment and the steak tartare at CAM. Bottles of light, fun, low-intervention wines drunk at my pace; glorious, simple food to slurp and munch and spill without scruples. No tweezers. Ugly delicious.
It’s becoming more tiring to eat skilfully, if eating skilfully demands so much of you, as Osteria Francescana did. There is food prepared with just as much love, attention, skill found in dozens of bistros and bars in Paris and London. I’ve regressed, in short, back down to eating plenty of rich food, on my time, in my terms.
I don’t know if the regression will continue (I doubt it). But I’m glad it’s happened. I’m happier now. My heart feels fuller, and I feel more connected to what I’m eating. It’s not abstract beauty anymore. It doesn’t need to be conceptual in order to impress me. It just needs to be delicious. Now that I’ve done the Michelin / tasting menu thing, I’m happier when it’s simpler. Deliciousness should be the goal, not cleverness.
