IT’S Labor Day week – officially the worst time to eat in New York restaurants, with every able-bodied chef, manager and waiter off to Vermont or the Alps.
But think of Tuesday, Sept. 2, as the start of a new era. Major openings are planned and kitchens are gearing up for the autumn rush. With this in mind, here’s a handy guide to things we’d like owners and chefs to annihilate upon their return:
1. “CONSULTING” AND OTHER BREEDS OF WANDERING CHEFS.
Savvy diners know it’s a joke; the question is why owners don’t. They continue paying kitchen-hopping characters like Zak Pelaccio and Todd English to give their eateries an aura of importance (and waste more money on publicists to persuade dumb reporters that the chef de cuisine in question actually has much to do with a place). Of course, it rarely works. English Is Italian closed. Chop Suey, where Pelaccio was fleetingly involved at the outset, has deteriorated into a mostly empty hotel venue. Saddest of all was Marcus Samuelsson’s floperoo at Merkato 55, where he spent little time despite being called its “chef.” Just days after the Times ran an interview with him, he was ousted by Merkato’s owners, who turned it into a club. Samuelsson, the real (and truly great) executive chef of Aquavit, deserved better, even if he made a mistake. Diners deserve better, too.
2. SUSHI IN NON-JAPANESE RESTAURANTS.
It’s bad enough that much of the “fresh” raw fish consumed in Japanese joints is flavorless after a six-month deep freeze. It’s worse that the stuff now turns up in all kinds of restaurants where they don’t know how to buy, cut or serve it.
Unless the name is Le Bernardin or Esca, I don’t want “crudo.” We go to Craft and Cru for American food, Scarpetta and Convivio for Italian and Anthos for modern Greek – not for raw fish. And I really don’t want it at Hi-Life, which should stick with burgers and booze.
3. MENUS ENTIRELY IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE.
The curse of long-ago French joints now rears it snooty head in allegedly friendly Italian ones. Like at Peasant. Excuse me for stumbling over quaglie farcite. What’s the big idea, paesanos?
4. FORGETTABLE FADS.
Ceviches acidic enough to kill ants; raspberry vinaigrette on salads; verbena and lavender on anything; and marvelous Anson Mills grits which, alas, nobody in town knows how to cook.
5. RUBBER OCTOPUS.
Sublimely tender specimens are all over town. There’s no excuse for the molar-wrenching, eight-armed bandit like those at Greek diners – or the one I had at otherwise delightful new, French/Provencale Allegretti. Chef/owner Alain Allegretti seemed surprised I found it tough. A few days later, it popped up on Gael Greene’s insatiablecritic.com – her octopus at Allegretti, too, was tough. Beat it with a stick, Alain!
6. WAITERS WHO RECITE THE MENU WORD FOR WORD.
Like at Abboccato. Guys: We can read.
7. WAITERS WHO DON’T EXPLAIN A MENU THAT NEEDS EXPLAINING.
Like at Matsugen, where you can starve in the time it takes to decipher the Japanese maze on your own. The ordering options even for house-special soba noodles can stump the experts. I have to ask every time – and you will, too.
8. “LUXURY” BURGERS.
Sirloin, Black Angus and Wagyu beef in a bun do us no favors. They don’t have enough fat to produce the oozy mouth feel that’s half the reason for eating a hamburger. Fresh, ground chuck might sound down-market, but it works best, from the Burger Heaven chain to Andy D’Amico’s terrific new Five Napkin Burger.
9. “DAYBOAT” ANYTHING.
Like many places, “eclectic” Elettaria touts its ocean scallops, cod and mahi-mahi all as “dayboat.” Do the boats slip under Manhattan via an underground cavern stream and tie up beneath the corner of West Eighth and MacDougal Streets? I await a tour.
10. PRODUCT PLACEMENT.
Enough menu plugs for Satur Farms and Niman Ranch! Nor do we care if your chicken is from Four Story Hill – we’d rather you cooked the damn birds so they’re not as dry as day-old bread.
11. NARRATIVE DISRUPTION.
My colleague Mackenzie objects to waiters who “interrupt the narrative flow” of whatever joke or raunchy anecdote you’re telling. They barge in, “Are you still enjoying your tripe?” just as you get to the punch line. To this category of service pest I’d add “food runners” who try yanking your $18 glass of wine when there’s still an inch of wine left.
12. MOLTEN CHOCOLATE CAKE in any restaurant not run by Jean-Georges Vongerichten, who invented it. Everywhere else it’s either brick-hard or liquid enough for soup.
13. BRINGING DOWNTOWN UPTOWN.
Every fall, a bunch of new restaurants promises to “bring downtown uptown.” But you could not get NoLItans to Columbus Avenue unless you snatched them off the street and lashed them to the wheels of northbound trucks. Nor do people uptown want NoLItans taking up their seats.
Let the p.r. people dream up something new – and let the restaurants start treating us all like grown-ups.