Happy 2014. Poor 2013 wore out its welcome by Labor Day — a year that saw a handful of great new restaurants outnumbered 6-1 by $500-a-head counter-seating places, pretentious tasting-menu joints and no-reservations dumps closely modeled on mosh pits.
Here in no particular order, the year’s most annoying, unacceptable and thoroughly obnoxious phenomena:
Counter Attack: The ascendancy of ultra-expensive tasting menus at 12-seat (or fewer) counters is the worst dining trend since “I’m an out-of-work actor and I’ll act like your waiter.” Insufferably elitist, they’re beloved by the culinary intelligentsia (some critics included) who embrace “sustainable,” “artisanal” and “locavore” menus in the name of saving the earth from factory-farm profiteers and Third World growers from exploitation. Of course, very few in the Real World can afford Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare’s minimum $185 tasting menu. Very few have hours to waste (or an “intern”) to wade through an online maze to score a precious few seats — or sit through an equally precious four-hour meal at the chef’s altar. Whatever happened to the idea that restaurants were also about socializing and romance?
Foods to Forget: Mayor Bloomberg should have targeted these, along with trans-fat and salt:
- Oxtail in most forms is a hard-to-navigate knot of bone and fat; it most certainly ought not crown a bowl of feijoada as it does at The Cecil.
- Marrow has worn out its welcome, even at The Marrow, a 3-star West Village place where the title dish is the menu’s least interesting. I enjoyed the now overexposed offal as an occasional delicacy until it started popping up everywhere but hot dog stands — so far.
- Truffle Oil. Typically made from sunflower seed oil and not an amoeba of truffle, it turns every dish it touches, from Cherry’s tuna tart to Anassa’s cuttlefish risotto, to skank.
Faulty Promises: Theoretically French-North African bistro 1200 Miles boasts a “sweeping gastronomic adventure” bridging the “literal and culinary distance between Paris and Algiers.” But a couple of tagines don’t much exoticize a menu dominated by the likes of roast chicken and fries.
Gimmicks for the Gullible: Stunts like blindfolded dinners and silent dinners draw few customers but steal precious coverage from legitimate restaurants that people actually want to know about. At Greenpoint’s no-talking EAT, meals are preceded by yakking and followed by yucking.
Sommeliers must not say they “haven’t actually tasted” bottles they’re trying to sell you, as they did at Tao Downtown and Arlington Club. Nor should they push unfiltered wines on customers (like me) who make clear they don’t want them.
Artsy-Fartsy Plating: If I want Joan Miró or Wassily Kandinsky, I will go to MoMA or the Guggenheim. Mannered, painterly presentations like those at The Elm belong on canvas. You’re ready for a nap by the time the waiter explains all the blobs and squiggles. And where are we supposed to start eating?
Dim Bulbs: A candle is meant to throw light. Many restaurants are as dark as pitch. So why do servers yank the candle from the center of the table where it might possibly do some good, and position it as far as possible from everyone, usually at the farthest edge where it might fall? And then barricade the poor little wax stump behind a wall of shakers and vases?
Taco Worship: Plop ordinary meat, fish or veggies on a plate and they’re ordinary meat, fish or veggies. But set them upon a tortilla and — ole! — they’re a must-try in a so-called “golden age of tacos.”
Most are just a nuisance to eat, whether they’re made with wagyu beef, cauliflower — or cricket, as they’re offered at Antojeria la Popular.
Designer Goombah: Spare us the agita. If you want to sell veal parmigiana for $54, do so without justifying it by dressing waiters in Zac Posen outfits and boasting that art on the walls is “curated” by Julian Schnabel. But without them, would Carbone have gotten so much hype and praise?
Celeb Chefs: who sell their name, but not their talent, for quick bucks. Masuharu Morimoto lent his prestige to Tribeca Canvas, a laugh-riot attempt at Asian-American “comfort food.” The Iron Chef’s fiasco turned to mush in a matter of months. He’s now relaunched it as an entirely new restaurant, Bisutoro. But he could have saved our money, and his reputation, from the outset.
Cockammie Caipirinhas: A caipriniha consists of cachaça, lime, sugar and ice. It should not include sweet fruits which are inimical to the classic cocktail’s DNA. We mean you, ABC Cocina.
Stifle the Hard Sell: Waiters now act like used-car salesmen trying to unload the sorriest lemons on the lot. “I particularly like our molecular jellyfish” means, “Puh-leeze order it — nobody else will.” They up-sell seafood towers “we can build to your liking” (at Carbone), lobster “to upgrade your tomahawk to tomahawk and surf” (at American Cut), and fresh truffles everywhere but school cafeterias.
Steakhouses: We have more than enough of them, and of claims made by each and every one that it is unique if not revolutionary. Beef is beef, potatoes are potatoes — and $135 is too much for a dish even if you take home enough for a week.
$900 Wine with $12 Plates: At Pearl & Ash, the Young & Gullible can blow nearly a grand on a bottle to wash down $12 pork meatballs. The “global-inspired” small plates are swell and you don’t have to spend a fortune on wine from a ridiculously long, 400-bottle list. But what would denizens of the Bowery Mission across the street make of a $1,000 magnum of Beaucastel Châteauneuf du Pape 1989?
Beg For Your Bread: Restaurants of most cuisines are expected to serve bread without making us beg or pay extra for it. In the early days at Corvo Bianco, they offered none. In an Italian restaurant!
Usually the denial is couched in baloney about the “chef’s concept.” It was refreshing to hear the true reason from a manager at Brooklyn’s Dumbo Atrium: “Do you know how expensive it is for us?”
And Of Course, Horrible Desserts: “Deconstructed” sundaes, napoleons and tarte Tatin are bad enough. But the year’s most disturbing meal-ender was Juni’s fresh white truffles atop vanilla ice cream. Could two wonderful things taste terrible served together? Must you ask?