Do Restaurants Matter?

The cover story of Saveur's April issue is "12 Restaurants that Matter." The appraisals, by both magazine staffers and outside writers such as C. Kummer, tend toward the impressionistic rather than the hard-edged, and taken all together, they make for an interesting read. As for the actual restaurants selected, there's an oddly intuitive quality to the list, and many readers will be surprised (outraged, even) at the choices. Still, the title is "12 Restaurants," after all, not "The 12 Restaurants."

But whereas the question of what restaurants matter can be debated till kingdom come (and please don't use this posting to debate Saveur's choices), I'd like to drill to the bedrock of the issue implied by the piece's title and ask a more fundamental question, namely, "Do restaurants matter?" I'm naive enough, I guess, to be caught off guard when I hear people talking as if food is restaurants, as some do. I can't help thinking that our current economic troubles will bring about a re-evaluation of that view, as eating out returns to its status as a luxury instead of a way of life (as it used to be for us and is for the vast majority of humans).

So how about breaking out of our foodie bubble for a moment, and taking on the big question: Do restaurants matter?

The more I cook, especially out of cookbooks with some history behind them, the more I realize that restaurant cooking is a very specific subset of cooking built around some equipment and some exigencies of running a business. I don't have a problem with that, but it's important to recognize that every culture has a restaurant cuisine and a home cuisine which may be very different.

That said, restaurants matter if food matters because they're where many of the most talented and innovative people in food work— but they're not the only thing that matters.

I enjoyed the Saveur article but I can't say I came out of it with a very clear idea why these places mattered over this or that place. But magazines love lists, so, hey, there's a list.

I suppose one could think about it like this: if you posit that restaurants are another form of mass media or communication, I suppose what they're trying to communicate matters. What interests me most about food is that it's a nearly universal way to communicate: cultures that are mortal enemies often borrow food ideas from each other (while being adamant that "their" version is nothing like the "other" version prepared by the enemy.) Frankly, most of our cross-species communication ultimately centers around food - e.g. a trainer "communicating" with a dolphin using fish. Eating and preparing food requires very little in common to be understood, but there are still definite cultural implications to how food is eaten and prepared.

Mom's cooking, though, is rarely eaten outside your family's circle of friends - and therefore, doesn't tend to have the reach a restaurant does. There's a tendency to define a style of food (even if it is "Mom's cooking") by what we eat at restaurants (cookbooks also serve as a resource here, and do better homage to "Mom's cooking" but the widespread use of cookbooks is only a couple hundred years old, while restaurants have been around since ancient times.)

Of course, I haven't answered your question yet, but: if we say culture can be defined by food - and outsiders to that culture most often eat that food in restaurants - I suppose, then, that restaurants matter. I don't really want our culture to be defined by McDonald's - but, truthfully, that's most likely the way Americans are defined when it comes to food.

I think that some restaurants "matter" in ways that others don't.

First off, we'll go out to eat somewhat regularly at "family" restaurants, that, if not for the frequency of deep-fried items, I can pretty much do at home.
Do these matter? Not really, they're mostly there so I can avoid cooking. I'd even put most (except the top end) steakhouses, and probably even fast food in this category.

A second class is probably best called "ethnic" -- stuff I don't know how to make (yet), or takes a larder stocked much differently than I have, or with equipment I don't have. This includes places like Sun Wah, Smoque, Spoon... in fact the majority of the GNRS.
These places matter. A lot.

The third class is probably the "Michelin Star" category: The brigade system, where it takes time and a large number of people to create my meal. I can't do this, and they can present stuff to me that I can't do at home, and can't afford to do except on special occasions. Do they matter? Sometimes, but I'm betting the ones that matter have to work very hard to stay that way: What has Moto done new lately? Lasers? So 2007. I'm not saying it's old hat, but it runs the risk of becoming quaint. [Note: I haven't actually eaten at Moto, they may have spiffy new techniques and presentations, but I haven't seen the reports here of them]

I don't know if restaurants matter in the cosmic scheme of things, but I do know they matter to people--which may be enough.

I am someone (and many of my posts probably reflect it) who actually finds restaurants more interesting than food. We want from restaurants so many satisfactions on a psychological and sociological level in addition to a gustatory one. And therefore our restaurants say much about us. How can that not matter? (I mean, as long as people matter. Which might be debatable!) I'm happy that LTH is a place where discussion of the restaurant gestalt is welcome along with discussion on a purely sensual foodcentric plane, although the latter dominates (probably because there are more people into it here).

do restaurants matter? of course not.
does eating food matter? kinda, if you plan on living.
does it matter what you eat? depends. survival? hedonistic pleasure?


Jacque Pepin said that food tastes best when it is shared.

They matter a lot to a lot of us.

NeroW wrote:They matter a lot to a lot of us.

why?
it's how I make a living. I have my own reasons. I'd like to believe they are in line w/ Pepin's statement, but that would be presumptuous on my part.
but why do restaurants matter to you personally, NeroW?

Restaurants matter to an individual only as much as concert halls, art galleries and museums do.

bean wrote:Restaurants matter to an individual only as much as concert halls, art galleries and museums do.

I don't understand. can you explain?

Barry Foy wrote:I can't help thinking that our current economic troubles will bring about a re-evaluation of that view, as eating out returns to its status as a luxury instead of a way of life (as it used to be for us and is for the vast majority of humans).

So how about breaking out of our foodie bubble for a moment, and taking on the big question: Do restaurants matter?

You're still talking about restaurants as if they were only places with white tablecloths and wineglasses. It is not necessarily a luxury to eat food cooked by other people. Read about people living in cities in the past several centuries -- they often relied on inns, cookshops, and other food sellers, because they lived in rented rooms and had no kitchen and no stove. Many millions of people now, all over the world, rely on street food vendors for a bowl of noodles, a plate of rice, a sandwich, or whatever the simplest local food may be. And even people who, by U.S. standards, are incredibly poor will go to a restaurant to sit down together over a few glasses of tea, a few dishes of rice. People make "restaurants" out of scrap wood and tin, and their "kitchens" out of a piece of well-swept ground and a gas burner. In fact, I can't think of a country that is so poor that it has no restaurants!

On a side note, I was just reading an article in Gastronomica about the invention [!] of pad thai some sixty years ago. Apparently, it was introduced and propagated in order to improve nutrition nationwide.

Food and its consumption is central to every culture, and restaurants sell food. Some countries have famous restaurants and famous chefs; most don't. But restaurants are still important to many people's lives every day.

dk wrote:

NeroW wrote:They matter a lot to a lot of us.

why?
it's how I make a living. I have my own reasons. I'd like to believe they are in line w/ Pepin's statement, but that would be presumptuous on my part.
but why do restaurants matter to you personally, NeroW?

Also how I make my living. Passionate about them, I suppose.

Maria Theresa is of course absolutely right, and as someone who has lived in Taiwan and visits there regularly, I should be the last person to forget that eating food cooked by others doesn't necessarily constitute a luxury.

I guess my real focus is on restaurant culture as it has developed in the USA over the last couple of decades, let's say the last decade in particular. Much of it has been unapologetically reflective of the lunatic affluence that certain segments of society have enjoyed. One result is the fostering of a what-the-market-will-bear mentality among restaurateurs, which surprisingly many diners have been all too happy to acquiesce in. Now, as, fancier restaurants feel the pinch and begin to scale down a little (or go out of biz), some of the glitter and sheen may well fall away. How will things look then? What will LTH readers do? Will it matter?

Well, from what I read and have experienced, LTH readers aren't really your rank-and-file restaurant goers. In fact, I'd say we're more likely to continue eating out during depressed economic times because we have better tools to do so. Somebody posted a while back (Santander? Kenny?) that while LTH has made their eating-out budget dramatically decrease, their grocery budget has seen a comparable rise. We then have to ask: does LTH matter?

Mhays wrote:Well, from what I read and have experienced, LTH readers aren't really your rank-and-file restaurant goers. In fact, I'd say we're more likely to continue eating out during depressed economic times because we have better tools to do so. Somebody posted a while back (Santander? Kenny?) that while LTH has made their eating-out budget dramatically decrease, their grocery budget has seen a comparable rise. We then have to ask: does LTH matter?

is that really true about eating out less? what do you mean by "better tools" that allow you to eat out during depressed economic times ? do you mean a list of good, inexpensive restuarants, or something else?
this thread has me really confused

NeroW wrote:
Also how I make my living. Passionate about them, I suppose.

do you know why yet? it took me years to understand all that made me passionate for the life, cuz lord knows, it ain't an easy life, and my passion evolves yet to this day. ( warning: opinions are like assholes, often full of shit, ---wait, I mean, everbody has one, and this is just mine) but I get a kick out of all the little asides that Jacque Pepin makes when he's on TV, he definitely came up through the brigade system, but has a lot of respect for his mother's cooking and not to mention he's a bit of a polymath.

dk wrote: is that really true about eating out less? what do you mean by "better tools" that allow you to eat out during depressed economic times ? do you mean a list of good, inexpensive restuarants, or something else?
this thread has me really confused

Not sure if this is what you were looking for, but here's the GNR list: much of what's on it is inexpensive. If you read the forum regularly, there are frequent suggestions to places that aren't GNRs which are still a good value.

MariaTheresa wrote:

Barry Foy wrote:You're still talking about restaurants as if they were only places with white tablecloths and wineglasses. It is not necessarily a luxury to eat food cooked by other people. Read about people living in cities in the past several centuries -- they often relied on inns, cookshops, and other food sellers, because they lived in rented rooms and had no kitchen and no stove.

Not even in the past. When I lived in Rome it was noticeable how often people went for a weeknight meal at a nearby rosticceria. The day my local one shut for the holidays the whole neighborhood was there. It was like a block party.

A lot of my dining out is at my local independents. They don't have cutting-edge cuisine, just good food and decent wine at good prices. Being a regular at a place like that is very comforting. When I spent time in NYC because a family member was getting cancer treatments there, I found a restaurant across from the hospital and quickly made myself into a temporary regular, ate there and got takeout for my family member every night. It was incredibly comforting. That's one of the reasons why restaurants matter to me.

restaurants matter to me since I view food as something more than just sustenance.

I do all the cooking in my house & restaurants serve as a break from cooking when I get burned out, they serve as inspiration when I eat something I must recreate at home, they also serve as a window into cuisines that I have not experienced.

In the end we will all be eating in restaurants for lack of anything else to do with our lives. That is how the world will end with billions of people just eating in restaurants.
The good part though will be to open up a restaurant, sort of like the dotcom craze.

jimswside wrote:restaurants matter to me since I view food as something more than just sustenance.

they also serve as a window into cuisines that I have not experienced.

I agree completely with what you are saying. Restaurants (and I am defining restaurants rather broadly as any outside the home establishment that serves food) serve multiple purposes. For many immigrants they serve as a way of staying connected to one's home and culture and help retain food memories. They have also, as jimswide points out, served as windows to other cuisines and cultures. Restaurants certainly cater to the needs of their customers but they also, in my opinion, influence many, many facets of our culture and they have certainly enriched my life.

Jyoti

They have also, as jimswide points out, served as windows to other cuisines and cultures.

Certainly they matter for travelers for a variety of reasons, but the above is the one I like most. Choose the right one, and you can be immediately immersed into an aspect of a foreign culture without any barriers, other than the possible exception of language.

Of course, they are also means for exporting culture (see MacDonald's) but that's another matter.

By the way, since restaurants and cafes are places of public assembly they have also occasionally been loci for political change. One good example is the "Campagne des banquets" of 1847-1848 which had its source in restaurants and cafes when other public gatherings were generally forbidden:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campagne_des_banquets