While on tour in Italy a few weeks ago, our new friend Giorgio invited us to lunch at a restaurant in Modena, where we were playing in a beautiful old theater.
Little did we know this would be a culinary experience of a lifetime. The restaurant, Osteria Francescana, had been voted number 13 of S.Pellegrino’s top 50 restaurants in the world just the day before — which also made it the top restaurant in Italy. That’s saying something.
The whole band was invited to this incredible lunch, which featured Lambrusco, an amazing sparkling red wine. Sometimes touring isn’t so bad… well, actually, this tour has been a lot of fun so far. Massimo, the chef, uses local Emilia-Romagna ingredients, processed with the techniques of molecular gastronomy. This region is famous for its Parmesan cheese (as well as its balsamic vinegar), so one memorable dish had the cheese prepared 4 or 5 different ways — as a foam, a pudding, a sauce and a solid. It was a carnival ride for the mouth. There was also a dish that featured another specialty of the region, bologna, turned into something that looked like a dollop of whippy ice cream, speckled pink. Haute hillbilly food.
I glanced at the 50 best list online and saw that I had been to a small number of these establishments. A couple of them in NY, one in London and one in San Francisco. Yes, the food at all of them was amazing, surprising and innovative. But most of the winners are fairly “haute”… and while not necessarily fussy, they’re not what you would call casual. None are cheap (duh). Some are slightly more relaxed than others and forgo the elaborate serving rituals. Some do less as far as presenting food as geometrically arranged art objects. But in general these establishments are of a type. They are the kinds of places that stay more or less within a given range.
The chef of El Bulli, Ferran Adrià (whose restaurant was voted best in the world five times, including this year), was invited to participate in documenta in 2007, the curated art event held in Germany every few years. I don’t think they went so far as to christen his dishes "works of art" — but why not? I’ve never eaten there, but I have perused one of the large art books he publishes, illustrating the dishes and techniques invented over the preceding years. It’s art, all right — edible and ephemeral — I don’t know what else you’d call it.
Beet strips:
Some foam concoction:
[Source]
And black sesame sponge:
[Source]
After all that, I wondered, who decides that the "best" is all more or less of a related type? It’s almost always true, isn’t it — not just for food, but books, films, you name it.
While C and I were wandering around Barrio Alto in Lisboa a few days after the amazing meal in Modena, we stopped to eat at a nondescript lunch counter filled with locals on their lunch break. One outside window looked on to a flat grill, typical of any diner — though on this one, fish were grilling.
By the cash register, under the counter where the donuts might be in a NY diner, there was an array of fresh merluza, dorada and some of the famous Portuguese sardines. The special of the day was octopus stew, so we ordered that along with a couple of draft beers, and a fish. (These came with simple salads.) Here’s the point: the fish, simply grilled and served with olive oil and lemon, was one of the best I’d tasted in a while. The stews weren’t bad either. The beer was cold and delicious. I’d rate the place, on the strength of the fish alone, as one of the best I’ve eaten at — but of course the S.Pellegrino judges won’t give it a glance.
In Melbourne, Australia C and I joined some friends at Cumulus — sort of an unpretentious foodie lunch place.
We sat on stools and had plates to share. Here is the cauliflower, roasted with pine nuts on a bed of goat’s curd with fresh herbs, that had a surprising mix of flavors.
In Kyoto, Noriko Fuku arranged for us all to dine at a place near the university where she teaches. It’s not a highfalutin kaiseki place — the expense account restaurants that offer set menus of a series of tiny, super-refined dishes — but was maybe just as delicious. Here is an appetizer of preserved fish eggs in a slightly thick broth.
In Wellington, NZ their famous green-lipped mussels could be ordered almost anywhere — and they were both larger and more succulent than any of the ones imported to fancy NY restaurants. This plateful was from the local brewpub/restaurant.
C and I went to a fancier seafood restaurant for lunch one afternoon, Martin Bosley’s. Quite a bit fussier than the brewpub — which is saying something for NZ. Here is an example of some clam porn.
When the dishes are as fresh as they were at these places, sometimes there isn’t really any point in making the presentation or preparation too complicated or fancy — it would merely cover up the actual taste of the item.
There are New Yorkers (and Italians) who rate certain pizza places as favorites — and that doesn’t mean the pizza is arranged in a tower, foamed, frozen or gelled. Massimo from Osteria Francescana often goes out for pizza at the end of the day. Even high-end chefs love simple, fresh food that’s well made. In Japan there are fierce discussions over which soba and ramen joints are “za besto.” One could easily say that some of those places also qualify as being “best in the world,” but they’re not in the running for the S.Pellegrino list. One would need a huge number of categories in order to list all these places.
Maybe that’s OK. Maybe we have to take all these ratings and lists with a grain of salt (oops), or at least accept that there’s some implicit category and limitation being discussed in each one that’s not always mentioned outright. Everybody knows that certain genres of film will never be nominated for Oscars, and the books that win prizes are equally of a type — complex, weighty and “important.” Every “best of” list may be the best within a limited category, but not simply the “best” in all categories. We’re supposed to know, for example, that Oscar-winning films are often serious, and therefore somehow morally uplifting, which doesn’t always mean feel-good. Who determines what is morally uplifting, well… that’s another question.
