by Ruth Reichl
“But we’ve been waiting half an hour,” I heard Gerald’s wife whimper. I felt the concussion as she stamped her foot in frustration. “It’s not fair,” she said.
Utterly ignoring her, Mr. Maccioni turned to me and said regally, “The King of Spain is waiting in the bar, but your table is ready.” I nudged Johnny. “Keep repeating those words to yourself,” I whispered as we followed Mr. Maccioni. “I have to get them exactly right.”
Mr. Maccioni, I soon saw, was not leading us to the cheap real estate in the back of the room. We were headed for Boardwalk and Park Place, a table for four in the front of the restaurant. My chair was pulled out. My napkin was unfolded. Mr. Maccioni buzzed about us. “May we make a menu for you?” he asked. “I’d like you to see what Sylvain Portay can do. You know, he was sous-chef to Alain Ducasse in Monte Carlo before he came here.”
“We are in your hands,” I said grandly.
“And I’ll send the sommelier over,” he said happily. “He’s very young, but his parents run a wonderful restaurant in Italy and they have sent him to me.” He went off to see to the arrangements, eager to show New York’s newest critic how sweet life can be.
“The King of Spain is waiting in the bar, but your table is ready,” Johnny intoned. “That’s the sentence.”
“What a line,” I said, writing it down. I didn’t even have to hide the pad I was using. “What nonsense!”
“That is the King of Spain!” said Johnny, staring at the bar. “He’s here to open the Picasso show.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
He turned back to check. “Yes. I saw him on TV last night.”
Cinderella sat up a little higher in her seat.
And then fireworks began shooting across the table: black truffles and white ones, foie gras, lobster, turbot, venison. The play of flavors was a symphony, as if we were the only people in the restaurant and fifty chefs were cooking just to please us. Each dish was rushed to the table the instant it was ready; each was served at the peak of perfection. The wines were magnificent, every sip calibrated to improve the flavor of the food. The service was attentive. It was respectful. It was unobtrusive.
It was all a dream. At one point the King of Spain and his entourage sat down at the next table and I could have sworn he smiled directly at me. Or maybe it was just the foie gras and sauternes dancing around in my mouth that was making the world seem so benevolent.
Reviewing that dinner was easy; I started with the line about the King of Spain and the rest just wrote itself. Of course I gave the restaurant four stars.
Writing Molly’s review was easy, too. All I had to remember was the humiliation of that first meal with Claudia, when we were sent to the bar like unwanted guests. The food had been good, so despite the misery of the evening I let the restaurant keep one star.
I turned the reviews in early so the editors would have time to find the extra space they’d need for the double review. Perched on a desk next to the copy editor, I went over the pieces, arguing over small details like the Times’s ridiculous convention that nothing is ever “lit.” At the New York Times, dim or bright, it’s “lighted.” And then I tried not to think about it too much.
That wasn’t easy. “They called from downstairs,” said Carol Shaw when I went into the office. She eyed me warily, and I began to see that I was making everyone uncomfortable. “They wanted to read your story at the very top. They’re all worried.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because,” she said, as if I were an idiot, “it’s Le Cirque. It’s a power place. And not least because Punch loves it.”
“Uh oh.” I was beginning to understand why everyone was so edgy. Why hadn’t anyone told me that Le Cirque was the chairman’s favorite restaurant? I began to have a sick, nervous feeling at the pit of my stomach.
I tried to distract myself. I took Nick to the dentist. I had dinner with winemaker Angelo Gaja, who provided very good cover; the people at Felidia were so busy trying to impress him that they totally ignored me. I had lunch with my friend Pat and dinner with my old boss from the L.A. Times. And then, on Wednesday night, as I was leaving for dinner, I got a call.
It was an editor on the Culture Desk. “We have a few problems with the piece,” he said portentously. I held my breath. “It’s been decided that you can’t run two reviews. You’ll have to combine them.”
“I can’t do that,” I wailed. “The whole point is that Le Cirque is two different restaurants. Which one you get depends upon who you are.”
“That’s fine with me,” he said, “but this comes from the top. You’ll have to make the change. I don’t think it will be all that difficult; we can keep the essence the same.”
“But the rating?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “The rating. I’m sorry. You’ll have to make up your mind. It’s been decided. One restaurant, one rating.”
And so, over the phone, we figured it out. We combined the two short reviews into one big one. It was easier than I’d thought it would be. And then we came to the rating.
“You want to combine that too?” he asked. “Take an average? Make it three?”
“Maybe it should just be two stars,” I suggested.
The editor considered. “It really doesn’t matter,” he finally decided. “The only thing that people will care about is that you’re taking the fourth star away.”
Thursday was one of the itchiest days of my life. I went over the piece obsessively, again and again, checking my notes, looking for errors. I had lunch with my friend Donna, the editor of Metropolitan Home, at Mad. 61, the new restaurant in Barneys, but I was so sick with fear that I could hardly swallow the food or follow the conversation. “Are you okay?” Donna kept asking. Dinner was even worse.
And then it was bedtime, and I was still going over the piece, still looking for mistakes, even though it was now too late to make changes. I fell into a troubled sleep.
It was 2 A.M. when I sat straight up in bed, electricity racing crazily from my toes to the tips of my ears. “Sea bass?” I asked. “Did I say it was sea bass?”
Fear went shooting through me. I could taste it in my mouth; I could feel it in my fingertips. I had called the restaurant’s signature dish sea bass instead of black bass, and it was too late to do a single thing about it.
It was a cold night. Michael was tangled in the covers, fast asleep. The radiator was hissing and the wind was groaning lugubriously through the cracks in the window. Le Cirque was my seventh review in the New York Times, and it would surely be my last.
Lying in bed, sleeplessly listening to the wind, I conjured up another mistake. That was not Chambolle-Musigny I was drinking with Claudia; I was now certain it was Mazis-Chambertin. Contemplating this disaster, another popped into my head: What could I have been thinking, saying there were turnips with that tenderloin of lamb when any idiot could see that they were rutabagas? And another: Surely no sensible chef would put rosemary into his lobster risotto. Each new mistake hit me with a jolt of adrenaline, and they were coming at me faster and faster, a veritable hail-storm of errors. I rolled from side to side, trying not to wake Michael as I moaned softly to myself.
Why had I agreed to let them make the change from two reviews to one? Why hadn’t I just written a straight review in the first place? Now I was walking around in circles, too nauseated and restless to do anything but prowl the apartment. I stumbled into Nick’s bedroom and watched my sweet sleeping four-year-old, wondering how we were going to survive after I lost my job.
I didn’t sleep all night—just roamed miserably around the apartment, too ashamed to admit my feelings, even to Michael, too frightened to focus on the book I was trying to read. When the sun came up, it banished the ghosts of the night and I realized that the mistakes were all in my imagination. But I was still shaky with fear, still wondering if I had a job, still too terrified to call in for my messages.
“Are you all right, Mommy?” asked Nicky as I walked him to school. He tucked
his hand into mine and looked up at me. “You don’t look happy.”
“I’m fine, sweetie,” I said, squeezing his hand. We joined the others swirling into the pre-kindergarten classroom, with its bright drawings pinned to the walls, and Nicky went running off to join his friends. “I’ll see you at three,” I promised, blowing him a kiss. And then I turned and walked slowly to the subway.
The train came careening noisily into the station when I pushed through the turnstile, and a wave of terror washed over me. The huge metal thing bellowed toward me, mean and loud. The wheels squealed and it came to a screeching, spitting halt. The doors sprang open.
As I slid into a seat I noticed that the man sitting next to me had the paper open to the Culture section. He was frowning, and I peered over to see what he was reading.
“Restaurants,” I read, over his shoulder.
RESTAURANTS
by Ruth Reichl
BEING A NEW RESTAURANT CRITIC in town has its drawbacks: there are a lot of restaurants I haven’t yet eaten in. But it also has its advantages: there are a lot of restaurants where I am still not recognized. In most places I am just another person who has reserved weeks in advance, and I still have to wait as more important people are waltzed into the dining room. I watch longingly as they are presented with the chef’s special dishes, and then I turn and order from the menu just like everybody else.
One of my first interests was to review the cooking of Sylvain Portay, who became chef at Le Cirque late last year. Over the course of five months I ate five meals at the restaurant; it was not until the fourth that the owner, Sirio Maccioni, figured out who I was. When I was discovered, the change was startling. Everything improved: the seating, the service, the size of the portions. We had already reached dessert, but our little plate of petit fours was whisked away to be replaced by a larger, more ostentatious one. An avalanche of sweets descended upon the table, and I was fascinated to note that the raspberries on the new desserts were three times the size of those on the old ones.
Food is important, and Mr. Portay is exceptionally talented. But nobody goes to Le Cirque just to eat. People go for the experience of being in a great restaurant. Sometimes they get it; sometimes they don’t. It all depends on who they are.
DINNER AS THE UNKNOWN DINER
“Do you have a reservation?”
This is said so challengingly I instantly feel as if I am an intruder who has wandered into the wrong restaurant. But I nod meekly and give my guest’s name. And I am sent to wait in the bar.
And there we sit for half an hour, two women drinking glasses of expensive water. Finally we are led to a table in the smoking section, where we had specifically requested not to be seated. Asked if there is, perhaps, another table, the captain merely gestures at the occupied tables and produces a little shrug.
There is no need to ask for the wine list; there it is, perched right next to me on the banquette where the waiters shove the menus. Every few minutes another waiter comes to fling his used menus in my direction. I don’t mind, because I am busy with the wine list, but I have only got to page 3 before the captain reappears.
“I need that wine list,” he says peremptorily, holding out his hand. I surrender, and it is 20 minutes before it returns. (Women and wine are an uncomfortable mix at Le Cirque; at a subsequent meal the captain insists that he has only half bottles of the Riesling I’ve just ordered. When I prove that he’s mistaken, he glares at me.)
Still, persistence is rewarded. The list is large and good, and has many rewards for the patient reader. Given a little time, I unearth a delicious 1985 Chambolle-Musigny for $46.
We sip our wine and listen to what is going on at the tables around us. This is easy; those of us seated around the edges of the room have absolutely no privacy. While the captain tells our neighbors about Mr. Portay’s $90 dégustation menu (“You know he was the sous-chef of Alain Ducasse at Le Louis XV in Monte Carlo”), we listen eagerly. But ordering it, we are to discover, is not smart.
It is the middle of June, and our “seasonal menu” turns out to be a lot of brown food. The vegetables are mainly carrots, turnips and radishes, and we have potatoes in three out of five courses. Still, the first course, sautéed foie gras with white peaches, is so good that the memory of it carries us through most of the meal. The sweet, soft fruit is a brilliant pairing with the rich meat.
I like the next course, too, curried tuna tartare. Encircling the silky chopped fish, which has just the perfect touch of spice, is a lovely mosaic of radish slices. But would a really great restaurant send out these pale and flabby pieces of “toast”?
We are considering this when the captain appears and informs us that a table has opened up and we will be permitted to leave the smoke zone. The move should make me happy, but when the busboy trails us to our new table, shoves our crumpled old napkins into our hands and dumps our used glasses onto the table, I can’t help feeling disgruntled.
Then the parade of brown food begins. First halibut with mushrooms on soggy rounds of potatoes. Atop the fish, a single sprig of chervil waves forlornly, the lone spot of green. I am unimpressed with the dish, but I am baffled when the chef follows it with more fish and potatoes. Potato-wrapped black bass in Barolo sauce has been a standard at Le Cirque since Daniel Boulud’s days; in Mr. Portay’s hands it is as good as ever, the fish soft and tender inside its crisp coat, the sauce a rounded complement. Unfortunately, this wonderful fish only emphasizes how dull the previous one was.
Next there is tenderloin of lamb on a bed of pureed potatoes. It is a fine dish, if not particularly exciting, but it is certainly not the thing you’re dying to eat in the first hot weather.
Desserts don’t make any concessions to summer either. The chocolate soufflé cake with whipped cream is excellent, and I like the latte cotto, a sort of light lemon custard served with marinated berries. But watching the people at the next table tucking into tarts filled with summer fruits, and gorgeous sorbets and crème brûlée sheltered beneath an enormous dome of spun sugar, I feel cheated.
The food hasn’t been bad, and there was certainly a lot of it. Still, as I pay the bill I find myself wishing that when the maître d’ asked if I had a reservation, I had just said no and left.
DINNER AS A MOST FAVORED PATRON
“The King of Spain is waiting in the bar, but your table is ready,” says Mr. Maccioni, sweeping us majestically past the waiting masses. Behind us a bejeweled older woman whines, “We’ve been waiting a half-hour,” but nobody pays her any mind. Mr. Maccioni smiles down at us. “Let me get you some Champagne,” he says as one of his assistants rushes up with a sparkling pair of flutes.
Who wouldn’t be charmed? He has not even checked the book to see if we have reserved (in fact we have, but we are 20 minutes early). My date and I suddenly feel chic, suave and important. And that’s before we see that there is a luxurious table for four, a little sea of space in this crowded room, waiting for the two of us.
“We are in your hands tonight,” I say. Mr. Maccioni nods happily and goes off to do his magic. A young sommelier appears (“His parents run a wonderful restaurant in Italy,” Mr. Maccioni whispers before drifting off) and begs us to let him introduce us to a few of his favorite wines.
The first course comes; it is a luxurious layering of scallops and truffles nestled inside a little dome of pastry. This is not a new dish—it was on the menu before the arrival of Mr. Portay last October—but no chef has ever done it better.
It is followed by more truffles, white ones this time, shaved over an absolutely extraordinary risotto. Risotto is a balancing act that requires perfect timing; there is just one perfect moment when the rice has dissolved into creaminess but you can still bite into each single grain. Few French chefs can make great risotto, but Mr. Portay manages with Italian finesse.
Next there is lobster, intertwined with chanterelles, artichokes and tiny pearl onions. This dish is so trem blingly delicate, so filled with flavor, I feel as if I have never really
tasted lobster before. It is followed by turbot, a fine, firm white fish, simply surrounded with zucchini, turnips and red peppers.
Now the captain is coming to the table with tiny glasses of golden sauternes. Is there foie gras in our future? Yes, here comes a slim slice, simply sautéed. Combined with the sweet satiny wine, each bite is an essay on richness. Under the heady influence of the unctuous foie gras, I find myself thinking of all the spectacular dishes I have eaten here over the past months.
One night there was lobster and rosemary risotto, an unlikely combination that really shouldn’t work. But the rosemary was just a savory hint, a suggestion of the forest that nudged the lobster into tasting more of the sea. Another night there was jarret de veau, the whole shank of veal carried triumphantly into the dining room before being carved into succulent slices. Sprinkled with cracked pepper and sea salt, it had the true elegance of simplicity.
Mr. Portay does a fine job with the standards, too. His bouillabaisse was practically perfect, a big bowl of intense stock filled with aromatic seafood and served with a powerful rouille. And nobody makes a prettier chicken salad, which came to the table looking like a gift-wrapped package.
When the sommelier appears with the red wine, a mouth-filling Brunello di Montalcino, we discover that it is the perfect choice for venison. Surrounded by chestnuts, apples, a fruity puree of squash, the meat is so delicious that I find myself eating as if it is the first course. When I look down, I realize that I have eaten everything, even the single aromatic grape that decorated the plate.
But there is still dessert. They bring six if you don’t count the plate of pastries with its gorgeous ribbon of pulled sugar. Jacques Torres, the pastry chef, likes to play with food, and some of his desserts are sublimely silly; who could resist a miniature chocolate stove holding tiny pots of sauces to pour over a napoleon? Still, my favorite is apple sorbet, the icy essence of fall fruit crowned with a halo of crisped apple rings.
