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For
Starters
Toques,
Trends & Top
Restaurants
by André, Sophie and Alain
Gayot
Dear Reader,
Welcome
to the 2007 edition of our Annual
Restaurant Issue. While many readers
can’t wait to get to the meat of the
issue—our selections for the "Top
40 Restaurants in the U.S."—we
would like to start you off with an
appetizer so you can better appreciate
the entrée to come.
Through the decades that the
Gayot family has been reviewing
restaurants, our
rating system has often confused
people. But since we’ve used it for
over 40 years, we’re keeping the
tradition alive. The rating on a twenty
point scale is used to grade the food
only. Ambience, service, décor and
other parts of the dining experience
are addressed in the review. So for the
most part, our
restaurants are at the top of our
toque tallies because of what you
will find on your plate.
Since we are now publishing our work
online, we actually update these
ratings year-round, unlike printed
guides. That is of primary importance
in these times, as eateries seem to
come and go at Internet speed.
Everything from star chef showcases to
chains to mom-and-pop establishments
open and close before one can jump on
OpenTable.com to
secure a reservation.
It’s important for our readers to
understand that beyond the food rating,
an establishment appears on our
"Top
40 Restaurants in the U.S." list
because it offers everything that a
successful dining room must provide:
top ingredients, pronounced creativity
in the execution of the food, solid
service and a look that you’ll want to
emulate for your next dining room
remodel. A small, independent
restaurant that has remarkable food but
a perfunctory wine list would not make
the grade, nor would a top dining room
with all the trimmings where the chef
has fallen asleep at the wheel. There
might not be anything completely wrong
with a place, except that nothing has
changed in ten years.
Speaking of change, you may notice that
we have updated the style of our
restaurant
reviews. Please let us know
what you
think of our new look. If we
can make our site easier and more
informative for you, we will do our
best to please you.
We want to congratulate all the
hardworking men and women whose
restaurants are heralded herein,
including our
Rising Chefs and
Top Pastry Chefs. We welcome
those who made our
Top 10 New Restaurants list as well
as the six restaurants that have never
earned a spot in our
Top 40 before. We also celebrate
the return of
Bouley and
Chef Mavro to our
Top 40 after brief absences, and
Le Cirque, which graced our
1990 Top 40 list. We also want
to thank our growing staff of trusted
and dedicated professional food writers
around the world who have helped make
this issue, and our website, a
success.
Best wishes of health and prosperity to
all of you.
Our
2005 Restaurant Issue noted
Las Vegas' rise in the
restaurant world, and that trend
continues unabated with the opening
of
David Burke Modern American
Cuisine,
StripSteak and
Rao’s. The developments
we pointed out
last year, such as how more
top chefs are American-trained, and
the prominence of small plates and
small places have led to this year’s
trends:
Alice
Waters began a culinary revolution in
the 1970s when she started sourcing
her produce locally and developing
relationships with farmers who would
grow fruits and vegetables
specifically for
Chez Panisse, her legendary
Berkeley, California restaurant. Now, chefs
all over the country are subscribing
to a philosophy that employs the use
of organic or locally grown,
farm-fresh ingredients in seasonally
inspired dishes. However, using
ingredients from sustainable or more
natural sources has also become big
marketing. There are restaurants that
simply pay lip service and exploit
the concept by charging top dollar
for grass-fed beef that’s
corn-finished, or citing “farms” as
producers for foodstuffs that in
reality are grown in circumstances
that are anything but small-scale.
The good news is that there are
plenty of dedicated culinary artisans
who are passionate about going that
important step beyond, preserving
both quality and freshness. The
chef-owners of restaurants like
Atlanta’s
Bacchanalia, Ogunquit, Maine's
Arrows, and
Salts in Cambridge,
Massachusetts<, run their own
organic farms so they know exactly
the pedigree of their raw
ingredients. At eateries like
Crust in
Chicago, and
Flying Fish and
Tilth in
Seattle, menus are 100-percent
organic. Some restaurateurs are
taking the philosophy even further
and educating their guests about the
farm-to-fork process, hosting events,
and giving farm and garden tours.
Seattle chef Tamara Murphy even
published a blog with photos
detailing the lives of four pigs from
birth to slaughter that she served in
her restaurant,
Brasa.
In the restaurant biz, when it comes
to main courses, $40 is the new $30.
With prix fixe meals for two easily
running into the four-figure range at
top-tier spots like
Restaurant Guy Savoy in Las
Vegas and
Masa ($400 per person, plus
wine, tax, & tip) in
New York, the price hikes are
trickling downward. These days, in
cities across the U.S., $40 entrées
can be found on menus at restaurants
that are casually upscale, including
chains.
Steakhouses, not surprisingly,
are leading the way. Restaurateurs
give many reasons for this ugly
trend: rising rents, interior design,
the price of gas, a weak dollar, the
cost of ingredients like line-caught
fish, organic produce and American
Wagyu or imported Kobe beef, as well
as rising labor costs all come into
play when deciding what to charge for
a plate. And, like every business,
the prices reflect what the market
will bear. But critics of the
creeping menu inflation contend that
consultants and chefs are cleverly
crafting menus in order to drive
profits by making that $38 rack of
lamb seem a little more reasonable,
along with the $20 appetizers and $15
desserts that go with it. Those
prices don’t seem that out of line on
a menu next to a $50 entrée, or a
Kobe beef dish priced by the ounce.
(If you frequent places on our
Value lists, you might not be
dining inexpensively, but you’ll
definitely get more bang for your
hard-earned buck.)
The same chefs offering $40 entrees
at their signature restaurants have
found a way to expand their business
empires and their appeal to the
middle classes. More and more top
chefs are rolling out casual,
speedier versions of their elegant,
expensive culinary showcases from
coast to coast. In
Philadelphia, top toque Marc
Vetri launched
Osteria, where diners can
experience his sublime cooking
outside his
eponymous eatery in a simpler
setting without the hefty price tag.
In
Washington, D.C.,
Citronelle has spawned the
lively and more casual
Central Michel Richard to
great acclaim. In Southern
California, Nancy
Silverton and Mario Batali
launched the dressed down
Pizzeria Mozza almost a year
before debuting the fancier
Osteria Mozza next door, and
both are raging successes. In
wine country, Thomas
Keller’s
ad hoc was supposed to be a
temporary affair, but now it’s his
rustic, family-style staple where
diners can enjoy Keller's cooking
without making a reservation two
months in advance. Look forward to
the opening of Bar
Daniel Boulud in New York and
Eric Ripert’s French bistro
Westend in The Ritz-Carlton,
Washington D.C. by the end of the
year.
It used to be bars and lounges in
upscale restaurants were little more
than glorified waiting rooms where
people could be overcharged for a
glass of wine or a screwdriver. These
days we’re seeing the bar/lounge
areas of upscale eateries take on
their own identities, and sometimes
even their own names. They have come
into their own, offering signature
cocktails with seasonal ingredients
made by talented mixologists who act
more like sommeliers than your
typical barkeeps. At some places,
they even pair drinks with meals
served right at the bar or in a
living room-style atmosphere. From
smaller eateries like Abode in Santa
Monica to larger dining rooms like
The Modern in New York, the
“loungification” of upscale
restaurants is on the rise. At
Tramonto’s Steak &
Seafood in Chicago, RT Sushi
Bar & Lounge serves specialty
cocktails and small plates adjacent
to the dining room. Wolfgang Puck’s
CUT in Beverly Hills sports
Sidebar, a sleek bar with a menu of
appetizers, wines and classic
cocktails that often becomes the main
event. What’s next? More venues like
Degustation in New York where
the chair-and-table dining experience
has been ditched altogether in favor
of 16 seats clustered around a wooden
bar where diners watch the chefs at
work, then enjoy the fruits of their
labors.
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Over the years, we have been electing restaurants to be on GAYOT's Yearly Restaurant Awards.
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