What made the main courses particularly distressing is that Bocuse was around throughout the dinner service, presumably to assure that every dish leaving the kitchen was up to three-star standards. In reality, he strode through the dining room looking both majestic and remote, once or twice stopping for a photograph with a favored customer. He has become the Flying Dutchman of French cuisine, sailing aimlessly through his premises.
The cheese cart was unquestionably the worst I’ve come upon in a Michelin-starred restaurant, and the only one I’ve seen presented without pride. The theme: unripe cheeses with hard rolls. My knife literally bounced off an elasticized Camembert. There was an impressive quantity of cheeses on the cart, but only because of mindless repetition—a long line of tiny pyramids of goat cheese, disc after disc of the same St.-Marcellin. I studied the selections carefully, looking for signs of ripeness, and when I noticed a single promising St.-Marcellin, I eagerly pointed to it. The indifferent captain ignored my request, stuck his knife into an already cut half-disc close to him, and dropped it on my plate. That’s when we all burst out laughing.
The first dessert, intended as a prelude, was a small crème brûlée. As I was praising mine on the grounds of acceptability, which was all we could hope for by now, a friend sitting next to me pointed to his. There was a runny residue under the brittle caramelized sugar.
For my principal dessert, I selected baba au rhum, which is rum-soaked sponge cake, a favorite of mine. The texture was of a cake soaked days earlier. The flavor was decidedly off, as though the rum 5 6
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were corked, like a spoiled wine. I tasted a friend’s apple tart, which consisted of mushy apples over a good, crunchy crust topped with flavorless vanilla ice cream.
Couldn’t get worse?
It did, because Paul Bocuse manages to set back cuisine and endorse cultural stereotypes at one sitting.
The person who had opened the restaurant door for us when we arrived was a small black man wearing a short, tight jacket and a flat, round cap. Outfits like those are generally seen on bellhops in 1930s Hollywood films and on the monkeys that dance to barrel organs. While we were having dessert, this man was called on to provide entertainment. He operated some sort of upright musical instrument that imitated an organ-grinder’s music. I would suggest to Bocuse, if he so enjoys offensive gestures, another way of entertaining his guests: hire a clue-less French film critic to lecture on the greatness of Jerry Lewis. The fun could go on and on.
I can tell you exactly what organization is to blame for all of this: the Michelin guide. Supposedly incorruptible, it has lowered its standards in the case of Bocuse, not for payoffs or for advertising but for sentiment. It has refused to do what is essential, something it has done countless times before: declare by means of lower ratings that a chef ’s time is done. The guide has been appropriately ruthless with chefs as accomplished (but not as revered) as Bocuse, including Roger Verge of Moulin de Mougins and Marc Meneau of L’Espérance. Even Alain Ducasse, the preeminent French restaurateur of this generation, has seen stars come and go and come back again.
One of my friends at the dinner said he thought it might be possible to enjoy the cuisine of Bocuse, although nowhere near Lyons. He claimed to have had a very satisfactory meal of escargots, fish, and crème brûlée at the Epcot Center in Florida, where Bocuse lends his name to the dining pavilion called Chefs de France. He said Bocuse as interpreted by Disney was preferable to Bocuse left on his own.
GQ, june 2003
A R O O M O F O N E ’ S O W N
I believe I am the only man alive who loves an empty restaurant.
I am speaking of an establishment that nobody else has decided to patronize, at least on the night when I’m there. I feel blessed, not desperate, when I look around and see every table vacant except the one that I (and my fortunate guest) occupy. I don’t ask myself why I didn’t stay home and eat in my bathrobe, thus avoiding the humiliation of dining in virtual quarantine. I sense opportunity, not catastrophe.
I understand that a restaurant meal is meant to be an experience in communal rhapsody, you and others of equivalent economic standing joining together in appreciation of a chef ’s talent, or, at the very least, a joint’s popularity. Young people today are never more comfortable than when they are prowling society in boisterous groups, and this is especially true in Manhattan, where top restaurants are rarely without packs of supplicants pleading for admission.
Perhaps I am an outdated fellow, but I believe that being alone with a beloved companion has certain advantages over being crammed in the culinary equivalent of the bleachers. To me, empty restaurants are romantic in a way that ones filled with roses are not.
I also love empty restaurants because I like bargains, and I appreciate that the proprietor has spent thousands of dollars on rent, salaries, and flowers just for my enjoyment. I know I should decorate my dining room at home and hire a maidservant and butler for the evening if I like that style of treatment so much, but I shudder at the expense.
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A while ago, when I was visiting Madrid with my wife, I had numer-ous chances to hone my dining-alone skills. In Spain, restaurants open at nine p.m., and woe to the early bird who
