Elsewhere      10/30/2008  

TONY Kitchen Report Features Contemptible Chefs and Admirable Articles

Time Out New York’s Kitchen Issue is out this week, and The Feedbag is smitten with it, to the extent of actually missing a subway stop because we were (or rather I was) enjoying it so much. The anonymous chef survey is a nasty bit of business, with a lot of malevolent scrubs sniping at their betters (Allen and Delancey and The Spotted Pig among the city’s worst restaurants? Really?) and passing on the most idiotically transparent fantasies as fact (60% of chefs boast of having nailed the hostess.) There are a few good quotes (”Restaurant Girl from the Daily News makes me want to stick a fork in my eye”) but for the most part this section is weak. But it’s more than made up for by the brilliance of the other two sections – one which follows the minute-by-minute fate of a lobster and a suckling pig, as prepared by the kitchen at Eleven Madison Park, and the other presenting the layout of five different kinds of kitchens, each utterly exemplary: classical (Eleven Madison Park), dim sum (Pacificana), kosher (Le Marais), fast food (Five Guys), and the open chef’s counter (Degustation). Long after the guttersnipes who participated in the survey are trembling with DTs in some flophouse, these fine kitchens will continue to produce the finest food in the nation — and the best source material for great food features.

Time Out New York: Kitchen Report 2008

Comments

One Response to “TONY Kitchen Report Features Contemptible Chefs and Admirable Articles”

  1. FoodBoy on October 30th, 2008 10:21 am

    Seems like a lot of bitter chefs contributed to this survey. A good amount of valid points, but dominated by a lot of whining and jealousy. You get the idea that they think they are always right and everyone else (especially the customer) is always wrong. It makes you feel like you are intruding on their own personal food fantasy if you don’t love their food/service the full 100%.

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