Adventures in Venetian dining - part 2 - Venice, Italy
Venice, Italy
We are now in Piedmont, which is wine country, and that means that our schedule will get pretty tight from here on out with lots of winery visits and the like... It will be increasingly difficult to sit down and write for extended periods, meaning that these posts may get a bit more brief. Regardless, we will do our best to continue to document the experience. Our topic for today: super fancy fine dining, and why over the past several years it has become increasingly antiquated. My first job in the restaurant business was at a restaurant in Morro Bay, California called Windows on the Water. Originally it was called Hoppe's, because that was the opening chef's last name. He was caught stealing from the restaurant not long before I started, so the owner and board of directors decided to change the name to Windows on the Water, hopefully to connote a quality on par with a restaurant of a similar name: Windows on the World. The latter was located in New York in one of the two world trade center towers, and sadly is no longer in existence, but during its heyday, it was one of the finest restaurants in the world. The former, where I received my start in the hospitality industry, was the fanciest--and most expensive--restaurant in San Luis Obispo county. Knowing what I do now, I realize that things are relative, and while Windows was a fine dining restaurant, it was still in Morro Bay, and could not begin to compete with the nicest restaurants in San Francisco. So, what do I mean by fine dining? Nowadays, fine dining has many connotations, but in regards to a place like Windows (or the restaurant in Venice that I will talk about in a moment), we can get a bit more specific. First off, decor: white tablecloths, plush chairs, lots of space on and around the tables, luxurious tableware, etc... You know, picture the inside of some high-falutin' hotel; lots of art, busy carpet designs, gaudy wallpaper... And then there's the service: the way the server interacts with the guests, the extra steps involved with pre-setting and re-setting silverware, wine service, food service, clearing away dirty plates...it's almost like a show in and of itself. But what does the term "fine dining" mean about the food? Absolutely nothing. The best food we have had here in Italy was at little family-run trattorias. Even at Barbecoa in London, where the prices were in line with fine dining, the service and decor didn't feel like your rich aunt's favorite hotel. It was modern, and fit the theme of a barbecue place in present day London. So why do we have fine dining restaurants? Well, the truth is, we have far fewer now than ever before. The average guest wants to get high quality food without the stiff and uncomfortable service expected in a fine dining restaurant. As a result, we are seeing more and more fine dining restaurants casualizing their service, while upping their hospitality. Service is a physical act, while hospitality is an emotional one; it's a feeling you get when someone is genuinely taking an interest in your needs and wants. Every restaurant should strive to provide excellent hospitality, while also providing effective service. I find that fine dining restaurants tend to put more emphasis on the details of service, making it come across as disingenuous. You see, the problem with stiff and stuffy service is that it feels like a robot is serving you. The server doesn't really engage with you too much, and when they do, it's almost as though they are doing so because you interacted with them first. There are of course many exceptions to this (though I can't think of any off the top of my head), but in regards to Ristorante Quadri, where we had a very expensive meal in Venice, that is exactly what we got. Now don't get me wrong, we had a very nice dinner, and in general the service staff was relatively warm and friendly. But they kept their distance, always feeling a bit rigid. This is the problem with fine dining service; it leaves you feeling a bit empty, even though you just ate dinner...! Another issue I have with fine dining is that the restaurant has a way of imposing its own expectations on the diner. When one goes out to eat, it should be the restaurant trying to decipher the guests' expectations and then meeting them as best it can. But when I walk into a restaurant and the host asks for my coat, to which I reply "no thank you, I'll keep it here," I don't want to feel like I should have done the opposite. Additionally, there is a general expectation at a restaurant like Quadri that the guests will each have their own meal. Well, D and I share everything. That's how we feel it's best to enjoy a restaurant's food. But when we told the server at Quadri that we would be sharing the food, I actually felt that they took that to mean we were cheap and didn't want to spend a lot of money. We spent plenty of money, let me tell you, but that didn't change the fact that each time a course came out for us to share, the staff didn't really seem to know how to handle it. As though they weren't prepared for such a situation... In the hospitality business, you must be prepared for any situation. That is how to best serve your guests on an emotional level...hence providing excellent hospitality. After we ordered our meal, the sommelier came by with the wine list, which was actually an app on the restaurant's iPad. I thought this was a very cool idea, though he didn't want to let me take the list and look through it on my own. His immediate assumption was that I didn't know anything about Italian wine, and while that is probably a safe assumption due to the number of tourists in Venice, making assumptions in hospitality is very dangerous. After I told him what kind of wine I was thinking of ordering, he navigated to the correct page in the app, bringing up a great number of wines, priced anywhere from €70 to €600! As I scrolled through the page, he proceeded to recommend three different bottlings, and as I located them on the page, I noted that they were the three most expensive bottles within view. Seriously? He didn't ask me what style I was looking for, or take into consideration what we were eating. Instead, he had dollar signs (or euro signs I guess) in his eyes, which I found quite insulting. In the end, I selected something a bit less expensive that would be appropriate for our dinner fare. The food at Ristorante Quadri was good. It was well seasoned, creative, flavorful, and very pretty to look at (see the pictures attached). But it wasn't so much so that an appetizer should have cost €55 ($71.50). This is just food after all...something I am just going to turn into, well, you know... That's some expensive ****... ;-) Luckily the portions weren't too ridiculously small, which is often the case in restaurants such as this. But, for that much money, we should have gotten 30 courses, not just three. So, why are the menu prices so high? Because you are paying for all the stuff that goes into making this a fine dining restaurant: extra staff so they can do things like clear all the plates at once (which J found a bit disturbing and creepy), as well as specially designed and one-of-a-kind flatware, plates, bowls, and glassware. Seriously, the wine glasses a were designed by the restaurant owners and hand-blown just for this restaurant, and the ceramics were all made by a local artisan solely for the use at Quadri. I'm sorry, I thought I was at a restaurant, not an art gallery... And again, none of these things make the food taste better or the wine any more enjoyable than if you were to drink it out of a paper cup. So, to sum this rant up, fine dining is on its way out. At least in the sense of restaurants like Quadri. It is entirely possible to provide excellently executed service, giving the guest all the tools they need to eat their meal, while also anticipating and meeting their expectations on an emotional level. And all without charging an ungodly amount of money in order to synchronously serve the food on golden dishes and the wine in hand-blown crystal... Z Take 2, from the lady's point of view: I promise to keep this brief, since for the most part my opinion is in accordance with Z's. I just had to take note of the fact that as the only woman in the group, I received a menu that was different from all the others in one very important way: all the prices were missing! I was, and remain, conflicted about that. At first I was just amused, but then confusion took over: am I being pampered and treated like a dainty princess (which might be hilarious to anybody who knows me)? Is it expected that as a woman I can't possibly have my own money (cause lemme just say that in previous lifetimes I have been the primary or sole breadwinner, and I am fiercely independent in that way)? Or is it, as Z mentioned before, that the restaurant was imposing on us an expectation that in polite society the man always pays the bill? In the end, that detail really didn't matter; Z and I share everything anyway. But I second his statement that the best meals we've had in Italy have been at small, casual trattorias where the food is at least as well-prepared; the numbers on the bill are smaller; the portions much larger; and the hospitality so warm that after just two visits to the same place, you feel like family. D