Alice Waters' farm-to-table (F2T) model for the restaurant, crafted over the more than 30 years of Chez Panisse's existence, has morphed into something rather snicker-worthy in this era of designer salts, house-made and house-cured everything, and the restaurant kitchen garden - and farm.
Does every item offered by a restaurant need to be lovingly plucked from the earth with ceremony and pomp and long menu and verbal description, or should the pedigree of a restaurant's ingredients be an assumption, stated unobtrusively at the bottom of a menu rather than emphasized and reemphasized with every dish? Does a diner need to know everything about the provenance of the meat, vegetables, oil, salt, sugar, flour, nuts and the rest of the mise-en-place to truly enjoy a meal? Restaurants no longer seem to trust that diners will appreciate the foods they are being served, so long-winded descriptions have become de rigeur in fine - and some, not-so-fine - restaurants.
Exclusivity and differentiation has always been the goal of competitors in a crowded marketplace. In a country where the French Laundry's Butter Poached Maine Lobster travels coast to coast with the speed of chefs dining at the much ballyhooed restaurant and photos of a great meal are posted to Flickr within minutes of being eaten, it seems that excellence and originality are no longer enough. Rare, coveted ingredients, perhaps ingredients with only a single producer are now de rigeur for many chefs. If that ingredient is grown exclusively for the chef, so much better.
In a recent article in the San Jose Mercury News of San Jose, CA, Michelin-two starred Chef David Kinch of Manresa in Los Gatos, CA (and, full disclosure, my former employer - I worked for him over 10 years ago), explained the thinking behind his sourcing mission:
"I wanted to create a great American restaurant,'' he says. Manresa had to reflect "all the flaws, all the brilliance, all the quirks'' of his personality, and he also wanted it to mirror the character of its setting.
To assure that, he forged a partnership with Cynthia Sandberg's Love Apple Farm in Ben Lomond, the two-acre biodynamic garden that provides all of Manresa's fruits, vegetables and eggs.
"You go to the farmers markets, and you see every chef in town buying the same Swiss chard and peaches and carrots,'' he says. "It's great stuff, but how do we set ourselves apart? The answer's obvious. You have to grow it yourself.'' (emphasis mine)
Can a diner, once a vegetable has been prepared, really tell the difference between the Swiss chard she has at one Michelin two star and another? Or is differentiation about bragging rights, the ability to say that only your restaurant has that particular raw ingredient, which, to be fair, cannot be compared on a real-time basis by the diner with the same raw ingredient from another source? Given Kinch's statement above, it seems having your own garden or farm is about bragging rights, as it is near impossible for a diner without a 'photographic' memory for taste to accurately compare two products not prepared in an identical manner and served at different times in different contexts.
John Kessler, the Food Editor at the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, recently published a tongue-in-cheek piece called "How a Concept Might Backfire (hint, hint)" about how the execution of the farm-to-table restaurant can go horribly, terribly wrong. He imagines a scenario where a diner is trying out a new farm-to-table restaurant just before heading to the movies. He is in the midst of trying to order his meal when he stumbles at his entree choices:
"Now for my main course. I was looking at the menu, but it doesn’t appear that you serve any kind of meat other than pork.”
“Yes, the chef believes that pork is the only ‘cool’ meat. In fact, later in the evening he’ll come into the dining room wearing just a Speedo and a toque to show you his head-to-toe tattoos of primal-cut pork. Aren’t you curious to know where the Boston butt comes from?”
“Not really. I’m supposed to pick the breed?”
“Yes! Different breeds of heirloom pork have subtly different characters, and our sommelier would be more than happy to find a matching wine for the breed you choose. Trust me on this one: the Kurobuta rocks out a pinot noir.”
“Then let’s go for it.”
“Another excellent choice. I hope you realize that all of our pigs were humanely raised in an Inman Park Victorian and then personally slaughtered by the chef, who cried. Up until the end it was just like ‘The Real World: Atlanta’ for them.”
Though a satire, elements of this scenario are playing out in restaurant after restaurant all around the US. Don't get me wrong - I love F2T restaurants and patronize them as much as I can, if they are actually using their specially sourced and raised products unobtrusively and honestly in service of their cuisine rather than simply in service of a loosely defined farm-to-table concept that is more trendy than true.
Oleana, in Cambridge, MA, for example, has their own farm (and offers a CSA) in Sudbury, MA, but focuses on Chef/Owner Ana Sortun's vision of Arabic/Mediterranean cuisine. Rick Bayless' Mexican trendsetters Frontera Grill and Topolobampo have been using microgreens, tomatoes, peppers and herbs from Bayless' own garden for many years and have forged close relationships with local farms. And there are dozens and dozens more like them.
Seasonality is great. Local is great. Exclusivity is great. But what makes them come together is the greatness of the chef, her vision, and her execution. Without the fusion of all of these elements, however, you just have another trendy restaurant with mediocre food. And no ingredient, no matter how well it is grown or how much it tastes of local terroir, can rescue mediocrity.
