My wife and I make okay money in a middle class area, but, due to a combination of good luck, and contrived to circumstances, we recently got to watch a college football game in the stadium’s super executive corporate sponsor level suite. It was awesome. Open bar, amazing catered food, and people networking all around me who are clearly in the c-suite of their respective companies. I had a list of crazy things I was going to say if someone asked me what I did, but it never came up.
Yeah, but how was that food?
I just tried a fine dining restaurant for the first time this past weekend.
I was just curious after watching a bunch of cooking competitions on Netflix about how good that kind of food could be so decided to find a Michelin star restaurant and give it a try.
While the portions were small, the food was on another level. Even the “worst” of it was only that because it wasn’t amazing, but still really good.
The food was so good that when I got home and snacked that night, it was hard to enjoy any of my usual favorite snacks because it all felt so basic after that.
It was fancy in other regards, too. Like when my buddy went to the bathroom, someone came over and folded his cloth napkin rather than leave it bunched up on the table.
Plus, even though the portions were tiny and we joked about whether we’d need to stop for fast-food afterwards, by the end of the 9 or so courses, I felt completely satisfied. Even the snacking I mentioned was more due to the munchies than actual hunger.
It was expensive though. Two taster menu plus two drinks each came to about 500 CAD plus tip. And it was one of the cheaper options. There was a two Michelin star sushi place that advertised seats starting at 800 and I’m not even sure that includes any food, though I think it gets the “chef cooks what he wants” menu, which tbf would probably be way better than what I’d want anyways.
This place only needed to be booked like a month in advance, so the place you’re talking about sounds like it’s on another level itself. Though I’m curious how much that other level translates to better food.
Fine dining is one thing but the ultra exclusive, incredibly pretentious, top of the range place like DAMON BAEHREL is on another level entirely and has ceased, long ago, to be about making something a person wants to eat.
It’s about the art in just about the worst way possible. Fair play to the people who are into this but it’s complete bullshit, relies on borderline slave labour to produce and actively dislikes it’s audience.
I wanted to learn more and found this article: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/08/29/damon-baehrel-the-most-exclusive-restaurant-in-america
Sounds like the ten year wait list might be made up and who knows where he gets his meats, but the whole thing just sounds fascinating. From his website, the current price is $550 USD a head, though it’s subject to change several times per week.
He sounds like one of those guys that has a whole bunch of little projects going on at any time and over the years accumulated enough results from those to host some volume of dinner parties. And possibly exaggerates or lies about some of them (though hard to say if he treats his cooking similarly to how he treats his legend/myth).
I’m convinced that Damon Baehrel is a semi-fake restaurant. Like, it’s real, but doesn’t actually take reservations or serve real guests, and the owner/chef lies about everything in order to seem more mysterious.
This article from 2016 lays out the case.
So I don’t think it’s a particularly good example of fine dining, as it’s doing a lot of things different from a normal restaurant that is open to members of the public.