Frank Bruni and Everyone Else, Get Over It

Frank Bruni writes a big article in today's NY Times about the Time Warner Center with Per Se, Masa, V Steakhouse and Café Gray being a big shopping mall. Who fucking cares ? I mean, check this out

After hours in the dimly lighted fantasy of Per Se, a diner is thrust not into moonbeams and fresh air but into the harshly illuminated, stale reality of the rest of the center. A cold slap punctuates a warm hug.

In Manhattan ? Please. Show me the moonbeams and fresh air. Don't get me wrong, I love NY, but an idyll in the country it isn't. Also, i agree that ambiance contributes to the dining experience but the NY Times is getting ridiculous. The review of Babbo talks about the rock music playing in the dining room. In order to get a certain number of stars, things are codified, like Michelin. A certain amount spent on flower arrangements, the "right" music playing, identifiable china and linen (think Villeroy, Frette).

Whatever you think of him, kudos to Mario Batali for playing Led Zeppelin and the Black Crowes in his dining room. Now, I'm no fan of dated classic rock, but it's what he likes to hear, not what he thinks Frank Bruni or Amanda Hesser will like. Or his customers for that matter. To follow his lead we should be playing Godspeed You Black Emperor !, Pell Mell, American Music Club, The Delgados, Idlewild and Surface of Eceon.

I'm a little sensitive to this because our restaurant is in a mall. There are parts of it that drive me crazy

Or sometimes the rest of the center is thrust upon a diner. One night I watched a woman and her two teenage daughters, all three dressed in white Capri pants and brightly colored T-shirts, march straight into Masa and then into Per Se, just to have a look. Understandably they treated the exclusive restaurants on the fourth floor the way they had treated stores on the lower three, as crannies of a mall that invited exploration.

Happens all the time to us. Even worse because we have no doors so it happens all day long when we're closed.  Glad it happens there too.

I'd love to have a stand alone location where we could control the environment. Half of a restaurant's business is creating or catering to a fantasy. But we don't. And that doesn't detract from the food or service. So Frank, shut up.