Whether it deserves those accolades depends on how good the food is, not the number of courses. Some of the best meals of my life have been multicourse ones. And more courses doesn’t necessarily mean “pig out”, often the more courses, the smaller each one is.

It makes no sense to compare a multicourse meal to an all you can eat buffet, it’s a night and day difference. Completely different food and completely different philosophy.

It should also be noted that there are countries where more courses are the normal way of doing things, like Italy and France. I’m sure when they see americans eating meat, potato, veggie they think we’re nuts.

On the other side is the American tendency to love a meal just because there were a million choices and the portions were huge. That’s where the crap is likely to appear.

Yeah, probably.

It’s easy to dismiss something you’ve never tried. It’s also easy to realize how wrong you were once you have tried it.

With all due respect, I’d say anyone who dismisses food based on number of courses with no regard for quality is “out of their mind”.

To me it’s unimaginable that anyone would elevate any other factor over “does the food taste good?”

And really, why is “smorgasbord” such a dirty word? In all honestly, I would probably eat several small plates instead of a couple big ones at every opportunity if restaurants offered the option and it didn’t end up costing more than the equivalent amount of food in entree portions.

Why not have the equivalent of “tapas” at all types of restaurants?

For me, that’s the biggest problem with most restaurants – the prices and portions keep me from being able to try more than a couple things.

But maybe I’m just weird.

But that being said, I wouldn’t have done it any differently. Being a NYer in town for a few days, I wanted to see the full range of Achatz’s prowess and the 14-course tasting menu wasn’t enough (I know it sounds like a lot, but many of Alinea’s dishes are 1-3 bites). It’s food tourism to be sure, so the only thing I have a qualm with is the matter of waste — not being able to eat all that beautiful food due to biological restrictions.

Interestingly, there was an article in the NY Times a few months ago about people vomiting in high-end restaurants, partially due to OD’ing on mass quantities of great food.

Why do you even care what the chef’s personality is like? I’m sure none of them are all sweetness and light 100% of the time, that’s true of everyone. It’s all about the food. It’s about the difference between the craftsman and the artist, and being able to understand that.

If the food is transcendent, I don’t care if the chef calls cute little puppies bad names, hates little kids, shoves grannies on the street and smokes obnoxious cigars in other peoples homes. Most of us are lucky if we can do one thing, anything, as well as a good chef (or glassblower, or painter, or whatever) can. A lot can be excused for the sake of art.

As for the concept of tasting menus. I think they’re something that Americans in general have problems with. In our house, it’s nothing to be at the dinner table for four hours or more. With four people at the table, we frequently go through four to six bottles of wine in an evening. It’s fun, and our American friends are frequently shocked when they look at the time when dinner’s over. They haven’t noticed time passing.

That’s what a good tasting menu does. It takes a long time, everything tastes and feels heavenly, and you don’t feel as if you’ve swallowed a cannonball when you leave the table.

It’s really not that complicated.

Besides…. I’m the kid that had “doesn’t work and play well with others” all over the elementary school report cards… You just can’t reform a real rebel, I guess. In the final analysis, I’ve had more fun than many of my contemporaries, too.

Now I think I know why they were so firm in their persuasions to veer me away from Alinea – the guy sounds like a jerk.

So my advice to “celebrity chefs”… if your demeanor is a tad crappy… your crappy personality may eventually filter out to the public – and they may not respond well.

Celebrity (or very popular, public) chefs are just like other celebrities. They should take clues from the Hollywood and music types…

Then again, it would have been positively wonderful had MPW shaved his head and started beating GA’s car with an umbrella…

This is a topic I wouldn’t mind seeing expanded into a blog posting of its own. Especially since ruhlman might know the answer to the question–does Thomas Keller take his customers’ fullness into consideration? If so, how, and if not, why not?

All I kept thinking for the last several minutes of your meal at the French Laundry documented on FN was, “what a waste.” On top of that, it felt so uncalculated. And neither “waste” nor “uncalculated” are words (the red underline for “uncalculated” suggests I could stop here for that one) that seem to fit Keller’s philosophy.

Frankly, I really don’t much care whether someone thinks Achatz is “passive aggressive” or White is a “washed-up cooking celebrity.” I’m trying to figure out if there’s any value to what any of them had to say about the current state of contemporary cooking.

If MPW was speaking purely as a matter of personal preference, that’s fine but doesn’t do much to really add to the general discourse. If he’s arguing his preference is the “only right way,” that’s something else. Among many other things, it seems to lose sight of the fact that many of us eat out to experience things we couldn’t accomplish at home. I can cook a fish w/ lemon salt and olive oil, I can roast a pretty good chicken. I can’t even begin to do what they do at Alinea, and that is, for many diners, part of the appeal.

My personal guide has always been almost exactly what AB said above: “Is it–at the end of the day–delicious?” and “Is it fun?” There’s plenty of room in that tent.