TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Table Conversations: Jay Rayner

Photo by SALLYANN McCARTIN

Jay Rayner has learned that finding high-end haute cooking is being done in more places in the world than ever before.

ADVERTISEMENT

By JEFF HOUCK

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 2, 2008

There is a restaurant revolution afoot in the United States. That's the thought that occurred to Jay Rayner, restaurant critic for the London Observer and author of the new book, "The Man Who Ate the World: In Search of the Perfect Dinner."

While dining with Italian chef Mario Batali and listening to him rant about which of his restaurants received prestigious Michelin stars, Rayner realized that there was a great upheaval in the culinary world. More high-end haute cooking was being done in more places in the world than ever before. It was up to him to go eat in as many of them as possible.

The gastronomic travelogue that resulted finds him eating in some of the world's finest and most luxurious restaurants in Las Vegas, Moscow, Dubai, Tokyo, New York and London. His march of excess during a week of dining at only three-star restaurants in Paris could go down in legend.

But because the food was extravagant doesn't mean it was all wonderful. Much of it was extremely average, he says.

He spoke recently from London about how he grew comfortable eating in the napkin-covered lap of luxury.

One of the passages in the book that got me was where you wrote, "For the price of a dinner, we get to experience life as a wealthy person, only without having to sell our souls as investment bankers, rape and pillage developing nations or exploit the downtrodden. If you can pay the bill, you can become one of them."

The point here is that as long as you have a decent line of credit and connections to get into the right places, you can get a sample of what that life is like. Is that something you were comfortable with?

I've worked very, very hard, but I've managed to become quite comfortable with the luxury experience. It's taken enormous sacrifices on my part to get there.

No ... you know, I love the whole thing. It isn't just the food. It's that moment when you walk through the door. It's theater. It's wondering what's going to be presented to you. Although the thing that did surprise me was how repulsed I would become - not by the restaurants or the service or the food but by the other people I had to sit with. I did eventually conclude that expensive restaurants are wasted on the people who can afford them. You know, sitting there clanking their jewelry on the table with their scarves by Hermes and their shoes by Manolo Blahnik and facelift by the most expensive surgeon in town. They're not necessarily people who would share my own enthusiasm for the gastronomic arts, the culinary arts.

But, hey, they're the ones who keep the restaurants running, so it's probably slightly silly for me to complain.

They keep the lights on for the likes of you to come through.

Exactly. It's kind of them.

The thing that struck me as a common chord with the books about food I've enjoyed within the past five or 10 years is the unrepentant nature of it. "I'm going to eat this food. This food is created. I'm as good as anyone. I can eat this as well, and I'm sorry if you feel guilty about me eating it, but this is a meal to be had and I'm going for it."

It's very interesting. The response to this book in the U.K., which has a more ingrained puritanical culture, has been quite mixed - not necessarily with the way it was written, but with the premise. They're quite uncomfortable with it. The response in your country has been much more accepting, which is deeply reassuring, as though it's entirely reasonable to find out what it's like to live your life like a plutocrat. It doesn't necessarily mean you want to be one.

I don't think there's any reason to feel guilty about it. The main reason people suggest for feeling guilty is that food is something we need to survive, but nobody goes to these restaurants for reasons of nutrition. It's about buying experiences.

The example I give in the book is: How much would you be willing to pay to see your team play in the Super Bowl? I have no interest in team sports, but I have many male friends who would pay a thousand bucks a ticket just to sit in the stadium and have their heart broken.

You write about going to Dubai. Pretty much everything I know about it is what I see on the Discovery Channel. They're building indoor ski slopes in the desert and massive hotels shaped like sailboats. There's something frightening about it, after reading your chapter and from what you see on TV, about the idea that you can build whatever you like and you can import culture almost overnight. And you can't build a giant hotel shaped like a sailboat without having a "seven-star" hotel restaurant experience as well.

Dubai is absurd on one level. But it's awe-inspiring on another level and in a good way. I was struck by what you can achieve if you really set your mind to it. It's not attractive. There's nothing aesthetically pleasing about Dubai. It's trashy in certain ways. There's something naff about it, and yet they've set out to create this experience.

But you're right. Restaurants have to be a part of that. When I try to sum up the insanity of Dubai ... it feels like a real-life version of that computer game "SimCity." The Al Mahara restaurant at the bottom of that sail-shaped Burj al Arab hotel you just described, is reached by a submarine simulator designed to convince you that it's not on the ground floor of the hotel but 90 meters out across the sea bed. This is a restaurant that is going to cost you the equivalent to $300 a head.

And it also comes with a pseudo captain who gives you comedic patter.

[Laughs] Exactly. And a queue built up to ride this thing. What was funny was that I was paying my way, but the executive chef knew I was there. This guy comes out, he's an Austrian or Swiss or something like that, very proper. And he's just hugely embarrassed by the existence of the simulator. He's saying, "Are you planning to ride in the simulator? You can just take the stairs, you know." No, I'm here for the whole show.

I think your line there was, "It does for taste what Hitler did for world peace."

Yeah.

Very subtle metaphor.

Subtle it ain't, but I think it communicates the brashness of this room, which really was over the top. Remember, this is the desert. They are serving classic - not even neoclassic - French food. This is classic stuff: cream, butter, butter, cream. If it moves, pelt it with butter.

Pour sauce on it until it stops moving.

Exactly.

Two other telling details I liked was the one about how there's a giant aquarium in the dining room, where they've taught the fish to sleep during the day and be active during the night. You said there's something about expensive fish restaurants that they feel the need to show your dinner to you while it still has a pulse.

And then you go to your table. You're in this sumptuous place that is over the top with excess. And the best they can do is a harpist who plays "Yesterday" and "Careless Whisper." They couldn't even bust out some Mozart, for God's sake.

Laughs Can you see how I suffered for this book? Do you understand the enormous sacrifices I made?

Keyword: Stew, to listen to the rest of this interview.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT