Restaurants and Institutions

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earth2table: Some Miscellaneous Thoughts
July 24, 2006

Stu Stein

July 24, 2006
I want to digress from talking about Terroir specifically and talk briefly about restaurants in general. Friends of mine were in from out of town and we all went out to dinner at a fairly new (less than one year old) place, an already locally award-winning and highly publicized restaurant. I should preface this by saying that one friend is the restaurant writer for a national food magazine. To boil down our experience, we didn’t believe that the restaurant lived up to its hype, specifically on two points: consistency and details, or what I call “the complete package.”

Tastingmenu.com recently wrote several pieces entitled "Restaurant Love," talking about what they’d like to see from chefs and restaurateurs. They concentrated one of their pieces on “focus”: “focusing on that one perfect piece of watermelon, or chicken, or ravioli means that there can be more time and attention spent on the details. Details like quality, timing, freshness, and flavor.”

What I take from their comments and my own experiences (reinforced by that most recent dinner), is even if you have a great concept, an impressive reputation and search out great ingredients, you must concentrate on all the details constantly. It’s about consistency between visits but also consistency with the individual experience. The entire experience from reservation to arrival, to service, to décor, to each food and wine item, even to the bathrooms, must be consistent, detail oriented and focused. I don’t care if you are a neighborhood hamburger joint or Restaurant of the Year, the complete package is what I perceive guests take away from their experience.

With help, that is what I will be concentrating on for Terroir. It’s not “Which micro green can I use?”, “How tall can I make the plate?” or “How unique an ingredient can I can find?”

It’s “How true can I be to the traditions, flavors and techniques?” Terroir will be a showcase for Northwest artisan producers who make products of true character. My job is to respect their character and concentrate on the surrounding details.

Cheers!

Stu

Posted by Stu Stein on July 24, 2006 | Comments (0)