In my last post wherein I waxed whiny about how difficult it is to be me, I mentioned being “buoyed by the unearned trappings of life with my high achieving wife.” I thought that sounded prettier than “I am a spoiled brat.” Laura has worked very hard and been extremely kind for a long time and is a rightfully beloved public figure. As a result of this fact, people occasionally give her things because it’s good for the brand if Laura Brown wears the dress, sports the jewelry, rocks the kicks, eats at the restaurant, lounges at the resort, uses the skincare, and so on and so forth. Nice things are nice and I like them. (Let the record show that I love nothing in this world more deeply than eating hot dogs, drinking beer, and playing wiffle ball in the backyard with the gang)
Six years ago when Laura won the position of InStyle’s Editor-in-Chief, restaurant guru Laura Cunningham reached out to congratulate her and extend an invitation for us to dine at Per Se, the three Michelin starred Thomas Keller crown jewel of New York City fine dining. The night of our feast I put on my best going-out-to-dinner outfit: a button down shirt tucked into dark jeans with a denim jacket to class it up. Upon entering Per Se, the hostess asked me if I’d like to borrow a jacket. “No thank you, I’m actually a bit warm,” I replied, a bit befuddled.
Laura pinched me. “There’s a dress code, ya goose.” Ah. The hostess laughed and sized me up before flitting off for a moment, returning with a blazer that fit me better than any I had ever worn. On that night I learned that restaurants exist that require a suit to enter, and food exists that can make my brain melt into hot glue and ooze out my ears. The servers were all experts but weren’t uptight. The dinner was a blast, each of the eleven courses paired with a different glass of something or other. I’m not a foodie, I don’t know how to talk about this stuff. I enjoyed each mouthful more deeply than the mouthful that had preceded it. It was really good.
Present day: Dom Pérignon has just announced a new program they launched with the Culinary Institute of America (the CIA that sponsors soups, not coups): a two year master’s in culinary arts wherein budding gastronomic magicians gain experiential knowledge from the top restaurants and chefs in the world. To celebrate this first-of-its-kind program, good ol’ Dom P hosted a “Five Hands, Eleven Stars” dinner at Per Se featuring five different chefs whose restaurants have won eleven Michelin stars each presenting a course paired with a different vintage of the finest champagne there is. I’m not the same guy who wandered in dopily clad in double denim. When Laura informed me we were invited, naturally I had questions.
Will this be a cohesive meal, with five different chefs, four of whom are working in an unfamiliar kitchen? Will it be symphony or cacophony? Does it really make sense to pair champagne with five different courses? Is it worth having to send my Brunello Cucinelli suit back to the dry cleaner?
…NOT!! I was like, “Yippee, oh happy day, my Lord I can’t wait.” I did wear the Brunello. I used to get, like, uh, pretty nervous before stuff like this. But long ago I sat next to Julianne Moore and she turned to me, looked deep into my eyes and said, “So Brandon, where are you from?” as though the most important thing in the world was her learning about me. And in that moment, it was. That Julie can deliver a line, let me tell you.
Another time I was sitting next to some guy and I said, “Hello, I’m Brandon,” and he said, “Nice to meet you Brandon, I’m Max.” “Nice to meet you, Max. So, what do you do?” “I’m a museum curator.” “Ooh cool. Which museum do you curate?” “I just started at the Met.” “Oh hell yeah, I love the Met.” And he was very nice and friendly and happy to talk about his big new job, relocating his family from the west coast to New York, and the challenges of steering such an historic institution.
What I’m saying is, I’m smooth with it now. Then the chefs came out: Thomas Keller (Per Se, French Laundry, Bouchon, Ad Hoc), Niki Nakayama (n/naka), Val Cantú (Californios), Kyle Connaughton (SingleThread Farm), and Daisy Ryan (Bell’s Restaurant), joined by Dom Pérignon’s Cellar Master Vincent Chaperon.
They said wonderful things like:
“Michelin stars aren’t given to chefs, they’re given to restaurants, and restaurants are teams. Ours is the profession of nurturing people.” - Thomas Keller
“My job as a chef is to transfer energy from one living thing to another.” - Kyle Connaughton
“The champagne does not age, it undergoes a maturation. The effervescing bubbles remind us of the connections between all things in the Universe. When we drink champagne we are drinking the stars.” - Vincent Chaperon
The flow was: servers pour champagne, servers refresh champagne while chef presents dish, Vincent describes the champagne and how it complements the dish, eat, drink, repeat. These people are hypnotists. They know my palette better than I ever will. And as I chew and swish and swallow, the information they primed me with all makes sense. With each mouthful I gain a deeper appreciation for the care and wizardry with which the food was prepared. I taste the stars.
The first course was Thomas Keller’s “Oysters and Pearls.” It tastes like the after dinner hours on Christmas Eve feel when there’s a crackling fire and you’ve just finished cry-laughing through Yahtzee with your cousins and then the old Rudolph special starts on TV.
The second course - Tasmanian sea trout sashimi by Niki Nakayama which I forgot to photograph - awakened my primordial DNA. I recalled the ancient peace of floating along a miles deep ocean floor into a particularly rich pocket of phytoplankton.
The third course was Kyle Connaughton’s Takiwase, a salad that surely was assembled by the elves of Lothlorien to herald the coming of a thousand year spring.
The fourth course was Val Cantú’s Brent Wolfe Quail. It tastes how I imagined the Narnian feasts of Cair Paravel would have.
Good news for the bunnies of the world: had anyone from the CDC tasted Daisy Ryan’s braised rabbit stew, they would have known that a single spoonful would completely erase the novel coronavirus from an infected host. It tasted like lying cozy under a blanket after faking a cold, watching Jerry Springer and infomercials while the rest of your classmates are toiling away at school learning about the French revolution. Not a food stylist and was quite tipsy by this point (forgot to photograph dessert) but:
There’s no real thesis to this post. I guess it’s just a thank you note, really. These people are among the best in the world at what they do. They’ve devoted their lives to the craft of food preparation and it was an honor and a delight to participate in the feast. All of these restaurants are $$$$ but honestly - the next time you’ve got some money saved and want to mark a momentous occasion - sheesh. I recommend it!
Love this.
My general rule with going out to eat is I will gladly pay big bucks for things I would never in a million years be able to make myself. So we go to a fancy dinner once or twice a year, take the hundreds of dollars we save by not eating Sweetgreen every day, and give it to establishments that make me feel like a special little man for a few hours.
Adore that quote about champagne and “drinking the stars”. Off to to it right now.