Garlic and Sapphires

by Ruth Reichl

  No such luck. Today the Box Tree is a pretentious place serving fancy, not very good Continental food for $86 a person, prix fixe. But one thing has changed. The service used to be genial and attentive. Now it is as pretentious as the setting—when it is anything at all.

  Consider, for example, a midweek lunch. When I walk into the precious little entry, which looks as if it is trying out for a part in a Ralph Lauren ad, the hostess barely looks up. “Do you have a reservation?” she asks frostily. I do. “Your guest has not arrived,” she says, pointing to a seat by the fireplace. “Wait there.” She then graciously allows me to listen as she makes phone calls. Meanwhile, a waiter complains about what the cleaners have done to his jacket, and a manager loudly berates a busboy in the grill next door. I can’t remember a less welcoming introduction.

  My guest finally arrives. As we are led into the ornate dining room with its dark wood, stained glass and fancy fireplaces, I can’t help wondering why I was forced to wait in the vestibule. But for the roses waiting patiently on each plate, the room is utterly empty. A few nights later I wonder, similarly, why the captain refuses to move us away from a large, loud party. “We have no other tables,” he insists, but anyone with eyes can see that he is wrong.

  He presses quickly on. “Do we have a host or hostess?” he asks, emphasizing the final syllable. This may be one of the last restaurants in America to give guests unpriced menus. Pity, for the person paying the bill would surely want his guests to know that the meal is as expensive as it is inept.

  It is also very large. This is not necessarily a good thing. By the time you have slogged through an appetizer, soup, entrée and salad, you may dread the arrival of dessert. But should you somehow find yourself at the Box Tree (it is, after all, considered one of New York’s most romantic restaurants), you will be happy to hear that it is not impossible to find a few acceptable dishes to go with the dreamy décor.

  Appetizers are easiest. My favorite is the smooth terrine of duck liver served in a little crock with toast on the side. Snails are quite good, too, served in a ceramic dish and topped with Pernod sauce and grated cheese. Cold poached trout is moist and mannerly. But avoid the bizarre scallops with butternut squash and the horribly overcooked cumin-rubbed shrimp.

  Soups are a problem. The lobster bisque is dreadful. The bisque of morels is even worse; once you get past the taste of sherry, it is absolutely impossible to tell what you are eating. The “consommé of whole cow” is fun for its title, but not much more. But the carrot and ginger velouté is perfectly fine, and the cool yogurt and cucumber soup is refreshing.

  Main courses are the most difficult. Avoid, at all costs, anything made with lobster. The waiter described the lobster fricassee, served at lunch, as a two-pound lobster removed from the shell and served in a beurre blanc. If the shell decorating the dish was related to the lobster that once inhabited it, it was no two pounder. And that “beurre blanc” was gritty with uncooked starch and seasoned primarily with dill. Lobster Mornay at dinner was tough. Tenderloin of beef with Armagnac sauce featured the most unpleasant piece of beef I have ever been served in a restaurant; it had neither taste nor texture. Veal medallions with wild mushrooms were only a marginal improvement. If you are in the mood for meat, choose the rack of lamb. Salmon is also unobjectionable: two fat fillets on a bed of lentils.

  Each main course is served with an identical melange of vegetables and followed by a welcome salad of endive, watercress and Stilton.

  You are almost at the end, and if you avoid the soggy apple tart and the runny crème brûlée, dessert holds no terrors. The vacherin, chocolate cake and raspberry brûlée are all perfectly pleasant.

  Best of all, it is almost time to leave. Unlike other restaurants that charge these sorts of prices, the Box Tree does not shower you with little gifts to make you linger at the table. No petits fours, no chocolates. And although it can be nearly impossible to find someone willing to pour your wine, getting the check is never difficult. Just snap your fingers, and it is there in a flash.

  THE BOX TREE

  POOR

  Ghosts

  It was one of those brutally hot days, the air so still it seemed to snatch the breath from your mouth. Heat waves vibrated nauseatingly off the sidewalks, ghostly snakes waiting to strike. The tar on the streets was a sticky river that sucked at your shoes, threatening to devour them each time you crossed. “It’s too hot,” my friends all moaned when I asked them to join me for lunch.

  Carol, however, was game. “Union Pacific?” she said. “Finally! Tell me who you’re going to be.”

  “Oh God,” I said, “it’s too hot for a wig. I can’t bear the idea of makeup, layers of clothing . . . Would it be terrible to come as myself ? I’ll make the reservation in your name, but I don’t think I’ll even eat. I just want to bask in the air conditioning and stare at the food.”

  But when we got to the restaurant, we found ourselves in a darkened vestibule so deliciously icy that the memory of the burning sidewalks was instantly erased. As the hostess led us around a small pool and past a serene curtain of water, Carol stuck out her hand, letting the falling drops splash onto her skin. “I have a good feeling about this,” she said.

  The restaurant was hushed and high-ceilinged, luminous with pale muted light. The hostess tucked us into a booth in the back. Golden sunshine streamed from a skylight, radiance stripped of heat. One waiter bustled about plumping pillows while another covered the table with bowls of lemons and glasses of iced water.

  “I think you’ve been made,” said Carol.

  “Why would you think that?” I asked. “Just because we’ve got the biggest table in the place and—” I stopped, startled by the woman at the next table who had begun an audible moaning. “Mmmmm,” she keened, her mouth full, her eyes wide, “mmmmm.”

  We both stared at her, but she was oblivious, hearing secret harmonies as she concentrated on what was in her mouth.

  “I wonder what’s she’s eating,” I said.

  “Foie gras with wild strawberries,” said our waiter, who had suddenly popped up. “It’s divine. So rich and intense. Let me bring you some.”

  Carol sighed. “I love it when you’re recognized,” she said. “It’s so much more fun than going out with poor Betty. But here’s a question: Do you think that woman is a plant?”

  “What?” I asked.

  “A plant,” she said. “You know, someone deliberately placed there to act out that little scene for you.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” I said.

  “Sometimes,” she said with a certain asperity, “I think you’re too trusting. Hasn’t it occurred to you that every time you’re recognized the owners fill the tables all around you with their friends?”

  “They do?” I asked.

  “Oh please. Of course. They call everyone they know and invite them in for a free meal. They’re supposed to rush right over, eat a lot, and rave loudly about the food. I hear those stories all the time.”

  “You never told me!” I said.

  “How could you not know?”

  I might have replied, but the foie gras had arrived and I was beginning to understand why the woman was moaning. It was a pale pink cylinder with deep red berries and tiny fava beans the color of new spring leaves skittering across the top. The first bite was a shock; the pâté had been soaked in Armagnac and spices, and they ignited the tongue. But with the second bite the intensity segued into something more muted as the strawberry-balsamic emulsion came forward to temper the taste. With the third bite the fava beans began to show themselves, their sleek smoothness shining against the velvet softness of the pâté. It was a dish that robbed you of conversation. For a long time neither of us said a word.

  Carol broke the silence. “Tell me,” she said, “about Rocco DiSpirito.”

  I had first tasted Rocco’s cooking in 1995 at a restaurant called Dava, and it stunned me with its originality. But he was young then—not yet thirty—and unable to handle the crowds
that came flocking to him. I heard so many rumors about food costs spiraling out of control that I was not surprised when the restaurant closed. A year or so later, when he turned up at the brand-new Union Pacific, the food was fabulous, but so slow coming out of the kitchen that I gave him only two stars. His fans howled in protest. “Rocco,” they wrote in a campaign I suspected he might have orchestrated, “wuz robbed!” Even the food warrior, Mr. Shapiro, weighed in. “Go back,” he wrote. “DiSpirito is a major talent. You’ve obviously made a mistake; this is a three-star chef.”

  And so here I was, undisguised, on the hottest day of the year, once again succumbing to his magic.

  We ate a cool, bright summer salad—lengths of crimson watermelon interlaced with shiny strips of avocado. Pale lavender rings of calamari were woven across the top so that the slick avocado bumped up against the crunch of the watermelon and then collided with the slippery slices of squid. Encountering them in your mouth, you couldn’t help focusing on the sensation of texture. After a while I tried letting go of the feelings on my tongue to simply concentrate on taste; that was when I discovered that the three had a startling similarity, a common tempered sweetness. The flavor was so seductive that it was a while before I realized that Carol had gone silent too.

  “I’m listening to my mouth,” she said. “Caramelized sweetbread with sorrel and muskmelon—it’s the most amazing dish. Here, try it.” She passed me a forkful, and my mouth closed over the surprising combination. Sweetbreads and melon were shiny, lustrous, and sweet against the faintly citric sourness of the sorrel. “I feel as if I’ve crawled into some magical food cocoon,” said Carol, “where only good things could possibly happen.”

  “I know,” I said. “That’s exactly how I feel.”

  All afternoon we sat there, reveling in tastes and textures. A pristine white square of cod arrived, looking like an enormous marshmallow strewn with scattered cracklings. Biting in you expected ocean brine and got something altogether different, something rich and deep and mysterious. The fish, poached in goose fat, had absorbed the taste of the bird. It was a sensation both dizzying and exciting, as if you were flying and swimming at the same time. Chicken had also been transformed, slowly poached in a lemon-strewn bath until it lost its barnyard character. Torn into long strips, it was barely meat, just all soft tenderness, a vehicle for conveying spice and citrus and the plump flavor of the summer truffle puree upon which it perched.

  The waiter set the plates down so lightly, he might have been tiptoe ing through a room of sleeping people. Unwilling to break the spell, he didn’t even ask what we wanted for dessert. I barely noticed when he removed the chicken, barely saw him replace it with passion fruit crème brûlée. All I knew was that the flavors had changed, that what was now in my mouth was sweet, soft, intense, and tropical, unlike anything I had experienced before. Without speaking Carol reached out and switched our plates, and now the taste in my mouth was raspberries and lavender, and I was in a wild garden with the wind blowing through my hair.

  “Coffee?” asked the waiter. The sound was startlingly loud, the finger-snap of the hypnotist, bringing you back to yourself. Carol and I both looked up, surprised. “Yes,” we both said, “coffee, yes, coffee.” And then we just sat and stared at one another.

  “That,” said Carol, “was an out-of-body experience. I don’t think I’ve ever had food that seemed so psychedelic. Do you think it’s the chemo?”

  “No,” I replied, “because I’m not doing chemotherapy, and I had the same experience. It was amazing.”

  “How will you ever manage to write about it?” she asked. “How can that possibly be explained?”

  “I won’t,” I said. “It can’t.” And even if I were capable of describing this meal, I thought, I’m not sure that I’d try. A critic has no business creating unreasonable expectations; setting your readers up for disappointment is the surest way to lose their trust. “Besides,” I told Carol, “I don’t think this can ever be repeated. It feels as if we’re here at some magic moment.”

  “But you’ll come back?”

  “Oh sure. This is only the first visit. You know the drill: Never fewer than three visits, usually more. Always anonymously.”

  “But you’re not anonymous now!” she said.

  “I know,” I said morosely. “That’s the problem. I suppose I’ll have to come back as Betty or Brenda or something.”

  “I thought you liked dressing up.”

  “I did,” I said. “It used to be fun.”

  “What happened?”

  I looked at her, unable to explain the impact of that meal with Marion. Thinking about what had happened, I saw that when I became Emily I had played with fire. If there was an Emily inside me—and now I knew there was—I needed to acknowledge her. Pretending she was someone else was no longer enough; it was time to stop playing games and be myself. It was time to think my own thoughts. But when I tried gathering the words to explain this to Carol, I found they were not there. So I just stared at her, silent.

  Carol didn’t press me. “So you’re going to give up the disguises and go out as yourself ?”

  I shook my head. “That wouldn’t be right. You know what it’s like when I’m not in disguise: the steaks get bigger, the food comes faster, and the seats become more comfortable. No restaurant can change the food on the spur of the moment, but when the critic of the New York Times shows up, they can certainly show her a swell time. The kitchen selects its largest raspberries. The maître d’ gives her the quiet table in the middle of the dining room with a dedicated waiter all her own. The sommelier makes sure that every wine she orders is a good one, and that her glass is never empty. The pastry chef makes an extra effort.” I gestured to our large booth. “You know I can’t let this happen every time I go out to eat.”

  “So what are you going to do?” she asked. “Do you hear what you’re saying?”

  I nodded. The words Marion had tossed so casually across the table at the Box Tree had been reverberating in my mind ever since, becoming louder every day. But how would I live if I couldn’t be a restaurant critic? “I don’t know what to do,” I said. “There must be an answer. But I have yet to figure it out.”

  Carol offered no advice, and we sat there, drinking our coffee and eating the icy little chocolates that the waiter brought, reluctant to go back to the burning sidewalks waiting outside in the real world.

  RESTAURANTS A SHORT TRIP FROM PROMISING TO POLISHED

  by Ruth Reichl

  THE WOMAN at the next table is moaning. I try to discover what has caused this reaction, but she has just finished the final forkful and all I can see is her eyes, wide with the wonder of whatever is in her mouth.

  Perhaps it is the bluefin tuna tartare. It is a small mound of cool, rosy fish that has bite (fresh wasabi), texture (crunchy pieces of Asian pear) and flavor (chocolate mint and the slight bitterness of linseeds). It is a surprise in the mouth and the best tuna tartare I’ve ever tasted. Or she could be reacting to the caramelized sweetbreads with sorrel and muskmelon. The combination of the rich organ with the sweet melon and the slight sourness of sorrel is absolutely fabulous. It might be the ragout of blue crab, too, an extraordinary combination of wild leeks, chanterelles and seafood that does a pirouette in the mouth. Or perhaps the eccentric salad of calamari, watermelon and avocado, layers of crunch, softness and crackle that taste delicious.

  The woman has finished now, but she sits, very still, like someone who still hears a concert after the music has stopped. The waiter sees my look and says, “Foie gras with wild strawberries; it’s divine, so rich and intense.”

  This is no exaggeration. The raw foie gras cru at Union Pacific is cured in brine, soaked in Armagnac and aromatic spices and topped with wild strawberries and tiny fava beans and served in a circle of strawberry juice and aged balsamic vinegar. The slightly bitter tang of apricot kernels is another note, a bell cutting through the richness. It is fabulous, and I would not be surprised to learn that I, too, was
moaning as I ate.

  When Union Pacific opened a year ago, it had enormous promise. The architect, Larry Bogdanow, had created one of the most beautiful, comfortable and soothing environments in Manhattan; with a curtain of falling water at the entrance it has the cool, calm look of Japan without a hint of austerity. And the chef, Rocco DiSpirito, had invented an exciting menu. Mr. DiSpirito has an interesting mind; he seems to think about flavor in ways that ordinary people don’t. But in the early days, he had problems getting the food onto the tables, and the service had a nervous and slightly pretentious edge. As the restaurant has matured, Mr. DiSpirito has taken control of the timing and the staff has grown more confident. They are clearly excited about the food they serve.

  With good reason. I have yet to taste anything on Mr. DiSpirito’s menu that is not wonderful. If you choose to begin the meal with what he calls a “flight of little dishes,” you are likely to encounter something very like the sort of inventive sashimi served at Nobu: slices of soft, sweet yellowtail wrapped around tuna tartare, muscular strips of fluke with yuzu ( Japanese citrus), a few strawberries tossed with fava beans. They are little teases, and they make you very hungry.

  There are Asian touches in the main part of the menu, too, but Mr. DiSpirito’s influences seem largely French. His lobster, for instance, arrives looking like a Christmas tree ornament, a great ball of wonderfully tender lobster dripping with a foamy orange sauce that turns out to taste like the lobster bisque of your dreams. The pousse-pied, a succulent that grows near salt marshes, is the perfect counterpart; called salicorn on the menu, it is crisp and bracingly saline, so it cuts the richness of the lobster.

  Chicken is transformed in Mr. DiSpirito’s hands. His slowly poached bird arrives in tender strips atop a summer truffle puree. Halibut, that normally boring fish, is animated by its preparation, too: Mr. DiSpirito gently poaches it in goose fat and tops it with cracklings made of shallots.