The Perils of Fine Dining
Upscale restaurants make for uncomfortable moments.
By Shelly Steig
After spending a summer afternoon tromping all over New York with cameras slung around our necks and tattered maps hanging out of our pockets, my husband and I were harried and rumpled when we swept into Daniel restaurant off Madison Avenue in the tony neighborhood of Uptown.
I was writing a restaurant review for a luxury lifestyle magazine and when I made the reservation, the concierge didn’t mention that men had to wear a sport coat in the main dining room. She must have figured if we were eating there, we should have known. The fact that the restaurant’s moniker was first-name-only should have tipped us off that French chef Daniel Boulud was a rock star of the dining world—that consuming what he had created was equivalent to seeing Madonna live in concert or being an audience member for an Oprah taping.
A black-clad receptionist took one look at my husband—who wore beige cargo pants and a Hawaiian shirt—and said, “I’m sorry sir, but you are not appropriately dressed to dine in the main dining room. However, we keep extra sport coats right over there.” She pointed to a coat-check room. “You can borrow one of the coats, and then we will seat you.”
Fortunately, my husband has a good sense of humor. Unfortunately, he’s 6 feet 8 inches tall. He put on the largest sport coat, which was 4 inches too short in the sleeves and the hem hit above his belt. Laughing, he did Chris Farley’s Saturday Night Live routine, “Fat guy in a little coat.” I laughed. Neither the receptionist nor coat-check attendant cracked a smile.
Charmed, I’m Sure
We’re not complete buffoons. After all, I am a charm-school graduate, which in the South is equivalent to obtaining a high school diploma. Besides learning to say “Bless your heart” with just the right inflection, when dining I was expected to properly protrude my pinkie and use my utensils from the outside, in.
Despite my etiquette education, Daniel was not our first faux pas in fine dining. For another assignment, I was asked to eat my way through Provence’s famous Relais & Chateau hotels with on-site restaurants. As you can tell by the looks on their faces, the French take everything seriously, but none so seriously as dinner—which can last five hours and feature eight courses.
Our first night in Provence, we were escorted into the sunny yellow dining room at Auberge de Noves. Our table was draped in jacquard linens and covered with a bewildering array of utensils, plates and glasses. Within reach, another smaller table held a pitcher of water, and even more utensils, plates and glasses. I started to unfold my napkin when a waiter snatched it from my hand, snapped it open with a flourish and placed it in my lap. I could have sworn I heard a nasally snort from the Frenchman at the table adjacent to ours.
The Perils of Fine Dining(Continued)
But I’m Well-bred
The snappy waiter appeared once more carrying a tray with eight small bowls, which he set on the table. One of the bowls held glistening green olives. I rolled an olive onto what I assumed was the bread plate—which in the United States is multipurpose. What I didn’t realize was that the upper-crust French bread plate was wholly dedicated to, well, bread.
Our waiter reappeared carrying a basket filled with freshly baked rolls. He looked down at me, pointed with his tongs to my bread plate and said in bumpy English, “Get that off.” I blinked, thinking I had misunderstood. He repeated, “Get that off!”
I looked around the intimate space and realized diners at other tables were staring at me with amused yet unsmiling faces. I picked up one of the four forks (the one on the outside, of course) and repeatedly tried to spear the olive, which skittered from one lip of my plate to another. Each time the olive bounced to the edge, I imagined it made a clanging sound like a vintage pinball machine. My face was red and I was starting to glisten (since Southern girls don’t sweat) when the waiter repeated impatiently, “GET THAT OFF!” At that point, my husband—who’d never been to charm school—picked the olive up with two fingers and popped it into his mouth. Bless his heart.
Even though I was in over my head, the cuisine in New York and throughout Provence was so sublime, it was like an out-of-body experience. And despite the perils of thicker waistlines and thinner pocketbooks, eating at a top-notch establishment should be something everyone experiences at least once. However, as fine as the dining was, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. By day five in Provence, I was longing for the simple familiarity of middle-class fare. So, when we landed on U.S. soil, I took off at an unladylike trot to the nearest greasy spoon, where I ordered a juicy hamburger and, ironically, French fries.
SHELLY STEIG is a freelance writer from Parker, Colo.
Published: Feb 01, 2011
Upscale restaurants make for uncomfortable moments.
By Shelly Steig
After spending a summer afternoon tromping all over New York with cameras slung around our necks and tattered maps hanging out of our pockets, my husband and I were harried and rumpled when we swept into Daniel restaurant off Madison Avenue in the tony neighborhood of Uptown.
I was writing a restaurant review for a luxury lifestyle magazine and when I made the reservation, the concierge didn’t mention that men had to wear a sport coat in the main dining room. She must have figured if we were eating there, we should have known. The fact that the restaurant’s moniker was first-name-only should have tipped us off that French chef Daniel Boulud was a rock star of the dining world—that consuming what he had created was equivalent to seeing Madonna live in concert or being an audience member for an Oprah taping.
A black-clad receptionist took one look at my husband—who wore beige cargo pants and a Hawaiian shirt—and said, “I’m sorry sir, but you are not appropriately dressed to dine in the main dining room. However, we keep extra sport coats right over there.” She pointed to a coat-check room. “You can borrow one of the coats, and then we will seat you.”
Fortunately, my husband has a good sense of humor. Unfortunately, he’s 6 feet 8 inches tall. He put on the largest sport coat, which was 4 inches too short in the sleeves and the hem hit above his belt. Laughing, he did Chris Farley’s Saturday Night Live routine, “Fat guy in a little coat.” I laughed. Neither the receptionist nor coat-check attendant cracked a smile.
Charmed, I’m Sure
We’re not complete buffoons. After all, I am a charm-school graduate, which in the South is equivalent to obtaining a high school diploma. Besides learning to say “Bless your heart” with just the right inflection, when dining I was expected to properly protrude my pinkie and use my utensils from the outside, in.
Despite my etiquette education, Daniel was not our first faux pas in fine dining. For another assignment, I was asked to eat my way through Provence’s famous Relais & Chateau hotels with on-site restaurants. As you can tell by the looks on their faces, the French take everything seriously, but none so seriously as dinner—which can last five hours and feature eight courses.
Our first night in Provence, we were escorted into the sunny yellow dining room at Auberge de Noves. Our table was draped in jacquard linens and covered with a bewildering array of utensils, plates and glasses. Within reach, another smaller table held a pitcher of water, and even more utensils, plates and glasses. I started to unfold my napkin when a waiter snatched it from my hand, snapped it open with a flourish and placed it in my lap. I could have sworn I heard a nasally snort from the Frenchman at the table adjacent to ours.
The Perils of Fine Dining(Continued)
But I’m Well-bred
The snappy waiter appeared once more carrying a tray with eight small bowls, which he set on the table. One of the bowls held glistening green olives. I rolled an olive onto what I assumed was the bread plate—which in the United States is multipurpose. What I didn’t realize was that the upper-crust French bread plate was wholly dedicated to, well, bread.
Our waiter reappeared carrying a basket filled with freshly baked rolls. He looked down at me, pointed with his tongs to my bread plate and said in bumpy English, “Get that off.” I blinked, thinking I had misunderstood. He repeated, “Get that off!”
I looked around the intimate space and realized diners at other tables were staring at me with amused yet unsmiling faces. I picked up one of the four forks (the one on the outside, of course) and repeatedly tried to spear the olive, which skittered from one lip of my plate to another. Each time the olive bounced to the edge, I imagined it made a clanging sound like a vintage pinball machine. My face was red and I was starting to glisten (since Southern girls don’t sweat) when the waiter repeated impatiently, “GET THAT OFF!” At that point, my husband—who’d never been to charm school—picked the olive up with two fingers and popped it into his mouth. Bless his heart.
Even though I was in over my head, the cuisine in New York and throughout Provence was so sublime, it was like an out-of-body experience. And despite the perils of thicker waistlines and thinner pocketbooks, eating at a top-notch establishment should be something everyone experiences at least once. However, as fine as the dining was, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. By day five in Provence, I was longing for the simple familiarity of middle-class fare. So, when we landed on U.S. soil, I took off at an unladylike trot to the nearest greasy spoon, where I ordered a juicy hamburger and, ironically, French fries.
SHELLY STEIG is a freelance writer from Parker, Colo.
Published: Feb 01, 2011