Augieland

My second Father's Day

You may remember I dined at the Fromagerie in Rumson, New Jersey at the beginning of Chef David Burke’s role at the helm. At the time I felt it was mispriced for the market and that the waitstaff was almost adorably behind the learning curve of the new menu, but because the food was well prepared (excepting for inedible decorations intertwined in a dish) I was interested in where it would go and how it would adapt.

I finally went back for a Father’s Day brunch, and I think the evolution I saw is pretty much represented in the letter I sent the following day:

Dear Management,

I am writing now because I dined at the Fromagerie for Father's Day and had a very upsetting meal.

I start from the assumption that you are attempting to run a fine dining establishment, and it would seem from my experience Sunday that you have forgotten the most important part of excellence in restaurants is dependability. I find it very hard to believe that anything like what happened Sunday is indicative of the worst meal you have served during dinner service, so I imagine the team that avoids Sunday service needs to be made aware of how abysmal your restaurant can be at executing its mission. I will start at the beginning,

• When we first arrived your valet was actually exceptionally
professional and set quite a nice tone for brunch.
• The restaurant then delayed our seating half an hour because the
party before us ran over your estimate. This was well managed by the hostess and the very pleasant bartender, and was taken in stride by our group of eight adults plus three children, in spite of the obvious ramifications it would have on our dining in light of the patience of younger participants.
• After being seated half an hour late, it took another twenty minutes
for a wine list to appear, another fifteen for an order to be taken, and yet another ten for wine service. On top of this, almost an hour passed between when we were seated and when menus were dropped. All in, in spite of a hungry table motivated by the presence of young children, it took your staff well over an hour to take our orders (in effect more than an hour and a half after our arrival for our scheduled reservation).
• Even the simplest task of bread service was not performed until well
over an hour after seating, following a third request by me.
• At one point during service I got up myself to pour wine for our
table… filling six empty glasses with nary a server to notice. With an open bottle in ice your staff had not come by to check on wine service while six adults of varying thirsts emptied their glasses.
• The French onion soup was apparently put in the bowl tepid at best,
with the kitchen depending on the salamander to warm it. The result was that the cheese was scorched, leaving a salty mess of a dish infiltrated with the oils of the broken, burnt (not browned) cheese that was served warm at best. There are many bars in the area merely aspiring to the ranks of tavern that don't mess up such a simple dish as badly.
• My eggs Benedict were fine, inconsequential at best but not near as
egregious as the rest of the experience.
• As far as dessert goes, I will never know because it had not yet
been served when I felt the need to leave my company a little after 4pm, three hours after my reservation, and two and a half hours after we were fully sat.

When I first entered the restaurant I gave a credit card to the hostess hoping to seamlessly pay the check without any incident from my family. On my way out, with the assistance of multiple staff, I managed to get my bill. With the wines I was buying for my family our total was upwards of $550, and would have been more had your wine team managed to pay attention to service (rather than leaving us with a half bottle of undrunk Burgundy because it couldn't make it to the table in concert with our entrees).

As the bill was presented, the waiter was very careful to point out that no tip had been added, not because he was so embarrassed by the absolutely appalling job he and the rest of the staff had done, but rather so I would not confuse this with the other crappy breakfast joints that automatically gratuitize checks for groups of 6 or more.
In the end, I did tip 20%, not because I wanted to reward this travesty of a meal, but because it felt as if each individual involved in the service had worked to fulfill what he considered to be his job, making the failing entirely that of management from my observations.

I have been a pretty enthusiastic diner for a while, and as I am sure you know a good way to judge a non-cosmopolitan restaurant's commitment to excellence is how well they and their staff handle the less urbane services like Tuesday nights in February, and brunch. Were this not a holiday you would have just failed miserably, letting this happen on a day that certain people prioritize is unforgivable.

I have had full blown tasting menus at world class restaurants that run as many as 11-35 courses, (Eleven Madison Park to Fat Duck, Alinea to El Bulli), that take only a small percentage of time more than it did to have two out of three breakfast courses at your place, all of these others feeling well served and unrushed. Take a lesson from the likes of Danny Meyer who ends every discounted "Restaurant Week" with a new flock of regular customers because he knows that every service counts and makes each one matter, whether or not it has the likelihood of being the most profitable.

In a nutshell, get your act together and do your job. The Fromagerie is an important restaurant in that it is supposed to be one of the dependably fine places in Monmouth County. I am not sure my family wouldn't have done better in both the aspects of service and quality of product had we gone to the International House of Pancakes.

Sincerely

Augieland

This letter quickly received this response:

Dear Augieland,

I received your email this morning... needless to say, I was very disappointed to read about your visit on Sunday. I want you to know that I have forwarded your email to Chef Burke, as well as our General Manager Yasir Chaudhry and Chef Pat Trama.

I can tell you sincerely that Chef Burke cares very much about Fromagerie, and our guests, and the experience that you have described has not fallen on deaf ears. I apologize for the missteps of your visit, and assure you that this is not what we intend to provide to our patrons...

As difficult as it is to know that you were disappointed, candid feedback like yours is important to us. Thank you for taking the time to write. I'm sure you will be hearing from Mr. Chaudhry soon.

Please accept my apology, and know that we will be seriously addressing the points that you brought up in your letter. Thank you Augie.

Sincerely,
Office Manager

However nothing more has come in the ensuing week since this email. Thought that was more telling than my brunch.

per se again

Outback dragged me kicking and screaming to Per Se last night for a second try/chance. We had a tasting menu in a private room as a group of ten. I paid my share and not only didn’t it suck it was actually very good and seemed fair for the cost. So those of you that insist my first experience was an anomaly can rest assured that of two times one was a shambles and one was quite pleasant. Happy?

Nutshelling Momofuku Ko & Terroir

I don’t review places that expect they might get a review from me. I just feel they treat me differently so you may not have the experience I do. I also don’t review free food cause what kind of 21^st century American conceit would it be to think anything less than positively about the gift of food, especially food made by talented chefs?

Group Momofuku and group Hearth both know me on a first name basis and are aware of the blog, thusly you haven’t heard a lot about all the great meals I have had at Insieme and Ssam Bar. This doesn’t seem to matter much anyway, other people that write love these guys so it would probably only be interesting if I were going against the grain, and I am not; I very much enjoy eating at the restaurants of both groups.

My love for David Chang’s food, which spans most of what I have tried, can be reduced to my love for apples and bacon. So far there have been three versions of an apple and bacon salad at Momofuku Ssam and all have been great, the current apple kimchee with crumbled bacon being the best. You just gotta love anyone who works to evolve something fundamentally perfect and simple to begin with without complicating it.

My love of Marco Canora’s food can also be reduced to a single dish, even though I have been pleased by most all that he has served me: gnocchi. His little potato dumplings, with butter, a good amount of sea salt, and pepper just make me very happy. Paired with one of Paul Grieco’s aromatic whites they are perfect.

It just doesn’t make sense for me to try to review the experience I had the other night when I went from a free “friends and family” tasting menu at Chang’s new Momofuku Ko to drinks and a snack at team Hearth’s new wine bar Terroir. I am too predisposed to liking them to fairly assess.

My only risk was of having expectations too high, and honestly I was very satisfied by both. Both teams are offering a different experience from their existing places without straying too far from the groove they rock in. Neither is McNally doing Italian.

Basically, in a nutshell, my first impressions were:

Momofuku Ko: if you like the other Momofukus but have wished for more refinement you will like Ko. The base flavors are the same yet more refined and developed, the room is similar yet less rambunctious. Most importantly, the chefs are still right there.

Terroir: if you have ever thought, “I would love some of Marco’s food, like his cotechino, but don’t want to sit down for a multi-course meal at Hearth or Insieme” now there is an easier option. Terroir is simply Paul’s wine and snackier versions of Marco’s food at elevated bars in a happy space. Here too, most importantly, the chefs are still right there.

So one has tightened up, but just a touch, and the other has relaxed, but just a touch. Who wouldn’t want these options from the guys that actually get it?