Flotsam & Jetsam: A restaurant review I actually liked

David Bruni, NY Times -   What you want from restaurants, it turns out, is a proxy for what you want from love and from life. None of these is constant. All reflect the arc that you’ve traveled, the peace that you have or haven’t made. When I was 34, I wanted bling, because it persuaded me that I was special. When I was 44, I wanted blinis, because they made me feel sophisticated. At 54, I just want martinis, because I’m certain of what’s in them and of what that potion can do: blunt the day and polish the night.

Ina Garten, the wildly popular author of the “Barefoot Contessa” cookbooks, told me that she and her husband, Jeffrey, “go to the same restaurant over and over again until we just can’t do it anymore, then we go to another restaurant over and over again until we just can’t do it anymore. And that can last two years.” She’s 71, he’s 72 and they weren’t quite this set in their ways decades ago, she said.

I surveyed several restaurateurs: They didn’t find her habits unusual. Older diners, they said, are more likely to be regulars — and the most frequent regulars at that.

That’s not just because we tend to have more money. It’s also because we’re tired of being invisible.

Danny Meyer, the restaurateur and hospitality guru behind Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern, Shake Shack and so much more, brought up something that one of the past century’s most prominent tastemakers would say. “James Beard famously told people that when he was stopped in airports and asked what his favorite restaurant was, he answered: ‘It’s the same as yours,’” Meyer recalled. “‘It’s the one that loves me the most.’”

Sam Smith - I've done a pretty good job of keeping it a secret, but there are only two types of food I really like: good and very good. With age, my tongue has lost much of its tactile discrimination and, besides, as Bruni suggests, it's the place that really turns me on. Among my favorite spots are those where, upon hearing my choices, the server says "awesome," a judgement that my thoughts rarely get elsewhere.

I have, over the years, established a relationship with a few restaurants that treated me with the sort of respect that Humphrey Bogart got when he went to his favorite spot in a film. I even had a table that was mine at La Tomate in the same block as my office in Washington. Then there was Jimmy T's on Capitol Hill where I watched Obama's inauguration on TV just a few blocks from the actual site.

 

JIMMY T'S 

These days it's the tavern in my town in Maine, where one waitresss always gives me a hug and another calls me "sweetheart." Who cares if the sweet potatoes are a little dry? Restaurants are about much more than food.