I’m curious about how Chez Panisse has aged. My SIL and I talk a lot about food, and he asked me recently if I’d ever been there, and if it is still a destination restaurant. I’ve actually never been. My husband and I met at Cal and lived there for a few years, but we never went because it was way out of our budget. It used to be an HG restaurant, but farm to table has become so ubiquitous, I wonder if Chez Panisse still stands out.
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A recent discussion:
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I was at CP before the pandemic with my sister and niece. The niece asked after we left why everyone was old….hahaha. Sister said that who can afford it. Well yes, but also CP’s prices are relatively reasonably to other nice restaurants given stable overhead. The statement about old people still holds however. Call it the silver set.
The Chron’s new critic panned it…as old. Alice Waters took the comments gracefully….probably knowing it will still fill the seats….with all those damn old people.
One thing I can say is CP sources among the best produce, animal protein, etc. since they’ve been doing it for a long time. Old people can’t help it. Call them the queen of sourcing if you will…the old queen. Those geezer know how to source stuff for their old people clientele. Like the old people at Acme who make special bakes for the old at CP.
Okay, maybe those young whippersnappers have a point about being old….but if you source stuff that not everyone can and prepare it simply with respect, it usually turns out pretty good. Going with the idea of superior sourcing, I tend to go with seafood for fish because it will be fresh and they probably won’t kill it.
BTW, lunch at CP Cafe is still a good idea. You know, you can take a nap afterwards for you oldsters. NOW GET OFF MY FREAKING LAWN!!!
TL;DR - still good because of sourcing but probably out of vogue because OLD.
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It annoys me that Acme makes these nice bread that we can’t buy from their bakeries or from the street. We once had some good ones that I haven’t seen Acme sell anywhere else.
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In today’s world where many restaurants, especially upscale ones like CP, source their ingredients thoughtfully CP still has relevance from a culinary perspective in terms of quality they produce. What I have more problems with is their pricing - paying ~$175 for a 4-course prix fixe is even for a high-price area like the bay area very high and reaches close to 1 / 2 Michelin price range and they are not cooking on that level. If you have never been and can afford it, I always recommend people to visit at least once as CP and AW had such an impact on food across America and it worth eating their once to experience it. If you have been, I don’t think for these prices it is worth going as there are many better options in the Bay area which cook on a higher level (and have similar philosophies about sourcing etc). In that case, visit other place for dinner and if you still want to experience CP go upstairs to the cafe for lunch
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$700 per check or person? That is much more than the $35pp I spent on a lunch for 4 old ladies back in thecearly 80’s.
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First time I went to CP was to celebrate the first anniversary with my then college girlfriend. April 1st, 1981. Not even old enough to drink alcohol. I vividly recall writing a check from my Home Savings account for our dinner in the grand amount of $53.25 ($25/pp + 6.5% sales tax at the time).
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Those old hippies keep stuff to themselves….
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Acme’s Upstairs and Downstairs loaves aren’t what they supply CP with? Both are available at the bakery on San Pablo.
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As a work bonus, I got $100 to spend at any restaurant I liked. A foodie friend was up from Los Angeles, and we basically had everything on the upstairs menu, and kept within the $100. This was around 1990.
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I far prefer the cafe upstairs to the dining room downstairs. And I’ll keep going as long as I can make it up those stairs!
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I’ve never eaten downstairs, really have no urge. I haven’t been upstairs in many years but I ALWAYS enjoyed it and felt the prices were reasonable.
Go to the Cafe upstairs!
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Upstairs is my preference but I had a few exceptional meals downstairs…like fire roasted lobster tail wrapped in grape leaves. Simple enough prep if you have the skill, wood oven and source. I recall $65 a person for downstairs. Even in the 90s that was reasonable for what you got, basically the price of a nice meal for two. The current price of $175 is about that. I’d still go downstairs for the right occasion.
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No, and I’d like to keep it that way.
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We ate downstairs in the early 80’s and upstairs with our children. They both fell asleep before the meal was over. Later we were trying to pick a place to take guests and the kids wanted to go to that pizza place. We finally figured out they wanted to go to the Cafe.
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We ate at Chez Panisse 3x in the 70’s and loved it. But a 2015 return was disappointing. This is long, so I apologize, but I really agonized over our review of both the Cafe and Restaurant. I edited it down as much as I could. Please do remember this was pre-pandemic, so much has changed!
But has Chez Panisse? It doesn’t seem from the above posts that any of us know for sure.
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[In 2 visits, 1 upstairs/1 downstairs] Chez Panisse hasn’t shown very well to us, against the 600+ restaurants we’ve visited in the last five years. What was amazing, fresh and vibrant in 1975 just doesn’t ring many bells now that it’s 2015. There’s more than a dozen restaurants in Alameda Cty who do CP’s “California Cuisine” as well or better these days.
They may not have the consistency that CP does. And they will try combinations that don’t always work. But at least they try them.
The next day Spouse and I thoroughly discussed this meal. It wasn’t the modest amount of food – in these days of erratically sized small plates and tasting menus containing teaspoonfuls of this or that, CP was right about where it should be. The quality was high. The execution was careful. The service was good; professional and efficient.
So what bothered us?
This was surprisingly hard to pin down. We’ve eaten all over the Bay Area, and usually we’re criticizing chefs for a lack of discipline, an inability to recognize that simplicity can be the most complex and difficult balance to create.
Chez Panisse doesn’t have that problem. The balance is there, albeit on the subtle side. Yet the food somehow doesn’t resonate with us. There is love in it, but its passion is somehow circular. We are not always fans of Daniel Patterson, but his 2012 essay makes this same point. I had the feeling that despite the enticing descriptions on the menu, the dishes we’ve gotten from this kitchen aren’t much different than they were back in 1973…or 1983…or 1993…or 2003.
So does that make Chez Panisse a celebration of consistency? Or an ossified icon?
Oddly, I would love to send all those chefs who plop four different sauces on one plate, or think that delicate sweetbreads are a great match with sour pickles or oversweetened fruit syrups better suited to a stack of pancakes, or treat salt as one of the basic food groups, to spend a six-month apprenticeship in Chez Panisse’s kitchen. It would do them a world of good, and spare the rest of us from this fad of culinary thinking that if a little is good, then a lot more is ten times better…which it is not.
Alice Waters is renowned as a food activist and a restaurateur with a clear vision she is willing to share with all. It may be that our hesitation about Chez Panisse is that it seems more valuable as a teaching institution and example, than as an especially interesting restaurant.
Chez Panisse, as the original source, makes Escoffier look like the Wild Man of Borneo. This is food which is as much A Politically Correct Statement as it is Properly Balanced Nutrition. We’re not eating a meal, we’re chewing an edible manifesto, imbrued with fervent purpose and seasoned with impassioned earnestness.
Now, we love chefs who show passion. They take chances, which is important in cooking. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t. Some may simply refine, as has Roland Passot of La Folie. Sometimes they try to nudge customers into new territory, the way Staffan Terje of Perbacco does. They may strive to expand their own culinary horizons, like Ted Walter of Passionfish [Monterey County]; or evolve an ethnic cuisine towards a different direction as Mourad Lahlou of Aziza has done.
The food doesn’t have to be expensive. But it always has personality, a vitality that makes a personal statement…a joie de vivre, if you will.
There are also chefs that go backwards. But at least they’re moving. Chez Panisse doesn’t seem to change, and that is their greatest strength and their most frustrating weakness.
I want chefs to execute well, to produce their dishes with care. But I don’t necessarily want them to be so careful that each individual ingredient is so perfect and precious, nothing blends into a whole greater than the sum of its parts. That’s the excitement we search for, which was missing from our two dinners out of the Chez Panisse/Café kitchen.
Ms. Waters would define that carefulness as respect for the purity of each element. I can’t shake the feeling that purity has turned into a fearsome rigidity, an end unto itself. When each ingredient sits on individual pedestals and nothing spontaneous is allowed to happen, you’ve lost something. There’s no mistakes here, and the corollary is that there’s no excitement, either.
We want 1+1+1+1 to equal a 5 or 6. But that doesn’t seem to happen for us at CP. It’s just a bunch of perfect 1’s, sitting on a plate or swimming in a bowl. We’re full of admiration…but that’s not love, and it awakens no passion in us. Chez Panisse is like standing next to Venus de Milo. An exquisite beauty, graceful perfection. But it’s also a piece of marble, and too darned stiff to lie down next to you.
We get no sense of personality from Chez Panisse. A vision, a philosophy, a mission statement – yes. Skill and quality – absolutely. Normally a chef imprints her/his personality on the food. But here, the restaurant has its own image, and everything is shoehorned in to fit that brand.
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In the long history of the culinary world, it holds a hallowed place, and it has spawned so many great places, but because of changes largely attributable to CP, it is possible that its position as a unique experience is gone. I live far enough away that going there is probably not in my future. I was there in the seventies. My “big brother” from college was the maitre d’. It was a transformative experience at the time. I went back to his house the next day and commandeered his kitchen with an entirely new outlook on food. That would not happen today. Fresh and local still reigns.
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What you have described reminds me of cooking school. You are introduced to each tool, taught to use it perfectly, and instilled with an innate ability to replicate. You are expected to go forth and create unless your aspiration is to excel as a line cook. (Becoming a terrific line cook at a top flight restaurant is no mean feat and rates major accolades.)
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Wow. Maybe Ms. Waters lives by the ‘if it isn’t broken…’ mind. She’s been successful in many ways.
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