Michelin stars and Bibs don’t mean too much in Toronto.
The One Stars and Bibs I like are places I was frequenting before Michelin arrived in Toronto. There are another handful that don’t float my boat.
The Two Stars and Three Star in Toronto charge more than I want to spend.
All star rating systems are designed to hype the publication. People are attracted to them, and this way you don’t have to actually know how to read.
Same here in the UK.
Funnily enough, today I’ve started looking through the list of starred places in search of somewhere for a birthday treat later in the year. It’ll need to have a carte (or possibly a short set menu - deffo not a long tasting one), be affordable and relatively local. I suspect this is going to be tricky.
I decided on an old school steakhouse for my birthday this year. I haven’t been to the one I’ll be visiting in 14 years.
Yeah for our occasional splurge meal we go to Lucky’s steakhouse in Montecito where I can get a great steak frites and caesar salad and get a Carol Burnett or Julie Louis Dreyfus sighting.
I still like my tasting menus. 
That’s just me because I like variety when I eat, and why I don’t love leftovers for lunch. I generally will crave something different, especially if it’s a rich hearty dish. I like tapas, dim sum and generally opportunities to try a variety of things. I don’t think I’m elitist, but perhaps I do have some snobbish attitudes about food (not the preparer). It’s less about it having to be fancy, but more about quality of the ingredients themselves.
I personally am less harsh to those who weren’t ready to shout out about what is abusive. It’s amazing when you grow up in a system and what seems the norm. Not everyone is trying to be insidious and enjoying a co-worker being on the receiving end. It’s true that staying quiet reinforces those behaviors, but not everyone is always in a position to risk the loss of a job or can step outside of the system and realize what they are seeing is wrong. There is obviously a huge amount of learning and prestige attached to working with these famous chefs, and that is real to someone who wants to make it in this field. Speaking out does require bravery, but not speaking out doesn’t automatically make someone complicit and a coward, no matter what our armchair judge-y side gravitates to.
I understand how the people being abused were silenced through threats of losing their jobs, their work permits and their careers but being silent or stating that’s just the way it is on social media and not passing judgement on a man who stabbed and hit underlings seems like a pretty easy call to make.
And yet.
What seems easy to us may not be the same for people who live under the immediate threat of that abuse, especially if that making you the next victim of getting stabbed or punched, or quitting a job and not being able to buy food or make rent. Having a strong moral center doesn’t keep you from being homeless or feel hunger pangs. You’d think being punched black and blue would make it easy to leave relationships too and yet…
Yes I was making that distinction-sympathy for the victims and the employees and how many had to remain silent but no sympathy for people who say “but he’s such a great chef” or “that’s just the way things are”. If I find out someone is being violent and abusive I don’t care who they are, I’m done with them.
Yes. I understand the abused being silent. I have been intimidated into silence-- worked for an emotionally abusive chef that was pushing me to cook the food cost # that was reported back to corporate. He acted like he was grooming me professionally and that I had much to lose if I wasn’t loyal to him. Well, I lost my job, but the chef did not. He continued failing upwards to more acclaim.
When I was being walked out of the restaurant he was still berating me. I kept his secret. Years later the person that fired me from corporate listed firing me as one of his personal professional regrets and apologized. Said he figured out what was happening and knew I took the fall.
“Well, we’ve tried nothing, and we’re all out of ideas.”
This feels like a way to justify inaction. It’s barely concealed “whataboutism”. Why bother fixing problem A, when problem Z is SOOOOOOOOO much bigger and worse and really is a societal problem and to really solve it we have to get rid of all capitalism or make gun ownership mandatory or some other implausible end state.
Art and entertainment have gone through this several times. The abusive and exploitive studio system was “necessary” to make movies until we decided it wasn’t. Then individual creative bullies were the price we paid for creative excellence, until we realized that in fact, that you could make great art WITHOUT being a raging shitbag to everyone around you.
David Lynch is as great and as respected as Kubrick, but no one has a book’s worth of stories on how working with Lynch was a nightmare. The exact opposite, in fact.
The idea of a Gordon Ramsey-esque tyrant is good entertainment but terrible working conditions, and we shouldn’t tolerate that sort of shit in ANY field.
Fine dining is the ‘big Hollywood’ of food and hospitality. All the little fish want to act like the big fish they hope to be someday. So you have to make the big fish behave, or the little fish won’t learn.
If you don’t like my mixed metaphors, you can make like a tree and take off.
Also,
when it’s not a problem for me?
Everybody can eat what he or she wants and doesn’t have to apologize for it. Eating a tasting menu doesn’t mean that you are automatically support a toxic kitchen environment - they exist in many types of restaurants far beyond fine dining. We also continue to like tasting menus as they give the best way to have creative dishes and they also don’t feel as rushed as a regular restaurant visit where especially in the US the main goal seems to be that every table is turned in 90 to 120 minutes
We were going to do steakhouse for our pre-Christmas treat (the "Office Christmas Party, as we call it) but had to cancel as I was ill. We were only talking about it this evening. Part of the plan had been to go to a carol concert in the afternoon, then dinner and have an overnight stay at a city centre hotel. We were at a gig at the same place tonight - and had dinner at the hotel’s casual restaurant. Think we might try again at Xmas this year. Or maybe not.
Unless you are with a big group, 2 hours is a very long meal. I am not into dinner-as-theatre.
I guess at that point our European genes shine through but everything below about 2 hours for a dinner (not talking about tasting menu but regular three course dinner) feels rushed for us. We enjoy sitting together in restaurants and having a relaxed dinner. With tasting menu it’s often much longer
Agreed (but then I’m a European).
Mrs H and I were only discussing the subject the other night. Like many people we have several places that we visit with some regularity . Three are South Asian and one is East Asian. Whilst we love the food at all four, the fast speed and style of service means it’s not as relaxed as other places. Three course meal in our local bistro type places can be a couple of hours. Dinner at one of those four means we can be in an out in under a hour.
I think it depends on one’s dining partners and the pacing of service. SO and I had a lovely, long meal at our local “fancy” Italian place a few weeks back and it was well paced with attentive service. We’ve also been out with larger groups for long meals where it was more about the “craic” and getting another round.
But when you just want to eat and not linger, then yes, 2+ hours is just too much no matter how good the food may be. Especially on a busy weeknight.
ETA: I’m American of European descent.
Not to gang up on you, but… well, another person from Yurp here 
2 hours is pretty average for a leisurely meal of an aperitivo, apps, a handful of small plates, a bottle or two of wine, dessert digestif.
And nobody immediately slaps a check on the table if you decline ‘coffee or dessert.’
