WHY DOES (SHOULD) FINE DINING
COST SO MUCH?

                                                                            By John Mariani

 

    Eating out has never been more expensive. But that’s always and will ever be the case. As with everything else––cars, homes, cell phones, Milky Way Bars––prices never go down. But there may be a point when the price is too high, which is becoming a major factor in people’s budgetary decision as to where to dine out. A new food and beverage report by Expert Market  reveals   that 26% of U.S. restaurants are "struggling to meet consumer affordability demands";  24% of restaurants noticed customers limiting their overall spending; and 17% noticed customers are choosing lower priced options.

    Restaurateurs throughout the U.S. are suffering declining sales, not least Los Angeles, where they are down five percent this year, because of rising prices for what is called in the industry the "30 30 30 rule" that suggests allocating revenue by 30% for food costs, 30% for labor costs, 30% for overhead expenses, and the remaining 10% for profit. Add to that the devastating wildfires, deportation issues and Hollywood lay-offs and that 10 % profit drops precipitously. Things are not much better in New Orleans, Houston, worse in San Francisco but bit better in Chicago.

    Sales are weaker in New York but the dichotomy there is that fine dining restaurants are packed every night and for some getting a reservation  may take weeks––this, despite the food media’s contention  that “nobody wants to eat that way anymore.”

    Menus for $200, $300 and, at the omekase restaurant Masa, $750 (before wine, tax and tip) haven’t put off diners at places like Per Se, Marea and Caviar Russe, and steakhouse in particular, like Mastro’s or Del Frisco’s (right), see little or no resistance to $31 shrimp cocktail or $145 for a tomahawk steak.

    One hears that expense accounts are being cut––which is like saying Hollywood is cutting back on big budget Marvel movies––but clearly such dinners, especially private rooms, are not much concerned with prices if they end up getting bang for the buck.

    But what exactly do you get for your money at a fine dining restaurant?

    Comparisons help: hit Broadway shows like the current “Waiting for Godot” with Keanu Reeves are going for $1,059 this Saturday. Sunday’s Giants (2 and 8) game will set you back $550. “Handel’s Messiah” at Carnegie Hall cost $189. All, like dinner, are  one-night events. Once over, it’s over.

    So, what do you get at a fine dining restaurant like Le Bernardin, Per Se, Jean-Georges, Gabriel Kreuther and others? To  begin with, the premises will be grand indeed, created by a well-known designer who works with the finest materials, lighting, air-conditioning, bathroom fixtures, staircases, all individualized to the space. The wineglasses will be Riedel, the china Bernardaud, the silverware Cristofle, the napery Sferra.

    The staff uniforms may be custom made. Fresh flowers are everywhere.

    A chef who is not the owner may be paid $300,000. The capital investment in wines may reach $1,000,000, overseen by a well-paid sommelier, perhaps two or more. Ingredients like caviar and white truffles do not fall within the 30-30-30 rule. A pastry chef makes everything, even breads, from scratch in a specially appointed kitchen.

    Waiters and busboys may make minimum wage $16.50, but attracting first-rate staff with fine dining experience will cost more.

    Now, if you aren’t particularly interested in what is demeaningly called “frou-frou” and prefer instead small, cramped, earsplitting restaurants with minimal décor, cheap table settings where they don’t take reservations, be my guest. But the level of the food and service is simply not going to be as it is in fine dining, however delicious the Korean barbecue, Mexican taqueria or Italian pizzeria may be.

    Not that the owner-chefs at such places do not take care and diligence in their preparation, but they usually have less access to the best ingredients, the first choice of seafood, the best cuts of meat that fine dining restaurants can afford or demand. If, say, the highest grade of tuna is available that morning, who do you think gets first pick? Obviously Masa Takayama of Masa, so that he feels he can charge $750 for a 20-26 course meal. When the finest white truffles come into the market at a minimum of $300 per ounce, which East Village trattoria can afford to put them on its menu? And with bottles of First Growth Bordeaux and Grand Cru Burgundies costing restaurants $1,000 a bottle, would you expect to find them in the cellar of a Brooklyn bistro?

Doing a cost analysis of what a meal at Masa compared to an all-you-can-eat sushi bar is futile, but you do get what you pay for.

    The problem with too many of those who begrudge others dining out at the highest level is that they may not have the acumen, much less the expense account, to do so.

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CUERNO

1271 Avenue of the Americas

332-269-0094

By John Mariani

 

    Less in not always more and bigger is not always less, as the new Cuerno in the Time-Life Building manifests in a vast dining room with long bar, high vaulted ceilings, wrought iron, exposed brick and Mexican carved wood throughout. A Miró-like mural by artist Federico Jordán of  a leering skeleton riding a  bull lends frivolity and green ferns a feeling of the outdoors. Polished wood tables are separated at a decent distance from one another, and waiters pushing carts of food provide further enticement to the fiery grill whence it comes.

    The size––and some thumping music––means Cuerno is very loud when full, and conversation is not easy until the room becomes half full after nine o’clock.

         But for a theatrical space like this, with more than 200 seats, the food is very exciting and well executed, with a menu largely based on northern Mexico, where beef dominates. Alberto Martínez and Victor Setién of the Costeño Group have brought the expertise honed at dozens of restaurants in Mexico and Spain, including two other Cuernos, and handed over the job of maintaining high quality to Executive Chef Oriol Mendivil  and Chef de Cuisine Hugo Orozco, who somehow manage to keep a good pacing for delivering the food.  Ernesto Coronado oversees a broad wine list with 70 bottlings from Mexico alone––the largest  collection I’ve seen in the States––with 17 wines by the glass. 

         You, of course, want to see how they do guacamole, which starts with Michoacan avocado mashed to a fine consistency with lime, cilantro, tomato, onion, chile serrano and salsa pasilla.  The fried charring rinds of Mayan octopus are treated to a salsa of avocado and lemon-garlic. They also do a lustrous crudo of hamachi “cooked” by the heat and  acidity of  chile Chicharron and  salsa rasurada vinaigrette from coastal Mexico (above).

        Cuerno has a section for tacos, including one of Baja-style fried branzino with dry chile emulsion, coleslaw and avocado, while

signature Taco Taquero introduces you to their beef, enclosing a skirt steak with fire-roasted bone marrow, prepared table-side.

    Given the back-and-forth of tariffs on beef these days, Cuerno obtains its grass-fed supply from South Dakota’s Demkota Ranch, which includes a massive tomahawk steak that is ceremoniously wheeled over on a special cart and carved in front of you from the bone.

The meats here are cooked over a Josper charcoal grill and the searing adds enormously to the layered flavors of smoke, caramelized crust,  salt and pepper and fat and lean interior.

Of the six cuts available we chose the rib-eye with roasted garlic, and the very juicy short rub, slow roasted for twelve hours and slathered with a pomegranate glaze and pickled onion.

Cuerno also does an excellent chamorro al horno, a braised northern-style pork shank with regional adobo, rice and beans. Owing to the sumptuousness of these main courses, a dish of fideo de poro asado composed of noodles made from roasted leeks and roasted corn  with a crema poblana seemed more like a side dish than a substantial one.

If you think you need a side, go for the potato laced with Grana Padano cheese, truffle and a ranch cream.

You’ll most likely be sated by this point in the meal, but do share one of the desserts, especially the pastel de campechanas of vanilla ice cream cake layered with caramel-dripped puff pastry  and topped with pecans and dulce de leche.

         Cuerno swirls and clicks on all cylinders, and it’s meant to be fun, though not in the formulaic, tiki-bar driven way of Tao or Buddakhan. The concept may have come from Mexico, but Cuerno sits squarely into this midtown location. And it’s swell to look out the window and see the glowing neon nights of Radio City Music Hall.

 

 

Open daily for lunch and dinner.