The Times Writes the Entree's Obituary

The entrée is so over, the top chefs tell us. Yesterday Times reporter Kim Severson sunk her teeth into the long decline of the entrée and the increasing dominance of side dishes and tapas at many fine restaurants. As former Gramercy Tavern chef Tom Colicchio tells her, “Eating an entrée is too many bites of one thing, and it’s boring.” Amid all the evidence of diminishing entrée options at restaurants nationwide (at Gemma, entrées are squeezed into 2.5 inches of space at the end of a 14 inch-long menu), Severson searches for a cause. Theories abound:

People like to customize their worlds. Personalized playlists on iPods have replaced albums. TiVo has replaced channel surfing.
Diners who see a new ingredient on a food show want to date their food before they marry it.
It’s another aspect of the adorable New Victorian trend! After all, the single entrée concept is only about 80 years old, according to Yale professor Paul Freedman: “Victorian meals with multiple main courses of calf’s head, a beef roast and a saddle of venison supplemented by a fish course and dozens of accompaniments” used to be the norm. Have you tasted the head of the calf Tailor? Udderly sublime.

Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni, however, is sick and tired of being “yanked” around by the trend toward “snack-menu-small-plates-side-dishes-little-littler-littlest” menu items. In his role as a professional eater, the man dines out at least five nights a week; on those nights he’s reduced to just a few bites of all his companions’ dishes in order to fully sample the menu. When Bruni’s on the clock, a tasting menu is his a way of life, and he’s not about to let trendsetters kill the entrée size portion he looks forward to on his days off.

I often find myself craving beef one way – e.g., a big, fatty, 35-bite rib-eye – or a whole roasted chicken just for me. That’s one of my favorite night-off meals: a whole chicken, placed in a very large bowl that I hold in my lap as I lay waste to the bird… I make friends with how the chicken tastes, then get to enjoy that friendship for a good long while.

With friends like Bruni, a chicken doesn’t need enemies. And after hearing him describe how he “demolishes” baguette and jam, it seems a bib would be the perfect Christmas gift to Frankie from Santa.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By John Del Signore in Food on December 6, 2007 10:00 AM

Comments [rss]

Robert K Brown

With notable exceptions such as steak and Maine lobster, every product in America exists better somewhere else in the world. It's not surprising,therefore, that great gastronomy is all but forgotten here, and what we have instead is short-lived novelty both in general conceptions and the dishes that restaurant cooks turn out. This small-plate rage written about here is a by-product of the tasting menu which more than anything has all but destroyed restaurant dining. More than anyone, we can thank Thomas Keller for that. His maitres d' talk about palate fatigue, but what about palate vertigo? The fatal flaw with tasting menus is that if a dish is good, you don't get enough of it, while the mediocre or poor ones foisted upon the diner debase the cost and the quality of the experience. Besides my long-held dictum that restaurants only get worse, add this one: "The food boom contains the seeds of its own demise".

nonumentalart

tapas are the worst fucking idea every. i ate at zipi zapas in williamsburg, dropped 100 dollars and left broke and hungry. what a fucking ridiculous idea...

Leon Freilich

EAT PETITE

Meze, dim sum, sushi, tapas,

Nationality won't stop us.

Appetizers that appeal

Constitute the real deal

Whether from the bars of Spain,

Or the markets of Japain,

Rare delights from Turkish souks,

Rarities from Chinese books.

Entrees, from whatever source,

By their size bring on remorse.

Hot for treats that are delicious?

Good things come in small dishes.

matty

If they make you order one single appetizer, per person, for the cost of an entry, they are defeating the point of "sharing" and just scamming you. Places like Alinea will give you 12 course appetizer meals but the cost is included prix fix not per item.

also the victorians would not have 6 or 9 appetizers, they would have 6 or 9 entrees, with dessert, and eat for hours on end. I think vomitoriums became back in vogue at that time.

Tgirl

thank God for the New York Times!

...keepin it real as always

chuzzlewit

This works fine if blow is the hors doeuvre.

JMH

I make friends with how the chicken tastes, then get to enjoy that friendship for a good long while.
Uhhh... kay....

trizzlor

Yeah, the whole tapas phenomenon seems to be completely motivated by profits. I've often seen such restaurants simply offer half a sandwich for the price of a full one and call it tapas.

SP

This trend is born from two main forces:

• SHORT ATTENTION SPAN CULTURE: people cant focus on one thing for more than 10 minutes at a time anymore. This pathetic fact is due to the enormous amount of media bombardment that most Americans succumb to willingly and happily.

• INSANELY INFLATIONARY COMMODITIES MARKET: food prices have skyrocketed over the last few years. Restaurants, especially the super chic trendy spots that have enormous non-food related expenses (PR firms and interior decorators and high-street rents) need to maintain obscene profit margins. The solution is to create a trend to make customers feel happy and special about paying the same if not more for much, much less.

This trend is not, to me, a sign of a real change in culinary philosophy nor is it a return to Victorian era moeurs, but rather another sign of the APOCALYPSE, the END TIMES.

SP

This trend is born from two main forces:

• SHORT ATTENTION SPAN CULTURE: people cant focus on one thing for more than 10 minutes at a time anymore. This pathetic fact is due to the enormous amount of media bombardment that most Americans succumb to willingly and happily.

• INSANELY INFLATIONARY COMMODITIES MARKET: food prices have skyrocketed over the last few years. Restaurants, especially the super chic trendy spots that have enormous non-food related expenses (PR firms and interior decorators and high-street rents) need to maintain obscene profit margins. The solution is to create a trend to make customers feel happy and special about paying the same if not more for much, much less.

This trend is not, to me, a sign of a real change in culinary philosophy nor is it a return to Victorian era moeurs, but rather another sign of the APOCALYPSE, the END TIMES.

trizzlor

Yeah, the whole tapas phenomenon seems to be completely motivated by profits. I've often seen such restaurants simply offer half a sandwich for the price of a full one and call it tapas.