Kitchen Confidential_ Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly - Anthony Bourdain [119]
Is everybody getting their food on time, I wondered. Everyone was so damned calm and collected in here that maybe it's chaos outside, a herd of pissed-off diners glaring silently at their waiters and wondering where their chow is - waiting for that made-to-order risotto so the rest of the order can come up. I decided to see.
No such luck. Outside, the dining room was as relaxed as the kitchen, nothing but happy faces, lingering over appetizers, sipping wine, expressions those of anticipating first-time lovers who just know they're going to be good together. The bar was packed with monomaniacal wine aficionados, pouring over the 1,400-strong wine list like Talmudic scholars - beakers, glasses, decanters laid out in front of them making them look like well-dressed Dr Frankensteins. They had a lot to ponder. The Veritas list is an imposing volume with a very reasonable range of wines from 18 to 25,000 dollars. I asked the bartender, hopefully, if any of these wine wonks ever got into it over the relative merits of say, Cotes du Rhone vs. Bordeaux, or '95 or '98? 'Anybody ever take a poke at another guy, duke it out over grape varieties? Drunken brawls over topsoil, irrigation, drink now or drink later?'
Nope. All is calm. Pleasure rules.
Listening to the customers talking seriously, really seriously about wine, I find yet another reason why Scott is a three-star chef and I'm not: I know almost nothing about wine.
I am not immune to the charms of wine. I've lived around it, enjoyed it, cooked with it all my life. I am not entirely ignorant on the subject, nor am I dismissive of its importance. I still remember vividly, heading off to the vintner in Bordeaux with my Oncle Gustav, to get our empty bottles refilled with vin ordinaire from those giant casks. I can tell the difference between good wine, bad wine and great wine. I have a pretty good working knowledge of the wine-producing regions of France and Italy. I am vaguely aware that California seems to produce drinkable product these days. But I couldn't tell you grape variety with any more assurance than I could talk about stamp collecting or phrenology. And to be truthful, I've always felt that I've survived enough dangerous obsessions in my life; the knowledgeable appreciation of fine wine has always seemed to me to hold potential for becoming yet another consuming habit - an expensive one. When you know what it's like to squat on a blanket on upper Broadway in the snow, selling off a lifetime's accumulation of rare books, records and comic books for drugs, the idea of spending next week's paycheck on a bottle of red seems like, well, something that I probably shouldn't be doing.
So, even though I've been gushing here about Veritas and all things Bryan, I'm really doing the place a disservice. The menu, the business, the whole concept of Veritas is built around the wine - a formidable cellar put together by two of the premium collector/connoisseurs in the universe. It should be pointed out that Scott's food at Veritas is designed to complement that wine. I can only imagine that it does. The fish dishes are unusually hearty, drinkable with red for the most part, I believe (don't trust me on this), and the meat and poultry dishes are constructed and refined to match up nicely with the list. Some of the Asian seasonings and ingredients of Early Bryan have been dispensed with in order best to accomplish that mission.
As for me, I drink beer and vodka when I eat at Veritas, preferring to spend my lucre on what I know to be good namely the food. I know that's a lot like going to Egypt and not bothering to look at the pyramids, but hey, I'm just an old-time cookie with a chip on his shoulder and a heart full of envy.
Problem is, Scott's an old-time cookie, too. After the kitchen closed (at ten forty-five they were talking about getting the last orders in!), I took him up