| The Art of … (Part 2) |
| Not long ago, in Weekly 44, "The Art of … (Part 1)", to be precise, I described a somewhat "different" way of running a restaurant advocating the impressionist cuisine, predicting in this context that such establishments would soon be popping up all over the place. Some weeks later a similar initiative earned a front page mention in Het Parool, although to be truthful the bare breasts of the attending staff may have helped, which somehow seems unfair as the best I can do is flex my muscles. |
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I confined myself to some technical specifications in Part 1 of "The Art of
…", although these can of course have a fairly significant impact on the
ambience. But I agree that it's the food that really matters, so let's start
at the beginning and picture ourselves as a small group of new arrivals,
trying valiantly not to look quite as self-conscious as we are feeling.
Although one obviously wouldn't expect to have to do one's own cooking when dining out, it's unthinkable at this particular restaurant that the guests' initiative should remain confined to eating. You may therefore be assigned certain tasks or be told to do something or other, for the simple reason that this is your only chance of getting something to eat. More importantly still, however, you will be served the type of food that suits you, your personality, your mood, your particular passion. Care should be taken to prevent the tasks to be completed to this end smacking of a psychological assessment. Having opted in favour of good faith, we enter a dimly lit room with the kind of light that is so characteristic of a large-scale cow shed, with tiny windows in the shape of flattened arches covered in cobwebs and dust-saturated condensate. The room should preferably have a matching scent, but in view of the calculated misery of foot and mouth disease still being fresh in the mind, this particular feature has been struck off the menu for the time being. As the basic idea is to achieve the resetting of the clientele's senses, I have every confidence that the truly ingenuous proprietor will come up with a worthy alternative. You then negotiate a small maze and end up in another room. This is where the "amuse" is served. It is up to you to catch it - and you will be served more than one. Although the pitchers will essentially aim for your mouth, something could well go wrong if three of them take aim simultaneously. This is part of the fun. Which reminds me of the dress code. Don't wear anything muted so that the unavoidable stains will sort of blend in. Opt instead for immaculate white, so that every single spot will proudly stand out. If life hasn't left its mark on you, you might as well not have lived at all, and dining out is no exception. Fortunately the liability of having to study the menu has been done away with. Having completed the "amuse" routine, you won't be safe until you have negotiated the Gallery of Aromas. This is filled with all kinds of small jars and dishes each of which you are required to smell, wearing a wireless cap with inbuilt ECG facilities so as to enable the staff to record which scents make your heart beat faster. This information is then used to customise the flavours of the dishes you order - or not, as the case may be. We will come back to this later. |