The great economic hurricane of ’08 (and ’09) has caused all sorts of well-documented havoc in the restaurant world. Grand old dining institutions have been consumed in the whirlwind, and countless chefs, waiters, and barkeeps have been tossed out of work. But every cloud, as the song goes, must have a silver lining, and if you’ve had a couple of nickels to scrape together to buy a decent restaurant meal in the last few months, you may have noticed a subtle, not altogether unpleasant, change in the air. The price of a good cheeseburger has skyrocketed, but just about everything else on menus around town is demonstrably cheaper. Formerly snippy “reservationists” are now oozing false charm over the telephone, and once snooty maître d’s have dropped their icy veneers. The glitzy, oversize, Vegas model of the go-go years has been swept away in favor of a more intimate, less pompous style of dining, and the insufferable chatter of hedge-fund wine geeks and their jewel-encrusted wives coming from the next banquette has mercifully ceased.
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