Tasty loving care (where there's a there there)
Michael Batterberry, Ariane Batterberry
Posted: May 5, 2009
If there's a worse word than "experiential," don't tell us. Lamentably, there's no holding back the linguistic tides, particularly in travel-speak circles, where "experiential" is now promiscuously applied to whatever activity or program entails more than keeping the eyes propped open.
Reporting on the global surge in culinary tourism (see "Hungry for Travel," page 60) editor-at-large Julie Mautner defines experiential travel in general as "doing rather than seeing," a behavioral proclivity she finds to be "hot everywhere in tourism today."
OK. so "experiential" it is. Taking a broader view, it corroborates our opinion that today more and more people want to be fully engaged, to feel they're a welcome and integral part of the scene, whatever the scene. Essentially, they're drawn to places with a sense of place. For gastro groupies, this might involve anything and everything from a remote Michelin culinary shrine, jolly neighborhood bistro, or champion barbecue shack to a winemaker's tasting room, mythic cocktail lounge (such as The Carlyle's scintillating Bemelmans Bar, seen on this month's cover), or an ethnic street fair pulsing with exotic aromas. Whatever its nature, people are drawn to character and dis tinctive style—fun, fancy, or funky.
Pity poor Los Angeles, so often misidentified as the object of Gertrude Stein's tart complaint "there's no there there" (actually she was dissing Oakland). But, boy, did she ever nail want of a sense of place as a curse of the darkest order. We've been thinking a lot about this lately in light of these tempestuous times: why does the public continue to pack certain spots, some old, some new, while steering clear of others? One conclusion: in the restaurant arena, an identity crisis, frequently fatal, translates as sinking into the gray lagoon of impersonality. Put more bluntly, if deity resides in the details, hell lies in the humdrum.
As always, people gravitate to the magnetic, to the promise of a good, friendly, restorative time (aka experience). And, check this out, they still respond to such old-fashioned come-ons as atmosphere, romance, charm, color, wit, and warmth. Viewed from any angle, these are what still work. Weave them together with today's vivid profusion of global flavors and you've got yourself a powerhouse new brand of operational TLC: Tasty Loving Care.
Without getting into the overhyped cyclical returns of "comfort foods," people do feel reassured when reconnected with pleasures past. The past provides a vast country to visit, and a fertile terrain for experiential gastro-tourism. This was demonstrated recently in New York City by a brilliant roster of chefs, each of whom had signed on as a time-traveling host in a promotional "Vintage Dinner" series engineered by restaurant guide impresarios Tim and Nina Zagat (see food historian Meryle Evans' "Triumphs in the Past Lane" on page 56).
Patron response to this mining of vintage gold was ecstatic. We ourselves attended two of the 16 dinners. At Daniel, we were transported by a heroic 12 course reorchestration of 19th century tours-des-force (why, why were such transcendental dishes ever abandoned?). And at the timelessly—make that deliriously—romantic Café des Artistes, a twinkling bottle green glade (talk about sense of place!) populated with muralist Howard Chandler Christy's adorable 1930s nice-girl nudes and Arrow-shirtless Tarzans, we were treated to a soul stirring replay of Isak Dinesen's Babette's Feast. Quail in puff pastry coffers! Baba with four rums! Tasty Loving Care forever grabs our vote.
