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In Search of the Perfect Dish: Our Visit To One of America’s Most Expensive Restaurants

My imposter syndrome kept flaring up. Our escalator was carrying us closer and closer to the blue door that separates Per Se from the rest of Manhattan and I still felt uncertain about my motivations for the visit. Was I really eager to broaden my culinary education or just hoping for a glimpse of the 1%?

Per Se’s iconic blue doors in the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle.

I knew that writing about the experience would mean admitting to my ardently frugal family that I had spent a small fortune on a single dinner. Three-Michelin-stars, nine-courses, and a month’s rent.

Deadhorse hill chef-owner Jared Forman reminded me later that it hadn’t been such an expensive meal when you considered how many people had touched the food before it arrived at our table.

I’d like to say I knew this first hand; after all, I had ventured back to the kitchen at the end of my visit. But, Forman told me I was mistaken.

According to him, I met only a fraction of the cooks tasked with crafting my meal. What I had witnessed was the main kitchen, complete with a live feed tuned to Thomas Keller’s first love — The French Laundry in California. The commis kitchen had been kept out of site.

Forman has spent enough time picking herbs, topping eggshells, and opening oysters at Per Se to know the difference.

Per Se’s main kitchen offers a live feed to The French Laundry in California.

Johnson & Wales students compete every trimester for a prestigious Per Se internship. More than a decade ago, Forman earned the coveted spot, landing him a four month stint in Keller’s kitchen. The commis kitchen, that is, where the prep cooks toil away until (if they’re lucky) they are called up to run the cheese station before progressing to the role of fish roaster, and so on and so forth. No matter how much time they spend at Per Se, there will only ever be one man at the top.

Keller is one of the most celebrated chefs in history. He currently holds seven Michelin stars, three at Per Se, three at The French Laundry, and one at Bouchon. The Michelin guide is something of a restaurant bible. One star represents “a very good restaurant,” two stars signify “excellent cooking that is worth a detour,” and three stars mean “exceptional cuisine that is worth a special journey.”

Forman started at Per Se just after Keller had finished consulting on Ratatouille, an Academy Award winning animated film about a rat who becomes a chef. Forman’s arrival at Per Se came only a week after the photos for Keller’s second book, Under Pressure, had been shot at the restaurant.

Keller’s books are not meant to cook out of.

“Half the recipes don’t work. It’s not about recipes. They’re about inspiration,” Forman says, “When his first book came out, there was nothing else like it.”

When his internship ended, Forman parlayed his newfound experience into a job at David Chang’s momofuku noodle bar. “Per Se is like a coloring book. You color in these lines and then go home. You have a very real barometer of what success and failure is because Thomas Keller’s there to tell you what it is,” Forman says.

He recalls one cook on the line who wore a bracelet embossed with WWKD, as in, “What would Thomas Keller do?”

He says he knows better than to compare Per Se to anywhere else he has ever or will ever work, but in four short months, he admits that the restaurant showed him something remarkable.

“Per Se is not a cutthroat kitchen. At some high end restaurants, people steal mise en place. People sabotage each other,” Forman remembers, “At Per Se, there’s a greater vision embraced by everybody. People are firm and strict, but it’s always with purpose.”

Initially, Forman scoffed at the notion of my visit to Per Se.

“I don’t think it’s the best food in the world. It’s not the most groundbreaking food, anyways,” he said, “It’s a place you go for precision and perfection and we should all be glad it’s there for that. You go there for technique.”

I explained to him that I was deep in pursuit of the standards that shaped deadhorse hill in Worcester in addition to America’s vision for fine dining.

He rolled his eyes and said, “I just hope someone else is paying.”

Per Se’s oysters and pearls.

Behind the Blue Door

The restaurant consists of 66 seats perched high above Columbus Circle, along with a private dining room that accommodates no more than 30 guests behind boardroom glass and brown curtains.

Per Se fosters steadfast dedication in its staff.

Servers fetch clean bills from the bank every evening to ensure that you don’t end up with the wrinkled change from someone else’s pocket. Reservations are on point. The floral arrangements are fit for the Royal Wedding. The napkins might as well be cashmere blankets. And the charger plates offer some sort of Magic Eye pattern from which I kept hoping a sailboat or a spaceship would reveal itself.

The moment I attempted to set down my purse on the back of my chair, a tiny stool appeared at my side, as if by magic.

“Why not begin with champagne?” we asked. The salmon cornet with tartare and crème fraîche, balanced on an ice cream cone, practically demanded it, as did the oysters and pearls — a custard of tapioca and Regiis Ova caviar.

Like everything else, these petite bites were quite intentional. “His philosophy is the idea of diminishing returns; as you’re eating something, you get used to it. Keller never lets this happen,” Forman explained, “Your palate never gets accustomed.”

The courses unfolded in such a way that each one proved more personal than the last.

Per Se’s slow-poached Hudson Valley foulard-duck foie gras.

Take for example, the slow-poached Hudson Valley moulard duck foie gras for which the ducks are hatched and harvested humanely by a former member of the Israeli Armed Forces and his partner who notably worked on Wall Street before he got into the liver business.

Even the bread course arrived with an announcement that the butter hailed from a cow named Keller, milked twice a day by a dedicated dairy farmer in Orwell, Vermont.

I do not work for a fancy firm with a standing table, I have never been to a restaurant quite this formal, and I suspect I butchered the pronunciation of the 2015 Patrick Piuze I was drinking.

I visited Per Se for the anecdotes. The tales our servers told us made the smell of charcoal-grilled blackfish more intoxicating and conjured visions of the Pacific coast before the parmesan-crusted sea snails had so much as touched my lips.

It’s probably for the best that I didn’t receive my booklet of purveyors until after the meal. Not because I would have felt dismayed to devour the Liberty Farm duck breast while observing the fourth generation farmer cuddling with one of his flock. On the contrary, I fear I’d have been so engaged in his one page bio that I’d let the poor pekin grow cold on my plate.

The same is true of the 100 day dry-aged Snake River Farms beef rib eye. Aside from its concentrated flavor and the well marbled meat, I’d have hastened to detect its diet of barley, golden wheat straw, alfalfa hay, and Idaho potatoes had I known it existed.

The dessert courses arrived all at once in a flood of raspberry-stained Bartlett pears, pickled honeynut squash, and blackcurrant flapjack ice cream. The “mignardises,” French for bite-sized dessert, may as well have been blown from delicate bits of colored glass.

The presentation of Per Se’s mignardises.

Along with my booklet of purveyors, I was sent home clutching a branded bag filled with carefully wrapped mignardises and tins of shortbread — parting gifts. I also received an invitation back to the pristine kitchen.

When I told Forman about the back of house tour, he recalled this was not out of the ordinary.

“Some people don’t want to see behind the scenes. Other people get a crazy kick out of it,” he said, “They probably googled you when you made the reservation and knew you’d be into it.”

The Myth of Perfection

The literature inside my Per Se gift bag includes a note from Keller himself. “When ingredients arrive at the restaurant they are, in one sense already finished,” he wrote, “At the stove, we have no control over how an animal was raised or the way a peach was harvested. As chefs, all we can do is to carefully select our suppliers and then work with them to ensure we get the best possible ingredients.”

I have heard Forman express similar sentiments. He feels lucky to live in a place with so many amazing farms and wild habitats capable of turning out the sweetest corn and the most pungent ramps.

“The distribution system to Worcester has exploded over the past few years, which allows us to combine all of these local products with other amazing things from across the country and around the globe,“ Forman told me, “A huge chunk of my time in any given week is spent sourcing products for the restaurant, visiting farmers markets and ethnic markets, weeding out specialty items, and talking directly with farmers. The details are absolutely endless.”

Per Se offers a vast wine selection highlighting a collection of older wines as well as wines from small producers that are released in limited quantities.

Two weeks after my visit to Keller’s kitchen, Forman loaned me his copy of The French Laundry Cookbook.

Sitting at home in my Worcester apartment, I cracked the heavy volume open in my lap and a line leapt right off the page. “When you acknowledge, as you must, that there is no such thing as perfect food, only the idea of it, then the real purpose of striving toward perfection becomes clear: to make people happy, that is what cooking is all about,” Keller had written.

Per Se showed me precision, technique, and urgency, but the experience didn’t earn me any degrees or badges. I had not been an imposter at Per Se anymore than I am an imposter in my own kitchen. Keller had relished the chance to make me happy, and he had immeasurably succeeded.

In the weeks that followed, I would struggle to rattle off finite details of the nine course menu I so enjoyed at Per Se, but the memory of a blissful evening never left me.

Maybe you have the cash to let chefs like Forman or Keller help you find happiness in your food on a regular basis, but most people don’t. The perfect dish is the one that brings contentment and it could cost you next to nothing if you’re willing to treasure it properly.

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Eat, Drink, and Be Me(rry)… While Still Serving Others

Can we just agree daylight savings time blows? I’m not saying the sky spitting rain into the upper-30s air would be entirely tolerable with a 5:30pm sunset. But dark at 4:30 after a brutal stressful day? It seems downright cruel, inducing enough crankiness to make a non-violent person contemplate punching the cheer out of anyone. I could see myself jumping on the Hanover stage at Elf that night and cold cocking the actor that plays Buddy the Elf. Which would of course lead to my getting my ass kicked by said actor and a horrified audience, being thrown in jail, and then failing to make bail because everyone including my family hates me for punching Buddy and ruining the show… and Christmas. You feel my mood?

I was in this damp down state of mind and weather when I found myself on Shrewsbury Street between appointments. Seeking a salve for my ill temper – okay, rage against the season – just because “the man” made me turn my clock back an hour, I stopped in Nuovo, hit the bar, and ordered up Alex Gjonca’s Albanian Appetizer of oven braised liver, garlic, feta cheese, and hot pepper – a dish that I “discovered” when I profiled him for Foodies a couple of years ago. It proudly captures his and wife Loretta’s Albanian heritage amidst the tasty Italian fare that fills the rest of their menu. I asked for a good glass of red to go with it and ended up with a cabernet. I wasn’t listening when the bartender told me what was poured.

The liver was rich and warming as I remembered, and the wine was yummy – deeply tannic and balanced with those berry jammy flavors I love. Mood, lifted.

And I might have kept all this to myself if I hadn’t looked at the check before I paid it. The wine turned out to be the Vaillancourt 2018 Christmas Wine, a reserve cabernet sauvignon from Alexander Valley in Sonoma County. It’s a new wine sourced by Luke M. Vaillancourt to be sold this season through his family’s two-generation folk art business in Sutton. Now, full disclosure, Vaillancourt is a sponsor of Mass Foodies and Luke is the site’s founder and publisher, but I wasn’t at Nuovo at his behest or Vaillancourt’s. I was there to lift my funk with a delicious glass of wine and a tasty plate of food and got it.

But as I am wont to do, I started overthinking my way into this story: What did it mean for Luke to pursue this culinary passion as part of his family’s business? It’s not like wine and Vaillancourt’s chalkware is a classic combination like bacon and eggs or grilled cheese and tomato soup. It seemed to me more like milk and cockles not milk and cookies. Sure, it goes with Luke’s passion: He, Ed Russo, and another partner launched the Worcester Wine Festival in 2017. Yet still, to bottle wine is to go to extraordinary lengths to execute on a vision, especially when there is not a natural pairing. But what do I know? It worked. And lucky me that I got a sip or two of little that remains of the 672 bottles produced this season. (Less than 3 cases remain between Nuovo, VIA Italian Table, and Uxlocale and as well as at Julio’s and the Vaillancourt’s retail gallery.)

Inspired, I checked in with a few of my favorite couples and families to hear what they do to pursue their culinary passions this season. My thought was that the holidays should be a time of great cheer, but for those in restaurants and food (and indeed all) retail it must be exhausting: the hours grow longer as the days grow shorter between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. How do you retain and show what the holidays mean to you and your family while still making it about everyone else – even if you work with your family? It must be a slog with little time for yourself and those closest to you, right?

Leave it a guy from Queens, New York to tell me I had it all backwards. “The holidays are when ‘normal’ people get into the spirit of giving,” said, Jared Forman of deadhorse hill and simjang. “This is where the hospitality industry is all the time. It’s always with us. You’re into our groove this time of year.” For Jared, like all chefs who cook seasonally in the New England, the fact that there is less local fresh food available makes it even more fun, because it forces him to be more creative with what he has and to do more with less. It seems like a cruel irony that the restaurant is slower in the summer when Jared is overwhelmed by New England’s bounty and packed with people and events when December hits, but he loves the feeling when lots is going on, even if that means catering an event on his day off.

The creativity extends to the look of the restaurant – the province of Julia Auger, Jared’s long-time girlfriend, who runs the front of the house and the wine program. Instead of flowers, she worked with Five Fork Farm to fill deadhorse hill with winter foliage that looks and smells incredible: “The aroma of the New England forests and the organic ambiance is amazing and just adds to the holiday spirit.” As for a personal connection, deadhorse hill’s Feast of the Seven Fishes menu offered December 18 to 24 is based on the traditional Italian Christmas Eve dinner Jared had growing up. “Our parents, family and friends have been coming to deadhorse hill on Christmas eve to join us since we began doing the dinner,” Julia says. “It’s unique to the season and always served family style. We now see other families returning, making it a tradition for them and theirs. It means a lot to be included in their family.”

Bill Aldrich and Jeanette Harmsen of Theatre Café just down Main Street from deadhorse also show their passion by creating special menus for the holiday gatherings they cater and donating food (like to the family of the firefighter who died this past weekend in Worcester and to the St John’s food pantry). But what really stood out to me was when Bill talked about how they give meals to regular customers during the holidays whom they know are on limited budgets. They know how much it means.

“It can be difficult to bring the holiday spirit ‘home’ during this absolutely busiest time of the year,” Bill says “During November and December, we average around 80 hours each week, so we have very little time to decorate and celebrate. We tend to treat ourselves to dinner out a bit more than usual and plan family holiday time for January after the rush is over. We also try to reward our dedicated staff for their efforts throughout the year. But I love making the experience great for our guests, so it’s rewarding on both levels. We don’t suffer in the end.”

The idea of customers extended family means a lot to everyone I spoke to, but perhaps none more than the sister and brother team of Miriam and Gregory Hyder, whose father Ed passed away last February. This is their first Christmas at Ed Hyder’s Mediterranean Marketplace and at home without him. Family is definitely on their minds, especially as Miriam is due with her first child just 12 days before Christmas. But when I speak to her, she tells me it’s “Christmas crazy right now” and she is far less concerned about the baby due Thursday and more with the fact that she can’t get any anise oil from her supplier in New York City which is going out of business after 100 years. “I’ve got Italian customers who need this for their cookies, and I have one bottle left. I need to figure it out.”

Hyder’s 43rd anniversary also fell in December and for the fourth straight year they did a tasting of the exquisite Cavedoni balsamic vinegar (straight from little spoons, no bread necessary), which makes a nice foodie gift. “This is what we do,” Miriam adds, revealing how her dad used to hand out envelopes of scratch tickets to everyone because he didn’t have time to shop. “We go flat out until we get out Christmas Eve, turn out the lights, and say, That’s it, we did it! I get a little jealous of the people at home making those cookies. But really this is our family.” To this, Gregory adds, “It sounds strange but the joy of making it easier for everyone else keeps us going. People come in here and they’re happy, looking in baskets, talking, seeing friends. You can’t get that in a supermarket or big box.”

“That’s like what Worcester is: family. It’s about family,” adds Sammy Cheng, who owns Blue Shades Coffee and Liege Waffles on Park Avenue with his wife Crystal. Their ten-year old son Evan is (seemingly diligently) doing homework in the back. Crystal is six months pregnant with their second child. And none of the holiday craziness phases them at all. Because they always know and are grateful they have each other.

“My family were refugees from Vietnam in 1981,” Sammy tells me. “My father saved enough to buy a boat and we escaped to a detention center in Macau when I was seven. My sister was born in the center. We were sponsored by a Jewish organization and ended up in Worcester. We were the lucky ones, and we never forgot it. We worked hard until we could buy our first business, a gas station, where I learned to run a business in 2003. I opened this place in November 2016, and I’ve added things Worcester understands like ramen and pork belly until they get the waffles. But I am here with my family every day. We get that here.”

We all should. So grab a waffle, try some balsamic, feast on fishes, and really try to support all the great family places in this city, especially those that have families working them like Meze Greek Tapas, Theatre Café, Armsby Abbey, Crust, BirchTree Bread, Lock 50… And if you want to have a glass of Vaillancourt’s wine at Nuovo and liver isn’t your thing? Try Alex and Loretta’s spinach pie. While available most of the year, this is one dish they especially share with family, friends and customers this time of year – and it takes a lot of passion to keep making because it takes a lot to make.

“The making of spinach pie is something that has always gathered our family around the table for years and especially during the holiday season. The process, while time consuming, is one that we have been practicing for many, many years,” Says Loretta. “We start off by first making filo dough from scratch and then layering the dough into sheets on a pan using butter or olive oil between each sheet. From there we stop halfway and add our stuffing. Typically this is a combination of cooked spinach and cheese, some Greek yogurt, butter, milk and eggs. However, there are also special occasions where we use meat fillings, leek, tomatoes, and onions. From there we continue adding the dough layers and finally once all the dough has been used, we bake it in the oven and wait for that yummy smell to fill up the kitchen.”

Listening to Loretta, I felt like a jackass for wanting to punch anyone, let alone an elf. It’s easy to get self-centered and overwhelmed when you are having a craptastic busy day and feel anything but giving. What I should have remembered is that’s when you give more. That’s when you make spinach pie even if the restaurant is sold out for days, you are catering events on your day off, or searching for anise oil while waiting for your water to break. I was right to use that down time to take care of myself, but I should have also used it to think about others, which I guess I did eventually. That’s also the piece of advice I got from Jared – a lesson for all of us amateur cooks and bakers and givers of gifts this season: Take a moment to think about what you’re doing in the few quiet moments you have.

In other words, plan to be thoughtful, not just generous this season. Even when it’s dark at 4:30 in the afternoon.