In 1971, 27% of Americans bought a box of Hamburger Helper, dessert was often cold and jiggly (there’s always room for Jell-O!) and McDonald’s introduced the Quarter Pounder. But that same year, in Berkeley, California, Alice Waters started a far more wholesome revolution. Her new restaurant, Chez Panisse, purchased all its fruits and vegetables, fish, meats and dairy from local farmers and purveyors and only served in-season produce. And she offered a far less jiggly dessert that raised more than a few eyebrows: a single fig and a bowl of fresh, peak-season fruit.
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Alice is credited with starting the farm-to-table movement, and 55 years later, it’s still hard to snag a reservation at Chez Panisse. Yet that’s exactly what I did earlier this year!
In December, I interviewed Alice Waters on my podcast Your Last Meal. I already had a trip to the Bay Area planned, and by the time we hung up, I was giddy with the idea of visiting Chez Panisse Cafe, the less expensive, a la carte restaurant situated on the top floor of the 100-year-old Berkeley Craftsman that also houses the flagship restaurant.
On a spectacularly sunny February day, I arrived at what looked like a sun-bleached treehouse. I was warm skinned and glistening (read: Sweaty. I was very sweaty, but I’m also a LADY and we glisten), having walked several miles to the restaurant in 75-degree weather. I freshened up in the bathroom (and resisted the urge to stick my head under the cold water tap because, as previously mentioned, I’m a lady!) and walked into the dining room, a space both dimmed and warmed by the reclaimed redwood that panels the walls and ceiling.
There were crisp, white tablecloths and stained-glass windows and Art Nouveau-style prints framed on the walls. Every seat in the dining room was taken; folks crowded at the host stand and outside the bathrooms and it was loud, which surprised me! I assumed the hallowed halls of Chez Panisse, a famous, fancy restaurant, would allow nothing more than a cacophonous whisper.
Shortly after being seated, a carafe of water arrived along with a small glass etched with the words Chez Panisse in cursive. I quickly drained the carafe (maybe I should have dunked my head?) and thought about how 22-year-old Rachel might have discreetly dropped the glass into her purse at the end of the meal (I wasn't always a lady!). A complimentary chunk of crusty bread and a pat of golden butter was delivered to my table, a rare luxury in today’s nothin’s-free-kid dining landscape.
Like every meal, this one could have been my last, so I spent approximately 18 hours debating what to order. The menu changes daily, so I couldn’t cram online! I’m a visual person and my signature move is to pretend I need to use the bathroom, so I can walk through a restaurant, subtly and not-so-subtly gawking at the food on other people’s tables. But I was seated on the outside edge of the dining room, reduced to gleaning information solely from the table next to me. After a not-so-subtle neck craning, I decided not to order the rigatoni with chanterelles, leeks, creme fraiche, gremolata and Parmesan.
Eventually, I settled on: radicchio salad with toasted walnuts, pecorino and sherry vinaigrette (it was chicory season and if a chicory is on a menu, I am ordering it!) and Petrale sole with Tokyo turnips, spinach, marble potatoes and tarragon beurre blanc.
If I had room at the end of the meal, I’d order the Pink Lady apple-sour cherry galette with vanilla ice cream (despite my friend and cookbook editor, Jill, frantically texting me that sour cherries weren’t in season!!! The server assured me they were frozen locally last summer. Phew!)
The salad was lovely; each gorgeous, pink, speckled leaf was slicked with a balanced but punchy vinaigrette and topped with enough salty pecorino shavings to validate paying $22 for a small, simple salad.
The entree was exactly as described: filets of fish bathed in a creamy, buttery sauce, a few little potatoes lightly dressed with butter and herbs and a pile of simply salted, seemingly steamed spinach, turnips and carrots. The fish was tender and flaky, the boldly orange carrots were the carrotiest carrots that ever carroted. Everything tasted like its best, most flavorful, locally grown self. But it was simple. So, so simple. It was subtle. Very, very subtle. It was gentle. Singularly textured: Soft. Unlike the bustling dining room, it was quiet. I’m not used to quiet.
The culinary world I live in is crispy skin; miso and gochujang; Barbie-pink pickled onions; melted anchovies; lots of garlic; a squeeze of lime! Pancakes are purple with ube, pizzas are topped with Jerk chicken and mango, cakes are steeped in matcha and pistachio and nettle and topped with passion fruit curd, black sesame buttercream and flaky salt foraged from the tears of unicorns.
In this modern world of culinary innovation and the globalization that has made bold flavors from Southeast Asia, Central America and parts of Africa mainstream in the American food scene, the once-groundbreaking, farm-to-table, locally grown and harvested, French-influenced cuisine at Chez Panisse doesn’t feel so interesting.
But does food have to be interesting? Last week, my friend sent me the menu from her pre-fixe birthday dinner. She said it was the best meal she’s had since living in Asheville, North Carolina. It was traditional, classic Italian: beef tartare, cacio e pepe, chicken picatta, chocolate olive oil cake with dark chocolate ganache. All perfectly executed. I caught myself thinking, “Huh. But it’s so basic.” All-the-while knowing it must have been absolutely delicious! Do I value excitement and novelty over flavor?
When I posted about my meal at Chez Panisse, people commented about how much they love the food. A few said it’s their favorite restaurant, some have visited multiple times. I wondered if I was in the minority for thinking it was perfectly tasty and fresh, but nothing special?
But in 2014, Los Angeles Times food critic Bill Addison wrote this review of Chez Panisse:
Its continuing insistence on simplicity also generates its share of backlash. This has all been written about and discussed ad nauseum.
In the middle of our meal my friend, a first-timer, utters what he doesn’t realize is a cliché about dining downstairs at Chez Panisse. “This looks like something you’d serve at home,” he says. “It’s designed that way,” I respond. Nothing sets off fireworks, but it’s a graceful plate of food.
This is the third meal I’ve had downstairs at Chez Panisse in my twenty years of serious dining, and I’ve felt the same way every time: Lovely, and more transformative in doctrine than in experience. I eat this food, and I appreciate the lives and labors that went into it. Am I dazzled by the meal? No.
We chatted with the table of three next to us. We thanked our hosts, muttered kind words about the food on the way out the door, and felt relaxed on the drive home. Just like eating at an old friend’s house.
Anyone who has eaten gelato while strolling the streets of Dubrovnik or nibbled on supermarket brand cheese and crackers while falling in love knows that food is far more than just flavor. Sometimes the best meals have more to do with where you are, who you're with and how you felt.
Like Bill, I loved the experience of eating at the Chez Panisse Cafe! I made my reservation exactly one month, to the day, before I dined, the earliest you can reserve a seat. I spent that month anticipating the meal, and once there, soaking up the history and the energy of the space. I dined alone, so I was completely in the moment. I ate slowly, I focused on tasting every single bite, I eavesdropped, I took notes in my journal. Like Bill, I chatted with the table of three eating next to me.
It was an experience, like eating gelato in Dubrovnik or falling-in-love-cheese, and I felt grateful to be experiencing one of the country’s most famous restaurants, run by a woman with impeccable values, who has made a lot of positive change in the world. Could I have made a similar meal at home? Probably! But I ate every last bite. I'll have to come back for dessert.
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XO
Rachel Belle
