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When Barca 18 opened in October 2005 there were
already rumors of an oil & water mixture between the highly successful restaurateur
Steve Hanson and the highly acclaimed chef Eric Ripert. From the start, suspicion, fear and loathing
permeated the pundits’ pre- and post-review monologues.
To be sure, there are many around town who fault
Hanson for perpetuating the “big-box” 700 covers per night upscale cuisine that
has now covered the Meatpacking District like kudzu vines. His formula has been successful – highly successful.Any problem or failure he faces will no doubt
generate much Schadenfreude from
those around town who want nothing more than to see Hanson fail.
Eric Ripert, of Le Bernardin fame, is a chef
whose artful success puts him in a place similar to Hanson.Everyone around town knows him, and there are
those who would like to see him fail – maybe because he French (there is an
inherent streak of provincial jealousy in many Americans when it comes to food
& fashion), maybe because he, too, seems to have no bounds when it comes to
success, maybe because he simply is Eric Ripert.
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Both Hanson and Ripert have big personalities –
no one becomes rich, famous or successful by being timid and hugging the wall. Many acerbic pundits (and there are thousands
of them on the web now) have attributed the closing of Barca 18 to a clash of
these Titan-like personalities.
But let us review.
When we first visited Barca 18, our opinion was
that it had two distinct personalities.The first was that of the typical Spanish comedor - simply put, a large
traditional dining room with Spanish favorites on the menu. In Spain, comedores are generally committed to local specialties.If you are in Avila,
you will likely find suckling pig; in Toledo baked
lamb; in Almeria
fried fish. If you want something tasty,
you order what the locals are ordering. Rules of the house.In New
York there is no such thing, unless you want oysters.
But Barca 18 had no specialty per se.
Ripert, who grew up in France’sslice of the Mediterranean and who lived for
a while in Andorra (a tiny
country sandwiched between Spain
& France
and known for cheap cigarettes), is a fan of Catalan cuisine. Catalan cuisine features paella; but any
Catalan on the street will tell you that a good paella recipe needs a certain
something to set it apart from the others, and needs generations of development.
As a comedor,
Barca 18 did not have a singular dish, the kind of thing that stands out, like
the roasted wild boar in Granada.
The other personality exhibited by Barca 18 was
that modern, funky, rule-breaking cuisine associated with both Catalunya and the
Basque country. There were hints of such
experimental madness, but the restraints (whether imposed by Hanson’s formulaic
approach to building a restaurant or Ripert’s 4-star notions of preparation),
did not allow for any exclamation points.
These two personalities – this schizo-culinaria –
was apparent in the room itself. The bar
area and entry way were decidedly hip; the formal dining room not so much. The menu tried to be part Frensh-Brasserie
style, part New American style and part schizo-Spanish style. By that I mean that the appetizers clashed
with the entrees on a variety of levels. It turned out that the “tapas”, (“small plates”
so indicative of Spanish fare) were trying to be all things to all people.And they weren’t hip or fresh or cutting
edge.
This million-dollar experiment proved that sharp
business strategies and superior kitchen skills must be accompanied by two
important things: a decisive personality for the restaurant itself and a better
defined patron. The glammeratis of
Meatpacking were never going to understand Barca 18, fans of Le Bernadin would
never has cozied up to the squid, and the adherents to the former Park Avalon
(Barca’s prior manifestation) and Blue Water Grill would never have spent time
learning about the complexities of the squid’s ink.
Sitting at the bar and drinking a glass of wine
and having a small plate was fun – it filled a certain niche that the city
needed (a need better filled by nearby Bocaria). But the dining room was not the kind of comedor it should have been. Perhaps the two spaces and the two menus
should have been better divided.
But the closing is more complicated than a menu
that is off kilter. There are myriad issues
and entanglements that the public will never know about: the rent renewal price
of the lease, landlord demands, city water and sewer demands, food costs, labor
costs, the working relationships between chefs and owners, and the effects of
reviews on business.
While some so-called death-watchers longed to see
Hanson fail at something, they need to understand that the closing of Barca 18
is a valuable lesson learned, and will no doubt make an already savvy businessman
all the more savvy.And for celebrity
chefs like Ripert, it is a warning that “branding” alone is not enough to carry
a vision if that vision does not what it wants to be.
Tags:
Barca 18, big bix, closings, Eric Ripert, glam, glammeratis, glitter, Le Bernadin, Meatpacking, squid, Steve Hanson
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Posted on 1/18/2007
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