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This is a review of Michelin star-rated Per Se, part of Thomas Keller Restaurant Group. It is located in New York City, USA. This review was originally written December 2014 with modifications made in January 2016.
Dear friends and innovators in the restaurant industry,
It is with a heavy heart it must be reported that Per Se is no longer worthy of it’s great fanfare, in the form of a great parade of diners and spectators. It was they who held this place to high reception, often without ever stepping foot in the door.
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I will be extremely frank with you: I never liked Per Se. Most, if not all, of the valued opinions in dining always knew Per Se was shrouded in a distinct dimness and extraordinary depression; openly uncooked food passed off as the finest ever produced. I feel as though Per Se was the Upper East Side establishment that was even too chic for those pithy EU luminaries who were too bright (see: rich) to stay in their homeland. Moreover, we can agree Per Se was atmospherically, a catastrophe – a dark and moody man posed as a restaurant, the “thingification” of impersonality spectators and a caustic remark as an institution. The haute-cuisine prefers cream to dine on and black to wear, not the other way around. While personality is certainly a great thing and can often be the coup de grâce of a great dining experience; here it is the source of great pain and oppression. Here, now, an exodus of taste and consideration has taken place over the past many years. Speaking in this region in particular. Finally, with triumph we can safely place the entirety of blame on this “fine” “establishment”.
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On the subject of service: fine service is thorough and subtle … or SHOULD be! Have it known, we, as the public (no longer only as intellectuals or elites) (we are) know something very tragic and unfortunate now, something worth celebrating outwardly without reservation: Per Se is getting the press it is worthy of! Grim and unfortunate revelations, our great Herod; the inspired thinkers, job-creators, socialites … the inspectors who keep our lives luxurious and safe have come with a vengeance now! The reality is this: the tide turned sometime ago and it never went down, the great divided waters of spectacular tragedy and culinary misfortune merged and rose ever higher and flooded the place. Now we have caustic remarks that actually ring true (and read as medically dangerous to any sane consumer). Are we nitpicking? Sure! But that’s fitting for this circumstance, if not the expectation.
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Bottom line: Keller doesn’t understand haute cuisine and never will! Unfortunate reality upon we cannot dwell— let’s move on as now is the hour we choose to turn the other cheek and turn our hearts towards good taste and true fine dining; with the death knell tolling quite loudly from the valet boy’s perch; we must be the pallbearers to this overrated restaurant; it would be wise to dump the stuffed and poisoned body in the river considering we have a few to choose from!
And finally, the elegy: good taste is no longer at our disposal in Midwest, New York City (remember, heralded as ‘the savior’ of Manhattan) and its a day of mourning for all right-minded and upstanding citizens. Now enough dreaming, we must maintain our humanity. Carry on with a faux smile and a nod, “yes, it’s a good restaurant”, no matter how unwise this is financially. Let’s carry on with the fast-haute cuisine, where’s the drive-through? This is the state of Keller’s disastrous technique. Near future: see to it that the restaurant is destroyed.
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