Per se, per me

Friends, good morning from beautifully sunny New York City, from your good friend Sarah, who is STILL full from dinner on Friday night at per se.  I am going to tell you about per se, per me, because one of my restaurant friends was able to get us reservations after I told him, just as I tell all my chefs, to pick a spot he really wanted to try, so that I could check out Bucket List restaurants. 

 

Most of my chefs have blown off my dinner offers, for whatever reasons they have, which frustrates the hell out of me, because this is a generous offer on my part, and back home we all come together as Family as we share dining experiences.  I do not always understand this New York second guessing that every time someone is nice there is a moment of trying to figure out what their angle is and what they want from you.  Is this place that jaded that even the sweetest idea has to be tainted with even the question of motives?  Please, God, may I never take that part of New York into my personality, because that is the saddest thing about my time here. 

 

One of the biggest questions I struggle with here is:  how much happiness do New Yorkers miss because they are worried about what other people think?  It is the most sad thing I see here, and I see it often. 

 

That said, I think I am a fairly fantastic dinner companion, and I have an expense account that was purposefully set up for dinners just like these.  This dinner was one of the Must Do experiences of New York I have been waiting to have for years.  The problem is, I do not know enough people yet, in New York, who are excellent at the food scene, to go enjoy these things with and to have the kinds of conversations about presentation and nuance that make that whole dinner experience so personal and thrilling for me.  Cue Justin, my colleague, whom I will never, ever date or have any sort of affection with, but who is the most perfect, polished, dinner non-date a girl could hope for.

 

Justin manages the dining room at one of my favorite restaurants.  We did not know each other very well prior to this dinner, but we respected and appreciated each other’s restaurant knowledge.  At one point, when I was talking to one of my Chefs who gives me a lot of talk about ‘yes, we’ll have dinner’ and then never follows through, I turned to Justin and said, “Hey, would you be able to get me a reservation at per se, and if you do, do you want to go to dinner with me because I do not know many people here in NYC?  I’ll pick up the tab, I just need a dinner companion.”  Chef turned around pretty quickly, with that, saying, "Wait, you're going to per se?"  I nodded, impatiently, saying with my face, "Ah, yeah.  I wasn't kidding," while not saying any words.

 

I knew Justin and I would have a great experience when he replied, “Absolutely!  It’s on my Bucket List, too!”  And voila, he got us a reservation at a perfect time on a Friday night, and I met him at per se after a date with a hedge fund manager.  Justin is easy to have dinner with, a pleasure to have dinner with, because there is no date-ish tension---we’re not Friends like that, but he knows how to be a Man (with a capital M) at dinner with a woman who wants to be looked after, and he made sure I had the dinner I hoped for. 

 

We are comfortable dinner companions, and we eat/experience restaurants---excellent restaurants-- the same way: try it all, ALL of it, and be fully aware and grateful for the experience of the décor, the wine, the grain of the wood, the Cristofle accoutrements that held the salt selection, the wine bottles, the macaroons. 

 

 

I think Justin, who has never quite seen me as sometimes bigger than life Sarah In The Dining Room form, was surprised at how comfortable I immediately was with the front of house staff and how open I am about how I feel and what I think.  I am not a typical diner, I am Sarah, and I am ridiculous while polished, charming while pushing the boundaries of how close I can get with the restaurant staff to see how much they want to be part of the whole experience.  I love a restaurant that realizes I am not a stuffy guest but a guest who is in on both the perfection of the experience as well as the warm relationships one can have with special places:  incredibly grateful for and in tune with and aware of their perfect service, perfect menu, and all the hard work put in, but I am also just Sarah, a girl who is comfortable with her imperfect self and will talk to them, bring them into my world, immediately, like people I love best.  In restaurants, if you are Family, you have a different rapport, immediately, and I had that here.  That team, and that dinner, and those Chefs, gave me one of the very best dining experiences of my life.  I miss home. I miss being connected to people, and I needed that and had that there, that night, and I will always be grateful.

 

There is a unique intimacy, in dinners like these, between appreciative diners and front of the house staff and Chefs that is not sexual, is not about love yet still has a sweet affection, and is about deep connection and appreciation and something I never can explain in words but only gestures and facial expressions of joy and togetherness and words and phrases that combine multiple languages.  The best way to describe it is something I said to Justin, (to his shock, which is fantastic, because he sees and hears it all in his job, and I love it that I shocked him).  Over the truffle tart with cauliflower crème and puff pastry, which we split, (since we tried every single upgrade option on the menu along with the other choices, in order to try them all,) I took this perfect last bite of my half, then pointed my fork at him and said, “You and I will never, ever be intimate, but sharing this dish honest to God is about the closest we will get.”  And we laughed about it, because that is a ridiculous thing to say that is not polished or professional, but I can say it, because I am Sarah, and I tell the truth, and he knew exactly what I meant.  This is how dinners with people who understand food are.  If you do not understand the experience of dining, you miss the whole point of the joke and the actual reality behind it.

 

 

 

 

Can I just tell you how nice it is to have male Friends to joke with like that in my life again? I miss that so much about back home---the ease of which my man Friends and I can have dinner with zero expectation of affection—because that is not the intent or fit in our Friendship, but still have a perfect non-date?  I love having dinner with my girlfriends, but that is a different experience, and I miss my man Friends, so much, because there is a different sweetness in Friendships between men and women, and I need both my excellent girlfriends and I need my man Friends, too. I do not have many in New York yet, though I am doing my part.

 

Having dinner at per se with Justin is equivalent to going to a gallery with someone who is an art curator---he gets it.  I do not have to explain the difference between coriander and parsley, Hawaiian red salts versus fleur se sel and which goes better with foie gras.  We both understood that this dinner was special, and this dinner was meant to try as much as possible, for the experience, not just for sustenance.  In other words, he was the best non-date for dinner I could ask for, and we did it UP that night.  Here are some of the courses that we had, along with the views of the fireplace, the dining room, and the staff.

 

 

 Here is Francis with the selection of petit fours / mignardises....which they boxed up for us at the end of the meal, to take home.

 

 

Per se is sheer elegance, from design to front of the house dining team manners and phrases to the execution of the food.  I love per se not just because of the food, but because they truly understand Flow.  This place had a fire within a month or so of opening, and this gave them the chance to redesign and tweak Kitchen walkways and passages of dirty dishes between Chefs and Porters (New York’s fancy word for dishwashers).  They set up individual blast freezers and coolers, warming ‘drawers’ (cabinets), a separate Kitchen specifically for Private Dining, and multiple offices for Chef and the teams who manage the entire operation.  One of the most lovely parts of the night was the private tour they gave us of the Kitchen.  There were no rules about pictures. There were no odd, tightly-controlled PR boundaries and corporate here’s-how-you-must-portray-us expectations in place.  They have confidence in themselves, and they let me be as happy as a kid meeting Santa as I met those Chefs and toured that Kitchen, taking pictures.  I felt a trust from them that let me feel like part of the team, part of the intimate experience that, for me, is Family.  This Kitchen is special, is remarkable in its design, which I go on about for hours as I compare it to tweaks we need to make to surgical operating rooms.  It is not just the building, the stainless steel and tile, but also its people, who were warm and kind and non-pretentious in their excellence and their welcoming me to be exactly myself.  That self of mine, of course, is one that takes pictures, which I will share with you here.

 

Note the first ticket, the autograph section of the wall from Chef we all look up to as one of the best Chefs, ever. 

 

 

Note the cookbook collection from Chef Eli, which almost matches mine (though he puts his to much better use, ahem).

 

 

Note the thoughtful and immaculate dry storage, side pastry and prep kitchens and the peppers drying on string, just like I do at home. 

 

Note the private dining Kitchens and the ease of flow for people walking not just between the noisy Kitchen, in transition to the tranquility of the dining room, (a purposeful, psychological design factor—bravo!) but also the Flow of the Kitchen, which is open and circular, always, for ease of traffic and connectivity between all of the roles of the Kitchen, from Chef to chefs, to cooks to porters.  Brilliant.

 

We had an incredible table with a view of Columbus Circle and the fireplace.  They could have put us up in the back, but no, they treated us like Family, like special guests, and it felt like we were, because we truly were warmly welcomed, with no New York bullshit posturing included on the side.  It was real, it was warm, it was silly and affectionately connected with the Kitchen, and it was a perfect set of courses and wine.

 

 

 

I had the best dinner of my life that night at per se.  I will forever be grateful for this experience, this restaurant, and to Justin for securing the reservation and just letting me be myself, my Sarah self, with the dining and Kitchen teams, and for being a charming, thoughtful Friend who made me feel more at home, here, finally.  This is exactly what I hoped for and needed, and I will happily remember this story, this experience, always, as not just larger than life (which it was), but also with quietly intentional warmth and welcome, care and thought, respect and appreciation. Mostly, though, it reminded me of home, which puts a lump in my throat today as I miss my Friends back home, who I always have these dinners with, terribly, so very much, even as I love New York.  I will find my place here, I will settle in, and I am settling in, but some days, it is just nice to be taken care of, and I was.

 

Wishing you all the chance to figure out what makes you feel most at home, and then the chance to go and have it.  We all need it, whether it is per se or our Kitchens back home, and I am happy you could be part of this story of mine, thanks to Justin and this lovely team at this perfect, perfect restaurant.

 

With lots of love from New York, soon to be Brussels, Belgium,

Your Good Friend Sarah