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by Tejal Rao
May 2007
Imagine a hotel fine dining room.
No, a modern
hotel dining room: soaring ceilings, clean lines, high-concept
design. In front of you there’s a bowl of Pad Thai, hot from
a well-seasoned wok, made with dried shrimp, tamarind concentrate,
pickled turnips – the works. Across the table there’s
a plate of assorted South Indian street food on a stainless steel
thali. Next to that there’s a plate of precisely cut sashimi
on an elevated wooden plank. What country are you in? What city?
Like riding in Disney’s terrifying It’s a Small World
boat, global dining offers it all in one go, without the hassle
of travel or the obstacle of language. Assuming that authenticity
matters in the first place, how much of the experience is truly
preserved when it’s imported and presented without context?
Is cosmopolitanism in the dining room in fact suburbanizing foreign
food culture? Pad Thai, Poppadums and a Mediterranean platter could
make the modern diner anxious. Who is this chef?
At first glance the concept seems to be the antithesis of chef-driven
restaurants where the chef’s personal story is told through
a progression of dishes. But what about when the chef’s story
is global? For James Wierzelewski, who cooked all over the world
(Malaysia, Micronesia, Thailand, France and Belgium), presenting
a multiplicity of culinary identities makes perfect sense. Global
dining is his personal story. While fusion seeks to incorporate
ingredients and technique into the local cuisine, global attempts
to bring the foreign dish to the local culture intact, in its original
form. Wierzelewski first developed the concept at Aria,
in Chicago’s Fairmont Hotel.
Since his departure, Noah
Bekofsky has taken over, personalized the global idea, and created
a menu of international comfort food: “Masaman style”
braised shanks, Pho consommé, bi bim bop, and risotto. The
restaurant’s motto “culturally inspired, comfortably
American,” oversimplifies Bekofsky’s driving philosophy:
there are basic elements (both ingredients and techniques) binding
comfort foods from one end of the world to the other.
Pho Consomme by Noah Bekofsky of Aria
in The Fairmont - Chicago, IL
More recently Wierzelewski consulted on another global
concept at Vix, in The Hotel Victor in Miami, which he
portmanteaus eat’ertainment. His concept is so well-thought
out it has a manifesto: “Eat’ertainment, Points of Differentiation.”
The first point echoes the title: dining out isn’t just about
the food. Dining out is about entertainment, which comes in many
forms, like the design of the menu and space, or the music. Plateware
is so important that plates are often sourced first and then a dish
is built around it. Authenticity is just one (actually, it’s
number 4) of the points. Vix’s kitchen team is international,
with chefs from France, Pakistan, and the Philippines. Number 5:
Flavor Palettes.
In accordance with the “palette theory,”
Wierzelewski’s menu is divided into 4 sections: The Mediterranean,
Asia, India and the Middle East, and Latin America. Guests order
from one of any palette for dishes that are authentic to that region,
or at least minimally manipulated from their classic form and presented
with a bit of flair. With growing consumer demand for entertainment
with their dinner, the trend towards global dining is a natural
development. Traveling families are happy because their children
are free to order what they want. Solo travelers can sit at an open
kitchen and watch a show. But as with any experience being sold
as authentic, there’s more at stake when it fails. Hotels
considering the food mall concept should keep in mind that not all
its satellites can be as well-executed as Vix, and when
the concepts fails, it’s as fun as Disney's audio-animatronics
boat ride.
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