Is everybody getting their food on time, I wondered. Everyone was so
damned calm and collected in here that maybe it's chaos outside, a herd
of pissed-off diners glaring silently at their waiters and wondering where
their chow is—waiting for that made-to-order risotto so the rest of the
order can come up. I decided to see.
No such luck. Outside, the dining room was as relaxed as the kitchen,
nothing but happy faces, lingering over appetizers, sipping wine,
expressions those of anticipating first-time lovers who just know they're
going to be good together. The bar was packed with monomaniacal wine
aficionados, pouring over the 1,400-strong wine list like Talmudic
scholars—beakers, glasses, decanters laid out in front of them making
them look like well-dressed Dr Frankensteins. They had a lot to ponder.
The Veritas list is an imposing volume with a very reasonable range of
wines from 18 to 25,000 dollars. I asked the bartender, hopefully, if any
of these wine wonks ever got into it over the relative merits of say, Cotes
du Rhone vs. Bordeaux, or '95 or '98? "Anybody ever take a poke at
another guy, duke it out over grape varieties? Drunken brawls over
topsoil, irrigation, drink now or drink later?"
Nope. All is calm. Pleasure rules.
Listening to the customers talking seriously, really seriously about wine,
I find yet another reason why Scott is a three-star chef and I'm not: I
know almost nothing about wine.
I am not immune to the charms of wine. I've lived around it, enjoyed it,
cooked with it all my life. I am not entirely ignorant on the subject, nor
am I dismissive of its importance. I still remember vividly, heading off
to the vintner in Bordeaux with my Oncle Gustav, to get our empty
bottles refilled with vin ordinaire from those giant casks. I can tell the
difference between good wine, bad wine and great wine. I have a pretty
good working knowledge of the wine-producing regions of France and
Italy. I am vaguely aware that California seems to produce drinkable