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Looking at the roster of restaurants that opened in New York last week, you could draw two conclusions. One, entrepreneurs continue to ignore reason and solvency in order to take a shot at culinary glory (or, at the very least, mediocrity). And two, one-trick ponies—places that specialize in one dish, albeit with multiple variations—aren’t going away.
Late last week I learned that Little Muenster will soon bring “Super Fancy Grilled Cheese” to the Lower East Side; Tommy Lasagna, “the ultimate lasagna destination,” has started slinging its eponymous pasta, tricked out with ingredients like lobster and black truffles; and the Meatball Factory served its first dinner to mixed reviews.
The Meatball Factory is located 15 blocks north of the Meatball Shop (“we make balls”), which in turn happens to be one block away from Little Muenster. It's merely the latest in a long line of New York grilled cheese places, taking a "We Are the World" view of the sandwich, tarting it up with ingredients like cumin seeds, candied ginger, sweet corn purée, and sage brown butter.
The slew of one-trick ponies trotted out across New York and beyond share Little Muenster’s MO, which you could call the 31 Flavors approach: Take a comfort/nostalgia food and offer between 12 and 48 variations. One of the most notable recent offenders is Brooklyn’s Empire Mayonnaise Co., which peddles 40 different flavors of emulsified egg yolks.
None of these places represents a new trend, exactly. You could argue that the one-trick ponies first escaped the paddock in the early days of cupcake mania, when every week seemed to bring another New York storefront smudged with pastel buttercream. Observers have pointed to the crap economy as the progenitor of the latest herd. Americans are broke and want comfort, the logic goes, gravitating toward places selling anything remotely redolent of Mom’s kitchen and caloric oblivion.
But people have always been drawn to romanticizing the foods of childhood. No surprise that the same kids who grew up eating Kraft mac ‘n’ cheese, hanging out at mall food courts where “restaurants” were a series of cuisine-specific counters, are the same ones now selling nothing but meatballs, dumplings, or mac 'n' cheese.
The website of Homeroom, a mac 'n' cheese restaurant in Oakland, California, underscores both the lingering pull of childhood and the urge to elevate the food that accompanied it. Besides the requisite cheese and carbs, Homeroom’s “About” section says, “We also carry nostalgic treats like homemade oreos and peanut butter pie.” And its “Classic” mac 'n' cheese is an “extra cheesy remake of the all-cheddar mac you ate as a kid.”
The rise of mac ‘n’ cheese cafes and all-mayonnaise shops dovetails not only with the rise of haute stoner food but also the latest Internet bubble. One CHOW editor calls the grilled cheese sandwich the tech industry’s fooseball table, adding that it has become symbolic of “the infantile, devil-may-care young programmer culture.”
Critics, of course, charge that infantile foods (even those tricked out with Iberico ham and black truffles) are less a triumph of ingenuity than a sign of challenged ambition. Does lasagne really cry out to be embellished with lobster and sherry sauce? Maybe not, but you can’t deny the continued appeal of such a thing.
Each generation of chefs reinterprets seminal food memories. Perhaps this generation’s one-trick ponies signal not so much a lack of personal ambition as the extent to which fast food and processed ingredients have remade American culture. The Meatball Shop’s balls may be to Quiznos as silk is to rayon, but unsheathing a greasy hero from its wrapper will always offer a thrill, whether the sandwich that emerges is fancy or not.
That thrill isn’t likely to fade anytime soon. What will, I hope, is the level of pretentiousness that accompanies each new attempt to pair melted dairy with the entirety of one’s spice cabinet. How many ways can you tart up a grilled cheese before descending into self-parody? Given the way things are going, we’re sure to find out sooner than later.
Image source: Sandwich from Gorilla Cheese NYC by Flickr member rachelkramerbussel.com under Creative Commons
I think it's kinda cool. I love all food, high and low. But I love quality and imagination. Without a cook is no where. From my humble galley kitchen to the best restaurants in the land. Quality, creativity, innovation and being able to think on the fly are awesome. I don't get why you are pooh-poohing it.
"You could argue that the one-trick ponies first escaped the paddock in the early days of cupcake mania"
Uh, what about pizzerias? Doughnut shops? Hotdog stands? Chocolatiers? Bakeries? Ramen-ya? I'm pretty sure these all pre-date the cupcake craze by several decades.
expensive nonsense aside, i'm glad the workaday expertise of dumpling spots, pho restaurants (my favorite one-trick thing), burger joints, pizzerias, and falafel places exists
One dish restaurants are just silly to me. What I would like to see, however, are more non-chain restaurants like the wildly popular place I remember in Georgetown D.C. Two entrees each night consisting of chicken cooked over an open grill and a handful of others that cycled through the week. Three vegetables, always the same. Two desserts, always the same. Wine and beer, wide selection....+READ
One dish restaurants are just silly to me. What I would like to see, however, are more non-chain restaurants like the wildly popular place I remember in Georgetown D.C. Two entrees each night consisting of chicken cooked over an open grill and a handful of others that cycled through the week. Three vegetables, always the same. Two desserts, always the same. Wine and beer, wide selection. Everything was done to perfection, which would be in sharp contrasts to the Cheesecake Factories of the world, whose menus should be published in volumes, like the Encyclopaedia Britannica.-COLLAPSE
Food specialization isn't exactly new. In fact it was basically innovated in the USA. Just look at In-N-Out. They basically make just one thing and do it well. Same thing with pizza and hot dog places. Places that do just a few things but do them well should be the standard.
At last, it's time for me to launch my all-meatloaf concept.
luv this concept..aslong as it's quality!
MoGa, thank you for reminding me about Koya, visited there on a trip to the UK last Summer. Aside from my total inability to use chopsticks (to the staff's amusement I might add)the food was great.
It's a shame that one dish restaurants seem to exclusively conjure up the notion of high calorie comfort foods in NYC. I was expecting a different slant to this article. With restaurants in London now starting to offer a single speciality dish (my favourite example is Koya which offers udon fine enough to have few rivals for quality in Tokyo) my hope is that there will be more. 'One-trick ponies'...+READ
It's a shame that one dish restaurants seem to exclusively conjure up the notion of high calorie comfort foods in NYC. I was expecting a different slant to this article. With restaurants in London now starting to offer a single speciality dish (my favourite example is Koya which offers udon fine enough to have few rivals for quality in Tokyo) my hope is that there will be more. 'One-trick ponies' thrive in East Asia and many of these offer some of the finest gastronomic experiences known to man - and at an affordable price. In Spain there are the arrocerias and places that only serve Manchego style gazpachos amongst other regional delights, again, some of the world's great dining experiences and accessible to all (although you might need a car to get to some of the best).
Not sure why this article is fixating on somewhere like Little Muenster whilst ignoring what must be a slew of other places with exclusive menus such as Sobakoh.-COLLAPSE
good lord- I guess living in a relative culinary backwater has some advantages.