Yes, $350. Just went. Worth it. Every dime, every time…
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Shapiro says “composed food and beverage.” Took that to mean knowledge of composed plates and separately of wine/pairings.
I have had a decent Clairette blanc at Tercero in the Santa Barbara region. Later drank it with oysters.
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Umm, J. Gold.
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The Clairette Blanche was most likely from Tablas Creek, which is not a winery that makes wines I expect to enjoy.
My pairing experiences have mostly been excellent, though I wouldn’t book a top-price meal at a restaurant without a first-rate wine list.
By my definition a restaurant that has bad pairings isn’t in the running for best in town let alone the world.
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The current $328 includes service charge and tax? Or just service charge?
Addison gave it restaurant of the year in May 2021, which is to say restaurant of the plague year. Michelin gave it one star, low for a prix-fixe tasting menu. Both reflected the then-price of $159. If you go to a restaurant based on reviews from when it was half the current price, don’t blame the reviewers.
Tercero is a SB winery that makes CB. What is it don’t you like about Tablas?
The review said “natural” wine so not Tercero.
Nothing particular, just so far as I can remember I’ve disliked every one of their wines that I’ve had.
Sorry, I was referring to DTLAeater’s comment re: Tercero. The Tablas CB is not skin fermented.
Liking wine doesn’t make you a wine connoisseur. This is not disparaging Gold, but his knowledge of wine was casual but he enjoyed it. Bill also enjoys wine.
you can have a first rate wine list and have a terrible wine pairing program. They don’t go hand in hand.
Also one man’s excellent is another man’s ehhhh when it comes to wine preference
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I happen to have known Jonathan and had dinner several times with him. Your statement is misguided.
I have also had dinner with him several times and shared/talked wine with him. But everyone’s baseline of what comprises as deep wine knowledge is different. This is mostly in context of max’s complaint and his own baseline (which skews higher than most enthusiasts).
This just further pushes my point that you can be a great food critic without having to be a big time wine connoisseur like was originally suggested in the critique of bill addison
Impossible to say without actually asking Max what level of wine knowledge he’s expecting Bill Addison to have. But not sure you really need a deep knowledge of wine to know the pairings provided by Phenakite were lower-end wines and perhaps not fitting with what they were charging (which was what, for the wine pairing?). Max’s also seems to take issue with the lack of European wines…though my palate leans that way as well, there are plenty of USA wines that appeal to that type of palate that are wonderful in their own right, if not perfect substitutes.
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Max’s complaint that the wines all cost under $20 wholesale is of a piece with his “no luxury ingredients.”
Though going in with a chip on his shoulder could be irrelevant if the food was bad.
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Max talks about his dinner at Phenakite. It starts at around 25 mins.
“Everyone was either okay or bad or really bad.”
“Bill is irresponsible. He has poor taste.”
As a critic, Max is unprofessional, which is fine, since he’s an amateur. Addison surely got better food. As for taste, Max is effete, spoiled, prone to overrating status signifiers. I presume he’s nouveau-riche.
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He gets to be “unprofessional” (not even sure what you mean by that) because he is not… professional. And I appreciate that he is actually critiquing restaurants.
What are examples of him preferring “status signifiers”? I have listened to him a lot on the pod and read his IG reviews and don’t think this is the case. He seems to like upscale, composed dinners—but not “status signifiers”. One example from a current story of his about Addison (the SD restaurant): he says that he is over A5 wagyu.
Also, as far as I know, he is daddy-riche—not nouveau-riche.
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I very much appreciate that he explains why he thinks a dish work or doesn’t work for him. To me, that’s much more informative than professional critics waxing poetics about every restaurant they write about.
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His father founded the real estate agency where he works, so I guess he’s second-generation nouveau-riche. Not that there’s anything wrong with that so long as you’re not smug about it or clueless about how it affects your perspective.
Wasn’t the criticism of the wines being cheap because they were part of an expensive wine pairing at a restaurant that was billed as fine dining and at the top of some “best” list?
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