Expectations for Graham Elliot

I have dined at nice restaurants before.  Graduations, birthdays, and anniversaries have provided opportunities for me to eat with my family at fancy, “formal dress only” eating establishments.  The food is almost always satisfying, though when I was younger I never paid much attention to that.  I was more focused on how I hated being required to dress up just to go out to eat.  It seemed presumptuous.  I always preferred causal dining.  Places that allowed me to wear flip flops and jeans and required no reservations.  As a twenty-year-old college student, the idea of getting dressed up for some find dining sounds like a lot of fun.  Of course now the price that goes with this type of eating is out of my range.  But these are the two categories of eating I’m used to, casual or the strict, back straight, no elbows on the table experience of gourmet food. 

Graham Elliot’s website says it hopes to “redefine what it means to be fine dining” by “doing away with the world of dress codes, white table cloths, elaborate floral displays, and tuxedoed servers.”  So this is the new “fine dining.” This is where the hip upper class goes out to eat.  It sounds like the type of atmosphere I could get into, a more casual setting but with the quality of food I expect from a high-class restaurant.  I imagine the prices are still about what you’d expect: expensive.   Meaning that normally, this is not a place I would consider.  Luckily, I do not have to front the bill this trip.  My father and brother are taking me out to eat. 

The food at Graham Elliot will probably not scare me as much as say, food from an authentic Vietnamese restaurant.  (I only use this example because after reading Anthony Bourdain’s book, A Cook’s Tour, Vietnamese food sounds delicious, though some of it also outside of my comfort zone.)  The menu at Graham Elliot includes things like roasted cod, heirloom duck, and even chicken noodle soup; things that wouldn’t exactly push the boundaries of what I consider palatable.  The atmosphere of the place, though what I’d consider ideal, also makes me a bit nervous.  It reminds me of Kenmare, the restaurant that Sam Sifton reviewed for the New York Times, only if the food was good.  I imagine the diners will be mostly groups of twenty-something-year-olds drinking cocktails and discussing politics (from a liberal viewpoint).  It seems like the type of place my friends and I would enjoy going to in a couple of years, if only we could afford it, yet I’m going out with my family.  I’m worried because I fit into the target audience for this type of eating, and yet I feel like an outsider, not used to this type of restaurant.  These are potential peers, and I want to impress.  So despite the no dress code rule, I find myself worrying about whether my black dress goes with what may or may not be stylish boots. 

That being said, I am very excited about the food.  I am looking forward to a great meal.