The Dude over at PortlandFoodandDrink.com likes to pile on Michael Hebberoy, he of ripe/Gotham/clarklewis infamy, and who can blame him? It’s low hanging fruit. I take Schadenfreudian pleasure in reading his posts regarding boy wonder (here, here and here). Partly because I’m a dick, but also because it’s still fairly entertaining. To draw a parallel: tonight I watched the puffy shirt episode of Seinfeld for the sixth time.
Anyhow, a fellow blogger took umbrage with one post in comments.
…the amount of negative attention that you focus on Michael Hebberoy is a little sad. Don’t you have someone else to focus on, or is the food scene in Portland really that small and pathetic that the antics of one ex-restaurateur are blog fodder for months? Maybe you got personally burned by Hebberoy and that’s where the vendetta comes from, but the name-calling and childish “nyah-nyah”-ing really detract from the credibility of what is otherwise a decent blog.
Later, she expounds, “I guess I don’t know enough about the Portland food scene to be ragging on you guys for harping on one man. Could the swath of destruction he left really be *that* bad??? I met the guy and really found him to be a food-revolutionary.”
To my discredit, I’ve never eaten at ripe, Gotham, or clarklewis. The latter I might still venture to in the near future, if it’s still around and I’m not feeling too self-conscious. I’ve heard good things about the food at all the aforementioned places. But “food-revolutionary”? Having a few dozen people over to your house for a dinner party is not revolutionary. If you are asking them to pay, it’s a business, you know, like a restaurant. If you think people should be grateful for the opportunity to pay good money to eat at your house, you’re an egomaniac.
“Killing” the restaurant is not revolutionary — it’s delusional. Like as if I claimed I’m subverting and reinventing journalism with my piddly keystrokes on this lame blog. It takes plenty of cocaine and stiff cocktails, while locked in a bathroom for extended periods with your closest admirers, for anyone to foment that sort of delusional hubris.
The conscious omission of capitalization is not revolutionary unless you’re E. E. Cummings. And having a “writer-in-residence”? That’s not revolutionary — merely whimsical. And to me makes as much sense as a Nascar pit crew employing a poet laureate, or a street magician needing an accountant.
Revolutionary? Fire. The cultivation of crops. Pasteurization. Food revolutions are epochal. 80,000 B.C. 8,000 B.C. 1862 A.D. Even taking into account the entropic evolution towards singularity, we still aren’t due for another food revolution for a few more years. Give me a ring in the year 2050 when organic, nano-robotic spores successfully spawn a chateaubriand in a laboratory vat.
Helping to cook and organize a meal for Kylie Minogue’s cousin and Norman Mailer’s butler doesn’t make you a revolutionary — it makes you a caterer. And I’m sorry, but catering is not revolutionary. It’s a profession, and, when done well, a craft.
Feh.
a) I think you overstate what it takes for a “revolution”. Fast food was a revolution. The return towards slow food is a minor revolution as is the rise of local/sustainable/organic. I’m not sure if you mean to exaggerate for effect or you really mean it.
So b) the supper club is a minor revolution, too. Places like Ripe, Plate & Pitchfork, and Simpatica are redefining the restaurant or at least what a restaurant can be. Some revolutions succeed and some fail. We’ll see where this goes. I tend to think it will remain a minor part of the restaurant scene but will influence restaurants.
Every foodie in Portland now knows that Michael Hebb(eroy) was/is a putz. I have talked to an investor in Gotham who said he was very upfront and honest with him the whole time and doesn’t hold anything against him because he knew going in that it was a gamble. But all indications are the guy is a self-absorbed a-hole. So what. I agree that it’s eye-glazingly boring and while who cares if some blogger blabs unendingly about it, I hope it doesn’t take up the limited column inches of the local paper press. It’s not like the guy is trying to make a go here again. He’s off in Seattle. Let them worry about it.
And you really did miss out not having their food. While they may not have been the best business people, they seemed to know how to spot talent and were able to hire it. I’m glad to see that the people they brought in and have decided to stay and are all getting places to make their own (Meriwethers, Le Pigeon, Lovely Hula Hands).
You know what was revolutionary?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kikunae_Ikeda
Can’t argue with that.
you want revolutionary? put umami in a cocktail. let me drink the libations of the gods of Olympus with the ‘essence of flavor’ (check raw tape of the original Iron Chef and all the variations on ‘essence’ and ‘essence of flavor’ are “umami”). Ok, not really. Hera, Zeus and Artemis weren’t down with tamari in their ambrosia.
I met the dude a time or two. He wasn’t revolutionary; he was a relatively sharp marketing guy with chef friends. the guy couldn’t/can’t cook, he was simply exploiting the ‘in-crowd’ method of marketing in a small town that has enough denizens who desperately want to believe it’s a big city (or make it so). ‘in-crowd’ marketing has made smart people millions in larger markets, and for a short time, Hebs was damn close to pulling it off here. All big splashes in the restaurant world boil down to well marketed talent. To be perfectly honest with ourselves, you don’t really need good talent, just good marketing. (c.f. Rocco DiSpirito, inter alia)
>>Hera, Zeus and Artemis weren’t down with tamari in their ambrosia.
They may not have been down with tamari, but they did have liquamen — or its Greek form. You know all those sacrificed sheep had to be seasoned with something.
>> All big splashes in the restaurant world boil down to well marketed talent. To be perfectly honest with ourselves, you don’t really need good talent, just good marketing. (c.f. Rocco DiSpirito, inter alia)
In that case, it was a talented guy who’s head got too big for his sweater hole and thus he couldn’t see what the fuck he was doing to himself. By most accounts, when he actually cooked, it was good. He (perhaps like Hebb) was more interested in schmoozing, however, than producing good food.
That said, again, the guy hired talent. Just because Auerbach couldn’t shoot like Bird or block shots like Russell doesn’t mean that he didn’t have a part in producing the winningest team in history. And GBT, Ripe, and CL served winning food. The problems seem to be more with business sense than food quality. That’s the element you forgot. There are three: marketing, talent, and business acumen. The latter seems to be where they were lacking.
hee, hee. I’m afraid I had a hearty chuckle at the stiff drinks and locking yourself in the bathroom with your closest admirers comment. I’m still standing up for Hebb, though.