Yes, we did get a new look - thanks for noticing! 😎
I also got to thinking...we're going to experiment with omitting the long "monologue" at the beginning of these newsletters for a few weeks.
Reason being: including a 1,500-3,000 word "article slash blog post" at the start of your newsletter causes a few problems:
It's a pretty big obligation to write one of those every single week (and sometimes I'll miss pressing publish because the quality isn't there yet on the piece I'm writing)
It's a bit of a missed opportunity to have all that writing isolated to a newsletter and not available to the future, wider internet
It's not really respective of your time if your favorite part of these newsletters is the news section down below and you need to scroll through a big "wall of text" to get to what you want
So, as with most things in life, I asked myself: "Is there a way to turn this into an AND instead of an OR?"
Which brings me to: I'm excited to announce Repertoire's blog launch! 🎉
We've got 10+ posts there, including some reader-favorites from the past 10-15 issues of this newsletter.
Don't worry, that doesn't mean the writing is going to stop. You'll just find us sharing pieces we've published further down in this newsletter in one of the other sections whenever they're ready.
Speaking of other sections...
💥 Worth Your Attention
Asia's "50 Best Restaurants" just dropped
...and a 🇬🇧 British guy cooking 🇫🇷French food in 🇯🇵Tokyo claimed the top spot
Our Take: Acknowledging my bias here...Chef Daniel Calvert was my sous chef at Per Se (and one of my first career mentors), so I'm celebrating his success with Sézanne's #1 achievement today 🎉
This is a 9-year "overnight success" for Danny. He's been cooking French food in Asia since his time at Belon in 2016 in Hong Kong.
Instead of competing with other French restaurants in London, New York, San Francisco or Paris, he took his skillset to a place where he could stand out and win.
But beyond Sézanne's rise, what struck me the most about digging into the stats of this year's list was the French-focused lean that's consuming the list.
This is in contrast to the fact that, for the past 3 years, the #1 spot was claimed by restaurants rooted in Asian cuisines.
French-focused spots were certainly represented in the top 10, but didn't achieve #1:
2021 had 3 (Florilège, La Cime, Odette), with #1 being The Chairman (Cantonese cuisine)
2022 had 4 (Florilège, La Cime, Odette, Neighborhood), giving #1 to Den (Japanese cuisine)
2023 had 4 (Florilège, La Cime, Odette, Sézanne), awarding #1 to Le Du (Thai cuisine)
This year, 5 of the top 10 restaurants, including the top spot, claim to be French in some capacity.
Don't get it twisted - I'm not upset about this.
Having eaten at Sézanne 10 months ago, Chef Calvert is sourcing some of the best product in Japan and treating it with an incredible amount of respect and technique.
Plus, at this level of restaurant, quality of service and atmosphere become incredibly paramount. Who does beautiful dining rooms and elegant service style better than the French?
I'm also attempting to "read between the lines" here on how these lists get built. Think about it:
Voters from World's 50 Best have to actually eat at a restaurant in order to rank it (at least we hope they do).
A large swath of restaurants in Asia are just too small, too limited in their service schedules (dinner only, or closed for 1-3 months of the year), or are intentionally too exclusive (you have to literally book through contacting the chef/owner) to make it reasonable for a critical mass of guests to eat there.
Certain French-focused restaurants, with their large and opulent dining rooms, don't struggle with the same capacity issues that an 8-seat kaiseki counter does.
Sézanne, as an example, is open for both lunch and dinner, and has nearly 40 seats in their dining room (don't quote me on those numbers, I'm just racking my memory from when I ate there).
If a voter for World's 50 Best gets recommended a restaurant because of how amazing it is, but can't snag a seat, it's by-definition not getting included on the list.
Even as I write this, on the day of receiving this award, Sézanne still has tables I can book in the month of April.
More seats (and more access) leads to more guests, which leads to more word of mouth, which spins the flywheel even harder.
And listen, I'm speaking in the context of this year's list.
Not everyone wants (or cares about) recognition from S. Pellegrino, OR scale in their business. I actually think it'd be horrible to see all fine dining experiences in Asia suddenly lean French or the elimination of small tasting counters.
I'm only attempting to analyze "how this happened", the incentives at play, and acknowledge that it's a trend I'm observing. Because it's not all upside.
We've seen what a "hug of death" this type of recognition might bring.
If you want to "keep things small" and lean more towards the invite-only reservations that certain Japanese restaurants prioritize, more power to you.
But if you want a spot on the world stage and to build a substantial business, Sézanne's team is showing how it's done right now.
My prediction? Sézanne gets 3 Michelin stars this year - I said it after my meal there, but this latest recognition makes it all the more likely 😉
What do you think about this news?
Tracking Guest Spending and What to Do About It
With foodservice businesses slated to reach $1 trillion in sales in 2024, SevenRooms has raised $70m to take a bite of that.
Our Take: The evolution of tech tools for restaurants is outlined in a really interesting way in this article, but what's most worth digging into, IMO, is the needle that SevenRooms has threaded here.
Here's the problem-set that most "tech tools for restaurants" grapple with:
Make the tool too "surface-level" or as a uni-tasker for a business, and they aren't able to actually leverage it (or a competitor comes along and gobbles up users).
If SevenRooms was too silo'd and didn't integrate with other tools (Google, FB/IG, Yelp, etc.), it wouldn't actually bring new customers to the restaurant (a report from SevenRooms shares that 33% of diners are using Google to discover new restaurants).
Make it too "front facing" and restaurants feel like they aren't actually forming a relationship with the guest.
If it's too hard to understand or not user friendly, guests get frustrated and don't want to use it.
This opportunity has been sitting in the laps of companies like OpenTable, Resy, Tock and others for YEARS, and no one has managed to nail what's being claimed in this article. Even newcomers like Blackbird have entered the arena, but haven't quite hit it big yet.
SevenRooms is apparently able to offer:
Reservations
Tracking loyalty
Profiles for guests
Collecting reviews
Marketing
Real-time financial AND service analytics
Integration with other tools
Private messaging with guests
Not making the guests the "product" by selling their data
The execution of both providing massive value and being willing to play-well-with-others is what's making this growth and success possible.
Do any of you folks use SevenRooms in your business? Is it all that it's hyped up to be? What's your favorite feature or use case that you're leveraging?
"Life disproportionately rewards the people who operate on the longer timeframe." -Mark Manson
Six guests will enjoy a six-hour, multi-course meal above 99% of Earth's atmosphere on the world's first carbon-neutral spaceship. Yeah, it also includes custom made outfits for the experience, and Food & Wine has reported the cost to be $495,000/person.
I gotta admit, my eyes will often gloss over whenever someone's trying to explain carbon lattice structures and steel hardness, but this Veritasium video does a phenomenal job of explaining this in a way that made me walk away with a better understanding of blades.
It combines an espresso shot with a pour-over to serve after the tasting menu. The problem it solves? "An espresso, with all its intensity might be delicious, but in the context of palette fatigue feels too aggressive. Equally, a filter coffee felt perhaps a bit thin."
What's your go-to coffee order right now? ☕
Question of the day! To share your answer, hit reply...we just wanna get to know you folks better, and we read every response!
JB Prince is doing 30% off all Grey Kunz spoons right now, if you're into them. They show up as full price on the site but you gotta use Kunz30 at checkout to get the discount...
Free Skill Exercises: Struggling for how to improve and the "just go faster" advice not doing it for you? Discover the structured approach to progressive overload across skills like knife skills and plating to track your progress!
Total Station Domination: Get the proven program for how to prepare, perform and problem solve in professional kitchens. It's lessons from Michelin training, emulsified with habits and skills you can use ASAP on your station. Get your Station Score to see where you could improve!
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