Francois Simon is the influential restaurant critic for Le Figaro and a writer perennially irritated by the complacency of the French culinary establishment. Recently Simon visited the US expecting to return home with a glowing report on the American dining scene. Instead, he flew back to Paris with a distinctly bitter taste in his mouth. He ate at New York's three most acclaimed restaurants, Le Bernardin, Daniel and Per Se, and all three meals fell substantially short of expectations. "There were some good things, but nothing that was really fantastic," he says. "There was something missing."
Simon experienced an even ruder shock driving from Chicago to Los Angeles via the famed Route 66. The story he had hoped to write after several weeks spent eating his way from coast to coast was not the one he ended up writing. "I'd wanted to be able to report that the US is getting better and better as food goes and to tell the French we're not always the best. It was so disappointing to not be able to say that."
Simon, of course, is just one man with an opinion, and his opinion is certainly at odds with the prevailing wisdom in the US, where a self-congratulatory tone permeates the discussion of high-end cooking nowadays. Many chefs, restaurateurs and critics say Americans are eating better than ever, US restaurants are better than ever, and the culinary centre of gravity is shifting inexorably in America's direction. It is true that for sheer diversity of fare - both ethnic and regional - there is no better place to pick up a knife and fork than the US. But can a country in which probably 95 per cent of the population eats merely to live and has no appreciation of food beyond its ability to satiate the appetite truly be considered a great-food nation?
In France, Italy, and Spain, food is a matter of cultural pride, connoisseurship is regarded as a virtue, and mealtime is seen as more than just a pit stop. Clearly, the same cannot be said of the US. "The vast majority of Americans have no relationship to food that is pleasurable, healthful, or responsible," says Alice Waters, the owner of Berkeley's legendary Chez Panisse and a woman who can justly be described as the doyenne of American Epicureanism.
Certainly, there are pockets of enlightened eating, but even these leave something to be desired. New York is unquestionably one of the world's finest food cities - in its own way, perhaps even the best. No city does more cuisines with greater aplomb than New York. On the other hand, New York is home to exactly one world-class cheese shop (Murray's, in Greenwich Village). A first-rate patisserie? Forget it. A decent bakery? Perhaps one or two. A noteworthy traiteur? There are a number of excellent Jewish and Italian delicatessens but as prepared foods go, New York is a wasteland when compared not only to Paris but to London and Rome as well.
It is not a wasteland as restaurants go. In general, the US dining scene has never been more vibrant. But nor has it ever been the object of quite so much hoopla. Last year, Gourmet magazine ran a cover story proclaiming chefs to be the new rock stars, and placed on its cover a photo of five well-known chefs vamping it up like members of a band and using kitchen equipment as mock instruments.
The same kind of adulation is regularly on display in other US culinary magazines and newspapers. Everywhere, it is the same seductive storyline: haute cuisine is dying in France, and along with the Spaniards, it is us, Americans, unburdened by tradition and always receptive to new ingredients and new ideas, who now have all the energy and creativity at the stove.
But Waters believes the hype has got a bit ahead of reality. "This idea that we have somehow developed a cuisine here is a little presumptuous," she says. "We are still learning. We're out of kindergarten, and no longer just painting in primary colours; we are now seeing some of the shades. But it takes centuries to develop a cuisine."
Whether all the hype has had a corrosive influence is a debatable point. Recent visits to celebrated New York restaurants have been decidedly unmemorable. None of the meals were bad, but the kitchens all seemed to have been on autopilot. Perhaps the bosses were absent; rare is the top US chef these days who is not juggling multiple restaurants and side ventures. A few have managed to build empires without sacrificing quality - Wolfgang Puck and Mario Batali spring to mind - but they are the exceptions. Three of New York's most acclaimed chefs, Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Charlie Palmer and Rocco DiSpirito, have all spread themselves far and wide in recent years, and there is not much doubt that the quality of their work has, to varying degrees, suffered as a result.
None of this is meant to suggest that the US is destined never to become a gastronomic superpower; Simon, Waters and Andrews all believe that the US is more than capable of achieving that lofty status. Perhaps the most hopeful sign is the growing prevalence and popularity of farmers' markets. Ed Behr, editor of The Art of Eating, a quarterly newsletter devoted to food and wine, says one reason French cuisine reached the heights it did is because chefs and housewives bought fruits and vegetables directly from farmers, and that this daily interplay resulted in better and better produce, which resulted in better and better food on the table.
This kind of "steady dialogue", as Behr puts it, is now being established in the US, which augurs very well for the future of American cooking.
Waters agrees, and she offers an encouraging anecdote. Twenty-five years ago, she used to return from France bearing seeds for lettuces and tomatoes; these days, she brings the seeds to France. "We have some real food here now," she says.
