Is the Food at Restaurant A Art?

Restaurant A is the latest venture by chef Alain Huang, formerly the Chef de Cuisine of the two-Michelin-star restaurant RAW in Taipei. After leaving RAW Huang took more than two years to prepare and open his fine dining restaurant. He and his investors are clearly looking to garner multiple Michelin stars. Since the restaurant opened in September of 2023, I have been there twice for dinner, once in winter and another in spring. Restaurant A is an ambitious endeavor and asks questions that deserve careful considerations. 

Is food art? This is the main question Restaurant A poses to the diners. This question is often considered at fine dining restaurants as the line between food and art is sometimes blurred. For instance, chef Ferran Adria of El Bulli restaurant was invited to participate in the art fair, Documenta 12, in Kassel in 2007. By posing the question, Restaurant A certainly thinks food is art and wants the diners to view its food as art. This desire drives the bulk of the dining experience. While the approach is understandable and perhaps even admirable, it is also misguided. Food is not art because it has a functional purpose to nourish people. Food can certainly can be art-like, however, forcing the ideas of art onto the diners actually diminishes the power of the food and the enjoyment of the experience.

Restaurant A occupies the entire 4th floor of a small retail building in downtown Taipei. The elevator opens into a mostly white, sterile, and brightly lit space with a receptionist at one end. Upon entering, one of my dining companions quips, it’s like going to a dentist’s office; harsh but kind of true. The reception is designed to resemble a gallery. The hostess is eager to point out the artworks on the walls and that they are provided by a gallery the restaurant collaborates with. The artworks change with the seasons and they serve as inspirations for the food. While this may sound artsy and sophisticated, a gallery is not a good model for a restaurant. The space of a gallery is about selling art, in contrast, a restaurant is about providing hospitality. The word restaurant is derived from the French word, restaurer, meaning to restore to a former state; restaurant is about nourishing people. Another problem with using the gallery as a model for the restaurant is lighting. In the galleries the lighting is often bright because the purpose is to show the art. But a restaurant is less about spotlighting the food and more about creating an ambiance. Using the art gallery as the model for the restaurant is simply wrongheaded.

Before going into the dining room, I stop by the men’s room on the right side of the reception. The signage design is too artistic as it is hard to tell which door is the men’s room; the design forgets its primary purpose: communication. What's worse is if a woman accidentally opens the wrong door, she will have a direct view of two urinals; there's very little privacy. The custom designed sink isn’t too attractive either. I also fail to understand why in this post-pandemic world a restaurant doesn’t install a contactless faucet. The towels provided on the right side of the sink are too small to properly dry one’s hands. For a restaurant that seems generous with the use of space and cares greatly about appearance, the men's room is poorly planned. 

The sliding doors on the left side of the reception open to a lounge called Alcoholiday; the name doesn’t mean much. The ceiling, walls, and floor of the space are all in white. But the design is too complicated for its own good. The majority of the vertical planes consists of horizontal shallow shelves in a running bond tile-like pattern. This device is both a decorative element in front of solid walls and a screen that separates different spaces. The shelves are constructed of small modular pieces and connected with highly visible round head screws. I can only assume the designer really wants to reveal the construction of the shelves. I wish the design and the construction are more minimal and elegant to project a sense of effortlessness. The pitched ceiling consists of shingled long white planks with continuous cover lights. The ceiling reminds me a bit of the ceiling at the airline baggage check-in area in Taipei Main Station. I don't know what's the intention behind the design, but it's too busy. A hanging blue ribbon-like sculpture makes the room even more busy. 

The lounge is where the idea of an art gallery as a restaurant simply doesn’t work. The functional requirements of the lounge such as the counter for preparing drinks diminishes the prominence and power of the art, especially the paintings on the walls; they simply become decorative objects. At the same time the brightness of the lighting and the white walls and panels do not produce an intimate setting to enjoy a drink or to relax at the end of a long dinner. 

A narrow corridor with a white noren leads to the dining room. The use of the Japanese fabric divider is a bit random and unnecessary; another sign of too much stuff. The noren doesn’t block anything, since the corridor is not straight and there is no direct view to the dining room. The noren also doesn’t offer any symbolic function either as the food and the culture of service is not Japanese at all. As I walk along the corridor the hostess points to a built-in glass display case in the wall. Inside there's a custom made dinnerware that we will be eating off of later. The intention is clear, not only is the food art, the serving ware is also art to be fetishized. 

The design of the dining room is calmer and nicer than the previous two spaces. Instead of white terrazzo floors in the reception and lounge, the floor is light color wood planks. The combination of wood color and white is quite pleasant. The chairs are fairly comfortable and the tables are well spaced. The tabletop has a off-white leather-like finish which is also quite nice. The room is decorated with flower arrangements on the serving stations and on each table. One strange aspect of the room is none of the tables are placed close to the exterior windows. 

While the design of the dining room is better, it still suffers from a lack of restraint. The walls are not left alone but decorated with LED strips at different heights. There is also a strip of light at the base of the wall. The color of the light is too white and the effect is distracting. These light fixtures are really not necessary. 

At the back of the dining room is a large window with a clear view of the kitchen that is also mostly white. The full height glass sliding door into the kitchen isn’t very attractive. One gets a view of the tile floor of the kitchen, which is too jarring from the dining room. The dark floor mat that prevents slippage in front of the door is also visually distracting. The kitchen is brightly lit and looks very clean, yet not very attractive. I love open kitchen, but it needs to be designed and staged better. The irony is the kitchen is the one place in the restaurant that needs some decoration yet doesn’t have any. 

Unlike the reception and the lounge the dining room doesn’t have any artwork on the walls or the ceiling, except for one near the entry that’s not visible from most of the tables. Clearly the idea is the food is the art to be admired. 

After we sit down the server tells us that the no-choice set menu consists of 16 courses.This sounds grandiose but actually 9 of the so-called courses are really just snacks at the start and mignardises at the end. 

The meal begins with five snacks that are designated salty, sweet/acidic, spicy, bitter, and umami and served sequentially. I have been to Restaurant A twice for dinner and both times the meal starts the same way with an idea from art, trompe-l'oeil. An edible bouchon placed in the middle of a bowl of real bouchons. Maybe this is inspired by the potato stones at Mugaritz. Nevertheless, this is a fun idea. The diner picks up the edible cork and eats it in one bite. The problem is the chef can’t leave well enough alone. Besides the bowl of corks, the server brings out a custom made serving ware and says we can take the cork out of the bowl, place it on the plate, take a picture and then eat it. I oblige, but the plate is completely unnecessary–either serve the cork on the plate or in the bowl. You do not need both. The chef has too many ideas and can’t let some of them go. More isn’t better, in fact, they take away from the power of the dish. The tendency of having too much stuff is a recurring problem through out the meal. What the chef needs is an editor, someone to take things away rather than keep adding. 

Putting aside the problem with the presentation, the faux bouchon is a well made snack with a crispy shell and oozing cheese. Both times the cheese in the bouchon is Comté, which has a low salt content relative to other cheeses. Therefore instead of salty, the taste is a bit sweet. At my first dinner the Comté is paired with chestnut and nutmeg and the second time is with pine nuts and broccolini. 

The second snack is called Sweetness and is a fish roe tart. The tart shell is well made and the flavors are good. The third snack is a small bite of a chicken; nice but not too memorable. The fourth snack at both of my dinners is a little salad, or a display of tweezer food with small pieces layered elegantly. Of all the five snacks, this is the one I like the best and I wish it is a larger salad rather than small bite. 

The last snack is called the umami bomb, a small “doughnut” with a mushroom “cappuccino” on the side. Umami yes, but bomb I’m not so sure. The server says this is the signature dish of chef Huang, something he would never take off the menu. The dish is inspired by one of his mentors Justin Quek. I suppose this is a play on coffee and doughnut but it is not as interesting as Thomas Keller’s version. The use of the truffle makes sense at my first dinner in January. But why insist on using truffle at my second dinner in May when the ingredient is not in season? 

The five snacks to start the meal are all expertly prepared, in fact they are a show of the technical prowess of the kitchen staff. At my first dinner, the flavors are not as distinctive as I would have liked as they are more on the sweet side. This flavor profile is made more pronounced with the juice pairing. I don’t like to start the meal with sweet flavors as they dull instead of wake up the palate. At my second dinner the flavors are engineered better, but I am not convinced I need five snacks. I would prefer less snacks and more courses. 

The first course is a cold dish: a seafood salad. At my first dinner it is an escabeche with sea urchin and duck ham. At my second dinner I am served a “borscht” with Botan shrimp and cranberry. Both times, the seafood salad is nice. I am just unsure about the sequence. Before eating this dish, I already had a salad for a snack. Then I had a warm wintery snack. Now I am back to a cold dish again. And after this first course, the next course is another salad. 

When the server brings the second course to the table, I am already a bit tired of being served another salad. At my first dinner, the salad is a black and white colored dish. The server says the dish is inspired by the black and white painting hanging in the lounge. In case we don't remember the painting, our server brings out an iPad with a picture to show us. This is frankly just annoying and unnecessarily didactic. The connection between the painting and the dish is at best superficial. Just because the painting and salad both use the same colors doesn’t mean much, certainly doesn’t turn the food into art. Forcing the customers to make these visual connections actually diminishes the power of the food because it limits the diners’ imagination. What the chef should strive for is to spark the diners’ curiosity and to inspire them to seek their own connections. 

After the cold salad, the next course is a hot soup. Maybe the chef is purposely oscillating between hot and cold dishes, but I don’t really understand the purpose. Both times the soup is sort of a half hearted one as the liquid portion is small and there is so much foam at the top. Nevertheless, the soup is nicely made with very good flavors. 

The fourth course is a seafood. At my first dinner I am served a consommé with scallop and daikon. The server points out that the scallop is threaded with black truffle. This is a recurring theme of the restaurant. The server is constantly trying to point out the effort that goes into all the dishes in case the diners don’t appreciate or admire the work properly. I enjoy the dish as the consommé is well-made. I would have preferred the scallop to be thinly sliced rather than diced. 

At my second dinner the dish is a mackerel with white asparagus. When the dish is served one cannot see the fish as there is so much stuff layered on top of the protein. The white asparagus on the side is also only partially visible. The mackerel and the white asparagus are both very well prepared and tasty. But the combination of these two main ingredients is not too interesting. The dish certainly doesn’t need all the little flowers, herbs, and condiments. I wish chef Huang would take a page from the three-Michelin-star chef Eric Ripert’s playbook - let the fish be the star of the plate instead of making the dish more complicated than it needs to be. 

Bread (focaccia) finally makes an appearance as the main course is served at my first dinner. I really would have preferred the bread to be served earlier. Moreover, the focaccia is just so-so. Strangely at my second dinner, the server doesn’t bring out the bread before the main course. The server says because the chef already served a rice dish before, they will not serve the bread. However, if my guest and I don't feel full in the stomach, she can can bring out some bread at an extra charge of NT$260 per person. I have never encountered this kind of situation at the restaurant before. I am already paying over NT$7,000 per person, does the restaurant really need to nickel and dime me over some focaccia? Moreover, bread is not made a la minute. The restaurant probably has baked enough for the diners prior to dinner service. Not serving the bread simply means the staff will eat it instead of the customers.

Restaurant A lacks a sense of generosity or even the impression of generosity. I feel the restaurant is constantly looking to shake more money out of me. The bread is just one of the instances. Halfway through one of my dinners, the server places a bottle of wine on our table and says this goes very well with the next dish. One would think this is part of the wine pairing that's already paid for, or perhaps the server just wants us to try. Instead this wine comes with a supplemental charge. A restaurant should be about hospitality, yet it is just the opposite. At least the restaurant doesn't charge for putting a candle on the dessert for my wife's birthday celebration. Being in a restaurant where every offer from the server is a transaction just isn't an enjoyable experience. 

The fifth course is the main course. At my first dinner the dish’s is a small piece of lamb with around six sauces and condiments on the plate. It is as if the kitchen is trying to tell the diner, see how much we can do. The main sauce is a tuna sauce, akin to the one in the Italian classic dish Vitello Tonnato. I am not convinced this is the best sauce for the lamb. Another sauce is a red pepper sauce, which works a little better. Overall, the lamb really doesn’t need that much sauce. The server also tells us that after we finish eating the lamb we can take a picture of our plates with the leftover sauces and condiment and post it on the social media as our art for the night. This partly explains why there’s excessive stuff on the plate. The chef doesn’t want the diner to clean the plate, but play with the food to make art. But I am at the restaurant to eat. if I want to make art, I would have gone to an art class with my kids. 

The sixth course is a pre-dessert, which is a combination of hard liquor (vodka or whisky) with fruit (soursop or apple). Both times the combinations and flavors are nice. I cannot say the same for the last course of the dinner: main dessert. At both of my dinners, the dessert is a bit disappointing. Dessert is an opportunity to deliver the final wow factor and leave the dinner on a high note. However, the ones at Restaurant A are just decorative objects that are not very interesting. 

The dessert at my first dinner is an ice cream with chocolate sauce topped with ginger tuile. This was a disappointing end as it was simply not very impressive. It is a bit strange that there isn’t any juice pairing with the dessert, considering this is the time where a sweet drink actually makes more sense.

The dessert at my recent dinner is more emblematic of the problem at Restaurant A. The dish is the classic French dessert, Île Flottante, a classic French dessert with meringue and crème anglaise. Similar to the other courses, the dish is expertly prepared. The texture of the meringue is good and sauce has a nice flavor. The dish is decorated with all sorts of dots and leaves done precisely with a tweezer and squeeze bottles. The dish looks complicated but is actually not very interesting and doesn’t really innovate on the classic. One can compare this Île Flottante with the one by Jean Francois Piège’s at Clover Bellavita in Taipei. Piège’s version doesn’t have any fussy decorations nor is it thematic. The dessert looks deceivingly simple yet is very innovative by turning classic recipe inside out. Rather than an innovator, the pasty chef at Restaurant A is more of a decorator. 

Like many other disciplines, food has components of art: color, composition, materiality…etc. The creation of food certainly can borrow ideas from art. However, taking visual cues from art or making the food pretty doesn’t make the food art-like or art. Chef Huang’s creations try to emulate the visual appearances of art, but this operating on a superficial level. Also, by doing so art simply becomes a theme to be grafted onto the food. Instead of trying to make food that looks like art through decorative means, Huang should emulate the process and ideas of artists, how they innovate art by redefining what is art. They ask the question what is painting or what is sculpture? If Huang follows the method of the great artists, the questions he poses should not be whether food is art but rather what is food? What is fine dining? How can one make a new Île Flottante? 

After the dessert, the server asks us to move to the lounge to have the mignardises and coffee. I am a little reluctant to move and as I like the dining room much better than the lounge. I don’t see a reason for doing so. Usually restaurants move the diners out to the lounge because they need the table back for the next seating. There’s no such problem at Restaurant A. 

As I settle into the sofa in the lounge, the server brings out four mignardises and coffee. The mignardises are all made very well. One of the mignardises is cannelé flavored with cardamon. I know the chef is trying to be different and creative, but I still prefer a simple cannelé. The pour over coffee has a very clean taste but I don’t like the small cups they are served in. The coffee is also not hot enough for my taste. I rather have an espresso instead. 

Dinner at Restaurant A is not cheap, NT$6,850 plus 10% service charge. The price includes a compulsory beverage pairing; this is one way to make people spend more money. There is a choice of five alcoholic or non-alcoholic drinks. For a bit more money, the alcoholic drinks can be upgraded to better wines. Given that the drinks are included and without any say from the diners, it is a bit strange for the server to present the full wine list at the beginning of the meal. I suppose we can order more bottles besides the 5 glasses, but the server doesn’t make this clear. Maybe the server just wants us to admire the wine list. Unfortunately the choices of wines in the alcoholic pairing are not that interesting. At my first dinner the first drink is not even a wine but a beer. The pour of each pairing is also small and stingy, just around 70ml. Based on the restaurant’s numbers, there are 16 courses but only 5 glasses. As the dinner progresses it is not clear which glass of wine is suppose to be good for more than one course. Furthermore, dessert doesn’t get any pairing, which is a missed opportunity. 

I have also tried the non-alcoholic pairing and it is more disappointing than the wines. Instead of serving juices made by reputable vineyards, the drinks are all house-made. Spending the time making these juices doesn’t seem to be worth the effort. The problem with the juices is they are all a bit on the sweet side and don’t do much for the food. 

At the end of the dinner, the hostess hands out a folder with the menu as the diners exit the restaurant. This reminds me of my meals at Thomas Keller’s Per Se. However, unlike Per Se, where the menu is on one page, Restaurant A’s folder has three sheets: two on the food and one on the drinks. For the different courses, there are around 45 different ingredients listed on the menu and none are repeated. The abundance is certainly quite impressive and again, the restaurant needs to make sure the diners know it. There is no real need to have the menu on multiple pages when one page will do. This is a bit like a job applicant with a multi-page resume. Restaurant A is technically very sound in the kitchen. And for the most part the service is also quite pleasant. But Restaurant A is not very interesting. For instance, the content and the sequence of the dishes don’t seem to have an overarching concept: one dish is about Chef Huang’s mentor, another dish is about his travel, and a few art inspired ones are thrown into the mix. The portions are small but overly complicated. At times, I feel the restaurant is making dishes for themselves to admire rather than for the diners to enjoy. 

Restaurant A would benefit from being more subtle. This is all the more ironic as one page of the menu has the word “Subtle” written largely at the top. Sometimes the problem with young chefs and designers is they have a tendency to show all the things they can do at once and a desire to make sure people see them. I wish Restaurant A will be more elegant and project a sense of effortlessness. I also wish the chef will trust his customers a bit more. Dinner doesn’t need to be didactic. Maybe many diners don’t understand everything that’s put into the dishes or don’t appreciate the effort, but that’s fine. This is no different than when we are confronted with a work of art that we don’t fully understand. We don’t need the artist to be there explaining every little detail or intentions to us. In fact it is better for the diners to enjoy the dishes on their own terms. If they are intrigued by the work, they will find out more about it. Give the diners some room for imagination and inquiry. 

The “A” in Restaurant A’s name doesn’t quite stand for art. Nor is it quite awesome yet though it has the potential to be. The quality of the ingredients and the cooking at Restaurant A are very nice. My dinners at Restaurant A have some nice moments. I want to like the restaurant but I can’t fully embrace it yet. I admire the aspirations but as of now, for me the “A” stands for ambivalent.