Necessities

 

By Temple Ligon

 

Every once in a while you gotta just blow it out. When in doubt, pig out. Life is too short for bad wine. Hang the expense and gimme the menu. Throw a little money around. Or as Frank Lloyd Wright put it: “Give me the luxuries of life and I’ll willingly do without the necessities.”

You get the idea.

With the closing of Garibaldi’s Columbia lost one of its hosts of high hedonism, a foodie palace with hints of elegance where surprisingly enough the financial pain really wasn’t so bad, not for the full fare, anyway. And they understood the urbanity of late-night dining. The kitchen stayed open about as late as any other, maybe till 10:00, but they always tried to keep it open until long enough after the Koger Center emptied. For an affordable taste of high living, Garibaldi’s held its standards. Too bad it closed. The local power scene suffers with one less option.

But that’s the sensible side, eating local and spending careful. The other side, the silly side or the insane side is stalking the Michelin three-star experience in New York, where there are six three-star restaurants, all listing tasting menus for more than $200 per person. In France, as you might expect, there are 26 three-star restaurants, and the French can get even more expensive. It’s their history.

The Michelin tires people started their travel guides in 1900 when there were only 3,000 automobiles in France. Michelin produced the guides to encourage motoring, which had an impact on demand for tires.

In 1926 the guide first rated and recommended restaurants, and in 1931 the star system began. The best restaurants in France, according to the Michelin graders, were awarded three stars, while the second-best category rated two stars, and the third, one star.

In 2005 Michelin brought its restaurant rating to New York City, and now restaurants in Chicago and San Francisco also get ranked.

Then there’s the unofficial ranking of one restaurant, once considered the best in the world and now called the world’s most expensive tourist trap. Until spring 1996, La Tour d’Argent was rated three Michelin stars. That was when I faxed my reservation for a window table on my newspaper’s letterhead. I didn’t mislead anybody. I just said I wrote restaurant articles in central South Carolina, and I knew my readers would get a kick out of La Tour d’Argent, which had occupied the same intersection in Paris since 1582.

The distinguished food critic from central South Carolina and his lady friend were offered reserved seats at the window overlooking the roof of Notre Dame. Getting a window table at La Tour d’Argent on a Saturday night in April was a big deal then and is a big deal now. We sat next to the table where Princess Elizabeth and Philip regularly dined up to the coronation in the early ‘50s.

They were friends with restaurateur Claude Terrail, who inherited the place from his father Andre in 1947. His son, another Andre, took it over in 2003, and Claude died in 2006 at 88. His signature quotation is on the front cover of his book about the history of La Tour d’Argent: “Nothing is more serious than pleasure!” Claude Terrail inscribed my copy of his book in 2004: “For Temple Ligon. I’ve lived a dream. Let me share it with you.”

On my first visit to La Tour d’Argent in spring 1996, I had no idea how to handle the wine list, hell, the wine book. It was 400 pages with 15,000 wines, which was something of a relief after I was told La Tour d’Argent kept almost 500,000 bottles of wine in the basement and under the street. Guess where the German headquarters types first ate in 1940.

I recommended to my dining companion we go with the house specialty, pressed duck. Since 1890, La Tour d’Argent had been numbering its pressed duck dishes. Franklin Roosevelt, for instance, had pressed duck #112,151. Marlene Dietrich had #203,728; Charlie Chaplin, #253,652. In 1996 on La Tour d’Argent’s last Michelin three-star Saturdaynight, we were served #845,192. And in late March 2012, I sat by myself while I worked on #1108446.

What wines go with pressed duck? That should narrow it down, I declared while I held 400 pages containing 15,000 wines in a cellar of 500,000. And to narrow our wine selection even further, I suggested we stick with Bordeaux, strictly red Bordeaux, and then we should go back 25 years to 1971. Among the 1971 offerings in red Bordeaux, of course, we could spend thousands of dollars for just one bottle, but I had a plan.

Let’s pick the cheapest of the lot, I suggested, the lowest priced 25-year-old red Bordeaux in the basement. What if it’s bad, she asked. Fine, I said, I hope it’s awful, so then we’d be famous in central South Carolina as the couple who turned back a bottle of 25-year-old red Bordeaux at La Tour d’Argent. Put that in your Brie and spread it.

Getting old in ideal cellar conditions, controlled temperature and all, just about every bottle in the 500,000 is drinkable, but every bottle then is also bankable. In other words, La Tour d’Argent’s balance sheet must be pretty impressive with all that expanding wealth downstairs. In fact, La Tour d’Argent auctioned off about 18,000 bottles in 2009, which brought more than 1.5 million euros. One bottle of 221-year-old Cognac sold for 25,000 euros. The auction money went for more wine, younger wine, and for renovations.

Back to spring 1996: We ordered our cheapest of the lot, a 1971 red Bordeaux for $180, as I remember it.

People around us probably already assumed we had a friend in Claude Terrail just because of the position of our table at the window next to Elizabeth’s old haunt. But to really get pretentious, we had a ball when the sommelier brought out our dusty cobwebbed antique bottle of booze. I approved the label.

A candle was lit to illuminate the neck of the horizontal bottle and its potential for solids. The bottle was slowly emptied into a decanter. I had prepped my tablemate, who was ready to taste the wine.

She had agreed to take a light sip, savor it and let it fall back, after which she was supposed to say, “Waiter, you can cut the oil on my salad with this vinegar, but we can’t drink it.”

That was very American of her since we had no salad and probably wouldn’t get one even after our duck. Still, imagining our readership, I thought the mention of salad oil would strike a familiar chord with the Garibaldi’s crowd.

Turns out she couldn’t give her prepared speech. Temple, she asked, what do I do now? It’s delicious.

Great. I declared us two the proud owners of the best buy in 25-year-old red Bordeaux in all of France.

When we got the bill, the 15% gratuity was already figured in the $600 tab. That was real money in 1996, but how often can you drink the best buy in red Bordeaux in all of France?

In 2004 I took two lady friends to La Tour d’Argent on another journalism gig, but this time we sipped Champagne (house label) at the bar downstairs for an hour while we people-watched the arrivals and cast judgment on every little thing that failed to meet our collective approval. That cost us three a total of $1,600.

When I played Phileas Fogg on my ‘round-the-world-in-80-days tour in spring 2012, I had to admit Fogg was not an adventuresome foodie. So how could a Fogg pretender take himself to La Tour d’Argent? Easy. Just go.

Dining by myself, I didn’t try the vinegar hunt. I trusted David Ridgway, one of the world’s most recognized wine authorities and the head sommelier at La Tour d’Argent. I took the tasting menu and David’s wine recommendation, and I got out of there for about $550.

Each time I ate at La Tour d’Argent in the past twenty years it cost a fortune, money I could use elsewhere to meet practical expenses. On the other hand, I ate at the world’s most expensive tourist trap only three times in two decades, and that record puts me in the continuum since Henry IV in 1582.

Thank goodness I stand to face my responsibilities to history.

 

 

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