Chef Daniel Boulud, right, works with chef de cuisine Sylvain Assié at Café Boulud in Toronto. Like many popular chefs, Boulud has opened restaurants in many cities around the world.Darren Calabrese/The Globe and Mail
One of the more memorable meals I've had was at a McDonald's on Lantau Island, Hong Kong, in 1997. After a roiling ferry transfer, followed by a dizzying bus ride up a mountainside to see the Tian Tan Buddha, it was suddenly late afternoon, I hadn't eaten since breakfast and I may have lost even that on the trip over. A facsimile of every hangover Big Mac of my university years, it hit all the right pleasure points in my brain.
Though I've never sought out McDonald's on the road, that wouldn't be my last overseas meal deal. There is a time and a place even for McNuggets.
Massive international expansion isn't just for fast food, though. And as more people can afford more, they are choosing to seek comfort in food of a higher standard when they travel. Disgraceful? That depends. There is a time and a place for Daniel Boulud's chilled spring pea soup or Jean-Georges's molten chocolate cake, too. Even if that place is the Ocean Club in Paradise Island, the Bahamas.
Or is there?
"If you're eating at Ruth's Chris or Morton's, you're not learning a single thing about the city you're in – you're declaring, 'I don't care about the food culture of this place. I just want whatever makes me comfortable,'" says the food writer and critic Chris Nuttall-Smith, who in the March issue of The Walrus described dinner at Joël Robuchon's new Montreal outpost as "a little like a duty-free Hermès tie: really pricey and beautifully made, but which airport did you buy it in again?"
He reiterates: "If you're travelling the world dining at Nobu, you have so little imagination. There are such great independent sushi restaurants in this world and if you're ticking off Nobu boxes, you're kidding yourself."
Nobu – the Japanese megachain that gave Nobuyuki Matsuhisa boldface-name recognition and thrust sushi into the mainstream – is the McDonald's of fine dining. It is near-ubiquitous, with 32 locations worldwide. Its signature dishes are tantalizing icons – like plastic display food by Andy Warhol. Where some parents might take their kids to Wendy's after a Sunday soccer game, a well-to-do New York couple I know took their kids to the Tribeca Nobu, before it relocated to the Financial District. As the late A.A. Gill said of London's Berkeley Street location, "They may well be cloning cooks out the back."
Richard Vines, Bloomberg's chief restaurant critic, puts it this way: "I always feel the mothership is best for any chain, because that's where the creativity is most likely to be. But if I want black cod, any Nobu will do."
Restaurants in the Robuchon and Nobu empires are strong examples, says Vines, of international chains that have managed to maintain standards – particularly in cities such as London, where talented staff is easier to recruit. "With a good management team and a strong corporate culture, expansion need not lead to a dilution of quality." Just don't expect a revolution.
And keep that expansion gradual.
Vines fears for Hakkasan, for instance, a chain linked to the successful Michelin-star Cantonese restaurant in London. Since restaurateur Alan Yau sold the brand to an Emirati sheik 10 years ago, Vines says he's enjoyed meals at the Abu Dhabi and Doha locations. Yet even Yau himself has complained the chain "expanded well beyond the original vision."
If there's one big-name opening Vines is looking forward to, it's the London outpost of Jean-Georges, which opens this summer in the conservatory of the Connaught Hotel, promising a menu tailored to wholesome English ingredients. Earlier this year the Gothamist website analyzed star ratings, Zagat points, Eater lists and health-inspection violations and concluded that the three-Michelin-star New York branch was "statistically best" in the city.
"I love [Jean-Georges] Vongerichten's New York outposts ABC Kitchen and ABC Cocina," Vines says. "But I didn't see much point visiting Jean-Georges in Dubai when I was there recently because I love the New York flagship so much."
Of course chefs these days had better buy into the local food culture if they're going to get any joy from the critic pool.
"There are restaurant companies that travel to other cities and make an effort to learn about that city and bring whatever expertise they've got, but do something really special and really local," Nuttall-Smith says.
As an example, he names the dearly departed Copenhagen restaurant Noma. Prior to closing it more than a year ago, chef René Redzepi ran a six-week pop-up in Tokyo, applying his magic to local yuzu, cuttlefish and botan ebi shrimp with wood ants. More than 60,000 applied for a seat; a fraction got the nod to make the pilgrimage.
Currently Redzepi is working out a seven-week tenure in Tulum, Mexico, and Nuttall-Smith is gunning for a table.
No, not all spinoffs are doomed to banality. David Chang, founder of the Momofuku empire, targets cities where he can tap into local supply chains of sustainable producers to support his creativity. His Momofuku Seiobo is considered one of Sydney, Australia's top restaurants, period, because it is "Sydney" from the ingredients to the meat to the chefs.
His two-Michelin-star Momofuku Ko is consistently ranked among New York's best restaurants – chef Sean Gray was a nominee for best chef at this week's James Beard Awards, the food-industry's Academy Awards, and Matt Rudofker of Momofuku Ssam Bar was a runner-up for Rising Star Chef. And visitors to those spots will more likely dine among local regulars than tourists seeking a familiar experience. If you're playing it safe at a chain while travelling, you might as well avoid the Tilley hat brigade.
As for Daniel Boulud, well … the chef recently paid a $1.3-million (U.S.) fine after a piece of metal wire from a cleaning brush apparently found its way into a New York customer's meal and, ultimately, his esophagus. So you can be sure health and safety measures will be airtight.
Or you could just stay domestic. At Toronto's Café Boulud, chef Sylvain Assié does holy things with Canadian oysters, Arctic char and Quebec pork belly. And he turns out a mean chilled pea soup.