Armand's

Armand’s

I repeat: No longer can anything truly novel come from today’s restaurant kitchens— not even from the creative minds of four-star chefs. No entre, soup, salad or dessert can wow even the most experienced and savvy diner. Nationality or region—it does not matter: French, Fusion, Circassian, Sardinian, even Finnish—c’est finis.

The decades-long Food Revolution, with its blending, tossing, drizzling, blow-torching, and marrying of ingredients to create fantastic, original combinations and taste sensations has reached its outer limits.

Grilled rare tuna, with a slab of seared foie gras, sauced with wine and topped with charred onions and ribbons of zucchini—been there; done that.  We have arrived at the dead-end of gastronomic history as we have known it.

I am Armand, chef extraordinaire. For four decades you have dined at my restaurants in New York, Nice, Nanjing, and Niamey. Sipping Sherry bottled from my vineyard outside Jerez, I greet you from my bar stool with Tapioca, my two-year-old Cairn terrier, on my lap.

Today, decades after preparation, experimentation, tossing and turning, and every imaginable iteration, I have come up with a menu par excellence, unlike any other in history. In an age of space tourism, when people are listless enough to shell out $250,000 for four minutes of weightlessness above Earth, I give the world its new paradigm of haute cuisine.

           Step into my new establishment. Naturally, I have named it after myself: Chez Armand. It is small, modestly decorated—the red damask was my mother’s idea—fourteen tables, two seatings. We are on First Avenue and Twenty-fifth Street, Manhattan’s no-man’s-land, so as to fly under the radar of gastronomic groupies, sycophants, and food fashionistas.

My new approach to cuisine is simple, as it is based on a simple truth: Ninety-six percent of humans, when polled, prefer bad news before good.

Here is how I work: In my dining room, each course arrives on a plate with two compartments (similar to those used in your school cafeteria, though I mine are of the finest bone China).  

On the left side of the plate is a concoction resembling pudding of indiscriminate color. While its taste and composition vary, it is always very unpleasant: bitter, sour, stinky, rank, gamey, or some combination thereof.

In the right compartment is a standard dish most diners have had before—for example, dry aged sirloin. The diner who consumes the beef without first eating the pudding tastes the predictable; he may just as well as dined out at his local Steak N Shake or with the gang at Outback.

Under my menu plan, the diner eats the detestable pudding first. Then, when she consumes the salmon or steak or whatever she has ordered, she is rewarded with an explosive, indescribable taste sensation—like nothing experienced before. The bad news comes first; so the good news feels better than it really is! Voila!

Those who grew up in the Good Old Days of Common Sense, when parents ruled and children ate their watery spinach before they could have their Oreo Pie, will readily understand the method to my madness. The key is the pudding. Its recipe is top secret, though diners are assured that every ingredient is all-natural and—if it walked on four legs—free range.

My competitors have spread the ugly rumor that its chief component is Tapioca’s special line of imported dog food. Bah! Sore losers! This is evidence of their unimaginative minds (which matches their cooking).

The waiting list at Armand’s speaks for itself: A-list celebrities, politicians, and sports greats must salivate for three months while waiting for a table. If they arrive five minutes late, I show them the door, with directions to Jean-Georges. Their table has been given to a lucky party on stand-by who, when informed, leap for joy like the imbeciles on Wheel of Fortune.

           Appetizer, main course, dessert—eat Chez Armand, each is accompanied by a pudding. There is no salt on the table. Guests are politely informed that everything emerges from the kitchen salted to perfection.

If you decide to come, be advised that you must be brave enough to dig with gusto into the pudding and slather it over your taste buds to effect full pleasure.  People who pass it through their mouths like a bullet through dry wall are inevitably disappointed.

           Unfortunately, guests do balk: I have watched them from my perch at the bar. They place a dab on the tongue; perspire; and shoot pleading looks at their table-mates. After swallowing, they lunge for their water glass, shamed faced.

They are asked to leave my restaurant, and not even their parking stub is validated. However, at $750 a plate, most everyone plays by the rules. It is not uncommon to hear belching and gagging at Armand’s, but, have no fear, we provide 3M EEP-100 Peltor earplugs ($199 a pair). Besides, these retches are followed by sighs on par with the most supreme orgasm.

If should you come to Armand’s, spare yourself the trouble of acting like a smart ass. These people eat only the pudding and, when the plate is removed, proclaims, “It was delicious, but I couldn’t eat another bite!”

Take pity on this fellow’s poor wife, who has dragged him to Armand’s to raise his culinary awareness beyond the Chipotle Grill on Queens Boulevard, where they know him by the paltry ring of two quarters in the tip bucket.

So, I cordially invite you to my restaurant, where tastes defy explanation.

Pay no mind to the food critics, who have dubbed my concept “faddish,” “puerile,” and “primeval.” Disregard especially the review from a know-nothing critic who wrote: “Armand’s food is so cutting edge you will want to sever your throat by the second course.” She is not worthy to write reviews for tropical fish flakes.

Some foodies have dubbed my concept “S & M cuisine” because of the interplay between pain and pleasure. I take no umbrage. In fact, it is fitting for the times we live in where, among the very rich, performative penance has trumped pleasure.