Originally Posted by
jakuda
I'm not going to disagree with you on the Restaurant, but the Cafe is decent.
Have you looked at the menu recently? There is more than just pizzetta and salad.
http://www.chezpanisse.com/menus/cafe-menu/ I wouldn't go to Chez Panisse Cafe to eat pizzetta and their salads anyways.
I will say this about Chez Panisse Restaurant and Cafe, their food is not stylish or avant garde anymore and the prices are up there, but they still produce good tasting simple Californian cuisine. I haven't had great meals at the Restaurant or Cafe, but I've had good meals.
There are a lot of bashers of Chez Panisse, and I sometimes join in, but there are a TON of restaurants which try to duplicate Chez Panisse and fail IMHO.
I was in the cafe in January. Funny thing, as much as I dislike their pizzas, I prefer them to the entrees, which I find bland, bland, bland.
I grew up in Berkeley in the 70's and I remember my mother taking me to Chez Panisse back then. Although I was just a teenager, I found it just as bland and as unremarkable as today.
Alice Waters was a pioneer, no doubt, but her restaurant was never exceptional.
Were it not for the association with Alice Waters, Chez Panisse would have been little more than a footnote in the annals of American gastronomy.
Take any of the dishes you can eat at Chez Panisse, and put them in another context, say the American Restaurant in Kansas City, and you would be disappointed with the preparation.
As it is, Chez Panisse is really not so different than those creole New Orleans legacy restaurants (Antoine's, Arnaud's, Galatoire's). The food isn't great in any of those places either.
But just like you go to Antoine's to pay homage to a food movement, you go to Chez Panisse for the same reason. The only difference is the culinary revolution you're paying tribute to took place in the 1970's, not in the 1860's.
It's a temple and a shrine, but as a restaurant it is middling at its very best.
P.S.: Pizza is far better across the street at the Cheese Board annex