Designers Just Say No

The Dutch designers Viktor Horsting and Rolf Snoeren, aka Viktor & Rolf, showed their line on Tuedsay afternoon and it was apparently a kind of catharsis for them. Frustrated by the relentless demands to create one collection after another with practically no time in between to recharge, but unwilling to run through the streets of Paris shouting "No!" at the top of their lungs, they decided to let loose a scream of protest in their show. Thus, the No! collection was born. Clothes were embroidered with the single word of rebellion and there were jackets that bore the word in giant three-dimensional blocks. Wouldn't a little kvetching over drinks with friends have done the trick?

Wednesday evening I went to a terrific restaurant called Il Vino d'Enrico Bernardo at 13 Blvd. de la Tour Maubourg. The owner is a sommelier who believes that wine is more important than food. So no food is listed on the menu. Not a crumb. Instead, there are simply lists of wines designated as appetizer wines, entree ones, cheese course wines and dessert wines. You choose a wine for each course. And then the kitchen presents you with the accompanying food. Nope, you have no idea what you're going to get. I suppose you could interrogate the waiter about which mystery entrees are on the day's menu and try to beat the system. But what's the fun in that?

This could be torture for all those picky American eaters who don't eat meat or chicken or cheese or dairy or mushrooms or anything that has been cooked or anything other than raw fish. The waiter will ask if you have allergies or any particular dislikes. I owned up to despising mussels because I figured some sort of seafood was likely to turn up with the wine I'd chosen for my main course.

It was worth putting my palate in the hands of the house. The appetizer turned out to be a wonderful risotto with shrimp. The main course was dorade (also called sea bream) on a puddle of polenta and some sort of spectacular sauce. I will not discuss prices here. How unseemly. But it didn't make this modest scribe go bug-eyed. Still, I'm hoping that since I got a blog entry out of the meal that I'll get to expense it. After all, I only went out of dutiful research.