I recently came across Greg Cox’s (the News & Observer’s restaurant critic) review of The Mint, the Fayetteville Street restaurant that received a $1 million gift from the City of Raleigh.
Cox is dazzled by the taxpayer-subsidized setting (emphases added),
A gleaming, six-ton steel bank vault door built into the entryway is the first clue. Then follow strings of faceted crystals, suggestive of diamond necklaces, suspended from the dining room’s soaring two-story ceiling; yards of polished stone and custom fabrics, including the sumptuous silken upholstery of deep banquettes; dramatic modern sculptures backlit in the copper and green of money. Upstairs, in the sleek lounge that overlooks the dining room, the bartender mixes cocktails with esoteric ingredients such as absinthe and elderflower liqueur, then sets them on a bar whose glass top, like a jeweler’s case, displays more of those cut glass “diamonds” on black velvetbullion glow.
The food is hit and miss, according to Cox. He praises entrees like the “deconstructed Fiddle Faddle” and desserts like the “sinfully grown-up deconstruction of the childhood classic, PB&J.”
I suppose fine dining is all about deconstructing normal food and paying $80 for a shot of cognac. I’ll stick to my burger and beer, thank you very much. (If I am in the mood for fine dining, I will deconstruct my burger by eating the lettuce and tomato separately.)
