“When in this essay I declare war upon Wagner,” Nietzsche wrote in “The Case of Wagner,” “the last thing I want to do is start a celebration for any other musicians. Other musicians don’t count compared to Wagner.”

I could say the same thing about other steakhouses — compared to Peter Luger, they don’t count. Luger is not the city’s oldest, but it’s the one in which age, tradition, superb beef, blistering heat, an instinctive avoidance of anything fancy and an immensely attractive self-assurance came together to produce something that felt less like a restaurant than an affirmation of life, or at least life as it is lived in New York City. This sounds ridiculously grand. Years ago I thought it was true, though, and so did other people.

Pete Wells, Peter Luger Used to Sizzle. Now It Sputters.

Hierboven: een stukje restaurantreview. Nul sterren voor Peter Luger.

De review eindigt zo:

The restaurant will always have its loyalists. They will laugh away the prices, the $16.95 sliced tomatoes that taste like 1979, the $229.80 porterhouse for four. They will say that nobody goes to Luger for the sole, nobody goes to Luger for the wine, nobody goes to Luger for the salad, nobody goes to Luger for the service. The list goes on, and gets harder to swallow, until you start to wonder who really needs to go to Peter Luger, and start to think the answer is nobody.

Pete Wells, Peter Luger Used to Sizzle. Now It Sputters.

Heerlijk.

Ik voel mij een mens van de wereld, nu ik een abonnement op The Failing New York Times heb.

Het kost mij de eerste maand niets, en daarna 4 euro per maand. Ik vind dat geen geld, voor zo’n fantastisch instituut.