Purist Chefs Ban Ketchup, Decaf and Toasted Bagels

At a pea-size Lower East Side bistro known for its fries, the admonition is spelled out on a chalkboard: No ketchup. At a popular gastropub in the West Village, customers cannot have the burger with any cheese other than Roquefort.

And at Murray’s Bagels in Greenwich Village and Chelsea, the morning crowd can order its bagels topped any number of ways but never — ever! — toasted. “It’s really annoying, because a toasted bagel is kind of fierce, right?” Jamie Divine, a product designer and frequent patron, said with a hint of an eye-roll.

New York has spawned a breed of hard-line restaurants and cafes that are saying no. No to pouring takeout espressos, or grinding more than a pound of coffee at a time. No to taming the intensity of a magma-spicy dish. And most of all, no to the 21st-century conviction that everything can be accessorized to the customer’s taste.

“People just assume that every restaurant should be for everyone — I could understand that if we were in a town with, like, 20 restaurants,” said David Chang, whose small empire of Momofuku restaurants is known for refusing to make substitutions or provide vegetarian options. “Instead of trying to make a menu that’s for everyone, let’s make a menu that works best for what we want to do.”

He added, “The customer is not always right.”

This coterie of food purists — or puritans, perhaps — is hardly limited to New York. The chef-owner of the Michelin-starred Chicago restaurant Graham Elliot does not serve decaffeinated coffee at his new sandwich shop and coffee bar, Grahamwich, because, Mr. Elliot said in an e-mail, “we decided to let our inner purists shine through and showcase coffee for what it is — a flavorful, caffeinated elixir.”

Clark Wolf, a restaurant consultant, recalled a San Francisco spot that would not supply salt or pepper because the chef supposedly seasoned every dish perfectly.

But New York has a hallowed history of persnickety cooks: Kenny Shopsin became something of a cult figure for the litany of rules — including no parties bigger than four, and no more than one order at each table of any particular dish — enforced for years at Shopsin’s diner in the West Village, now a small outpost at the Essex Street Market on the Lower East Side.

Arthur Schwartz, a food writer and historian, recalled a restaurant that the New Orleans chef Paul Prudhomme opened in Manhattan more than 20 years ago that also prohibited dining companions from ordering the same dish. “It didn’t last very long,” Mr. Schwartz said, “because in those days we all said: ‘Too many rules. New Yorkers are not going to do this.’ ”

Yet in a city filled with newcomers seeking a sense of belonging, rules can be part of the attraction. “One reason people go to a particular restaurant is they want to feel part of a particular community,” Mr. Schwartz said — even if that community is based on nothing more than a shared appreciation for carefully tended espresso that never touches a paper cup.

“You’re supposed to drink espresso fast,” said Caroline Bell, an owner of Cafe Grumpy, explaining that paper lets the heat dissipate too quickly.

When some customers at the three outposts in Brooklyn and Manhattan became, well, grumpy over the lack of takeout espresso, Ms. Bell instituted a policy meant to be taken more with a wink than with the snarl of the cafe’s logo: Patrons can get an espresso to go, if they pay $12 to drink it from a porcelain cup they can keep. “People actually do that,” she said. “There’s a guy that comes in every day to Chelsea with that cup and gets espresso.”

Some restaurateurs say they limit choices because it allows them to serve items consistently prepared the way they want.

“Cooks are creatures of habit,” Mr. Chang said. “To do this ‘Can I get this with no olives, can I get the salad chopped, sauce on the side’ — some of those special requests are ridiculous. My personal opinion is that a lot of people say they have a special allergy or they don’t like something so they can get better service.” 

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Not Intolerant to Special Diets

Many restaurants are adding gluten-free options to menus

By Julie Balise, Globe Correspondent | May 15, 2010

About two years ago, Carla Pallotta’s best friend discovered that he had celiac disease.

The diagnosis, which meant that he would no longer be able to eat foods containing gluten, presented an opportunity for Pallotta, a chef and co-owner of the North End’s Nebo Restaurant, to stretch her culinary skills.

“He was so disappointed, and I said, ‘You know something, I’m going to make something gluten-free for you,’ ’’ said Pallotta, who used trial and error to adjust her own recipes for chicken Milanese, eggplant timballo, and a fried seafood platter for her friend, before deciding to roll out a gluten-free menu at her restaurant.

Last July, Nebo unveiled a new gluten-free menu complete with six pastas, chicken, seafood, and more than 20 varieties of pizza, joining the slew of restaurants across the country that are adapting their menus with gluten-free options, including big chains such as Uno Chicago Grill and PF Chang’s China Bistro.

These eateries cater not only to the 1 percent of the nation’s population who suffer from celiac disease — an inherited autoimmune disease that requires a lifelong diet free of gluten from wheat, barley, rye, oats, and spelt — but also those who have other gluten sensitivities and people who want to go gluten-free for other reasons.

“Restaurateurs are very much in touch with their guests,’’ said Peter Christie, president and chief executive officer of the Massachusetts Restaurant Association. “As more and more people are becoming aware that they have gluten intolerance, restaurants are responding with gluten-free items in order to accommodate their guests.’’

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