I have a lot of respect for Jose Andres. Let me just say that before I start my rant. But in the case of Beefsteak: the maestro thought of a clever name, sourced top ingredients, and stopped there. A visit to the West End eatery is a lesson in how good food is not enough. At least 4 flaws detract from good eating at this establishment, all of them having to do with JA's lack of experience with build-your-own meals. Here is what I mean:
I am not especially proud of this, but honestly -- the Jose Andres team has no clue about how to design any aspect of a fast-food meal experience. They need to find a new consultant to compete with their better established competitors.
- Bad signage: the white on beige lettering is small and hard to discern. But having clear instructions on how to build your own bowl is critical, given that the ingredients and possible combinations will be novel to most people. This is a problem that Chipotle, with its familiar burritos and tacos, does not have.
- Limited and incoherent "favorites": At Chop't -- arguably the model for Beefsteak -- the array of possible combinations is made more navigable by suggested "house favorites" - most of them tempting. I don't need to waste time figuring out how to build my own, because somebody who knows about food has already done that work for me in a thoughtful and mouthwatering way. Beefsteak only offers 4 suggestions, none of them compelling, even once the lettering is deciphered. To make matters worse, most of these offerings are salads, disconnected from the sauces and grains on offer.
- Serving vessels are not appropriately sized: I was saved from the build-your-own confusion by the Beefsteak Burger -- not because I was able to pick it out from the illegible menu, but because I had read about it in the Washington Post. So that is what I eventually ordered. But once it was handed to me and I settled down at a table, it proved impossible to lift out of the bowl, which was only a millimeter wider than the burger itself. I won't describe the slippery mess that ensued when a quarter cup of mayonnaise, very ripe avocado, and a large slice of tomato slid out of their bun, and I was forced to scoop them up and try to rebuild the burger.
- Staff are badly trained: I am pretty sure that Jose Andres' sense of how to proportion sandwich ingredients does not include a quarter cup of mayonnaise on a single bun. I ended up scraping most of it off.
- Garbage cans are nowhere to be seen: Perhaps if I were not already so unhappy, this would have been a virtue. But at that point, having glanced around and not seen where to dispose of the remains of my meal (including almost a quarter cup of mayonnaise and most of the avocado which had slipped out), I just left it on the table.
I am not especially proud of this, but honestly -- the Jose Andres team has no clue about how to design any aspect of a fast-food meal experience. They need to find a new consultant to compete with their better established competitors.
