All the things I love about the pancakes at Chez Ma Tante, near the Greenpoint waterfront in Brooklyn, are things that normal chefs would try to fix. My quantity of butter would seem insane in a professional kitchen, so it would be cut. Rounding out the rough edges is, in a broad sense, one of the main things chefs do. They may not always do it consciously, any more than a copy editor consciously corrects typos. It’s supposed to become a reflex, which is the point of the sign on the kitchen wall at Eleven Madison Park: MAKE IT NICE.

Source: New York Times March 27, 2018 15:24 UTC