The Other Side of McSpensive: Fino and the Yuppy Effect

Yuppies. The word is so past its prime now that we often forget that, in fact, it once referred to people - a whole bunch of them. Blandly barbered, Armani and Canali suited, erect-backed, Nautilus fit, wide-smiling cretins whose credit limits overwhelmed their imaginations, in the Eighties these were the new barbarians, salaried urban professionals with JDs and MBAs whose manifesto was the simple, primitive, Reaganomical dictum, "make it and spend it." They were supply side gone bonkers, the final death knell to the post-Depression era generation, to the save-until-you-die conservatives for whom the possibility of soup lines and wheelbarrow loads of cash for a loaf of bread was still a living, snarling memory.

Well, folks, I hate to tell you but we're back there again, and I don't mean the Eighties. Staring down the barrel of a financial infrastructure collapse, we begin to wonder if the esprit of the Yuppy wasn't, in fact, a bit more insidious than we might first have thought, that it wasn't just an 'I'm gonna get mine while it's hot,' kind of thing, but that it might have been an 'I'm gonna get yours and yours and yours, too - oh, and maybe yours as well, as long as you're not paying too close attention.' Okay, okay - maybe the Yuppy wasn't really the driver (Republicans - oops, did I say that out loud?), or even the mule team (more Repub...oh no - almost did it again), but the Yuppy was definitely on the cart, enjoying the ride, urging the beasts on.

But were they all bad? This is the question that I will pose with this column - and answer, if I'm worth my herb infused, alder-smoked black lava salt. While the Eighties are more often associated with MTV, pegged jeans (they're baaaack...), upturned Polo shirt collars and Andrew McCarthy (where did he end up anyway? and why were chicks so into him? wasn't he a little creepy?), there were other things that came out of it. For my purposes, the Eighties saw a renaissance in American dining. Tuscan restaurants were the first real wave, introducing cream sauces, porcini, reggiano and pesto to the New Worlder's palate. And lo and behold, the Americans discovered that food eaten out could taste like something other than salt and butter (not that I have anything against salt and butter, but there are other things that your philosophy should be dreaming of, Horatio). Suddenly we had tapas joints, pho stands and churrascarrias popping up across the land.

And why? (At last, we come to his thesis - Jesus, did he fail rhetoric and composition?) The Yuppy - and here I make my stand. It's not that, previous to the rise of this species we didn't have the chefs; there are always chefs around, people for whom a good meal is a grail, the quest for which is never-ending. It's that, in order for a restaurant culture to come into being, there have to be people who are willing to pay, and if, as we posited previously, there was one thing Yuppies were willing to do, it was pay.

Fino is exemplary of the kind of restaurant that Yuppies made possible. Low light, minimal design, a good sized wine list, a menu that changes regularly, and all in a medium expensive price range. While it is my belief that the fundament of a good eating town is in the cheap joints (Austin is fertile), these middle-ground places are the flourishing of the garden. Fino gives jobs to people who love making and serving good food.

Fino is a hybrid of several kinds: it offers tapas and entrees; it mixes elements of Spanish, North African and Italian cuisines; it is upscale and at the same time amused without being offended by my occasional Spooner surfer wear; it welcomes the post cotillion old-Texas freakazoids, frumpy university bookworms, hipster 'mos, rock n' roll session musicians and young couples out for a romantic evening. Brown people frequent the place - and work there, and not just in the kitchen but in the front of the house as well (which, as one of them myself, is a welcome deviation from the norm).

And then there's the food, which is the point. Start with the coca flatbread - whatever the preparation du jour is. Every time I've been, it's included jamon Serrano with a fresh egg cracked on top, sometimes with herbs, sometimes with truffle oil, consistently delicate, rich, aromatic and utterly satisfying. Don't miss the quail (words to live by, no?) - again, whatever the presentation, be it as a tapa with chorizo and croutons, or as an pasta entree with angel hair in a muscular tomato sauce. And chew those bones people - that's why they are there. Boneless is for the toothless and tasteless.

The anchovy-stuffed fried olives are nuggets of goodness, and the pinchitos (small skewers of marinated pork served with a sprinkle of rock salt) are so good you'll want two orders - at least. The salads are, well, they're there, it seems, more because some people want salads than because they are particularly respected. So be it - eat your greens at home. Instead, try the tagine, a French African clay pot stew that, at Fino, consists of pearl pasta, chicken and aromatic vegetables; gentle, perfumey and subtle; my friend David (of the Long Lunch) wanted more spice but I was very, very happy with it. My only reservation is with the paella, and this is not exclusive to Fino. Paella should be eaten outside under a trellis with the surviving relatives of the chickens, rabbit and shellfish that are in the dish scratching, hopping and siphoning about nearby. I've not had a restaurant paella that did the form justice, and Fino has not changed that circumstance.

In the coming crash - and it is coming, if not already here - we will prove to ourselves what we've actually learned and what we've just been pretending at. Will we be able to discern the restaurants worth having around from those that should never have come into being in the first place? When our money becomes more scarce and we become more prudent about spending it, what will be our choice? This question is nothing less than one of our quality as a culture. Do we want something that tastes good, is prepared with care and served by people who appreciate it, or do we want crap served by folks who know it's crap but are earning their money by convincing you that you're Frank Sinatra (see Meditations of the Evil of Banality: The McSpensive Restaurant)? Maybe Yuppies have driven our economy into the ground, but hey, when life gives you sour milk, make really good cheese. This is our chance to put the McSpensives out of business. Let's make Robbespierre proud.

Having cut my adult teeth with 15 years spent in Portland, OR - in my opinion the best eating town per capita in the country, with no close contenders - working in restaurants, eating in them, and hanging out with people who also worked in them, I participated in the process of a city acquiring an appetite for carefully prepared, diverse food. Fino is feeding this burgeoning desire here in Austin, and we're lucky to have them. Give them love (and money) folks, and let's keep them around through the lean times; they're worth it.