Un samedi après-midi, 
Seul dans le bruit du boulevard,
Je parle seul. Qu’est-ce que je dis?
La vie est rare, la vie est rare.
– Michel Houellebecq, La Poursuite du Bonheur

Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare is a three-Michelin-starred restaurant hidden behind two unmarked doors at the back of a supermarket in Midtown Manhattan, by the egg and dairy fridge. The restaurant seats eighteen, at the counter, facing the open kitchen, and requires reservations months in advance, with a $200, per person, deposit.

The chef’s tasting menu is served with no modifications from Tuesdays to Saturdays, at the bar, in a two-hour window. In two hours, fish and shellfish… and foie gras and truffles and a Japanese sobacha cake, the experience reified by fine wine and crowned with the finest of all fine things: caviar, like little jewels.

Caviar at the bar. One of the rarest, most expensive foods in the world. Russian black caviar comes from beluga, a prehistoric fish that has existed for 250 million years, can live for a hundred, weigh a ton, produce the equivalent of 25% of its body weight in caviar,

and is now endangered. Caviar is roe, the sturgeon’s eggs cured in brine. Highly demanded, overfarmed, extracted by killing the fish, it is no longer plentiful, cheap, eaten by the bowl, over porridge, by Russian farmers; plopped on a blini for tsars with a boiled egg and sour cream to offset the salty taste—

or, in the opposite case, served by American bars in the 1800s, for free, in scoops like pretzels, to encourage drinking…

the finer things, today, even at the bar, are reserved, for eighteen guests, for two hours Tuesdays to Saturdays. There is a waiting list.

There is sushi in the fridge next to the eggs and dairy. Salmon roe is not black, but orange, crowning the maki. Vegan modifications, possible: seaweed, cucumber, carrot, avocado, zucchini.

Prosecco, the bottle. Clear cups, napkins. The berries are on sale. Strawberries, blackberries… apples. There is no line at the checkout. The Staten Island Ferry is free. A short walk, a train, a boat, and it also passes by the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. An hour. We have time. We have all the time and all the sky and city,

and it is such fine weather and such fine company. We’ll sip fine wine, leaning against the bar, at the back of the ferry.