The Restaurant with No Name

It's on schedule to open in September, but the $20 million "upscale Italian" restaurant at New York's Lincoln Center still has no name.

It's not for want of trying, reports Glenn Collins in Wednesday's New York Times.

“The restaurant requires a name as iconic as its location,” said the restaurateur Nick Valenti, chief executive of the Patina Restaurant Group, which will operate the restaurant and runs the luxe Grand Tier in the Metropolitan Opera House. He declined comment on how, or when, a name would be chosen.

The restaurant was originally to be called Patina, referencing the space run by Mr. Valenti’s partner, Joachim Splichal, in Los Angeles.

Mr. Valenti, Mr. Splichal and Reynold Levy, president of Lincoln Center, later agreed that a different name might be more appropriate because Jonathan Benno, the 40-year-old former chef de cuisine of Per Se, signed on with a vision for an Italian-themed restaurant.

Actually the name Benno itself was once considered, but put aside for the obvious reason that Mr. Benno might not forever be at the helm of Lincoln Center’s culinary cynosure.

“We all came up with hundreds of names,” Mr. Benno said. “So many. You would wake up at 4 a.m.? You’d come up with a name. It never stopped.”

Such a heartbreaking story. Such a familiar drama.

Consider the cast: two business partners, a culture mogul, and a star chef. (You could stop right here and name the place "Ego.")

Consider the location: Lincoln Center, an arts mecca for residents and tourists from around the world. 

Finally, consider the process: from all appearances, an exercise in randomness—the creative equivalent of throwing spaghetti against the wall and hoping it will stick.

Was a naming brief ever drafted? Not likely, given the apparent lack of rigor. Without a naming brief, you'll recall, you have no defined objectives or criteria for your exercise, and no yardstick against which to judge the results.

Is there a neutral party guiding the decision? Again, all signs point to no. Someone with no ego invested in the outcome, who has experience in managing complex branding projects and the diplomatic skills required for wrangling monumental egos, would certainly be an asset here. In my world, we call such a person a name developer. That's right: Dreaming up hundreds of names is only one of the services a name developer can perform for you.

The Times's "Diner's Journal" blog, eager to pitch in, has asked readers to suggest names.  So far, 200 of them have obliged. But even though some of the names are clever ("At that price, it should be Rubato"), more names are not the solution. The solution is more clarity about a goal, more effective management of the discussion, and better storytelling about each name.

The goal so far has been an unrealistic one: an "aha!" moment, a coup de foudre, love at first sight. But as I frequently tell my clients, name development isn't about finding a romantic match—it's about making an arranged marriage. It's about finding a suitable partner that will serve you loyally over the years. 

In short: Leave the cooking to the chef and the bill-paying to the businessmen. And hire a name developer to lead you to a meaningful, appropriate, appealing name.

Comments

[twitter.com/NextMoon]

EGO! In big, bright neon. It's perfect! Actually, Rubato is a pretty good name, in light of the musical connotation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempo_rubato

[Linda VandeVrede]

Interesting! When I was in grad school in Boston in the early 80s, we often went to an unnamed seafood restaurant on the pier, which we just called "No Names" for lack of anything better. "Let's go to No Names tonite!" "Sure!" I don't know if it's still there, but as far as I know, it never had an official name.

[Nancy Friedman]

Linda: The No Name Bar in Sausalito, CA, has been around for at least 50 years. And then there's The Nameless in Oakland: http://bit.ly/dm4xYL

NextMoon: If not Ego, then perhaps that restaurant in "L.A. Story" that everyone pronounces "lee-dee-OH," with a French accent. It's "L'Idiot," of course.

[Mark Gunnion]

I've found it's very common for a client to want the right name to "jump out" at them, and this desire is usually reported in the negative - "Nothing jumped out at me!"

I have now put it into my official pre-brief document that "The right name isn't like a rattlesnake - it won't 'jump out at you'. It's more like a shy kitten, which we will have to lure out from under the car."

I tell them neither Google, nor Yahoo! nor Blackberry jumped off the page - people had to notice them, try them on, say them out loud, write them down in their own hand, think them through - only then did their charms begin to be revealed.

[Nancy Friedman]

Mark: I love the "shy kitten" metaphor. Permission to steal?

[Nick]

"Nick's" is best.

[twitter.com/hush6]

I don't think I ever realized what a lot of ego-driven foolishness people in your line of work encounter. The most ridiculous part of this particular example is, with a celebrity chef and a location like Lincoln Center, this is one of those rare cases where the name is almost beside the point. They could call it The Dog's Breakfast; if the food and the buzz were great, the foodies would come.

Given the story in the Times, it sounds like it's destined to be one of those places that's more about the foofaraw than the food.

[Jon Carroll]

I think "Patina" has a nice sound to it. Or "Ego." Or, wait, "Ergo" I'm brainstorming.

[Alisonheittman]

Linda, Nancy: After almost 100 years in business, I'm pretty sure that the actual name of the place on the pier in Boston literally is "NoName":

http://www.nonamerestaurant.com/

I remember good greasy seafood on paper plates there! (and cheap? free? parking)

[Mark Gunnion]

Oh, and you can totally steal that kitten/rattlesnake thing.