Monday, June 22, 2009

It's 106 miles to Chicago...


... [Editor's note: In my case, from Brooklyn, it's about 793 miles] ... we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses.

Hey readers, Independent Thinking will be on a little hiatus while I take some time off to move to NRN's Chicago office. I'll be back in the saddle on July 6, reporting and writing from Michigan Ave. and covering all the news, independent and chain alike, all over this wonderful place known as the Midwest.

For my dozen or so readers, please keep me in mind and come back to the blog once I'm back up and running from the Chi. I'll try and keep the Twitter feed going, but right now I just don't have the bandwidth to keep the blog up in addition to everything else.

Hit it!

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

What's IN it for You: June 15

Economy forces upscale operators to rethink definition of finer dining
The Great Recession most certainly is not The End of Fine Dining As We Know It, but a massive shakeout has begun, reports NRN's Elissa Elan. The downturn doesn't just expose the overpriced and the underwhelming, either. Some restaurants may close because they're in a bad neighborhood or just a bad lease, which could have been forgiven during more flush times. Some restaurants facing closure could be victims of their own success, appearing too lavish and upscale at a time when people want their surroundings to be more casual even if they still want four-star food.

As Elissa goes through some high-profile closures in New York, Boston and Philadelphia, she encounters several reasons for restaurateurs' troubles. But what she doesn't find is the sense that fine dining is dead. Far from it. A few of the industry's well-known operators offer reassurance:

"Maybe the atmosphere will be three-star even though the food is four-star," said Christopher Myers, co-owner of the now-shuttered Great Bay in Boston. "It's sad, but the big, showier restaurants might be fewer and far between. You may see more generic dining for a while, but by no means do I think fine dining will disappear."

"At the end of the day," said Drew Nieporent of New York's Myriad Restaurant Group, "people want to experience eating with the best china and glassware and have the best food available. Along with fine dining comes the expense of the service and those who are executing the food. Maybe it becomes a much smaller market. There's going to be a shakeout." Well, yeah.

The 2009 Fine Dining Legend is (drum roll, please) Alice Waters of Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif. Waters, famous for her devotion to fresh local produce, has been influential for years, but it's a true sign of the times and her relevance that there's a giant garden on the White House lawn that supplies the produce for virtually all the meals served to the first family and heads of state. Congratulations to Ms. Waters, and the 10 restaurants inducted into the Fine Dining Hall of Fame:
• Barolo Grill in Denver
• Blue Ginger in Boston
• Bouley in New York
• Herbsaint in New Orleans
• Naha in Chicago
• Nana Restaurant in Dallas
• Michael Mina in Las Vegas
• Michael's on East in Sarasota, Fla.
• New Rivers in Providence, R.I.
• Slanted Door in San Francisco

The lead paragraphs from human resources editor Dina Berta says it all: After a decade of high turnover and a chronic need for workers, the restaurant industry is experiencing a flooded labor pool, lowered turnover and a smaller number of discrimination complaints filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission -- all thanks to the recession. At the same time, the economic downturn has turned the worlds of experienced workers upside down, as they suddenly find themselves looking for a job in an environment where technology has changed job hunting markedly.

The 70-seat eatery is called Samar and will feature the cuisine of India, Spain and the Eastern Mediterranean.

When they opened Tru 10 years ago in Chicago, chef-partners Rick Tramonto and Gale Gand spent $1.2 million on the kitchen alone. While the restaurant and its executive chef, Tim Graham, have the ability to do some avant-garde things with the neat toys like vacuum sealers and thermal circulators, the basics of traditional cooking still maintain the highest priority.

Sounds like the kind of balance you want to strike when you're running the kitchen. Sure, some Chicago restaurants like Alinea and Moto do the out-there, molecular-gastronomy stuff incredibly well, but those restaurants are definitely the exception, not the rule.

As Graham says in the article: "I like that [avant-garde restaurants] have developed modern tools, and I put them in my toolbox right next to the old tools. But we will always sauté. We will always use the flattop."

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Indy Talk: Michael Symon

Michael Symon, the latest addition to Food Network's "Iron Chef America," clearly is having fun out there. After giving a lively cooking demonstration to highlight different beer and food pairings, he granted Independent Thinking audience before he headed back to the airport to fly home to Cleveland. Symon has a few reasons to remain upbeat, even as him home base in Northeast Ohio hasn't had things very easy in this recession.

It helps that his five restaurants -- Lola, Lolita, and the upcoming Bar Symon and B Spot in Cleveland, as well as Roast in Detroit -- are diversified across a few industry segments and price points. His loyal guests have stuck with him because they've been treated fairly since he hit the scene with Lola 13 years ago, Symon says. It's also handy that he's been doing beer and food pairings since the beginning, he says, because such options like beer pairings and special beer dinners will only grow in their appeal.

Besides, promoting beer over wine may result in lower average checks, Symon says, but the profit margins on beer are way better, and many guests don't get the sticker shock from beer that they may get from a high-end bottle of wine.

He sat down to talk beer, food and, most importantly, Cleveland Cavaliers basketball.

NRN: So, if you're going to do 100 beers at Bar Symon, does each beer have to be paired with one of your dishes, or does every dish have to have a few beers that can go with it?

Michael Symon: We do it kind of like how we do it with wine. I'll come up with a dish, and Liz [his wife and sommelier] will taste the dish, and she'll think of beers that go with that dish.

NRN: Not wines, but beers?

Michael Symon: Well, and wine. Beverages in general. As we're developing dishes, she and her team of sommeliers are tasting them and they try to only put products on the list, be they beer or wine, that pair with the food. So their goal is to make the beverages pair with the food. Same process with beer as with wine.

NRN: Has this revival of American microbrews helped restaurateurs come up with pairings and new offerings?

Michael Symon: I think so. I think it helps restaurateurs because it makes people more aware. The consumer is more willing to try different things at different price points. I think, 10 years ago if somebody had told me there's a $14 beer, I would have been like 'Go fuck yourself.' [Laughs] [Editor's note: That's the most good-natured dropping of the F-bomb I've ever seen. Man, this guy is easygoing] 

But now because it's happening and there's a movement, people are more willing to try different things, and one of the things that excites us about Bar Symon is that, having 50 beers on tap, we can do 1- or 2-ounce pours where somebody could taste it before committing to a higher-end beer.

NRN: So you could do different flights, then, too?

Michael Symon: Yeah.

NRN: Cool. So Bar Symon and B Spot are opening in Cleveland, you've got Roast in Detroit. How's business going in Northeast Ohio right now? You said Lola has pretty much held steady, but what's the operating environment like where you live right now?

Michael Symon: Lolita's actually up 15 percent. Lola is right where it was last year, or minimally up, and Roast is doing higher than projections.

NRN: Does that surprise you?

Michael Symon: I guess it does and it doesn't. Even though some people might perceive Lola or Roast as expensive. Even if they've been considered expensive in terms of a price point, they were always considered fair. We've prided ourselves over these 13 years in business for never gouging people on price, either for food or beverage or anything, even when the economy was ramped up. It's coming back to benefit us now. Even some places that are charging four times for wine when the economy was good, people didn't care, but they remembered.

NRN: My guess is that people would be looking to try more beer pairings if they're a little less willing to spend money on wine.

Michael Symon: I think 100 percent that's true. They're a little more affordable so you get a little more bang for your buck. Because of beers like Pilsner Urquell people are more aware of how well beer pairs with food. I think it's the beautiful thing about Pilsner is that it has opened people's eyes to that.

NRN: Does this require more training for your servers and chefs?

Michael Symon: For us, since we've always done it, it's more about maintaining and continuing to have them learn. Every shift, our servers sit down and taste the food and the beer and wine. Every day that the restaurant's open. It's a continual thing, and we're always trying to educate them and empower them to talk about it in the right way. You can sit and talk about it as much as you want, but until sit down and taste it, that's just worthless.

NRN: If you're running five restaurants in the Midwest, and you're filming "Iron Chef" stuff here in New York, you're probably busier than ever. Where do you get time to think of new culinary ideas? Do you get to spend much time in the kitchen anymore?

Michael Symon: I'm still in the kitchen quite a bit. "Iron Chef" takes two weeks a year to film, and I have some other commitments like this, but I flew in late last night and I'll fly out late tonight. I'm still in the restaurants quite a bit. I'm blessed that every restaurant has a great chef, we talk about food all the time, we develop things together and keep each other inspired. It keeps me inspired, it keeps them inspired.

NRN: So you're not approach having too much going on? Is it more a matter of having your team grow?

Michael Symon: Not yet, but I can't say. The thing that was most advantageous to us was we waited 10 years before we opened our second restaurant, Lolita. And in that 10 years, we essentially turned over nobody in the kitchen or the front-of-the-house. We had this nucleus of 15 key people that wouldn't leave, and I don't mean that in a bad way. I would say to some of them, "Look, I could get you an executive sous chef job or an executive chef job somewhere else," and they'd say "No, chef, we want to stay. We like it here."

As we opened our second and third places, it allowed them to grow and move up. Our GM with Roast has been with us for 14 years. Our chef at Lolita has been with us for 13 years. As we grow, we're empowering people who have been with us for a long time and know how we like to do things. To this point, that's been the success of our growth.

Another thing is that Lola is more upscale, Roast is kind of a steakhouse, Lolita is more casual, and Bar Symon and B Spot will be more casual. I don't want to open up 20 Lolas, because we don't have the manpower to do that. To do food at that level and that tenacity takes a lot of manpower.

NRN: You wouldn't consider opening a Lola or Lolita in a different city, or is it just different concepts that appeal to you?

Michael Symon: I think the B Spot is a little bit replicable, and Bar Symon. At this time I have no desire to open another Lola or Lolita. Roast is a little more replicable, because it's rotisserie and steaks and chops.

NRN: All right, last question, and it's the most important, so take your time. It's the off-season, who do the Cleveland Cavaliers need to pick up in free agency?

Michael Symon: I would like to see them go back after Carlos Boozer.

NRN: You would welcome back Carlos Boozer?

Michael Symon: I would. I would like to see them go after The Matrix. He's a great defensive player and he can play the 3.

NRN: All right, but Shawn Marion is max-contract guy. He's going to be tough to get.

Michael Symon: Yeah, but they've got a lot of wiggle room right now. They're getting rid of a lot of max guys right now. I watched the Orlando series intently, and we didn't have the height to block those lanes against Turkoglu and Lewis. You put Marion and Boozer in there, and you've got two guys that are athletic and big.

NRN: How about Charlie Villanueva? He's 6'11" and shoot.

Michael Symon: Yeah, he'd be a good pick-up, too. There are lots of options out there.

NRN: Yeah, I'm just going to trust Cavs GM Danny Ferry on that one.

Michael Symon: He's a brilliant man.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Wherein Independent Thinking advocates for more beer everywhere all the time


Spent most of my afternoon downtown at a cooking demonstration given by "Iron Chef" Michael Symon, a James Beard Award winner and chef-owner of several Cleveland restaurants. Food was fantastic, not least because it was meant to be paired with Pilsner Urquell, of which I had three on a nearly empty stomach. I expect my mid-day hangover to kick in any second. Awesome.

Pilsner Urquell sponsored the event, but there were some useful tips for restaurateurs and beverage directors to sell more beer of any kind. Symon, who has done beer and food pairings and special beer dinners since the beginning with Lola (which opened 13 years ago), said spots for beer dinners sell out in two hours, while wine dinners take about a week to sell out. The best way to sell more beer, especially craft beers and some of the relatively expensive microbrews, is to list the beers on the same page as your wines by the glass. That kind of grouping on a menu can elevate the beer selection in esteem for many customers, Symon said.

Overall, it was a pretty sweet event. The Astor Center's demonstration kitchen felt like a graduate school seminar room, complete with several flat-screen monitors and tiered seating (including a personal sink for spitting during wine-tasting lectures). Symon's menu was three courses:

Linguini with heirloom tomato, capers, anchovies and chiles
---
Braised veal shank with gremolata and braised endive
---
Apple baklava

Aside from being funny, Iron Mike also had plenty of handy chef's tips, which are perfect for listing in a blog for independent restaurants, don't you think?

• Pilsner Urquell (pronounced "Ur-KWELL," by the way) or any other light, crisp beer goes well with Symon's cooking because he likes to incorporate fat, acid and salt into everything he makes, and he uses lots of chiles in his cooking.

• When boiling pasta, use lots of salt. I mean a lot of salt. You want the water to taste like sea water, he says, and bland boiling water gives you bland vegetables and pasta.

• Never, ever strain and drain pasta in a colander. You'll rinse the starch right out of the pasta, so just move it straight from the boiling water to your pasta sauce.

• If you're adding soft herbs like basil or tarragon, add them to the dish once it's been removed from the heat.

• Chefs shouldn't need nonstick pans for making sauces or cooking proteins. Get the pan hot, add your fat or oil and get that hot, then add your vegetables or proteins.

• Salt and season everything. The farm-to-table movement has been great for getting the best available products in front of customers, but it's a "tragedy" not to season those ingredients, Symon says.

• When getting orange or lemon zest, just run the coarse side of the tool over the fruit for one pass, then move on to another spot on the fruit. Grating one spot over and over for zest is a waste of time; the great taste of zest comes from that initial pass.

My Indie Talk interview with Iron Mike will be up later, possibly tomorrow morning.

Monday, June 8, 2009

What's IN it for You: June 8

Vendors drive traffic but rev up operator aggression
Need proof that it tests your mettle to peddle food in a truck? The owner of Rickshaw Dumpling Bar (@RickshawTruck) received death threats when a competitor thought he was encroaching on another food vendor's territory and there's a black market for permits sprouting in several cities. Yes, a black market. For food carts.

But if operators can navigate those perils and the often-significant startup costs involved, trucks and other mobile food carts are great for entering new markets and gaining publicity. Lisa Jennings talks to Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger, Young Chang of the Yuri Japanese Café truck in L.A., and Thomas DeGeest of the Wafels and Dinges truck in New York.

The numbers from Memorial Day weekend were not good for the American travel industry. According to AAA, a projected 32.4 million people traveled in some capacity that weekend, which is down significantly from the 35.3 million Memorial Day travelers in 2007, pretty much right before Countrywide went in the tank and took the national economy with it.

Hudson Riehle, the National Restaurant Association's senior vice president of research, said that while there is pent-up demand for eating out and traveling, there's still too much economic uncertainty in the country to see a major recovery of either this summer. While some areas may still make out OK, many parts of the country will go through a decrease in tourism, which means bad news for restaurants there.

"It doesn't mean there will be total cessation of tourism spending on restaurant meals," Riehle said. "We'll probably see the business redistributed to different localities."

Ron Ruggless did a great job getting out to Little Rock, Ark., and seeing the revitalized riverfront area near the William J. Clinton Presidential Center, which was built five years ago for $165 million. The 16-block area around the tourist destination has diversified the foodservice offerings for both tourists and Little Rock businesspeople, and the neighborhood now has various options from quick-service bakery-cafes to several fine-dining restaurants.

This Yonkers, N.Y., fine-dining restaurant has a fantastic location on the Yonkers Historic City Pier, with water views on three sides of the building. Executive chef Peter Kelly took nearly six years to build the restaurant, and it does about $3 million in annual sales.

What's Hot in Providence, R.I.
Bacaro, 262 South Water St. (401) 751-3700.
Café Noir, 125 North Main St. (401) 272-2116.
Chinese Laundry, 121 North Main St. (401) 272-8676.
DownCity, 50 Weybosset St. (401) 331-9217.
Local 121, 121 Washington St. (401) 274-2121.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Hengst, Rager hook up with Seaver to open Blue Ridge

Today marks the launch of Blue Ridge in Washington, D.C.'s Glover Park neighborhood, the latest restaurant from the district's Jared Rager and Eli Hengst. Holding down the kitchen as executive chef will be D.C. native Barton Seaver, formerly of Cafe Saint-Ex and Hook, one of the industry's leading figures in the sustainability movement.

Blue Ridge has a couple of things going for it, starting first with the fact that neighborhood residents were invited to invest in the restaurant when small-business lending dried up late last year. I always thought that was a cool move. Second is Seaver's food, which I can testify is pretty freaking good, at least it was a few years ago when I took my friends to Cafe Saint-Ex after interviewing him there.

"Barton's approach to the Blue Ridge menu -- straightforward, unfussy and ingredient-driven -- fits perfectly with the mission of creating a restaurant that could have existed 100 years ago," Hengst said in a statement. "There are no essences or superfluous explorations on the Blue Ridge menu, just honest food and cocktails rooted in American tradition with a simple, rustic design and as the canvas for good food and conversation."

Now, while that quote would do well in "Restaurant Press Release Bingo" (ingredient-driven, simple, rustic, Free Space -- I'm so close!) I can let my pet peeve about chef-speak go, because Hengst and Rager have proven themselves time and again with Sonoma and Redwood, and Seaver, a CIA grad, has backed up most of the hype surrounding him at Saint-Ex, Hook and elsewhere.

Also, Barton's a good dude. We met on a bus in Iceland a few years ago, and he was way nicer to a 23-year-old neophyte journalist than he had to be. Best of luck to the Blue Ridge team.

What's IN it for You: June 1

Industry players tout best practices for beating recession at NRA Show
For those independent operators who couldn't make it to the National Restaurant Association's annual trade show in Chicago this year, I'm told that the show was its usual high-quality gathering, even if attendance was down this year.

So many of the attendees and presenters remain upbeat that things will turn around by late this year or early next year, but the NRA's Hudson Riehle threw some tepid water on that hope, saying that even as the overall slowly improves, many of the restaurant industry's customers will remain a little gun-shy.

"We're going to see fundamental shifts in spending," he said. "We're also seeing the substantial influence of value marketing as cash on hand still remains tight."

Party!

Only a handful of operators big-time enough to take on New York's Tavern on the Green are left in the bidding process. Many of the suitors who had expressed interest originally decided to pass after considering how much needed renovations would cost, as well as the higher fees the city would command with a new contract.

Out: Danny Meyer, Alan Stillman and New Orleans' venerable Brennan family.

Still in: The LeRoy family, the current group in charge of Tavern; Dean Poll, owner of the Central Park Boathouse; and Seth Greenberg, owner of Capitale.

The New York City Parks Department is expected to award the winning bid by next month.

"Iron Chef" Michael Symon, who I'm sure is just as heartbroken over the demise of the Cleveland Cavaliers as everybody here at Independent Thinking HQ, is getting into the casual-dining game with two concepts near his home base of Cleveland: B Spot and Bar Symon.
The list of well-known chefs branching out with more downscale restaurants is long and distinguished (and please, nobody complete the bawdy line from "Top Gun" in the comments; this is a family blog): Bobby Flay, Hubert Keller, Daniel Boulud, Laurent Tourondel and, of course, Danny Meyer, who NRN's food editor, Bret Thorn, argues started the trend with Shake Shack.