| The Best of Everything |
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Many of the best things that happen in this business share a common trait: they result from a real person’s desire to do something better than anybody else. Best comeback food: the egg Once much maligned, eggs are now fashionable enough for the best menus—at dinner. The slow-cooked eggs at New York’s Momofuku Noodle Bar have inspired a cult following, whether gracing Berkshire pork ramen or the post-modern shrimp and grits. Michel Richard of Citronelle in Washington, D.C., has become known for his immersion cooked egg, coddled ever so gently then cracked open over cooked white asparagus, and a “porcupine egg” (an egg poached and coated with kataifi, or shredded phyllo dough, then flash fried) on the current menu as a side dish-cum-sauce with scallops. Mozza, Mario Batali and Nancy Silverton’s new pizza place in L.A., serves an egg and guanciale pizza where the egg is broken onto the top of the pie before it’s slid into the oven. And Philadelphia’s Ansill Food + Wine has a whole menu section devoted to eggs (including shirred eggs with foie gras, scrambled duck eggs and hard-boiled eggs with bottarga). Best way to lift your spirits Here’s one way to keep liquor costs down—get a still and make your own hootch. That’s what the Bardenay restaurants in Idaho are doing, operating on-site distilleries. “The stills are running all the time,” says manager Kyle Marler. “In the summer during our busy season, they’re cranking full bore to keep up with demand.” The two restaurants, one in Boise and the other in nearby Eagle, distill rum, gin and vodka from cane sugar. Most of the production is for house use in signature cocktails, but some bottles make it to local stores. Because of a quirk in Idaho law, Bardenay has to sell the liquor to the state and then buy it back. Even with the markup, “We’re still talking only 25 percent of the cost of standard well spirits—but the quality is exceptional,” Marler says. Besides the novelty of distilling on premise, bartenders benefit from custom-tailored spirits like lemon vodka and ginger rum to create signature cocktails. “Now we’re experimenting with tequila and a vanilla vodka,” says Marler. And a third restaurant/distillery is under construction. Best mobile money Forget “no cell phone” policies. Noodles & Company is testing a mobile commerce system that lets customers use cell phones to pay for their orders. “A large percentage of our customers are on their cell phones, at tables or waiting in line,” says director of communications Chad Gretzema. “This system is a natural fit for the target demographic of 16- to 28-year-olds who are comfortable on the ‘bleeding edge’ of technology.” The chain piloted the system in three units in Boulder, Colorado; 300 customers, mostly college students, established cell-based spending accounts. In addition to providing a convenient payment option, the system helps save on credit card fees (the flat rate’s 19 cents per transaction) and allows for marketing via text messaging. Says Gretzema: “We can reward free meals or introduce new customers to [us] by loading their accounts with dollars that can only be used at Noodles & Company.” Best do-over that we’ll all be doing soon “You don’t just have to take the trans fat out,” says Au Bon Pain’s master baker Harold Midttun. “You need to know what new ingredients to put back in. And you have to do it without the customer noticing.” And there’s the rub. Take the company’s plain batter, which is used to make the muffins and turned out to be a tricky product to reformulate. Replacing hydrogenated vegetable shortening with canola oil made the batter trans-fat free, but it changed the whole texture experience, says Midttun, and wreaked havoc with the batter’s nine-week freezer life. In went a monoglyceride to bind the water to the oil in the batter, restoring the freezer staying power. Soy protein was added to bring back the structure, along with oat bran and ground flax for body. “We even had to change the leavening system,” Midttun says. “Each step involved another tweak; it was all trial-and-error. With the muffin batter, we removed one ingredient—the shortening—and had to add six to replace it.” Best way to get smart fast Plenty of people work in foodservice without a culinary arts degree—then wish they had that piece of paper. Now it’s possible to apply restaurant work experience toward an associate degree with the Culinary Institute of America’s new Advanced Career Experience (ACE) program. By providing a focused immersion curriculum and waiving the externship requirement for applicants with at least four years experience, students can earn a two-year degree and ProChef Level 1 Certification in just 15 months. Best place to drink an old beer Fresh is best when it comes to beer; that’s why bartenders rotate stocks of kegs and bottles, to keep brew from getting “skunky.” So where does New York’s Gramercy Tavern get off selling really old beer? The chic Manhattan establishment just introduced a special list of 25 vintage beers, meant for after-dinner quaffing. As the name implies, the beers benefit from aging much like vintage wine. They are cellared for anywhere from one to 15 years and are generally high in alcohol. Designed by Brooklyn Brewery’s Garrett Oliver and managed by Gramercy’s assistant beverage director Kevin Garry, the vintage list is divided into North American and European sections, and includes aged stouts, barley wines, porters and ales, even a few ciders. Per bottle prices start at $10 and go up to $23 for a 1992 Thomas Hardy Ale. Best helping hand Mike Schneider, CEO of The Loop Pizza Grill, a fast-growing Jacksonville, Florida-based chain, never bought into the notion that employees should—or could—separate their personal problems from their work lives. To let staffers know he cares, Schneider implemented Corporate Care Works, an employee-assistance program that goes beyond the basics to include a 24-hour CARELINE staffed by licensed counselors for immediate assistance. It also includes a Corporate Chaplaincy Program, which places volunteer pastors and other adults involved in youth assistance programs in the units, where they wear Loop uniforms and work alongside employees. Their primary role: to serve as confidential support figures for employees having difficulty with some aspect of their lives. The CARELINE and chaplains are available via cell phone 24/7. Best reason to love American food now Sure, Crush focuses on seasonal, sustainable and artisanal ingredients, appealingly prepared. Of course, the Seattle restaurant has a great wine list. Naturally, chef Jason Wilson works very hard to keep appetizer prices under $10 and entrees in the low $20s. Welcome to what’s so great about the American food scene right now: approachable, ingredient-driven, wine-friendly, fun. “It has to be fluid,” says Wilson, who opened Crush two years ago, trying to articulate how the menu comes together. That means being open to the ingredients and to the wine, and letting them inspire what’s on offer, rather than the other way around. “We’ll try a new Burgundy, and think how great it would be with the smoked salt I made,” explains Wilson. That interplay is how he arrives at something like the Raviolis of Roasted Carrots & Mascarpone, earthy paired with creamy, offset by the sweet of tarragon-mint butter and sultana raisins, the salt of shaved Pecorino—perfect with an Alsatian-style varietal from the Willamette Valley. Best way to sell a flat wine Every wine on Ivy Restaurant’s 60-plus-bottle list is priced to sell—and priced the same. Whether it’s a Sauvignon Blanc from South Africa, a Gruner Veltliner from Austria, a Dolcetto from Italy, a Rioja from Spain, or a Cab from California—every bottle is a flat $26. And sell it does. “We sell quite a lot of wine,” says Rosemary Lucas, owner of the restaurant in downtown Boston, which opened in January 2006. “We want people to enjoy wine with our food, not worry about how much it costs.” The flat-rate concept encourages diners to experiment with unfamiliar wines. Careful wine choices and sourcing makes the flat rate work in terms of markups, says Lucas. And the list has been honed somewhat over the past year: “We saw what was selling and what wasn’t.” Ivy just added a reserve wine list, which is also flat but tiered, with 10 bottles priced at $44, 10 at $55 and 10 at $77. But Lucas isn’t selling a lot of the reserve wines. “Everybody still goes for the $26 bottles.” Best food alarm Wouldn’t it be nice to know ahead of time what’s on the lunch buffet? Souper Salad customers do, thanks to Favorite Item Alerts, a unique feature built into the company’s e-mail marketing. Customers who sign up online for the “Souper Fresh Club” indicate their favorite Souper Salad location and five favorite menu items. They then receive daily Favorite Item Alerts, letting them know what’s on the menu for the day and highlighting their personal favorites. “The selections rotate regularly to keep the buffet interesting,” says Molly DeVoss, a spokes- person for the Addison, Texas-based chain. “It’s a great way to stay in front of customers and generate loyalty. We also use the alerts to advertise promotions or other news.” To date, 65,000 customers have signed up for the service. Best excuse for buying local No distributors or wholesalers were able to get supplies into post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans, but that didn’t stop John Besh from keeping Restaurant August open. Always a huge supporter of sourcing local ingredients, he assisted area farmers by bringing their products back to his restaurant for all the city to use. Much of the food also made its way into the 3,000 meals a day Besh cooked for the civil servants in St. Bernard’s Parish. “I was particularly impressed with just how fast our local farmers were back up and running after the storm,” he says. Best employee perk How’s this for warding off turnover. For 15 years Blair Taylor has led an annual 10-day all-expense-except-airfare-paid staff trip to Italy. And we’re not just talking the culinary team. Cooks, waiters, even dishwashers and valet parking folks are invited. All Taylor asks is that they promise to stay on the job for one year after the trip. “This year, 14 of our 23 employees made the trip; many have gone multiple times,” says the owner of Denver’s Barolo Grill. “It’s food-and-wine intensive. We don’t do museums or churches. We visit wineries, cheesemakers, restaurants, olive oil producers.” Taylor divides the group for a portion of the trip: kitchen staffers visit food-related sites and work with Italian chefs, servers and bartenders focus on wine education. Employees pay their own airfare, but all other costs are covered. “It’s a significant investment,” Taylor says. “But the returns are amazing in terms of their knowledge, skills, passion—and loyalty to the business.” Best new read “Enlightened hospitality” is the philosophy that Danny Meyer brought from Kansas City to New York and into his first restaurant, Union Square Café. Twenty years and 10 restaurants later, it’s still the core of his unorthodox—but very successful— business model: The first and most important application of hospitality is to the people who work for you, and then, in descending order of priority, to the guests, community, suppliers and then investors. This is gone over in Meyer’s new book, “Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business” (HarperCollins). It would be hard not to learn something from it. Best way to lead a horseracing fan to water Although Gallagher’s Steakhouse is indisputably famous for introducing the New York strip steak to the dining public, horse racing is as much a part of its legacy as beef. Since 1927, management has been involved in the sport, and today, owner Marlene Brody continues to breed thoroughbreds at Gallagher’s Farm in upstate New York. “When we talked about ways of marketing the restaurant, it seemed like a natural fit to have a Kentucky Derby lunch and a handicapping seminar the Tuesday before the race,” says GM Terry Condon. “Now we’ve extended the promotion to all three legs of the triple crown plus two Saratoga races.” For $50, patrons get a three course race-themed meal, commemorative glass and predictions from expert prognosticators. To benefit the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, Gallagher’s donates $20 from each tab. Reports Condon: “All our regulars come and we raised $5,000 for charity last season.” Best taste test Wild or farmed? Blue fin or yellow fin? Sauced or plain? Eiichi Mochizuki wants people to taste the difference. The owner of Hime (“hee MAY”), a new Japanese restaurant in San Francisco, is a self-described fish nut, and he offers sashimi samplers that allow customers to put raw fish to the Pepsi challenge: wild Alaska and Scottish farm-raised salmon side by side; four different kinds of top-of-the-line maguro tuna together on one plate; or prepacked unagi eel (traditionally served with a thick, sweetish sauce), or the housemade kind, mild enough to be served on its own. Best mingling of wine and sex What’s your pleasure? A Svelte Blonde, a Hot-Blooded Red Head? You can find either, or both, on the seductively styled wine list at 10 Prime Steak & Sushi. Blondes are what the Providence, Rhode Island, restaurant calls its white wines, and Red Heads are, naturally, reds. The list is further subdivided with subsections like Easy, Voluptuous, Sweet and Impractical Blondes, and Wild, Intelligent, Soft & Supple, Crazy Mixed-up, Hedonistic and Big Busty Red Heads. “Wine lists tend to be standoffish,” says 10 Prime’s co-owner John Elkhay. “I want to inject some humor.” The list holds true to the restaurant’s theme, with displays of explicit artwork and a menu in the shape of a female silhouette. Sure, 10 Prime’s wine list was meant to grab attention and inspire chatter, but the titillating titles also give an accurate notion of the wines’ character, and how to pair them with the eclectic steak and sushi menu. Voluptuous Blondes are big and juicy whites that might pair with the yellowfin tuna with a ginger-soy glaze; Big Busty Red Heads feature steak-ready reds like a Groth Cabernet. Sparklers come under the heading of Effervescent Blondes, and Petite Beauties refers to half-bottles. Curious customers can indulge in a Menage a Trois—a three-glass tasting flight. Best way to attract Latinos How much PR can one peso buy? A lot, as Dallas-based Pizza Patrón discovered through a promotion to accept pesos in all 59 of its restaurants in January and February. Some hailed the move as brilliant marketing to the chain’s largely Hispanic customer base, many of whom make frequent trips across the border and return to the United States with pesos in their pockets. Others saw it as a slap in America’s face and political posturing against immigration reform. Protesters protested, bloggers blogged, news networks buzzed and hate mail rained down on Pizza Patrón headquarters. And sales? Well, they soared. “More than 30 percent of units broke all-time weekly sales records,” says Andrew Gamm, director of brand development, adding that the “aceptamos pesos” program may become permanent. Best fish and chips off the old block In an effort to reach young diners with something edgier, Boston-based Legal Sea Foods recently launched its next-generation concept—the high-tech, high-style LTK (Legal Test Kitchen). The LTK menu is still 35 percent seafood, but it also boasts a multi-cultural array of chicken, beef and vegetarian items categorized under headings such as “Nosh,” “Nibble” and “Exhilarate.” An extensive list of wines by the glass, beers and spirits is offered to accom- pany the food—much of which is served in smaller tasting portions. LTK’s design is also geared to the 20-something crowd, complete with WiFi, iPod docking stations, digital menus and mood lighting that changes throughout the day. Best step beyond sushi Hoping to do for Japanese food what P.F. Chang’s did for Chinese, Chang’s execs Rich Sullivan and chef Paul Muller launched Taneko Japanese Tavern last September in Scottsdale, Arizona. An interpretation of a traditional Japanese izakaya (neighborhood tavern), Taneko hopes that Americans are ready for a Japanese concept that digs deeper than sushi. “There’s been such tremendous acceptance of sushi bars that it seemed like the right time to explore what else Japanese food and culture has to offer,” says Sullivan. The Taneko package is all about approachable authenticity, from its exhibition kitchen and robata counter—complete with a bincho-tan charcoal grill and a woodburning-central oven—to a menu that highlights such specialties as Wild Black Cod in Ocean Broth, housemade tofu and Japanese pickles, Ramen with Kurobuta Pork and wood-roasted oysters and yellowfin tuna. Best pig in your drink Porchetta’s philosophy seems to be “use everything but the pig’s squeal.” The Brooklyn restaurant, named for the Italian dish of roast suckling pig, serves its margarita in a glass rimmed with pork skin cracklings. The place sells 40 to 50 of the drinks a night. The cocktail is made with anejo tequila, Cointreau and tangerine and lime juices. Like a traditional margarita served with a salted rim, pork cracklings are salty, too, notes chef Jason Neroni, “and add a smoky dimension.” Best cocktails for teetotalers Most nonalcoholic beverages are just a sop to the nondrinker. But at Green Zebra in Chicago they’re meant to pair with foods the way wines might. Dill Lemonade is made of fresh dill muddled with simple syrup, fresh lemon juice and water. The dill imparts a flavor nuance found in wines aged in oak, according to Spring Restaurant Group beverage director Tim Lacy, who created the nonalcoholic cocktail line. All the drinks are housemade and priced at $5. Also on the list: Walnut Soda, Housemade Root Beer, Iced Hibiscus Tea, Carrot Ginger Ale, Brown Sugar Orange Zest Soda, Pink Peppercorn Thyme Soda, Honey Spice Soda and Mulled Cranberry Juice. These last three—all spiked with cloves as well as other spices—can be ordered as a flight, called Menage a Clove ($7.50). Best way to get to Ireland from Atlanta Lamb Lollipops? Sizzling Guinesss BBQ Prawns? Irish Smoked Salmon Bites with warm potato blini? Things change, even Irish pubs. Fadó Irish Pubs and Restaurants, which operates 11 locations in the United States, is updating the image of the Irish pub with major design renovations, new European beers and a new menu, including those creative small plates (the lollipops: grilled lamb chops with pomegranate reduction and thyme). “This reflects what’s going on with the pub scene in Dublin and elsewhere in Europe,” says Kieran McGill, the Irish-born CEO of Fadó (pronounced f’DOE, meaning “long ago”), which first opened in Atlanta in 1996. Instead of the traditional thatched-cottage look, the renovations include a new room that’s sleek, modern and much more intimate, with French doors to an adjacent patio and a new bar that services both indoor and outdoor areas. “It has a more European look, just the way new pubs in Ireland do,” says McGill. Best place to find money: the basement Thanks to good word-of-mouth, the 400-square-foot Aroma Kitchen & Winebar in New York City quickly outgrew its 30-seat space. Not eager to turn customers away or move to larger (and more expensive) quarters, owners Alexandra DeGiorgio and Vito Polosa decided to remodel the shabby basement into a second dining room. “It was basically a storage space for discarded wood, windows and other items and was pretty dirty and rundown,” DeGiorgio recalls. But Polosa had a vision, and the pair cleared out the debris and got to work. They put up shelving for wine bottles, erected and painted walls, smoothed the concrete floor and enlisted an artist friend to paint a rug on its surface—right beneath the communal table. The result is the Farmhouse Room—a rustic, 360-square-foot chamber that adds 20 seats and brings the restaurant into another market. The Farmhouse Room cost under $10,000 to renovate and has nearly doubled Aroma’s sales. Best salad with your fish The growing season’s short in the Adirondack Mountains. But that doesn’t stop Kevin McCarthy from sourcing local produce. In his travels, the executive chef at The Point, a resort in Saranac Lake, New York, stumbled upon Don and Eve McCormick, proprietors of Laughing Duck Farm. The pair practices aquaponics, raising all-natural tilapia in nine tanks dug into their land, on top of which they cultivate beds of 50 different microgreens. “I use [them] all over the menu,” McCarthy says. “Farmers are few and far between here. I want to support them as much as possible and encourage more to grow in greenhouses like the ones built on top of the fish tanks.” Best food-related 9/11 tribute Talk about global cuisine. The menu at Colors in New York City—established by former Windows on the World employees—spans four continents, reflecting the countries the employees call home. This 140-seat upscale eatery is the largest worker-owned cooperative restaurant in the United States, and 38 members of the staff—from dishwashers to line cooks, hosts, servers, bartenders and others—share in the management and profits. What’s more, Haitian-born executive chef Jean Emy Pierre taps into their culinary traditions to create many of the menu’s dishes, reinterpreting their recipes with fine-dining touches. “The morale here is great,” reports chef Pierre. “For a dishwasher to have his recipe appear on the menu and know his opinion is valued—that never could happen in a corporate restaurant environment.” Best doctors’ visit The Healthy Kitchens, Healthy Lives conference, sponsored by The Culinary Institute of America and Harvard Medical School, aims to attract healthcare professionals, hospital and insurance executives and foodservice pros. “Food-service needs more information about healthy food,” says Harvard’s David Eisenberg. “Healthcare professionals are looking to respond to patients’ concern about diet and nutrition.” The conference is held at CIA’s Greystone campus in St. Helena, California, April 19 to 22 and again October 4 to 7. |
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