5 weeks left in Boston.
Life has been the roller coaster we've all come to anticipate but not nearly predict, timing being every virtue and curse that I've ever known. My preoccupation with moving (both back home briefly, then to Spain), wrapping up my commitments with work (which is busier than ever), and trying to survive we're all thrown into a tailspin with the news a few weeks ago that my Dad was diagnosed with Prostate Cancer and was having rather quick surgery to remove his tumor. I immediately began to reevaluate my priorities, and subsequently to make some changes in my life. Call it an epiphany, but I began to structure my life more, highlight the things I value, and then, clean the clutter and debris from my life. Its not that things were a mess, its just that I began to look at the things I really needed, and realized how much I could happily live without.
So Spain has been sitting front and center on my mind here for the past few weeks and months, and I am ever so eagerly anticipating heading abroad to be, even if a very small part, involved with something so magical and spectacular. I have been working on my Spanish, though, without really being tested and immersed, I am sure that will be one of my great challenges. Clearly the level of technique and cuisine will also be challenging, too. But I am most looking forward to is living in a group with a different mentality, even if just for a short while, with people who eat, sleep, and breath their craft, and who share the common belief that this is a life and craft.
The happiness I feel right now as being a young cook is unparalleled to anything I have ever felt in my life. So, I want to write down here a (hopefully) brief synopsis of where my dream restaurant has evolved to as of right now. Hopefully this will act as a benchmark for myself, and possibly a compilation of the scribblings, notes, dog-eared magazines, pictures, general musings and ideas that have kept my mind working overtime.
The name would be cobalt. People have varying opinions about the importance of naming things, such as restaurants. I think its tremendously important and should have meaning. Cobalt is my favorite color, and its the color of the blue aprons worn in great restaurants around the world (their symbolism, possibly best summed up on the per se website, is of a constant commitment, learning, growing and evolution, and acknowledgment that this, cooking, is a craft and we are merely part of the passing down and refining of these skills). The back story of cobalt as an element is fascinating, and I can only encourage you to read on about it without boring the majority of the people who read this blog (i.e. both of you). Cobalt is like the offal of minerals, generally discovered as a by-catch if you will of Copper and Nickel (both important elements in their own right to the kitchen, mind you). Additionally, cobalt makes up a very small percentage of Vitamin b12, one of the most important nutrients to all organisms.
So past that point, what kind of restaurant would it be? I want to follow the few who are bucking the trends and opening up gastronomically ambitious but casual restaurants. My modus operandi would be something similar to Momofuku Ssam Bar in New York City, a place where I have had the best dining experiences in my life. The freestyle service, the music, the communal arrangement, the casual discord of the service, the general approachability and affordability, and most of all the greatness and integrity in the food. These are all things that I value. I spent the other day perusing an unedited copy of the forthcoming Momofuku Cookbook, and found the format, the content and the prose as impactful as The French Laundry Cookbook. Its becoming clearer to me that these are the restaurants of the future and of the times (which, for all intents and purposes, I think will include our entire lifetimes).
So, back to cobalt. I really like many of the design elements and models we go by at Toro: long banquets, communal tables, bar seating that actually suffices for eating, backless stools, clothnapkin wrapped silversets, stemless glassware. There are things I liked elsewhere too! I kind of liked the semi-open/closed kitchen at Ssam and the bathrooms at WD50. I know your thinking, why does he give a shit about all of this stuff before the food? Good food is absolutely irreplaceable at a good restaurant, but the peripherals are how you evoke its soul/sex appeal/attraction. I want to do dinner only, and only 6 nights a week with brunch on Sunday (closed tuesdays). I know to a seasoned business person this sounds ludicrous, but Im in it for the long haul, and I want to be absent from as few services as humanly possible.
My main mentality behind the food is I want it to have integrity and taste good. The menu would have alot of options, dishes varying in size from small bites to medium (dare I say tapas sized) to full compositions, to things that can be shared. No one thing is guaranteed a home on the menu, if its simply not in season, not able to be produced with in our price point, not popular enough or, generally speaking, not something enough, we will do away with it, or do away with it temporarily. It forces us to change, but change is what keep things moving and not let a restaurant become static. I want to use alot of whole animals, whole fish, whole vegetables (you know radish greens and carrot tops can be put to use)...Some of the food can have composition, some of it should simply be what it is (a green salad to me is delicious, seasoned, nesting ball of greens, not something assembled with tweezers).
I want to have a dessert program too, even if its limited to only 3 or 4 things, I love dessert. Native Cheese, too, with interesting accompaniments.
I am not going to go overboard with the post-modern technique, but I really think some of these additives and techniques can enhance already beautiful products, which is my end goal at any rate. Fennel cooked sous-vide is one of my favorite things ever. Terrines made this way are free of air pockets. Using agar to thicken honey means you can put little dots of it where youd like to add complexity to a dish, in its liquid state it is difficult to deal with. Xanthum gum can thicken pure green vegetable juices and other sauces without needing to substantially cook them to alter their consistency (and thereby also their taste). We can use these tools to make great food better, and not have to be mad scientists out to try to overmanipulate your food.
Thats where its at now. In moving I came across many hundreds of little notes and ruminations I've written down, some of them as complete dishes, some just ideas and some simply just observations. Now I am going to start honing in on what really makes any of this interesting or worthy.
Till soon, Im going to keep shuffling the pans at Toro.
cheers world,
greg k-c