Chef and restaurateur Spike Mendelsohn wants you to know that there’s much more to him than the top-chef alum, fedora wearing, burger and pizza making that we’ve grown to admire. Under all those layers is a classically trained chef, with quite the eclectic culinary background. With the opening of the new Béarnaise on Capitol Hill, Spike has a mind for business and attention to detail that has helped launch his family’s restaurants into the national spotlight.
At the newly opened Béarnaise, Spike has taken the lead in developing a French concept that delivers a similar spartan-like approach. The steak is the focal point, with a small but carefully picked selection of side items as well as some “Le Bouchon” appetizer items including mouthwatering croque monsieur, duck confit frites and frogs legs. And judging by the understandable number of pauses Spike took during the interview to address various details – bread needed for a cheese plate he saw go by, a plate needing to face a certain direction when presented, answering a chef’s question on a menu item for the day – Spike is not letting anything about Béarnaise go unchecked.
Bearnaise on Capitol Hill Photo credit: PopVille.com
CC: You come from a family of restaurateurs and butchers, was culinary school even necessary?
SM: I needed culinary school not exactly to learn how to cook, but for the networking and giving me the confidence and structure at that point in my life. When my grandfather was diagnosed with cancer and my parents had to leave their restaurant and move back to Montreal for 7-8 months to take care of him, I had already left their restaurant and was working at a club. But they asked me to come work while they were away, and a year later they came back, saw the restaurant was running well and said put in another year at the restaurant and we’ll send you to culinary school. So I met my half of the bargain and so did they. And that’s where I actually realized I had a little something that I didn’t know about, compared to other students, just because I had grown up in the industry. So the things that were very second nature to me I discovered weren’t to others and it gave me confidence so then I just went for it.
CC: You seem to have a pretty eclectic background when it comes to food. How has this helped shape the chef you are today and how you run your restaurants?
SM: My parents on their honeymoon when I was really young had gone to a French chateau and eaten at Gerard Boyer’s 3 star Michelin restaurant and we had his menu signed on our house wall. I grew up looking at this menu and a bunch of other menus, but this one menu was the one that my mother said , listen if you get a chance one day ,this is the guy you have to go work for and he will put you to the next level. So when it came time for an externship for school, everyone was applying within the US and I was trying to apply with Boyer. It took me 9 months of phone calls at 3am in the morning talking to a chef in French and he refused me for 8 months and then finally one day he said we’ll accept you just stop calling me.
I needed culinary school not exactly to learn how to cook, but for the networking and giving me the confidence and structure at that point in my life. Boyer laid the foundation, then I worked for some other chefs, the Maccioni family (Le Cirque) and Tomas Keller. And then it came to a point where I was still learning but wanted to freshen things up. I met this Vietnamese chef and he took me all through Vietnam and then opened up a Vietnamese restaurant in NYC. But it was Top Chef that kind of launched me into the direction of burger and pizza. The show had so much notoriety at the time and after when I got back with my family, we thought of launching something super easy and no fuss to build a name, and created Good Stuff Eatery.
CC: You seem to be good with timing the concepts of your restaurants, as evidenced by Good Stuff Eatery and We the Pizza.
SM: When we first wanted to open a restaurant in DC, the economy was struggling, so we wanted something with a price point that would be able to sell and people would actually be getting value for their buck. And it worked out really well. But after 5 years of people telling me, “hey you’re that fedora pizza burger cooking chef” I was ready for more.
CC: So you were ready for a place like Bernaise?
SM: I had put my French and Vietnamese background on hold to open up Good Stuff Eatery and We the Pizza and now my family and I wanted to do something new and fun, but not really dive back into full service restaurant service with a huge menu. So the steak frite concept was really cool for me, because it was still a very simple idea: a prefix menu with classic sauce preparations, as well as “le Bouchon” which allows me to have fun with the menu serving things like frogs legs, bone marrow and foie gras.
French food is resurging now too. It seemed to take a backseat to molecular gastronomy and other types of restaurants, but now seeing chefs reintroduce the bistro – le diplomat, bb bistro, and you see bistros come back.
Alex B. meeting with Spike
CC: It seems that this idea of simplicity is working for you?
SM: I feel like our generation these days they like people to specialize in something to be known for one or two things. That’s why I went ahead with a simple burger, and pizza, and a steak frite place. You know, and also in turn my career has two faces, one is being a restaurateur and a chef, and the other is traveling and trying to stay current on television shows and whatever other gigs come my way, working with the first lady’s initiative and things like that.
If I had a full service restaurant with a huge menu it would be a bit more daunting and I feel the consistency of my food would be less. And you see all the craze of lunch trucks that is a key thing to pay attention to, people love the lunch trucks they specialize in one or two things, so a restaurant can do the same thing. And you are starting to see them a lot, the ramen shops, the meatball shops, or my restaurants. I think it’s a trend and I don’t know how long it will last.
CC: What are your thoughts on the DC restaurant scene?
SM: The DC food scene is uber successful these days. Have to thank Jose Andres, Michel Richard, and Eric Ripert, who all paved the way for the rest of us to do a lot of stuff.
CC: What makes the DC area a good place to open a restaurant?
SM: Recession proof city essentially. Lot of excitement here, especially for me when the new administration came in 5 years ago. Whether you liked them or not they did revive DC socially. They went out to area restaurants and take part in activities and inspire people and I think that has been a huge thing.
And there are so many people coming in and out of DC, so you always have a new batch of customers. It’s great for brands that want to branch out throughout the US. Good Stuff Eatery got nationally recognized just because of our location. And you see other professionals noticing that. Sweetgreens and Taylor Gourmet built their branches here in DC and Chipotle’s is launching the first spot for their second concept in Dupont.
CC: Did you read the Washington Post article that slammed the DC food scene?
SM: I did. The article is very green, very uneducated, more for him than anything. He wanted to try and create something, but in turn I think it just made him look somewhat foolish and uneducated about the scene and people read through that. I think many different ways of approaching this business and I don’t think there is any right or wrong way it’s all very personal to every chef and different and what he’s capable of doing and what he has going on in his life.There are chefs like Johnny Monis from Komi, who doesn’t want to go anywhere or do any TV, he wants to be in his kitchen every day and make sure things are perfect and he’s won awards for that.
All of Jose Andres restaurants are really great to eat at, there is nothing wrong with any of them. And you have to think of it this way, he employs a lot of people, he gives opportunities to a lot of young chefs to work in his restaurants. He puts a chef in a restaurant saying hey this is your restaurant, I’ll give you a concept, help you launch it but this is your baby, nothing wrong with that. You’re helping the economy, you’re helping families and employing people.
CC: What are some of your favorite places to eat in DC?
SM: I love The Source, Toki, Boundary Road, Graffiato , all Jose Andres places, I get around.
CC: It’s a cool thing to go to your places and see you there, and you seem to be very gracious with customers.
SM: I think that comes with the territory of going on tv and being in the public eye. The worse thing to do is say “I don’t want to talk to you.” Well, then don’t go on television or ask people to come talk to you about what you were doing on Iron Chef or Top Chef. And there are times I can’t be at the restaurants, and I rely on my team to do such a good job and they do and that’s that.
CC: What is your favorite items to eat on your menu?
SM: Steak frite obviously. I really developed the appetizer menu of all my favorite things to eat, so there is not one thing on that menu I can’t wait to eat myself. The duck confit frites are off the chain, I had an order of that last night.
CC: So what’s next?
SM: Expanding Good Stuff Eatery. We also want to expand We the Pizza and are close to signing a lease in Crystal City. Béarnaise will be a concept restaurant hopefully, do a year of business see the success of it and how well it does. We built it to open up more, that was the idea. And then lots of more stuff from the company. Right now taking a break, not doing any concept development, but there are some opportunities that have presented themselves. First though, we want to get through the review process at Béarnaise and make sure this place is nice and set and then we’ll see what happens.
And then maybe a Vietnamese restaurant one day from me soon, we’ll see.
The post Bernaise Anyone?: An Interview with Spike appeared first on ClotureClub.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment