A week went by and I heard nothing from Henry. I became anxious. I continued to search for job openings online, and like before, there was nothing. Then I got an e-mail from Henry. He complimented my drive and passion and said the food was fantastic, but that it was simply too risky to transform the restaurant as I envisioned. Changing the food, service, and decor all at once was difficult conceptually and daunting financially. “I wish you all the best.”
My ambition had cost me the job.
I told myself that I didn't want the position unless I could do it my way, so it wasn't really a lost opportunity. But I hadn't been offered the job, and I couldn't be certain why that was, despite what Henry said.
I told chef Keller about Henry's e-mail. “It doesn't look like I'm going anywhere, Chef.”
“Well, you have to respect his honesty and the fact that he realized he didn't want to take that risk with his business.”
“I guess.”
I spent the next two weeks looking for another opportunity, but came quickly to the conclusion that I would be staying in Napa for a long time. Time was running out. If I was going to move I had to do it soon so Angela could have some stability during the late stages of her pregnancy. It had to happen quickly, or it would likely not happen at all. As much as I loved the Laundry, I was feeling that everything was conspiring to keep me there against my will.
Then it came.
Four and a half weeks after my interview with Henry he e-mailed to see if I was still available. I didn't even finish reading the e-mail before I picked up the phone and called him. “Hi, Henry. It's Grant. I got your e-mail.”
“Here's the deal. I have gone through all of the applicants that I had scheduled and your food blew them all away. It wasn't close. The food has been haunting me. I can't get it out of my head. You are a talent and you're driven by a vision. So much so that I'm willing to entertain the changes you want for Trio. That is, if you're still looking for a job.”
I was elated.
Henry and I exchanged dozens of e-mails working out the details. He decided to go all in, do or die. He would market this not as a gradual transition but as a reinvention of Trio. He commissioned his brother-in-law, Pavel Kraus, to design and install Mylar screens in the dining spaces to update the decor. We changed the logo, purchased new china and wineglasses, updated the website, ordered new uniforms for the service staff, and hammered out a labor budget so that I could hire a new team in the kitchen. Operationally, everything would change in a manner that would enable the best presentation of the cuisine.
Trio would become a new restaurant.
Chef Keller asked for a minimum of two months to work out the changes necessary in the French Laundry kitchen. Henry wanted me there sooner, but I told him that I would give chef Keller whatever he asked for. I would leave The French Laundry in June 2001 and start at Trio on July 1. Everything was set. I was about to run my own kitchen.
Chef Keller looked at me with a smile as he headed back toward the kitchen. “Chicago, huh? Trotter's going to crush you.”
PART 2
A NEW TRAIN OF THOUGHT
CHAPTER 12
A
s my time at the Laundry wound down, I needed to make a plan for the kitchen at Trio.
Shawn McClain had already departed from his position to open Spring, and Henry had put in place a temporary kitchen team to fill the void until he hired the next chef. As soon as I committed to the job we began to talk about how I'd want to hire my own crew. Trio was never a terribly busy restaurant, and with the loss of customers after Shawn's departure and the expenses from the upcoming renovation weighing on him, Henry suggested I use a very conservative estimate for the number of cooks needed to operate the kitchen. He was equally adamant about offering a very low starting salary to all of the chefs, so much so that I was embarrassed to mention it to potential hires. I knew that I was going to drive the chefs hard, working them fourteen hours a day. To accept a job making barely over $20,000 with an unknown chef running his first kitchen at the age of twenty-six would require a huge leap of faith on their part. We settled on a crew of five cooks and I began building my team.
The French Laundry had a giant brigade of twenty-plus cooks. Having such a small team would be a significant departure, and I knew I needed someone who spoke the same language, knew the standards, and knew how to execute. I needed to bring someone with me from the Laundry.
While Henry placed ads in local papers and sorted through applicants for me, I approached chef Keller and asked him if I could bring David Carrier with me to Trio.
David was a commis at the Laundry, and I had gained a lot of respect for his drive and determination. He was a huge guy, the size of a middle linebacker, with a Queens accent and a fast pace. He didn't so much prep his
mise en place
as he plowed through it, sweat beading up on his forehead. Despite his effort and competence he never graduated past that prep-cook ceiling, and I wasn't sure why. I knew he would agree that it was time for him to move on in order to grow as a cook.
After Thomas said that it was okay for me to ask David along I decided to approach him by writing a letter. It read:
David,
Let me start by giving you an overview of what the restaurant is and where I plan to take it.
As you probably saw in the packet, I included the Zagat ratings, some reviews, and other items to give you some background about the place. It started out a huge success in '94 with Rick and Gail Tramanto. They left in '96 to open Tru, which has been a great success. When they left, their sous chef at the time took over and has been behind the stoves ever since. He is a young guy, thirty now, who will open his own place in the city in May. Seemingly good (I had a good meal there) but not the person to make the place recognizable on a national level. He maintained the four-star status, received some James Beard awards, but never made it big.
Enter me. I have been looking for about six months for a spot that would let me produce my own food. I was searching for the unique situation that an owner would hire me as a chef and let me have total “carte blanche.” I found it in Trio. Henry, the owner, is a good guy who is a little goofy at times, but I can tell he is good people. He has agreed to “let me go,” so to speak, to develop my own cuisine. It works out for me for a couple of reasons: 1. It is an existing four-star restaurant, so the media attention will be there. 2. That creates an opportunity for me to achieve the goals I have set for myself. 3. But more than anything it is a logical step for me, and this of course will be my first go at “chef.” This allows me to take the reins of a restaurant that has the potential to become great under my direction, thus increasing my market value and putting me in a position for the next step. Ownership.
The food will be modern. Let me explain. My food will be true to itself. Integrity of the food and the way it is presented is my #1 priority. The style will be that of (are you ready for this?) FL + Atlas + elBulli. I want my technique rooted in French. We will clean foie and cook meat and fish the way I learned from Thomas. But I also want to be part of the revolution that is sweeping Europe. The new techniques and bold combinations of flavors. I want to help bring those to the States and develop my own along the way.
The menu format will be similar to that of the FLâa four-course prix fixe, an eight-course tasting, and a veg menu. The four-course will be a bit more conservative in comparison to the tasting, which will be the most avant-garde. But even the four-course will be modern and daring compared to the FL. I stress this, thoughâthe technique will be exacting to the FL. . . . Flawless. I didn't spend four years here for nothing.
The kitchen will be broken down into five stations: Meat, Fish, GM, Canapé, Pastry. The savory side will have four
chefs de partie
and 1-2 externs. That's it. Everyone is responsible for his or her M.E.P. as well as working the station at night. I visualize it will be like the old FL, not the brigade of twenty-eight we have now. I will work the meat station first. I will not have a sous chef starting out. To me a sous is someone who understands the food and the way the chef thinks enough to replace the chef in his absence. Until I feel someone has that knowledge I will not name a sous. Training will be intensive in the beginning; I will need to teach everyone how I want things done.
The restaurant will be slow during the beginning of my takeover. Average covers run 25-40 Tues, Wed., 40-65 Thursday, 80-90 Fri and Sat. This will give me a much-needed opportunity to train and perfect the food. August will be a big monthâthat is when we will push the media. The
Trib
and
Chicago
mag will likely do dining reviews in August.
The kitchen is not like the FLânot many are. It is solid, the equipment is sound and clean and the line is functional. It isn't the prettiest kitchen in the world but by far not the worst. It does have a kitchen table, so that tells you it can't be too bad.
You are leaving the best restaurant in the country. Be sure of your next move, Dave. I want you to join the team, but I am no Thomas Keller or Charlie Trotter. I am just a kid who thinks he has a shot. I am going in there confident with my ideas and I will execute the food to the best of my ability, using what I learned from Thomas as a base.
That's my story. Think it over.
When I next saw Dave the answer was swift: “You bet.”
I had very little money saved up and he had even less, so we had no choice but to jointly rent a large U-Haul truck. Packing into the cab of a moving truck were Angela, nearly six months pregnant; her 140-pound Rottweiler; Dave; and me. Two thousand six hundred miles, a few arguments, a flat tire, and dozens of bathroom breaks and sleepless nights later, we arrived in Evanston, Illinoisâtwenty-eight hours before our scheduled first day at Trio.
Â
David and I stood in the middle of the space, surveying the kitchen. It was his first time seeing it.
“Man, you were right,” he said. “This definitely ain't The French Laundry!” He slapped me on the back hard and it was tough to tell if it was dismay or optimism that he was trying to convey.
Before we left Napa I warned him over and over that Trio was not what we were accustomed to. It was pretty much the same talk that Thomas gave me a few months before. The kitchen was rough, to say the least. Stacks of carbon- and grease-crusted pots were piled in the corner, and thick rubber mats lined the floor. The floor itself was painted purple and was slippery as hell. It pitched four inches into what we eventually called “ditches” on the hot line. All of the equipment was modular, raised on casters with broken brakes that not only moved around any time someone bumped into them but also created gaps where debris would collect, making it difficult to keep things clean.
As we walked down the line, David leaned in to inspect the condition of the stove and smacked his head on the exhaust hood. The ceilings were low and the hood extended down enough to make it an obstacle to any cook over six feet tall. On a far wall were framed magazine covers and old
Art Culinare
pagesâreminders of the Rick Tramanto and Shawn McClain eras.
“Um, can we take those down?” he said to me with a grin.
We began the work of reconfiguring the kitchen ourselves. The shelving that towered above the hot line for holding the finished plates was disassembled, the low-boy refrigerators were rearranged, and a space in the center of the line was left vacant. We found a four-foot-square piece of granite in the basement and placed it on top of some metro shelving that we bought at Home Depot. That became our pass. The heat lamps were pulled outâwe wouldn't need those for sureâand the steam table was converted into a workstation with the addition of another piece of found granite secured in place with duct tape. The line felt more spacious and clean and was an efficient use of an otherwise small kitchen.
Once the rest of our small crew came in, we gave the kitchen a scrubbing that it clearly hadn't had in years. Then Dave smiled and grabbed recently hired Nathan Klingbail, and a few moments later the two returned carrying rolls of black carpet mats, the same kind that lined the floor at The French Laundry. They rolled out the carpets and all of a sudden the purple floor disappeared.
It was not a high-end, well-designed four-star kitchen, but at the end of four days of cleaning and moving things around, the space worked. More important, the team felt united in the pride of what we had accomplished togetherâand we hadn't even fired up the stoves yet.
In the dining rooms, Henry was making the same effort to give Trio a new face. The walls were repainted, the table settings revamped, and new art was hung by his brother-in-law. Within three days it was transformed. The physical changes weren't dramatic, but to everyone working there the feeling was that we had just created a new restaurant.
As I got to know the team from our time cleaning I started to wrap my head around their placement in the kitchen. I knew I was going to put Carrier on the fish station, both because he was familiar with the
mise en place
from working as the fish commis at the Laundry and because its central location on the line would give him a good vantage point to help me supervise. Still, I needed to find a great meat cook to anchor the line, because I knew my own time would be stretched over multiple stations.
The group was downstairs attacking the basement and walk-in with bleach and deck brushes when I headed down and asked everyone to come up to the pastry kitchen to clear our heads of the noxious gases. “Who thinks they can cook the meat?”