Insights on hospitality from a restaurant professional
Author’s Note: Today’s inaugural guest post is from Chef Erik Black, of Osteria Mozza. We look forward to sharing with you his five-day eating tour of BBQ through Central Texas and Hill County. So save your pennies and start working out, because this is one eating tour that you will most certainly want to commit your belly to. Completely.
I am very excited to announce the first-ever guest post here at Food Woolf. Next up, a Chef’s Eating Tour from Chef Erik Black of Osteria Mozza!
Chef Erik Black may call himself a humble student of meat, but as far as I’m concerned, the guy is a master. During his long days in the kitchen of Osteria Mozza, the former Massachusetts native coaxes subtle and robust flavors from diverse cuts of meat. He braises beef until it’s fall-off-the-bone tender and creates delicacies from a massive pig’s head or its much-neglected trotters. He cures sides of pork until it becomes silky and soft and tastes like a prayer. He slow cooks oxtail to the point that the chocolate brown meat becomes as soft as oatmeal and tastes of the earth. He crafts succulent sausages from rabbit loin and fresh herbs.
In my world, Erik is an authority. He is the one to talk to when making pork, testa, braised beef, short ribs, barbecue ribs, rabbit sausage, and smoked meats—because he knows how to celebrate the life of every animal he cooks. Erik is a soft-spoken master that rarely steps out of the kitchen. But come into Mozza on any given night, and you will see unmistakable signs of Erik’s talents—there’s his Copa, testa, mortadella, lardo, and barbeque ribs–peppered throughout the menu.
So when I heard Erik say he was planning to take a tour of Texas Barbeque joints, I made a point of asking for lots and lots of details. Lucky for us, Erik went one step farther, and decided to give us a five-day guide for an ultimate Texas Barbeque Tour.
Coming soon, Chef Erik’s Eating Tour of Central Texas and Hill County!
When you miss a place that’s far away, sometimes the easiest way to go back is to eat something that reminds you of that spot. But what if the taste you long for requires ingredients that are out of season or are impossible to locate in your hometown? A sensory craving that crescendo’s to the point of aching is all it takes to create a proxy recipe.
A proxy recipe—a term I’ve just made up to explain this odd phenomena–is one that recreates a sensory memory with disparate ingredients that have very little to do with the original moment that inspired it. Because when you’re desperate, substitutions are important. Ever since leaving Ixtapa Mexico, I’ve been craving grilled, handmade tortillas and fresh-from-the-tree guacamole drizzled with limes. Though avocados may be available here in Los Angeles, there’s a cold, hard rain that’s pounding our city and I don’t quite feel up to faking the warm weather of Mexico in this bone chilling weather. Those sun-kissed flavors just wouldn’t taste the same in the cold.
But as the rain-battered trees paw the panes of my windows, I consider other flavors that evoke sandy beaches and tropical markets. For me, that’s rum, chocolate, and sweet fruit. In a flash (of lightning, it turns out) inspiration strikes: my proxy recipe is born.
I respect restaurants. I respect people. So why is it that so many diners don’t respect me when I’m dressed in a waiter’s uniform?
The answer is simple: many customers don’t believe waiters to be professionals and therefore don’t merit their respect.
As a server and bartender, I am expected to be friendly, courteous, and skilled at my job–regardless of how poorly my diners treat me. If I greet a table with a smile and they glare at me with hate, I must pretend that their attitude doesn’t affect me. If a guest barks because they feel uncomfortable not understanding the menu, I am required to empathize and respond with kindness. If a patron interrupts me while I am helping another guest, I am obligated to defend the other diner’s right to service while maintaining good communication with the impatient one. If a dish comes out of the kitchen that a particular guest doesn’t like, I am expected to apologize and assuage their anger—regardless if I am accused of intentionally trying to ruin their big night out.
Fine. I’m a professional. I can handle big expectations. But what is expected of the guest? Surely human kindness should be on the list.
Thanks to a food writing scholarship and the generous support of friends, I am writing this post from Ixtapa, Mexico’s Club Med Food Blogger Camp. For one week, a small group of food bloggers gather together to enjoy the tropical weather, warm ocean breezes, and food blogging sessions taught by some of the most respected online food writers in United States and France.
Club Med’s resort is reason enough for the trip–with its beautiful architecture, friendly staff, warm ocean waters, balmy weather (the tropical climate ranks nearly perfect for more than three hundred days a year), beautiful vistas, and outstanding food.
In a word, Club Med Ixtapa is paradise.
Continue To Find Food Blogging Tips from Club Med Ixtapa’s Food Blogger Camp »
Welcome to Service 101: a behind the scenes look at the food service industry. Today’s topic: restaurants as a business.
Lots of people pay for the luxury of eating out. But how is it those very same diners don’t think of restaurants as a business? Though the average diner understands the concept of paying the bill at the end of the meal, many see restaurants as a kind of public service for their neighborhood or city. For them, the restaurant is a public space put there to serve their culinary and social needs—rather than a place of business that is designed to assist them in getting sustenance in a pleasant atmosphere.
Take for example The Angry Late Guy. He books a table for four on a busy Friday night at 8 pm, but doesn’t show until thirty minutes after his reservation time. The restaurant holds the table for the gentleman and his guests for 15 minutes, but when he never arrives, the restaurant does what it must do: they give the table to someone else. Why? Not because the restaurant is spiteful, disorganized, or uncommitted to serve their guests. It is because they are a business, and empty tables cost restaurants money.
I got my start in the restaurant business as a bartender. I wasn’t an arm-garter wearing mixologist with killer technique. I was a girl behind the bar, the person in charge of the party, a smart ass and a fast thinker that could pour hundreds of pints of beer in an hour.
Fifteen years ago, tending bar in Boston was less about technique and more about work ethic. Back then, it was unheard of to squeeze fresh juice for a sour. The idea of muddling a sprig of thyme into a cocktail would have gotten me more than a dirty look–it would have gotten me fired. Back in the day, what made me a great bartender was the fact that I could remember people’s names and their drinks, pour shots and pints fast, and knew how much all the drinks cost without ever touching the manual cash register.
Thanks to a renaissance in speakeasy’s and classic drink making, I’m learning lots of new techniques, turn of the century bartending tricks, and classic drinks. To be a bartender in 2010—you must have knowledge of the classics, excitement about new and ancient ingredients, great technique, be creative, and—though many ‘bar chefs’ would disagree—be really fast.
Now that I’ve been bartending again, I’m building a small bar of my own at home. This way, I can take what I’ve learned at work and apply my craft to a post shift drink–a refreshing cocktail that’s equal parts reward and research.
My newest cocktail is the Ward 2010, a drink that celebrates the past, the future, and California’s citrus season.