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Danny Meyer,
president of the Union Square Hospitality Group, has made a
name for himself as founder and co-owner of four of New York
City's most popular restaurants---Union Square Cafe (1985),
Gramercy Tavern (1994), Eleven Madison Park (1998) and Tabla
(1998)---not to mention his substantial commitment to several
charities. Meyer took time out from preparations for a fifth
restaurant, Blue Smoke and Jazz Standard, to speak to The Main
Course. In true congenial fashion, he politely stopped the conversation
a few times to greet staff such as Michael Romano, chef and
co-owner of Union Square Cafe, and once rose from his chair
to mop off a table in the Eleven Madison Park bar area, noting,
"Someone's Cosmopolitan didn't get cleaned up last night."
When you opened Union Square Cafe in 1985 you were only 27
years old. What experience had you had in the food industry?
I'd been a food professional for just a little over a year.
I'd worked at a restaurant called Pesca on 22nd Street for eight
or nine months as lunch manager. Then I went to cook in Italy
and France for a handful of months. I just did professional
stages. I grew up cooking with my dad, though. My parents lived
in Alsace for two years and then my father developed a travel
business in St. Louis. Eventually he became the first American
agent for the company that became Relais & Châteaux.
We traveled a lot, and I never forgot any meal..
You now have four restaurants and are about to open a fifth.
What unites all the restaurants?
They have a brand of hospitality in common and they have very
little else in common. During the last ten years of economic
boom the opportunities were extraordinary, and I defined our
success by the things we said no thank you to. But there were
two things that motivated me to say yes when I said yes. The
first is that I've really enjoyed the restaurant business as
a way to explore my interests, whether they be Italy, France,
India or New England. Since I'm not a novelist I use restaurants
to explore things. The second has been the joy of watching members
of our team grow. For example, at Blue Smoke the executive chef/pit
master Kenny Callaghan, has been sous-chef at Union Square Cafe
for eight years. The general manager at Blue Smoke, Mark Maynard-Parisi,
was number-two manager at Union Square Cafe for eight years.
Stephanie Duncan, who was a manager at Gramercy Tavern for five
years, will be assistant general manager. Jennifer Giblin has
been number- two in pastry at Eleven Madison Park and Tabla
and will be pastry chef. We have a strong community-based culture.
What made you decide to concentrate your restaurants in the
Union Square/Madison Square area of Manhattan?
In Italy and France I learned a lot about shopping for food,
and back in 1985 when I was looking for space the Union Square
Greenmarket was the only game in town. I was excited to be near
the farmers' market, although it was not unusual on a Saturday
morning to wake up and see a chalk outline from a homicide on
17th Street at that time. When I opened Gramercy Tavern with
Tom Colicchio eight and a half years later, I wanted to be within
walking distance of both the Greenmarket and Union Square Cafe.
That's been the hallmark ever since: I have to be able to walk
there.
How has the New York restaurant business changed since then,
specifically with regard to financing?
Dramatically. The restaurant business is like theater. The production
values for Broadway have skyrocketed, but you can still launch
an Off Broadway production on a smaller scale. You can still
open a reasonably low-budget restaurant in New York. You can
take more risks, express a tighter point of view because you
don't have to appeal to as many people. And our business needs
that infusion the way theater needs the infusion of Off Broadway
shows. However, there are expectations that accrue. When I opened
Union Square Cafe nobody had ever heard of me and if it had
failed it would have been a tree falling in the forest with
no one there to hear it. The day Gramercy Tavern opened it was
on the cover of New York magazine. The expectation was very
different.
How does your typical day begin?
A typical day may start with a board meeting or a workout at
the gym. This morning I had an 8:00 meeting with the Union Square
BID/LDC (Business Improvement District/Local Development Corporation).
I'm on the executive board there and I'm on the executive committee
for NYC & Co. and co-chair for the Campaign for the New
Madison Square Park and on the advisory board of City Harvest
and the board for Share Our Strength. That work is a big part
of the philosophy: All boats rise with the tide.
Your restaurants employ 450 people and have been a breeding
ground for up-and-coming chefs (Tom Colicchio, Michael Romano,
Claudia Fleming). How do you spot talent?
We really hire for the human being more than for the technical
skills. Since we do hire for the human being, it takes a while
longer to stitch together that excellence. None of our restaurants
has ever begun to meet its potential for at least two or three
years. Something I'm proudest of is that Union Square Cafe has
never been as excellent as it is now in its seventeenth year,
and it's been number one [in the Zagat Survey for popularity]
for six years, which is hard in a city that cherishes the new.
Do you have any advice for the Institute's career students,
men and women just starting out on their culinary careers?
Be sure you're getting into this business for the right reason.
The only right reason I know is that it fills your gas tank
to give pleasure to other human beings. The first time you ever
cooked, whether it was baking brownies or chocolate chip cookies,
the real pleasure in that was sharing with the rest of the family.
You didn't do it to show off to the neighborhood. If you build
a technical foundation on top of that emotional drive to please,
you should be in this business and we need you badly. If it
doesn't please you to please, there are a lot easier ways to
make a living.
It is notoriously difficult to get a reservation at your
restaurants. Any tips for someone who's dying to eat at one
of them?
I don't know of any food in the world that you should have to
speed dial four weeks ahead in order to appreciate it. Four
weeks later, you get your bowl of polenta, and it's delicious
polenta, but it's legitimate to say, "Was it worth waiting
four weeks for?" So each of our restaurants has a way to
eat there with no reservations. At Blue Smoke we're going to
have a huge area with no reservations because I'll be damned
if you have to wait four weeks for ribs. At Eleven Madison Park
there's the wine bar, and the Bread Bar at Tabla. We make them
really nice places, too.
In addition to running four restaurants, you've co-authored
two cookbooks. Where do those fit into your overall view?
The first, The Union Square Cafe Cookbook, was published nine
years after Union Square Cafe opened. It wasn't because we needed
or wanted advertising. It was because for years our guests said,
"Please give us a cookbook. We want to cook this food."
If you asked 100 people who like Union Square Cafe why they
like it, probably only five would say it's beautiful. Probably
only another five would say because of the gorgeous presentations.
Hopefully 90 would say because it tastes delicious. The cookbook
had to be comfortable and yield delicious food and be user friendly,
which is why people like the restaurant.
Can you tell me a little about your new restaurant?
Blue Smoke and Jazz Standard is on 27th Street between Park
and Lexington. It's really two restaurants. Blue Smoke is a
barbecue joint with a great jukebox with jazz, soul, rhythm
and blues and some decent rock and roll. Downstairs is Jazz
Standard, which I hope will be a wonderful addition to the dialogue
on jazz clubs in New York. I'm extremely excited about the combination
of barbecue and jazz. They're two wonderful American things,
and they have a broad appeal to a lot of different communities.
And I want musicians who have the same philosophy about music
as we do about food-I want musicians who are playing music for
your pleasure. I can't imagine anything more fun than eating
a great plate of ribs and hearing something that moves you.
What types of food do you eat at home?
I adhere to the same philosophy that I use in the restaurant.
My wife and I usually eat what's in season. We belong to a community-supported
agricultural farm. We pick up different organic vegetables once
a week at an Upper West Side church. Since I'm not home a lot
and my wife doesn't cook, I tend to make soups, stews, pastas
and things I know she can reheat during the week. When I am
home, I keep it simple and fun. I might make a pancake "breakfast"
with all the trimmings for dinner. If we have friends over,
I like to serve cheeses, bread, dips and simple food so I can
spend as much time as possible with my guests.
Do you think Union Square Hospitality Group will ever open
restaurants in other cities? Other countries?
It's not wise to say never to anything. I honor restaurateurs
who have opened in far-flung places like Las Vegas, but that
wouldn't give me the opportunity to touch the restaurant each
day.
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