A techno-hobbyist like Tony Marciante, chef-owner of Visions Restaurant in Bethesda, tweets, blogs, participates on Facebook and maintains numerous Web sites, including www.whatdoestonydo.com. “The general gist is getting to know the conversations—and that’s where they’re happening now,” Marciante says. “Everyone has the need to tell the world what they’re doing…. You want to be able to respond.”
Other restaurateurs still rely on old-fashioned, face-to-face communication. “Sometimes I flat out ask customers, ‘Hey, how was your dinner? How was our service?’ ” says Greg Hourigan, owner of the Hard Times Cafe in Bethesda.
And then there are the spies. Geoff Tracy hired Coyle Hospitality Group to dine anonymously at his establishments each month and to evaluate them. Christopher Tracy, Geoff’s brother and vice president of Chef Geoff’s restaurant group, says Coyle sends him a 15-page report for each location, detailing everything from the reception at the hostess stand to the cleanliness of the windows. Among the questions mystery diners answer: Did the server welcome you to the restaurant within two minutes of sitting down? Did he present the menus open-faced? Was the food hot if it was supposed to be hot?
The reports are analyzed and discussed at management meetings, but “if we uncover a rude server, we want to address that right away,” Christopher Tracy says.
Do they taste-test everything before it leaves the kitchen, the way Chef Gordon Ramsay does on TV?
They don’t taste from everybody’s dish, but to maintain consistency many chefs will taste from the pots or containers holding the stocks, sauces and dressings that form the base of many dishes.
“You stick your fingers in…you have to do it,” says Francesco Ricchi of Cesco Trattoria. “To go around with a plastic spoon would be the right way to do it, but you clean your fingers and you use the same one.”
Some restaurants do use plastic spoons, including the tiny ones that ice cream parlors offer for tastings. Peter Russo, the executive chef at Lia’s, recently picked from a stack of metal spoons to taste the broth in a linguini and clams dish that was ready to exit the kitchen. After he checked to make sure it was seasoned properly, he slid the spoon into another container to be cleaned. During the course of an hour, he would stick fresh spoons into the risotto from a scallops dish and the broth accompanying a bowl of mussels, as well as grab a piece of duck from a salad. The dishes were spruced up before they left for the dining room.
What’s an iffy day to eat out?
“Sunday and Monday is for the B team,” says Brian Patterson, an instructor at L’Academie de Cuisine in Gaithersburg who has worked in restaurants. “At some places, the B team may be as good as the A team. Or maybe the restaurant is closed on Sunday or Monday, or both, because there is no B team.”
That’s one reason some restaurants dread Sunday brunch. The staff is whoever didn’t work Saturday night (meaning they may not be the best of the bunch). Or if they did work the night before, they’re tired or hung over.
Also, most restaurants don’t get deliveries on Sundays, so that may not be the best day to eat sushi or other dishes that depend on being ultra fresh.
How do restaurateurs get ideas for new menu items?
“From magazines, from other restaurants. You see something cool. It’s just the environment,” says Persimmon’s Salvatore. Cornacchia of Assaggi talks to his friends in Italy. “We keep in touch online or on the phone to discuss ideas and what the trends are there,” he says.
But when it comes to actually creating new dishes, Cornacchia, like other chefs, simply uses his culinary knowledge and experience. For a recent special, he decided to pair Spanish mackerel with a sauce of carrots and white balsamic vinegar reduction. Cornacchia knew the acidity of the vinegar would counter the fattiness of the fish, but he didn’t want it tasting too sharp, so he added carrots to “smooth it out.”
If they have time, chefs and restaurant owners also like to taste what everybody else is making. Perhaps the most extreme example is the Silver Diner’s annual eat-a-thon, in which top management—five or six people—travel to a city and eat at 20 or more restaurants. In one day.
“We’ve gone to Chicago on a 5:30 a.m. flight, have a driver ready for us when we arrive, go to 10 to 12 breakfast places, then eight restaurants for lunch, a bunch of places for dinner, and then take the 9:30 p.m. flight back,” says Ype Von Hengst, vice president of culinary operations at the Rockville-based Silver Diner. The quick turnaround saves time, and Von Hengst says it’s easier to remember everything when it’s sandwiched into one day.
Von Hengst says he has no interest in stealing recipes. The group is looking for trends, prices, presentation, ingredients. At each restaurant, they’ll order a dozen appetizers and a dozen entrées all at once. “The waitresses look at us like we’re nuts,” he says.
What are the most common things that go wrong in a restaurant?
“The same things that happen at your house can happen at a restaurant,” says Ted Xenohristos of Cava. The difference, of course, is that 200 people aren’t waiting at your house for the air-conditioning repairman to arrive.
Shortly after Cava opened, its oven went on the fritz, sending the cooks next door to Potomac Pizza to heat pita bread in the pizza ovens.
Broken pasta makers and ice machines, walls collapsing from heavy snow. And then there are staff problems—late arrivers, no-shows, difficult personalities. Restaurateurs have had to deal with them all.
“This is the restaurant business. There’s lots of drama,” says Lia’s Russo.
When the power went out one night at Tavira in Chevy Chase, chef-owner Duarte Rebolo served cold appetizers and salads to the dining room—which was 80 percent full. “I paid for their cocktails. We had to do something,” he says.
Sometimes things happen at the worst possible time. A ceiling pipe burst in the upstairs private party room at La Ferme in Chevy Chase this past winter, an hour before an event. “It was coming down in buckets,” says the restaurant’s owner, Alain Roussel. The downpour eventually stopped, and a table was placed over the water-stained carpet. “The guests didn’t see anything,” Roussel says.
Sometimes crucial deliveries don’t arrive. Bobby’s Crabcakes in Rockville Town Square has had to close three times since opening in 2007 because it didn’t get its delivery of fresh crabmeat. There are many other options on the menu, but if crab cakes aren’t available, “people look at us like we have 10 heads,” says owner and executive chef Bobby Bloch.
“People always say how glamorous it must be to open a restaurant,” says John McManus, owner of The Barking Dog in Bethesda. “Hauling the trash, plunging the toilets, going up on the roof—you have no idea what glamour is.”
Carole Sugarman is Bethesda Magazine’s Food Editor.