Blue Smoke / In the News

Today we met in class briefly, before heading out to Blue Smoke for a tour. The dining section this week in the NY Times was remarkably thin, and content-wise filler like what to do with left-overs were disturbingly dumb. However, Bruni's big piece on pizza was pretty cool. Richard thought he was too hasty in deciding to write about just post 2004 pizzerias (the year Franny's and Una Pizza Napoleatana hit), but I kinda agree with Bruni: the pizza restaurants that have opened up since then are by all accounts place pizza in a different kind of light that the older, classical places do. Maybe it's not totally fair to not compare them (as some older joints are simply better than the new joints), but the pretense of 'fancy pizza' is not really shared by any older places.

We briefly looked at a kitchen layout, a before and after of a real working restaurant, to point out the logics of flow and traffic in an industrial kitchen. Then we all picked up and walked over to Blue Smoke, on 27th between Park and Lex. It's part of Danny Meyer's Union Square hospitality group, which includes a lot of good and very varied places, from Union Square Cafe to Tabla to Shake Shack. We arrived around 9, and were met by the managing partner who was, simply put, seemed to have his shit together and all together happy with what he's doing with his life. He told us of his 17 years with the company, helping to open up the restaurant in the week right after 9/11, the adjustments to the concept and the systems as they started up.

He handed us off to the head of front of house, 13 years with the company, who started as a bus boy and worked his way up. He showed us the premises, the jazz club below, the prep kitchen. Then the chef showed us the main kitchen, all the stations, and the two huge smokers. Gas-fired, wood-fueled, with large flues in the back of the building that rose all the way up 15 stories to vent the smoke. The pork butts and ribs looked spectacular, I must say.

The common thread among the three people were that they started with the company many years ago at a low level position, stuck with it and rose, worked insane hours, now get paid and have benefits, with the first one actually sharing in an ownership stake. All three are clearly hard working, and get a buzz from the intensity that comes with working in a restaurant. I understand that -- when you work 6 14 hour shifts in a row, it's actually cool if it speeds by with constant action and you actually save money by not doing anything else. -sigh-