What I Learned
Along the Way By Ted Scheffler
I
can think of few careers that define DIY more than being a chef or restaurateur. A talented chef can take raw ingredients and turn them into a blissful meal. A creative restaurateur can take a space that probably should have been condemned and turn it into a darling dining destination. (Think Bodega. Log Haven. Eva Bakery. Grappa.) In writing about food and reviewing restaurants for more than two decades, I’ve learned a lot along the way. I’ve learned from chefs. I’ve learned from restaurant owners. I’ve learned from servers and managers and line cooks and bartenders. What’s the thing I learned the best? That I will never own or operate a restaurant. It isn’t that I’m not a DIY sort of guy. It’s that it’s just too damned much work. You think you want to be a chef? Unless your name is Batali or Flay you’d better get used to working on your feet in a hot kitchen for impossibly long hours, typically earning a mediocre wage. You really have to love your work and most of the people in the restaurant biz. I know do. Which is why I take the privilege and responsibility of reviewing restaurants very seriously. Restaurant folks are extremely dedicated, hard workers and they deserve a fair shake. I never enter a restaurant looking for trouble. But I do call a spade a spade. Credibility is about all a reviewer of any type can aspire to and I’d always rather write a positive review than a negative one. But I’m also accountable to those who read my opinions and spend money based on them. In that sense, I see myself more as a consumer advocate than a critic. One of the most important lessons I learned about restaurants came from Park City restaurateur Bill White. He once said to me that a successful restaurant is built like a three-legged stool, with service, ambience and food representing the three legs. Knock one of those legs out, and the stool tips over. Naturally, there are other factors—a good wine list, for example—that can matter, but food, service and ambience are critical. And those are the things I always pay most attention to when reviewing restaurants. The way creative chefs think always amazes me. How does Forage’s Bowman Brown come to create a dish like Last Year’s Chestnuts and Salted Lamb? (I’m assuming the nuts are last year’s, not the lamb.) Or, how does Provisions’ Tyler Stokes give the New England lobster roll an imaginative Asian reboot with rice paper, green apple, fresh greens, sesame, tamarind, ginger and wasabi tobiko? I’m good at following recipes. Chefs are good at creating recipes. Although I have no interest in running a restaurant, I’ve gleaned enough practical knowledge over the years to probably do so. My favorite bit of nutsand-bolts advice came from one-time Salt Lake City restaurant manager Andrew Stone, who told me: “I learned the best way to get your cooks to show up sober to the 5 a.m. shift was to make the hung-over ones clean the grease trap.” And that’s what I learned along the way. Y
COURTESY PHOTO
66 Devour Utah • September/October 2015
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Billy Blanco’s colorful interior