A Blast from the Get-go!

22:30Shelley:Exactly. Same 20 chefs. And D.C. was really growing and starting to become a food city. So talk about the vibe in D.C., I guess, then for restaurants and now. I mean, don't you think now is extraordinary? Yeah. Did you see it coming? Well, I mean, I don't think when you're in it, I mean, do you see it coming? I think when you're living in it, you see the evolution of it. I think. Well, that's what I mean. The evolution. I mean, yeah, for sure. I mean, it's been great to watch Washington change in areas of D.C. on 14th Street. You never would have gone ever. I mean, it's unbelievable. It's on 14th Street.

23:03My son lives in that area. I mean, it's popping. Like in the 90s, I mean, when we were doing all these benefits together and we were cooking together, we became friends. And all the sous chefs underneath of the chefs became friends. and we were, you know, we were hanging out together. We would go over to their restaurants after service and we'd all go out and smoke and drink and, I mean, we would do dinners together. Roberto, we had this kitchen table at Galileo that we would all, we cooked, served a table. We had our own bank account and once every couple months we'd go out to Kincaid, Jean-Louis, Vidalia.

23:44At midnight, we'd start dine until 5 o 'clock in the morning.

23:47Shelley:You guys were on the same time frame. Yeah, it was wild. The same schedule, yeah. It was wild. And so, you know, I mean, yeah. And then what happens, you know, all the sous chefs under them starts expanding. Peter Smith goes out from Vidalia to open PS7. I went off to open Equinox. Right. Cesare went on to eventually open Tosca with, you know, and, you know, that was in the early 2000s. Right. And things were moving. And you had Tracy O 'Grady going and doing her thing. And everybody was just like these offspring, you know, all going and starting to expand the city. And, you know, we, D.C., we had a really tight-knit chef community.

24:30Roberto really was a big piece of that. He brought a lot of people together. He started this chef's club for nothing years ago, which was hilarious. And we'd all get together and eat and drink and talk about buying pigs together and sharing food and all that stuff. And so we do have a good restaurant community in the city. Now, as many chefs have moved on, and, you know, Bob, God bless him, too, passed away. Right. And Roberto's not getting any younger. I mean, we're all, the next generation is taking, it's time to start passing the torch. We're too young. Yeah, well, you know, man, look, when you do this for 40 years, you know, you can't do this into your 70s.

25:07Yeah. I'm not going to. I love what I do, and I'll continue to love what I do. But anyway, I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. But, yeah, I mean, and watching the evolution of Washington has been exciting. I think there's something important to say because I believe this to be true. I believe that today's young chef has a different vision of what a restaurant run should be. When I grew up in this business, the chefs I worked for kept their restaurants open for decades. Right. Decades. Some of them, La Petito Bears is going on 45 years. A restaurant is a place that has a long legacy of people.

25:53Staff stay for 10, 15, 20 years.

25:56Shelley:And families continue their traditions. Right. My busboys have now servers, have met their wives here 20 years ago, have had children. They're daughter hosts for us now. Oh, that's awesome. Without sustainability, that's sustainability. Right. And so, I mean, we've always prided ourselves on making a restaurant a place for, I mean, our customer base, granted, many of them have passed away. But their children, I mean, their son and daughter now who've been eating with us are now getting married. They've got children. I mean, you see them generational. I mean, you're a restaurant. You know, to be something to be parts of generational changes in families and in businesses.

26:34And that's what Equinox has been for 27 years.

26:36Shelley:So what do the young people think a restaurant should be? You know, I think that a lot of young chefs want to do a restaurant that has a 5 to 7 to 8 or 10 year run. And that's their vision. Because they think, not what they think, because I don't know what they think. But that's what their desire is. They want to do their vision for 8, 10 years. Like have it be a flash. And then they want to do something. And then it will get old. And then they'll do something else. They'll do another project, right? Right. But that's not the... That's what they say now, though. Yeah, but that's not the cloth from which I was trained and cut.

27:11Shelley:Right, right. Because, I mean, a lot of great reviewed restaurants that have done very, very well, that get a lot of exposure and national, I should say local and national acclaim, sometimes are rolling up in five to seven years. And they all say, God, that was such a great run. Easily, yeah. Such a great run. That's not a run. That's bullshit, man. That's a five, six-year run. How many employees did you keep for five or six years? Right. That you didn't even build the soul of a restaurant. A soul of a restaurant takes at least 10 years, if not 15, 20 years to build. Oh, really? You think it takes that long?

27:49Yes. I'm saying that a restaurant that can be a tried and true and dependent restaurant that you know you can go to, whether it's New Year's Eve, Easter, any given Wednesday night, the staff that's going to be a familiar staff, you're going to feel at home, you're going to feel well taken care of, you're going to get quality food, quality service, quality beverage, and you can count on this and you know that you can safely walk out of there on New Year's Eve and say, you know what, I'm making a reservation for my son or daughter-in-law's graduation in May because I know they'll be here. Right, right.

28:24Okay? So I'm not taking away anything from all the great young chefs in this city, but there's some young chefs that are doing fantastic cooking in this city right now. Amazing. And many of them will go on to run their restaurants for many, many years. But I think that it is speckled with sort of small bursts of fire and flame that, unfortunately, you know, it's always fun to enjoy for a brief period of time. But it's just not that kind of...

28:49Shelley:Speckled is a great word. You know? Well, tell me, what is your go-to, like, what's your favorite thing to make? Oh, whatever it's in season. Soft-shelled crabs. Now this time of year. I love your soft-shelled crabs. Venison, pasta. I love venison. I love cooking vegetables of all kinds, depending on what time of year. I love cooking corn. What's my favorite? I mean, soft shell crabs and pasta are my favorite things to eat. And great seafood, sea scallops. And a jumbo lump crab meat. I mean, God, who doesn't love jumbo lump crab meat? Prawns, squid. I love all the seafood. I love everything from the sea.

29:23I love seafood. And I love great meat and fish. I mean, I love vegetables. I mean, you know, I love everything. Another thing, there's nothing I wouldn't eat.

29:30Shelley:So you start Equinox on Connecticut Ave. Were you scared to death? I mean, people say it's like the scariest. Like, I have had my own company, and I was scared. But a restaurant apparently is scarier. I don't know. Is that true? Yeah, I mean, I probably was scared in the beginning. I don't really remember. I mean, yeah, we were nervous. We were hoping for more people. And then we started getting the things. Wheels started moving. Things started going well. And we had an outrageous run. It was a sick run. With the first 10 years, I mean, it's still having a great run, but this first 10 years, I mean, we were plowing.

30:05You know, every month there was another magazine article and we were building this amazing staff. Right. Became our core staff for the first 10-year piece of the game before the fire. And we had a fire.

30:17Shelley:Oh, you know what? I didn't know. I must have known that you had the fire, but I used to work a lot with the chamber. And that's how I got turned on to Equinox because everybody at the chamber was right there, which was amazing. Yeah, yeah, we have a great chamber business. I was thinking about Clint today. Yeah, Clint was a great guy and a great supporter. But, I mean, you know, like, we were really fortunate. We were really fortunate to have the staff that we had on board with us. Ellen really had a dynamic front-of-the-house staff. We had an amazing Tony Chittum, Brendan Cox, Barry Caslow, Lisa Scruggs was on board.

30:58and all of them have gone on to do great, great things in our industry.

31:01Shelley:Oh, that's great. And Travis Gray, who was with us for 14 years, Randy Cole. Randy was great. Randy's amazing. We had so many amazing, amazing people that we were blessed. Heather Ackerman, who went on to marry Tony Chittum, and Heather's gone to move up north, and she was a great pastry chef. And just, you know, we were a big, insane family. And we had incredible, we were so tight. And then why is it, well, I mean, you still seem like you have a great family. So why do you refer to it so much in the past? No, because that was the first 10 years. Oh, yeah, yeah. Then we had a fire and some people left and some people stayed.

31:44And then Tom Wellings came on with us after he worked for Fabio for many years. And we had a great, you know, kind of brought a different dynamic to our pastry department, which is great. And, you know, after the fire, we still had great employees. And they were our next, I don't know, you know, you have this next five, six, seven, eight-year blocks with people, 10-year blocks. A lot of these guys have been with us, you know, here have been 14, 15 years. So, you know, that was like after the first 10-year run. And so, yeah, and, you know, we, you know, and through and through all that, you know, after the fire, you know, you have years of 12 and 13 and 14, you know, we had 9-11.

32:32Well, that was early on. But then, you know, you have, you know, all the anthrax stuff that happened. Right. You have all this crazy shit that went down. And you've got, you know, as we're getting into 20, you know, we opened Muse and we opened the watershed in 2010. Then we were there for a couple of years. We opened Muse at the Corcoran at the same time. That had a four-year run. It was bought by GW University, the building. And, you know, there was no deal to be done. They were just not doing it anymore. And we kind of move on. Salamander Resort and Hotels.

33:02Shelley:I was there at your Salamander place. It was good. Yeah, we opened, I mean, I was involved with Sheila since 2004. We opened the resort in 2013. And I was there for, I stayed on until about 2016 at that time. Then in comes the Museum of the Bible. And we go to the Middle East. We train. We go back another time during that period and get turned on to all this amazing food and cooking with some Palestinians and Israelis. It was ridiculous. Was that the first time that you'd been to the Middle East? Yeah, 2016. And what was so ridiculous about it? It was just life-changing. It was life-changing. Being in the Middle East.

33:46Yeah, and eating the food with the people of the Middle East. It's a completely mind-opening experience.

33:53Shelley:What sort of stands out food-wise from that trip? But being with someone cooking hummus down in Akka on the Mediterranean with a husband and wife, he was Palestinian. She's Palestinian. He's Israeli. Wow. Really seeing how they do hummus with brown butter and lamb on the top or with, like, you know, za 'atar fried cauliflower on it. And just, I mean, and eating fish wrapped in, you know, local fig leaves right outside the back door over open fire. Wow. All the fresh roasted vegetables, the markets, and the spices getting turned on, the spices with food. Yeah, it's amazing. So, yeah, that was really cool, and it really impacted my style a lot.

34:49And I kind of carry a little bit of that Mediterranean with me today. I mean, I don't practice as much of that as I used to. I'd like to. I should go back and start doing more Aleppo vinaigrettes and those kind of things. My guys still, these guys were with me during the whole period, so they remember it. They're like, hey, you want me to do that dish? I was like, yeah, I don't remember what it was that I got. And so, you know, and then, you know, we come into COVID, you know, and now we're flying high. It's 2019. We had a great 2019. We're going into COVID pretty strong. And then COVID happens, which, you know, and be careful what I say, but I thought it was wild.

35:27I thought it was exciting. As scary as it is, I thought it was wild what was going on. and finding yourself really having to figure it out. Right. Finding your way through like, okay, well, we can't bring people in the restaurant. We're going to have to take it outside. Everyone was doing to-go and everything. Right. And we were doing off-premise catering and wearing masks out in Potomac, and we were doing a whole lot of carryout and pickups and everything. And I was going back and forth to Delaware where we had a condo. And, you know, I mean, it was navigating our way through it. And we were working with our landlords and our vendors, and everybody was working together.

36:07Everyone was like, hey, we'll get through this. And we did get through it.

36:10Shelley:It was scary as hell, though, don't you think? It was scary. I mean, it was just like just to see what, you know, to see what Asia looked like when there weren't cars on the road for like 30 or 40 days. Right. The clear, the smock, the clear sky. Just stuff like that. But I thought it was amazing. I mean, I don't mean amazing. I just think it was stunning. It was stunning. Yeah, and it was scary, but a big challenge that we all got through. And I hope that never happens again. Right. And so, you know, then, you know, you come towards the end of your lease, you know, and you're like, well, hey, we came out of it.

36:49Let's keep on going. It's 2022. We're moving. Business is coming back a little bit. You know, it's good. Business, dinner, business. Lunch, we didn't open for lunch for many years.

36:57Shelley:I know. And so now we are, and we're here. You know, our new landlord, Tishman Spire, we love them. They've been very good to us, and we love our new location. It's a whole different vibe in here. No tablecloth, lots of beers on tap, and it's fun. And it's bigger, isn't it? Yeah, definitely. And we've got more outdoor seating. Right, I like the outdoor with the grass underneath. And, you know, we're doing our food that we've always done, and we're always trying to do new things. But, you know, you have a foundation in your cooking that you stick to. They know that works. And you always try to push the boundaries on it and try to do seasonal or annual tweaks on your menu.

37:33But there's things that you keep on your menu from season to season that work. And so we're doing well, man. Ellen and I are doing well. We opened up. So in the middle of COVID, we walk in the beaches of coastal Delaware and Lewis. And we start thinking we should look for a little restaurant deal out there for the future. Yeah. And there it is. And Federal gets opened and right smack in the middle of COVID. We sign a lease in the fall of 2020. We open in 2021. And Federal has built a nice reputation there and establishing itself a name. The menu looks awesome. It is a great menu. It's good. And a great staff.

38:14Cute little place, 40 seats, 38 seats on the beach. and so you know all in all where we are life's good man you know

38:27Shelley:what's the secret to working with your spouse

38:33be careful what you do

38:37no I mean you know Ellen I've always had a I don't know if I was I have always had a a good working relationship because I know how valuable and how much, how knowledgeable she is in what she does. And whether it's marketing or front of house or all of the things that she does, like my son says, they ask Harrison, so what does your dad do? He's the chef. And what does your mom do? She does everything else. It's true. I mean, Ellen, there's no one that works harder. I've never seen a person work harder than Ellen Casshoff.

39:09Shelley:Wow. I'm so glad we got that on tape. Yeah. You're listening to Lunch with Shelly. So Thanksgiving is coming up. Mm-hmm. So what are your tips for everybody cooking? And how do you do your turkey? You know what? We haven't roasted a turkey forever. Is that what you would do, roast a turkey? We sous vide them. What does that mean? So we put the breasts. We don't cook a whole bird. We take the breasts off the bone. Right. And we put them in bags with herbs and olive oil and spices, and we cryovacum, and we poach them. Under pressure. And we, you know, we cook them in a sous vide bath for a cut, like, some of the legs overnight, breasts for like four hours.

39:55So it's all poached. And then Thanksgiving, we take it out and we sear it and caramelize it and baste it in butter and herbs. So we do a different technique than roasting a traditional roast turkey. Sounds pretty amazing. It is amazing. And we love to do our oyster roast, which is great. That's cool. So, you know, I think some suggestions for Thanksgiving, like fire up your grill, put some oysters on the grill, put a little thing of butter out there, let the steam open, have some nice warm steamed oysters, grilled oysters, you know, turkey, roasting a turkey, you know. I mean, there's a lot of techniques for it, but, you know, some good fresh herbs and, you know, the stuffing.

40:36A lot of people don't do stuffing in the turkey anymore because they say it's a little, you can get sick and shit. Yeah. So do your turkey on the side, you know. Maybe do some chestnuts in your stuffing and sauces like the way we do.

40:47Shelley:And what about dessert? Are you like a pie, an apple pie guy? I like pie. I like pie. Yeah. I'm not a huge dessert person in total. I mean, yeah, but I love like something definitely with pecans and caramel and some ice cream. And I like my big pumpkin pie guy. Yeah. I'm not a big pecan person. And I do like the apple pie. Yeah, I love apple pie. We're doing apple pie for Thanksgiving. So you guys are open for Thanksgiving? Yeah. Equinox on 19th is open for whoever doesn't have a resi. We're sold out a long time ago. Oh, forget that. Thank God. Are you really sold out? Yeah, big time. Big time.

41:32Thank God. Because, yeah.

41:35Shelley:What's your day like on Thanksgiving? Oh, it's nuts. I mean, what time do you get here and start cooking? What time do you serve Thanksgiving? We started, we're doing, starting at 2.30 to 7.30. Yeah. We get in by 9 a.m. Yeah. But everything's pretty much done the day. We start prepping days ahead. Yeah. And then we get in and it takes us until about 1.30 to get ready. It takes four and a half solid hours, maybe five hours to get finished in the mise en place. Two o 'clock, we're ready. Kind of do a quick line up with the staff around 1.30. Go over the menu. The oysters are all, you know, the grill's turned on.

42:10The oysters are in the coolers. We do a complimentary oyster roast out front. Everybody hits oysters on the way in. That's so awesome. Our vegans get, we do oyster mushrooms on the grill. Oh, that's awesome. And the place is packed, and we've got football on. Right. It's wonderful.

42:26Shelley:Do you watch the parade? Do you have a TV in the kitchen? No. I really love the parade, and then I love football. We can, by the way, finish the interview without you and I talking about the dead. So the last time I saw you Hopefully it wasn't the last time I saw you But it might have Anyway Nelson was here We were at a book party And you were going on and on about the sphere And it was like It put us over the edge And we ended up going to the sphere That was in May And we only saw one show Yeah, it was amazing And I thought it was the last show So I didn't want to see the last show Because I thought it would be too intense So we saw the second to last show of a three-night run.

43:10Shelley:And right before we got to Vegas, they're like, no, no, no, we're playing this summer or whatever. But anyway, do you have a favorite Dead song? Let's see. Well, I have a favorite arrangement that composes, that consists of a lot of different songs. Like what? I love a Scarlet Fire. Right. You know? That's fair. I love a China Rider. Yeah, I knew you were going to say that. I mean, and who doesn't love the Help Slip Franklin's? I mean. You know, that's definitely third for me, but it's really good. Love them all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nothing like a wicked, wicked shakedown. Yeah. I agree. There are, you know, there are, I mean, I still have my tapes, 100 tapes or at least.

43:56Shelley:I still remember seeing St. Stephen and Hartford, like flipping out in the 80s when it was way newer. Yeah. So what do you think of the Sphere as a venue? Oh, it's spectacular. Yeah. Yeah, I love it. It's pretty amazing. Yeah, it was mind-blowing. Who would be your chef rock stars right now? I mean, we've talked about chefs that aren't with us, but who are your chef rock stars now that you'd love to play with? Like chefs? Yeah. Rock star chef. I mean, you know, I mean, they're alive still. Yeah. Well, I mean, Danielle Ballou is a total rock star. I was hoping you were going to say that. Danielle, you know, I started with Danielle a couple of times.

44:37Danielle, I think a lot of Danielle and what he does is amazing. All the great restaurants he's continuing to open. It's amazing. He's incredible. Sean Shore's Fong Richten. I mean, spectacular cooking. God, I mean, where else do you go? I kind of get stunk on them because I was always big and special.

44:57Shelley:I think I'm like the veggie guy who did Madison 11 or 11. Oh, you mean Daniel Hum. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I don't know Daniel. He was there once. I really was bummed when he went vegan. Yeah. Apropos. I never went to the vegan spot. I mean, I mean. 11 Madison Avenue. You haven't been there? No. That's a pretty incredible restaurant. I've been in the restaurant. I've gone in a couple times. We didn't eat there. We couldn't get a reservation. That's the whole point. Yeah. I mean, you know, I mean, everything Danny Meyer does in New York is incredible. What's he doing? Well, I mean, you know, he's got, I can't remember all those great restaurants, but But, I mean, you know, Grand Rester Tavern has been such a pillar of great American cooking.

45:38Yeah. I mean, Charlie Palmer, he spends a lot of his time out in California now. He's based out of Lake Hillsburg.

45:44Shelley:I didn't know he was still alive. Yeah. Charlie does, you know. But those are the kind of chefs of our time that I kind of looked up to, you know. Who would you, like, off the top of your head, if you could cook with anybody tomorrow, would it be Danielle? Well, I would probably say, you know, I would want to go. I mean, I mean, I'm going to reach. I mean, if I was going to try to do something exotic, you know, I might want to cook with Alain Ducasse or we know one of the or I would maybe want to cook with Alain Passard, who's the great vegetarian Michelin restaurant in Paris.

46:24Shelley:what is the best veggie meal do you think besides cauliflower steak or tofu i mean i don't i'm not a veggie but i do love tofu and i do like cauliflower steak so yeah like well i don't know like what's so great about vegetable stuff you can do but i mean i think it's a lot of it's in this i think it's a lot of in the sauces that you make if you make a great curry or you make a great teriyaki But I think, you know, like, of course, you know, that whole fad, whatever, the whole crave of like, you know, what is it, like buffalo cauliflower and all that stuff. I mean, there's a lot of unhealthy vegetarian cooking, you know.

47:01Oh, really?

47:02Shelley:Yeah. It's all fried. I love buffalo. I don't know what buffalo cauliflower is. Well, it's good stuff, but a lot of the stuff is battered and fried and, you know. Right. You might as well be having a burger. Yeah, I know. By the way, what did you want to tell them about the soup? The soup I've had in years. Awesome. Good. Thank you. So if you were going to eat anywhere in the world for lunch, where would it be and what would you be having? Hmm. Well, there'd be a couple of places that could come to mind. I mean, certainly eating bluff oysters in Christchurch, New Zealand would be one of them. Wow.

47:38Yeah.

47:38Shelley:Okay. Yeah. That's a good one. Yeah. Amazing oysters on the street in Christchurch, New Zealand. We have great friends there. Or I would say, or I would think that certainly a meal in Tel Aviv on the ocean, and I'm going blank on the, there's like a fortress there in Tel Aviv. But in Tel Aviv, probably eating grilled sardines in fig leaf with like preserved lemons and like simple roasted beets with olive oil. That would be a killer meal. And then for something, you know, I mean, the other one would certainly have to be in Italy and it'd have to be somewhere in Piedmont, like somewhere down off the Po River in Piedmont, having the simplest tagliolini with truffle butter and white truffles.

48:58probably this time of year, like tomorrow, would be amazing in November. Right. You know, and drinking great Barolo, you know. So, yeah, I mean, or, you know. Or on my deck in Rehoboth Beach, you know, grilling some good local oysters and some nice scallops and shit, you know.

49:18Shelley:I think there's an oyster scallop theme going on, but that all sounds amazing. Yeah. Todd, thank you so much for being on the program. you guys haven't seen, but it is impossible to have chefs stay for lunch. He's been going back and forth because they're the busiest people in the world. So, Todd, thank you so much for your time. Everybody, thank you so much for listening. Check out this episode, of course, or other episodes at www.lunchwithshelly.com or wherever you get your favorite podcasts. And as always, and in the meantime, peace, love, and lunch. We'll see you next time.