365: Arjav Ezekiel & Harris Mayer

In short

Podcast Episode Summary: This Is TASTE - Episode 365: Arjav Ezekiel & Harris Mayer

Episode Overview In this episode of *This Is TASTE*, hosts Aliza Abarbanel and Matt Rodbard engage in a lively discussion with two prominent figures in the restaurant industry: Arjav Ezekiel, co-owner of Birdie’s in Austin, Texas, and Harris Mayer, owner and chef of Polkies in New York City. The conversation delves into their personal backgrounds, culinary philosophies, and the challenges and triumphs of running restaurants in today's climate.

Key Guests

Arjav Ezekiel: Co-owner of Birdie’s, a restaurant and wine bar known for its exceptional service and innovative wine program.
Harris Mayer: Owner of Polkies, a Jewish-style barbecue restaurant that emphasizes smoked turkey legs and other traditional dishes.

Episode Highlights

Arjav Ezekiel

Immigrant Background: Arjav discusses his upbringing in Portland, Oregon, and how his immigrant experience shaped his perspective on food and hospitality.
Wine Program: He details his role in curating the wine list at Birdie’s and emphasizes the importance of creating a connection between guests and winemakers.
Dining Experiences: He shares his admiration for various Austin restaurants, highlighting the diversity of the food scene and the significance of supporting local establishments.

Harris Mayer

Concept of Polkies: Harris explains that Polkies serves Jewish-style barbecue centered around the smoked turkey leg. He emphasizes that the menu pays homage to traditional Jewish dishes while adding a modern twist.
Challenges of a Delivery Concept: Polkies was born out of the necessity to adapt during the pandemic. Harris describes the importance of creating dishes that travel well for delivery.
Culinary Techniques: He shares insights into the preparation of dishes, including confit brisket and creative turkey leg sandwiches, aiming to elevate traditional flavors.

Discussion Themes

The Importance of Mental Health in Hospitality

Both guests discuss the need for restaurant owners to prioritize their mental health and the well-being of their team. They argue for setting boundaries with guests while maintaining a culture of hospitality.

Community and Regulars

Arjav emphasizes the importance of building a community within his restaurant, noting that regulars are crucial for long-term success. Harris echoes this sentiment, stressing the personal connections formed with patrons.

Culinary Traditions and Innovation

The conversation reflects on how both chefs draw from their cultural backgrounds, using traditional recipes as a foundation while innovating to create memorable dining experiences.

Social Media Influence

Arjav discusses a dialogue he had on social media regarding guests’ expectations and tipping culture, emphasizing the need for open communication between restaurants and patrons.

Key Takeaways

Support Local: The importance of supporting local producers and understanding the sourcing of ingredients is highlighted by both chefs.
Innovation with Tradition: Combining traditional cooking methods with modern culinary techniques can create unique and memorable dining experiences.
Empowerment in Hospitality: Restaurant owners are encouraged to take care of their teams and themselves, fostering a healthy work environment.

Closing Thoughts This episode captures the essence of the culinary world through the eyes of two passionate restaurateurs who are redefining what it means to create and serve food. Their stories illustrate the evolving landscape of the restaurant industry, emphasizing community, innovation, and the deep personal connections formed through food.

Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:28This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. You know, I think we're in this moment of feeling empowered for the first time in a really long time to take care of our team first. Because, you know, if we're just serving the guest at all times at the cost of our own mental health, that doesn't do anybody in like the change of stakeholders any favors. This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbarg.

0:59Today on the show, I have a great double episode with two serious dudes in the restaurant game. Arzav Ezekiel is co-owner of Birdie's, a beloved restaurant and wine bar located in Austin, Texas. On this episode, we talk about Arzav's immigrant upbringing in Portland, Oregon, and what brought him to the exciting world of wine. Also on the show, I have a really great conversation with Harris Meyer. Harris is a New York City chef and owner of Polkies, a really terrific restaurant serving Tugo Jewish barbecue. That would be Q centered around the smoked turkey leg. His, I'd have to say, is the best not-pork, pork-pulled sandwich I've ever had in my life.

1:37Go there. Two great dudes. I hope you enjoy these conversations.

1:50Arjav Ezekiel, welcome to This Is Taste. I'm so happy to talk to you. Thanks for having me, Matt. Big fan. Honored to be here. Well, thanks, buddy. I appreciate it. I've had Tracy on the show, and I'll link to that in the show notes. It's a great conversation we had in studio. And we talked about Birdie's, the restaurant you guys both run, and about the specialness of the restaurant. And, you know, I think I'm not alone in recognizing this restaurant. It was awarded many awards or acknowledgments by Bon Appetit, Food & Wine, New York Times, Esquire, and Eater. Well-deserved. I like to dine out around our fine country, and I could not find a better meal last year.

2:28Wow. Wow, flattered. It's so true. Also, I wanted to have you on because, obviously, the two of you run Birdies together, and there's a lot of shared groupthink happening. But while Tracy is the chef, you run the wine program, run front of house, and are part of the glue guy of the operation while Tracy is cooking. So I wanted to talk about that. I also wanted to talk about a really cool open dialogue you had with Instagram. Some comments happened. But mostly, let's start here. Tell me, what are some restaurants you're loving right now? Man, we had a great meal this weekend at a restaurant in town called Bufalina.

3:12It's one of our favorites. Great pizza, an amazing wine list. We went out to celebrate Tracy's James Beard this weekend and had a fantastic meal. Kanji is another one in Austin that is incredible. It's just so cool to have Caribbean food. Toveld, the chef there is from Guyana. but incredible jerk chicken, pepper pot, the best probably roti I've ever had. It's just super dope. Love to hear that you're going to Kanje and supporting Tavel because to me that was also just such a highlight of the year. And, you know, that pepper pot, I mean, that dish, it's the complexity, which is a kind of an overused food term, but it's true.

3:55Just like what's happening with the spice in this dish is something. It's like sweet, savory umami. It's hitting all gaskets for me. Totally. I think it's one of those things that redefined Caribbean food for me because I think of Caribbean food as so full-throated and kind of punch-you-in-the-face flavors. And it's really amazing to kind of eat Caribbean food with restraint and finesse. And you kind of see the deep layers of cooking that go into any one of those dishes. I think that pepper pot really stands out. Love you called it out. And we'll get to your upbringing in Portland, but I just have to ask you, are there any restaurants in Portland that you're finding standout or noteworthy?

4:33You ran restaurants with your family in Portland for years, and you know the scene quite well. Yeah, I think Portland is, to me, one of the great pizza towns in the country. So every time we're back, we make it a point to go to Lovely's 50-50, love Scotty's Pizza Parlor downtown, just love the pizza scene there. But Hauna Oak is like one of the restaurants that I just love going to over and over and over again, just because, you know, Peter and their kids just kind of run around that place and treat it like home. It was a huge inspiration for Tracy and me when we opened Bernie's. And, you know, our little son, Remy, is at the restaurant often.

5:17I think seeing these really successful people and friends have a restaurant where they could bring their kid to work and like, you know, kind of broke rules, quote unquote, by doing that. It felt like we could do whatever the heck we wanted when we opened Bernays. It was just very empowering to see that. I'm always grateful to them for that. I love that you call up Peter because what he's doing there is so unique in that space. He lived there with his wife and family within the restaurant space. And we're doing an event with him for Career World. And on the pizza tip, I totally hear you about the pizza.

5:54I mean, I'll have to mention Ken's pizza as well, for me, was pretty terrific as well. What a great pizza town. It's a truly great pizza town. And I think the diversity of the styles of pizza. I mean, if you want the Apollo Moon, New York, a pizza, a Beetz, which is my favorite style, the New Haven style of pizza. that you get the whole kind of gamut of pizza. But Lovely's 50-50 to me just always stands out for its vegetables and the use of vegetables on its pizza. And the crust is remarkable, but I think it's just everything else that really makes it special. Well, let's pivot to social media.

6:29And really, I wanted to talk about a dialogue you had with a customer. We will talk about it. But I think the best way to start this conversation for me to quote something that you wrote in response to an IG post. And we will kind of get to the heart of it. But I really wanted to quote your own words here. So, quote, I've been thinking a lot about the unrealistic expectations our big little community of restaurants is subject to. And I do think while it's important to lead with charity, love, and hospitality, it's also important to set boundaries. So, Arjav, why was it important for you to speak out.

7:09But first, tell me a little bit, what was the comment that started this dialogue that definitely got a lot of steam on Instagram? I saw a lot of reposts from chefs, and really, we had talked on Instagram, and you and I decided we wanted to do a conversation on taste, and I appreciate you coming on. What was the comment, and what was your response, and why? Well, the comment was a review that was left on Google after a guest had read our website, I learned about the fact that we were counter-servicing a little bit different. It's seeing our menu, seeing our menu prices, seeing the wine list, you know, knew our wine list prices, and then kind of went on this diatribe about how, you know, he had to wait in line, he was expected to tip, and there was all this social pressure he felt to tip.

7:56And then he said he, you know, claimed he spent over$200 on four dishes and two glasses of wine. My response was, essentially, you can order everything on the birdies menu for exactly$200. The cheapest thing on our beverage list is$5. The cheapest glass of wine is$14. You can't really blame us for having expensive taste and choosing expensive things. and you can't really blame us for the social pressure that you feel for tipping if you don't want to leave a tip you're entitled to not leave a tip if you'd like to leave a tip at the end with cash you can do so like it's a counter service restaurant no one is saying you have to tip right away but i don't think birdies as a restaurant should be held like liable because you feel a certain level of social pressure to tip.

8:52That's not our purview and not our responsibility. It doesn't feel fair to hold us accountable to the larger tipping culture questions that you may have. If you don't want to tip, just don't tip. But part of it is when you go out to eat today, you need to plan on tipping. It's just part of the culture of this workshop. we've tried a million ways of doing this danny meyer i worked for danny you know at grammer tavern and untitled at the whitney during hospitality included and it didn't work there's a reason people have moved away from it you know and i think there was this just broader question around like what it is that guests expect today from restaurants when they go out to eat.

9:41And sometimes it doesn't match with what restaurants really want to do. I think we're in this moment of feeling empowered for the first time in a really long time to take care of our team first, to take care of ourselves as owners first. Because if we're just serving the guest at all times at the cost of our own mental health or at the cost of our team's mental health, that doesn't do anybody in like the change of stakeholders any favors. Yeah. You know, it's just really important. Yeah, I really appreciate you spelling that out. And you said, you know, you made a really clear, it's like a metric.

10:2095 % of interactions are positive. Great. But you got the 5 % who kind of have a little bit of entitlement and really maybe don't quite understand the dynamic. And, you know, listen, that's not zero. That's literally every day 5%. And I'm glad that you said in your post that there needs to be boundaries drawn. And really, this is not just pushing back against the customer is always right, which is like a total bunch of nonsense. But also, it's just saying that we are a group of people that should be allowed to have a safe working environment and allow for a really good experience, not just for the guests, but for the staff.

10:59Totally. And I think the deeper point I was trying to make with that post too was that our restaurants are filled with really young, impressionable people. And it's really important to teach them how to walk through life with charity, grace, compassion, but also a sense of strength and be able to stand up for yourself when it calls for it. And I think one of my mentors early on at a restaurant told me that anytime there's a guest issue, the first thing you should do is ask the person who interacted with them what happened. Because at the end of the day, your job is to protect them. It's to certainly address the guest issue with hospitality and charity.

11:42But the first person you should trust is the person on your team. That tells you a little bit maybe about how you should go about hiring. You shouldn't have anybody that you don't trust. but like we have a team here that I trust implicitly and you know when there's an issue or whatever like my first instinct is to trust what our team is saying and then go solve it with the gas what was the response to this post I mean I know the industry was favorable but like in general did you have customers being like you know just stick to the cooking man just just get you know shut up or was it was it generally received positively um I think it was generally received really positively.

12:18I think there were some questions, I think, around tipping, which is, you know, feels like every once in a while, like the third rail of hospitality. But I think it's a really important conversation to continue to have because, you know, for better or worse, tipping is part of the culture that we live in. Birdies has tried to address some of those issues by creating a completely flat tip pool where everybody on our team is tipped out equally. So the dishwasher is tipped out the same amount of points as a server, as a line cook. If we give someone a raise, we don't allocate a larger proportion of the tip pool to a member of the team.

13:02The business pays them more. But I think it's one of those things where restaurants today are built in a way that is unsustainable without tipping. Like labor is so high. you're seeing the like you know as labor in la etc goes up to 20 bucks an hour it's becoming harder and harder and harder for small independent restaurants to survive and you know one thing we did with birdies just kind of reimagined the business model and i think future restaurants are going to have to solve this issue of labor uh with or without tips yeah for us like that's the future of restaurants it's really really really important and i'm glad we're talking about it and we'll continue to talk about it i want to ask you transitioning a little bit over to birdies the restaurant you know i know tracy just got a james beard semi-finalist which is really well deserved i'm glad the accolades keep coming up but you got all these awards and like all this recognition how do you as a staff avoid like the hangover i've i've i've kind of witnessed this in the restaurant world with with really highly regarded restaurants that get best new this and best new that but then the year two and three there's a bit of an uphill battle but i know you and tracy are really ahead of the curve on a lot of things how do you avoid that hangover?

14:15I mean, I think we just keep doing the work, right? Like when we opened this restaurant, like we didn't have a PR and marketing team. We kind of just, it was a scrappy upstart restaurant that was trying to basically like build a restaurant that fit around our lives, right? Like that would serve us. And I think we've been very lucky that Birdies has been able to do that for us, right? But like we started with this idea that like restaurants are not sustainable places for people, especially business owners. And that leads to the culture that we've talked about a lot over the last five years. But building a restaurant that fit our lives rather than fitting our lives around a restaurant was step number one.

15:01And as we've continued to do that, we've really built a team. And I think the team has our trust. We're our mentors to the leaders of our team now. and we've tried to build a culture where it's about the work and not about the accolades like the first thing we you know when we got the restaurant of the year award uh this last year the first thing we we talked about was like let's celebrate this today but let's just remember that this award was for all the work we did yesterday yeah like the people who are coming in today don't care about that you know they might be happy for us but they're they we need to defend that kind of honor every single day.

15:43It's like the Super Bowl every single day, right? Yeah, you have a high reputation and you got to deliver. And of course, with high profile, it brings the critics. And I'm sure you're always looking for a new opportunity to impress. And let's get into some culinary because I feel like we haven't talked about the food enough. At least definitely go back to the Tracy episode and hear about what her vision of the restaurant is. But what's happening right now with the menu? What are you excited about recording in late January? And I wanted to hear a little bit about this Italian-American week that you do, which I think is really playful and fun.

16:14And I love that Bertie's transforms into different restaurants either for a week or for a day. It's like super cool to do that. Thanks, man. Yeah. So we got back from our two-week winter vacation. We shut down Christmas Eve to January 10th. We got back and Tracy was kind of ideating on some ideas on the flight back after feeling super inspired. We got home and she was like, you ready for this? And I was like, what are you doing? And she said, I'm changing pretty much the whole menu. So we had these staples, the dessert, like the chocolate chip cookie, which I think you had when you came. I didn't just have it.

16:50I was like, I'm going to pay double digits if you want to even charge it. But for this incredible warm chocolate chip cookie on a plate, thank you for doing that. Appreciate it. Yeah, man. Totally. And we got back and she was like, I'm getting rid of all these things that were staples on the menu. and it's just been a really really exciting month one because it's amazing to see all our regulars come back excited you know it gives us a huge jolt of energy to have these like incredible regulars that we have come back into the restaurant and experience like a brand new menu it feels like a new birdies for them too yeah and our menu changes a lot but we've always had these like you know the desserts have always been kind of the one thing that people can expect over and over again and completely changing it has been great.

17:38Are you keeping the tartare on? Are you keeping that? Are you giving the tartare? Tracy always says, I have not found it. I can't make a better dish than that. So we're just going to leave that on. Remind the listeners what that dish is because I think it is pretty exceptional. Yeah, it's a really beautiful beef tartare that's hand cut. But one of the really special parts about it to me are all the textures and the flavors that are going on. So it's got some smoked and then pickled shiitake mushrooms, Sonora wheat berries. It sits on this rosemary aioli. It's topped with some chives. And then there's this like gargantuan cartel de musica, which is a Sardinian flatbread that's served on top that you kind of just crack, break into and scoop up these pearls of tartare.

18:28It's truly special. Put it in the Hall of Fame. Put it in the Hall of Fame. I love that. Dish Hall of Fame. love dish love dish but the menu like right now my favorite things are like this beautiful chicory salad where we're sourcing Tracy's getting these greens from a wonderful farm just like 20 minutes from here called Steelbo but these beautiful bitter chicories Tardivo which is dressing with this like oregano vinaigrette which like pops it's like a tasting it's like biting into an Italian sandwich it's really dope and then something she's calling an Alpine beef stew but it's a beef short ribs that are stewed with juniper and then served on top of polenta and some bitter greens.

19:11So like turnip greens or dandelion greens, those two dishes. That's like the Dolomites, man. That's like, I'm thinking Dolomites vibes with that one. I'm into that. I'm into that. I really like the way that your cuisine cues through Europe and you got Italian American we're going to hear about, but then you've got a wonderful staffer who was born in Korea and knew some is we'll do some Korean food on your menu, which I think is super dope. Yeah, I think so. You talked about Aiello's, which is the Italian-American weeks that we do at Birdie's to honor Tracy's late grandfather, whose last name was Aiello.

19:46But it kind of began because Tracy and I were kind of bored maybe like six months into the restaurant. We're like, we want to do more stuff. Instead of going out and looking for spaces and opening a restaurant, we said, why don't we use Birdie's as a place to test ideas for future concepts, whatever it is. So we were like, we missed Red Sauce. There's no Red Sauce in Austin. Let's pop up as Red Sauce. So we had this idea on a Thursday. We had posters. We changed the decor of the restaurant. Oh, fun. Love that. We changed the playlist and then popped up on the next Tuesday as ILOs. There was a line out the door for the full week.

20:28And it was like, whoa, this is crazy. This is really fun. And it was really great for our team, which is, I think, why it's stuck. Right? It's like, one, it's a guaranteed way to make us a busier restaurant for those 2 weeks. Yeah. But also, the menu changes. Everyone's pushing really hard. The wine list changes. Everyone's learning new stuff. And it's a great opportunity for us to be like an alter ego of ourselves for a couple weeks. And then in the summer, I think you talked about Hee-Jay a little bit. Yeah, Hee-Jay, yeah. Our executive sous chef, Hee-Jay and Sophie, our AGM, took over the restaurant for a week.

21:09And Hee-Jay's Korean by birth. And she wanted to cook the food that she grew up eating. So she created this concept called Jeep Up. And we did a set Korean menu for a full week. and it was incredible to see how much passion and love she put into that project with Sophie who took over the wine list for the week. We've kind of done that successfully. We're talking about doing something this summer with my mom who would do like an Indian concept. Amazing. Amazing. How fun. Great. Yeah. So, you know, one of the things we try and do all the time is to change and to learn. And every time we've done that, something like that, we've learned something about ourselves.

21:53and something about the market here and maybe a little something about how we want to approach the future. Yeah, I think it's tremendous that you are not staying complacent and clearly that your staff is, you know, it's a job and like people can make money and they go home, but also it's like an enriching experience to work at a restaurant and the fact you can bring in all these different voices from cuisine around the world and create this environment. I have to like think that, you know, like an Italian-American concept, the fact that you're crushing the pop-up. Maybe it's like a brick and mortar restaurant too at some point, perhaps.

22:27We hope so. I think one of the things that we love doing with birdies is, like I said, trying these alter egos, but it reduces the risk. We can test these ideas and if they don't work, we can just put them away rather than having an idea, signing the lease, committing to something and then realizing it doesn't work. We play around with a lot of different things that are kind of floating through our head. We did French Bistro Week. We named it after our son. That was really fun and a big hit too. But yeah, it's a great opportunity for us to just have fun and play and let the team be themselves a little more in their own way.

23:07Arshad, let me ask you, you went through the Union Square Hospitality training program and you worked the floor at Grand Mercy Tavern. I want to hear about what goes into this because I just had dinner at Union Square Cafe, which is like really, it's like an Italian restaurant now. It's back, baby. It really is back and some incredible cooking there. And I can't wait to have this chef on the show. But honestly, what's it like in that program? And what's the big takeaway from working the floor at Gramercy and just going through the program? Yeah, I was part of Union Square Hospitality Group at a very interesting time.

23:42It felt like a transition period for the group. They were opening a lot of hotel deals at the time. I helped open Untitled with the Whitney, which was at the New Whitney Museum. And I think they were trying to navigate their way through what felt like kind of an uncertain real estate market at that time. And my big takeaways from that experience were just the importance on building regulars. I think that's something that Trace and I are obsessed with. But the things that have kept those restaurants around for as long as they have been, the fact that they have people who come in every single week, the same people who like sitting at the same bar seat.

24:26There was a guy when I was at Gramercy who would come in, he was battling cancer. He'd sit at bar six every single day, order the same thing. He'd get a salted margarita, roasted oysters. and like you know when he passed away he had his wake at like grammar's tavern and those were the same dishes and drinks that we served um it always struck a chord with me because you know we think of restaurants as like these places now that are expressively such a big part of like culture today they're also like the home to a lot of people like when people are feeling sad or going through shit like people go to restaurants to get away from life and like have you know a place that they can almost be like in a meditative space.

25:12And I think those restaurants are really important restaurants to a lot of people, which I think we've always wanted birdies to be that. And I think that was my biggest takeaway. Yeah, that's a great point. And I think what Ben Leventhal and team is building at Blackbird is kind of tapping into this and how your regulars are your core. It's not like the Delta One. And like, those are the guys who are the platinums are the most important because they're the ones giving you the most money in the end. And so to acknowledge this and not necessarily be all about the hype and like the one visit from the out of town guests.

25:48I mean, of course, you want to treat all your guests well, but you got to like you got to like talk to your regular. So how do you how do you actually talk to regulars, get them to come back to birdies? We give away a lot of free shit. But I think that's like a part of our culture here is that like, you know, especially with solo diners, like when people come in by themselves, I think it's the greatest compliment to a restaurant. Like, hey, I'm by myself. I have a book. Like, where do I want to go? I want to go to Birdie's. We treat them like royalty when they come in. That's always been a really, really important thing for us.

26:23But I think our regulars just like being seen, right? Like, there's this huge difference. Like between like restaurants that you walk in and someone's like reading the open table and they like, you know, are like reading your notes and saying, welcome back. Versus someone who recognizes you and says, oh, it's so nice to see you again. How are the kids? You know? How are Peyton and Allie? Like whatever it is. Like I think that's a really important part of restaurants. I think the future of restaurants is going to like, you know, as the front of house maybe gets like a little bit leaner and you think of new innovative ways of reducing labor.

26:56I think the maitre d' is going to come back really, really strong in the next 10 years. The floor person who can help build regulars, who can connect with every single table in a restaurant. And that's kind of the role I try and fill at Birdie's, which is to be the institutional memory of the place. I think that's really, really, really important in restaurants. And I think as we went away from that and kind of transitioned to tech, tech, tech, I think we kind of lost connections with people. And I think that's led to maybe us losing the idea that regulars are a really, really important part of business.

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27:35But it's that personal connection. It's not necessarily the open table now. I just had breakfast at Michael's on 55th Street. And Michael McCarty, who splits time between his Santa Monica restaurant and his New York restaurant, was touching tables, man. Old school, looking great. And I just felt like this is what I want in a restaurant to know the person or at least have the person acknowledge me because service is so tricky now. And it's very easy for me to, like, shit talk service, how it's not good anywhere. Though, frankly, it isn't good anywhere. So I'm just being honest. So I guess I did just shit talk it.

28:11But frankly, I think just a little bit of personality, a little bit of grace at the front, at the door, goes a long way at a restaurant. And it boggles my mind that you walk in and you're not giving shit and it's weird. Well, I think because we started to value the technocratic kind of background, right? How are we reducing labor? How are we doing this? people who are like really good at excel sheets are now like managers on most restaurant floors and we've kind of gone away from the idea that like you know there's people who have to worry about the bottom line but then there's also people who need to drive sales in the top line and the top line people have always been like there's no better marketing than word of mouth and like there's no better anchor for a restaurant someone in the dining room who can bring people back you know here's my card like i'd love to make a reservation for you next time those small little things make all the difference in the world.

29:04Interesting top line, bottom line conversation. I want to continue that another day because I think it's so cool to think about both numbers. Obviously, the bottom line is the most important number, but top line and getting people to come back and just be butts in the seats is so key. Let me transition. This conversation has been void of wine talk. You really are low key, a real master and expert in the wine game. I'm sure you have certifications. I'm not going to go over those. But tell me, let me just ask you, Napa Valley, I think you and I share a love for this restaurant, Mustards. I just want to get your quick thoughts on that restaurant.

29:43Dude, Mustards is great. I think it's a true American classic. I love that they call themselves a truck stop restaurant. I know. you know that's i just think the greatest and it feels like the menu is like oh like stuck in the 90s in the best way possible like it's like there's a little bit of fusion there's like a little bit of california cuisine there's um like that huge sign at the bottom of the menu that says sorry everything is delicious i just think it's the funniest thing yeah it's so tongue-in-cheek it's um the food is serious i think it's cindy paulson right yeah exactly cindy paulson is the She's super underrated.

30:23She's been around forever and kind of a low-key legend. I just love restaurants that embody history. Any restaurant that's been around for like 40 years, if you're not spending a second trying to figure out what they're doing right and learning from, you shouldn't be around the restaurant game. It's so true. Restaurants that are in the 30s, 40 years anniversaries, you just have to pause and be like, let me do a little autopsy of this restaurant. Let me actually ask you about wine, Because I feel like wine, you're clearly an expert in the game. And really, it's at the center of what you enjoy about running a restaurant.

30:59I don't drink wine, but I do value it and I have plenty of experts on. So what drives you to wine? Wine. So interestingly enough, I don't really have a background. I have never been certified. I've never had a wine job. Birdies was my first wine job. We knew we wanted to do a wine list at Birdies. And Tracy and I have enjoyed drinking wine together, our whole relationship. And she was like, you love wine. You know a lot about it. Do it. So that's kind of how I fell into a wine world. So I've learned a lot by doing this job. I continue to learn every single day. Service is my biggest passion. I think wine is the second kind of part of it.

31:40So for me, the thing that really excites me in wine right now is actually finding ways to communicate the story of a winemaker to a guest in a really quick, brief form. I think, you know, people, there's so much going on in wine right now. I think you had John Bonnet on not long ago, who's just super brilliant. And I love his new book. But I think there's this, you know, radical transformation that was happening right as Birdies was opening, where there was like this natty, quote unquote, natty wine movement. There were like, you know, the OG old kind of classics. And the thing that I thought was super silly was like, why are we putting these wines in different boxes?

32:22Like, you know, for us, it's like if wine is farmed correctly and there's a human behind it, we support it. Like we don't get too lost in the sulfur story or whatever else, you know, whatever other lines you kind of want to draw. So for us, it was about finding great producers that farm beautifully, you know, because we think of wine as an agricultural product first and create basically a narrative that connects the guest to a bottle of wine. Counter service can be challenging for that, right? So we have 200 plus offerings on the wine list and then we have three minutes to communicate that. So the thing that we've really worked on is like, how do we take all this information out there, distill it, condense it?

33:09And the story I always tell my team is that like, we have to approach this like you're talking to your mom who doesn't know anything about wine. I don't like going to restaurants and being lectured about a story around wine. I want to give people exactly how much they want. If they want to have a long conversation around it, let's have a long conversation. But if they just want something that's super tasty, that they want to drink with their food and they want a light, fresh, summery red, let's give it to them without having to tell them the whole story about their wine while their food's getting cold.

33:41I think that's a really important thing for us. I'm so into that kind of service. And I know you've set yourself up for a challenge with the counter service and the wine service having to be a quick sell. And I love that you have John's book and Talia Baioki's book in your restaurant. It's prominent and clearly you got that. you're a serious wine connoisseur. And I just, I enjoy when you can bridge to service and wine together. I love it so much. Let me close and ask you in general, I know we like hinted at more projects, other projects with the pop-ups, but do you guys have like plans to open a second restaurant right now?

34:19We don't have concrete plans to open a second restaurant. I don't think we'll ever open another Bernie's. Good. But I think... Good move. Wise move. like birdies has to be like this corner of 12th and harvey and austin or just wouldn't translate to anything else it wouldn't be birdies you know uh it's the space that dictates it so for us like we let you know we've been looking at spaces for a long time but a space always dictates the concept for us great uh will we do something yes but will it have to be counter service no not necessarily but it would have to find a way to like continue to innovate around restaurants i think that's at the core of who we are now.

34:57And as we look down the next decade or so, like I mentioned earlier in our conversation, I think figuring out and solving for labor is going to continue to be more and more important. And whatever we do next, I think we'll try and innovate around reservations or tickets or something like that. Yeah, yeah. You'll always be pushing the envelope, so to speak. I have to ask you, the restaurant's an investor in Graza Olive Oil, and I had Andrew Benin on the show. Hey, man, nice investment. Like if you hear my interview with Andrew, like business is doing pretty well. So, hey, good job. I hope you can do something with that dough when Benin ends up being sold.

35:38Let's hope there is a dough at the end of it, yeah. No, I know. I'm only kidding. I have no idea. I'm just like, he's doing well. You are all doing well. Yeah, I mean, that was another kind of thing Tracy and I talked about when we first started. was like, you know, when we have a cash position, like we have to, like, we're not going to go launch a CPG project right now. Like we think that's like a really, you know, important way to kind of build a brand or, you know, kind of diversify your portfolio away from brick and mortar completely. So we decided early on that we would make these like small bets on different companies in the CPG space as a means of diversifying kind of our cash position.

36:16So we weren't just a brick and mortar restaurant that was relying on the sales of a restaurant, we would make small strategic investments that would be good for both the business and for our investors. Yeah, well, I love to hear that. I think more folks in the restaurant industry listening to this show will take notice and may be inspired to spread out the cash a little bit when there is cash, which is not always the case in restaurants. On This Is Taste, we have a guest about the discerning taste. So to close this interview, here's a little rapid fire, fast, furious taste check. are you ready i think so the best fruit do you count tomatoes as a fruit are you like a tomatoes a fruit or i would say i do not count tomatoes as a fruit okay though it is a fruit but um i think it's hard to beat like great citrus in california when it's in season yeah yep yep do you have a favorite are you pomelo are you like pixie man i love a blood orange oh yeah Oh, yeah.

37:14Same here. Worst vegetable? Oh, water chestnuts. No question. Okay. So I love it. It's a brand new one. No one said that yet. And I think, wow. Yeah, it's always... Yeah, when it's in Cantonese cooking, I can't really mess with it. I'm sure there's a preparation somewhere. But yeah, I don't get it. I don't get it. It tastes like nothing. Like, it's just like texture. Hardboard. Yeah. Also, just like the shape of it's weird to me a little bit. But yeah. It's all weird. Yeah. The best dessert? A warm brownie with vanilla ice cream, I would say, is like number one. Tirmisu close second. Interesting choices.

37:51I so agree. What do you think about the Houston's warm brownie sundae? Oh, dude. Houston slaps. It really does. I mean... Everything about Houston slaps. Yeah, it really does. And really, it's kind of like... Close restaurant. It's kind of like Unisquare Hospitality in that way. It really is dialed. It has a really strong point of view. much larger of course love that okay your favorite American fast food chain Popeyes respect respect I love it your favorite Portland Oregon restaurant probably Han Oak and Lovely's 50-50 Rose's VL for soup is pretty badass too oh yeah I missed that it was closed when I was there last but I gotta make it there your favorite cookbook of all time this is actually a very easy answer for me it's like the first cookbook I ever got that got me into food is the Reader's Digest and Teeth Guide to Cookery by, I think it was like Anne Willen, I think was her name.

38:51But it's like one of the great encyclopedic books on the free. It's amazing. Wow. It introduced me to all these ingredients that I've never heard of, butchery techniques. It's like the most amazing photographs in it. I love it. Yeah, you know, Reader's Digest, a very, very well-funded institutional publication back, especially when they were making these books back when you were younger. And it makes sense that this would be such a canonical choice. Yeah, it was just like a really... It was like one of the books that got me into cookery just because there was like so many beautiful photos of like game birds and Scottish game birds and like these fish I'd never seen.

39:27Like first time I'd ever even heard of John Dory within that. It's like the Guinness Book of World Records for a food nerd. Kind of like I'm catching that vibe. Okay, do you guys have cookbook plans? I know with all this accolades, I'm sure the agents are hitting you up and you got some thoughts. Yeah, we have cookbook ambitions. Yeah. No concrete plans yet. Yeah. We're starting to sketch out some ideas. Tracy's sketching out some really interesting ideas on how she wants to structure a potential book, but nothing concrete. Well, you know my number. Call me. We'll talk. I will, man. I'm going to have to pick your brain up.

40:01Please. Yeah, absolutely. What's your favorite recent cookbook discovery? The Lula Cafe book really resonated with me because it felt and reads exactly the way I want a cookbook to read, which is like recipe one page, photo of the next. Beautiful, long introduction. Jason's such a talented and gifted writer. That's got to be one of my favorite cookbooks. Yeah, I love my conversation with Jason on the show. And it's a terrific book. And I was going to ask you if Lula inspired your restaurant. I know Tracy worked there for a bit, and they do these legendary theme nights and theme weeks. So I love that you mentioned that.

40:36Yeah, it's a really special restaurant, but I've never eaten there. So we're going to make a trip up to Chicago this year. Oh, my gosh. You've never eaten there. Well, I mean, I hope you have a great meal. It's a cool place. A couple more. Your favorite city outside America to visit for food. So one of the interesting things is I was an undocumented immigrant for a long time. And then I had DACA kids. And then finally got my green card. So my first trip outside of the US was, I want to say, three, four years ago. Was to Rome. And Rome just blew my mind. It's arguably my favorite city in the world at this point.

41:20But, yeah, Rome and Mexico City are probably tied for number one. Those are great picks. Those are great picks. Wow. That must have been just such a transformative trip to go to Rome, taste the cuisine in country. Yeah, man. It was amazing. Love to hear that. Especially not to feel scared coming back. Well, yeah. I would love to hear that story one day about coming back and finally getting the right documentation that was necessary. Man. A cuisine you would like to learn more about? Szechuan food. I think Szechuan food is steeply complex and so interesting and nuanced. Every time I have a great Szechuan dish, I'm like, damn, I need to know more about this place.

41:59My mouth is watering just thinking about it right now. That's a great call. Last one, your favorite sandwich. The best sandwich I think I've ever had is a Lampardotto sandwich. It's like a tripe sandwich we had in Florence. it's like this green spicy chili sauce on top uh it was just like the most amazing like delicious non-gamey like perfect sandwich that's a great call reminds me you know like we kind of put italian sandwiches into that italian american box and we think about like cold cut combos and stuff but man between like a porchetta sandwich or this tripe sandwich we're talking about or even like a chickpea sandwich like the italians kind of fucking own sandwiches They know how to do it, man.

42:45I'm telling you. It's where it's at. Arzab, this has been such a fun conversation. So thoughtful. Thank you so much for joining This Is Taste. Thanks for having me. This was a real treat, Matt. Such a big fan and honored to be here.

43:08Harris Mayer, welcome to This Is Taste. What's up, buddy? I'm doing very well. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to get to chat with you. We've become friends. We're kind of neighbors upstate. I know your wife, Claire Saffitz. We hang out at the farmer's market. Yep. Well, can you remind me, I always forget, how you just kind of appeared into my life in a delightful way, and I'm so happy to have you, but I don't remember the story of how it happened. Was it through Claire? Remind me, please. I was texting with your wonderful wife about meeting at the farmer's market. And because we go to the Goshen farmer's market on Fridays, I do most Fridays in the summer and the spring.

43:45And like, you know what? You showed up too. And then that's it. Okay. I remember that. But how is it that you guys even started texting? You know, I know Claire because we publish her books. I see. And she's been in the studio a couple times and we've filmed with her. And yeah, we're all fans of her work. And you know what? As a person, she's even better. So couldn't agree more. And yes, I remember when she said, I'm meeting this guy, Matt. And who the fuck is Matt? Yeah. Well, I found out quickly. And she just said that you were super nice and that you knew a lot and spoke very about food and growing things.

44:22And they spoke highly about the Goshen farmer's market. So I jumped all over that. And we had a dandy old time. You and I hit it off right off the bat. Yeah. And I found some treasures there. It's a good market. Yeah. Yeah, unsurprisingly, the farmer's market where the farms are is as good as like Union Square. Where there ain't no farms. Where there ain't no farms. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was really impressive. I remember this one guy who cultivated mushrooms had like the best shiitake mushrooms I'd ever bought. And we also bought some Polish cake that you turned me on to, right? Yeah, absolutely.

44:58Yeah, it's amazing. Isn't that cake great? They have a spot in Greenpoint, and they have a spot in Florida, New York, which is right down the street from Goshen. Oh, so cool. It's so cool. We're going to go back. They shut it down in November, and then they'll be back in May. So we'll be back at the market. Harris, tell me, what's good in New York City restaurants right now? I mean, you're living upstate, and you're living here half and half or whatever. What's good right now? So I am a creature of habit. I'm a little, I stick to what I know a lot. And I'm certainly spending so much time upstate more than the city these days.

45:36But I definitely am here enough where usually to go to dinner. So if there's one subject that can be current with, it's that. The restaurant that comes to mind where I had some really extraordinary food that exceeded to expectations was we were fortunate to get a reservation at Tatiana. And I'm perhaps a little apprehensive when things get all the attention and accolades. And I love when any small business succeeds. So it's not that I was not rooting for them, but it's like, oh, three stars from New York Times. All right. You got to prove it to me. And the food was extraordinary. And really, in the truest sense where the i'm remembering the dishes we had whether i'm talking about food or not i mean i think about food all the time yeah but the food there just nailed it and you know there's a guy there who really understands technique and flavors and uh there's this like a crab dish with this incredible sauce that i still think about so tatiana's i mean is top of mind for me kwami and watch a incredible chef agree like lots of press but i've not been so I've not had this experience.

46:46It's really nice to hear critically. It's to your critical eye. It's delivering. Growing up in New York, what's the classic when you think about New York City for you? I agree with phrasing it that way because everybody's experience is so unique. I lived in New York until I was six and then I moved to Long Island where I grew up. But of course, my entire adult life, I've been in Manhattan as well. My memories, my childhood of memories. I grew up on West 12th Street, went to kindergarten, first grade there. We had a family friend that would always take me and myself and my mom out to the old homestead.

47:28That for me, maybe it's just like the chance of the geography. It was around the corner from us, but lots of memories there. And interestingly, I was kind of a picky eater until I was 14. and after watching enough stuff on the Food Network, I said, I don't want to be this person. I love cooking and food so much. I want to participate in every way I can. So I remember, for example, I forced myself to enjoy broccoli, but going back to the old homestead, I did not like red meat at that time. And of course, our family friend went to get a proper steak, but I always got swordfish as a little kid, which is weird because a little kid, you would expect it to be the other way.

48:08But of course, they did a phenomenal swordfish. I remember getting these like big beautiful big steaks yeah yeah and kind of mild it has a little bit of lemon you're right well I lemon the hell out of it yeah of course but sword swordfish at the old homestead was really old school New York for me Harris what was your first restaurant job so like I said we moved to Long Island a town called Port Washington yeah in Nassau County and I guess it was the summer when I was 16 like the first summer I stopped going to camp um and i was like a wannabe cook but uh i got a job at uh the port washington yacht club and the way i got that job like i guess that's a negative way of looking at it i shouldn't say wannabe cook but like i was enamored with the whole culture and yeah uh through you know tv and things like that i was online at a bank i had like you know kids dime savings bank or something and there was this guy in a chef jacket, and I just kind of boldly went up to him.

49:11I was like, where do you work? What's up? And he was super nice. I ended up working directly under him. He was a man from the Caribbean, and he was the garmanger chef, and he was so extraordinarily talented. To this day, one of the most talented cooks and craftsmen I've ever seen. I'm talking like, not only did he run his station really well and really knew food, but he was an ice sculptor. oh i mean the guy was like a real artist and he was just he was something else what a dying skill i imagine like you don't see a lot of ice sculptures you know in in this day and age no you don't maybe maybe we bring it back i would love to do that i feel i mean if ai is going to take over our world that's probably the last thing ai is going to be able to do is like carve ice a 3d printer i bet you could do it 3d printer you went there i knew yeah 3d laser i don't laser art but yeah but i have vivid memories of like seeing him in the hot summer with like a little a small chainsaw and i was like what the heck is this guy doing like ice is flying everywhere and then it would be this you know masterpiece but i i'll never forget him barking at me about sherry shallot vinaigrette and i thought i was so cool uh i remember he asked me to like grill you know make him like grilled peppers julienne and i like cut them before i put them on the grill oh and that was like my first like you're a bonehead but i learned so much and And I had a great time in that kitchen.

50:34I mean, and having a mentor and somebody who spoke with this young guy at the bank, sounds like he's quite the mentor. Yes. Is he still around? Do you know where this guy went and ended up? Oh, I don't know. His name? His name was Mark. I don't remember his last name. But he certainly taught me a lot. A lot. I was very lucky to be under him. Cool. But yeah. You ended up going to Cornell and you got an undergrad degree there and then you went to the CIA. So I wonder, that's an interesting, usually the CIA folks in my life go there right after like high school, but you did the four-year and then you went to CIA.

51:06Did CIA live up to what you wanted to give you? I loved my experience at CIA. I'm really happy with the way that I landed there and the order in which I got there, that I went and got a business degree first and a proper four-year degree. But I think there's arguments to be made that you have to be realistic about the cost of tuition and then what you might make out there. So I say this with caution. It's not for everybody. I was lucky enough where I could afford that tuition. But I also, because of my undergraduate degree, it was an expedited program. So it was only one year. And I think like any, it would have been the opposite had I gone to CIA first.

51:47But when you go to a program when you're 21, 22, your approach to your studies is very different. Let's say - working with like children at that point like your fellow classmates are 18 and shit yeah yep i was the old dude but uh there were you know i wasn't so alone because the cia uh attracts a lot of you know career changers and things so it wasn't so unheard of but um i was able to get so much out of it because i was more mature and i knew exactly what i wanted to do whereas freshman year of college you know a little bit lost trying to find you know you're trying to figure out how to like get yourself out of the bed in the morning without your parents helping you let alone you know doing the coursework which kicked my ass what's your take on moosewood oh interesting question yeah being right moosewood the legendary yeah vegetarian restaurant in ithica new york where cornell's are located yeah i mean couldn't think of a more appropriate city for it to be in number one i actually didn't end up eating there until i was a senior i think when i was kind of looking at my checklist of things I have to do before I graduate.

52:54It was fine. Like I said, I support all small business, and I encourage people to go there, and I think that they really care about food. But I think Gordon Ramsay talks about this a lot, putting aside what a controversial figure he might be. The man is an extraordinary chef and a very talented cook, and there's been things I've scene of him where he talks about how more rounded cooks just because you're vegetarian doesn't mean that you necessarily know how to cook vegetables better you're either a very good cook or you're a decent cook um so i think that you don't have to go to a strictly vegetarian restaurant to find great vegetarian food well said yes yeah absolutely it gets a little bit circusy when you're like this is the vegetarian restaurant you know right yeah i like it when it's more understated um so you you graduate from CIA.

53:44I don't, I've never asked you this. We've hung out several times. I know we'll talk about Creamline. We'll talk about Polkies, your businesses here, which are super great. But like, where did you end up working and kind of learning the chef trade in New York? Well, I had a path that kind of zigzagged. I think I always knew my, you know, even going back to the original question of how I ended up at, you know, the hotel school first, I always knew I wanted to be a business owner and an entrepreneur. And being a chef was always kind of, or I should say, being a cook was more about supporting what my ultimate goal was.

54:26It was part of the journey where I knew I needed to know how to cook, I need to know how to run the operation, I need to know how to do the business. So I think there was a romantic phase where I thought I wanted to go work for, you know, the biggest names and, you know, the lights and that kind of the lights and the fame of their careers kind of inspired me. But it was sort of not it just ended up not being the right path for me. I dabbled in some more of the, you know, bigger name places didn't, you know, stay very long. I ended up taking jobs at smaller independent places and found people, you know, you end up doing more and learning more.

55:03Because now as an owner, I understand like you're not going to give you know you're caught that day striped bass to somebody who wants to learn how to fly fish and uh and with the margins like it just doesn't happen so when you go to a smaller place you have a little more freedom and that's the path I took yeah I worked at a wine bar in the east village for a number of years some names let's go there uh I guess when I realized I didn't want to work in uh like a fancier kitchen and I just wasn't getting the experience I wanted. I took jobs in small places. So there's a place called Wine Bar in the East Village.

55:40It's no longer Wine Bar, but it was a big hit, but long before I got there. And Matthew Kenny, who's a pretty well-known chef and cookbook author, he wasn't involved when I was there, but he founded it years before, before he became a raw food chef. But the footprint was there and I did like a tasting for the owners and they took a chance on you know some young cool you know kid and uh I executed their menu and was able to do you know new things the owner wanted but I certainly didn't looking back I don't think I knew how to cook at that point but we then opened a Peruvian restaurant actually Matthew came back because he and the owner had remained friends and that was a really fun project and I got my butt kicked sort of involved with the things I wanted to learn like construction and building a kitchen and organizing it and certainly made a bunch of mistakes.

56:29But really, they sent me to Peru and I got to taste and try the food and got really into that. And then I ended up taking a sous chef position with the Bowery Group at what was then 100 Acres. Yeah. And certainly the owner, Mark Meyer, who, you know, very influential in the farm to table in New York City. And just operating restaurants and generally operating restaurants that had a sophisticated new american vibe but somehow had like more casual fun i mean it was like like really like threading a needle with mark meyer's places yeah yeah you know he's a name that doesn't get talked about but he was certainly at the forefront and uh of what we just take a standard practice in restaurants now but yeah they're like you said the restaurants are great it's not just great food but the whole formula works really well so i i learned a lot i was very lucky fortunate to get that job and the basically, I didn't work with Mark until later in my time with the organization.

57:26But the chef of 100 Acres at the time, a guy named Ricky King, who's a very good friend of mine still to this day, he's the one that taught me how to cook and kick my butt. And he was from Charleston, South Carolina, which is, if anybody's like, why the hell is there pimento cheese on the Polkies menu? It's because of that, because like, man, I made and served a lot of pimento cheese with ricky but great margin i would imagine pimento cheese you can charge a little more it's like a gussied up cheese ball that's true i mean margins is is uh an interesting angle yeah all this it's it's it depends what you charge yeah um at 100 acres we you know served with all sorts of market vegetables and like homemade uh birds food crackers he called it so yeah we were able to fetch yeah a cool price for what is but yeah you did a lot i mean margins would probably remain the same.

58:17I'm kind of kidding because I think of pimento cheese as something you make at a Super Bowl party, like as the lay, but then you could do a cool-ass version of it. Right. I think that's the best cooking. I mean, that's what I've learned in my old age is that it's not the kind of pretentious food that's about the chef and their vision. It's about taking things that resonate with the people and with your guests that might have a memory like you just said. Like, you know, oh, there's nothing. I understand pimento cheese. I ate it at the Super Bowl party, But if a chef is good and they're cooking for other people, not themselves, what they'll understand is I'm going to take those memories and then maybe elevate them a little bit by using good ingredients or just a little more sound technique, something that's not processed to begin with, like making it yourself.

59:01And that's what I learned from Ricky with pimento cheese, for example. And that's the path I take now with the restaurants that we own. Yeah, it's a good segue to get to cream lime because, you know, it's exactly what you're saying is really thinking about the hamburger. and I guess my first question to talk about Creamline, which is wildly successful, one of the city's best burgers. When you're opening Creamline, I mean, how the fuck are you negotiating opening a hamburger restaurant in a city that has, you know, some nice burgers? How do you, I mean, Shake Shack was invented here. I mean, it's like one of the best burgers in my opinion.

59:36How do you do that? Well, thanks for the very complimentary intro. It's true. It's all true. I agree. and it's successful a lot because of where we are, but we are a continuation of the Ronnie Brook legacy at Chelsea Market. Explain what Ronnie Brook is. That's a really good point. So Ronnie Brook Farm Dairy is in Ancramdale, and I say it with real phonetic pronunciation there because if you looked at the spelling, it'll twist your mind, but Ancramdale. Is that Dutch? It feels extremely Dutch. Yeah. When everything's difficult to pronounce, that works. It's Dutch. yeah um but it's a uh extraordinary uh dairy farm uh and in in every way the way that they grow the food for their cows the way that they harvest the milk the way that they treat their animals in life the way they treat their animals in death i mean it's it's not pleasant to talk about but it's extraordinary how romantic rick ossofsky and the entire family is they bury their cows.

1:00:39That has always resonated with me. And it's one of the anecdotes I give to people. I've never heard of a dairy farm taking so much care in their animals that they actually bury the dairy once they've been retired and dead. Right. Well, because he's a romantic and he loves his farm and there's nothing wrong with making it profitable. I mean, they have to be profitable so that they continue to supply us with the best dairy I've ever tasted. But, you know, from a business standpoint, it's crazy. I mean, the animal has value in death as well. I mean, it makes me think of Dan Barber just posted this last week.

1:01:19Claire showed it to me because we had recently went with a friend of mine visiting from Taiwan, actually, to their lunch counter, which I think actually has got a Michelin star. Oh, wow. Totally deserved. Blue Hill has a lunch counter? Yeah. It's like if you wanted to spend a day at the farm. Oh, up at Blue Hill at Stone Barns. Yeah, it's there, but it's not part of the dining room. It's like a little cafeteria, but it's awesome. But he just posted a picture of what they brilliantly call retired dairy cows. And so what they do, and this goes, I'm not saying that this has to be done, but the idea is that there is value in the animal, whether it be eaten or whether it's sold for different purposes in death, to their meat.

1:02:06and basically they serve retired dairy cow at Blue Hill, and it's an extraordinary thing that shows that there is this value, and it's a more sustainable way of growing food. And the picture he posted just had the most extraordinary marbling. So for Rick and the farm that we work with, it's very romantic that he becomes so attached to these animals, and they've brought his family and the farm such sustenance that he honors them with a proper burial. A burial when he could be obviously making a little more margin by selling it for the meat. Because I've had, I remember Barbara was doing these zero waste dinners down at the village, Blue Hill, and served dairy cow.

1:02:43And it's quite good. It's quite tough, but it's quite good. Right. That makes sense. It's a little tougher because it hasn't been raised. It's been exercising its muscles and producing dairy. They've been walking. Right. But if you care about sustainability and zero waste once in a while, you might have to have a steak that's a touch tougher. But it has its own character. That might even be better. It's flavorful. Okay, let's talk about the style burger then, because I want to get into the food details about why Creamland works, because it really does work. And we're talking about a burger, which means it's like patty bun condiments, you know, the size of it.

1:03:18You know, what are you thinking? What are you doing? I mean, I don't think it'll ever be done. We're constantly tweaking. But it has certainly evolved from day one to now. I would say in the last two years, we are at the best. the burger's ever been. And I don't know how perceptible it is to, you know, our average guest. But for us, it's like you said, it's the seemingly deceptively simple food. But there are the simpler something is, the more perfect it has to be. Yeah. And anything from I mean, if somebody saw us like taking measuring tapes to different buns, they'd look at you like, like, what the heck are you doing?

1:03:58Like, it's crazy. But there's so much to it. And we I mean, one of the essential um things that makes our burgers delicious is leaning on um i mean of course the quality of all the products but we use ronnie brooke butter everywhere we can and it's the most amazing butter you can imagine i mean it's not even subjective it's objectively it's got more butter fat than most of the kind of european style butters you would spend a lot of money on fanciest restaurants around use it and here we are in a fast food place essentially using you're doing a butter burger you're doing the midwestern butter butter burger that was certainly a big inspiration yeah culver's which is not a great chain but like i went to college in wisconsin so there's a lot of local places that do that yeah well i mean there's no secret that butter makes things delicious so yeah we we have tried so many different ways to like how do you butter your bun what's the best way we've tried the rollers we've tried dipping it in melted butter all these things where we are now is we keep some room temp butter out at all times we use a little offset spatula and we really coat the bun so that's one of the kind of techniques that we obsess about to make sure that our burgers really great what about the beef though what's going into the beef and what's you know like we talk about burger blends we had patler frieda on about a couple months ago and we talked about all the boutique blends that he does what do you what are you thinking with your burger blend well we're kind we're the ant we're the anti-blend Perf concept While I mean I think that was so cool And it brought in like a revolution Yeah in the 2010s Yeah it also even got people to understand That like oh meat As I know it comes from different muscles And there's an actual animal involved And like we should respect this I mean that's all great It is and here's like He opened up a world to like food writers And like people in the industry Just thinking about dry aging All that stuff too In terms of the burger I mean we had your average You know customer talking about like oh like i really taste like the amount of chuck that's in this as compared to short rib and brisket and for a lot of people they probably learned like oh brisket can be ground up and all these things totally we don't have that i'll call it a luxury because we work with the true to form with ronnie brooke and that has been the theme of the entire concept it's about working with small local independent farms so we work with rosencrantz uh farm beef they're uh in the way north of new york but uh very proud that they're also in new york and it's a small it's a small farm we can't he doesn't jeff rosencrantz doesn't grow enough animals where you could say give me you know 100 pounds of this cut or that cut we have a true blend of whatever his trim is and whatever he's putting in his in his burger meat which i'm which has a certain consistency but not Not as much as you're getting shit from Omaha.

1:06:47Right. That's like, or the Frida via Omaha. Right. It's like that's a different, makes your job really hard. The variance in quality, the beef from Rosencrantz. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think he does, we have worked out, you know, the kind of lean to fat ratio. But other than that, like it would be restrictive to him as a farmer and how incredibly hard that business is. If we were like, okay, it has to be this precisely. He's trying to make money. so he's cutting his you know he's selling steaks to whomever he does and we're very lucky that i mean he raises his animals it fits all of our criteria humanely sustainably and all that but um it is uh helpful to him as a farmer for us to say it doesn't just give us a good ground mix uh it does we don't even get into that with him but uh we early on when we started working with them.

1:07:38We got the fat to lean ratio down, the coarseness of the grind, and they've just been a great partner. How often are those trucks arriving? So he uses a different distributor, comes through Finger Lakes Farms, which back in my chef days, I worked with them a lot. And so they have a bigger business with distribution. So he piggybacks on their trucks. So weekly or more than that, multiple times. We get deliveries like my partner, nick is in the studio and he just signaled to me uh two times a week it's just i'm i'm asking these kind of like detailed questions i'm trying to build an idea that you know it's difficult there's so many variables you got two trucks coming from this farmer way up in the finger lights region you're using a hudson valley dairy there's a lot of variables when when you're thinking about burgers you're thinking about this the city scene you know most of those places are using more stable consistent and this is no shade at those farms but their job is easier a hundred percent doing it the hard way we are doing it the hard way but it's cool at the volume that we do myself and my partners we don't want to i mean the best example i could give it being in chelsea market we we feed a lot of people so the idea that we would be creating like 10 huge garbage bags of like plastic waste every day is not desirable that's not even the word it's it's distasteful yeah leaves a bad taste in my mouth so we talk about doing it the hard way we we spend a lot more money to have compostable utensils and all these things where believe me it would be a lot more profitable for us to use something else but it's again the soul of what we do comes down to sort of the ronnie brooke example and we have to honor that so in everything we do the chicken sandwiches to the burgers to the grilled cheese tomato soup.

1:09:31We're always finding the right way to do it. And yeah, it's harder, but it would be more difficult to do something that we didn't believe in. Yeah, it's wonderful. Creamland is a great place. I want to move on to Polkies, which to me, it really speaks to what I value in food. I'm a Jew, so Jewish Ashkenazi cuisine has been in my life forever. And you're doing a style of Jewish Ashkenazi cooking that, you know, I'm not going to restrict it to barbecue. You've done barbecue in the past, but you're definitely, you're thinking about Jewish American food in a unique way. So Harris, tell me a little bit about what Polkies is up to.

1:10:11It's super unique. And Hannah Goldfield wrote a great piece in New Yorker about it. And I'm going to link to that in the show notes, but tell us a little bit about it. Oh, well, God bless you for that. Because that was the I mean, the greatest day of my professional career, that was to get that review from her, where she kind of understood the concept better than I did and put it into words. She's great. Yeah, what a great food writer she is and a great writer. But Polkies is really a soulful restaurant. And it's like my personal story as a Jewish American New Yorker. And that's the story that we're telling and the food that we're doing.

1:10:56The story was that we opened during lockdowns as a way to create some delivery-friendly concept, and we have every intention of making it big and finding permanent home, but it is available for delivery only at this point out of a kitchen that we're renting, but it's not a in-store concept at this point which is super modern having like a delivery concept like a lot of places to do that well it makes a lot it makes a lot of business sense and that was sort of we designed the menu to work in that way you know i bet a lot of people remember we were ordering in like crazy it was already a emerging trend but during lockdowns that was certainly um you had to have food that traveled well and we struggled with this at cream line for years.

1:11:47So we were able to, from the ground up, create food that we knew. Like you have to think about if you can make something great and delicious right then and there in the kitchen, that's great. And it will be exciting to you as a cook. But again, it comes back to thinking about like, okay, well, how does this actually play out for the guest? So it was really important that we made food that was not only like inspiring to us as the cooks of it, but that we knew when it got to our customers that they would be able to have that same experience, that it would reheat well, that it would travel well, because whether you like it or not, at the end of the day, that's the reality of how New Yorkers get fed.

1:12:24And with such a prominent Jewish-American food tradition in New York, you're thinking about polkies, which is a Yiddish word. What's the menu? What's the concept? What are you doing? so it's evolved um but at its core is about my personal experience and the truth is my partner uh in cream line uh came to me with the name and of course i considered myself like up to it with the yiddish words but i never grew up with the word pal me either yeah it was new to me yeah well was it the first time you heard it was through our restaurant absolutely yeah and and And I've got folks who like to drop a few Yiddish words in phrases, but yeah, never heard of it.

1:13:10Right. So they proposed this word to me, and it was kind of from the word the concept developed. And like you said, it's a Yiddish word that means the leg of a turkey or a chicken. Mostly a chicken, but for me, that's part of the evolution is that, well, of course, I love chicken as part of my upbringing, But turkey was always a centerpiece of my life as a Jewish American, as an American. I love Thanksgiving. I've always thought turkey is like one of the most underappreciated meats. I'm the guy that goes to the diner and gets the Thanksgiving plate. In June. In June. Yeah. And it's a really cute word.

1:13:51And it also doubles in meaning as the name for chubby baby thigh. So our logo is like a baby with chubby pulkies holding a pulky, which is a turkey leg. But as I thought about the word, of course, I love that it paid tribute to my heritage. It's a Yiddish word. But it also touched me with my American experience, my love for Thanksgiving, I guess my love for dark meats. But also I started to think about like being true to my experience and moving away from like maybe the sort of chef restaurant influences and thought about, okay, all of my holiday traditions, we have turkey and brisket. And I love turkey and brisket.

1:14:37I think I could probably do it better with like, you know, more technique. Most chefs think that. Yeah. Most chefs are like, yeah, your version for these holidays, they're fine. amateur hour though you're like i can do it better i i agree but i don't want to put down all the like the long island jewish uh families cooking these things like they always got the soul right and it always stuck with me but you know it's like well what if i took this brisket and i rested it in the sauce or maybe i sliced it differently with some professional technique and of course like delis and things like this do amazing things with the brisket uh and have long before I was even born.

1:15:16But what we're going for is the kind of Rosh Hashanah dinner brisket and how to do it really well. And we have come up with some pretty extraordinary techniques. At Palky's, we cure and then confit the brisket. So confit, meaning to kind of slowly poach in its own fat. It just, you don't get any of the fat, very little of the fat renders out, which happens if you just roast it in the traditional way. And it also creates this kind of medium of like beef flavor. I mean, it's the opposite of like dry ass brisket, which is like the bane of most Passover's meals. Right. You know. It is, that's exactly what we're trying to fix.

1:15:59Not do. Yeah, I guess I was tiptoeing around that. But look. Yeah, I'm being blown. Straight up, turkey and brisket can very often be dry, improperly cooked. Yeah. But I love them anyway. but why not do something uh to kind of change the game and that's what we're doing at pulkies and it's cool our signature sandwich is the um we call it the i can't believe it's not pork and it's barbecue pulled uh pulkies turkey legs with a manischewitz barbecue sauce yeah and truly if you ate that the richness of like dark meat turkey uh i love pork i'm i'm jewish but not kosher i mean uh god forbid but uh it's you really wouldn't miss the pork it's it's a delicious sandwich i've had it it's amazing and i really do think um having a nice dark meat barbecue is a unique way to do turkey i've never had it that way and i feel like the leg is a perfect way to kind of enter into the barbecue realm with turkey and and you know if you do and also some people just eat poultry that's all they eat they don't eat a lot of beef you know or eat no pork you know true and so you know we we to that end we also have a lot of like you know great vegetarian foods like mac and cheese uh noodle kugel um but you could see there's this like common thread of these kinds of winks and nods as as hannah put it in that article yeah there's these winks and nods to like american cooking traditions and like jewish cooking traditions and um you know when we were like i said then the concept kind of came from the name and so when you start to like put together a story, you have to kind of like put it to a few tests.

1:17:35And so I was thinking like, I'm not like about to like create something entirely new. This has to make sense to people. And then we realized that like American Texas barbecue, there's a precedent here. They, we don't know this here in our interpretation of barbecue in the Northeast, you know, which perhaps needs some quotes or something. I had an instructor in the CIA famously said to me, he was my breakfast chef, he said, Texans don't know shit about pizza and New Yorkers don't know shit about barbecue. And that's not to say there aren't great. I love Dino Barbecue, for example. Oh, and I think Hill Country is still pretty good.

1:18:10Hill Country is awesome. They do amazing brisket. But it has to kind of pass a few tests, like does this make sense? And so that was the final kind of check for me was that, okay, there's already this tradition in Texas where they do beef brisket and turkey. Turkey is like a prominent part of Texas barbecue. And of course, that ain't like your typical Thanksgiving dinner, perhaps overcooked turkey. It's this like juicy smoke thing. Because it's wild. I mean, there's a big hunting culture in Texas and a lot of wild turkeys are killed, right? I mean, it's part of the culture. Are you goading me into a conversation about hunting?

1:18:49You know, I was going to go there. We got more to cover. I love that you hunt. And I think hunting is a wonderful pastime. I mean, I grew up in West Michigan where we have a very active deer season. I guess I didn't know that you were from Michigan originally. Yeah, West Michigan, yeah. And we have a pretty long deer season, a bow season and a shotgun season. So all the YouTube hunting personalities I follow always talk about the upper peninsula of Michigan. If I may ask you a question. Yeah, sure. Let's go. Where are you relative to the upper peninsula, this legendary whitetail hunting? I am about eight hours from the bridge.

1:19:25Listener, I'm putting my hand up for Harris And I am on the west side of the state And my hand looks like a hand or a mitten Nice hand Yeah, so I'm here I'm like lower left And in the upper peninsula But whitetail deer is all It's rural, you know You go out of the cities So there's a lot of whitetail throughout the state Oh, I mean, they're everywhere I'll have to cap that Because we could have a whole We could go there And we'll cap the Polkies conversation Because I'm going to follow what you're doing and we're going to have you back because I just love talking to you. But I want to ask you about Claire, your wife.

1:19:58Claire Saffitt's an author of ours. We've had her on the show a couple times. Friend of mine. And honestly, many may know you who are listening to the show from BA Videos and now Claire's Videos. You make some cameos. You make some cameos. You're up in the videos. I'm all up in it. You're all up in the videos. So let me ask you, are you and Claire going to do a show together? Like a straight up show? Despite my best efforts, I'm all up in it. And I'll tell you why that happens at all. Claire needs no supporting cast. I mean, God, I'm very, very lucky that this incredible woman is my partner. And she'll appreciate this.

1:20:37She knows how to cook. Let me tell everyone. She is an extraordinary cook. And the best way, she is a far better cook than I am a baker. Put it that way. Yeah. And so we eat very well. And now that we're growing our own food. She worked at Spring, right? in Paris? I mean, that was her. Yeah. I mean, she's not just doing baking. I mean, her baking is what she's known for, but yeah, the cooking side is. Well, she did do pastry there as well. She did, that's right. But she is no stranger. She was she's no stranger to the pressures and the reality of what it takes to make food at that level. So are you guys going to do a show, the two of you, on the road or something?

1:21:14I don't think so. I'm sorry to report. What I will say is that the reason why I'm in it is because she shoots in our home, back you know when she was shooting out of the apartment but now uh in hudson valley and i live there yeah and uh so i make my way in and sometimes you know they'll ask me to come on camera but uh it's it's really more about the fact that i'm very good friends with her production team yeah so her you know very talented producers cal and vinnie have become really good friends of mine so what it just happens very organic and and that's why her show resonates so well is that the three of them are just like buds hanging out like yeah you and i right now it's super organic i've been following the the pizza oven journey both um offline through texans hanging out with you guys and online there's been a great reveal on the video but you got a you got a oven in your backyard now that claire built yes she made her first sourdough loaves a couple weeks ago out of it nice and uh they were awesome of course you know i've been eating like her sourdough for a long time and it's amazing you You know, what she does with bread is really outer-worldly.

1:22:25I can't imagine that it would even have an extra layer of it. But, you know, when you, you know, light your own fire and it gets that smokiness, it got a real pronounced, like, crispiness on the bottom. And the coolest part about it was that, you know, she built it. I mean, she's incredibly talented when it comes to, like, crafts and, you know, being an artisan. And her patience and ability to follow directions. I mean, I could never, I could never do what she did. It's stunning when you think about how her books, I mean, they're so good in that they're interesting, but they're also so technical and complete.

1:23:01They're the complete package. Yeah. Well, I mean, I could testify from the back end of it. She is so meticulous with all this and tests things like crazy. But back to the oven for a second, you know, she learned and I learned there's so much science and calculus to it. I mean, the size of the window relative to the curvature of the dome. The oven doesn't just work if you put a fire in some kind of clay structure. There was so much science behind it. I don't even know enough to relay what she went through. All I could tell you is that it was a year and a half long journey. And there's still more to be done to it.

1:23:40But we're up and cooking. And we've had some great pizzas. The videos are great. I love seeing that oven there On this is taste We ask guests about The discerning taste So to close this interview Here's a little rapid fire Fast and furious Taste check Harris are you ready I'm ready The best breakfast food Bacon and eggs The best dessert Claire's chocolate chip cookies Why They are I love chocolate chip cookies And they are The best I've ever had She has the On the Venn diagram Of like crispy Chewy Yeah And soft She nails it Does she use rye flour She does put a touch of rye flour. I thought so.

1:24:19Explain to me, what would rye flour do? I don't know. I see it in recipes. I bake like five cookies a year. I have no idea how to make cookies. I just see them once in a while. Sounds healthy. I'll eat an extra one. It sounds like it has something better than average texture or something. Your favorite American fast food chain? Five Guys. Interesting. Wow. The fries, pasture, muster? Everything. Five Guys for me is number one, and there isn't a close second. I need to reassess it. Their fries are made in-house. They sure are. You see the bags. They're fried in peanut oil, which sounds, people don't understand, but peanut oil is really luxurious in a sense.

1:24:57It's very expensive. Yep. In the world of like the evils of seed oils, for them to use 100 % peanut oil is radical and awesome. And obviously, they're still a very successful, profitable chain. So I respect that. We do our best. we can't use peanut oil for a variety of reasons like allergies and things but at this point people understand why Five Guys does it but we use non-GMO natural oil as best we can but the peanut oil fries and the simplicity of their burger certainly helped form our burger I mean I think the Cream Line burger is the best burger there is but Five Guys is a huge natural change I love that you're giving credit to Five Guys because it's rare on the show I must say well and also I have an extraordinary love of hot dogs which is also part of the mission statement of pulkies, is to fill the void left by Grace Papaya's departure.

1:25:48Yeah, unfortunate demise. I must say, my dad grew up in Chicago. My mom grew up in Detroit. Two very iconic hot dogs, the Coney and the Chicago-style dog. Do you have a favorite of the two? I don't even know that Detroit had a style of hot dog. It's Coney. It's a Coney dog. So chili, cheese. so it's about like the the toppings on it yeah definitely it's it's it's its own new york sorry it's on detroit style i am a new york hot dog got it uh but five guys does great hot dogs is what i was gonna that's interesting thank you for that the bringing that around do you put it what do you put on your hot dog at pulkies no just in general me uh i guess it changes order to order but i never go too crazy with toppings i think it's the the dog and the bun have to be in the right proportion it has to have a casing which is one of the reasons why i love new york dogs and less so the chicago dogs and um i i'm sauerkraut mustard and ketchup guy i love that you do the whole the whole thing but i have been turned on to uh high quality mayonnaise on a hot dog and let me tell you something it is delicious you know in la the sonora the like la style dogs they use a lot of mayonnaise in those dogs right i think that it comes from you know uh asian cuisine like that's you um and actually my wife just sent me a video of this like legendary hot dog cart in japan which was is amazing this dude is a legend but um hot dogs are beloved everywhere i think that's cool that you tap into hot dogs last one your favorite sandwich that's such a tough question uh in the world ever or that i is like a part of my life in your fiber of your body what's the answer what uh bodega bacon egg and cheese which i could wax poetic about yeah um and if i can add just one more there is a uh italian restaurant near us upstate that uh that does an italian hero and there is the the the owner is from calabria he but he does you know approachable italian american food but like the the dude knows what's up and he makes an italian hero that is just so perfectly crafted that's one of my favorite i love it shout out the name of the place nix nix nix pizza and it's a fan favorite for claire and her crew as well.

1:28:19We eat them all the time. What city? Well, I can't give too much information about it, but it's in the Hudson Valley. It's in the Hudson Valley. I'll leave it there. Nick's Pizza. Yeah, let's leave it there. I love a little, yeah. You're going to tell me off mic, though. I'll feed one directly. Harris Meyer, this has been fun. Thanks a lot for joining This Taste. Thanks, Matt. This is great.

1:28:45This is Taste is hosted by Eliza Abarbanel and me, Matt Rodbar. The show is produced by Shalia Harris and Pat Stango and edited by Clayton Gumbert. Theme music by Steve Rydell. Visit Taste Online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter for updates on all cool things that are happening.

From the publisher

Today on the show we have a great double episode with two serious dudes in the restaurant game. Arjav Ezekiel is co-owner of Birdie’s, a beloved restaurant and wine bar located in Austin, Texas. On this episode we talk about Arjav’s immigrant upbringing in Portland, Oregon, and what brought him to the exciting world of wine.
Also on the show we have a really great conversation with Harris Mayer. Harris is a New York City chef and the owner of Pulkies, a really terrific restaurant serving Jewish-style barbecue to go—that would be ’cue centered around the smoked turkey leg. His “I can’t believe it’s not pork” pulled turkey leg sandwich is one of my favorite things in all of NYC.
Do you enjoy This Is TASTE? Drop us a review on Apple, or star us on Spotify. We’d love to hear from you.
MORE FROM ARJAV EZEKIEL & HARRIS MAYER:

The 2023 Restaurant of the Year [Food & Wine]

The Powerhouse Duo Behind Birdie’s [Austin Monthly]

Harris Mayer-Selinger Puts His Own Stamp on Jewish Barbecue [Tablet]

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