The sous chef had one of the cooks get me started on gutting, cleaning and filleting sardines.  A huge Styrofoam box of sardines.  One of the staples of the River Cafe menu at the time was a dish called a ‘Sardine Sandwich’, (the recipe is here) a layering of sardine fillets, toasted pine nuts, bread crumbs, parsley and lemon juice.  The guy showed me how to prep each fillet by lining them up in rows of three on olive oil brushed parchment paper.  After gutting and filleting about 100 sardines I had finished and moved on to something else.  But then a silver haired woman walked into the kitchen and started greeting the cooks, looking over what they were each up to.  Evidently this was Rose Gray.  I had never met her.  But for some reason I was immediately nervous.  I just kept my head down and my eyes to the task at hand, not wanting to call any undue attention to myself.  She walked by me.  Phew!  Crisis averted.  But wait!  She stopped at the sheet trays filled with my prepped sardines.  I tensed.  She stooped closer.  I pretended not to notice her scrutiny.  She poked a couple fillets.  I started to sweat.

“There are bones in these fillets!” she yelled.

Urp!!!  What?!  Bones?!  No one said anything about bones to me!  Aren’t sardine bones too small to matter?  The cook that showed me the ropes left bones in the fillet he did!  … I think.  What do I do now?

“Who did these?” she yelled again.

“Um, I did chef” I said.

“We can’t have bones in these fillets.  Customers could choke!” she said.  No introduction needed.

“Sorry chef.  I will recheck them all.” I said.

“Good.”  She walked away.  Out of the corner of my eye I noticed the other cooks in the kitchen, all with heads down diligently at their morning’s tasks, cracking slight smiles on their faces.  Another trial-by-fire in the River Cafe kitchen.  Witnessed by everyone.  I couldn’t help but smile too.  Better stay on my toes.

The next time that I worked in the River Cafe kitchen and Rose was there she walked by, smiled and said hello.  Either forgetting our previous encounter or remembering but graciously ignoring my nervous sweatiness, I was not sure.  But I was grateful either way.

The thing I love about the River Cafe is its utter honesty.  A few ingredients prepared in a straightforward manner.  But how does it taste so good?!  I think the food at The River Cafe is like one of those paintings you see at MoMA that you look at and think “I could have painted that”.  But you stay standing there and can’t seem to look away.  Why?  Because regardless of how simple it looks, the fact remains that you didn’t paint that painting.  And you are kidding yourself if you think that you could.  The few components of it are so well chosen and so well technically executed that only an expert could pull it off.  And make it look so easy. 

And therein is The River Cafe’s trick.  Rose Gray and Ruth Rogers make very honest, very exacting, very delicious food.  And they make it look easy.  But that is only because they are experts at it.  And extremely passionate about it.  To the point of personally examining over one hundred sardine fillets.  The food at River Cafe is great because of the obsession held by these two women for seeking out the best ingredients and most transcendent preparation possible.  And their expertise shows. 

I only crossed her path a hadnful of times but I know that Rose Gray led a great kitchen.  And that she will be missed by many.

I think restauranteurs understand the psychological trade-off.  Regardless of any ban that gets put in place, smoking is still considered in some way to be ‘cool’.  It continues to be glamorized in popular culture and media.  Just ask Richard Prince.  And everyone knows you can’t legislate behavior.  Well… maybe you can.  But that’s another topic.  People will take matches to have some connection with that cool.  Even if they just end up putting them in a jar – as so many of the article comments talked about.  Of course many people will say that they use them to light candles, birthday cakes, grills, etc.  Whatever the excuse, restaurants are happy to fund a diner’s home candle lighting if that means that the restaurant’s brand will continue to be brought back into the diner’s consciousness.  Not to mention that a matchbook promises 20 future reminders.  Which, come to think of it, may not be a bad deal after all.  How many times do you look at a business card on your desk before you throw it away?  Once?  Twice?

All of this then led me to think about matches as the great little graphic design projects that they can be.  Some are very well thought out and beautifully designed.  Others are just fun or clever.  But either way there are some gems out there.  I, myself, have only held onto a few matchbooks which I thought were of superior design quality or somehow captured the concept of the restaurant in a way that I wanted to remember.  My two favorites are pictured above.  The matchbook on the left is from the famed, and now closed, Restaurant Florent.  What a great place that was.  The restaurants graphics, including the matches, were designed by the legendary Tibor Kalman and M&Co.  Kalman’s graphic design for Florent was brilliant in it’s ability to not only capture the ethos of the restaurant but to also reinforce it.  A superb example of restaurant branding.

The matches on the right are from super-star artist Damien Hirst’s brief foray into the restaurant world which was Pharmacy in London.  Graphically the blue dots are nice but a bit simple compared to his famous multi-colored dot paintings.  What is genius about these matches is that Hirst treats them from the beginning as collector’s items.  The other side of this matchbook says “(09) in a series of 60″ on it.  The medium that Hirst is most adept at using as an artist is his brand.  And he is true to that right down to the little matchbooks in his restaurant.  This, of course, makes me look like an idiot as the matchbook is beat up and half the wood matches on the inside have been used.  What was I thinking? 

Anyway, I love restaurant matchbooks because they are an extension of the restaurants’ brand and a telling exercise in the use of its’ graphic identity.  There is something special about a restaurant that invests the time and care to design a beautiful matchbook.

Thursday night Henderson and Co. presided over the cramped quarters of the Spotted Pig.  But tonight was the night everyone had been waiting for.  Tonight was the first night that the new kitchen at The Breslin would be put to the test with its first full dinner crowd.  And given Friedman’s newly cemented love of a ‘no reservations’ policy, me and the boss decided to head over there and see what was going on.  As soon as we got to The Breslin, we had a nice chat with Mr. Friedman, who was on a mission to make sure that everything ran as smoothly as possible on his new restaurant’s first night.  And really, the service was better than service that we have had at other restaurants that have been open for years.  Friedman obviously knows what he is doing.

Beyond the immediately mature level of service, we were struck by the space.  There are still a few finishing touches to be taken care of, but The Breslin is shaping up to be a beautiful restaurant.  Of the ‘tall dark and handsome’ variety.  Designed by New York firm Roman and Williams, The Breslin’s turn of the century ’bones’ have been honored and upgraded.  Iron, brass and glass features are everywhere.  Dark, glossy finishes give the space a richness and depth that is hard to manufacture from scratch.  And the space itself is both tall and rambling with lots of corner booths, a mezzanine that hovers over the bar and dark upholstered corners to sink into.  The Breslin has a historic depth and luxuriousness that so many other restaurants would die for.  And given the tight coziness of The Spotted Pig, I am sure Friedman and Bloomfield are happy to stretch out a bit for a change.

But back to Fergus.  I will admit that I have a special place in my heart for Fergus Henderson.  The reason being that the boss and I spent ‘06 to ‘07 living in London.  And during that time I managed to work my way into a year-long ’stage’ in the kitchen at Henderson’s famed St. John Restaurant.  Having experience as a restaurant designer I had a special interest in learning how the operations side of a restaurant worked.  But I also wanted to learn more about serious food too.  And the chefs at St. John were great in schooling me about both.  They taught me about loads of butchery, great ingredients, preparation technique, managing supplier orders, you name it.  I learned a lot.  I also worked my butt off.  But I loved it.  My days at St. john were some of the best days in London.  I often think about the St. John crew and wish I could get back there to say hi to everyone again.  So I am always interested when I get word that Fergus Henderson has come into town. 

And tonight we were treated to a special surprise.  Not only was Fergus wandering around keeping a careful eye on the kitchen, but I got to see and catch up with a couple of the guys I used to work with at St. John.  Justin, the pastry chef was there.  As well as Lee and Tom, who was running things on the line for chef Bloomfield.  That’s Tom in the photo above.  Tom was instrumental in my St. John education.  He would teach me butchery technique, wax poetic on the virtues of things like venison liver, demonstrate the correct width of a slice of whatever animal was in front of us and then ridicule me for my flat ‘American’ pronunciations.  A specific episode surrounding my utterance of the traditional British ‘bath chaps’ comes immediately to mind.  Ah… such is kitchen life.  But it was all in good fun and all very fun to me.  I loved the time I got to spend at St. John.  And it was great to reconnect with those guys again tonight. 

Finally, I should mention the food.  It was surreal to see armies of braised pig’s heads marching out of the kitchen to be slurped up by eager diners.  Have Americans become more comfortable with Henderson’s brand of ‘nose to tail eating’?  Of course this type of cooking is more efficient in that it seeks to enjoy as many parts of each animal as possible.  Peasant sensibilities from way back in history I think.  ‘Waste-not-want-not’ as they say.  Does this new American interest in trotters and kidneys have something to do with the weak economy?  Maybe Fergus just makes us want to be better people.  Whatever it is was on full display tonight.  I am sure I have a biased opinion, but we really enjoyed everything tonight.  Bloomfield’s terrine selections were great.  Especially the guinea hen and morrels.  And the picklelilly on the side was delicious.  Chef Henderson’s trotter, rabbit and prune pie (with a beef marrow bone poking up through the middle of course) brought lots of fond memories of St. John back.  Simple and straight forward food but really great stuff.  And this all on The Breslin’s first night!  I am certain that Bloomfield will develop The Breslin’s menu into something that we will want to revisit again and again.  Especially when our memories remind us of our time in London and the food at St. John.  So with The Spotted Pig and now The Breslin, we definitely have food of a similar sensibility near by.  But hopefully I won’t have to wait for another restaurant opening to see the my friends in the St. John’s crew again.