0:00

You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in

0:02

partnership with Montclair. When

0:10

I started the River Cafe with Rose Gray in

0:13

nineteen eighty seven, I was told over and

0:15

over how cutthroat it would be.

0:17

Danny Meyer convinced me otherwise. Opening

0:20

Union Square Cafe and Gramercy

0:22

Tavern in New York more than thirty years ago,

0:24

he proved values matter. One

0:27

could not only treat staff

0:29

with respect they deserve, but make

0:31

customers happy, happier, as we

0:33

always say, when they leave than

0:36

when they arrived. What surprised

0:38

us all was that for his next act,

0:41

Danny launched Shakeshack in two thousand and

0:43

one, a hot dog stand in Madison

0:45

Park. The rest, as they say, is

0:48

history. Today, when I have a question

0:50

about fair policies for the people who work

0:52

with us, or how to think about expanding

0:55

or contracting the River Cafe, or

0:57

whether it be possible to do exchanges

0:59

with our best chefs, I called Danny.

1:02

My heart just melted right

1:05

back at you.

1:06

In so many ways. I turned

1:08

to you as my touchdown for taste.

1:10

There we are, and we're on well eighteenth

1:13

floor. The most incredible

1:15

view to be in New York is to be high.

1:18

People love Soho and they love Greenwich

1:20

Village. I want to get hot. I was going to say,

1:22

I want to get high when I come to New York. But

1:24

for me being high as the great

1:27

luxury. We're

1:32

here surrounded, of course, no surprise

1:34

by food. Amazing doughnuts,

1:37

would you calls?

1:39

Yes, from Daily Provisions.

1:41

From Daily Provisions. And we

1:44

have ice cream from Danny

1:47

Meyer's daughter, Hayley, and

1:50

she makes great food,

1:53

great ice cream, and she

1:55

cooked in the River Cafe. She came and worked

1:57

with us, so she's part of the

1:59

family. Now,

2:02

do you want to tell us about the ice cream?

2:04

Yeah, let's actually you know what I want to do.

2:06

I want to tell you about the crullers because this

2:08

ice cream is going to temper for al times, okay,

2:11

and we can we.

2:11

Can open them and help that process go.

2:14

But the crullers

2:16

are pretty much the signature

2:19

item at a restaurant called Daily

2:21

Provisions, which we opened about six

2:24

years ago right next door

2:26

to Unions to the brand new Union Square Cafe.

2:29

When we had to move it after thirty years, we have this

2:31

extra little space.

2:32

We didn't know what to do.

2:33

With it, and we said, let's give a

2:35

gift to the neighborhood. And what did the

2:37

neighborhood need? We said, a better

2:39

cup of coffee, a really good bacon,

2:42

egg and cheese sandwich, a really good

2:44

donut, and a good roast chicken for dinner. And

2:47

that's Daily Provisions. And the

2:50

cruller is the only donut we serve.

2:53

And Ruthie, if you

2:55

don't think that's one of the top three donuts

2:57

you've ever had, I.

2:58

Just want I won't keep talking on this

3:00

podcast, so.

3:01

I want you to cut yourself

3:04

some of that.

3:04

So tell me about crolers, because tell me about donuts.

3:07

It's not my great

3:09

knowledge.

3:10

Donuts.

3:11

Doughnuts are often cakey.

3:16

This, as you will taste on one bite,

3:19

is not cakey at all. In fact, it's quite

3:21

aggy. And what

3:23

I love about the cinnamon crawler, we only make

3:25

three different kinds. We make,

3:27

a maple croller, a cinnamon croller is

3:30

it's crunchy on the outside and it's

3:32

almost your take a bite

3:35

because it's better if you try it than if I

3:37

describe it.

3:37

Here we go, So

3:40

croller, as I said, I'm

3:43

not the nash and the

3:45

cultural heritage croll thing.

3:47

Come on, show

3:50

me what you got.

3:51

Mlious first from anybody

3:53

on this podcast has actually given me something to eat.

3:56

I really appreciate it.

3:57

This is delicious good. It's

3:59

almost like God is.

4:01

A contrast between the outside

4:04

and the inside.

4:04

Yeah, it's very aching.

4:07

This is divine not to tweet,

4:10

you know, just more that's

4:12

a good thing. I don't live next to It Provisions.

4:14

So that is a croller and that is a

4:17

good one.

4:19

Culture.

4:20

All crawlers are donuts, but not all doughnuts

4:23

are crawl.

4:25

These are until you tell me how you make them?

4:27

Do you know?

4:28

I do? But that's the only thing we got calling

4:31

for us.

4:31

So when you tell me how you make

4:33

your state secret,

4:36

I got it.

4:37

Like everything at the River Cafe, anything

4:40

away this is they're

4:44

just they're just so good. Have a

4:46

sip of your coffee with it, please.

4:48

Okay, this is not a right.

4:49

So those are crawlers.

4:51

And then Hallie after she learned how

4:54

to make ice cream at the River Cafe

4:56

and also in Rome.

4:57

I think she learned in Rome, and then

4:59

she came to she opened.

5:02

Right down the street from Daily Provisions,

5:04

and she is doing such a great job.

5:07

That was exactly three

5:10

years ago. They just had their third birthday.

5:12

It's kind of seasonal toot ice

5:15

cream one the summer, and.

5:17

Yeah, she's got six that are always

5:19

on and then she changes one

5:22

every single day. Now, there's there's a few

5:24

here that we're going to try, and

5:26

we have to because you gave her a lot.

5:28

I want information. I'm going to start

5:31

off with adds

5:34

dream o.

5:36

There's still not is that what it's called.

5:38

It's named that for her mom, Audrey,

5:41

because this is Audrey's favorite flavor

5:43

combination, which is

5:45

vanilla and peanut

5:48

butter.

5:49

So swelled through it, swirled through it.

5:52

I think I better try somewhere we're at it. I'll

5:55

get in trouble. I'll get in trouble with two

5:57

ladies in my life.

5:58

M m,

6:00

this is delicious. ID you have to try this? Well?

6:04

That sounds what's

6:06

good? You know it's really good? Is vanilla ice

6:08

cream? Part?

6:13

Well?

6:13

When she was growing up, was ice cream

6:15

her favorite dessert.

6:16

I think she has probably had ice cream

6:19

every day of her life for the last twenty

6:22

five years.

6:23

So as a child, she

6:25

was five years old, yep.

6:26

Wow.

6:27

She worked in an ice cream store when she was at

6:29

Yale and New Haven and

6:32

she just yep,

6:34

way before she opened a place. Every

6:38

single one of her Instagram posts was

6:40

eating ice cream in someone else's.

6:41

Place, which is pretty cool.

6:44

Now that everybody

6:46

travels, everybody has access

6:48

to obviously the Internet,

6:50

so they can see pictures, read recipes here

6:53

we're you know, hear how people feel about

6:55

the food, et cetera. I

6:57

think the curiosity of chefs to kind

7:00

of cross pollinate is fascinating.

7:03

The key, though, is the

7:05

gimmicky stuff has

7:07

in my entire career, it never lasts.

7:10

It's kind of like music. There's eight notes

7:12

in.

7:12

The octave no matter what you try, plus

7:15

you know the sharps and flats, and

7:17

yet there's a myriad.

7:19

Number of songs that can be written.

7:20

And I think the same thing is true in our industry is

7:23

there's really nothing that new

7:25

under the sun.

7:26

Now.

7:26

What I love about Ruthie

7:29

and the River Cafe, and this is something

7:31

that I really believe in deeply.

7:34

It's not so much about invention as

7:37

it is cooking food

7:39

I know, but cooked better than I knew

7:42

it could be. There is an

7:44

enormous amount of skill involved

7:46

with that, and I wish more chefs

7:48

understood that in excellence

7:51

lies creativity. It's not just coming

7:53

up with something.

7:54

I always say, we don't do ideas, you know,

7:57

No, did you ever have an you know? But sometimes

8:00

people say I have an idea for something,

8:02

you have to listen to it. But generally it's a

8:04

progress of what we did. You know, we did a paran

8:07

almond tarde. It's strawberry season. We'll

8:09

put strawberries, or we'll put

8:11

you know what Haley is doing with her ice

8:13

creams. It's a process. It's your work

8:15

every day.

8:16

Yeah, that's what made me fall in love with barbecue.

8:18

For example, when we did blue Smoke, it's what

8:21

a great pitmaster does.

8:22

They don't reinvent it.

8:24

They say, you see that angry piece

8:26

of meat called brisket. I'm going to

8:28

figure out something to do with that over the next twelve

8:30

hours.

8:31

It's going to blow your.

8:32

Mind just because of meat

8:34

selection, dry rub temperature,

8:37

what kind of wood did I smoke it with, how did I hold

8:40

it afterwards? All that stuff is

8:42

really really hard, and there's a huge

8:44

difference between your favorite

8:46

brisket and your least favorite brisket. But it's

8:49

not about can I drizzle balsamic

8:51

vinegar on it? And I would say

8:53

that from a food standpoint. The

8:56

reason you are my favorite chef in the world.

8:58

I will tell that to everyone,

9:00

not just your many listeners here, is

9:03

that you have the

9:05

confidence to make

9:07

sure that what's on the plate is essential

9:09

to that plate, and if it's not essential, it's

9:12

not on that plate, and you find a way to

9:14

make it taste amazing.

9:15

Do you know how when you edit something, and when you wrote

9:17

your book, or when we try to do something,

9:20

you go through and you take out a word. I

9:22

was saying to them today that friend of mine

9:24

who is a screenwright, told me, don't use the word

9:26

that. You can always take that out of a sentence

9:28

and it still works, which is interesting.

9:31

And I said that, you know, when we

9:33

plate, we do the menu, because you know,

9:35

we write the menu for two meals and

9:37

then we write it. And I was trying to a chef on the phone

9:39

because I was late and we're talking about her menu, and I

9:42

said, go through it and just take one

9:44

thing off. Almost everything you've

9:46

done, just take one whether it's

9:48

a parsi, whether it's a sal severity, whether

9:50

it's the you know, the panchatta,

9:53

just take one thing off. And I'm

9:55

not talking about the kind of cooking that when you

9:57

know the cuisine massaur or that, but it's

10:00

just thinking, isn't it about?

10:01

Does that really need to be there?

10:03

Yeah, there's a writer's expression which

10:05

actually applies to the kitchen,

10:08

applies to almost everything, which is learn

10:10

how to murder your darlings, which is a kind

10:12

of have you heard this well?

10:14

I heard Mark Twain once said, if you see the adjective,

10:16

shoot it.

10:18

But we all, whenever we write something

10:20

or cook something, we assume that that first

10:23

clever idea we had is

10:25

essential to it. In general, generally

10:28

it's not, but it's generally the thing

10:30

we're most in love with that needs to be the thing

10:32

that comes off.

10:43

Did you know The River Cafe has a shop. It's

10:45

full of our favorite foods and designs.

10:48

We have cookbooks, linen, napkins, kitchen

10:50

ware, tote bags with our signatures,

10:53

glasses from Venice, chocolates from

10:55

Turin. You can find us right next

10:57

door to the River Cafe in London or

10:59

online at Shopthrivercafe

11:01

dot co dot uk.

11:10

Of all the books we have, and I see some

11:13

of them on your desk, it was interesting

11:15

to me that you chose for a recipe

11:17

pure al Romana and

11:20

a recipe from Rome, one

11:22

of my favorites, and one of that is in season

11:25

very soon. So would you like to read the recipe?

11:27

I would love to tell.

11:28

People how to make it and tell me why you chose it.

11:30

Well, first of all, I love Rome. That

11:33

is my I don't know, it's just

11:36

my sole place. I

11:38

always associate puntarell with Rome.

11:40

You don't really get it too often

11:42

here in New York. When I've had it at the River

11:44

Cafe, it's better than

11:46

when I have it in Rome, which

11:49

is hard because we have an expression hot dogs

11:51

always taste better at the ballpark. You

11:53

would think puntarelli only tastes

11:55

better in Rome, But at the River Cafe,

11:58

you just you know exactly what to do with it.

11:59

It's a type of chickory

12:02

that is not typically

12:05

found in the United States. It's not

12:07

the easiest thing to handle, and

12:09

you know exactly what to do with it. It's about

12:11

the temperature. It's about the balance of the

12:13

anchovy.

12:14

So may I read the recipe?

12:15

Please read the recipe, and if you feel free to add

12:18

or take away or comment on anything

12:20

you like.

12:21

Okay, So we're going to have two heads

12:23

of puntarelli, five

12:27

salted anchovies, and I bet you have a point

12:29

of view. On where I should get those anchovies, two

12:32

tablespoons of red wine vinegar, one

12:35

garlic clove, two dried chilies,

12:38

one teaspoon of black pepper, four

12:41

tablespoons of extra virgin olive

12:43

oil, and one lemon. So

12:46

To prepare the puntarelli, fill a bowl

12:49

with ice cold water, adding

12:51

as many ice cubes as you can fit in there. Pull

12:53

the hollow buds from the puntarelli heads.

12:56

Using a small knife, slice the buds

12:59

very thin the lengthwise.

13:01

Place them in the water to crisp until

13:04

they curl up. This will take about an hour.

13:07

Rinse and fill at the anchovies, Cut

13:10

them into one half inch pieces and place

13:12

in a small bowl. Cover

13:14

them with the vinegar and stir to let

13:16

the anchovy dissolve. Peel

13:20

and chop the garlic very finely and

13:22

add to the anchovies with the crumbled chilies

13:24

and pepper.

13:26

Add the olive oil.

13:28

Spin dry the punterairelli as for a salad.

13:30

Place in a bowl and serve over the anchovy

13:33

sauce.

13:34

Serve with lemon. Yum

13:38

yeam.

13:39

It's interesting because it feels like a very

13:41

easy recipe to make, and it is, and

13:43

it's one. But when we're explaining it to

13:45

the chefs making it for the first time.

13:48

The balance of anchovies, the balance

13:50

of olive oil, no salt,

13:52

because the salt it's so salty. With the

13:55

anchovies, the christminast. I

13:57

think for myself it is the ideal

14:00

way to start a meal.

14:01

I love it so much, and it

14:03

just works.

14:04

It works. You know.

14:05

When I was growing up, we used to go to restaurants

14:07

and you'd be met with the relish trade,

14:10

which was the celery carrots and lindsey

14:13

pitted black olives on a

14:15

bed of crushed ice. But there was

14:17

something about that really cold,

14:19

crispy Sorry, that made a taste.

14:22

But and this is not really that different.

14:24

No, right, maybe every culture has

14:26

their crispy krispy vegetable. Tell

14:28

me about growing up, then let's talk about we're

14:31

talking about restaurants. But when you said the words

14:33

when I was a kid, So, what was it like

14:35

growing up in the Meyer.

14:36

Household in Saint Louis, Missouri. Yeah,

14:38

Well we didn't. You know, we had a lot of cooking

14:41

going on at home.

14:41

My dad was in the travel business, and

14:44

he was the first American agent for

14:47

an organization called Related Compagna,

14:50

which would later become relay in chateau, and

14:53

so we had French people living

14:55

in our home, in your home, in our home,

14:57

who would work in his office by

15:00

and then at nighttime they were around the table

15:02

and French was spoken

15:04

every night lots of times,

15:07

so the kids wouldn't understand what they were talking about,

15:09

which encourage us to learn French.

15:11

There was always a.

15:12

Bottle of baugeolis on the table, and

15:14

so I, without knowing it, I was getting a

15:16

little bit of an education.

15:18

Who did the cooking.

15:19

My dad cooked a lot, My mom did as

15:21

well. He

15:23

and I cooked together. He taught me how to cook. His

15:26

favorite dish was ratatoui and we had

15:28

a dog by that name, ra

15:30

Tatui when I was seven years old. So

15:34

I grew up, you know, with the smells

15:36

and sounds and fun of cooking, and

15:39

so it was just kind of part of my

15:41

upbringing. I got to go to France pretty

15:44

early in my life, and then later

15:46

Italy, and then I was a tour guide working

15:49

for my dad. He started

15:51

selling group tours. And when my sister,

15:53

who's older than I am, turned twenty, she

15:56

got to pick a city, so she picked Copenhagen.

15:58

When I was twenty I picked the wrong My

16:01

brother picked Paris, and interestingly,

16:04

we all three had a kind

16:07

of love affair with the place we picked.

16:09

I would go back to Rome to study political

16:11

science, and

16:14

and that was supposed to lead me into being a lawyer,

16:16

but thank goodness, I

16:18

would have been the world's worst lawyer.

16:20

Thank goodness. I converted

16:22

quickly, and I said, why not? Why

16:25

not? You know, so embrace My

16:27

real passion was.

16:28

So growing up you had you had a lot

16:30

of French food, and you were you what

16:32

was it from that region because France

16:34

Association.

16:36

No, it's not just that we had French food.

16:39

I grew up appreciating French food,

16:41

but I really, you know, growing up in Saint Louis,

16:43

we didn't have French restaurants per se.

16:45

We had great

16:47

burgers. So I had smash burgers,

16:50

which would one day lead to shakeshack, and

16:52

frozen custard, which would len one day lead

16:54

to shakeshack.

16:55

We had.

16:57

Here's what Saint Louis actually did have.

16:59

Yeah, use have an

17:01

amazing immigrant population. It began

17:03

with lots and lots of Germans. And that's

17:06

how you get restaurants that I used to go

17:08

to called Schneidhorse and Anheuser Busch,

17:10

the beer company was there, et cetera.

17:12

Lots and lots of sausage makers, lots

17:15

of beer companies. So there was

17:17

that going forward. There was also something

17:19

and it still remains, called the Hill, the Italian

17:22

Hills. So lots of Italians came to Saint

17:24

Louis and they had their South

17:26

from the South primarily, and they had their

17:28

own style of cooking that came to Saint

17:31

Louis. To this day,

17:33

they all have almost the exact same menus.

17:36

So their carbonara has cream in it, which

17:39

you would never do. Toasted

17:41

ravioli with Marina and I.

17:43

Wonder where that came toasted that

17:46

is inchreat go figure. I

17:48

don't know, Ruthy, but did

17:50

you like it as a kid?

17:51

Of course I did.

17:53

Yeah. I mean.

17:55

People you know in London like marmite

17:57

or whatever that stuff is called.

17:59

I wanted to do a photography project when I

18:01

came to London. I was doing art school of

18:03

giving Americans more mte and taking

18:05

a photograph of the face up

18:08

to they ate.

18:08

I promised toasted ravioli would only put

18:11

a smile on your face.

18:12

It's really good.

18:13

Yeah, okay, so we're okay. On from

18:15

toasted. So

18:17

you grew up in this culture of your

18:20

mother's cooking, your father's cooking.

18:22

And getting to cook.

18:23

But what I really liked more than anything was going to restaurants.

18:26

I just loved it.

18:27

There was one restaurant that is still around

18:29

called Chris's. It's a German place, k r

18:31

eis apostrophe Chris's, and

18:35

they gave me an idea that I used when

18:38

I opened Union Square Cafe at the age of twenty

18:40

seven, which was to have

18:42

a nightly special that you

18:45

could depend on every night of the week.

18:47

So you knew if you went in there on

18:49

Monday nights, yeah, that was chicken

18:51

and dumplings night. You knew if you went

18:53

in on Tuesday night was sour Brought

18:55

to Night, which I didn't really care about too much, but

18:57

they had a different special every night.

19:00

We did that.

19:01

When I opened Union Square Cafe because

19:03

I love the idea that you

19:05

could create an habitual regular.

19:08

But they also did which I loved from the

19:10

age of six on. They remembered

19:13

my favorite table.

19:14

Yeah, I'm the guy.

19:15

Well, there's probably every kid who liked to

19:17

have the table underneath the cuckoo clock, but

19:20

it meant the world to me that they remember that.

19:23

I think that's what we talk about, you know,

19:25

with restaurants, is that we were talking about

19:27

this morning, that you'll go back to a restaurant if they didn't

19:29

cook the sea pass to perfection,

19:32

but you won't go back if there's a waiter that

19:34

makes you feel bad about yourself.

19:36

And then furthermore, taking it back to the positive

19:39

side, you'll always go back where

19:42

you feel most loved. Yeah, and remember,

19:45

I remember the late James Beard

19:47

was constantly accosted in airports,

19:50

restaurants everywhere because everyone recognized

19:53

the bald head with the bow tie.

19:55

And obviously the question everybody asked

19:57

James Beard was what's your

19:59

favorit restaurant?

20:00

Especially in an airport? Where should I?

20:02

And he said, my favorite

20:04

restaurant is the same as yours. Yeah,

20:07

it's the one that loves me the most. That's

20:10

hard to argue with that.

20:11

I would say. You know that you never

20:13

know with the table what they've

20:16

gone through when they come in. You know, they may

20:18

have had they have gotten lost, they might have been

20:20

fired that day, they may be celebrating

20:22

something and most you know, most often

20:25

or maybe we should think about, is they may have saved

20:27

up to come to the River Cafe.

20:29

That's a really good point.

20:30

Really saved up to come. And so how

20:33

are we going to make them feel that everything was,

20:36

you know, here for them. And I think that's

20:38

it's really something I learned from you. I think we've

20:40

all learned that from you. Is how to be

20:43

happy, making people happy, you know, simple

20:46

as that.

20:46

Well, the last thing I want to say about Saint Louis

20:49

is that was the biggest lesson I learned because

20:51

Saint Louis was long on hospitality.

20:54

It wasn't necessarily the food. But then what

20:56

I got to do, probably

20:58

because of the the privilege

21:00

of growing up with a lot of travel because my

21:02

dad's company was a travel business, I

21:05

got the flavor of really good food

21:08

in Italy and in France. But

21:11

I also was able to pair

21:13

that with the kind of hospitality that I

21:15

always got in Saint Louis. And when I moved to New York

21:18

at the age of twenty one, there

21:21

wasn't a lot of hospitality around here. It was

21:23

basically, you're lucky to

21:25

be eating here, and if you don't feel

21:27

that way, we've got a really nice table by the bathroom

21:30

for you. There was a lot of that

21:32

kind of mentality left over

21:34

from the studio fifty four.

21:36

Eras the red velvet rope.

21:38

What year is well?

21:39

I moved here?

21:41

My first night here was

21:43

the night John Lennon was assassinated

21:45

in December of nineteen

21:48

eighty and I got my first apartment

21:50

in nineteen eighty one. It was not necessarily

21:53

a nice city back then, so

21:55

it was kind of a slam dunk when I opened Union

21:57

Square a cafe to say, well, whoever

21:59

wrote the rule that good food's gonna

22:01

taste worse because you're nice to people?

22:03

Yeah,

22:09

if you like listening to Ruthie's Table

22:11

for would you please make sure

22:14

to rate and review the podcast

22:17

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple

22:19

Podcasts, Spotify, o, wherever

22:21

you get your podcasts. Thank

22:24

you. Going

22:30

back then to leaving Saint

22:32

Louis and what was food

22:35

like after that? We suddenly you're on

22:37

your own and what am I going to eat? Or can I afford

22:39

a restaurant? What was that world like when

22:41

you left?

22:42

I couldn't stop discovering things

22:44

everywhere. So when I was in college at Trinity

22:46

College in Hartford, Connecticut, Sunday

22:49

night could be the local burger

22:51

king, because that's what I had enough money to do.

22:54

But I also would go to their little Italy and

22:56

find the best we call them grinders.

22:59

Every town has a different name for submarines

23:02

or poe boys. In Hartford

23:04

they're called grinders. And I'd go find

23:06

the best pizza in the city. It was all inexpensive

23:09

stuff, go find the best espresso I

23:11

could find. Couldn't understand why

23:13

the espresso there would

23:16

be served with a lemon peel and the cappuccino

23:18

would be served with cinnamon, which is

23:20

not what I had seen. But again, because

23:23

of my dad's travel business, until

23:25

I was twenty one, I could fly

23:27

anywhere that pan Am flew for forty four

23:29

dollars round trip forty four dollars. So

23:32

every time we had a three day weekend, I

23:36

got myself down to Kennedy Airport and

23:39

I went.

23:39

I would almost always go to run.

23:41

I went to Venice once in the middle of

23:43

winter, which is the loneliest place on earth.

23:47

I did go to London and

23:49

I really enjoyed it.

23:50

Okay, but you hadn't started. Yeah, this was still

23:52

pre.

23:53

This was still pre in Square Cafe.

23:55

But I was educating myself and I would eat

23:57

anywhere by myself. You

24:00

know, I'd go to Popeyes Fried Chicken any

24:02

anywhere where I could, or

24:04

I'd go to diners in Long Island. I would

24:06

just get in my car and

24:09

go see what was was.

24:11

Do you have friends who shared that passion or not.

24:13

As much as I did.

24:15

You know, I would drive people crazy

24:17

because I couldn't like

24:19

New York is one of the greatest walking cities in

24:21

the world, and I couldn't

24:23

pass a menu on the outside of a building

24:25

without studying it. And I would do that in every

24:28

town in Italy, every town in France. When

24:30

I went to London by myself for

24:33

those two weeks, I had

24:35

this book.

24:36

I think American.

24:37

Express published the book, and it was their

24:40

reviews of you know, one hundred

24:42

restaurants. And I

24:44

didn't have much of a budget, so I saved

24:46

up for the ones I could get into. There

24:49

was one restaurant that I went to and

24:52

they wouldn't take me as a solo diner, so

24:55

I made a reservation for two

24:58

and I walked dan and

25:00

I kept looking at my watch, Where's

25:02

my friend, Where's my friend? And I

25:05

finally ordered a

25:07

decent bottle of wine for

25:09

myself so they wouldn't kick me out, you

25:12

know, no solo diners going to order a

25:14

single bottle of wine. But you

25:16

know, I was learning about hospitality too, because they weren't

25:18

very, very nice at that point. But you

25:22

know, I just I just love discovery.

25:24

I think discovery is one

25:27

of the great things in life when

25:29

and by the way, as

25:32

you get older, you can still discover things you've

25:34

never tried before.

25:36

But when it comes to food, it's like.

25:38

Can I ask you a question. When you were traveling

25:40

and exploring all these places, were you conscious

25:42

of a difference between a restauranteur and

25:44

the chef or were

25:46

you seeing it then a chef's eze or.

25:50

That's such a good question. I think I

25:52

probably was. There were many many restaurants

25:55

at that time where

25:57

you didn't have.

25:57

Any idea who the chef was.

26:00

Know, you obviously had some trail

26:02

blazers in London

26:05

everywhere when it came to chefs, and I

26:07

was very, very inspired and motivated by

26:09

that. As a matter of fact, when

26:11

I first broke the news to my parents that

26:13

I was not going to become a lawyer as

26:15

everyone had expected, but so I was going to go into

26:17

this business, I said, I want to be a

26:19

chef. Because I had seen people

26:22

like Alice Waters and

26:24

Joyce Goldstein and Jeremiah Tower

26:26

and Wolfgang Puck and Paul Prudhom you know,

26:28

I can mark guy named Mark Miller and

26:31

the Miller Yeah,

26:33

yeah, great memory. And all these people

26:36

had liberal arts educations. So I

26:38

wasn't going to let my parents down, but

26:40

I was afraid to tell them.

26:41

I wanted to be a restaurateur.

26:43

And so

26:45

it got to the point where my dad said, well, then you're going

26:48

to really need to you better get some cooking

26:50

in and he set up two stages

26:52

for me in Bordeaux at

26:56

places that had been part

26:58

of laying chateau. And the

27:00

first one I went to was called La

27:02

Reserve in Paysack Love

27:06

Reserve.

27:06

Where where was that reserve?

27:10

Restaurants called Aurey Cat.

27:12

Yeah, so this one was in

27:13

the Bordeaux village called.

27:16

Paysack pe s S A C. And

27:19

the day I got there.

27:22

As a stagier, they

27:24

had just lost their second star, and

27:27

so everyone in the restaurant was completely

27:29

demoralized. As a matter of fact, on day

27:31

two, four of their cooks

27:34

left because God forbid, they did not want

27:36

to have a one star. Micheline restaurant

27:38

on their on their resume. So

27:41

what that meant is I got a big promotion meeting.

27:43

I got to open the oysters and pull the

27:45

feathers from birds and chop the shallots

27:47

and all that kind of fun stuff. But

27:49

I also got to cook family meal for them,

27:52

and that was that.

27:54

Was a big deal.

27:55

Well, the very first day that

27:58

I got to cook family meal, I'll never forget. I

28:00

made my grandmother's

28:04

spare ribs with her barbecue sauce

28:06

Cote de port, Cote de port, and

28:10

they loved it. And then I made a

28:12

pasta for them, and I forget

28:14

what the pasta was, but I

28:17

could not believe my eyes that all these mishline

28:19

level cooks, you know what, they dressed my

28:21

pasta with ketchup. They just started pouring ketchup

28:23

all over the noodles. I've never seen that in my

28:25

life, but I guess they considered

28:28

that to be a good.

28:28

Pass your did you feel

28:30

more Italian than French and more French than

28:32

Italian or was it?

28:34

Well?

28:34

During that time I had also

28:36

spent I probably spent half

28:38

my time in Italy. I was in Rome, Bologna,

28:41

Milan, Sardinia, and

28:43

I think I probably always felt

28:47

like both. I

28:49

think that, you know, the original Union Square Cafe menu,

28:52

we had pasta

28:54

dishes, we had confe de Canard.

28:56

Union Square just changed the way

28:58

we thought about restaurants. It did.

29:00

It was a I remember going with Richard. It must

29:02

have been what year.

29:03

Did you open nineteen eighty five?

29:05

Yeah, it must It was certainly before

29:07

the River Cafe. And we used to make some journeys

29:09

to New York. And I remember, you know,

29:11

there's certain things. You remember where you were when that song

29:14

played, or where you are when you had that I remember

29:17

where we were, where we sat, the

29:19

whole square.

29:21

How did that happen? How did you Well?

29:24

I wanted to open a restaurant that, if only it existed,

29:26

would be my favorite restaurant in the world. And as

29:28

I was saying earlier, it was truly an

29:30

amalgam of my favorite

29:33

places to eat in the world. They were always

29:35

I had no interest in being an

29:37

exalted kind of restaurant, but I wanted

29:39

to be a place that you would feel equally comfortable

29:42

wearing jeans or wearing a coat and tie, if that's

29:44

what you felt like.

29:47

It's called Union Square Cafe.

29:48

Union Square Cafe and that's what we did.

29:50

With the River Cafe. People always said, why did you put

29:52

the word cafe, you know, which is not a

29:55

cafe, But you didn't. We didn't. I think

29:57

probably just wanted to step

29:59

away from that.

30:00

And let people know that everyone's

30:03

welcome for every kind of.

30:04

Occasion of something.

30:05

Doesn't that you can eat.

30:06

At the bar from the day we opened. We

30:08

had good wines by the glass from the day we opened.

30:11

But I actually had the But Jesus

30:13

scared out of me because early

30:16

on, as I was planning this

30:18

thing, my uncle introduced

30:21

me to the guy that was the food and beverage

30:23

director at the Harvard Club. He said, you need to talk to

30:25

this guy because he knows everything about restaurants. So

30:27

the guy starts grilling me, what kind of restaurant are

30:29

you going to open? And I said,

30:31

I don't know. I'm going to have a little French stuff, a little

30:34

Italian stuff, a little California

30:36

kind of stuff. And he said,

30:39

I'm going to tell you right now it's not going to work.

30:41

And I said, what do you mean?

30:42

And he said, when people decide

30:44

where they want to eat in New York, they

30:47

say French, Italian, Chinese,

30:49

German, no one says, let's go out and eat eclectic.

30:52

It's not going to work. And I fortunately

30:55

did not let that stop

30:57

me. I just wanted to have food that I loved.

31:00

And to this day, you

31:02

know, I've already been in touch with two of our

31:04

chefs today, three of our chefs. Actually,

31:07

I just that's one of my favorite

31:09

parts of my job is talking about food.

31:12

So from from Union Square, the

31:14

next you expect you did another one,

31:16

you did. I'm not going to have just one restaurant. I'm going

31:18

to do another restaurant.

31:19

You ten years after the Square cafe.

31:22

That was ten years later.

31:24

Yep, because I said, I'm never opening a second

31:26

restaurant like someone else.

31:27

I know.

31:27

I'm I remember once calling

31:30

you, as I kept saying, for advice, and I said, should

31:32

I do river cafe cafes? And we could

31:34

do? Somebody wants me to do one here and

31:36

and he said, really, don't think

31:39

about more than one. You did say

31:41

that to me. You said, just think one and then grow,

31:43

you know, don't think did you think.

31:45

Did I say don't think about a river cafe cafe?

31:47

Or don't think many river many?

31:49

That's what I'm saying.

31:50

When you started Shakeshack when you did, you

31:52

didn't think it would be a global thing

31:55

that I know.

31:56

We wanted to open something to help

31:58

Madison Square Park. In fact, we did open a

32:00

second Shakeshack for five years. Can you believe

32:02

that it just was never ever. The

32:05

part of the plan was that we wanted

32:07

to have a place that, if it worked, would

32:10

attract people day and night to

32:12

keep the park safe, because people make people

32:15

using a park, keep park safe.

32:17

And then furthermore that a percentage

32:19

of every sale would go right back into

32:21

the park. That's all we wanted to do, and

32:25

it worked. It worked so well that

32:27

we said we better do a second one because the

32:29

biggest complaint we're getting is the.

32:31

Lines are day long.

32:33

They're still long. I have to say there's one around

32:35

the corner from in Victoria from where.

32:37

I live Victoria, Nova.

32:38

Yeah, and in the line so long,

32:41

Well.

32:41

People need to get the app that.

32:43

That's kind of like when you see people waiting in line to

32:45

pay their tolls, why didn't you just get easy

32:48

Pass.

32:48

It's not that it's one thing.

32:49

You both got amazing restaurants

32:52

and you've got just one restaurant, and you can

32:54

create that and create that. It's being

32:57

the best food and the best service

32:59

together. How did you do that when you're

33:01

running out dozens of them?

33:03

It must be very different skills.

33:04

Yeah, I think the common skill

33:06

set is if you can actually really

33:09

really advance the workplace culture

33:12

and the hospitality culture for all

33:14

of your stakeholders, that's common to

33:16

all of them. As a matter of fact, I care

33:19

as deeply about the guest experience

33:21

in the workplace experience at Shakeshack

33:23

as I do at the Modern or Gramercy Tavern

33:25

or Manhattan. The

33:28

skill set that goes with that is completely

33:31

different. So for example, if you're going to get a

33:33

job at the Modern, which has two

33:35

Michieline stars, we're going to look

33:37

deeply into your

33:39

work resume. Do you have

33:42

the wine knowledge or do you have the

33:44

culinary knowledge? At Shakeshack.

33:47

I don't think one person in the history of Shakeshack

33:50

has ever been asked, can I please see your credentials

33:52

for how well you make milkshakes or burgers.

33:55

I think we hire one hundred

33:57

percent for emotional skills in hospitality

34:00

skills, and then believe

34:02

that we can teach and train people. So that's the

34:04

thing that every day

34:06

I get up. If I have one job.

34:09

It's truly, you

34:11

know, fueling the culture how

34:14

we do things.

34:15

And that culture, I think is what you

34:18

do, what we try to do with the people who actually

34:20

work and go to work every day.

34:22

And I think if we want to go to work, they'll want

34:24

to go to work. I think if my view

34:28

is that we want somebody to want to come to.

34:30

Work, absolutely, And I think, what of

34:33

the many, many things that you've done brilliantly,

34:35

is you've created two

34:37

communities that have fallen in love with each other,

34:39

the people who work there and

34:41

the people who dine there, and then collectively.

34:44

I see it every time I go.

34:46

We we do, we try.

34:48

Excuse me, I feel it every time I do.

34:50

I want you to come more. When do you come again?

34:52

I don't think I ever go to London and don't

34:54

see you. So don't give me that. I don't go

34:56

to London all the time.

34:57

The guilt, guilt, guilt. So food

34:59

is can which it is if it's

35:02

love, it's sharing, it's

35:04

staving off hunger, it's thinking

35:06

about what you want to eat with excitement and

35:09

getting to know culture. It's also comfort.

35:11

And so I suppose my last question to you, Danny

35:14

Meyer, my friend nice

35:16

speed dial is what

35:19

would be your comfort food?

35:20

Fried chicken, fried chicken, really

35:23

good fried chicken.

35:24

Okay, and what do you do? How do you

35:26

make that? Well?

35:27

I actually don't make it that often because

35:29

it makes a bloody mess and there's so much good

35:32

fried chicken that you can get out there. But when I

35:34

do make it, it's very,

35:36

very very simple. It's very

35:38

simple. So the key thing is obviously

35:41

getting a good chicken. The next key thing is

35:43

what are you frying it in? And you're

35:46

going to laugh, but I use Crisco.

35:48

Yeah, Crisco, Motzola oil, Crisco.

35:50

Yeah, they're pure, aren't they? It's pure? Is

35:52

it pure? Is Crisco? I know it? Sola is

35:54

pure. Large mother

35:56

used to use Motzola oil

35:59

because it was pure.

36:00

This is loud, this is lard.

36:01

And you get a

36:03

reasonably shallow frying pan with

36:05

the top on it. And meanwhile, with

36:07

the chicken, you've just seasoned it salt

36:10

and pepper. That is it, salt and pepper,

36:12

lots and lots of black pepper. And

36:14

then you dredge it in flour that's

36:16

also been seasoned with salt and pepper. That's

36:19

it, and then you

36:22

cook it one side

36:24

down over

36:27

sort of medium high heat,

36:30

right and then as

36:32

soon and you've got to be somewhat patient. You can't

36:34

turn it too quickly or it'll stick to the bottom.

36:37

But if you just make sure

36:39

that the bottom has cooked pretty well, turn it over,

36:41

lower the heat, put the top

36:44

on, the lid on and so it steam

36:46

finishes the whole thing and it

36:48

should come out pretty crispy and just absolutely

36:51

delicious and you feel yep,

36:53

And I spend the rest of the time cleaning up

36:55

the kitchen after.

36:56

That, not much comfort. Well, thank you, Danny.

36:58

It's great to see you. I'll see you in line.

37:01

I love that you came here to do this and I love this

37:03

podcast.

37:04

Now it's honor to have you and delicious

37:07

food.

37:07

I'm so happy, all right, Brawlers

37:10

forever.

37:10

And Hallie is ice cream. Thank

37:12

you, Thank

37:18

you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in

37:20

partnership with Montclair.

37:30

Ruthie's Table four is produced by Atami

37:33

Studios for iHeartRadio. It's

37:35

hosted by Ruthie Rogers and it's produced

37:37

by William Lensky. This episode

37:39

was edited by Julia Johnson and mixed

37:42

by Nigel Appleton. Our executive

37:44

producers are Faye Stewart and

37:46

Zad Rogers. Our production manager

37:48

is Caitlin Paramore and our production coordinator

37:51

is Bella Selini. Thank you

37:53

to everyone at The River Cafe for your help

37:55

in making this episode.