08.26.08
Posted in The Story at 4:52 pm by Chef Matt
This is something I’ve tried not to talk about here in the blog too much, but since the word has come out in the Washington Post Magazine and several blogs, and since it plays to the story, I guess I can talk some about it here now.
There will be another Rustico - though not called Rustico, and with a different menu. So maybe it’s not a new Rustico per se… but all the same, we are the team that will be working hard to open it as soon as we can. So here are the FAQ’s with the new place, so as to get them out of the way:
Where is the new restaurant?
Near Logan Circle in Downtown DC. The address will be 1337 14th St. N.W., but I have not yet been to the new location.
What is the name of the new place going to be?
I just learned that it’s going to be called “Birch & Barley” as well as “Churchkey”. The downstairs will be Birch & Barley - the restaurant, and the upstairs will be Churchkey, the bar. So, in a track similar to Rustico, there will be a divide between the two sections, but this will be more distinct as it will be separate floors, and have different names.
Are you going to be working at the new place, or stay at Rustico?
As far as I can tell, I will be working at both. I’ll be working hard to keep Rustico running in the mornings, but at the same time, all of the skills I have picked up in setting up and getting the restaurant running daily will have to be transferred over to the new place as well. I’m helping to create an operating manual for the new place based on how we do things at Rustico, and who better to help implement it than the guy who wrote it, right? But nothing is set in stone. Simply put, I’m gonna go where they need me, and where they ask me to be.
This has nothing to do with the story, it’s just what I was listening to while typing this. And it’s an awesome album. |
But the point of this story is to talk about the surprise demo menu that I suddenly had foisted upon me a few days ago. We need to get a menu together for this new place, and of course Chef has several ideas. The problem was, he wanted to try them all out at once. On a Saturday. Without telling me.
All I knew was, the day before we were to put it all together, I was greeted with a huge list of new dishes to attempt to make, new foods I had to bring in, and I had to get as much of it together and ready while still working a Friday and Saturday set-up.
This was an interesting position to be put in. On the one hand, it was confusing and tiring to cook all these new foods I had never worked on while handling a busy kitchen. But on the other hand, it was awesome to be making all these new dishes after making a lot of the same things for a year. The thought that there will be a whole new menu to develop and work on is about the most exciting thing to come along in some time!
And let me say, even though these were just the rough drafts, the food was darn good! You’ll all have to come by when we are open!
Chef Matt
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08.04.08
Posted in The Story at 3:54 pm by Chef Matt
Last night, we had yet another shortage on the line, as one of the pizza cooks couldn’t make it to work on time. We had to send him home to let him know that punctuality is of utmost importance for all the employees in the restaurant business. (From what I hear, that is letting him off easy as some places consider multiple late appearances an adequate reason for termination….) But with him not around, this meant that it was up to me to fill in at the pizza station once again.
Those of you who read regularly will recall I had to do this just 2 weeks ago on a Saturday night. A hard experience for sure as I had never worked this station before at all. This time, it was a Sunday night - usually a slower night - so I expected that since I had already experienced my trial by fire, this would be a cakewalk.
The cake walk. This doesn’t look easy at all… why would we think this means the same as “simple”?… |
Of course that’s not the case. (If it were, I probably wouldn’t be writing about it, now would I?…)
The simple fact is, the pizza station is always a station where I always feel like I’m one step behind the orders. Just when I think I’m catching up, making a few pizzas that are on order, so I can have some breathing room, I get hit with an order for 4 more that have to be made right away. It is a 3-hour non-stop parade of orders that just never lets go, and never allows me the chance to feel like I have a “comfortable” lead. The only moment of comfort is the very beginning. I usually have about 20 crusts already laid out and ready to go, so I’m feeling good.
It’s amazing how fast that crust “buffer” disappears.
The rest of the night is just ticket after ticket with pizzas galore on them - and often I find myself stretching the crusts to order, instead of having them ready to go ahead of time. And let’s not forget the toppings! All the toppings are prepped ahead of time, but I am constantly running out of them, and having to re-stock my line from my low-boy with more.
Pizza goes in, pizza comes out, repeat many, many times. |
So the night is a blur of pulling crusts, topping pizzas, hauling out more crusts from the walk-in, restocking my toppings, managing all the tickets and barking out orders to the guy manning the pizza oven as to which pizzas go with what, which ones are to go, and which ones need special toppings when the come out of the oven. It’s a lot to keep in your head all at once, and in the heat of a professional kitchen in August while working the second consecutive shift, it’s downright exhausting.
But you know what? It’s also the single most fun station to work in the whole darn kitchen. I loved every minute of it! When the dinner rush was winding down, I was finally able to prep all the pizzas we had tickets for, and I even pulled two extra crusts for the station. I looked at my partner and said, “All the pizzas are prepped, you have two extra crusts, I’ve been on my feet for 14 hours now…. good night and good luck.” He of course replied, “Yeah man, thanks for the help, now get the heck out of here!”
As I slumped down at the bar for my shift beer, the manager came up to me and asked what I was still doing there. “Why did you work that station after working the grill this morning?” “If it were any other station, I may have tried to go home - but the pizza station, it doesn’t seem like work at all. It’s the most fun you can have here.”
That is, aside from enjoying my shift beer and watching the Phillies game, which of course is what I did next.
Chef Matt
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