Fearless, despite the crunch
A SELF-DESCRIBED “psycho” when it comes to details, Mr. Boulud, 54, had planned a Paris-meets-Texas diner before anyone had heard of credit-default swaps. The concept evolved a little, but not the price point. Homemade sausages and hamburgers will be the centerpiece at DBGB, and the average bill for a three-course meal will come to about $32, the price of an appetizer at Daniel, his flagship.
He brings to this enterprise something like home-field advantage, opening in the city that made him a culinary star. With that comes buzz; nearly every week, news about some element of the layout, design and construction of DBGB pops up on the most trafficked restaurant blogs in Manhattan.
But by Dinex Group’s own calculations, DBGB must generate $4.5 million a year in revenue to be profitable, not easy in a time that a spokesman for the National Restaurant Association called “the most challenging the restaurant industry has seen in several decades.” A consumer marketing firm, NPD, issued a report a few weeks back stating that national restaurant traffic had dropped for a second consecutive quarter.
“And there will be at least one more down quarter, maybe two,” says Harry Balzer, an NPD vice president.
In New York City, it’s been ugly at nearly all price levels.
Obsessive attention to details – and not just pretty, artistic ones
“A few years ago, at Cafe Boulud, we couldn’t figure out why margins were so bad month after month,” says Lili Lynton, one of Mr. Boulud’s two partners. “Even the chef was baffled. We looked at everything and we finally realized — it was this reduction sauce, a really expensive reduction sauce, with truffles and mushrooms, which was in a bunch of dishes. Who would have thought? We figured it was the fish or the chicken or the meat. It was like a game of Clue, and the culprit was the gravy.”
A LOVE for minutiae is apparently a job requirement in this company. Consider the “mustard caddy,” a relish tray for DBGB that has taken months to design and is still a work in progress.
He makes the most out of every little thing
“A lot of chefs don’t have a natural sense of economy,” he says. “I was with one guy the other day and I had to show him how to peel a turnip, because the way he was peeling turnips, he was throwing half of it in the garbage. It’s not about being cheap. It’s about being proper.”
It’s not just about him
Mr. Boulud isn’t the first to try to extend a gourmet brand from the high end to the affordable. He is hardly the most daring of those brand-extending chefs, either; his dishes are contemporary spins on French food, which he translates for Americans using ingredients rarely used in France, like Meyer lemons and risotto.
But nobody expects trailblazing invention from him, the sort associated with other French maestros. What distinguishes Mr. Boulud from his peers is that he emphasizes both hospitality and cooking.
“Daniel’s gift is that he’s actually interested in the people who are eating his food,” Mr. Wolf says. “It’s about his customers instead of his ego.”
Full article here. It’s a great read.
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