In our April cover story, senior staff writer Ligaya Figueras spoke with 11 visionaries who have altered St. Louis’ culinary scene. They told us their experience in their own words. And all month long, we’ve been revealing the parts of the interview with these men and women that you didn’t see right here in Extra Sauce. First we brought you more from Joe Edwards, then it was Karen Duffy, Patrick Horine, Pat Shannon-VanMatre, Suchin Prapaisilp, Trip Straub and Tom Schlafly and Dan Kopman. Now, we bring you more from Game Changer Gerard Craft, chef and owner of Niche and Brasserie by Niche.
Owning and running a restaurant and being a talented chef are two different things. I think it requires being responsible, having a good head on your shoulders and a lot of common sense to run a restaurant.
Mistakes? Oh my god, there’s many! Mistake No. 1: Don’t go into business with one of your best friends. Opening this place up I had a good friend in Salt Lake City. He wasn’t a sole owner, but he had an interest in us opening. He ran the front of the house and I ran the back. This was a very close friend whom I barely say a word with anymore, unfortunately. And that’s really sad. But business is about business. And at the end of the day, you have to make these choices. We decided it was time to split it off between us two, but the original choice should not have been made. That’s a mistake and it’s the loss of a friend.
We are in a very interesting restaurant industry at the moment. One unlike we have seen at any time. It is an industry that is constantly changing, constantly innovating and constantly leaving other people behind. It’s scary, but it pushes you. You gotta keep on your toes. You can’t just stay the same anymore. You can’t open a restaurant anymore and in 10 years do the same business you were doing. It’s sad, because there are a lot of restaurants that should stay the same.
Then you see guys like Adam [Altnether]. Whether we put him at the front of the house or at Brasserie or wherever, he was always learning something and growing from it. That’s what I like my chefs to focus on, that this job as a chef is more than about the next dish we create. You are an executive.
Taste is an awesome concept. There were a lot of minds involved in creating that place. The reality of Taste is that it’s 18 seats. It’s never going to be, at that state, a profitable restaurant. To me, my first decision was, do you want to grow this thing and can you give it your 100 percent? The answer was no. So the second question is, what do you do? It’s a really good opportunity for Adam. He’s ready. He’s grown up a lot since he started here and knows what it takes. Adam will do something great wherever he goes, but why not be a partner with him? I’m a silent partner, but I have a lot of trust in his abilities. Unlike my first venture in having a best friend open a restaurant where you don’t know somebody’s abilities, Adam is a colleague and somebody that we know is extremely talented and can do it. It’s both a profitability thing – I think it will be a great investment – and he’s ready.
[When we opened,] it was a really exciting time in St. Louis. Larry Forgione being there, that was a huge feather in our cap in St. Louis. That guy, he’s the man. Sidney Street Café, with Kevin Nashan coming from Daniel, Commander’s, Martin Berasategui, El Bulli. Kevin is the real deal. With Terrene opening at the time. And then the people who were already here: Tony’s, Cardwell’s, who all were incredibly welcoming to me. I was just excited to be a part of it. Monarch and Aaron Teitelbaum coming from Daniel. John Griffiths down at American Place was doing great things.
Everybody’s pushing. Look at the charcuterie program at Sidney Street Cafe and his garden, all the preserving that Josh Galliano is doing, what Kevin Willmann is doing with seafood at Farmhaus. People are really pushing it, and it’s only going to go further.
One thing we don’t have yet – and I don’t know if we can quite support it yet – is a restaurant on the super-fine dining side that is pushing limits. It’s going to have a hard time here. Bouley, Corton, Eleven Madison Park: These are all major operations and extremely expensive operations to run, and they cost a fortune to dine at. You have to pay almost $300 a person just for food at these restaurants and you are breaking even. People think that a $300 restaurant is filling stacks of money in the bag, but it takes that commitment to really do it. You have to have that level of staff.
Everybody comes in when their reservation time is. All my cooks are ready for service. Everybody’s got all their prep done. They’ve all had family meal. We stagger reservations in a way that we get a nice, smooth night. The customers really enjoy themselves, it tastes good, they weren’t rushed, they leave happy. They come by the window, maybe say hi, and at the end of the night we all drink bourbon. That’s an amazing night.
Look at the difference in six years, look at our diners’ standards. I look at what I served [when we opened] and what I serve now. It’s night-and-day difference. Yet people still view it at the same level. People’s demands are getting so high because people are becoming so educated.
I learned everything from my customers.
An about-face did not change my love for rustic Italian cooking. What is the perception of rustic Italian cooking in an everyday diner’s vision? It’s comfortable, something they know, that they can go to often. That is what we were trying to tap. We came to realize that the reason it’s comfortable and so relatable is because it is very common. Not to say that I was going to do anything that wouldn’t have been at the top of my game, but when you think, “Let’s go out for Italian tonight,” it’s very easy to have another choice for that right around the corner from where you live. I didn’t want to do this to my staff, where I made this decision that was going to take us over the edge. At the end of the day, we are in a destination neighborhood and have to remain a destination. But I got that a lot from my customers: “We love that we can get a unique dining experience here.”
Niche is tough: Our prices are relatively low – look at 3 for $40 – compared to what people’s expectations of us are. I think people have expectations of us like Per Se, which is ridiculous, because we are not that type of restaurant.
My personal goal? I just want to be busy in a very stable, good environment. I want to make my staff and customers happy. If I can solve all those puzzles all the time, I’ll be a millionaire.
We’re taking our time with [what to do with the old Taste space]. You asked me what lessons I learned. I shoot from the hip. I react. That’s served me well but it’s also my Achilles heel. So we’ll bite our tongue on that one. But I am taking three days off at some point here and going to the beach.
This article appears in April 2011.