Life, on the Line (27 page)

Once replated, Grant brought over the next course. A carefully constructed matrix of tiny minted melon balls, alternating between the green of honeydew and the orange of cantaloupe, sat beneath a semi-melted layer of prosciutto that was sliced so impossibly thin it was almost translucent. It was an absolutely gorgeous dish.

“What happened to the first one?” I asked.

“Never did this one before. It didn't work like I expected,” said Grant very matter-of-factly.

The menu continued on like that. Original Achatz creations, often devoid entirely of identifiable time, place, or cultural references, interspersed with ingredients and preparations that clearly referenced Dagmara's favorite ethnic cuisines: Kumamoto Oysters with Sapporo Beer and Ginger, Geoduck Clam with Sushi Rice, and deconstructed sushi flavors with wasabi, nori, and sesame all riffed off of Japanese cuisine. Kiwi seeds with coconut and lime, a curried skate wing with mango, and charcoal grilled pineapple all hinted at Thai flavors.

But the showstopper came in the middle of the meal. Latvian sorrel soup with smoked ham hocks and quail eggs. Born and raised in America by parents who fled Latvia under Russian occupation, Dagmara grew up as a first-generation American: firmly rooted in the United States but with language and cultural ties to her ancestry. Placed before her at this meal, in the midst of the kitchen staff that had made it, was not just a soup but a bit of her childhood. She laughed even as she teared up a bit. Achatz had hit the home run.

When we finished the meal I knew that no one, anywhere in the world that night, had enjoyed a better meal. Not only were we privileged to eat it but also to watch the care and craftsmanship with which it was made. So when Grant came over I told him just that. “Chef, at some point, you know, you are going to need to move on from here. If you ever decide to do that, I would like to build a restaurant with you.”

“What kind of place would you want to build?” he asked.

“I am not in the restaurant business. It would be your place, your ideas, and your vision. But all I know is that there is a disconnect here between the kitchen and the front-of-house that I never realized before tonight. If you took care of that, you would have the best restaurant in the world.”

“I think our service here is great,” he said quietly.

“It is,” I replied, “the best service anywhere. I am talking about the decor, the art, and the room. You put your food with the same quality service in the city, with design that aligns with the modernity of the food . . . well . . .” I trailed off, not wanting to seem rude.

We paid the absurdly reduced bill and left a hefty tip that we hoped would be shared with the kitchen.

I wasn't expecting that to be my last meal at Trio under chef Achatz. I also wasn't expecting the e-mail from Grant that I received a week later.

I read the e-mail from Grant at 6:00 A.M., ran upstairs just as Dagmara was waking up and said, “We're going to build a restaurant with Grant!”

 

We scheduled a meeting at my house.

What do you cook for lunch for a world-class chef? I was far more worried about that than I was about the business at hand. After considering various intricate menus, I settled on not cooking at all—that was safest. I bought fresh honeydew melon, prosciutto di Parma, some aged Parmesan reggiano, some olives, and prepared a basic antipasti plate. At the last minute I decided to make some pasta and fresh marinara as well.

Grant strolled up my front walk, took off his peacoat to reveal a plain white T-shirt, black pants, and clogs, and shook my hand formally and with purpose. In the other hand he carried a business plan. We intended to impress each other.

He handed me a packet entitled “Business Plan for AG” and I invited him into my kitchen. I casually served up the melon and prosciutto that I had painstakingly arranged. He was quiet and reserved, sizing me up, looking over my house to see if I was the type of guy who could afford the restaurant he wanted to build.

“Do you know why four-star restaurants have tablecloths?” Grant asked me as we started into our conversation.

“I suppose it's because it feels luxurious. Fine white linens look and feel good. They are soft to the touch, beautifully made . . .”

Grant interrupted, “No, not really. It's because the table under the tablecloth is shitty. It's usually a piece of plywood bound to a wobbly base that is cheap and barely balanced. You may not recognize that consciously, but you know it, you can feel it.”

“You know what I want?” Grant asked, not waiting for my answer. “I want beautiful tables. Bare tables. Black ones.”

And so began the design process for our restaurant.

After the antipasti we retreated to my home office and sat down. I leafed through his business plan and could tell that he had spent time writing it. It was fourteen pages long, clearly organized, and well thought out. But it lacked a certain analytical rigor and was made from an online template. I was impressed with his effort, but I only put so much credence in business plans anyway.

Grant wanted to walk me through the plan, but I stopped him and said, “Look. We can get this done, I don't think it will be a problem to find the money or time or the space to do it. But I need to know that we will be friends. I need to learn more about you. If we can't be friends then I don't want to do this. The process of building this from scratch will suck at times. It will be difficult and stressful, and if we don't trust each other implicitly and see eye-to-eye, then I don't want to be involved.”

For the first time since he walked in the door Grant seemed at a loss. He spoke slowly, choosing his words. “I'm not really friends with any of my coworkers. We work. We don't really hang out.”

“We won't be coworkers. We'll be business partners. That's different.” I could tell that he thought I was nuts, so we adjourned back to the kitchen and I heated up the pasta with marinara.

Grant sat down in my dining room and took the first bite. Looking up he asked, “Would you be terribly offended if I asked for some salt?” I realized immediately that I had forgotten to salt the marinara. None. Zero. “Not at all,” I said, retreating to the kitchen to grab some sea salt. Grant looked up at me as he vigorously salted the pasta. One big pinch, then another. There was a shit-eating grin on his face. He openly mocked my sauce.

Apparently my pasta lacked a certain . . .rigor. I smiled—the friendship part wouldn't be a problem.

“Totally bare tables?” I asked.

“Yeah. It would look really striking and different. The plates and stainless will pop against the wood. It will feel strong under your hands.” Grant clearly had pictured all this in his head a thousand times. I could see that the business plan was irrelevant compared to the vision he had in his head.

“Is there a four-star restaurant anywhere with bare tables? Where do you put the silverware? What about when a water glass sweats and it goes all over the wood with nothing to absorb it?” My list of concerns was long.

We sat at my computer and did what we would do a thousand times during the course of creating our new restaurant: We consulted Google.

In this case, the quick survey was that no, there was not a top-30 restaurant in the world that had bare tables. The dew point of water could be calculated with a simple formula, and we could refrigerate water just above that temperature so that a glass would not sweat when placed on the table. Laundering fine linens for twenty-two tables, fifty weeks a year would cost approximately $42,000 annually. We could build mahogany tables for less. It all made perfect sense.

And just like that we had our first design mantra for the new restaurant—no tablecloths. More important, we could tell instantly that we spoke the same language, we enjoyed challenging each other, and we got along well.

The scariest part, for me at least, was over.

 

“Look, Nick. Grant is a genius, but don't put half-a-buck into a restaurant. I know people who have invested in restaurants, and they do it because they want a reservation and they get emotionally wrapped up in the romance of it. It's like a charitable donation. You will never see your money again.”

I was driving to a coffee shop with Greg Callegari, the hedge-fund manager with whom I had been working for the past four months. Greg was in his late forties and ran a fund-of-funds that had a few hundred million in assets. Well dressed and relaxed in an old-world-Italian-via-New-York manner, he seemed like he should always have an espresso in one hand and a phone in the other—and he usually did. In his world, “half-a-buck” meant half a million dollars, and he gave his advice with his usual smile, shake of the head, and easygoing laugh.

“I know, I know,” I replied, “but this will be different. It's not really a restaurant. It's going to be more like a performance-art theater, something that no one in this country has really done before.”

“You're not helping your case.” He smiled again and almost giggled. It did sound absurd when put like that.“Look, you're gonna be feeding people, right? In my book that's a restaurant. And in the real world, investors get screwed when they invest in restaurants. But that's okay; they know that going into it. They are patrons of the arts; it's an ego thing for them. They want a fancy living room where they can take clients and say they own the place, get the best table. All I'm saying is sure, help Grant out, but put in an amount of money that you can afford to lose. Tell me you're not going to put in five hundred. You don't even know the guy.”

I would come to hear that a great deal. This was a rich man's folly, and while it's okay to get a tax write-off and hobnob with a great chef, it would be stupid to drop everything and build a restaurant—especially with someone you actually met for the first time a week ago.

“Greg, I don't think you understand what I'm saying. I am going to close up the fund and build this with Grant. I know how my money will be spent because I'll be the one spending it. I appreciate the risk you took in helping me start the fund, but you can tell that my heart's not in it, right?”

Greg looked at me with a smile and shrug of the shoulders. I think deep down he knew that I wasn't in love with the hedge-fund world, that I wasn't putting in an all-out effort. He had seen it all in business and wasn't easy to frazzle. “All I'm saying,” he said calmly, “is to take a few days before you decide. Figure out what this guy is about. For all you know he is an addict or something. These guys—chefs—are unstable. You don't want to spend that kind of money to find out he has three kids in Mendocino and an ex-wife chasing him across the country.”

“He does have two kids, and they're living with him in Evanston,” I replied. “He was the sous chef at The French Laundry at twenty-two or some such shit. I've eaten all over the world and I'm telling you, he is the best right now.”

“Married?”

“No. Living with her.”

“See?”

“Whatever. The real reason I brought you here was to get you to invest.” I looked over to him in the passenger seat and smiled a wicked, ironic smile. “I suggest half a million because this is a fantastic opportunity, but will take an amount as low as a hundred thousand should you lack vision.”

I had considered Greg's objections myself. Since the e-mail from Grant and the subsequent meeting at my house, my mind raced constantly through the scenarios. Why did I want to do this? How could this fail? Hell, how could it succeed? Would it really happen?