Aftertaste - Meredith Mileti [143]
“What?”
“Be careful, okay?” Ruth finally says.
“Of course, I’ll be careful,” I tell her. “But this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. I’d be investing only a portion of what I got out of Grappa, but I’d be an owner again, and the returns would be more than I’ve ever made before. They also promised me a creative say in the restaurant syndicate. That they have the confidence in us is pretty incredible. We could be the next Jean Georges—it’s almost too good to be true.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of,” Ruth says.
I’ve arranged to meet Tony for dinner at the Blue Ribbon restaurant after he gets off work, around midnight. Once I decided to come to New York and hear out Jake’s investors, I called Tony, who confirmed that he’d been in touch with the AEL syndicate and told me that I’d be crazy not to jump on the next plane and sign on the dotted line.
“They’re offering you Grappa on a silver platter, Mira. What the hell are you waiting for?” Tony asked.
From the inside, the Blue Ribbon looks like any of a hundred other dimly lit restaurants in Manhattan, but what makes it unique is the line that begins to form after midnight, often snaking all the way around the corner onto Spring Street. It isn’t a fancy place, but the food, although simple in concept, is innovative: tender veal meat loaf, celeriac mashed potatoes, lobster mac and cheese. It may not be the only place you can go in New York City to eat cheese fondue at four in the morning, but it is the best. Although it’s usually full throughout the evening, it doesn’t really get lively until well after midnight when, after the close of dinner service most everywhere else, New York’s chefs go out to eat.
Jake and I got into the habit of coming here at least once a week when we first lived in the city, before we opened Grappa. It was the mid-nineties, and a young Mario Batali, the West Village’s rash and innovative chef, commanded a large table in the back, often buying out the entire raw bar and threatening to drain the wine cellar dry. Jake and I often waited in line an hour or more for one of the white linen-covered tables, dreaming of the day when we would be invited to join New York’s cooking legends for a raucous, candlelit supper. Even after Mario and his crowd stopped coming, Jake and I would still sometimes go, take a seat at the bar, and share a dozen blue point oysters and a bottle of wine.
Tonight, because I’ve gotten here early—just a little after midnight—I’ve been able to secure a plum table in the back. I order myself a glass of Gewürztraminer, thinking, as the bright-eyed waiter takes my order, what strange lives chefs lead. By necessity and for convenience, most of your friends are chefs. Who else besides another chef would want to share a four-course meal with you at two in the morning? It isn’t that chefs are inherently more fun than nurses, or pharmacists, or off-duty cops, or other people who work night shifts. It’s just that often what you want to talk about is food. Odd perhaps, that after putting in a twelve-hour day surrounded by the stuff, you still want to talk about it, your ideas for reviving a tired sherry reduction, or a particularly innovative use of foie gras. No one besides another chef wants to do that in the middle of the night.
A few minutes after I arrive, Tony comes in. He looks exactly the same as last time I saw him, the same leather bomber jacket, the same white chef’s tunic, the same shaved head, glossy and brown as a freshly baked brioche. Tony greets the bartender, a short, wellmuscled guy named Bob, who gestures toward my table in the back.
“Hey,” Tony says, depositing his knife satchel on the extra chair and approaching my side of the table to envelop me in a hug. He smells of sweat and food, of tobacco and browning onions and fried things.
“You look great,” Tony says, pulling away and studying my face.
“Thanks. You too,” I tell him, giving his thick arm a squeeze.