“I get in trouble for saying this, but I really believe we’re not so much in a financial recession as a recession of trust,” said chef Michael Martir. He was on the phone from Cape Cod preparing for his guest appearance at Gracie’s in Providence on April 20 at the restaurant’s Star Chefs dinner series. He is also getting his own new restaurant ready to open on the Cape. His success story would be impressive anytime but is particularly surprising given the daily drumbeat of dire economic news these days.
Martir is well-known in the world of food. He has worked as a chef alongside notables such as Daniel Boulud of the restaurant Daniel in Martir’s native New York City. Martir also worked at the James Beard Foundation, where he cooked for the likes of Julia Child.
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Martir likes to do such guest events in various parts of the country because he finds himself exchanging knowledge with fellow chefs such as Gracie’s chef Joe Hafner. A practitioner of using local ingredients wherever possible, he recently returned from appearances as guest chef at events in South Beach in Miami, Memphis, Ohio and Las Vegas.
“Every dinner I have done, I always find at least one or two ingredients that I don’t normally work with,” Martir said.
At the Star Chefs event, his menu may include black bass, Brussels sprouts and proscuitto-wrapped pork loin with sweet potato-pork confit hash. The format for the evening is intimate, with both chefs in and out of the dining room as they cook, to talk to guests about the meal. Local chefs are invited to come and dine at an exclusive chefs-only table.
Again, in the face of the gloom and doom that pervades the culture these days, why do these dinners continue to be successful? Martir said there is intrinsic value in having a special menu created and presented by chefs in an epicurean setting.
“If you were to order five courses separately, the cost would be much more than the $100 that Gracie’s is charging,” he said. “At the dinner at Gracie’s, I will probably make my statement about the bad times we are in being about trust. The success of these dinners is that the people that come to them trust [chefs such as Hafner]. They know they are going to get good value and even if they don’t know me, there is a real trust connection that Joe will bring in a guest chef who cooks the quality of food they are used to having at Gracie’s.”
And he points out that even in these tough economic times, businesspeople are opening new restaurants. As an aside, most of the few area restaurants that closed, such as Raphael Bar Risto, Fresh City and Bay Leaves have reopened under new ownership. This spring Martir is opening Harvest, in Centerville near Falmouth on the Cape.
“A lot of the chefs that work in the big hotels – and my background is in fine-dining restaurants in hotels such as the Chatham Bars Inn – are leaving those jobs and opening small intimate restaurants they are calling ‘bistronomes’ – a bistro for gastronomes serving high-end food at a very low price, and the profit margins are slim,” he said. “The reason why this makes business sense is that we have to re-educate people on what good food is and to do that we have to charge a lower price.”
This foodie, entry-level approach is not intended to be elitist, in fact, it is just the opposite. With two-income families and everyone’s time scheduled to the minute, there is precious little time for eating together, let alone cooking. Restaurants become a necessity. What gets lost in the rush is what we eat and how it is prepared. Chef Martir and others such as Joe Hafner are taking up the crusade one dinner at a time. •
Bruce Newbury’s Dining Out radio show is heard Saturdays at noon on stations throughout New England. E-mail bruce@brucenewbury.com.?
