Thoughts & Musings to Start the Week: The Bear and Dinner Rush, Remembering Jamal James Kent, & A Plea for Intentional Dining Choices
Hey, everybody,
Once upon a time, before we all started podcasting, there were these things called blogs where we wrote stuff.
For a few years, I posted to my chef-focused blog, Toqueland, then adopted podcasting as my main mode of communication with the outside world.
Toqueland was folded into this site a few years ago, essentially as an archive. Much as I love producing and hosting Andrew Talks to Chefs, I’ve missed putting my writing out there whenever the spirit strikes me.
And so, on this–my birthday–I’m giving myself a present and yanking the tarp from Toqueland, and taking her out for a spin to see if she can still purr. (I guess I need to stop calling it a blog, since that word has been supplanted by platform-specific categories, like Substack. I’m also pondering a refresh of the name: Toqueland worked well when I first posted in 2009; today, it feels hopelessly antiquated. Any ideas are welcome.)
If you followed my old postings, then you know that I struggle with some personal challenges that make committing to this sort of thing hard for me. For now, I’m keeping the goal modest: To show up here every Monday to share a few thoughts. I might post more often if I feel like it, but I’m pretty busy these days. (Honestly, this really is just about the last thing I should be adding to the pile.) But this feels right, for me, and I hope for you, right now. So here goes …
Before The Bear … there was Dinner Rush
A 2001 Drama Filmed in a Fully Functioning Tribeca Restaurant, Got the Industry Right, Years Before Anyone Else Did
Within weeks of its debut in the COVID-stained summer of 2022, The Bear had swiftly elevated to its still active status as The One That Finally Got It Right. In that construct, “It” refers to the onscreen depiction of professional kitchens and cook/chef life. Why an accurate portrayal of the restaurant ecosystem had been such a white whale never computed. Show after show, movie after movie, had dropped the serving tray trying to offer anything beyond facile stereotypes and plotlines thinner than mandolined kohlrabi slivers. (I should qualify this by saying “live action” movies since Ratatouille, from the House of Pixar, has always been a curious footnote.) Hell, even the Fox network’s adaptation of the Holy Grail of industry literature, Kitchen Confidential–produced by Sex and the City creator Darren Starr–was a colossal, godawful disappointment.
I’m as hooked on, and fond of, The Bear as anybody. But the historical record needs to be set straight. Because more than twenty years ago, an independent movie named Dinner Rush got It as right as any scripted movie or television show has, before or since.
Beyond its accurate depiction of the pro-cooking subculture, Dinner Rush was ahead of its time in understanding that kitchen characters, no matter how gonzo, are no substitute for a plot. Restaurants offer abundantly vibrant backdrops for drama, but scenarists still need to do the grueling work of scripting a compelling story. Dinner Rush screenwriters Brian S. Kalata and Rick Shaughnessy stepped up, big time: Dinner Rush stars Danny Aiello as a widower owner-operator whose son (Edoardo Ballerini) has taken over his restaurant’s kitchen. I won’t spoil too much of the plot here, except to say that it involves a generational struggle for the heart, soul, and menu of the restaurant, and a mob melodrama. It’s also set on a single night, which is part of its genius: Something, or things, goes/go down during just about every dinner service. On the night on which Dinner Rush is set, it happens to be mob antics, a thunderstorm, a visit from a critic. On another night, who knows? Regardless, it all gets folded into the workings of a busy restaurant. Whatever sand might be tossed into the gears, the kitchen and dining room keep churning, serving food and drink to a cross-section of New Yorkers, without ever letting the guests see the team sweat.
Filmed in 2000 and released in 2001, the movie seems—in hindsight—exceptionally well-timed. It’s a contemporary of Kitchen Confidential and The French Laundry Cookbook, two publications that jointly, and complementarily, inspired a generation of future whisks, and just three years before Top Chef debuted on Bravo. And yet, the movie never found a sizable audience. It did, though, rake in its share of plaudits, including a spot in critic Leonard Maltin’s book 151 Best Movies You’ve Never Seen.
The film’s director, Bob Giraldi, is a veteran commercial director who’s helmed TV spots for companies ranging from McDonald’s to Toyota to Wild Turkey. He also directed music videos, a realm in which he’s earned legend status for Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” He also sidelights as a restaurateur, a role in which he opened Gigino, a Tribeca trattoria, in 1994, in partnership with Phil Suarez, whose better-known collaborator is one Jean-Georges Vongerichten. Gigino, which still operates today, is the location for the movie.
This no doubt accounts for the verité nature of Dinner Rush. Just about every frame is crammed with true-to-life details: The chairs piled up before service, the mixing bowl from which salad is tonged out for family meal; the blackened sauté pans; and on and on. It all feels one-hundred-percent legit.
There are other reasons to love this movie: Peak Sandra Bernhard’s turn as a flirty critic; Mark Margolis (years before ringing Hector Salamanca’s bell on Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul) as an insufferably pretentious art dealer; and John Corbett, on the brink of his Sex and the City/My Big Fat Greek Wedding renaissance, as a suave solo bar diner.
Twenty three years on, the movie also offers an irresistible time capsule of the downtown New York dining scene at the turn of the millennium. (An early shot of El Teddy’s alone triggered a wave of nostalgia for me.) There’s a scene in which Ballerini’s chef fashions a lobster dish for Bernhard’s critic that is a pitch-perfect encapsulation of chef-dom, popular taste, and the plating style of the day. There’s are also stolen make-out sessions, a line cook with a gambling problem, and other subplots and character bits, all conveyed on the fly, the same way you’d register them in a working kitchen.
For a long while, Dinner Rush wasn’t streamable anywhere. (Presumably due to a rights snafu.) But now, it’s readily watchable on many platforms. Season 3 of The Bear drops this Thursday, June 27; if you’re seeking something to sate your hunger for restaurant drama until then, Dinner Rush might just hit the spot.
(Dinner Rush is available on Prime Video, Apple TV, and elsewhere.)
Farewell, Jamal James Kent
Like most of the industry, I’m still processing the loss of Jamal James Kent, who left us ten days ago, the victim of a heart attack on June 15. Never have the words of journalists been less necessary. I knew James (I’ve always toggled back and forth between Jamal and James when referring to him) for about fifteen years. Still, after searching for something to add to the proliferation of reflections and anecdotes that are still proliferating on Instagram, I realize that this is a time to observe the example of Bruce Springsteen’s “Jungleland”: “The poets down here don’t write nothing at all; they just stand back and let it all be.”
I’ll offer what meager thoughts I have in a moment, but you’d do better to read tributes by the likes of Charlie Mitchell, Gavin Kaysen, and others. For a chef of such acclaim and success, what’s remarkable is how few of the posts mention signature dishes or restaurant accomplishments, though both were plentiful. Instead, almost to a person, the remembrances are of friendship, support, guidance, example-setting, and humility. As Wylie Dufresne posted, “A great cook and even better person.”
If you’ll forgive a moment of introspection: It took almost a week for me to realize it, but finally it occured to me that James was the first chef I’d covered from their formative years into the blossoming of their career, and to their end. I hope to find a way to pay him proper tribute in a way that’s additive in the near future. For now, a few memories, for what they’re worth:
I first met James over the phone: Having written a book about the 2009 Bocuse d’Or USA team, I decided to profile all of the young Americans trying out for the 2011 team. Among that cohort was an Eleven Madison Park sous chef by the name of James Kent. (The interview is still available.) After he won the right to represent the US in the global Bocuse d’Or competition, we met for a coffee in Brooklyn Heights, less than a mile from where I’m typing this post. The purpose of the coffee was for me to offer whatever intel and support I could. After that we stayed in touch on and off, the way you do in New York City.
What struck me most about James over the years was that he maintained the core of his personality. (This is something Gavin Kaysen pointed out in the post linked to above.) Even as he ascended the Michelin mountain on which he’d set his sights as a young cook, he never surrendered his love of hip-hop, graffiti, and sneakers. He never played the part the ways so many predecessors had dictated it be played. He was his own man. He also never forgot what it was like to be a young cook. A few years ago, one of my podcast sponsors teamed up with the ATO group to put on a series of dinners honoring line cooks. James and I had the same reaction to it: How can we be a part of it? He became the first non-ATO chef to host one of the evenings, at Crown Shy, and we recorded an interview about mentorship after the meal. The advice, affection, and respect he offered those cooks spoke volumes, and it’s to those moments that my mind has returned again and again over the past week.
I was also the beneficiary of some of James’ generosity. In 2017, when some producers got it in their head that I should host a TV show, I needed a restaurant in progress to feature in a sizzle reel. James enthusiastically made himself and the spaces that would become Crown Shy and Saga available for the shoot. The picture above of me and James was taken that day. I think it says so much: Wearing a Biggie t-shirt in the midst of building a fancy-pants restaurant–that was Jamal.
There are, of course, regrets. We’d talked about him coming on Andrew Talks to Chefs for a full, biographical conversation that we never got around to. I’m bummed that I don’t have a proper record of his life and career in his own words to share, with those who loved him, and for future generations.
On a smaller scale, on Friday, June 14, I noticed an Instagram post about James’ latest project, The Racquet Lounge, in Southampton. I decided to shoot him a text, just to say hello, and tell him how happy I was for him, and how proud, not that he needed a compliment from me. Then something distracted me, and I didn’t do it. And then he was gone. It’s a cliche, but you really should tell people what they mean to you whenever it occurs to you to do that. You never know when it might suddenly be too late.
Every morning, I go through a self-scripted meditation. A portion lists some people I try to emulate in very specific ways. Bruce (Springsteen) is there for his love of his craft, and for unapologetically having no other pursuits; Daniel Boulud (DB) is there for his boundless interest in basically anything and everybody he comes in contact with; Tony refers to Bourdain, and I know it’s an odd one, but he was famously punctual, something I’ve struggled with my entire adult life. Last week, reflecting on how much life, love, work, and success James had managed to pack into forty-five years on this planet, I added, “Be like Jamal: Go for it!” It’s why I finally decided to start posting here again this week.
If you’re able to, please consider donating to the Jamal James Kent Family Legacy Fund:
Use ‘em or Lose ‘em
This weekend, I celebrated my birthday two days early with dinner at the bar at Francie in Brooklyn. It was my first visit to the restaurant (other than an occasional mid-day pop-in to say hi), in about twelve months. For its first three years in business, Francie was, by far, the restaurant I dined in most often: Two birthdays, a New Year’s Day dinner, an anniversary dinner, meals with friends and colleagues I wanted to turn on to Chris Cipollone’s food and John Winterman’s suave hospitality.
I was pleased to see the place bursting at the seams Saturday night. Still, I privately wondered, how had I not been there in a year, not just for my own pleasure, but to support a place I adore.
It’s not really a mystery: My palate, like most people’s, wanders, and often succumbs to temptation. My restaurants of the moment became Claud and Libertine. Then there were places that I wanted/needed to visit to stay professionally current, like Ilis, which I’d urge everybody who can afford it to support, especially after the unjustly harsh review recently bestowed on it by the NY Times. (Any restaurant professional who’s been will tell you that, on the strength of production values alone, it merits at least two stars.)
There are other restaurants that I haven’t forsaken, but which I don’t visit as often as I once did: For a few years there, I craved Lilia more than anything. I may never have felt happier in a restaurant than I did at Frenchette. Hillary Sterling’s rustic Italian food at Ci Siamo was a much-needed hug during the pandemic. Ayesha Nurdjaja’s playful riffs at Shukette make even the gloomiest day feel sun-drenched. I need to return to all of them!
There’s a moment that I think sums it all up beautifully: A few weeks ago, I made my maiden voyage to Penny, the new restaurant from Team Clauid, just upstairs from that hit spot.
After dinner, I popped into Claud to say hello to the crew. One of them asked me about my dinner at Penny, then—as I turned to leave—said: “Come back here soon!”
I want to go to Claud, and I’m flattered that I’m wanted there. I’d happily eat there three times a week. Instead, in the few weeks since then, I finally found my way to Foxface, where David Santos is doing weird and wonderful things, and to Suzanne Cupps’ new Lola’s, where her food is better than ever. I also made my way to friend Harold Dieterle’s new Il Totano (so good to have you back, Harold).
Still, I haven’t been to Claud since a holiday dinner there in December, nor to Libertine in roughly the same amount of time. They’ll be fine without my reservation … for now. (And I’ll be back soon, you guys, I promise.) But there’s the rub: If you’re a diner who cares, it can feel like a desperate juggling act trying to balance your priorities and predilections on the day with enjoying and supporting the places you love.
I began teaching about chef and restaurant history at the Culinary Institute of America last year. In doing that work, something I’ve come to recognize more than I had previously is that the future sneaks up on you from in front. The dots are in plain sight, but we usually don’t connect them until large-scale change has taken effect and we realize that, in what feels like suddenly, we’re living in a new era.
Restaurant-goers in major markets have an embarrassment of riches to choose from. And nobody wants to feel guilty for spending their hard-won funds where they feel like it on the day.
But … there’s a case to be made for intentionally supporting your favorite restaurants, if only to help ensure that they will be there when you want to visit again. Five years from now, I would be sad to not be able to avail myself of Joshua Pinsky’s sizzling, garlicky shrimp at Claud, or Max Mackinnon’s duck two ways at LIbertine, or Hillary Sterling’s outrageously soul-satisfying stewed beans at Ci Siamo, and so on.
Some of them say it out loud, and some do not, but when a once-thriving restaurant announces its imminent closure, the influx of long-lost customers who rematerialize for one last meal is usually a source not of happiness, but of bitterness. Where were all you mourners the last x-number of years? (To all restaurateurs, for your own sanity and peace of mind, I’d humbly urge you to not take it personally.)
I get it, fellow patrons: It’s a constant balancing act between curiosity about the new, and loyalty to the less-new, and to the old. And there are only so many nights in the week/month/year, and so many Hamiltons in the bank, that can be expended on restaurants.
Still, when we spend money, we cast a vote. We do it in how and where we buy produce, fish, and meats. We do it what goods and services we purchase, and from whom. And we do it in our choice of which restaurants to dine in.
And so, a modest suggestion: Next time you’re frantically refreshing Resy or Open Table at 12:01am trying to snag one of the toughest tables in town, think about revisiting a place you love and that you want to be able to visit in five years. The restaurant will appreciate it, more than you can know. If that isn’t reason enough, then know that your future self will thank you.
– Andrew
