Posts Tagged ‘Great American Restaurants’
Palates Behind the Plate: Cuyler Thomas of Carlyle
Posted by Joey Hernandez / Wednesday, April 4th, 2012
A series dedicated to the palates behind NVM’s 2011 Fifty Best Restaurants. We know what they serve, but what do they eat?
Restaurant: Carlyle
2011 Rank: #37
Executive Chef: Cuyler Thomas
NoVA’s best dish:
Fried oysters with pickled ramps at Restaurant Eve.
Never would I ever eat:
I am pretty adventurous. There is nothing I would never eat or at least try once.
After work grub:
Hong Kong Sea Bass
At home cooking:
I recently cooked shrimp and lobster sliders and duck pate with green peppercorns for my son Adam’s First Confirmation.
Burger, burrito or bánh mì:
Bahn Mi. It’s fresh, crisp and full of flavors and textures. I also love the pickled veggies!
Photo courtesy of Lori Castagna
[tips for the food desk / follow @JoeyHndz]
Posted by Warren Rojas / Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011
I read with great interest food blogger/videographer/author Josh Ozerky’s latest anti-restaurant rant in Time magazine.
And by “with great interest” I mean my internal bullshit detector was screaming in my ears.
Mind you, while I found myself nodding along with the few salient points–”casual” dining is by and large a misnomer, wonky reservation policies are distasteful–I was mostly stunned by how lowly Ozersky seems to regard both restaurants (his self-appointed beat) and restaurant goers (his de facto flock).
While he sprinkles sweeping generalizations (“Restaurants like cash because it allows them to cheat the IRS”) and bombast (“The most nakedly coercive form of control, of course, is the dreaded tasting menu, for which the chef sends out 11 tiny portions of food, each one carefully designed to not satisfy you, with the experience requiring less input from you than a nurse requires from an obliging spinal-trauma patient.”) throughout, he manages to shoehorn his most vitriolic views into the following paragraph:
You are not a guest. Guests are people who come to your home. Diners at restaurants are customers. They pay for food and service. They therefore have certain unalienable rights, including but not limited to: the right to take pictures of the food with their cell phones, particularly if they can do so without a flash; the right to text all the way through the meal, whether the staff or chef likes it or not; the right to drink the cheapest wine on the menu or to just have iced tea; the right to take home things that they don’t finish; and the right to pay for their dinner with a credit card. Is there anything worse than being told, at the end of a big meal, that the place doesn’t take plastic and that you have to slink to an ATM? Restaurants like cash because it allows them to cheat the IRS, but that’s not your problem. If a restaurant wants to pull that move, they need to tell everyone up front when they sit down. You’re right to hate them if they don’t. And if they send a food runner who can’t speak English well to bring you your food, and you can’t figure out what the hell he’s saying, you have a right to have your waiter come by and do it himself or herself, which should have happened to begin with. You do not, however, have the right to be a jerk, to be inconsiderate, or to harass them with dopey questions and requests. Just to be clear here.
Granted, I ‘m obliged to approach my more-frequent-than-I’d-care-to-admit outings with an eye on professional nitpicking. But something–okay, a lot of things–about Ozersky’s gripes struck me as, at best, downright petty, and at worst, delusional and wrong.
So I decided to check with a few local dining authorities.
Chef and restaurateur Geoff Tracy seemed the most inclined to give Ozersky the benefit of the doubt.
Tracy stood firmly behind every client’s “right” to text/photograph/Tweet each meal to their heart’s content (“Sure. Why not”) and quench their thirst with thrifty alternatives (“I drink lots of cheap wine. It doesn’t suck, it just doesn’t cost that much,” he asserted). He seemed genuinely baffled by those who misguidedly game the reservation system (“I am also confounded by restaurants who say they are booked between 6 and 10…and then when you walk in the place is WIDE open. Seems like bad for business.”). He even pseudo-endorsed Ozersky’s anti-jerk clause (“Nobody likes a jerk or inconsiderate, mean people”), but left the door open for bitingly honest evaluations and oddball queries.
“Helpful and thoughtful (not mean) constructive comments actually help us get better and are appreciated,” Tracy offered, adding, “I am OK with dopey questions.”
He drew the line, however, at preemptively declining bread service (“Isn’t ‘waving him off before he even speaks’ contradicting the ‘inconsiderate’ component of Josh’s Bill of Rights?”). And Tracy found nothing redeeming about Ozersky’s call to ostracize tongue-tied restaurant workers.
” There are a lot of hardworking people in this business who are trying to learn English. People are realizing the American dream in the restaurant business every day (and in construction sites, landscaping, cleaning businesses, etc),” Tracy counseled. “Unless you are Native American, we should all keep in mind that at some point a past relative was an immigrant to this great country.”
Great American Restaurants CEO Randy Norton attempted to diffuse the whole guest vs. customer stand-off, arguing, “Airlines and grocery stores have customers. People that visit our restaurants are guests.”
“We want to treat everyone as well or better than we would guests in our homes,” Norton said. “In fact, our first core value is ‘we exist to provide happiness to our guests and staff.’ We don’t publicize this; it’s just who we are.”
Norton also rushed to the defense of his company’s long-standing, no-reservations policy.
“We don’t take reservations because it is so difficult to keep guests happy that arrive late,” he explained, suggesting that its equally difficult to gauge “how long guests will stay at a table.” GAR has, instead, utilized a call-ahead system that, while helpful–”We find most guests show up when they call so close to their arrival,” he noted–is still not flawless. “It still isn’t unusual for more than 10 percent of ‘call ahead’ guests to not show up at all,” he calculated.
Restaurateur and Back of the House columnist Meshelle Armstrong laughed off most of Ozersky’s observations, but minced no words about the proposed dining “rights.”
“He [Ozersky] needs to know, patrons do NOT have certain unalienable rights. It is not the government. A restaurant is a privately owned business–with the right to conduct business anyway it chooses,” Armstrong asserted. “IF you do choose to participate in a private business, you have to comply with their rules. SIMPLE.”
Armstrong understandably bemoaned the dissipation of civility (“Life skills and a thing called manners unfortunately HAVE gone by the wayside.”) that one might presume was the original inspiration for Ozersky’s column. But she maintains that common sense remains the best compass. “KNOW where you are going…and act appropriately,” she advised.
Armchair critic cum concierge Don Rockwell was easily the least hospitable towards Ozersky (“This guy needs to get laid”).
“The piece is a potpourri of misplaced ideas, egotism, smugness, and misanthropy with the occasional, seemingly random, grain of coherent thought. Honestly, it would have been a good April Fools’ piece because it’s right on the border of being silly enough to be dismissed as a joke; yet, it’s written for a mass audience which might actually believe some of it, so it’s a dangerous piece of writing on a very small scale,” Rockwell warned.
He went on to dissect Ozersky’s purported rights [plain text], pointing out the following [ALL CAPS]:
You Are Not a Guest
SURE YOU ARE. SECOND DEFINITION OF THE WORD RIGHT HERE.
Guests are people who come to your home.
THAT’S THE FIRST DEFINITION.
Diners at restaurants are customers.
CORRECT, AND THEY’RE ALSO GUESTS.
They pay for food and service.
CORRECT.
They therefore have certain unalienable rights,
A CLASSIC EXAMPLE OF A NON SEQUITUR.
including but not limited to:
OH, SO *HE* IS THE ONE WRITING THE CONSTITUTION .
the right to take pictures of the food with their cell phones
THIS IS SO STUPID THAT I PROBABLY SHOULDN’T COMMENT ON IT.
particularly if they can do so without a flash;
OOPS! HE JUST ALIENATED ONE OF HIS UNALIENABLE RIGHTS!
the right to text all the way through the meal,
REFER TO THE RIGHT TO TAKE PICTURES OF THE FOOD WITH THEIR CELL PHONES.
whether the staff or chef likes it or not;
SERIOUSLY. THIS GUY NEEDS TO GET LAID.
the right to drink the cheapest wine on the menu or to just have iced tea;
CORRECT.
the right to take home things that they don’t finish;
I’LL GIVE HIM THIS (BUT THE RESTAURANT HAS NO OBLIGATION TO HAVE CARRYOUT CONTAINERS).
and the right to pay for their dinner with a credit card.
HOPE THIS GUY DOESN’T PLAN ON GOING TO A LOBSTER POUND.
Is there anything worse than being told,
UMMM …
at the end of a big meal,
WHY A “BIG” MEAL?
that the place doesn’t take plastic and that you have to slink to an ATM?
YEAH, CANCER IS WORSE.
Restaurants like cash because it allows them to cheat the IRS,
THIS IS PROBABLY OFTEN TRUE, BUT IT’S WRONG TO ISSUE A BLANKET STATEMENT ACCUSING ALL CASH-ONLY OPERATIONS OF CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR.
but that’s not your problem.
CORRECT. AND IT’S NOT HIS, EITHER (OR SHOULDN’T BE).
If a restaurant wants to pull that move, they need to tell everyone up front when they sit down.
I AGREE WITH THIS.
You’re right to hate them if they don’t.
HOW ABOUT, “YOU HAVE AN UNALIENABLE RIGHT TO HATE THEM IF THEY DON’T.” I’D GIVE HIM THAT.
And if they send a food runner who can’t speak English well to bring you your food
I ALSO THINK ENGLISH SHOULD BE THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF THE UNITED STATES OF ‘MERIKA.
and you can’t figure out what the hell he’s saying,
THEN YOU SHOULD EDUCATE YOURSELF, YOU MONOGLOT IGNORAMUS.
you have a right to have your waiter come by and do it himself or herself,
INCORRECT.
which should have happened to begin with.
WHY?
You do not, however, have the right to be a jerk,
NO, ONLY THIS GUY HAS THE RIGHT TO BE A JERK.
to be inconsiderate or to harass them with dopey questions and requests.
JUST LIKE HE’S HARASSING ME WITH THIS DOPEY COLUMN.
Just to be clear here.
SERIOUSLY. THIS GUY NEEDS TO GET LAID.
Restaurateur Michael Landrum–never one to hold his tongue or shy away from a potential media shit storm–proved to be the most stoic about Ozersky’s screed.
“I can only hope that this article will be read as the Swiftian parody that it is, with some points having a basis in reality. That being said, if one does not enjoy dining out, at all or at a specific restaurant, one should simply not do so,” Landrum said. “Every diner has the unalienable right of choice, and he should exercise it freely and without rancor.”
Meanwhile, Tracy recalled a particularly jarring occasion where he found himself on the totally wrong side of the table.
“I once was dining with Coach Bruce Boudreau at a tony restaurant in Potomac. He is a Canadian hockey player and meat-and-potato guy. He was obviously uncomfortable with the menu. The restaurant had a really nice steak on the menu which he politely asked for, but without the sauces and all the fancy stuff. The restaurant wouldn’t do it,” he noted. “Maybe we are just customers after all.”
Is Ozersky right? (222-and-counting Facebook fans can’t all have guzzled the Kool-Aid, can they?) Or is his column more about vainglorious rabble-rousing than actually elevating the dining bar?
–Warren
Posted by ryan / Wednesday, April 13th, 2011
The Sweetwater Tavern of Centreville has scheduled its first ever BBQ & Beer Spring Block Party for May 1 at noon. The family-friendly outdoor event promises to have good food, face painting, and a moon bounce. The musical stylings of Road Soda will also be on display for the better part of the afternoon.
Admission is free, and everything on the day’s special menu is reasonably priced. This is what you can expect if you choose to attend.
Chips – $1
Soft Drinks – $1
Cotton Candy – $1
Hot Dogs – $2
Brats – $3
BBQ Chicken – $4
Brisket Sliders $4
BBQ Ribs – (TBD)
Be sure to try some of the award-winning beer that is brewed on-site while you’re there. Growlers are available for less than $20 if you want to take some home with you.
Call (703)-449-1100 for more information.
-Ryan Robertson
(image: Sweetwater)
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Tuesday, November 9th, 2010
(Image: Beer Matters)
The Great American Restaurants group is celebrating its latest gold medal win at the 2010 Great American Beer Festival–their GAR Pale Ale beat out 40+ competitors to claim the crown in the Extra Special Bitter/Strong Bitter category–with a little celebration at your local Sweetwater Tavern (Centreville, Falls Church, Sterling).
All three restaurants will be serving up complimentary appetizers and discounted pale ales–with some t-shirt and growler koozie giveaways thrown in for good measure–from 5 p.m.-9 p.m. tonight.
–Warren
Opening Today: Ozzie’s Corner Italian
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Friday, September 24th, 2010
(Image: Zagat)
A new Great American Restaurant is opening today in Fairfax Corner. Ozzie’s Corner Italian will open it’s doors for the first time this afternoon at 4 p.m.
A 10,000 square foot establishment, Ozzie’s Corner will feature delicious Italian favorites such as pasta, brick chicken, and paninis. Some unique offerings include Pappardelle with Wild Boar Bolognese and Sunday Skillet Brick Chicken.
Named after the VP of Great American Restaurants, Chris “Ozzie” Osborn, Ozzie’s Corner is described as being a Casual Italian eatery. An intriguing wine list with sparkling and Italian whites and a small but delicious sounding dessert menu are sure to make you leave with a smile on your face.
11880 Grand Commons Ave
Fairfax, VA 22030
571-321-8000
-Liz Stevenson
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Tuesday, September 21st, 2010
(Image: Share Our Strength)
As any dedicated Relish reader should by now know, I don’t make a habit of reviewing corporate-run restos nor do I advocate giving your hard-earned money to them (eat local, folks!).
But we are in the thick of Share Our Strength’s annual “Great American Dine Out” week (9/19-9/25). And a slew of big hearted, Northern Virginia restaurants (over 75 locations) have signed on to help put food in the mouths of America’s malnourished youth (17 million kids and counting).
The nationwide dining dragnet welcomes participants from across the hospitality spectrum, be they quick service (Boston Market, California Tortilla, Captain D’s), corporate casual (Joe’s Crab Shack, P.F. Chang’s, Ted’s Montana Grill), swanky meat palaces (Daily Grill, The Palm, Wildfire) or local independents (Bombay Curry Company, the entire Great American Restaurants family).
Participating restaurants can contribute via assorted means (straight donations, percentage of sales). Here are some of the charity promotions happening in our area:
* Best Buns Bakery: contributing 5 percent of their total bread sales (no cap);
* Corner Bakery: $1 donation scores you a whoopie pie; $5 donation nets you $20 worth of CB coupons;
* Legal Sea Foods: every cent of Boston Cream Pie sales gets shipped to SOS;
* P. F. Chang’s: $0.50 from every lettuce wrap (capped at $50,000) goes to SOS.
Meanwhile, even after all the other restaurants retire the table tents and get back to business as usual, the GARiverse will continue funneling money to various charities–courtesy of their year-round, dessert sales-based benefaction.
For those who don’t know, Best Buns regularly redirects 5 percent of its daily bread sales to SOS.
All the other GAR properties reserve $0.25 from every dessert sold for their own corresponding charity, a roster of child-rearing and hunger-abolishing outfits which includes:
* Artie’s: Meals on Wheels
* Coastal Flats (Fairfax): Big Brothers/Big Sisters Northern Virginia Council
* Coastal Flats (Tysons): Medical Care for Children Partnership
* Jackon’s: L’Academie de Cuisine
* Ozzie’s Corner Italian (opening 9/24): Feeding America
* Silverado/Sweetwater Tavern (Centreville): Youth for Tomorrow
* Sweetwater Tavern (Merrifield): Latino Student Fund
* Sweetwater Tavern (Sterling): So Others Might Eat
“They’re actually huge supporters of ours,” an SOS aide said of GAR’s ongoing outreach. “They’ve been amazing.”
–Warren
GAR Dubs 12th Resto Ozzie’s Corner Italian
Posted by The Editorial Desk / Friday, March 19th, 2010
Great American Restaurants CEO Randy Norton has confirmed that their forthcoming Italian concept–set to debut in Fairfax Corner sometime this fall/winter–will be named Ozzie’s Corner Italian, a tribute to GAR corporate chef-cum-vice president of kitchen operations Chris Osborn.
Ozzie’s will bump GAR’s Northern Virginia restaurant holdings to an even dozen. Their preexisting properties include: Artie’s, Best Buns Bread Co., Carlyle, Coastal Flats (2), Jackson’s Mighty Fine Food & Lucky Lounge, Mike’s American, Silverado and Sweetwater Tavern (3).
Although the group had flirted with crowning the highly anticipated project Patsy’s (after Norton’s wife), Norton suggested that they had received some pushback from New York eatery/online retailer Patsy’s.
Other abandoned monikers included: “Meatball Palace” (too bad) and “Majestic Meat” (porntacular).
No word yet on who will man the burners, but Norton doesn’t seem too worried.
“I am excited about the progress to date and have no doubt the menu will be ready in plenty of time,” he said.
–Warren