in praise of sardines

Olallie Update (XI): the influence of Spain

To catch you up to date on the progress of my upcoming San Francisco restaurant, Olallie, I am highlighting aspects of the design process that occurred over the past 4 months. The design decisions described in this post were made mostly from November to December, 2006.

Previous progress reports on Olallie can be found here:  Prequel, Intro, Parts I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X

Even a casual reader of IPOS knows that I look to Spain — especially Catalonia — for much of my inspiration. Barcelona is second only to San Francisco in my heart. So, even though neither my restaurant's name nor its cuisine will be exclusively Spanish or Catalan, our travels through the Iberian peninsula played a prominent role in some of our design decisions and equipment choices. Here's how.

Kitchen Counter Seating

Flights into Barcelona from the US tend to arrive in the morning. After checking into my hotel or rental apartment, I usually head straight to a stool at the counter of Pinotxo and ask Juanito to make me a cortado (macchiatto) to shake off my jet lag. After a stroll amongst the pristine seafood and produce stalls of La Boqueria, the covered marketplace in which Pinotxo is located, I return to my stool to sip a cold glass of Cava while chef Albert expertly cooks my white beans with baby squid or some kind of salt cod dish. After a siesta, I head to my next perch, a stool at Cal Pep. The next morning I'm back to La Boqueria, trying to decide whether I should eat at the counter of Kiosko Universal or El Quim. See a pattern here?

An unexpected benefit of locating Olallie's kitchen in the front was creating the possibility of seating at the kitchen counter. Longtime IPOS readers know how much I adore dining at kitchen counters. Take a look at how many places I've written about where I've dined at the counter: Momofuku, Degustation, and Casa Mono in NYC, Lotería Grill in LA, and Swan Oyster Depot and Canteen in my home town.

Olallie Update (X): "Um, where's the walk-in refrigerator?"

To catch you up to date on the progress of my upcoming San Francisco restaurant, Olallie, I am highlighting aspects of the design process that occurred over the past 4 months. The design decisions described in this post were made during the late autumn of last year.

Previous progress reports on Olallie can be found here:  Prequel, Intro, Parts I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX

There was an additional reason why we chose to put the kitchen up front: money. Along with the aesthetic reasons cited in the previous entry, our limited budget guided our Architects to place the kitchen in the window. The unorthodox kitchen location allowed them to discover a way to utilize an otherwise unusable space. To explain how, I'll need to give a bit of background.

I remember the first time N and I saw our future restaurant space empty. The owners of the computer store had moved their wares a block up the street, and they were handing over the keys to us.

I looked around and my jaw dropped. Had the space shrunk? Was it still 1,100 square feet (100 m²)? It looked so much bigger when it was filled with computers and wires and desks. How were we going to cram all the equipment and storage needed to run a restaurant into a space the size of a coat closet?

Typically no more than a third of a restaurant's square footage is alloted to the "back of the house." After rationalizing that the garden was an integral part of the restaurant, that meant I had 450 square feet (40 m²) to squeeze a kitchen, bar, dish room, cold storage, dry storage, beverage storage, and a wait station.

We were going to have to get creative to fit it all. That's wen the Architects hatched their creative, cost-saving plan.

There's a 3-foot wide outdoor corridor that runs along the left side of the building. It wasn't wide enough to be used as a second exit from the back garden. In fact, in spots it was so narrow that we could barely fit restaurant-sized garbage cans through it. To make use of this wasted space, my previous architect and I had explored the idea of moving the wall (a supporting wall) to add another 200 square feet to the interior. I mentioned this idea to my new Architects.

"Brett," they said gently and frankly, "you simply don't have enough money in your budget to do that. It would require major structural work and new foundations, costing close to $200,000."

Olallie Update (IX): Sparkling or still?

Previous progress reports on Olallie can be found here:  Prequel, Intro, Parts I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII

When Olallie opens, one special piece of equipment will make our restaurant part of a tiny group of sustainability-minded restaurants that include Chez Panisse, Incanto, Nopa, and Poggio (Wow! That's a group I'm proud to be associated with in any small way). Find out what I'm talking about by reading this article in today's Chronicle.

4 months ago we decided our restaurant would feature an Italian-made system which I believe is the same one used at our local favorite Incanto. Our reasoning is the same as those of the other restaurateurs cited in the article. (That and we don't have much storage space). We believe so strongly in the topic of the article that we've chosen to forgo what we conservatively estimate would have earned us an extra $20,000 per year.

Food|and Drink|Restaurants|Opening Restaurant|San Francisco

Olallie Update (VIII): Kitchen in the front?

To catch you up to date on the progress of my upcoming San Francisco restaurant, Olallie, I am highlighting aspects of the design process that occurred over the past 4 months. The meetings described in this post took place during the late autumn of last year.

Previous progress reports on Olallie can be found here:  Prequel, Intro, Parts I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII

On our drive over to our first sit-down meeting with the Architect at his office in Oakland, N was filled with excitement. I, however, was feeling apprehensive about starting over with a new architect.

"We know this architect is fantastic. We love his work and we know we're lucky to be working with him. Let's trust his creative process and see where it takes us," N said in an attempt to quell my concerns.

We walked into the Architect's office, a converted warehouse with rough-hewn cement walls, broad steel beams, and 25-foot ceilings, and sat down at a long glass table.

According to an email we received days before, this meeting was to focus on programming: "ideation, functional program requirements, look and feel" (architect speak for what do we want our restaurant to look like?).

After admiring little paper-and-wood models of past projects lining one wall, we got down to work. The Architects (now a two-person team) asked us questions and listened deeply as we described all our hopes and desires for our little restaurant.

We declared our desire to be a quintessential neighborhood restaurant, reflecting the character of our Noe Valley neighborhood and our city. I described my "urban farmhouse" menu that would feature boldly flavored, rustic dishes crafted from the seasonal, sustainably produced bounty of the Bay Area. I talked about my culinary influences, from Spain to India to Berkeley . I described restaurants that inspire me, particularly the small, personal, chef-owned restaurants that N and I have enjoyed during our frequent trips to New York City and Spain, especially Barcelona. We discussed a wide variety of topics that have personal meaning for us and that we thought would help inspire the restaurant's design: an open kitchen, counter seating, tapas bars, a wood-burning oven, the symbolism of the "hearth," Slow Food, farmers' markets, eating locally, sustainability, green building practices, using reclaimed wood, textures, wabi sabi, and juxtapositions (urban/rural, industrial/rustic, loft/barn, homey/minimalist).

The Architects then surprised us. "What do you think about putting the kitchen in the front of the building?"

I remembered scoffing at the idea during my initial meeting with the Architect on site. Couldn't he see then that I didn't like the idea? I thought about restaurants in the Sunset district and even nearby in Noe Valley with kitchens in the front, and I wasn't keen on their look. "Kitchens in the front are for taquerias, pizzerias, and diners, not sit-down 'fine dining' restaurants. Isn't that obvious?" I silently thought to myself.

Then I remembered N's encouragement on our drive over to allow the Architects space for creativity. Be positive, open-minded. Trust them. They know what they're doing.

"We're open to the idea. I have some concerns, but we're willing to explore the possibility," I said.

By our next meeting 2 weeks later, the Architects had drawn plans and even built a tiny model of our future restaurant. All of the options featured the kitchen in the front with a wide open view into it from the street. They explained that they chose to place the kitchen there for several reasons.

• It would create a seamless flow between the back garden and the interior.
• It would allow the few diners who were seated in the garden to feel a part of the main dining room.
• It would reinforce the diners' connection to the farm, the fields, and the earth.

When I peered through the window of the tiny model, I was thrilled by the design. I loved it aesthetically and understood the reasoning behind it intellectually.

Olallie Update (VII): Finding an architect

Friday we finally submitted our application to the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection! Hooray!!! Developing the plan for the restaurant has consumed 110% of my creative energy these past 3 or 4 months (hence very little writing on my blog or cooking at home).

What does it take to prepare a building department application and why did it take 4 months to produce? Over the next few posts, I will share highlights of the restaurant planning process and catch you up to date as quickly as possible. Join me on a trip a few months back in time while I recount stories from hiring the architect to choosing the equipment to creating the restaurant's distinctive look and feel. I'll post the topics roughly in the order that they occurred. This first one, finding an architect, took place in late autumn last year.

Previous progress reports on my upcoming San Francisco restaurant, Olallie, can be found here: Prequel, Intro, Parts I, II, III, IV, V, VI

As you may recall, I've chosen to build a restaurant the hard way. Rather than remodel an existing restaurant space, I've opted to start from scratch and build one from the ground up. I'm renovating a decidedly homely 100-year old storefront in San Francisco's Noe Valley that was a "tonsorial parlor" (barber shop) for decades, then became a fish market, a variety of clothing stores, and, most recently, a computer services store.

I'm reminded every day that it's no small undertaking to transform this approximately 20- by 60-feet space into a restaurant. It's not the sort of project where I can do the work on my own with a crow bar, a hammer, a paint brush, and the help of a few handy friends.

The scope of the work has required me to hire an architect (and a kitchen designer, structural engineer, lighting designer, and ventilation designer for the hood over the stove... and that's before we even start construction).

Ask me where to find pasture raised goat meat and I can answer without thinking. But architects? Before I started this project, my knowledge of architecture was limited to the intricacies of stacking french fries on top of steaks.

While we had a successful relationship with the architect who helped us get the city approval to build our restaurant, for various reasons we decided we wanted to work with someone else on the main design.

I gathered dozens of names of potential candidates through internet searches, restaurant reviews, restaurant websites, discussions with restaurant owners, and referrals from architects who were parents of kids at my wife's school. I whittled my list down to four and arranged to meet them at the site of my future restaurant.

For each candidate, I took a few minutes to describe my concept and play a quick slide show on my iBook that featured restaurant designs I like and photos of my food. I handed out a possible menu. I also described how many seats I needed to make the restaurant viable (lots) and the size of my budget (tiny).

Only one architect really got it. He listened carefully and understood exactly what I wanted. Where other architects had seen headaches and space constraints, he saw potential. His refreshing optimism quashed the sense of dread I had increasingly been feeling over having ever signed on the dotted line to take over this location.

"There's a real potential to make the back garden an integral part of the space," the Architect said. "In many of these storefront spaces that's simply not possible. The connection between the indoor and outdoor spaces would perfectly reflect your menu's focus on seasonality and the farm to table connection. I envision it having the openness of an outdoor marketplace."

"Wow, that sounds amazing." But then I remembered the few drawings that my previous architect and I had worked on, where the kitchen obscured the view of the back garden from the dining room.

"But where will the kitchen go? Doesn't it have to live along one of the sides or in the back? The kitchen will pretty much block any view of the backyard. Unless," I scoffed, shaking my head at the absurdity of the notion, "you put the kitchen in the front."

The Architect's eyes lit up and he smiled. "We'll take measurements and see what we can do. I really think there's a lot of potential here to make something different that will reflect your restaurant's concept and your values."

His quick grasp of my vision for my restaurant blew me away and filled me with hope. In the subsequent weeks I received proposals and cost estimates from all of the candidates and was happy to see that his was in line and competetive with the others. Within a couple of weeks we had happily signed his firm onto our job.

In the next post, I'll describe our initial design meetings where he and his team unveiled their design ideas. Though it may not be true, I'm convinced that the completed restaurant will be exactly what the Architect pictured in his mind after having been in the space all of 10 minutes.

Food|and Drink|Restaurants|Opening Restaurant|San Francisco

Something loca in the press

The pack I run with are hardcore locavores. Most of them would sooner skip a meal than succumb to the temptations of Peruvian blueberries in March.

To all of you striving to eat locally produced food, I say this: it's time you take your ethical standards to the next level. Start consuming locally produced writing! Become a locareader (in Spanish, that's la rida loca).

If, like me, you live in San Franciscostan, you ought to start reading some of our fine locally produced magazines. Fellow locavores, I say we combine both of our passions and seek out local SF magazines dedicated to food. Let's go out and grab ourselves a copy of our fantastic local 'zine Edible San Francisco! In the Winter issue we'll find articles by esteemed food writers like Michael Ruhlman (blogger and noted author of Charcuterie and many other books), Shuna Fish Lydon of Eggbeater, Bonnie Azab Powell (aka Dairy Queen) of The Ethicurean, Andrea Arria-Devoe of Daily Candy, farmer Andy Griffin of Mariquita, and some dude named Brett Emerson... who the heck is that?? Where have I seen that name before?

Citywide not local enough for you? Check the newsstands in the little neighborhood, burough, or arrondissement that you call home. My enthusiasm for our local community newspaper, The Noe Valley Voice, knows no bounds. I've been known to cart the paper along to some rather exotic locales (witness actual picture to right). Why, look at that in the February issue! There's another article by that feller Brett Emerson (while this issue is no longer on the newsstands, the entire issue is available online). He sure seems to get around. I feel like I've read that same story somewhere else....

You may cry "foul!" and claim that my locareader plea was a ruse, smacking of blatant self promotion. Perhaps, says I. But still, shameless as I may be, I implore you to run out and grab yourself the Winter issue of Edible San Francisco. It hit the stands a couple of weeks ago, but if you're lucky you can still snap up one of the last remaining copies at one of the locations listed here. Heck, it's free! To make sure you don't miss the next exciting issue, why not take a minute to subscribe? You'll make editor and publisher Bruce Cole (formerly of Saute Wednesday) a happy man. Who knows? Maybe you'll see another piece by that Emerson guy in a future issue?

5 Things About Me

A couple of weeks ago I noticed that Joy, The Restaurant Whore, had tagged me for the "5 Things About Me" meme. I thought to myself, "Ho, if there's one thing you do know about me, it's that I don't have time. I'm building a restaurant, yo."

Last month I was mired in the final stages of designing my restaurant, preparing plans that were supposed to have been submitted by the end of January at the latest. Most nights last month I woke up at 3 am, second guessing nearly every decision I had made about my restaurant. No grill... am I crazy? Do I really want to seat people at the kitchen counter? Should I scrap the garden area in the front for a proper bar? Where the hell am I going to put the slicer... or store the wine... or put the cutting boards? How am I going to live without a walk-in refrigerator? How am I going to pay for all of this? Maybe I should put the damn place on the market and buy a one way ticket to Barcelona? I'll rent a small shack on the Mediterranean coast, disappear for a while, write the definitive sardine cookbook...(there's a market out there for that, isn't there?).

What a difference a couple of weeks can make. I've made peace with most of my decisions (except maybe the lack of a walk-in) and, at long last, the plans are nearly ready to be submitted to the building department (next week, fingers crossed).

I suddenly have time again. Not a lot, but hopefully enough to sneak a few posts in on my neglected blog. You can expect some updates on my restaurant. Maybe even a few recipes, if I ever cook a meal at home again. First, though, I'll respond to Joy's tag and tell y'all five things you don't already know about me.

1. As a child, I hoped to become a cartoonist when I grew up. I was obsessed with Charles Schulz and Walt Disney. You'd rarely find me without a pen in one hand and a scrap of paper in the other. I was a real prodigy and nearly every teacher and classmate assumed I would become an artist as an adult. I even had cartoons published in our local paper. Sadly, though, after my father died the same year that I entered my teens and high school, I lost interest in drawing. My creative aspirations didn't resurface until years later when I took an interest in cooking, and more recently writing and photography. One of these days I hope to return to drawing. Perhaps when I move to that little seaside shack?

2. I was a champion long distance runner in high school. Well, that's a bit of an exaggeration, although I did win the league championship in the mile my sophomore year. My southern California high school, which no longer exists, used to have one of the premier cross country (long distance) teams in the state. I stopped running for a decade or two, but have recently started jogging again a few times per week. I'm training to build up my endurance for that marathon also known as "cooking in a restaurant."

3. I nearly died in a tragic bus accident in the Alps. After high school graduation, about 30 of my classmates and I went on a 3-week bus tour of Europe chaperoned by two of our school's literature teachers (who also happened to be the coaches of the cross country team). During the final week, we headed from Bologna, Italy, to Zermatt, Switzerland. Coming from suburban LA, we eagerly anticipated visiting Zermatt, the home of the Matterhorn. We all knew the Matterhorn as the mountain that inspired our favorite childhood roller coaster ride at nearby Disneyland. We couldn't have anticipated that we would take the scariest ride of our lives in the shadow of that mountain.

The brakes on the bus failed as we descended the hairpin turns leading into town. I remember the screeching sound of the bus scraping the sides of the metal road barriers -- our driver's futile attempt to slow us down. I remember the silence of the previously raucous group of teenagers, my close friends and classmates, as we sped around those hairpin turns. I remember the speed of the bus as it traversed narrow mountain bridges at an alarming pace and bounced over roadside boulders that our driver hoped would stop us. Our driver made a last ditch effort to save us by making a sharp turn at the inside of a hairpin turn. If his ploy failed, our bus would have rolled onto its side, maiming half of us, or bounced over the side of the cliff, killing us all.  Fortunately, the move by our driver, a former English stock car racer, stopped the bus instantly. He and one of our teachers flew through the windshield. There were no fatalities and just a few serious injuries (including the teacher, whose nose had to be sewed back on in the hospital). The bus, on the other hand, was totaled, as you can see from the picture below.

4. I taught English for a year in China. Although I may have briefly mentioned this in one post, most of you don't know I spent my first year out of college teaching English at a technical college (the College of Post and Telecommunications) on the outskirts of Chongqing (aka Chungking), the largest city in Sichuan (Szechuan) province. I whiled away my year in a tiny mountainside town famous for its Taoist temple. I spent most of my time on campus hanging out with my students, learning tai-ch'i and the proper way to make and eat dumplings. I rarely left town, because the journey to and from Chongqing and its 30 million inhabitants was an arduous one. The trip back home included a ferry ride across the Yangtze and a choice between spending 30 minutes sandwiched between my neighbors in a bus ascending hairpin turns or walking up several thousand stone steps cut into the side of the mountain. After my Alpine excitement, I tended to walk. Besides, the stairs featured a breathtaking view and several pit stops with tea and dumplings.

5. I've been married 4 times. All you countless fans of my wife N need not worry! All 4 times were to the same woman, my darling N. I was exaggerating (what more would you expect from someone who, when 18 years old, shortly after the aforementioned bus crash, quipped "I suppose that's the brakes."). We actually had just one wedding ceremony. But we had 4 receptions in 4 different cities.

The year we were married, N and I had just moved to San Francisco from Washington, D.C., where we both went to college. My mother lived in a suburb of LA (in the house my father built, where she had raised my brother and me). N's parents lived in New Jersey, where she had grown up, and her grandparents and extended family lived in India. N and I insisted on a small wedding that would only include our friends and closest family members. As our wedding was the first one for both of our families, not one of our parents or relatives was pleased with this decision. They wanted to invite all of their friends and all of the relatives. And each family member wanted the wedding to be in her town.

We came up with an absurd compromise. We agreed to allow each faction to throw a reception in our honor (I never have been one to turn down a party). So our Wedding Tour began in San Francisco, then headed to LA, then New Jersey, and finally concluded in Rajkot, a city in Gujarat in western India, north of Mumbai (Bombay).

I won't bother to tag anyone else for this meme, as most bloggers have already participated. If any of you bloggers reading this haven't revealed your innermost secrets and are just dying to share, feel free to consider yourself tagged!

I'll write again soon. Hopefully.