Slashfood Talks: Michael Anthony

Life is (naturally) sweet for Gramercy Tavern Executive Chef Michael Anthony. Not only is he recently married, but his restaurant was bestowed the 2008 James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurant, and he just returned from the Union Square farmer's market in NYC with fresh sugar snap peas for dinner. Does it get any better than this? Read on.

Congratulations on winning the James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurant. How has life slash the restaurant changed since winning the award this year?

Hold on – I'm actually trying to get through the door here. I just finished shopping at the farmers market.

No worries. Take your time.

The restaurant has had an unbelievable sense of electricity since the Beard Awards. It was nice to see friends and familiar faces from around the country at the awards. They made us feel that there are a lot of people in the industry pulling for the restaurant. People have come to the restaurant to congratulate us in person. The support was felt by a very widespread audience in the industry and around the city.

You said that you just got in from the farmer's market? I'm moving to New York City next week, and I was actually going to ask you where to shop?

That's great. Do you know where you are living?

Up near Columbia.

There are a couple of markets on the upper west side, but undeniably the best is at Union Square – Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday. I think it is the best way to shop in New York City.

I'm definitely planning on going there all the time. So what did you get?

I bought some sugar snap peas for a salad tonight, and I bought a quart of whole milk and granola for breakfast tomorrow. I bought summer squash – yellow and green zucchini, a quart of strawberries and a bunch of carrots.

Do you cook at home often?

I try to take at least one day off a week. I got married in august, so I'm trying to generate some balance in the crazy restaurant life. We love to cook. My wife is a good cook, and we love to have friends over and cook a lot at home.

What's on the menu at Gramercy Tavern this summer?

Currently, there are some fantastic dishes. The format is the really cool – the restaurant is split into a duel concept: a formal dining room and an informal front room that works on a no reservation policy. It is the same spirit and team, but presented in a little more rustic, straightforward manner. A lot of our dishes [in the informal dining room] are from a wood burning grill now. We are doing a light stew of Thumbelina carrots with farro, warm salad of asparagus with warm broth, grilled cauliflower. We have an incredible arctic char that's grilled and tossed with a warm salad of sugar snap peas and a lemon vinaigrette with pickled mustard seeds.

In the main dining room, we have a seasonal tasting menu and a vegetarian tasting menu, and the vegetarian tasting menu is a well thought out menu that celebrates vegetables and isn't just vegetarian options. There are things now [on the vegetarian menu] like a dynamite warm summer vegetable salad and mushroom ravioli, lemon risotto. On the seasonal tasting menu, we are doing things like grilled sturgeon served over scallions and potatoes with a caviar sauce, rack of veal with morels, grilled asparagus.

We want to create a memorable meal by anchoring in a specific time and place. What we want people to remember is that a meal this week is going to produce one feeling, and a meal a meal in three weeks is going to produce another feeling. Those are the most memorable meals for me.

Is there any ingredient that you think is particularly underused?

There are a lot of them. To give you one example, I love kohlrabi. Do you know what that is?

Nope.

It's similar to a turnip. It grows underground and throws of shoots and green leaves like turnip tops. I like to use them – they're no bigger than a baseball. That is a vegetable that not many people are familiar with. I don't use it because it looks cool or not everyone recognizes the name, but it grows really well in the northeast and tastes really sweet on it own. I love it raw, roasted, pureed. These ingredients can have interesting flavor characteristics. It tells the story of what our climate and soil produces. It tells an interesting story about when you take care of the soil and produce things in small batches, they can produce unbelievable flavors. It's true for almost every ingredient that we choose on the menu.

What about overused?

I try to steer away from classic luxury ingredients. Don't get me wrong, we serve foie gras – two ways. But I don't like it when a restaurant or chef tends to really lean on luxury ingredients to impress an audience. Caviar, foie gras, truffles – they are amazing used sparingly, and at their height they can transport with their flavors, but I use more modest ingredients – things that are available seasonally and locally. Things that have a connection with culture and tend to be understated. That shows off the hard work of the farmer and shows of our hard work, and the execution and innovation of the way we serve.

I read that you work with New York City public schools, what do you do there?

What we do is a home-grown program. It started with one parent who came to the restaurant and asked if we would consider having the first grade class come to visit. I have two daughters, and my parents retired from careers in education, so I felt strongly about sharing our passions with young people. I said sure, since I had experience with kids in the kitchen. The response was overwhelming. Other teachers followed suit – that's at P.S. 41 in the West Village. We were able to visit with each kid at least twice and in some cases three times, at the restaurant, the school and the market. It is a luxury and a responsibility for a restaurant to play the role of educator in the community.

What food publications, if any, do you read?

The Art of Eating, Edible East End, Edible Brooklyn, and soon-to-be Edible Manhattan. Food and Wine magazine.

Do you watch food shows?

I'm not a fan of the reality shows, though I do sneak a peek to have a laugh sometimes.

How have rising fuel and food costs affected your business?

Well it is an interesting topic – the cost of food across the border is rising, and there is an interesting dynamic about it. One argument is that cheap food actually has all sorts of hidden costs. We've been paying for [inexpensive food] all along with hidden costs – the damage to our health and the environment, and ultimately now in the political world. Cheap food has not always been a beautiful situation. People want to complain about the rising cost of food, but it surprises me that no one complained about the cheap cost. [Rising costs] may mean that it is not cheaper to buy food locally, but it makes people say, "Where are the alternatives?" I do not think that it is necessarily a bad thing for people to give more priority to the amount of their budget that they contribute to buying food.

I may not be a great spokesman for the average American, but I think that even for the average American, there are all sorts of benefits in the idea of spending a little more time and money on food. We are so accustomed to eating processed food that we take it for granted. Not so long ago when we ate junk food, we knew it wasn't a meal. And now we accept it, since there are less options for eating real foods. I don't think its an entirely bad thing for people to spend a little more money on food – especially if it is for a good thing. Why wouldn't food be at the center of our culture? Food should never be considered a commodity, why would we would we look at eating as just fueling up? So I don't think that it negatively impacts the restaurant industry and our culture in a completely negative way.