I’ll preface this by telling everyone I’m well known as an anti-ass kisser, most often to my own detriment.

Dear Chef Fox,

You get me. Something about Birdie’s jangles a comfortable, nostalgic nerve, it’s an x-factor no one can actually plan or design, but it places your joint up there with the greats. There’s a list of certain restaurants that imprint themselves upon the zeitgeist of the culinary universe. Different for everyone depending on so many varying factors and particular tastes. As human beings, our tastes in food are shaped by our singular timelines, created by our experiences as much as our unique personalities and appearances.

I dream often of a strange post-apocalyptic science fiction reality where Earth blew up and restaurants and bars still thrive on the scattered pieces and asteroids left over. They’re all there, floating in the void, somehow preserved within forcefield bubbles and able to accommodate customers. I fly around and visit them in my space ship. Mostly diners where aliens work. But my all time favorites show up quite a bit; The Five Spice Cafe, Fatty Crab, Found Oyster, Barney Greengrass, Hagi, The Other Place, The Burger Joint, Kabab Cafe, Sycamore, Delfino’s, Henry’s Diner, Beansie’s Bus, and yes, Birdie G’s.

The above places are all distinct in their own special ways, but I’ve come to the realization they are all similar in three categories. They’re unpretentious, they serve awesome food, and they’re more than a little broken in.

I’ve been secretly and unjustly hard on Birdie’s in the past. Part of this was due to jealousy because your restaurant is just so goddam beautiful and has all the bells and whistles I wish we had at Rustic. The other side of that coin is due to my competitive nature. It’s possible I never gave it just desserts when I should have, but over the years its slowly gotten better and better and my meal earlier this week hit me like a knockout punch.

I was like, “Shit, it’s all here. He finally did it.”

Over time restaurants start to get a little worn in, like the cliched old pair of shoes. It’s inevitable. Dirt and grime gather in the corners. The once spotless floors accumulate stains from hundreds of spills. The paint jobs fade and crack. The walls begin to absorb the years of smoke, the fermentations, the vinegars, the sweat and blood. And from all of this, if they’re lucky to be around long enough, each restaurant forms its own particular smell. Guests have no idea it exists, only the early morning cooks really know it well. All the places I worked with soul, had it. It’s the same as the biosignature each human being owns, their individual pheromones that attract and repel others.

I suspect that Birdie’s now has it. That now that it’s been through the grinder a bit and come out the other side, the new car smell is gone and has been replaced by wood smoke, cheese, whatever else. It’s been appropriately seasoned like a blue singer who lost it all, went to rehab, and made a stellar comeback. I’m not the type of guy that enjoys anything new. My socks typically have holes in them, my t shirts are ripped and have coffee stains, my car looks like it’s been in a demolition derby and a homeless person currently lives in it. I feel uncomfortable being dressed up in clean, polished dining rooms where you can hear the slightest noise or the person’s hushed conversation next to you.

Restaurants should be loud and somewhat gloomy. Parking should suck. I want to hear glasses breaking, the chef cussing someone out. I want the food to arrive at sporadic times, my table to not be ready so I have to go stand and get a drink at the bar. There should be blemishes. We try and try to make things perfect and we all know it’ll never get there, that restaurants are just balls of controlled chaos we love and hold dear that make no damn sense. Running a restaurant is like trying to hit a fastball, physically impossible on paper. You have to be out of your goddam mind to want to open one and super lucky for it to survive the first year.

The food should come at you with attitude. Placed nicely onto the table, of course, but it should exude controlled cockiness, an edge, supreme confidence. Each dish a rigid middle finger. “Fuck you, eat me!” There’s an old kitchen saying that the food knows when you lack belief in yourself. It’s why your aioli or hollandaise breaks even though you know exactly how to make it. The food knows. It not only tastes better when the people making it have the demeanor of killers, it requires it. I don’t want candy asses making my food. I want cooks who will stab me for bad mouthing what they put out.

When I watched your chef in the back kitchen I witnessed that supreme confidence. Not cockiness, but killer instinct. Smiling, taking his time. When I went and said hi to him and he returned the favor, I saw that murderous glimmer in his eyes, his well tuned kitchen churning out fantastic dishes in an enormous, busy restaurant.

And there was this damn thing.

No one else at the table marveled or gave a shit about the olives coming in a ceramic elephant where you could put your pits in the trunk, except for me. it was the first thing to hit the table and put a big shit eating grin on my face. Someone put a lot thought into this one little detail. Cute but also efficient. It just made sense.

That’s how the rest of the night went. I kept thinking the same thing as I ate, and boy did I chow down. I ignored the judgement of the others I dined with and went into full glutton mode. And my lord what a place to decide to do that. First off, I wanted everything on the menu. That’s the sign of a great restaurant. When you want it all but can’t have it so have to come back later. Then, I realized the attention to each morsel I shoveled in had been thought about and tweaked with the same eye that had brought the ceramic elephant out to me. Everything about my experience at Birdie’s had the same level of detail. They even knew about my weird porcini mushroom allergy. It wasn’t just dining out because we were hungry, it was complete, it was the perfect night even though for a good half of the meal I chased my energetic son around the restaurant and gave him shoulder rides outside to try and chill his hyper toddler ass.

There’s no conclusion save that I want to go back and know that I can’t and don’t have the time to go back too soon. It’ll be another six months or so but in that time it’s possible your place will be even better than it was two nights ago.

Best,

-J