The Hardest To Find Restaurants Are Always Moving
By Janet Eastman
Felix Pfeifle, dapper in a paisley ascot, was holding court in his royal blue Los Angeles living room on a Saturday night. He was surrounded by thirty-somethings with huh? expressions on their faces as they listened to him tell about his treasured display of handwritten letters from the last crown prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
What was the connection between Pfeifle, with his passion for Old-World sensibilities, and these outfitted-in-black, Internet-at-their-fingertips strangers? Food.
Pfeifle didn’t prepare the veal-free Wiener Schnitzel, caraway noodles and Viennese crescent cookies that were being passed around on platters.
He didn’t hire a caterer. He didn’t agonize over the guest list. And he didn’t clean the dishes.
The heavy lifting for this sit-down dinner was left to Carrie Norton, a solar energy saleswoman who hopes to open her own restaurant. Norton is an acquaintance of Pfeifle’s, and she asked him in early Fall if he would like to host a secret supper. She would email 300 foodies and accept 21 people who agreed to pay $60 each to eat an organic meal and socialize in a private home. She and her team of two would cook most of the food in her tiny Silver Lake apartment, then bring everything needed to serve an elaborate four-course meal, from spatulas to chairs, to Pfeifle’s apartment near MacArthur Park.
Welcome to the growing phenomenon of underground restaurants, where those who cook do and those who love to eat pay to do so at someone else’s home. The host gets a free party; the chef a free venue; the guests a break from the restaurant routine.
The problem: Unless you’re on a list, you won’t hear about these parties – which is part of the allure. Most operate under the radar of health inspectors and tax collectors, so you won’t find much promotion outside of Craigslist or www.theghet.com, the site for Ghetto Gourmet, which in 2004 helped to kindle the underground restaurant movement.
Underground refers to more than just the venue. By skirting conventional restaurants, venue-less chefs don’t have to adhere to set hours, worry about perishable food that customers don’t order or take other financial risks. They are also cooking for food lovers, people who are open to trying anything put before them (not “I-don’t-eat-anything-atarians,” as Norton calls picky eaters) and who won’t frown at novelties like bubblegum caviar and savory strawberry soup.
Participating in the kitchen’s hits and misses is part of the fun, says Jenn Garbee, author of the new book, “Secret Suppers: Rogue Chefs & Underground Restaurants in Warehouses, Townhouses, Open Fields & Everywhere in Between ” (2008, Sasquatch Books, $19). The difference between a successful underground restaurant and a real restaurant, she says, is the difference between feeling like a guest and a customer.
No one keeps track of underground restaurants, but Garbee guesses there are probably less than 100 in the U.S. But she and other trend watchers believe the practice will spread as chefs, facing empty restaurants in the economy downturn, look for work, and as more of us turn to the Internet to find social connections.
Norton said she suspects her regulars are looking for a throwback to their parents’ time when formal dining rooms were alive with casual chatter. When a host greeted them, not an employee with a reservation list. When the cook took pride in offering one well-considered course after another, not a list of mix-and-match appetizers and entrees. And where people could mingle or linger for hours and not get sour looks from the staff. The other perk for these paying guests is they never feel the need to reciprocate at their homes, as they do with traditional dinner parties.
On the morning of the big day, Norton emailed the guests the mystery address, reminded them to bring a bottle of wine to share and warned them not to arrive before 7:30 p.m. Then with helpers Brandon Johnson and Julia Harkleroad, she washed kale, boiled potatoes, baked cookies and rolled truffles. The trio arrived at Pfeifle’s at 5 p.m.
At 7:45 p.m., the first guest had arrived. “Pass the aps,” said Norton, cuing Harkleroad to squire around a plate with squares of rye toasts topped with a Hungarian Liptauer cheese spread relish. Johnson, acting as the bartender, started shaking up gin and Midori cocktails. Norton took a sip and requested more simple syrup and more Club Soda. About the Viennese classical music and folk songs Pfeifle had pumping through his speakers: “Too loud,” counseled Norton.
One of the charms of underground restaurants is that hosts meet people they would not normally encounter. “I was unsure how I would feel about having strangers in my home,” said Pfeifle, a designer who converted what once was a Howard Johnson Hotel suite into his Baroque-inspired home. “But then I thought back to the last time I was invited to a dinner party and I realized how rare they are in L.A.”
This night, Pfeiflee was left to explain his pen-pal relationship with Archduke Otto von Habsburg. As guests broke into clusters, Pfeifle concluded that meeting them was easier than he thought. “Once I talked to someone, he or she felt vaguely familiar,” he said.
At 8:30, everyone was seated with glasses full of wine and family portions of creamed kale circulating around the tables. “I want them to experience the intimacy of passing the food to each other,” said Norton. Next came tri-color petite potatoes with pumpkin seed oil and apple cider vinaigrette. “I hope they’re getting nice and sauced in there,” joked Norton in the kitchen, one hand clasped around tongs that were pulling breaded chicken and pork cutlets out of her roasting pan. “I’d like parsley sprinkled on these like snow. And at some point, I’d love a glass of wine.”
At 9:05, the entrée was served and hours after chocolate truffles laced with triple sec and the “donation” basket had been passed around, the tables were still full, the chatter getting louder, Pfeifle smiling broadly.
“We spent almost four hours getting to know each other,” said Pfeifle. “It’s very old fashioned; what our grandparents and parents did. It’s the art of keeping in touch.”
Like handwritten letters?
“There are things you can’t say in an email or at a restaurant,” he said. “But handwritten letters or sitting down with someone in a home puts us in touch with people. And we all want that.”
TWO SIDEBARS (LA supper club listings; recipe)
Supper club sidebar
They come, they go, but these three underground restaurants are operating smoothly in Los Angeles:
A message delivered through food: Carrie Norton of The Silverlake Supperclub (www.silverlakesupperclub.com) said she has yet to make a profit from her monthly secret suppers. It’s expensive to shop farmers markets and buy only the best organic ingredients. But it’s deliberate, she says. Like many other underground restaurant operators, she has a Slow Food Movement message to spread: “Too often we eat food in our car, on the go or at our computer, and we don’t know where that food came from. I want to share food produced locally and let it be enjoyed over several hours. I live alone and this is a way to help create a community.” Her events are around $60.
Unabashed decadence: “While others chefs are drawn to the organic, I’m lured in by the unctuous,” said Amy Justice, who runs Amy’s Culinary Adventures (www.amysculinaryadventures.com) from her Studio City house. She’s a firm believer in the richer the better when it comes to indulging her guests at her occasional underground dining club.
Recently, she hosted a European-inspired feast, with two wines accompanying each of the seven courses: caramelized pear and goat cheese crostini; seared scallops in leek confit; French onion soup; lobster ravioli topped with caviar in a cognac saffron cream sauce; seared foie gras with blackberry gelee jewels; and braised short ribs with shaved Brussels sprouts followed by a frozen coffee walnut meringue cake. Cost $90-$100.
Nature first: Rachael Narins and Pace Webb, self-declared “natural hostess types,” offer cooking classes, consult on sustainability and run a supper club all under the banner of their company, Chicks with Knives (www.chickswithknives.com). The name captures the fun spirit the two bring to food. Narins is a Master Gardener (she grows a lot of the produce they serve) and the Culinary Director/Executive Chef at LA Food Works, a private culinary studio in West Hollywood, which is where she met Webb, an eco-chic nutrition and lifestyle specialist. Webb completed the New School of Cooking culinary program and works part time there.
Their events are “loose and eclectic and all about our passion for ‘S.O.L.E.’ food, that is, sustainable, organic, local and ethical,” explained Narins. They toss in a bit of standup comedy, spoken-word poetry or short films. The cost is $48.
RECIPE by Rachael Narins
Leeks with Lemon and Rosemary
“All of the ingredients can be sourced locally,” says Rachel Narins of Chicks With Knives, who like other roving chefs, promotes the idea of organic and locally grown ingredients. “And it is a bright and fresh dish that goes well with chicken, pork or fish.”
8 leeks, washed and trimmed of the root end and green tops
3 eggs
3 tablespoons Meyer lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon minced rosemary or other winter herb
1 teaspoon honey
Place the leeks in straight-sided sauté pan with just enough salted
water to barely cover. Bring to a boil and cook until softened, about
5 minutes. Drain all but ½ cup of the water. Reduce heat to a gentle
simmer.
Meanwhile, separate the eggs and reserve the whites for another use.
Whisk the yolks together with the lemon juice, rosemary and honey.
Ladle about an ounce of the hot water from the sauté pan in to the eggs and beat well. Pour the egg mixture back into the simmering leeks, beating vigorously until the sauce thickens. Do not let the liquid boil.
Season to taste with salt and pepper. Can be served warm or cold.