Steven Eckler Joins Red Cat, Plans New Restaurant with Jimmy BradleyA new restaurant marriage has been consummated! Lever House GM Steven Eckler has joined the Red Cat’s owner Jimmy Bradley. The two are now operating partners in the Red Cat and are developing further plans. Bradley tells us that he hopes to have the Red Cat open for lunch within the next couple of months and is also looking to add a private dining room to the restaurant. “We’re still working on the lease, but there is space here for us to do it,” he says. And that’s not all! Eckler and Bradley are planning a new eatery, in theory an 80-to-100-seat restaurant “somewhere between the Thirties and Canal Street on the West Side.” So why move on this now? “Steven wants to open his own restaurant, and that’s something I want to do with him,” Bradley says. “We’ve known each other a long time, and now it’s time for us to do something.”
Back of the House
The Great Chef CrisisRecently, apropos nothing much, a prominent young chef we were chatting with launched into a tirade about the restaurant world’s “labor problem.” “None of us can get enough good cooks!” he exclaimed, by way of explanation. Between 2000 and 2006, only a handful of high-end restaurants — Lespinasse, Meigas, Quilty’s — have closed, and there has been an avalanche of major openings: Robuchon, Ramsay, Per Se, Masa, Craft, Del Posto, Morimoto, A Voce, the Modern, Lever House, Buddakan, Cafe Gray, Alto — the list goes on and on. “And it’s not just the massive boom of restaurants,” Adam Platt tells us. “They also have to be either bigger, or chefs have to open multiple places, so that they can enjoy the economies of scale they need to compete.”
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Chefs Curse, Bless New Michelin Guide
At last night’s Bid Against Hunger, a benefit for restaurant charity group City Harvest, the champagne was flowing and the food was off the hook. But much of the event’s energy seemed to emanate from the chefs, who were abuzz over the announcement yesterday of the Michelin Guide’s new ratings. “Who knows what their inspectors are like?” asked one chef, who, fearing their wrath, refused to be quoted. “I don’t think they really get American restaurants.” The cooks who got some love from the red book were happy to talk. Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin, one of the city’s three three-star restaurants (Jean Georges and Per Se are the others), was visibly psyched. “It was great news! We were a little bit worried, you know? But we’re definitely going to celebrate later, at the restaurant. Definitely.” (Later, a dinner from Ripert was auctioned off for $24,000.) We asked Lever House chef Dan Silverman, an especially clear-eyed observer of the restaurant scene, what he thought about the ratings. Were they fair? “I’m good with them, obviously,” he said. “We kept our star.”
