Bogus Gold

More evidence (as if any was needed) that Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl is the best restaurant reporter AS WELL AS the best food critic in the Twin City Metro...

[Head Chef] Steven Brown parted company with Porter & Frye on Thursday. Erik Anderson, Brown’s longtime chef-de-cuisine, was then offered the job, but he turned it down because it’s not a cooking job, and what Anderson wants to do is cook.

Seriously. The head chef job at Porter & Frye is not a cooking job.

What kind of job is it? According to everyone I’ve talked to, it’s a bureaucratic and managerial job that forces the job-holder to be preoccupied with going to meetings and running financial reports. “They were undercapitalized when they opened, and they didn’t know what they wanted to be, and no one was watching the numbers,” one person close to the operation (who didn’t want to be named for fear of retribution) told me. “When the dust settled and they finally realized how much money they were losing, they started chopping people left and right. Every couple weeks someone got fired and there was a new manager.” The kitchen opened with five salaried employees. As of this writing, it has one: Anderson.

Bad news for foodies but serious reality for the business of running a restaurant. However, as a downtown dining consumer, I want someone to cover this who both knows what they're talking about AND catches the implications of the line they're being fed. Such as...

Personally, I find this situation maddening, not least because it really makes Minneapolis look bush league. P&F has been holding its own in a catastrophically bad climate—they did 200 for dinner the Saturday before last. The rap on it has consistently been: Great food, but horrible location and dismal service. Paton even agreed with my assessment. “I wouldn’t disagree,” he said. I fail to see how firing the chef is going to fix that.

Dara was "blogging" before we had a name for it. And she still does it better than anyone else on the Twin City food scene.

Chef Steven Brown is worth following wherever he lands, and hopefully that landing will be local. Porter & Frye? It may not be worth so much with Brown out of the picture.

Oh, and as for the character of Chef Brown? Dara captures a telling quotation from him on his loss of employment:

“Unfortunately, it just didn’t work out. Hopefully, the people that remain can continue to build on what we started. How do I feel? Aside from the feeling that the world is crushing my chest, fine. I cooked a dinner for Anthony Bourdain once, and something he said always stuck with me. He said, ‘I’m a mediocre cook who happened to do something that caught fire,’” Brown said. “At the end of the day, I feel blessed. I don’t have any regrets about my situation right now. I read about how 20,000 people are being laid off at Caterpillar, 5,000 at Microsoft. I’m mortally afraid I won’t be able to find another job, and I’m sure they all are too. All the accolades in the world don’t put bottoms in chairs, and as much as you want to think about artistry and creativity, it’s about money. So what I want to do now is acknowledge the great work we did, and feel grateful for my support system and my family, and hopefully find employment as fast as I can. I’m open to any and all opportunities. You can write that for me.”

Someone please hire this great talent before a larger restaurant market snaps him up. He's everything Minnesota's dining scene ought to be boasting about.