Chef's Thoughts: L'Etoile's Move & Graze Gastropub

Hello Friends,

By now, some of you may have heard the news about our big move coming this summer. I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you all for your support and also to answer some of the many questions I have been getting these past few weeks. Dianne, Traci and I understand that this is a major undertaking and that it is going to be a crazy spring/early summer to get it to all to come together. There will be much to report over the coming months, but I will try and shed a little light on things as they stand right now.

We are moving L’Etoile to the US Bank building, the big glass building just a few doors down on the Capitol Square. We will be on the capitol side with, dare I say, an even better view of the capitol building than we currently have. The lease on our current location is coming up and the opportunity to move into the US Bank Plaza became available, so we decided to go for it.  I don’t know what will happen in the L’Etoile space.  The building is owned by Sonya Newenhouse.  She is currently looking to fill the lease.  We are shooting to be in the new space by mid-July.  We will not be moving into the Sunprint space. I don’t have a relationship with Sunprint (yet), so I can’t answer when people ask me about their plans for the future. 

We understand that recapturing the intimate feel of the L’Etoile dining room in a space that has 30 foot tall ceilings and a front wall made of all glass windows is going to be a difficult task. But, we are working with a great designer that really understands our wants and vision for the new space.  He also understands our commitment to being green and sustainable so that is in his mind when selecting materials and lighting. Our seating capacity will be about the same but we will have a larger bar. We will also have a private dining room that will seat up to 90 or so guests. The history and memories from the current building will be with us all forever. My wife and I met here, had our wedding dinner here, and just celebrated a baby shower for our soon-to-be-born son. We completely understand the romanticism tied to this place for so many of us. But, at the same time, we are very excited to start a new chapter in this adventure.  We still do not know what will happen to Café Soleil. But have no fear though, our croissants and pastries will live on...

In the same building and connected to the new L’Etoile, we will also be opening a second restaurant called Graze. It will be a gastropub which, for those who don’t know, is a place that has a bar and is focused on making food that goes beyond the expected “pub grub”.  All of the food that the farmers bring in the back door will be kept in the same cooler for both restaurants.  I am excited to be able to change directions and use our local farmers’ food in a different setting. Graze will have outdoor seating (we are right across from Concerts on the Square) and will feature twelve WI craft beers on tap and a wine list that will be an extension of our L’Etoile wine team.  Graze will have brunch on Saturday and Sunday.  I love big breakfasts: eggs, hash browns, bacon, sausage, pancakes, waffles, pastries… you get the idea.  Graze will also have a late night menu. I am pumped to be able to serve food like oysters on the half-shell and charcuterie after midnight. We will do a sustainable fish fry on Fridays. Sustainable seafood is as important to me as buying from local farmers. I will be happy to serve a traditional Wisconsin fish fry with all of the usual fixins, but with the star of the show being a certified sustainable fish that changes with what the fishing boats are catching.

The idea for Graze came to me as I was eating at the Spotted Pig, an awesome gastropub in New York City. As I sat in the restaurant, I literally turned to my friend and said that I would open another more casual place where the food was still rendered at a high level using our same great ingredients.  I had a flush of menu items come into my mind, as well as the name: Graze.  Grass-fed animals and rotational grazing/growing is a practice that is important to us. I am inspired to make a menu for Graze that inspires our guests to do just that: graze. I want them to try many different tastes and new things as well as enjoy those classics like a delicious burger. What comes to mind most to me when I think about the menu is modern American comfort food; things that chefs and foodies love to eat.

Traci and Dianne are really working hard to get the “guts” of the deal done: lots of meetings, phone calls and emails. All of our L’Etoile family is excited and can’t wait to see what the summer will bring. I can promise that it will be well worth the wait! 

Best,

~Chef Tory

Michael Pollan Benefit Dinner for Sherman Garden

Late last Spring, we were approached by the UW to partner with them in hosting a dinner for Michael Pollan. They asked us if we had the opportunity to make it a charity dinner, where we would want the funds to go. Chef Tory and I have been involved at Sherman Middle School cooking with kids and teaching them about healthy options for four years now. The program, called CHOW, is in partnership with REAP food group. A couple of summers ago, we took it a step further by helping the school put in a large garden. While the garden has been an amazing success, we are still looking for ways to make it financially sustainable. The garden itself is not costly, but it requires a dedicated Garden Coordinator who tends to it regularly and who will work with the teachers to incorporate it in their lesson plans. So, this is where we proposed the Pollan dinner funds would go. Our friends at the UW were eager to help. 

We feel very grateful for this opportunity to support a program that we care so deeply about. Sherman Middle School has become a model that other schools can find inspiration in. Kids at Sherman know what kholrabi and romanesco are and are willing to cook and eat them! Most of us know there is a serious problem in the diets of our youth. Chef Tory and I feel strongly that this is an area that requires more than carrot snacks. It requires educating kids on food. Instead of just giving kids what they will eat, we challenge them to think about where their food comes from and how that affects their body and their community. I have to say, I'm impressed by how quickly they get it. While there's always a few who refuse to be adventurous, the large majority of the students take pride in the dishes they make and get excited about cooking them at home. The Sherman garden has now also become a source of pride. They even have their own school salsa business: Falcon Fields Fiery Salsa!

This Saturday, we are so excited to showcase the CHOW program and garden to prominent members in our community as well as Michael Pollan. Since we can't fit all 120 guests on one floor, we are having a reception at the Children's Museum where Chef Tory, Michael Pollan and UW partners will speak on food and community. Our Garden Coordinator and a couple students will also be there with their garden produce and school salsa. Chef Tory will offer guests some of his favorite Wisconsin cheeses. After the reception, guests will walk over to the restaurant for a 5-course dinner. Here, our farmers will be the star guests! Among the farmers will be Jon & Dorothy Priske of Fountain Prairie Farm, Bob Willard & Jane Hamilton of Ela Orchard, Matt & Susan Smith of Blue Valley Gardens, Tony & Sue Renger of Willow Creek Farm and Dick Cates of Cates Family Farm. 

With such a big event comes a lot of pressure! But working with a team as competent as L'Etoile's, I know everything will go off splendidly! Nontheless... WISH US WELL!

Thanks,

~Lili Miller

Behind the Coffee

L’Etoile approaches food with respect for the people behind the product. This includes paying a fair price to the families who grow our ingredients. In terms of coffee,  supporting “fair trade" producers is always a good start, but I've learned that what’s fair is a complex issue. Our roasters, Just Coffee, take “fair trade” to another level by actually involving coffee growers in the pricing process and getting involved in the communities that its revenue helps support. 

I created our L’Etoile Blend in November 2007 to be the perfect morning and dessert coffee, but more importantly, I wanted our relationship with coffee growers in Central America and Africa to be much like our relationship with the farmers at our local markets. This includes being in communication with them about the seasonality and characteristics of the beans used in our blends. Since then, more people are drinking our coffee than ever. We introduced our first limited edition coffee, L’Etoile 2.0, in April and sold nearly 600 pounds – or 18,000 cups – in only three months! (L’Etoile 2.0 will return in Spring, 2010.)

Café Soleil’s Cold-Brewed Coffee is one of our most popular drinks during the hot summer months (second only to Magic Coffee) and it’s no surprise why: this ultra-smooth coffee has intense berry and dark chocolate flavors, plus just a hint of sweetness. Even our cold-brewing process is special: we start with a single coffee grown in the Harrar region of Ethiopia and steep it in 55-degree water for 48 hours. After straining out the ground coffee, we allow the coffee to rest for an additional 24 hours before serving it.

Fortunately, you can also cold-brew coffee at home too! Stir 1 pound of drip-ground coffee (L’Etoile Blend works great) into 10 cups of filtered water, then let it sit at room temperature for 12 hours. Strain and refrigerate until completely chilled. This produces a very concentrated coffee, so you’ll want to dilute it with water or milk according to your taste preferences. At Café Soleil, we like our coffee strong, so we use a 1:1 coffee-to-water ratio.

We’ll only be offering Cold-Brewed Coffee for a few more weeks. Enjoy the rest of your summer and enjoy this very special coffee while you can!

-Scott Spilger, Café Soleil Manager

Our Wine Philosophy

I thought I would follow Chef Tory and Nic’s insights into L’Etoile by offering some of my own about how we go about choosing our wines.  We look for three things: compatibility with Tory’s cooking, sheer deliciousness, and simpatico producers.  Choosing specific wines for a chef as eclectic as Tory can be a bit of a challenge and is compounded by the seasonal nature of L’Etoile’s menu.  When Chef Odessa directed the cuisine, we focused on lighter wines from higher latitudes and our list leaned heavily on whites.  Chef Tory’s cooking is more sonorous and contrapuntal, as a result we’ve veered more toward reds with a lot of natural texture and mid-palate presence.  Some examples include Tuscan Sangioveses, Spanish Tempranillo, and southern California Pinot Noirs.   While we place a lot of weight on first impressions—that moment when the guest swallows the wine in front of a patient waiter—we also think about how a wine would taste near the end of a meal.

For me, sheer deliciousness is different than a sensational reaction.  Deliciousness means flavors that are pure, beautiful and harmonious.  For example, the deliciousness I find in gummi worms is quite different than those I find in fine chocolate.  Deliciousness cum beauty in wine is quite literally rooted in the earth because nature imbues grapes with distinctiveness.  I like to say that the wines we serve in some way taste like something that was grown in dirt.  Of course that doesn’t just happen, soil conditions must be compatible with grape varietals and vines need a judicious human touch. 

As such, we look for winemakers in the same way that Chef Tory looks for farmers.  To create beauty and distinctiveness in wine, it helps if winemakers have a strong sense of place, of artisinality, and of aesthetics.  It also helps if they really, really love to eat. 

~Michael Kwas, Wine Director

Maitre d’, I Suppose That’s French Too

Following up a blog by chef Tory is not unlike my day-to-day challenge as L’Etoile’s maitre d’hôtel (an old French term for floor manager) of trying to match our level of service with the artistry and consistency behind his and his team’s cooking each night.

That challenge becomes even more Herculean when you consider the amount of schooling, training and experience chef Tory and his crew have.  Though as Chef suggested in his blog, I suspect that schooling wouldn’t entirely prepare a maitre d’ for their responsibilities either.  

There’s a perceived pretension in the title of maitre d’.  We’ve no doubt experienced this carrying a French name like L’Etoile.  That’s why I’ve hoped to engender our service to be genuine, professional yet personal, knowledgeable and even a bit playful.  We want to be intriguing not pretentious.  That’s also why, probably to the occasional chagrin of chef Tory, I’ve given many of our specialty drinks (created by our bar manager, Krys) sigh-inducing but thought-provoking names like ‘Fran Tarkenton’ and ‘Jujube’. 

I feel that the best restaurants are foremost about preparation and anticipation, but ultimately reveal themselves through reaction and feeling.  It’s a nightly dance of improvisation at L’Etoile, where we get the opportunity to invite friends for dinner, only in this case our friends are often those we’ve never met beforehand.

I see the maitre d’s role therefore as a matchmaker and facilitator, and at L’Etoile, it’s about enabling our servers to help you celebrate your company and chef Tory’s cuisine. 

~Nic Waerzeggers, Maitre d'

L'Etoile, that's French right?

Yes, L'Etoile is French for "The Star" and I did go to the French Culinary Institute, but that doesn't make us a French restaurant. Technically speaking, L'Etoile is a "New American" restaurant, but that label became overused in the late 90's and many chefs stopped using the term. I thought it would be cool to use my first blog post to explain what kind of food we serve at L'Etoile.

Our menu is ever evolving as I continue my learning journey as a cook. When I was in school, I was taught by the best chefs... Soltner, Saillac, Pepin - old school guys, greater than great chefs, icons in their field. They taught me things like technique, how to behave in a kitchen, how to keep a clean station and be well organized. But what they couldn't teach me is how to be creative or how to express what I am feeling on my menus and on the plate. I went on to learn from Bill Telepan at JUdson Grill in NY. Bill is a great chef who taught me about seasons and how to be fast and precise in the kitchen, skills that carried me through the rest of my culinary tour of duty in NY. 

When I came to Madison to work for Odessa, she taught me to slow down, to simplify and be inspired not just by the ingredients but also by the farmers who raise all of our amazing food. As most of you know, our focus has always been celebrating the bounty of Wisconsin's terroir: our small organic diary operations and artisan cheese producers, farmers growing heirloom varieties of vegetables and raising heritage breeds, and the large array of asian ingredients grown by our Hmong farmers. So now I am the chef and to be a good one, I feel like I can't just put a label on our restaurant and then stay within its boundaries. The greatest chefs, in my opinion, are not afraid to take risks. They challenge the guests' palates to experience what is in their heart and mind when they create a dish. 

Our menu focuses on the season first. Not just by the calender month, but by when the food is actually growing here (so you won't see peas and asparagus just because it's the first of April!). I have never put a label on our menu or food, because I haven't found one that spans Asian, French, Italian, American, Spanish, Mexican, and Mediterranean. The truth is, I love eating and I love cooking and I am constantly inspired by many different styles. So whether you say charcuterie or salumi, as long as it tastes delicious I don't care what cuisine you call it!

~Tory Miller, Executive Chef

Welcome to the L'Etoile Blog

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the L'Etoile blog! We are all very excited about this new means of sharing our thoughts with you, our fans, and hearing your feed-back! The plan is to rotate through a number of our most knowledgeable staff members with tips on food, wine, shopping at the farmers' market and more!

I'd like to kick-off our blog by answering a common question we've been hearing from you...

"How is L'Etoile and Cafe Soleil fairing in this economy?"

Like most businesses, we have seen a downturn. Our winter was particularly harsh and our busy summer season came late. Nonetheless, we are managing to keep our heads above water. We personally want to thank all of you who have showed us your generous support. Our new Tuesday Night family-style dinners would not be the incredible success they are without your enthusiasm! 

One of our main goals as a business is to make our food more accessible to a larger crowd. This is why we've added our three course $39 Prix Fixe menus available Tuesday through Thursday. Chef Tory uses the same wonderful farm-fresh ingredients but often adds a playful twist. Prix Fixe menus are posted on our website on Tuesday afternoons or you can sign-up for weekly email alerts. 

So whether you just stop in the cafe for a coffee and croissant, attend our fun Tuesday dinners, savor a selection of artisanal cheeses at the bar, or celebrate your special occasion with us - again, we thank you for your on-going support!

Warm Regards,

~ The L'Etoile Family