NYC's Meyer debuts new 11 Madison Park

Nation's Restaurant News, Nov 23, 1998 by Milford Prewitt

NEW YORK -- Although the question was an afterthought, Danny Meyer sounded like a man thanking the gods of gastronomy for his good fortune.

"What do you get when you cross Lettuce Entertain You, Wolfgang Puck and Danny Meyer?" asked the proprietor of Manhattan's critically acclaimed Union Square Cafe and Gramercy Tavern.

The answer Meyer was suggesting was his new 11 Madison Park, the latest restaurant offspring from the celebrated New York restaurateur.

"Think of a grand New York cafe in 1900," he explained. "The cooking would have been French, the food sourced locally and the wines would have been French or German.

"We're moving [that grand cafe] to the future, for a New York audience, but holding on to those classic distinctions with a contemporary style."

While neither Chicago-based Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises' founder, Richard Melman, nor Los Angeles-based chef-restaurateur Wolfgang Puck have joined Meyer to open 11 Madison Park, their influences might be seen at his lavish, new, 168-seat restaurant. Melman and Puck lost a total of three seasoned lieutenants when they jumped ship from restaurants in San Francisco, Chicago and Las Vegas to team up with Meyer in New York. Those veterans said they came to make 11 Madison Park as much a crowd pleaser as the other restaurants Meyer operates in his recently incorporated Union Square Hopitality Group.

The Puck-Melman alumni joining Meyer are as follows:

* David Swinghammer, a 10-year veteran of Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises, who joined Meyer as an equity partner and chief financial officer.

* Steven Eckler, the general manager of 11 Madison Park, who is a six-year veteran of Puck's Postrio in San Francisco and Spago and Chinois concepts in Las Vegas.

* Richard Coraine, another Puck executive, who joined Union Square Hospitality as director of operations.

Although 11 Madison Park executive chef Kerry Heffernan does not have a Puck or Melman pedigree, his resume lists the Polo Club in Westbury, Long Island, and tenure with acclaimed New York chef Alfred Portale at the short-lived but memorable One-Fifth in Greenwich Village. Almost to a man, Swinghammer, Eckler, Coraine and Heffernan said they joined Meyer for the chance to work in a young company with expansive business horizons.

"I met Danny a few years ago," Swinghammer said. "I thought then and I think now that he's brilliant. But what interested me besides working with him was the chance to grow something and be part of team that shares your vision."

Eckler, the general manager, said working with Meyer has given him a different perspective on guest satisfaction. "For Wolfgang," he said, "I think the issue was always trying to create this fantastic experience" for a clientele brimming with celebrities and power-diners. "But I think Danny is far more democratic. Sure, restaurants have to recognize the VIPs; it goes with the territory at some places.

"But this restaurant is for everybody. When you walk through that door, we don't care who you are because the only thing we see is that you are our guest. There are no special tables or VIP seating. I guess a lot of what we're about is learning not to say no."

To enforce that egalitarian image, 11 Madison Park hired much of its serving staff from the ranks of relative newcomers to the industry, instead of veterans from high-profile dining establishments.

"The main things we were looking for in hiring the staff was graciousness, intelligence and a desire to be accommodating," Eckler said. "We can teach the rest, but we wanted a natural graciousness, people who are patient."

Already the owner of two of the most popular restaurants in New York -- Union Square Cafe and Gramercy Tavern, the No. 1- and No. 3-rated places, respectively, in the 1999 Zagat Survey of New York -- Meyer is adding to his portfolio by recreating the look and ambience of a 100-year-old restaurant ready for business in the 21st century.

Indeed, 11 Madison Park celebrates a 1900s style of service and cuisine, with a contemporary approach to the cooking technique, in a spacious dining room designed to exude sophistication. Meyer and chef Heffernan have brought back a kind of Continental cuisine with a turn-of-the-century spirit that will be seasonally influenced. There won't be any Californian wines available because New Yorkers were not drinking Californian wines a century ago.

The menu includes sweetbreads, foie gras, several daily fish selections, one steak dish and poultry.

Among the offerings are a Maine lobster pot au feu with aromatic white lobster broth, caviar and sea urchin toast, $29; choucroute of salmon, trout and char with champagne-mustard jus, savoy cabbage and foie gras, $25; an appetizer terrine of beef shanks, foie gras and pig's feet, $12; and roasted chicken with potato-speck tart, salsify and sage, $23.

Despite the affluent leanings of 11 Madison Park, Meyer said he does not expect its check average to exceed that of Gramercy Tavern. Although he did not specify the average tab of either place, Gramercy's entree prices range from $18 to $32, and the Zagat Survey says its per-person tab runs about $58, including tip.