Birnbaum, Kimpton Group head north with Sazerac

Nation's Restaurant News, Sept 29, 1997 by Alan Liddle

SEATTLE -- Continuing a northern migration he began in 1994 with the opening of Catahoula Restaurant & Saloon in California's Napa Valley, Louisiana-born chef Jan Birnbaum has rumbled into this Puget Sound city with Sazerac.

Named after a cocktail of Rye whiskey, Peychaud bitters and syrup popularized in New Orleans 200 years ago, 185-seat Sazerac reflects Birnbaum's Southern personality and cuisine. A collaborative effort with San Francisco's Kimpton Group hotel-and-restaurant management organization, the weeks-old restaurant is doing better than its creators expected.

"Our first month was better than 25 percent above budget," Birnbaum said of recent sales volumes that suggest Sazerac will "easily beat" initial projections of $4.5 million in first-year sales.

Veteran critic John Hinterberger noted in a Seattle Times review that Sazerac "enjoyed the most impressive opening month of any restaurant in recent Seattle history." At times, he wrote, "you have to beat back competing restaurateurs just to get a table."

Birnbaum is pleased by the response because, as he admitted, "I was a little nervous about being the boy coming to town from another city ... and I worried some about whether all the things I wanted to do would be accepted." As it turned out, he said, Seattle diners have proved receptive to everything from pan-fried frog legs with spinach, crisp potatoes and garlic-lime-jalapeno sauce to soft-shell crab "BLTs" assembled with housemade brioche, smoked bacon and remoulade.

Other items included on the Sazerac menu: pan-roasted sweetbread salad with brandied cherries and cardamom crackers, $9; honey-glazed, cedar-plank-smoked salmon with collard greens, $17; smoky Zinfandel pork chop with soft grits and wild mushroom-onion medley, $17; and spit-roasted whole fish with lemon-chili broth, escarole and orzo, $23.

Because the restaurant shares space with Kimpton's new Hotel Monaco, it serves breakfast along with lunch and dinner.

Birnbaum, who has an apartment in Seattle, spent most of the past two months at Sazerac to ensure a good launch. His wife, Linda Giglio, Catahoula's business manager, has been putting in extra time there in his absence, he indicated. After the shakedown period at Sazerac, the chef-restaurateur said he would begin a regular rotation between the two establishments.

Brian Weiner, formerly sous chef at Moose's in San Francisco, recently was named Birnbaum's on-site executive chef. Also part of the kitchen team are Catahoula alumni Michael Sader and Chris Lueke. Sazerac general manager Scott Graham previously worked at Spruce in Chicago.

"We're serious about food, but we're also serious about having fun," Birnbaum said of the operating philosophy at Sazerac and Catahoula.

Contributing to the "serious-fun" ambience at Sazerac are the sights and smells from exhibition cooking on woodfired implements -- including ovens, grills, a rotisserie and a smoker; the sounds of the crowd and Birnbaum's signature rhythm-and-blues background music; and a decor described by the chef as "whimsical" but "pretty."

Former Kimpton vice president of operations Robert Puccini, who is now a San Francisco-based consultant, worked on the Sazerac concept and design, as did Design Development of Tarzana, Calif. Birnbaum, whose other restaurant sports a rustic look thanks to the use of recycled materials and simple finishes, said he "roughed up" Sazerac a bit by asking for a colored-concrete floor, among other touches.

"I don't feel I'm in someone else's clothes," he said of the modified design and the way it better suits his style.

Among the design elements at Sazerac are meandering copper ribbons above the entry way and facade; redmesh, flame-shaped bar-top lights; an abstract metal sculpture; a large mural depicting Harlequin-like figures within a culinary-cocktail setting; and pyramid-shaped, steel-frame chandeliers with bobbles and bangles, squiggly lines and primitive designs. One of a Kind Design of Berkeley, Calif., did the mural, and Peter Manguan of San Francisco created the chandeliers.

Kimpton Group vice president of operations Niki Leonadakis said "the happening" bar scene and the way the "bar menu has taken on a life of its own" are among the surprises, to date, at Sazerac. Beverage sales represent nearly 40 percent of the gross, a source at the restaurant reported.

At dinner the average check is $35, "but we expect that to settle down to about $32," Leonadakis said. The lunch ticket is $16. In recent weeks, she said, the number of daily lunch covers ranged from 100 to 225, while dinner covers fluctuated between 150 and 225.

Birnbaum, 40, is a native of Baton Rouge, La., where he once worked for Paul Prudhomme at K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen. Before opening Catahoula, he was executive chef of Campton Place Restaurant in San Francisco, where he put a Southern spin on the American menu that had been a signature of the acclaimed hotel eatery from the start.

In earlier years Birnbaum had been head chef at Barry Wine's quilted Giraffe Restaurant in New York and a sous chef at Jimmy Schmidt and Michael McCarty's Rattlesnake Club in Denver.