Pyles smoking at Baby Routh

Nation's Restaurant News, Sept 7, 1987 by Carolyn Walkup

PYLES SMOKING AT BABY ROUTH

Smells of burning hickory and pecan blend with other kitchen fragrances to create a pleasant experience for the fans of the casual Southwestern restaurant

The smell of a woodburning fire permeates the kitchen at Baby Routh, the casual, Southwestern offshoot of the award-winning white tablecloth Routh Street Cafe.

Hickory, which chef-co-owner Stephan Pyles prefers to mesquite or anything else for smoking, burns in the smoker, and pecan smolders under the double grill next to the saute station. Since grilling and smoking are the two dominant cooking methods used in Southwestern cooking, Pyles and partner John Dayton designed the kitchen around them.

The custom-designed smoker and barbecue pit is visible from the 40-seat courtyard and offers diners an especially interesting view during dinner, when it's used as a rotisserie. Between mealtimes foods can be smoked or barbecued as long as needed, while a thermostat regulates the amount of smoke used.

The words "smoked' and "grilled' appear often on Baby Routh's menus. Among the appetizers are guajilla chile pancake with grilled rabbit and smoked-corn cream and an assortment from the barbecue pit with fresh pickles. A dinner soup is smoked chicken broth with cilantro and wild-mushroom ravioli.

For lunch one might order a mixed pasta salad with smoked seafood and fresh ricotta, smoked turkey and yam hash with cranberry-walnut compote, or a duck burrito with grilled avocado and perhaps a side of smoked tomatillo salsa.

Two of the sections on the dinner menus separate barbecued from rotisseried meats. On one night the menu offered brisket of beef, chicken, and pork spare ribs from the barbecue pit and the following choices from the rotisserie: quail with chipotles, wild rice-pecan salad, and mango-serrano dressing; warm pork loin with young greens and smoked tomato-mint marigold dressing; and rabbit with spicy game sausage and Gumbo Z'herbs.

Currently one of the hottest new restaurants in Dallas, Baby Routh attracts as many as 450 to its 160 indoor and 40 outdoor seats (weather permitting) on Saturday nights. Pyles designed the kitchen to function smoothly during high-volume periods.

"We are geared to do more volume than Routh Street,' Pyles said. "We have more stations on the line and a big prep area in the back.' The three dining rooms are served from three separate service areas.

The kitchen is part of a new addition that connects two old houses, built in 1893 and 1905, on Routh Street, an area experiencing some historic preservation. Pyles and Dayton also own a house across the street, used for their office and bakery, which serves both restaurants with a variety of breads and pastries, such as almond praline tarts and black-bottom pecan pie.

The bakery is housed behind the office because neither restaurant had room for it. Routh Street has its own pastry kitchen, but its breads are not baked there.

Baby Routh's 2,100-square-foot kitchen is much larger than the one at Routh Street, built in the space left over after the dining rooms and mandatory parking lot were finished. "After that, I decided I would not do another project where the kitchen does not come first or is at least as important as the dining room,' Pyles said.

The new kitchen is more comfortable to work in, both because of the larger space and the greater amount of air conditioning. "There was not enough air conditioning at Routh Street, so we had to supplement it,' the chef noted.

A few smaller equipment items further support Baby Routh's specialized menu. A steamer is used for tamales, which Pyles likes to fill with wild game or shellfish. Outside, a small barbecue kettle is used to grill small quantities of foods, such as peppers.

The rest of the kitchen is relatively standard, with a saute station, a deep fryer, and a refrigerated breading station for catfish, fries, and other Southern and Southwestern staples. The house catsup and barbecue sauce are made in the stock kettle.

A customized item appears in one of the two walk-in coolers in the form of an ice bin for fish. When the ice melts, the water is drained directly from the bottom of the bin into a drain, eliminating the task of draining it manually.

Venting the smoke from the huge smoker presented special problems. Originally, the cut-off in the chimney was too close to the source of the heat, and smoke filled the kitchen and the courtyard, Pyles said. Extending the flue proved to be a simple, workable solution.

Although the $200,000 kitchen adequately meets the restaurant's needs, Pyles would like to change a few "small things' if he could. For example, the serving counter is slightly too high for shorter servers to reach comfortably while they finish the plates.

Even when Pyles isn't present, he can watch what's happening in the kitchen from a satellite broadcast on his office television screen. In the kitchen he and other supervisors can observe from the windows of a balcony office.

Storage extends to the outside, where one of the restaurant's most important supplies is kept, hidden by a fence. Wood bins line an entire wall, holding row after row of hickory and pecan.