Tom Power

If you have read the comments at the link above this post - please go there again to read my response. Thanks

Corduroy is doing Restaurant Week. On line reservations will not be available for about 10 more days due to a dispute/mess up between OpenTable and the DSL provider Verizon. You will have to call the restaurant to book a table.

Driving home tonight, after Don Rocks had called the restaurant to investigate for this thread, I was expecting to have to do a lot of explaining on eGullet. Most of the previous posts have stolen my thunder. Pat made plans for dinner at Corduroy on new years eve in early December, which was about a week before I did. Earlier this week I became aware of this post on Chowhound: Butterfield 9 or Corduroy for NYE, in which the poster stated that they had a reservation in both restaurants and wanted input about where to actualy dine. A few posts down that Chowhound told everyone that she was going to Ceiba for New Year's Eve. I then scrutinzed all of our NYE reservations for missing credit card numbers and called the people that had not given them. As I read that thread on Chowhound it brought back bad memories of too many no shows. I've seen the no show rate get as high as 22% which is out of control for a resataurant that doesn't want to over book tables and act like an airline. I wish we could require a credit card number for all reservations. Corduroy charges $20 to your credit card if you don't show up. We ask that you call to cancel 2 days in advance but are very understanding if you have a good excuse later than that. Pat, I apologize for not having my reservation system for NYE in order when you called in early December. I can understand your reluctance in giving your credit card number to someone claiming to be be calling from Corduroy. I'll consider your reservation confirmed unless I hear from you. Tom Power

Thank you all for eating at Corduroy Tuesday evening. You were a fun group to cook for. The 2 dishes I was most nervous about serving, scallop tartare and the pork belly, seem to have been the biggest hits of the dinner. A lot of people must have read your posts today because tonight was a pork belly record setting night. It was a pleasure to cook for a group that enjoys food so much.

Wow!! You are already making my responses look bad. Keep up the good work.

Sorry for the delay - it's all my fault. I just sent the menu to mdt a few minutes ago. I am sure mdt will post the menu very soon. There will be fun passed small bites and then 5 courses paired with wines. I am looking foward to the dinner.

Drinking too many glasses of wine with Don Rocks should be a therapy . I just wish I could remember what I told him, or how he coaxed it out of me. I hope he didn't take advantage of me. I am relieved that he hasn't revealed my dark secrets. Naming your restaurant is a daunting task that can catch you by surprise. I don't have any children but I think it's harder to name a restaurant than a son or daughter. If you are expecting to have a baby I am sure you need to attend child birthing classes, spend time with the OB-Gyn and buy a crib... but mostly your just waiting for the big day. If your not overly creative you can borrow a relative's name; if you are creative you can borrow a fruit's name. Offspring can assume a nickname they like- restaurants only get bad nicknames. Opening a restaurant means negecioating a lease, writting a menu, designing a kitchen and service areas, selecting furnishings, plates, silverware, glasses, pots and pans... , putting together a wine list, dealing with construction delays, and opening an account with everyone from the phone company to the fish guy. The most frustrating part is dealing with the DC government. As any DC resident knows, the required document is the one you don' t have with you. My most pressing concern was to find a bunch of good people who could work with and for me. I knew (and I know it now more than ever) that I needed good people. The restaurant was still under construction and I had no office so I met with and got stood up by applicants at my local Starbucks - In retrospect I don't think it was such a good idea to conduct interviews in the coffee house where three employees got shot on the job. I had come up with a cute name (NV) for a cute little bistro in Georgetown that I had a lot of interest in buying from a big name chef. After that deal fell through I was not concerned with names until my new landlord demanded one, about a month before I was due to open the restaurant. I wanted my restuarant to have a name that wasn't common or cheesey; A name that didn't pigeon hole my cooking and most importantly a name that was distinctive and easy to remember. I procrastinated for as long I could. The landlord was getting ever more insistent that I needed to come up with a name for the restaurant . The pressure was on. At my next meeting with the lanlord after spendning the previous night reading the back jackets of CD's I convinced them that Corduroy was a good name for a restaurant. In the last 4 years I have received a few copies of the children's book (No more please !) The fabric is retro-trendy right now, I thank customers who wear corduroy for thier subliminal advertizing help. I' ve had a great time here and hope to see a lot of you at the dinner in October. Thanks, Tom

I am the chef/owner of a restaurant based in a corporate hotel. I have worked in hotels as a cook, sous chef and chef. Most hotels have too many layers of management. A hotel chef has to spend a lot time in meetings that don't pertain to his or her kitchen and spends very little time cooking. I am very glad to be on my own.

I love pinot noir. If my landlord allowed me to plant a vineyard at 12th and K Streets NW DC I would look for a root stock resistant to my asphault terroir. A chef in town recently let me try a bottle of wine that he vinified in DC from California grapes- it was almost as good as the food he cooked for my table. Making wine souds like a fun idea but I don't think I the time to learn how to do it well enough right now.

I returned from a week in Burgundy and Paris the day before I started this chat. I haven't been able to travel that much internationally. In the last ten years I have been to France 3 times and Germany once for about a week each time. Right before opening Corduroy I spent almost a month in Japan. Each time I return from an over seas trip I fell recharged about cooking and eating. I would tend to agree with your "average Europeans" view that the average American does not know " a plate of good food from a prophylactic" . Dining and leisure are more appreciated in Europe. In Europe you sit and have an espresso at a cafe and sip it on the sidewalk-they don't have paper cups!! In the US you order a Venti tripple latte to go at Starbucks and get frustrated by the line of people in front of you. The culture is so different between the continents. In Paris I have had to decide where to most wisely spend my 200 euros( $250-270) for lunch((per person)). I couldn't find a restaurant in Washington that would charge half that or could deliver as much value. This is a young country. The United States is the birth place of the automobile, the air plane and the computer but not of great food. I think this country is in the midst of a food revolution. The growth of appreciation for good food and wine in the last 15 years has been dramatic. In 1989 who could have dreamed that there would be a Food Network? Or that Wolfgang Puck would be selling mediocre food in strip malls across the country? At the highest levels American cusine can hold hold it 's own with European haute cusine. Our best restaurants rival the three star Michelins. Our evreyday restaurants don't match the quality of the small euopean bistro. The "average American" restaurant is still the souless chain. In Europe the chain restaurant is still something of of a novelty. We are making progress but willl probably not catch up to the Euros for a long time - they had a good 1000 year head start on US.

I cook more on the line now than I have in years. I work a station on the line most lunches and dinners. I have worked in very busy places where I haven't been able to that. Its fun to be a line cook again. Favorite thing about being a chef- shaping the menu. Least favorite- not being able to eat out as often as I would like. A few months ago I started closing Corduroy on Sunday nights. I am already down to slim pickings of new places to try on Sundays.

Did you have to remind everyone!

I am working on the menu... Does anyone (vegetarians excluded) planing to attend the dinner have any ingredient that will make them not attend?

I think it's great your son want's to be a chef. Chef's are cast in a very glamorous light these days. If he has a real pasion for cooking he should get through all the monotonous and dirty jobs that he will encounter along the way. Cooking is a very physical job, for the most part you either peak early or you don't peak at all. As much as possible encourage him to work for the best chefs - regardless of pay or position. He will learn more making salads for a great chef than he will sauteeing fish for more money at a mediocre restaurant. He should not ask for a Friday or Saturday off unless his sister is getting married and he better not have too many sisters. While he is still at home have him do all your vegetable peeling - the faster he can do the small stuff the sooner he can move on to the fun stuff. I wish your son the best.

Wow this is a great response for the first day! It seems like the dinner is building momentum. I 'm excited to host it. Hopefully we can pick a date soon.

The hotel that Corduroy is located in is unionized. I think they leased the restaurant space to avoid having to run a unionized restaurant. The hotel does not bargain through the hotel association and its contract does not expire for another year. Maybe next year I'll have the pleasure of trying to lure dining customers through the picket line.

The good little producers/ farmers/ and fisher people are not that easy to find. They don't have an advertizing budget or a listing in the yellow pages. It's mostly about connections and loyalty. When I was working in Philadelphia I hired a sous chef away from the Striped Bass (a very high end seafood restaurant there) which had its own fish supplier Tony McCarthy. Tony would shop the docks of Barnegeat Light every morning and bring me unbelievable fish. Almost 10 years later I still buy from him. I now have to pay to have the fish shipped and wait a day for it to arrive but it is worth it. I still buy micro greens and herbs from Blue Moon Acres from Philly days. At Citronelle here I made new local contacts. Charity events that lots of local chefs participate in are a good resource. A lot of small producers are reluctant to sell thier goods to a stranger. Probably because they have been stuck with a lot of unpaid invoices. Restaurants are notoriously bad bill payers. I always pay the small guys the fastest and even put money on account with them if I sense they are nervous about developing a relationship. I have to be flexible to buy from the small local purveyors. Tuesday afternoon I orderd 2 flats each of yellow and red raspberries from Sunnyside Farm in Virginia. Tuesday night it rained and Wednesday I didn't receive any raspberries. Tonight I served Blueberry Tart instead of Raspberry Tart. Last year the farmers were complaining there wasn't enough rain - this year it's too much rain.

I like to make soups... it's very rewardng to be able to balance flavors in a single spoonful. I am extremely hands on with the fish at Corduroy- its my favorite thing to cook. I try to buy the freshest fish available on the market every day. My fish purveyors know I am picky but that I trust them so if they need to substitute species they do.

I am glad to be here. I let the seasons change the menu. I try not to make a big deal about changing the menu. The menu can be changed daily and as things go out of season they get replaced. While negociating my lease with the hotel I made sure to retain complete control over the menu - they can't make me cook anything I don't want cook or prevent me from serving anything. I defintely have less control over my enviorment as a resturant owner in a hotel. Corduroy is the "exclusive food and beverage provider" for the Four Ponts Hotel. That is a good thing and a bad thing . I can control the reservation book for the restaurant but if all 265 hotel guests decide to order room service at the same time (It is a factor in menu planing) I am up the creek with out a paddle.... and they love to do that when the restauant is full. The hotel also has about 10,000 square feet of meeting space and sometimes the catering requirements put a lot stress on the kitchen. The hardest part of the hotel generated business is that it is so sporadic....one week the catering is busy and the next week room service is busy. Vidilaia onions are slow roasting at 12th and K as I write this at 2 AM for Soubise soup. Kabocha and Blue Hubbard Soups are on the way also.

The summer before starting high school I worked as a caddy at a country club. That was in NJ so as the weather got colder there were less rounds of golf being played at the club...and less work for me. The country club needed a dish washer and I gladly took the job. I immediately loved the energy of the kitchen and all the colorful characters that I worked with. The kitchen was straight out of Anthony Bourdain's Kitchen Confidential- lots of shady stuff going on. As a 14 year old boy I was very amused by it all - The free pitchers of beer we got every night didn't hurt either. As a dish washer I had to help with the prep work. Slowly through high school I advanced my kitchen career on a part time basis. In those pre Food Network days aspiring to be a chef wasn't nearly as glamorous as it is today. After graduating high school I took a cook's assistant job under my first real chef (Dave Everet who is now the chef at Ford's Colony in Williamsburg) After nine months of seeing what real food was all about I headed to culinary school. I knew I wanted to be a chef. My mother cooked when I was growing up. She meant well but it was not gourmet food. She would buy fresh things and stick them in the freezer. Even as a young boy it didn't make sense to me. I still get a little embarassed when my mother comes to Corduroy and orders everything well done. At least she has stopped the sauce on the side stuff . My father liked to bake bread as a hobby and he made some nice bread. I don't get a lot days off but my favorite thing to make on an off day is a reservation. I never cook at home. When I bought my house 6 years ago the home inspector discovered that the oven was not working. I still haven't had it fixed. Last Sunday I visited family in NJ and wound up cooking dinner for 6 in my mother's kitchen. They were thrilled and I was frustrated. Home kitchens are tough to cook in. My time at Johnson and Wales was well spent. I learned a lot of techniques and strange vocabulary but I came out of cooking school as green as everyone else does.

Thanks for calling me Tom - the chef thing makes me feel like I am working. 1 Favorite- being a connector in the relationship between farmer/producer/ fisherman and the eating customer. Least Favorite- Working when everyone else is playing- but you get used to that 2 I love Palena and what Frank Ruta is doing there- I think he deserves a lot more attention. His food is among the best in the world.

I am sure Michel is cursing you as I write this. Michel Richard ate at Corduroy not long ago and missed his favorite dessert "Michel's Chocolate Hazelnut Bars". I apologizied and explained that I needed to have my own desserts. He suggested, with a straight face, that I tell everyone that it was my invention and that Michel had copied me. I knew no one would believe it so I kept the bars off the menu. It's a great dessert, maybe I'll bring it back to make everyone happy.

Four years ago when I opened Corduroy pastry was very low on my totem poll of priorities. Finding bartenders that didn't steal and bus boys that spoke english was a much more pressing need. I didn't have much luck finding an affordable pastry chef whose style matched my own. I paid the price in some early reviews of the restaurant. Slowly the staff started to gel and I had more time for pastry. I have a very limited pastry background. Before moving to Philadelphia to be the chef of Michel Richard's restaurant there I spent 2 weeks in the pastry kitchen of the Baltimore Citronelle. Thank God for those two weeks, soon after I arrived in Philadelphia the pastry chef there quit and again(for the first time) I couldn't find or afford anyone to it. So I worked my way through it. The experimental wine dinners that I do at Corduroy have really pushed me to make new desserts. For those dinners I usually write the menu under the gun and then have a month to figure out how to pull it off. I am very happy with the response to the "baked chocolate sabayon" that grew out of a half baked idea for an Italian wine dinner. I try to keep my desserts simple and lightly sugared so the flavors are pure.

Hmmm, Deviled Eggs? Where are the soft balls that Rocks promised me when I agreed to do this? Just to get off the spot I'll use chervil mayonaise and vidalia onion confit (cooked in the same fat that I use for confiting chicken legs) The more I think about it the more I want to fold in some really frothy egg whites to lighten it up. I am very excited about the organic eggs I buy from Sunnyside Farm in Virginia. They make everything better. Locally I learned a lot from Michel Richard and Robert Wiedmaier. Both stressed attention to detail, technique and flavor.

First and foremost I play the execution of a dish through my head to be as certain as possible that it will intergrate well with the rest of the menu and especially the station that will produce it. I like to serve crispy whole fried fish and I prefer fried soft shell crabs over sauteed. I'd rather not have one of them on the menu than be faced with trying to fry 3 orders of each at the same time. I really don't want to end up with a big greasy and soggy mess. The same thought process is applied to each station. I have six burners and half of a flat top on the fish station, so I need a good balance between how many pans/burners each dish uses. I really want every dish to go from the pan to the plate to the table in about 30 seconds. There is no set theme for the menu. In different social settings people are always facinated that I am a chef and invariably ask me what kind of food I serve or even better what my specialty is. I always respond American food. Most people don't know what that means and some of them start asking about cheeseburgers. That's when I change the subject. High quality ingredients cooked well is what I am really after. I try to develop good relationships with the farmers and fishermen that I buy from and let them be my inspiration. Corduroy has a small menu that can be changed 10 minutes before any meal, so I let the ingredients make the dishes. I try to buy as much local produce as possible and let the seasons steer the menu.