Photography by Kevin A. Roberts
Why would a chef and his wife close two successful restaurants to take a chance with a new one, possibly alienating the clientele they worked to build up over the last 20 years? “We wanted to stay but it had to happen,” said the calm and confident Bryan Carr, co-owner of pomme, pomme café, atlas, and now, avenue in Clayton (12 N. Meramec, 314-727-4141, avestl.com). “It was more intimidating for us to have to stay.”
Of all the stops on your chef journey, which was the most memorable?
BC: Working with Hubert Keller in San Francisco [at Fleur de Lis, Sutter 500]. He worked with several Hall of Fame chefs, the real giant s like Paul Bocuse and Roger Vergé. Hubert was a link to the world where all this came from. His lessons and that ethic still pertain. I carry that with me everyday. It’s like a politician saying he studied with a guy who studied with Thomas Jefferson. That kind of influence is diminishing, at least in America.
Do you complement each other?
DC: I’m more detail and administratively oriented; Bryan’s strength is in the kitchen and his relationships with the staff.
BC: I don’t remember a lot of things, but I’ll probably remember what you ate, where you sat, and what wine you drank but I couldn’t have designed these rooms [at avenue]. It’s comfortable because of Diane’s attention to detail.
Your biggest challenge at avenue seemed to be maintaining the coziness of pomme.
BC: You know how I did that? I shut up, went in the kitchen, and let Diane do it. One day, she pulled out some randomly colored swatches and said, “I think I’ll put these blocks of color on the ceiling.” I could never have done that. That detail became one of my favorite parts of the restaurant.
Diane, do you agree with that assessment?
DC: The rooms at pomme were so cozy and so warm, I felt a huge obligation to do just that, but a lot of the credit goes to Deanna Kuhlmann. So many of the design details were hers.
BC: Deanna is a professional, so much so as to make herself small so that Diane’s influence shone through. That took an amazing amount of discipline.
DC: And class.
Do chefs mellow as they get older or become less tolerant of imperfection?
BC: The answer is yes—both. You work really hard for 35 years—probably the equivalent of 55 years, holding yourself to a very high standard. At this point, I’m not going to reel it back just to make someone comfortable. But we’re all Sisyphus, so you can’t get too frustrated when the rock rolls back down the hill. People get to “can’t” way too quickly. Success comes in cans, right?
So you’re happy with the way it turned out?
DC: Absolutely, but we’ve always said that children and gardens and restaurants will tell you what they want to be. You have to water and nurture, or you’ll end up with a juvenile delinquent and a patch of weeds. But you can’t force them to be what you wish they could be.
DC: pomme café was originally supposed to be a coffee shop with small plates and it grew into a full-service, wine bar and restaurant.
BC: It taught us what it wanted to be.
Why change the name?
DC: Pomme got mispronounced, misspelled, and misspoken, as in “palm”… We really just wanted a fresh start.
BC: People see pomme and think it’s a French restaurant with overpriced food and snooty service, which shows an enormous misunderstanding about all of that. But avenue’s a French word, too—the jokes on them.
You even Americanized the name of the private dining room.
DC: Yes, it’s The Apple Room, not The Pomme Room. Everybody likes it because it has its own bar, patio, and entry.
Why the small “a” in avenue?
DC: The pommes were both lowercase; atlas is lowercase. Avenue was an “a” word—it had nuances. We thought it was friendly and had a nice sound to it.
BC: It’s a way to get to a place, like, “Come here, and we’ll take you somewhere.”
Explain the thought process of combining two restaurants into one.
DC: We tried to find a solution. We wanted one operation, but we couldn’t work that out.
BC: A big part of it was the stairs—50 times a day—to get from one kitchen to another. And both kitchens were small—the kitchen at the café was like something you’d see on a boat. We were asking our people to do impossible things; it was remarkable that we did what we did for as long as we did it. We were asking our people to do impossible things--it was remarkable we did what we did for as long as we did it.
Is the menu like the best of both pommes?
BC: That, but a lot more is possible. We can do things we didn’t have the space to do before, like oysters and something as mundane as French fries. Plus, you subtract a lot of obstacles—and duplications—by combining two restaurants into one.
Still, it was bold to move.
BC: Yeah, but compared to what? It was much more intimidating for us to have to stay. We deserve a chance to rearrange our lives.
That was clear to you, but your customers didn’t understand that.
DC: If you were coming to either pomme for what we did, you still want that. So now we’re a block away, so close we didn’t even change mail carriers…
How’s the response been?
DC: Some miss the old place, but most say I miss the old place but this is nice.
BC: I liked when one person ordered a $34 last-of-the-season Alaskan halibut and the other a $14 burger. Café and restaurant, together. They got it.
How tough is the breakfast business?
BC: Breakfast is very much a routine and remember we shut down for two months, so we’re trying to get that part reestablished. We serve a better breakfast. And they’re hard to find.
What was the biggest design challenge?
DC: Acoustics. We had to put the whole ceiling design on hold until we resolved that, and we decided to go with special panels, called Snow Sound. Still, it was an expensive leap. But they work.
Was avenue able to absorb the staffs of both restaurants?
DC: And then some. Yes, we’re officially part of Obama’s positive numbers for job creation.
I love that avenue’s servers pour wine at the table.
BC: You see the bottle get taken out of the big ice buckets, people see it go by, and all of the sudden you like this movie you’re in.
DC: You get to see the label and the server gets to interact.
BC: And you know you got what you ordered.
Any comments good or bad on the opening of avenue?
BC: I remember the guy who complained the vanilla ice cream at atlas wasn’t as good as the pistachio ice cream at avenue. I suggested that we first compare the Boston Celtics to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
How have diners changed over the years?
DC: Certainly they’ve become more casual, which is part of the reason we changed up the restaurants…to get away from fine dining. B: All across the country, customers are realizing that dining out is an exercise in appreciation--if customers feel you are giving them a genuine effort and that they are being listened to, they’re happy.
Do you find today’s customers are more savvy because of the TV food shows?
DC: We’re not the typical consumer because neither of us watches TV—including cooking shows.
BC: I know I’d be more inclined to watch someone like Julia Child—a true cooking show—you watch and you could cook that dish. It’s not about that anymore.
How’s your other restaurant doing?
DC: atlas is doing very well, especially after the redesign. There are new tables, chairs, lots of sustainable wood…
BC: And her photos are all around—at avenue, too. Diane’s a wonderful photographer.
Besides that, is there anything you’re especially proud of?
DC: Our efforts to be green. We’ve recycled since the day we opened, atlas is a Green Dining Alliance restaurant, and avenue is in the process of becoming certified. It’s especially important for restaurants to reduce, reuse, and recycle, and a lot more of them are understanding that message.
Do you have any pet peeves?
BC: You mean, besides being peeved at our pets?
DC: Clean bathrooms. The staff maintains ours…and I’ve found if you acknowledge when they’re doing it right—not just when it needs fixing up—it tends to stay even cleaner.
How about you, Bryan?
BC: I wish there wasn’t so much attention being paid to chefs. It’s holding us back. There are thousands of us, maybe millions, mostly ordinary people. It’s not so much about what was cooked but that some named chef cooked it. Chefs as celebrities has become a distraction. The focus is now more on the personality and not on the food and experience. I’ve noticed that just because a chef has become famous doesn’t necessarily mean his food is any good.
