Travis Howard and Tim Wiggins, owners of Yellowbelly (slated to open in September in the CWE), tapped esteemed chef, restaurateur, and cookbook author Richard Blais to help with menu development at the restaurant specializing in California-style seafood and rum-based drinks. Prior to opening, the Top Chef: All-Stars winner gave SLM a top-shelf interview. — George Mahe
Welcome to St. Louis. Was it the Yellowbelly concept, the owners, or the city? Yes! [smiles and laughs]
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How exactly did the collaboration with Yellowbelly come about? It was like a blind date that really, really worked out. It didn’t start on Tinder…but I swiped. Wait, do you swipe on Tinder? I’m a married man. Let’s say we connected digitally. Does that sound better?
How many projects does your company, Trail Blais, do in a year? One or two a year, at most. I’m uncomfortable saying I’m a celebrity chef, but I do a lot of live show work and I have my own places to watch over, so my time is limited. Yellowbelly is my only outside restaurant now, for this year. It has all my attention.
If you had to sum up your St. Louis experience in one word, what would you say? Having fun… Oh, I mean, just ‘fun.’
What was it about the concept that attracted you? Mostly the owners, Travis [Howard] and Tim [Wiggins]. If you notice, we all kind of have cool haircuts. After Yellowbelly gets going, we may start a band.
What did you know about St. Louis before you got the call from Travis and Tim? Emerging culinary scene. Local chefs winning big awards. I actually handed Kevin Nashan his James Beard award a year ago. I love the Cardinals but have never been to a game. That’s my way of asking you for tickets, just to be clear. I’m sure you have a box or something. Danny Meyer, Andy Cohen… These are people in my world that I know and respect. I’ve come to find that people from the Midwest are just really nice, awesome people. Another cliché that’s absolutely true.
What was your first impression? Right off the bat, I liked the vibe at their other place [Retreat Gastropub]. Let’s be clear: This isn’t a Gordon Ramsay restaurant nightmare situation. I did not come here to save something. I came to be a part of something that’s already pretty great.
You use the word “energy” a lot. It’s not the recipes or the music, the décor or the lighting in a restaurant that matters, but the energy they can produce. And when I got to St. Louis, I immediately fell in love with the energy in the [Central West End] neighborhood. The architectural details are insane. People are running, walking, walking their dogs. That reminds me… Dog bowls—we need some cool dog bowls.
What’s your specialty, your strong suit? I’m known as the molecular gastronomist, but who wants to be known as that? Years ago, I’d walk down the streets of New York and people would point at me and say, “Liquid nitrogen dude! Li-quid-ni-tro-GENNN!” It’s like, I have a name, I’m not just some guy with a cryogenic fluid in his backpack. In the end, I just want to be known as a guy who cooks delicious food and makes people happy.
So will there be molecular gastronomy? [Laughs.] Yes! But all at the service of flavor and the experience. There will be things like sous-vide cooking, too, but the restaurant will not be a school or a science lab.
How about foams? Everything that’s old is new again. Maybe foams are ready for a comeback. The word ‘foam’ will not be on the menu, though. We’re past that stage.
What’s on the Yellowbelly menu? First, Yellowbelly will not be exclusively seafood. There will also be more vegetables than people might expect. I like meat, and we have created a place for meat. It’s important to me to use Missouri-raised animals and local farmers. There will also be more vegetables than people might expect.
How about some specifics? Pork belly musubi, which is basically a rice sandwich with seaweed, but ours might have eel sauce. Local corn cooked in lobster butter. A prawn and pork dumpling. Potatoes cooked in sea salted water. Things like that. We’ll have some sort of fried fish sandwich on this menu. Anchovies. Fish sauce as a component. There’s always going to be a tie to the sea.
Will there be local fish as well? You’ll see a nod to West Coast seafood, but, yes, absolutely, to local fish. Local trout with a Pacific flair to it. We’ll look into getting some paddlefish roe.
How much time will you spend at Yellowbelly? If you’re a Star Wars fan, you know that Obi-Wan never really died. He’s always there. So I guess I need to work on the hologram Richard Blais…
Is your consulting company, Trail Blais, a one-man show? No, chefs from my team will be helping train the kitchen staff and open Yellowbelly. Through that process, the St. Louis chefs will become the restaurant. If I fast-forward three years, it may be their food almost entirely, hopefully with a soul from the original collaboration. I plan to be in St. Louis periodically. As much as St. Louis wants me.
As a consultant, can you go out for a meal without your head being on a swivel? I can relax, and I really love simple things. That said, my brain is wired with ‘Spidey sense,’ so I feel I have to be paying attention. I don’t want to miss the energy, good or bad.
How involved were you with the design of Yellowbelly? I came on early enough where I was able to throw out a few thoughts. There’s not a full-blown open kitchen, for example—guests can see in across the back bar—but more importantly, we did that for the cooks. They need to feel the energy of the restaurant, too. It’s way better when they’re not locked away in a basement somewhere, sending food up an elevator shaft.
Where is the national culinary scene heading? Will robots become commonplace, do you think? In my podcast [Starving for Attention] and in the lectures I give on the road, we discuss a lot of tech innovations. The world is heading toward robots, but right now we’re still at the digital stage. Subscription-based meal delivery companies are hot, but that market’s getting saturated. I love tech and video games, but if you think about it, the ultimate goal of an old-school game like Mario Brothers is to get back to the beginning. What we’re seeing in restaurants now is the way things should have been: a place with a one-page menu, simple cooking techniques, and delicious food. And as much as I’m a modernist, I appreciate how the flavor of say, charcoal impacts a dish. So maybe it’ll be robots cooking food over an open grill?
Are there any tech-influenced concepts in your head? I love drones. I want to open up a donut-delivery concept called DroNuts, that delivers donuts via drone. If anyone wants to invest, feel free to reach out. If Travis and Tim like what’s happening at Yellowbelly, maybe we’ll do DroNuts next and launch it in St. Louis.
Your career started at McDonald’s, as a so-called ‘poissonier.’ Do you indulge in fast food today? After resetting my palate for 30 days, I broke my fast at Dodger Stadium with a Diet Pepsi and a hot dog. I love both of those things, by the way—and they tasted like the sweetest and saltiest things I’d ever tasted in my life. That said, yes: I like fast food.
So there’s a place on the riverfront—called Auggie’s the Original—that has taken a St. Louis staple—the toasted ravioli—and turned it into hot dog form, serving it on a stick. Would you eat one of those? Yes, yes, yes! We will be playing in the toasted ravioli game at Yellowbelly, too, I believe.
