Audio By Carbonatix
Boulevardier is the new French bistro-inspired restaurant in Oak Cliff, which is a collaboration of Veritas owners Brooks and Bradley Anderson and chefs Randall Copeland and Nathan Tate of Ava in Rockwall. This spot opened on the last day of July and nary a negative word has been cast against its way since that time. Recently, I got to chat with Tate and Brooks Anderson about their menu, their extensive (and gluttonous) research and why cows like corn better than grass.
See Also:
– Boulevardier is Open in Bishop Arts
How’s it going with two restaurants now, including Ava in Rockwall?
Tate: It can get a little stressful, but Randall is holding down the fort at Ava, and I’m focusing on this.
How do you like your new neighborhood?
Tate: It’s great, and it’s nice to be busy every night.
The scene is a little different here, although Rockwall does have a quaint little downtown with some nice restaurants.
Tate: Yeah, it’s not bad. It’s just the population isn’t so dense and the foot traffic isn’t anything like it is here.
Can you tell me about your menu?
Tate: It’s rooted in France, but we’ve expanded form there. We have a little Southern influence, Cajun and Creole. Obviously, all of those places were influenced by French culture, so I think it really all just melds together.
Did you create the menu?
Tate: The initial idea of the French concept for this place was from Brooks and Bradley, and I met them through Randall at Ava. I worked on the menu and we went on some trips for some inspiration.
Where did you go?
Tate: We all went to New Orleans and Brooks went to Montreal and New York.
How was New Orleans?
Tate: Well, how much can we tell? (Brooks and Tate laugh.)
Brooks: It was painful. You think food research in New Orleans would be amazing, but it was awful because we just ate so much. There were days when we hit four or five restaurants and we ordered everything.
What were some of the highlights?
Tate: Herbsaint was a great restaurant. We got a little inspiration from our raw bar from Luke.
Brooks: Cochon was another great one. August was also fantastic.
How was Montreal?
Brooks: My brother and I made a trip to New York City and then Montreal. In New York we hit some of the classic French pastis, a lot of raw bar and seafood towers, to see what they were doing. We want our raw to be one of the centers of our restaurant. So, New York was really French bistro and raw bar.
Then, Montreal was all about the pig — charcuterie and pork. All we did in Montreal was go to French bistros. We went to Au Pied de Cochon and it was one of the best meals I’ve ever had in my life. It was just so casual and laid back but the presentation of the restaurant in terms of how the servers were dressed, the vibe, the plating of the food was really casual. But, the technique behind the food was as sophisticated as you could have.
Isn’t that what you’re going for here?
Brooks: It’s what I’d like to think we’re doing. We’re really about being casual and comfortable. We encourage people to show up in shorts and a T-shirt and hang out on the patio. There’s no need to be stuffy, but the technique and the direction of the menu are presented in a very approachable way. I tell people all the time that our chicken dish might look like something your mother would have made, but it doesn’t like taste anything like what your mother could do unless she has really sophisticated equipment.
What kind of sophisticated equipment are you using?
Tate: Well for our chicken, we sous-vide it for three and half hours, and we have a JR wood-burning grill that we do all our meats on.
How else do you work on the casual atmosphere?
Brooks: I think part of it is the design. There are some intentional unfinished elements; like the rough brick and concrete floor, unfinished wall. That’s balanced by some of the design elements. When you walk in, we want it to feel like an urban bistro. Something you might find in New York. The servers wear plaid and jeans, the music alternates between Radiohead, the Stones and old jazz. The emphasis with the servers is that you can be casual and proper at the same time.
Do you think the Dallas dining scene is changing?
Brooks: We’ve just got so many people in Dallas — people from all over and they eat all over the world.
Would you say that in a culinary sense they’re an adventurous crowd here in the Bishop Arts District?
Brooks: Yes, they are. So, what we’re doing has really been accepted. For this pocket of Dallas, the palate is cosmopolitan, international and open. There’s nothing on the menu that’s not selling.
Were there some dishes you were concerned about?
Brooks: Yeah, like the beef tongue pastrami, but we’ve been selling tons of it. And the pork cheek, the lamb neck, of course. It’s all doing great.
Has it been a full house every night?
Brooks: It’s been pretty amazing. Our slowest nights are still moderately busy nights.
How does one learn to run a kitchen?
Tate: I think I’ve been in various leadership roles since I was in high school. I played football. …
So, leadership is an important part?
Tate: Yes, if you have good leadership characteristics it can transfer from a kitchen to a boardroom or whatever. My first sous chef position was actually at a country club and I got my feet wet. I was still in culinary school, but had the opportunity to grow and expand and learn how to manage people well in a kitchen.
Tate, let’s talk a little about how you run your kitchen. Do you have any hard and fast rules?
Tate: One thing I drill into everyone is … you’d be surprised in how many kitchens, the cooks will cook all day, and not once taste what they’re cooking. So, I really drill into these guys to taste every sauté pan that they have on the stove.
So, do you see palates change or develop in that process?
Tate: Yes, when they start they kind of need to figure out where my palate is and how I want it. We came a long way from a salty cassoulet and we had some mussels that weren’t right, but it’s progressed. Tasting food and seasoning properly is one of the most important things in the kitchen.
You grew up on a farm, right?
Tate: My grandpa actually bought the farm back in the ’60s out in Rockwall, and I grew up on the farm. My brother runs the ranch now; he has horses and cattle.
Do your parents process a lot of cattle?
Tate: Most of it goes to market. We’ve started getting beef for the restaurant, but it’s the first time we’ve done it.
Brooks: There’s a funny story about the cow we got.
Do tell the funny story.
Tate: My brother handpicked this cow for us, but it had actually been lost from the ranch for a while. He couldn’t find it for several months. Then, eventually he found it in a neighbor’s corn field. So, we have the all-natural corn-fed beef on the menu.
Brooks: It was a happy cow.
So, cows actually prefer corn?
Tate: Well, there was a reason it was in the cornfield instead of eating grass.
Did you work on the farm growing up?
Tate: Yeah, I helped my dad feed the cows and fix fences. Fed hay, baled hay, cut hay. A lot of that.
Do you worry about the loss of ranching?
Tate: Well, for my family it’s been four generations, so it’s not lost.
Is it harder now than it was for your parents?
Tate: The only reason our ranch is operating now is because of the horse-boarding business. There were years and years where my dad probably just broke even. But, my dad knew he wasn’t going to get rich doing it. That’s not why he did it. He did it to raise his kids out there. There were three of us, and it was more about our family lifestyle.
With Ava, you were on the cusp of the farm-to-table movement. Did your upbringing have to do with that?
Tate: I think that it’s part of the sensibility I got growing up on the farm. Knowing the work that goes into raising a cow. And the way people can do it wrong also, like mistreating animals. That was definitely a big influence.
