The irony of the Catherall-Blais split
September 28th, 2008 by Cliff Bostock in Restaurants
Just in case you haven’t noticed, Richard Blais has been on the road constantly since his departure from Home in early September. But you can keep up with him on his eponymous blog here. It’s well written and entertaining.
As Besha noted earlier, Blais’ departure from Home was no surprise to his longtime fans and viewers of his performance on Bravo’s “Top Chef”. While he brought his usual wit and deconstructive style to the Southern cooking at Home, it was clear that he wasn’t expressing the usual depth of his imagination.
Explanations for his departure from Home in the AJC were courteous but said little about what we all knew was likely the issue: artistic freedom. Blais laid things out quite clearly in a blog post written the day after he resigned:
As an artist, it’s all about creative control. It’s all that matters (at least when it can afford to be all that matters), and the constant struggle between an owner’s view, and a chef’s perspective, has strained me to the point of re-focusing my efforts elsewhere.
It’s time to work for myself, and it’s a liberating feeling.
I have my current commitments to Bravo/NBC, my creative consulting company Trail Blais and my young family to keep me more than busy.
What made my decision very easy were a few uncomfortable meetings, where it was obvious that ownership didn’t value what I brought to the table and were insistent on a very archaic outlook of my position. HOME valued my physical time only, of which at times was limited because of prior commitments. When entering into this partnership, I laid out my full slate of commitments and everything was checked off on and approved. But “in theory” and “in practice” are two different things, I guess.
Read the entire post here.
Artistic freedom is an issue raised constantly by chefs at all levels — not just by celebrity chefs like Blais. Sometimes, they fight with management over cost of first-rate ingredients. Other times, it’s about the “vision thing.” Sometimes, it’s the grim reality that the public doesn’t appreciate the “edgy” work of particularly creative chefs. That, I’m afraid, is part of the reason Chefs Guenter Seeger, Sotohiro Kosugi and Joel Antunes left our city. Blais himself left Atlanta for a stint in Miami at one point.
Part of the strange, even ironic situation with Blais’ departure is that owner Tom Catherall, with whom Blais apparently conflicted, made his name in Atlanta as one of our city’s most inventive chefs, starting with Azalea in 1990, followed by Tom Tom at Lenox Square. Azalea was really the city’s first fusion restaurant and a rare chef-driven one. I had many memorable meals there, including some by guest chefs like Stephan Pyles.
I’m not sure that Catherall’s cuisine was as edgy in its time as Blais’ version of molecular gastronomy is now, but it’s certainly true that both chefs, um, blazed new trails in our city’s culinary life. It might have been cool to see them work out a less compromising compromise rather than terminate their association.
I do remember that Catherall, the Azalea chef, ended his business partnership with Todd Kane, the businessman, when he opened Tom Tom. I have no idea if artistic freedom was an issue.
We are lucky to have some very gifted chefs in Atlanta, and I hope more choose to stick around like Blais. I find myself already urging people to waste no time trying the cooking of Bruce Logue at La Pietra Cucina and David Sweeney of Dynamic Dish. I have no reason other than gastronomical paranoia to expect them to leave Atlanta or change venues … but it does happen a lot.
About 25 years ago, I wrote a brief photo-essay for the AJC on the city’s first restaurant, Nikolai’s Roof, to receive a four-star rating from the Mobil Guide. The opening chef was the late Heinz Schwab, who went on to open Hedgerose Heights. (He had worked as Anne Cox Chambers’ personal chef.) Schwab told me he was shocked how easy it was at the time to manipulate Atlanta diners. A complex, labor-intensive dish would easily be outsold by any dish that he garnished with a piece of lobster. (I’ve heard this same example from other chefs.)
We’ve certainly evolved beyond that. Blais makes the point in the post cited above that the city is really ready once again for restaurants that depart from the norm, if only owners get savvy:
For the first time, it is clear to me, that I am in the position where the guests’ threshold of creativity has reached a parallel with a successful business model. Meaning I think Atlanta is ready for a restaurant that stretches. I know that if it is going to happen in Atlanta, it’s going to happen soon.
I’m glad to see Blais speaking out about these issues. It feels to me like he’s committed to seeing our culinary scene take another step in its evolution. Maybe that comes with marriage, a new baby and getting a huge thumbs-up from the entire country for his imaginative cooking. I’m just glad he’s talking.
(Photo of Richard Blais by James Camp. Tom Maicon of Atlanta Cuisine writes a good summary of Blais’ career prior to Home here.)
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September 29th, 2008 at 10:45 am
Well framed.Atlanta’s dining market is a refection of it’s cultural sophistication and dynamism; the “conservatism” that once carried the day culinarily and otherwise is being replaced with a progressive focus that bodes well for chefs,consumers and others. Thank you Cliff for artfully reporting on this trend.
September 29th, 2008 at 10:47 am
I heard Blais is going to open a restaurant on Howell Mill this year. Hope this works though I am not sure if there is an owner…
September 29th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I do lament that I never had the chance to go to Home when he was there. Hopefully I will be able to experience his future endeavors.
September 29th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
The way I read his blog comment, it sounded like Catherall wanted him there in the kitchen, and he wasn’t able to be there due to touring around in support of the show. Doesn’t sound like artisitc vision was the issue.
September 29th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
I pass the Flip burger site of Blais new place on Howell Mill this weekend. It looks out of place surrounded by all the car repair places and other low end commercial and industrial sites on HM.
September 30th, 2008 at 7:35 am
Home is closed? Or did Blais just leave?
September 30th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Home is still open. We ate there on Saturday night. We had booked months ago when Blais was there and decided not to cancel. They are still employing some of his tricks (pork belly over greens, liquid nitrogen ice cream, pureed cauliflower). It is probably as good now as when he was there, since it sounds like he wasn’t there a lot.
I liked Richard on Top Chef and I am intriqued by his cooking, but it seems to me that he is a bit unfocused. He quit a single restaurant in Buckhead where he was the chef so that he could open a chain of high-concept burger joints? But he wants artistic freedom? He’ll run into the same constraints with a chain, even more so, than with an exclusive, chef-driven Buckhead restaurant. Plus he wants to be on TV? And run a consulting business and raise a family? He seems to want to build his empire before he has established himself as more than just a flashy chef with some good ideas.
Richard, open a restaurant that is all your own and cook there for a least a year. If it is still going gangbusters, turn it over to the chef de cuisine and start the empire rolling. I wish you luck, I really do.
September 30th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
Lord, Jeff, you make him sound like Sarah Palin.
September 30th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Puh-lease, Cliff! You think Blais could hunt down the dinner he was making, then serve it to his wife in high heels?
Anyway, running a restaurant empire is way harder than being VP.
October 1st, 2008 at 11:52 am
I have seen Richard Blais fire a blast of liquid nitrogen at a truffle while hanging out of a biplane he was flying himself. He later sold the biplane on ebay. When offered a job that paid plenty but was obviously going to take him nowhere, he said, “Thanks but no thanks.”
October 6th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
Being a great chef requires the ability to sustain your restaurant for more than 3 months at a time. I have no problem with a chef doing his own thing, but when he says that his creative influence is being curbed by budget and the fact that he needs to physically be there that is a problem. My father taught me the golden rule a longtime ago and it simply states that “he who has the gold makes the rules”. Quite obviously Blais does not have the gold nor a line of investors willing to back him and let him truly run his own show.
Pony up your own money and see if you really need sous vide machines, immersion circulators and an unlimited supply of liquid nitrogen. When you’re own someone else’s dime, especially given your track record for losing money, you play by his rules. For what it’s worth, most artists do not make money until they’re dead.
October 6th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
I’m glad he’s talking too. I’m all for artistic freedom. Do we need to recruit some out of town guests with big expense accounts to support Atlanta’s culinary superstars?