New Year's Eve at Gracie's

Normally Susan doesn't work evenings at the restaurant -- but New Year's was special. The restaurant had two seatings for dinner at 6 pm and 9 pm and so they needed Susan on hand to finish and then plate (some 120 plates or so) her "trio" of desserts: a chocolate ganache tart topped with a little gold leaf and fleur de sel, brioche pear caramel bread pudding with a little scoop of sour cream gelato, and a passion cream raspberry terrine (assembled in a buche mold) sliced and coated with crumble (a crunchy cookie like flour-butter-powdered sugar combo).

She had spent much of the last few days of 2007 preparing for this event and so by the time December 31 rolled around she was pretty much on top of things.

I dropped Susie off at the restaurant at about 7 or so in the morning. A little before noon Dick and Dorothy drove down from Douglas and the three of us then packed into our Mini and headed into town to snatch Susan away from the restaurant and give her a much-needed break for lunch.

We found a place to park right in front of the restaurant -- the city was starting to fill up as folks jockeyed for positioning themselves for the evening and late night festivities. Anyway the four of us walked around the corner to the Trinity Brewhouse, a noisy, packed pub where we had delicious burgers, freshly made beer (no bottled stuff here -- Mannie take note!) and some of the best service we've ever experienced in a restaurant. Our server, a slip of a girl with blueish-green-tinged hair, was genuinely friendly, helpful and reminded me ever so much of the barmaid at the wonderful pub Susan and I had lunch with Richard and Pauline, just outside of Coventry, England.

After lunch the four of us squeezed into the Mini and drove back to the apartment. We said au revoir to Dick and Dorothy and after Susie took a shower and changed clothes, I drove her back into town. The plan was for me to come into Gracie's later that night and spend the evening with Susie.

Which is exactly what happened.

A little before nine, after the first seating had come and gone, I drove into town, dropped the car off with the valet parking attendant and walked inside Gracie's. The restaurant was packed, with lots of laughter and you could just feel the fun emanating from every corner of the place. Most of the staff -- at least the front of the house folks -- were dressed in 1970s attire (last year it was 1920s garb I was told), and some of the girls struggled with those huge and unwieldy go-go boots!

My station was pretty much keeping out of the way, although I did get a chance to help Susie and Matt plate desserts later on. And speaking of Matt, one of the prep cooks, here's a little bit of restaurant etiquette that the average diner sees rarely if at all in restaurant staff: an uncanny ability to sense when someone needs help and the genuine willingness to provide that help immediately. I watched it percolate among the servers and could see it most clearly when Matt came downstairs -- all the cheese plates and dessert plates were being laid out in the lower level banquet room -- and dove right in, helping Susan with her work flow. And when it came time to start passing out the dessert plates, a few minutes before midnight, everyone pretty much pitched in and helped do just that.

I've put some photos online that I hope will give you a small idea of what the energy in the kitchen was like, and will be putting a short video on very soon as well. (Click here to see the photos!) It's really quite astonishing how the system works. Feeding 120 or 140 people in a span of six hours, providing them with the space, the comfort of a relaxed atmosphere and then giving them outstanding food and wine is a real skill to be sure but it is more than that I think: it is an art.

Anyway, we all shared in some wonderful sparkling wine (from Italy thank you very much) and there was plenty of food leftover for the staff to enjoy a New Year's feast.

From Miss Ellen and Joe Hafner to the servers, bartenders, sommelier, line cooks, prep cooks, dishwasher, everyone in fact at Gracie's are consummate artists. I say that not as the husband of someone who works there. That's too obvious. I say that as someone who watched this process from a small corner of the kitchen. Patrick's right: it is a ballet.

Wish you had been there!

Steve