Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. We're focusing
Speaker 1: on fine dining and fine wines. First on the menu,
Speaker 1: dining in New York City. It's coming back. I gotta say,
Speaker 1: I've been out to eat a few times after not
Speaker 1: for a very long time. In our next guest, well
Speaker 1: known to our Bloomberg Business Week audience and community, So
Speaker 1: great to have back with us, chef and restaurant tour
Speaker 1: Danielle Blulu, owner of so many restaurants in New York
Speaker 1: City alone. He's around the world, Singapore, Dubai, you name it,
Speaker 1: also at Sea and he's joining us right now via
Speaker 1: zoom in New York City. Danielle, So nice to have
Speaker 1: you here. How are you? Thank you? Pleased to be
Speaker 1: with you Carol and team. And I'm well, I'm well,
Speaker 1: I'm opening a new restaurant to this so it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's looking to some better days and um, of course
Speaker 1: I have the opportunity to have the fine dining restaurant
Speaker 1: that is the epitome of excellence and service and food
Speaker 1: and wine. And I enjoy also opening very casual, affordable
Speaker 1: and soulful beastrow And the restaurant I'm opening today is
Speaker 1: it's called Grata. Grata is named after a soulful dish
Speaker 1: of my hometown in Leon that I grew up with, Grata,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of everybody knows that Grata is. It's delicious.
Speaker 1: It's that's wonderful smell and wonderful taste and often as
Speaker 1: a crust of cheese or something, it sounds magical. Um, Daniel,
Speaker 1: how did you think about the current restaurant environment and
Speaker 1: who's coming back and and what they're looking for. I've
Speaker 1: talked to a lot of retail CEOs and they're saying
Speaker 1: it's a much more casual society, although people are also
Speaker 1: starting to buy clothes to dress up. So tell us
Speaker 1: about this. How you were thinking about with this new restaurant,
Speaker 1: how you wanted to approach it. Well, the good thing
Speaker 1: is I see all the spectrum of the market because
Speaker 1: I even a retail store like a Pistory Bully restaurant
Speaker 1: Daniel Pabion, which is a year old Dismounts and Danielle
Speaker 1: is celebrating is twenty nine years and of course the
Speaker 1: Grata being a dis new restaurant as well as Babe
Speaker 1: Bully Suit that are also casual, more approachable. I think
Speaker 1: we have been we have been having a very good
Speaker 1: quarters and we are entering to a second quarter with
Speaker 1: very strong a lot of demand, a lot of private
Speaker 1: dining as well. People are going out. People a spending
Speaker 1: but no more than before or if they do it
Speaker 1: because they really wanted to splurge on the missing things
Speaker 1: they really missed. But we see the lunch coming back.
Speaker 1: The midtown business lunch are coming strong. But there's also
Speaker 1: that blend of business people and social people. People want
Speaker 1: to gather together and celebrate, like today at the paon
Speaker 1: we had five ladies who took the train from Westford,
Speaker 1: Connecticut to have lunch at PA and they take the
Speaker 1: train back home. I told that was rat eyes sweet.
Speaker 1: What about when it comes to feel it, you do
Speaker 1: feel it. You certainly feel a difference with what we've
Speaker 1: seen over the last couple of years buildings. I have
Speaker 1: had one blunderbuild and the buildings are filling up more
Speaker 1: and more and we see the activity inside. We see
Speaker 1: also in the amenity floors. So many people come for
Speaker 1: lunch as much as in the restaurant what about when
Speaker 1: it comes to finding employees, because we know that's been
Speaker 1: so difficult for for many industries. How are you when
Speaker 1: it comes to staffing the restaurants. I know, well that
Speaker 1: is um it is challenging. But we have a lot
Speaker 1: of young people coming to New York. A lot of
Speaker 1: people want to move back to New York, move back
Speaker 1: or move to New York because they see no opportunity
Speaker 1: to be part of this uh sort of new beginning
Speaker 1: again in New York. And we see a lot of
Speaker 1: young talents who maybe w aren't thinking of it and
Speaker 1: now engaging coming to New York. And we have also
Speaker 1: a lot of more people I think on the job
Speaker 1: market coming. So it is perfect. No, we are trying
Speaker 1: to be very carefully to balance between the shift we
Speaker 1: operate and the amount of stuff we have in order
Speaker 1: to guarantee the quality of service and food. Daniel, you
Speaker 1: from what I I mean I think you first came
Speaker 1: to New York City in the eighties, was it? Is
Speaker 1: that correct? So so you've seen a lot of cycles.
Speaker 1: And I think even after nine eleven, right, people were
Speaker 1: really concerned about in downtown New York and parts of
Speaker 1: New York and just it came back, and we've seen
Speaker 1: so many different cycles and this wonderful grand city that
Speaker 1: is Manhattan. Um, in New York City, how would you
Speaker 1: put this cycle? Uh? And and then and kind of
Speaker 1: do you expect that we get back to kind of
Speaker 1: the grand levels that we saw pre pandemic. I think
Speaker 1: it's the I think the worst part of the cycle
Speaker 1: is almost there. The bad part of this cycle is
Speaker 1: when the RF came out and only distributed a third
Speaker 1: of restaurants a conversation to help them restart their business.
Speaker 1: And more than tutor that would say at one point
Speaker 1: four million restaurants never got anything. And so this uh,
Speaker 1: this was this forced a lot of closure. This force
Speaker 1: too so many business to not be able to reopen
Speaker 1: the business they had. It was impossible. And also you
Speaker 1: know the last three years to an a year, the
Speaker 1: uncalculated amount of loss that restaurant business had. And I
Speaker 1: hope the government will do something about this very unfair
Speaker 1: sort of distribution that happened in all business. Um, five
Speaker 1: of my best friends got a nice check. You know,
Speaker 1: I didn't get any. So it's okay. I still gonna
Speaker 1: be strong mentening my business. But still it's very difficult
Speaker 1: and I think I talked about the industry, so many
Speaker 1: people are still challenge and some area in the country
Speaker 1: and maybe better than other because Florida I think for
Speaker 1: the last year benefited better maybe and other park. But
Speaker 1: I think New York is strong and coming back strong.
Speaker 1: Of course, NEO is relentlessly optimistic. Well, we talk a
Speaker 1: lot about people moving out of New York, and we've
Speaker 1: also talked a lot about the way that jobs have
Speaker 1: changed here in terms of remote and people not having
Speaker 1: to necessarily live in New York City to work here.
Speaker 1: Do you think New York City ever comes back to
Speaker 1: levels at least when it comes to employment, when it
Speaker 1: comes to the service industry that we saw a pre pandemic. Ah,
Speaker 1: of course it will, because I think the transition of
Speaker 1: the home office situation will still last couple of years
Speaker 1: until there's really a settlement of balance between people's life
Speaker 1: and business necessity. But uh, and I think there's a
Speaker 1: lot of I mean, in our business, the hospitality. If
Speaker 1: someone say I want to work from home, it's not
Speaker 1: gonna work. You're gonna have nobody serving your meal. So well,
Speaker 1: you know, Tim talked to you asked earlier about labor
Speaker 1: and whether or not you're you know, finding everybody you need.
Speaker 1: There are so many strains and stresses still on this industry,
Speaker 1: and I think about labor, certainly in labor costs or
Speaker 1: just finding the workers you need, but also Danielle about
Speaker 1: just higher food costs. Are you able to pass all
Speaker 1: of that along to your customers. We try to be
Speaker 1: very very cautious on raising price as much as we
Speaker 1: get hit every day with the rays of some thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, if it's not the land, it's the asparagus.
Speaker 1: If it's not the asparagos, it's the arly shows. Of
Speaker 1: course they come out the show, come from California, have
Speaker 1: to travel all the way to New York, and so
Speaker 1: we get very creative and try to really work with
Speaker 1: our local suppliers as much as possible. We try to
Speaker 1: be I've always been very seasonal in what I do,
Speaker 1: and I think seasonality helped in maddening cost control. But uh,
Speaker 1: it's a question of being very careful and yet not
Speaker 1: deprived the guests from excellence and quality. So creativity is
Speaker 1: very important. Taste is very important. And you know, you
Speaker 1: give me five dollar and make you a wonderful meal,
Speaker 1: you give me fifty dollars I'll give you a wonderful
Speaker 1: meal too. So it's just a question of the approach
Speaker 1: of what we do with what ingredient we have, and
Speaker 1: how we can interpret that. Can you ascribe some sort
Speaker 1: of figure to how much you've seen prices of of
Speaker 1: your inputs go up, how much you've seen would costs
Speaker 1: go up in the last year, What percentage wise is
Speaker 1: that I will set? And the food cost in general
Speaker 1: went up by thirty percent in average between someone went
Speaker 1: fire and some lower sometime fifteen percent. But I would say,
Speaker 1: but menu when only up ten percent, maybe ten of fifteen,
Speaker 1: no more and and the hardest single So we and
Speaker 1: on the menu. We also have to think about service.
Speaker 1: So when you pay meal, you still have to pay
Speaker 1: of that for service, plus another eight percent if you're
Speaker 1: in New York City for tax or more. It's so Daniel,
Speaker 1: your new restaurant legratin. So tell me if I come
Speaker 1: for dinner, what will I get? You will get some
Speaker 1: wonderful seasonal appetizers, seafood, a selection of seafood, wonderful appetizers
Speaker 1: with vegetable because I think even if it's a bistrow,
Speaker 1: it can be sample the meaning of a bull and
Speaker 1: a beast hole is that the food is of great quality, ingredient,
Speaker 1: good technique and simple preparation. And so there's a salad
Speaker 1: of var cover with some shaving of foi ground on it.
Speaker 1: But there's also we have a water cress soup with
Speaker 1: smoked rout and then I do also a pike canal,
Speaker 1: which a canal is a dumpling of pike that is
Speaker 1: in a beshamal like not creamy but milky beshamal with
Speaker 1: mushroom and gray air cheese on top. And that's gratina,
Speaker 1: which we need bake in the oven until it puff
Speaker 1: and get crusty. That's delicious. People love it. Next time
Speaker 1: at the restaurant totally everything from seafood to meat to
Speaker 1: vegetable too. Uh. And I think it's a bistro. It's
Speaker 1: a place you can go once a week because it's affordable,
Speaker 1: because it's fun. The wines are affordable, the food is affordable,
Speaker 1: and it's it's healthy and yet nourishing. We have to
Speaker 1: leave it there. Um so great to check in with
Speaker 1: you once again, and good luck on the new restaurant,
Speaker 1: and really appreciate all the time you gave us today.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Danielle Balloud. Of course you know
Speaker 1: him well um, and of course he's opening up this
Speaker 1: new restaurant, All Groton in the Beak minutes in downtown Manhattan,