Chicago Tribune on why Schwa closed and reopened

From today's Tribune "Why did Michael Carlson vanish the day after serving dinner to the greatest chefs in the world?"

It's long but thorough.

Good read. Thanks wino.

Schwa:Reckless or Revolutionary?

Regarding the Monica Eng and Phil Vettel story about Schwa’s last night and the goods on the impending reopening. It's a great story, but they don’t seem to answer the central question of their article (at least in a new way)…why did Michael Carlson walk away? The answer is basically the same from Heather Shouse’s article in Time Out: that he was stressed out and he wanted to take time off to be with his family. I’m betting there’s another story here that no one’s gotten to the bottom of….

Also, that being said, I’ve had Carlson’s food including the vaunted quail egg ravioli. He’s definitely a talent (I named Schwa, Best New Restaurant in Newcity last year), but I think his exposure has just as much to do with his punk rock nature. He paints everything as being on his own terms, which can sound like he’s charmingly independent, but I tend to think he’s a bit reckless.

I’m sure all of the other chefs who lost their jobs and had to put up with the chaos of working at Schwa wouldn’t say a bad thing because of their bonds and friendships, but I wonder whether it was any fun, not knowing what to expect from one day to the next? Not to mention, I wonder how Carlson’s father, Stan, the sole investor, enjoyed the ride? Who knows, maybe he made money hand over fist? Then again, fathers will weather the indiscretions of their children, but it doesn’t mean that these are proud moments.

For diners, it wasn’t always great shakes, either. Friends who dined in the last days of the restaurant told me that things were wildly inconsistent, even amongst the same dishes at the same tables. When you’re paying good money, you shouldn’t have to doubt what’s coming out of the kitchen.

From my own perspective, I definitely left messages for reservations on two occasions, once under a pseudonym and once under my own name and did not receive call backs. I bring this up not as a point of bitterness, but as a fact. I’m not a curmudgeon, but I expect some courtesy. If I made a res and decided not to show up and not tell the Schwa guys, I’m sure that wouldn’t have gone over well.

Finally, I don’t think we be should be spilling so much ink over Carlson and Schwa, now, when there are probably at least a handful of young innovative Chicago chefs toiling away, some barely making it, but conducting themselves with honor. We should be writing about those people.

Still, I’ve made my share of mistakes, and am still making them, so I hope Carlson’s learned how to manage things and that he comes back strong. I wish him luck and I hope that when I write about him next, I’m writing about the food, and not the latest hijinx.

Mark, thanks for pointing us to the article. Even the online version is pretty complete, with the sidebars on "who was there" and the complete menu from the Charlie Trotter anniversary dinner. Combined with the TimeOut article, I feel like I now know about as much as I ever will about what happened and plans for moving forward.

Let me just tell everyone that the voicemail box has been cleaned out! I just left a message, and the promise is that they will call back within two days. Sounds like they are taking reservations through the end of March only. Get 'em while they're hot!

P.S. Does anybody else feel like Nathan Klingbail is also getting some GREAT press and notoriety (well deserved!) for his role at Schwa and "the big dinner"? All those guys in the kitchen were - and are - rock stars to me.

MJN wrote:Schwa:Reckless or Revolutionary?

Regarding the Monica Eng and Phil Vettel story about Schwa’s last night and the goods on the impending reopening. It's a great story, but they don’t seem to answer the central question of their article (at least in a new way)…why did Michael Carlson walk away? The answer is basically the same from Heather Shouse’s article in Time Out: that he was stressed out and he wanted to take time off to be with his family. I’m betting there’s another story here that no one’s gotten to the bottom of….

I dunno. Maybe it is as simple as stated. 80-100 hours per week, week in and week out will fry you for certain.

Apparently you're a journalist (Forgive my ignorance for not recognizing you, this is said with sincerity) and I understand that asking the next question is in your nature but personally, I think his reasons for the hiatus are his own business.

Klingbail has been getting a lot of press, and deservedly so. I've had the opportunity to watch him in the Alinea kitchen and he's such a focused talent. All the sous chefs at Alinea, Jeff Pikus, Dave Beran, Greg Baxtrom will be the ones to watch in the next 10 years...

JLenart wrote:I think his reasons for the hiatus are his own business.

I could not agree with this more. Why don't we just wish him success going forward and leave it at that.

(Photo for the Tribune by Jeff Sciortino / February 26, 2008)

Anyone notice this in the gallery that spawns from the Tribune article? We're being streamed images from the future! Somebody call Damon Lindelof!

Regarding the Monica Eng and Phil Vettel story about Schwa’s last night and the goods on the impending reopening. It's a great story, but they don’t seem to answer the central question of their article (at least in a new way)…why did Michael Carlson walk away? The answer is basically the same from Heather Shouse’s article in Time Out: that he was stressed out and he wanted to take time off to be with his family. I’m betting there’s another story here that no one’s gotten to the bottom of….

I think his reasons for the hiatus are his own business.

I could not agree with this more. Why don't we just wish him success going forward and leave it at that.

Sure, it would be "nice" and "supportive" to leave it at that, but I don't know why Carlson should be less subject to journalistic curiosity than any other public figure. A restaurant is a public place, and people put their lives (and the quality of their lives) in the hands of chefs more than they do with most of the people they encounter in an average day; so the public has a legitimate interest in the little-known goings-on behind the scenes of restaurants.

I haven't read the article myself yet; look forward to doing it today.

Another vote for 'it's none of our business.'

He's a restaurateur, not a politician.

Ralph Wiggum wrote:Another vote for 'it's none of our business.'

He's a restaurateur, not a politician.

Not for nothing but it sure looked to me like he willingly posed for the photos connected to the article and participated in the story. If he was not interested in the public knowing and understanding what happened at the time he shut his doors he could have very easily refrained from comment. Once providing his approval for the dissemination of this story, tacit or otherwise, it is not innapropriate to ask for answers to questions left half answered.

I am sure Chef Carlson has his reasons for wanting us to know why he shut down and that is why he was involved with the article, since he decided to broadcast the story it is definitely our business.

Ralph Wiggum wrote:He's a restaurateur, not a politician.

If politicians were the only public figures subject to a legitimate public interest, the pages of not just The National Enquirer but The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and countless other esteemed publications would be empty indeed.

I'm still not exactly sure why there's "more to the story". His wife had a baby and he wanted to spend time with his new family. Apparently, he believed that the only way to achieve this was to close his restaurant. What reason do people have to suspect there's some deep-dark secret that needs to be unearthed? Does he have a history of being obtuse about intentions or a liar?

When Doug Sohn wants to take time off for a vacation, he closes Hot Doug's. I bet if he became a new dad, he'd probably close up for a while as well.

I hope when I reach the same milestone in my life, and I take time off from work, that people will take my words as they are.

I think that there is a line to be drawn here. When a leading chef - one of the most highly regarded and well-known Chicago chefs - closes his restaurant with no warning, with a full refrigerator, with a month of reservations, and with no schedule to open up again, we are not talking about taking a vacation or going on paternity leave. Figures of public note have a public following. If not quite celebrities on the order of Britney, leading, award-winning chefs are legitimate news topics.

On the other hand, one wouldn't want the press to harass a chef or search through his garbage for a story. This was a story that seemed to be well within journalistic standards, tied to a genuine news event: the reopening of Schwa, and the article had Michael Carlson's participation. It seemed, in general, to be pretty fair, balancing the needs of a private person and of a community of interest.

Now we know some (enough) of the story. The next part of the story is how is the food.

I much prefer articles about the reopening of Schwa at this point. It's a much more timely, exciting subject. Just my two cents. That article seems to be a bit stale around February 13, 2008. I can't imagine why anyone would publish this now.

iblock9 wrote:

Ralph Wiggum wrote:Another vote for 'it's none of our business.'

He's a restaurateur, not a politician.

Not for nothing but it sure looked to me like he willingly posed for the photos connected to the article and participated in the story.

I was disagreeing with the notion that there is a need to "get to the bottom of" the Phil Vettel story as if the public was owed more than that. Certainly not suggesting that anything about the Phi Vettel story was inappropriate, I actually liked it quite a bit.

hi
monica eng here. im a tribune reporter and the co-writer on the story.
thanks for reading it and for the thoughtful comments.
i just wanted to clear up a few points. we had the story pretty early and were even considering running it around the time of the closing. but we kind of felt it might be more appropriate and complete to tell it when there was a certain conclusion. and we had that when carlson returned. most of our delays after that involved deciding where it belonged in the paper.
and as far as carlson's participation. we had to work at that. unlike most chefs of that caliber he has no PR person and he doesn't seem to like publicity. he was kind enough to cooperate in his own way and i could tell he didn't love posing for photos. nevertheless, he did and we're glad.

might there be more to the tale? maybe. but this wasnt that kind of story.

Monica

Thank you for posting that. I always love to hear the story behind the story.

always happy to post but i end up reading the site way too long and not getting my work done.

one more bit of backstory involved the photos of the big dinner that Coco Rouge graciously sent to us at the last minute.

One--of the chefs Trotter, Blumenthal, Adria and Herme all sitting at the same table--was deemed not good enough to put in the paper but i implored my editors to at least make it available online. If you are interested in what the dining room looked like that night, here's the link to the story . You just need to click on the photo gallery link and I think it's picture four. Picture five is Carlson posing with his new "pine cone" dish full of uni custard.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/ ... 9749.story

meng wrote:might there be more to the tale? maybe. but this wasnt that kind of story.

Amen.

MJN wrote:Regarding the Monica Eng and Phil Vettel story about Schwa’s last night and the goods on the impending reopening. It's a great story, but they don’t seem to answer the central question of their article (at least in a new way)…why did Michael Carlson walk away?... I’m betting there’s another story here that no one’s gotten to the bottom of….

As I wrote in another context: "If that’s what you think should be written, write it." Criticizing someone for not writing the story you think might exist is off-base and unfair. They wrote the story they wanted to write. You want to write something else, find it and write it.

Gypsy Boy wrote:
As I wrote in another context: "If that’s what you think should be written, write it." Criticizing someone for not writing the story you think might exist is off-base and unfair. They wrote the story they wanted to write. You want to write something else, find it and write it.

I may do that...

Gypsy Boy wrote:As I wrote in another context: "If that’s what you think should be written, write it." Criticizing someone for not writing the story you think might exist is off-base and unfair. They wrote the story they wanted to write. You want to write something else, find it and write it.

That would seem to invalidate the entire field of press criticism, from Noam Chomsky to Michael Miner to Jack Shafer to everyone who's ever written for the Columbia Journalism Review. Surely it's possible to complain legitimately about a reporter missing a story. Not that it happened in this case; and not that it didn't. I'm responding to the principle you're laying out.

MJN wrote:I may do that...

And I genuinely look forward to reading it!

For the record, I'm not criticizing them for not writing the story I think might exist...I'm criticizing the fact that they set out to do something and I'm not sure they achieved it completely (Even though I actually thought this was a good piece and said so). I think I'm right too, because as Monica says, "Might there be more to the tale? Maybe."

In the meantime, Monica, I'm curious about the idea that it's not that kind of piece. The title of the piece, was "Big Night, Big Mystery"...I know you guys don't write headlines, but wasn't it part of the plan to find out what happened with the closure...otherwise the piece should just be called Big Night, no....so if there's more information why isn't it worth sharing?

My biggest concern is that the a lot of local food writing is often so cheerleaderesque and doesn't challenge chefs and restauranteurs to get better. It's in some ways why we stayed a meat and potatoes town for so long. What's the incentive to improve, when features writers and critics are blowing smoke up your craw (not that Monica and Phil were doing so here for the most part, as they definitely were pretty balanced)....I do think it hurts us, if someone from out of town, excited about going to Schwa calls for a res and no one calls them back...it makes not only the restauranteur look amateur, but reflects on our local food scene that we are a bunch of hacks compared to say NYC....

While not returning a phone call for a reservation might not be the best business sense, I fail to see how it reflects on the entire city of Chicago.

Monica - I understand your can't-stop-reading plight. Glad to see you posting.

Mike,

Do you really feel it's a journalists position to "challenge chefs" to get better?

I was under the impression it was a journalists job to report facts and not editorialize.

I don't use critics opinions as fuel to improve what I do. I doubt many top chefs do either. I'm of the belief that we strive to improve because of inner motivation and those that strive to improve to please critics are more or less posers.

Do you do your best to write outstanding articles for slaps on the back from your editor and publisher? Of course not. You strive to to a great job becuase you're driven to do so by your own inner fire.

This is all making me think about the section of "Soul of a Chef" by Michael Ruhlman on The French Laundry. Keller has such a desire to reach perfection.

Anyway this shouldn't be about the role of a journalist but rather how the hiatus has effected the man and his food.

Now that would be a great follow up story.

Respectfully,

JLenart

riddlemay wrote:Surely it's possible to complain legitimately about a reporter missing a story.

Of course it is. His initial comment was that they didn't answer the question they posed. Then in the next sentence, he conceded that they did actually answer it but that their answer was the same as previously reported elsewhere. So that was never his point (at least as I understood it prior to his most recent--and subsequent--post).

What I focused on is something you're (apparently) missing: what MJN actually said next.

MJN wrote:I’m betting there’s another story here that no one’s gotten to the bottom of….

He did not say that they missed the story; he said that he thought there was another one. Fine. If you think so, go find it and write it. Which he said he might and which I said I'd be eager to read. Genuinely.

My take on the article was that they got all out of Carlson that he's inclined to share. It wasn't a piece of investigative journalism, it was a feature story.

Gypsy Boy wrote:My take on the article was that they got all out of Carlson that he's inclined to share. It wasn't a piece of investigative journalism, it was a feature story.

Thank you.

=R=

My favorite part of the Trib article:

Q: Then you were voted one of the Best New Chefs by Food & Wine in July 2006.

A: Yeah, I think.

Jlenart,

I agree, the most important thing is what's internal and what drives you, and I don't think you should ever cook or do anything to please someone else....but I think no matter how driven you are and how honest you are, sometimes it's tough to be completely objective about yourself.

Guys like Achatz or Keller....these dudes process feedback like you wouldn't believe. Consider how they solicit micro-feedback by watching almost every plate that comes back from the dining room to see if they are clean or how they've been eaten, because they want to know even minute by minute how they're doing in terms of delivering to the customers. They then process the feedback according to their standard and decide if it has merit or not. If it doesn't, they don't heed it. If it does, they might make an adjustment...it is why they are the best in the world.

Likewise, while I strive as a writer to work against an internal standard, I very much value the opinions of this forum, and I've learned quite a bit from the criticism and accolades I've received here, and I've made adjustments in what I do and how I do it. I don't agree with Gypsyboy's fervent beliefs on the role of a critic, so I don't think I'll ever heed those ideas, but I do think, he's right about the idea that at some point you have to write the stories you want to see, instead of asking others to do so.

The role of a food "journalist" is a many faceted one and many people perform it differently...as a freelancer, I do everything from write critical reviews, to interview chefs, to writing long form features, to writing a weekly opinion column, to writing books.

Each of those roles requires something different, from reporting facts to editorializing. It depends on the role, but I still think they're all journalistic ones...the important thing is to maintain a journalistic standard no matter what you do, i.e. be ethical in how you perform that role. For example, if I interview a chef and he's seen my face, I won't/can't do a critical review of his restaurant...

Do I think I'm on a mission from god to tell chefs how to run their business? Hell no. But, as a person who enjoys food, cooks it and who lives, breathes, studies and devotes more time to it than anything else in my life (outside of my wife and son), I think I have a perspective to share. I try to take food writing as seriously as chefs do cooking. This isn't some lark for me or a sideline. I write very little about other topics, and this is a very conscious choice. The great chefs often come in for prep at 10 a.m. and stay until 1 a.m. until service is done. I try to ape that model as much as is humanly possible. I tend to write about food even in my spare time as a hobby, as I am now at 1 a.m. on a Thursday night, because I love what I do and I want to get better at it every moment.

I hope that by being serious, devoted, candid and fair about what I see, my criticisms are worth something. Bottom line, I want Chicago to be the best food city in America and I want us to have as much good responsibly produced and tasty food as possible, and I want our chefs and writers to be the best as well....my way of working towards these goals is to use whatever talents I have...mine are observing, drawing on what I've studied and tasted, and writing about it. Then it's up to others to decide how they want to use what words I've written.

I've been giving a lot of thought lately to how the critical review process, especially in papers is so one sided....my word may be the first in some cases, but it should never be the last one...I think restauranteurs and chefs should be given an opportunity to rebut a critic on a similar level.

Toward that end, I'd welcome any chef or interview subject who felt I had missed something or didn't write something fairly to write a rebuttal and I'd be more than happy to publish it, unedited, on my website alongside the original if possible (some contractual obligations don't allow reprints).
It would even be better to use the comments section or places like this forum to continue the dialogue beyond the rebuttal after that...