An Optimistic Outlook for NYC Restaurants

for a very long time. In our next guest, well known to our Bloomberg Business Week audience and community, So great to have back with us, chef and restaurant tour Danielle Blulu, owner of so many restaurants in New York City alone. He's around the world, Singapore, Dubai, you name it, also at Sea and he's joining us right now via zoom in New York City. Danielle, So nice to have you here. How are you? Thank you? Pleased to be

with you Carol and team. And I'm well, I'm well, I'm opening a new restaurant to this so it's you know, it's looking to some better days and um, of course I have the opportunity to have the fine dining restaurant that is the epitome of excellence and service and food and wine. And I enjoy also opening very casual, affordable and soulful beastrow And the restaurant I'm opening today is it's called Grata. Grata is named after a soulful dish of my hometown in Leon that I grew up with, Grata,

and it's kind of everybody knows that Grata is. It's delicious. It's that's wonderful smell and wonderful taste and often as a crust of cheese or something, it sounds magical. Um, Daniel, how did you think about the current restaurant environment and who's coming back and and what they're looking for. I've talked to a lot of retail CEOs and they're saying it's a much more casual society, although people are also starting to buy clothes to dress up. So tell us

about this. How you were thinking about with this new restaurant, how you wanted to approach it. Well, the good thing is I see all the spectrum of the market because I even a retail store like a Pistory Bully restaurant Daniel Pabion, which is a year old Dismounts and Danielle is celebrating is twenty nine years and of course the Grata being a dis new restaurant as well as Babe

Bully Suit that are also casual, more approachable. I think we have been we have been having a very good quarters and we are entering to a second quarter with very strong a lot of demand, a lot of private dining as well. People are going out. People a spending but no more than before or if they do it because they really wanted to splurge on the missing things they really missed. But we see the lunch coming back. The midtown business lunch are coming strong. But there's also

that blend of business people and social people. People want to gather together and celebrate, like today at the paon we had five ladies who took the train from Westford, Connecticut to have lunch at PA and they take the train back home. I told that was rat eyes sweet. What about when it comes to feel it, you do feel it. You certainly feel a difference with what we've seen over the last couple of years buildings. I have had one blunderbuild and the buildings are filling up more

and more and we see the activity inside. We see also in the amenity floors. So many people come for lunch as much as in the restaurant what about when it comes to finding employees, because we know that's been so difficult for for many industries. How are you when it comes to staffing the restaurants. I know, well that is um it is challenging. But we have a lot

of young people coming to New York. A lot of people want to move back to New York, move back or move to New York because they see no opportunity to be part of this uh sort of new beginning again in New York. And we see a lot of young talents who maybe w aren't thinking of it and now engaging coming to New York. And we have also a lot of more people I think on the job

market coming. So it is perfect. No, we are trying to be very carefully to balance between the shift we operate and the amount of stuff we have in order to guarantee the quality of service and food. Daniel, you from what I I mean I think you first came to New York City in the eighties, was it? Is that correct? So so you've seen a lot of cycles.

And I think even after nine eleven, right, people were really concerned about in downtown New York and parts of New York and just it came back, and we've seen so many different cycles and this wonderful grand city that is Manhattan. Um, in New York City, how would you put this cycle? Uh? And and then and kind of do you expect that we get back to kind of the grand levels that we saw pre pandemic. I think it's the I think the worst part of the cycle

is almost there. The bad part of this cycle is when the RF came out and only distributed a third of restaurants a conversation to help them restart their business. And more than tutor that would say at one point four million restaurants never got anything. And so this uh, this was this forced a lot of closure. This force too so many business to not be able to reopen the business they had. It was impossible. And also you know the last three years to an a year, the

uncalculated amount of loss that restaurant business had. And I hope the government will do something about this very unfair sort of distribution that happened in all business. Um, five of my best friends got a nice check. You know, I didn't get any. So it's okay. I still gonna

be strong mentening my business. But still it's very difficult and I think I talked about the industry, so many people are still challenge and some area in the country and maybe better than other because Florida I think for the last year benefited better maybe and other park. But I think New York is strong and coming back strong.

Of course, NEO is relentlessly optimistic. Well, we talk a lot about people moving out of New York, and we've also talked a lot about the way that jobs have changed here in terms of remote and people not having to necessarily live in New York City to work here. Do you think New York City ever comes back to levels at least when it comes to employment, when it

comes to the service industry that we saw a pre pandemic. Ah, of course it will, because I think the transition of the home office situation will still last couple of years until there's really a settlement of balance between people's life and business necessity. But uh, and I think there's a lot of I mean, in our business, the hospitality. If someone say I want to work from home, it's not

gonna work. You're gonna have nobody serving your meal. So well, you know, Tim talked to you asked earlier about labor and whether or not you're you know, finding everybody you need. There are so many strains and stresses still on this industry, and I think about labor, certainly in labor costs or just finding the workers you need, but also Danielle about just higher food costs. Are you able to pass all

of that along to your customers. We try to be very very cautious on raising price as much as we get hit every day with the rays of some thing. I mean, if it's not the land, it's the asparagus. If it's not the asparagos, it's the arly shows. Of course they come out the show, come from California, have to travel all the way to New York, and so we get very creative and try to really work with our local suppliers as much as possible. We try to be I've always been very seasonal in what I do,

and I think seasonality helped in maddening cost control. But uh, it's a question of being very careful and yet not deprived the guests from excellence and quality. So creativity is very important. Taste is very important. And you know, you give me five dollar and make you a wonderful meal, you give me fifty dollars I'll give you a wonderful meal too. So it's just a question of the approach of what we do with what ingredient we have, and

how we can interpret that. Can you ascribe some sort of figure to how much you've seen prices of of your inputs go up, how much you've seen would costs go up in the last year, What percentage wise is that I will set? And the food cost in general went up by thirty percent in average between someone went fire and some lower sometime fifteen percent. But I would say, but menu when only up ten percent, maybe ten of fifteen, no more and and the hardest single So we and

on the menu. We also have to think about service. So when you pay meal, you still have to pay of that for service, plus another eight percent if you're in New York City for tax or more. It's so Daniel, your new restaurant legratin. So tell me if I come

for dinner, what will I get? You will get some wonderful seasonal appetizers, seafood, a selection of seafood, wonderful appetizers with vegetable because I think even if it's a bistrow, it can be sample the meaning of a bull and a beast hole is that the food is of great quality, ingredient, good technique and simple preparation. And so there's a salad of var cover with some shaving of foi ground on it.

But there's also we have a water cress soup with smoked rout and then I do also a pike canal, which a canal is a dumpling of pike that is in a beshamal like not creamy but milky beshamal with mushroom and gray air cheese on top. And that's gratina, which we need bake in the oven until it puff and get crusty. That's delicious. People love it. Next time at the restaurant totally everything from seafood to meat to

vegetable too. Uh. And I think it's a bistro. It's a place you can go once a week because it's affordable, because it's fun. The wines are affordable, the food is affordable, and it's it's healthy and yet nourishing. We have to leave it there. Um so great to check in with you once again, and good luck on the new restaurant, and really appreciate all the time you gave us today.

Thank you so much, Danielle Balloud. Of course you know him well um, and of course he's opening up this new restaurant, All Groton in the Beak minutes in downtown Manhattan,