The Sit-Down      10/09/2008  

Dylan Dodd and Daniel Minch, Walter Foods

Daniel Minch, Dylan Dodd and Justin Ernsberger. Photo by Agaton Strom.

Daniel Minch, Dylan Dodd and Justin Ernsberger. Photo by Agaton Strom.

Walter Foods in Williamsburg received a lot of blog buzz when it opened around three weeks ago, and since then it’s been consistently packed with waits as long as 1 ½ hours. We talked to owners and Billyburg residents Dylan Dodd (owner of Barrio Chino) and Daniel Minch (former bartender at Balthazar) about first dates, bulldogs and why they genuinely like Houston’s.

You’ve been really busy ever since you’ve opened. What have been the big sellers?

Dylan Dodd: The French dip. One day we went to Houston’s. We like the menu at Houston’s … it’s not really hip at Houston’s, kind of cheesy. It kind of feels like you’re at a hotel restaurant. But some of the menu items we really love, and when we got there the first thing we wanted for lunch was the French dip. We took it and we made it more upscale by using filet mignon, and then we put our own house horseradish sauce on it.

Danny Minch: It’s nice to walk by a table and see a bottle of wine and four French dips.

DD: Yeah it’s kind of a masculine menu. The whole place is kind of masculine.

What distinguishes your restaurant from other excellent destinations in the neighborhood like Marlow and Sons?

DD: I was at Marlow and Sons last night, and Marlow is my favorite restaurant in Brooklyn, but our concept is that you are going to find the same steak and lobster every night of the year. We want to strive for real consistency and simplicity. We have about three specials every night, and we have raw bar specials every night, but we’re not going to the market everyday to find rare ingredients like fresh dandelions. The same thing goes for the bar—we tried to stick to this rule of three ingredients max for cocktails. You know, classic.

What does it take for a restaurant to be successful in this neighborhood?

DM: That’s the thing about going to Barrio Chino—you never felt like it was trying to be anything else besides what it was. I just feel like you can’t open a place and try be somebody else. Dylan didn’t go out and buy a skateboard the day before we opened, and I didn’t go out and buy tight jeans–not that there is anything wrong with that.

DD: We didn’t get any tattoos or anything.

DM: We are both intrigued with the idea that New York shouldn’t be a place where just a certain type of person hangs out. The really great places in New York, whether they’re restaurants or bars, could have anyone in them at any moment.

DD: That’s one thing both of us really love about Balthazar. The very first date I ever had in New York, in 1999, was at Balthazar, and now I go there with my parents, I go there just for a drink. You go there and you see models, accountants …

DM: There’s people who work at Bloomingdales there. There’s out-of-work artists having a Stella and one of the eggs that they give out at the bar. That’s New York. Maybe that answers the question about why some restaurants out here don’t do well. They want to fit the demographic. I don’t think hipsters only want to hang out with hipsters, I don’t think yuppies only want to hang out with yuppies. Otherwise they wouldn’t live in New York.

Where did the restaurant’s name come from?

DM: When it came time to name the restaurant, we just really couldn’t come up with a name. We had other names that had nothing to do with Walter (Danny’s bulldog), but it just came to a point where we just had to come up with a name. A great name isn’t going to save a bad restaurant, and a bad name isn’t going sink a good one, so we just said let’s do it.

DD: But we like it now. It could be an old man in a bowtie serving you a martini and oysters.

How did you determine your cocktail list?

DD: One of the ideas behind the place was thinking of what Sinatra would want after a show, what he would want to drink and eat. We wanted it to feel very Rat Pack: martinis, oysters, chops. That’s kind of where the cocktail list comes from. It’s all classics that are easy to understand and explain.

We like Hotel Delmano too; the bar is gorgeous and they have amazing drinks. But we just made another choice. We’re trying to make it easy and relaxed.

DM: Overall, we don’t want people to be intimidated. Babbo is one of the best restaurants in the city, but every time I go I get nervous because I know I have to be ready to really study the menu. It’s like going to class. That’s not what we want here.

DD: I also just want to give props to our chef (Justin Ernsberger). He’s from Clinton Street Baking Company and Aquagrill. We were lucky enough to find him on Craigslist. We interviewed a million people, but he really understood the concept right away.

DM: We really hit the jackpot with him. It’s really hard to find a chef who embraces simplicity.

You certainly got a lot of blog coverage.

DD: We’ve been waking up and reading things on the internet and have been largely frustrated. Number one, all the coverage has been on Danny Minch. For some reason I’ve been ignored.

DM: He’s got a restaurant that’s largely responsible for transforming part of Chinatown into the Lower East Side. I’ve never had a place before. I worked at Balthazar. I think the first person to write a blog didn’t bring up his name, and everyone else who is writing blogs is just extracting from that. And it’s been really kind of upsetting.

DD: Even the real press is using the blogs as factual information. It’s pretty surprising.

DM: As a matter of fact, I know that Dylan could have opened up a restaurant without me, and I couldn’t have opened it up without him.

-Keith Wagstaff

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One Response to “Dylan Dodd and Daniel Minch, Walter Foods”

  1. Foodie Feminists Say ‘Oh No You Didn’t’ | nyc-delivery.com on October 9th, 2008 2:15 pm

    [...] week’s Women Chefs & Restaurateurs event, but instead, it’s an (albeit interesting) Q&A with the bearded, burly guys behind Walter Foods, in which Dylan Dodd says, “It’s kind of a masculine menu. The whole place is kind of [...]

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