I became news director at Alabama public radio in September of 2009 one of my first stories involved James Beard, award winning chef Frank Stitt of Birmingham. It was prompted by this... the 2010 BP oil spill.
“I can remember I got up and was still in my underwear and was on the phone. The shrimp season was open and shut in four hours,” recalled Lee Carey. I met him in 2010 to talk about “Lee Fish.” That's his Alabama seafood company in Bayou La Batre.
“Bayou le Batre…buy luh bat ree,” he corrected kindly.
As you can tell, I was still learning the pronunciations.
“I was going to ask you, is that correct English or correct French that you're saying? Because down here. It's “buy luh batt ree,” Carey said.
No one was buying Alabama seafood because of the stigma of the Gulf oil spill. That is, except for Chef Frank Stitt. He not only used Alabama seafood, he printed on his menus where that fish and shrimp came from. It was a lifeline for people like Lee Carey, although it was one he had to get used to.
“We had to change,” Carey recalled. “We had to learn they want super fresh they want one. That's why they like to look it in the eye, pick it up, kiss it, rub on it and look at it and just admire that whole fresh fish.”
Frank Stitt won the prestigious James Beard Award for Best southern chef in 2001 his flagship restaurant, Highlands Bar and Grill won the beard for most outstanding restaurant in 2018 then the covid 19 pandemic took its toll. We'll talk about that, the Gulf oil spill and more coming up on APR notebook.
PAT – Chef Frank Stitt, thank you so much for talking to us today.
FRANK STITT-- Delighted. Delighted. Alabama public radio is something that I really care about, and I think that it's an important medium for us as a community and for individuals, and so I appreciate what you do.
PAT-- Well, ordinarily, when we do an interview like this, it's either going to be in the studio or it's going to be perhaps in my office, over zoom, but not today. A few feet from where we're sitting is your Birmingham bistro Chez Fonfon right now preparing for the onslaught at 11 o'clock when the patrons start showing up. Around the corner is the main dining room of Bottega and the cafe there. But where we're sitting now is the flagship of what you've accomplished here, and that's Highlands Bar and Grill, uncharacteristically quiet. I understand you've been closed here since what? Covid?
STITT-- That's right. That's right.
PAT-- So when you, when you come in here, do you leave with a, with a with a nostalgic feeling, or a good feeling, or a bad feeling, or what?
STITT-- Oh, definitely nostalgic. You know, this bar and this room, this space, you know, when I stumbled upon this location in 1982 you know, five points was kind of a mixture of different people of kind of this wonderful little neighborhood that was, you know, close to UAB, away from downtown. And so this building, to me, is, is very nostalgic. I love it. I love the architecture from the mid 20s, and Highlands, Bottega and Chez Fonfon, all are from buildings from the mid 20s. And so there is a something that runs through them. And of course, with Chez Fonfon, Bottega, Bottega cafe, three restaurants that are thriving, that are doing great, I still miss Highlands. There was something uniquely southern is kind of blended with my love of French Country food and the atmosphere the oyster bar and so, yeah, it's, it is something that, you know tugs at my heart.
PAT-- When you first came here, I understand that banks wouldn't back you.
STITT-- Well, I was 27 years old and didn't have a track record, and so the Birmingham banks were a little suspicious of this kid who had left Cullman and who had gone to school in Boston and then Berkeley and then lived in France. And so I had to have. I asked my mother to take a second mortgage out on her house in Coleman to get enough money to and everything that we opened with, we used equipment, and so we opened on a shoestring.
PAT-- So the before you came along, the joke, as I understand it, is that if people in Birmingham wanted to eat out. They would go to the country club. They would go to the Hyatt. Apparently, there was a Chinese restaurant that did okay, and there was McDonald's, and for a while there, you worked at, at, at the Hyatt, that's right. So how much of that was like, you know, going into the going into the maw of the beast, in terms of, like, the lack of culinary alternative here in Birmingham?
STITT- Well, you know, I'm not so sure. I mean, Joy Young's was an incredible restaurant. There were some really good Greek restaurants. There was some Greek seafood restaurants and so, so there, there was a bit of a restaurant community. And like you were saying, the Hyatt, that's where I worked. I was assistant dining room manager, and a lot of the staff that I worked with at Hugo's, and there we did table side flambeing of ducks and steak Diane and Caesar salads. And so some of almost a half a dozen of our core employees that became servers and bartenders at Highlands came from us working together at the Hyatt.
PAT-- There's a program on Hulu right now that I understand that you watch. It's called “The Bear.” Lot of yelling, lot of screaming, but I was kind of curious when they, when they depict the main character, Carmy, is trying to run a high end restaurant, you know, similar to, you know, Chez Fonfon, Highlands, Bottega, but in Chicago. So, when they depict what goes on in a high end restaurant kitchen, accurate, not accurate. What do you think?
STITT-- Well, the first season, I felt was a little too difficult, too emotional, too hard for me to watch, because there was a lot of screaming. And, there was a lot of just kind of negative power. And as it's grown, and as it's evolved, it's become, I think, more realistic, and sure there, you know, it's hot, it's tough, there's a lot of pressure on everybody, and so working the line in a super busy, demanding restaurant kitchen is stressful and it's exciting, and I have always tried to bring some compassion and some humility with the striving for excellence, and so you can't use your power to belittle someone else. And there is an unusual sympathy between the front of the house and the back of the house, and that's something that I don't think they really have depicted as much there, but that is something that I think a lot of the people that have worked with me over the years have taken with them, and that's a philosophy of respect and care for one another. And I think that that's a core principle.
PAT-- In addition to “The Bear,” there's there's an older an older movie people might remember “Spanglish” with Adam Sandler, and I understand they hired a colleague of yours, Chef Thomas Keller from the French Laundry over Napa, to choreograph the cooking, to make Adam Sandler look like he knew what he was doing. Those things that are kind of like part of the public image in terms of what goes on at a high end restaurant. Are there still things that people get wrong in terms of, like, what people like you and your staff do for a profession?
STITT-- You know, I think that Thomas Keller is certainly one of the great chefs of America, of the world, and he has really high expectations of himself and of his staff. And I think that one of the through lines is that what we do really matters is how we slice that tomato, how we pat that loin of lamb that we're about to cook and that we put some care and some love into those that preparation. And so I do think that, you know that may be a little unusual for people to think that there is this genuine care that goes into kind of, I think creating food that is transcendental. You have to start with this kind of an emotional relationship with the ingredients and with the craft.
PAT-- Apparently, your grandparents, kind of, you know, imbued that into you as a youngster, the it was the ingredients was the most important thing. You know, going was what we was in season, and so, I mean, growing up in Cullman. It. Your father was the town surgeon, that's right. And he would travel as part of a medical association to New York and Chicago and New Orleans, and he would bring along your mother and also a a middle school aged you. And I'm kind of curious. In middle school, I was kind of still, you know, in my “hamburger and pizza phase,” and I was wondering, when you visited the high end restaurants that your parents made it a point to take you to. What did a middle school aged Frank Stitt make of that?
STITT-- Yeah, you know, I we did get to go to the great restaurants in New Orleans and New York and and go walking up the steps to the Four Seasons restaurant. And I was just mesmerized with my parents and my brother and sister of the drama, the theater. The theater, the incredible beauty of this room and of the unbelievable food that was at the Four Seasons, which was really one of the great restaurants of America in the early 60s. And, I do think that that kind of extravagance was blended with those memories of being at my mother's parents farm in Cullman, where granddaddy white plowed with mules and milked a Jersey cow and you Layla, my grandmother would let me come and help her pick the asparagus and the strawberries, and she would gather the eggs, and she would make butter from the milk, the cream. And so those memories of those meals at their table in those just dug new potatoes and green beans and onions, stewed okra, creamed corn, tomato salads in the summertime. Those things came back when I in kind of they were, I don't think I really noticed it at the time, but it took me growing up and spending time in France and being at the markets there, and being in love with French food and cooking that I really came to understand and appreciate that childhood of the farm and In the garden and eating those southern Alabama. I mean, those Northern Alabama, Southern foods.
PAT-- Go to any “who's who” of chefs, and Chef Alice Waters will get credit for championing the “Farm to Fork” food movement, but it looks like your grandparents were doing the same thing all along.
STITT-- Oh, well, certainly, certainly. But when I ended up studying philosophy at UC Berkeley, and I had apprenticed with a Swiss chef in San Francisco, and one thing led to another, and as you begin to kind of peel the onion back and to explore the restaurants of the Bay Area, everything was pointing me to Chez Panisse, because here was this place that was only doing one menu, no choices, just working with what was at the peak of the season, and in that little bit of time in the kitchen at Chez Panisse was transformative for me, that I could see this was run more as a passion and of a pursuit of beauty than it was just a business. And, so Alice was kind enough to write a letter of introduction to who was their mentor, the great food writer Richard Olney. And so I was able to meet him in London. He was in the middle of doing a 20 volume series for the time life, producing one book every nine months, and was able to work with him as his assistant in London, and then later at his home in Solliès-Toucas, outside Toulon in the south of France. And that introduction and working with this master who was this incredibly brilliant, knowledgeable about everything related to food and wine, was just so instrumental to who I am and what I do.
PAT-- Your story with (Richard) Olney kind of reminds me of a very well worn tale from Hollywood. It's about a 23 year old Kevin Costner who's coming home on from his honeymoon, and as luck would have it, he was on a commercial airlines flight, and through pure happenstance, was seated next to Hollywood legend Richard Burton. And it was that chit chat that inspired him to kind of give it a go as an actor. Now, getting back to Alice Waters. Now I'm gonna get the term wrong, I know, but you worked there was a “stage” right?
STITT-- That's right.
PAT-- Okay, which was kind of, it's not an intern, it's not an apprentice. It's kind of like an up and coming chef who works in the kitchen. Did they get that right?
STITT-- That's That's right, that's right. And at the same time, I was working and getting a paid job at a restaurant in Marin County, 464 magnolia. So I would go back and forth. Of across the bay to work at 464 Magnolia and stage at Chez Panisse.
PAT-- So I guess for you it's like Richard Olney is sort of like the Richard Burton of the story that I told earlier, but that led to what I think you refer to as the Alabama epiphany. Can you talk about that?
STITT-- Well, I was, house sitting. My girlfriend and I, we were in Paris for three months, and I got to know Stephen Spurrier at Le Academie de Vin, one of the great wine shops of Paris, and he was made arrangements for me to work at a friend's winery in the south of France, and so I hitchhiked from Paris down to the east of Aix to a little village named Vidauban, and spent the next three weeks working, the first week and a half in the vineyard, and then the next week and a half in the cellar. But I realized picking grapes for the harvest, and this was one of the most incredibly hard, beautiful things that seemed to reconnect me to my southern roots, my grandparents' farm. But what we were doing, we were picking grapes and making wine, and I felt as though I was a part of turning this agriculture into something of beauty the wine in that I knew that I wanted to do something with food, with wine, and to try To create something in a way that would make the world a better place. Would would would be something that I could be proud of. And that was that epiphany in the vineyards in the south of France.
PAT-- And to avoid confusion, we're talking about Steve Spurrier, the wine connoisseur, not the college football coach. Do you recall opening night for Highlands?
STITT-- Not really. It's all kind of a little bit of a blur those first few years. You know, of course, I was on the line, sauteing and and I think that that is one thing that is somewhat unique, is that there we must have over 20 people that have worked with us for over 20 years. And you know, there are a number that have worked with us for over 30 years, and so there is a very tight community, and there is a sense of camaraderie about this little world of our restaurants.
PAT-- By no means am I implying that your parents were concerned financially as everything got started here. But was there a point where they stopped worrying about taking out that that extra mortgage to make sure that Highlands was working?
STITT-- Yeah? Yeah. You know, I was fortunate enough to have a dozen or so investors that put a little money in, and after four years, I was able to pay them back two and a half times their investment and and so what we're able to use those same friends and patrons to help open Bottega in 88, Bottega cafe in 90, and then Chez Fonfon in 2000 and so so there was a core group of supporters that were so so influential in making it happen. And sure enough, after three or so years, I felt as though we were going to be able to be a financial success as well as kind of an emotional success.
PAT-- You and I first met shortly after the the Gulf oil spill. And the basis of the story that I was doing about you at that time was that there were people who were not buying Alabama seafood. They you know, there could be a ship next right in the waters, right next door, from Texas, but if their boxes said caught by a Texas boat there, those would be purchased. Alabama would do without. And you made it a point, not only to purchase Alabama seafood, but to say on the menu, this is where the seafood you are eating came from. At the time, it seems noble, but how much of a risk was involved in that?
STITT-- Oh, you know, I feel pretty confident of supporting good purveyors. I feel like that. Not a lot of risk. I think that people support us, because they believe that there's integrity that, you know, I'm going to try to source the greatest ingredients, and I want it to be as nutritious and as healthy and as flavorful as it can be. And that's really, that's my North Star.
PAT-- And so. Uh, I'd like to think a lot of people respect that your contributions to the community locally. I could go on forever about I was, I was struck by one time you actually came up with menu items that people could order when they were recovering in local hospitals. Did they come to you? Or did you go to them for that?
STITT-- Well, UAB hospital came to us, and they had a novel idea. Instead of just sending everybody the same dish, they wanted to have an a la carte menu, and they wanted to have some Frank Stitt menu items on there. And so I came up with some items. I got their cooks and their chefs to come into our kitchen at Bottega, and we would spend a day testing and showing them these dishes. And then for a number of years, they had those things, and we would change it every three or four times a year so that we could, you know, try to do some seasonal local ingredients. And so it was, I think, a really great opportunity for us to show these hospital cooks that you can make, you know, some food that is really nutritious and healthy and flavorful and tasty. And it doesn't have to be too complicated.
PAT-- How hard so was it when you came up with the idea of community gardens, urban community gardens here in the middle of urban, downtown Birmingham?
STITT-- Well, Edwin Marty, who started Jones Valley Teaching Farm, was a friend, and he was actually, I think, on his way, he had been at UC Santa Cruz and studying organic farming. And he was wanted to go to China to teach organic farming there, I think he ran into a woman who became his girlfriend. So he stayed in Birmingham for a little while, and he had this idea of teaching Birmingham Public Schools about where food comes from, gardening, having a little urban farm. And that was the beginning of Jones Valley Teaching Farm, which has become one of the leading teaching farms in the United States. And, Pardis (Stitt’s wife) and I have been a part of that since the beginning, and it's one of the things I'm most proud of as a citizen of Birmingham, as a chef, and the impact that this has had on the Birmingham City school kids is just unbelievable, and it's continuing to grow, and it is now the people from New York and San Francisco are coming here to learn from Jones Valley Teaching Farm of how to have this kind of impact on young students in actually influencing their educational experience and learning to eat healthy and smart.
PAT-- Those are a couple of examples of how you've impacted the community, but also the culinary industry. Here's another one. Years ago, Mrs. Duggins and I were going to go to New York City to accept a journalism award, and I called up and I said, if you could recommend a couple of places in New York, where should we go? And I'm not going to name names, because I want to embarrass anybody. But we made a reservation, and somewhere along the lines, I must have said something kind of like, oh, you know, Frank just said we should call you or something like that when we arrived. Everybody knows this phrase, but I'll define it anyway. And, “amuse-bouche” is a kind of a taste of what's going on in the kitchen. And, you know, Lucia and I, to coin a phrase, were “am-bouched,” I guess you would say, because taste after taste after taste after taste after taste started pouring out of the kitchen to the point that we were being stared at by other tables. Now it was nothing that we did, obviously. So what had to have been the name dropping. Do you keep, and this is New York City, do you keep track of the people that you have influenced over the years who are now in major cities doing major things?
STITT-- Well, it's yes to a large degree. You know, that's something that has been just a natural part of our I mean, when you, when you stay around, as long as we've been around, but it is really so great to see a lot of the young cooks that have gone on to New York, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, all over the country, and are doing great things. And I do think that there's a community of chefs and restaurateurs who have mutual respect and who get excited. I mean Danielle Ballou, who I think is one of the great chefs and one of the great restaurateurs ever you know, last time partisan I were in New York, and we got to visit with him, and he gave us an incredible lesson in hospitality. He was so generous with his time and. His attention, and it was I, I aspire to following Danielle's footsteps.
PAT-- For the sake of our interview today. You're in, you're in your your chef's uniform, I believe, is referred to as “the whites.” And, you know, from, from my perspective, you know, very professional, very clean cut. But I keep, maybe it's my age, but you keep, kind of going back to the culinary magazines and the new chefs that are featured, there a lot of spiky hair, a lot of tasks, that sort of thing is there, kind of, is there a generation gap between, you know, folks who have been at it as long as you have, and the up and comers who are just getting started?
STITT-- Yeah, you know, we just did some pop ups, and we had a, you know, the younger generation of young cooks and chefs doing a thing at at Bottega, and it's it was, I think, eye opening for a lot of the young generation to see the formality, to see the seriousness, To see the intentionality, to see, you know, a crisp chef jacket in that maybe that's not such an old fashioned thing, or maybe it's not such a bad old fashioned thing in we do, Pardis and I think both really appreciate crisp appearance in crisp demeanor in our staff. And so I think that that when you put on an ironed white chef's jacket, you hold yourself a little taller, you have your head up and your shoulders back, and there's a there's a way of interacting with each other, your fellow cooks, your fellow restaurant staff, that we think is important.
PAT-- As we start to wrap up a quick story, I'll try to make it brief. Years ago, Mrs. Duggins and I visited Napa Valley, and one of the places where we dined was the “French Laundry.” Now, we asked our server, when your friend and colleague, Chef Thomas Keller, wraps for the day, where does he go to eat? And they told us it was a place called Bistro Jeanty. We went. It was great. We looked recently. It's still open, so not to put you on the spot, but when you're done for the day, where do you go to eat in Birmingham?
STITT-- Wow. Well, you know, there certainly are lots of really good places, Helen, El Barrio, you know, these are restaurants that, whether they're over there, that really, there's some love and care that goes into the food. And so, you know, I mean, I do a Full Moon Barbecue makes a pretty mean inside outside sliced extra chow, chow barbecue sandwich.
PAT-- Well, that's all that I have. So Frank Stitt, if you'll pardon me for borrowing a line from “The Bear,” thank you, Chef.
STITT-- Thank you. It's been a pleasure talking with you.
PAT—APR Notebook on Alabama public radio is now available on YouTube as well as apr.org and wherever you get your podcasts. Point and click for my previous chats with six time Grammy Award winner Jason Isbel, two time Emmy Award winner, and University of Alabama graduate, Michael Emerson, who starred as Benjamin Linus in “LOST,” Congressman Shomari Figures and Jimmy Wales of Huntsville, who invented Wikipedia, among others. The student interns in the Apr newsroom are Samantha Triana, Chris ALF Lourdes, Duran, Matt Moran, Emily Ahern, Leo swagger, JD, kaziah, Audrey, Zimmerman, Brooke Goodrich and Lila. Jane bonds, I'm Pat Duggins, we'll see you next time on "APR Notebook."
