Burn the Ice: The American Culinary Revolution and Its End

by Kevin Alexander

Overview

"Inspiring"—Danny Meyer, CEO, Union Square Hospitality Group; Founder, Shake Shack; and author, Setting the Table

James Beard Award-winning food journalist Kevin Alexander traces an exhilarating golden age in American dining—with a new Afterword addressing the devastating consequences of the coronavirus pandemic on the restaurant industry

Over the past decade, Kevin Alexander saw American dining turned on its head. Starting in 2006, the food world underwent a transformation as the established gatekeepers of American culinary creativity in New York City and the Bay Area were forced to contend with Portland, Oregon. Its new, no-holds-barred, casual fine-dining style became a template for other cities, and a culinary revolution swept across America. Traditional ramen shops opened in Oklahoma City. Craft cocktail speakeasies appeared in Boise. Poke bowls sprung up in Omaha. Entire neighborhoods, like Williamsburg in Brooklyn, and cities like Austin, were suddenly unrecognizable to long-term residents, their names becoming shorthand for the so-called hipster movement. At the same time, new media companies such as Eater and Serious Eats launched to chronicle and cater to this developing scene, transforming nascent star chefs into proper celebrities. Emerging culinary television hosts like Anthony Bourdain inspired a generation to use food as the lens for different cultures. It seemed, for a moment, like a glorious belle epoque of eating and drinking in America. And then it was over.

To tell this story, Alexander journeys through the travails and triumphs of a number of key chefs, bartenders, and activists, as well as restaurants and neighborhoods whose fortunes were made during this veritable gold rush—including Gabriel Rucker, an originator of the 2006 Portland restaurant scene; Tom Colicchio of Gramercy Tavern and Top Chef fame; as well as hugely influential figures, such as André Prince Jeffries of Prince's Hot Chicken Shack in Nashville; and Carolina barbecue pitmaster Rodney Scott.

He writes with rare energy, telling a distinctly American story, at once timeless and cutting-edge, about unbridled creativity and ravenous ambition. To "burn the ice" means to melt down whatever remains in a kitchen's ice machine at the end of the night. Or, at the bar, to melt the ice if someone has broken a glass in the well. It is both an end and a beginning. It is the firsthand story of a revolution in how Americans eat and drink.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780525558040
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/14/2020
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	5.45(w) x 8.38(h) x 0.84(d)

About the Author

Kevin Alexander is a James Beard Award-winning food journalist and recipient of the Society of Professional Journalist's Mark of Excellence Award. His work has appeared in Esquire, Elle, Men's Journal, The New Republic, and Boston Globe, and he is a 2018 Association of Food Journalists award winner. He was born in Texas, grew up in New England, and now lives in Northern California.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

2006

1 Gabriel Rucker, Portland, Oregon, Part 1 23

2 TV Dad, Tom Colicchio, New York City, New York 53

3 Anjan and Emily Mitra, San Francisco, California, Part 1 63

4 King of Trucks, Roy Choi, Los Angeles, California 86

5 André Prince Jeffries, North Nashville, Tennessee, Part 1 93

6 Freret Street, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2008, Part 1 108

7 Phil Ward, New York City, New York, Part 1 111

2009

8 Holeman & Finch, Atlanta, Georgia, January 2009, Ten p.m. 137

9 Barbecue Man, Rodney Scott, Hemingway, South Carolina 140

10 Not an Activist, Tunde Wey, Detroit, Michigan, Part 1 152

11 Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond, Pawhuska, Oklahoma 165

12 Freret Street, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2011, Part 2 173

13 Gabriel Rucker, Portland, Oregon, Part 2 175

14 Behind the Curtain, Anonymous Restaurant Publicist, USA 190

15 Anjan and Emily Mitra, San Francisco, California, Part 2 197

16 Mayor, Flavortown, Guy Fieri, Santa Rosa, California 207

17 André Prince Jeffries, North Nashville, Tennessee, Part 2 212

18 Phil Ward, New York City, New York, Part 2 226

2013

19 South Again, Mashama Bailey, Savannah, Georgia 237

20 Souvla, 517 Hayes Street, San Francisco, California, Winter 2014 248

21 A Story About Rosé, aka The Fat Jew Interlude 250

22 Not an Activist, Tunde Wey, Detroit, Michigan, Part 2 254

23 111 N. 12th Street, Williamsburg Neighborhood, Brooklyn, New York, September 2016 261

24 Downfall, John Besh, New Orleans, Louisiana 263

2017

25 Anjan and Emily Mitra, San Francisco, California. Part 3 271

26 The Resistance. Sonja Finn, Pittsburgh. Pennsylvania 282

27 The Plaza District. NW 16th Street from Blackwelder to Indiana, Oklahoma City, OK 292

28 Phil Ward, New York City, New York, Part 3 297

29 Freret Street, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2018. Part 3 304

30 Gabriel Rucker, Portland, Oregon, Part 3 307

31 Kroger Marketplace, 9001 Old US Hwy 42, Union, Kentucky, Spring 2018 315

32 André Prince Jeffries, North Nashville, Tennessee, Part 3 318

Epilogue 325

Afterword 329

Acknowledgments 337

A Note on Sources 341

Notes 344

Bibliography 361

Image Credits 363

Index 364

Editorial Reviews

An anecdotal, episodic, wide-ranging accounting of the strange, slow deceleration of the restaurant mania of the aughts, and the human costs of the decline.” —Helen Rosner

“Sharply insightful . . . From new urbanism and gentrification to identity politics, venture capital, and the difficulty of ‘eating local’ when the local is subject to abrupt climate change, Alexander gets at how the buzzy restaurant scene of the past twenty years has depended on trends much bigger than its own.” —The Times Literary Supplement

“Mr. Alexander is an admirably thorough researcher. He conducted hundreds of hours of interviews for the book, meeting with some of his subjects dozens of times and revisiting most at least once to chart the arc of their careers. This groundwork allows him to bring us deeply into their worlds, probing their motivations, backgrounds, flaws and virtues, writing with authority not just about public perceptions but also about private moments . . . [T]he book provides an entertaining and informative picture of the American restaurant scene over the past dozen years. Just dipping in and out of it pretty much guarantees learning something new.” —Wall Street Journal

“Kevin Alexander makes a fascinating case that we’ve witnessed the most exciting and creative time for food in recent history, but now, the golden age has passed. It’s a bold idea, and one that’ll get you thinking hard about what’s next.” —Plate

“[A] well-researched, witty food industry history…Alexander’s sharp wit keeps the narrative moving…This astute reflection on an era of American food culture will give foodies a new perspective on the restaurants they love and the dining experiences they’ve grown to expect.” —Publishers Weekly

“Kevin Alexander is such a fluent and engaging writer that I was several chapters in before I realized how gimlet-eyed his view of the American culinary world is (and by "gimlet" here I mean the thing that pokes holes in other things, not the one that's a mix of gin and Rose's lime juice). We need this book.” – David Wondrich, author of Imbibe!: From Absin the Cocktail to Whiskey Smash, a Salute in Stories and Drinks to "Professor" Jerry Thomas, Pioneer of the American Bar
 
“This is a big American story, essential and gripping. Kevin Alexander shows how our culture fought and lost a battle against a creeping suburbia. Burn the Ice is modern anthropology about the physical and spiritual implications of what and how we eat. I loved it.” – Wright Thompson, author of The Cost of These Dreams: Sports Stories and Other Serious Business
 
“In his direct and spirited way, Kevin Alexander builds a swirling, deeply reported narrative about the American culinary scene. He digs into so many stories, shaping a detailed picture of how and what we've been fed in restaurants for the past 12 years. For anyone who follows chef and restaurant culture—and anyone who likes to eat out—Burn the Ice is a juicy, satisfying read.” – Erin Byers Murray, author Grits: A Cultural and Culinary Journey Through the South and Shucked: Life on a New England Oyster Farm
  
“Crucial reading for food lovers, social anthropologists, and cultural historians, alike. Kevin Alexander takes the great rabble of kitchen slave misfits, backwoods foragers, and tattooed food truck savants who turned the old gourmet dining culture on its head during the early years of the new millennium, and brings them vividly to life.” – Adam Platt, New York Magazine's restaurant critic

“If you’ve noticed that food has become especially central to the American consciousness today, you’re not alone. Kevin Alexander takes a fresh and original look at the whirlwind of circumstances—cultural, legislative, and economic—that have laid the groundwork for food’s precarious ascendance. Burn the Ice is captivating, concerning, and—most of all—inspiring.” —Danny Meyer, CEO, Union Square Hospitality Group; Founder, Shake Shack; and author, Setting the Table
 
“All revolutions end—and let’s face it, they’re kind of exhausting. Progress in the restaurant craft has now relaxed into evolution, which of course every industry needs to prosper. With instructive, hilarious, and sometimes harrowing stories from the greatest minds in America’s culinary trenches, Burn The Ice offers an authoritative preview of what’s next.” —Ted Allen, host of Food Network’s “Chopped”
 

From the Publisher

04/29/2019

In this well-researched, witty food industry history, James Beard Award–winning journalist Alexander takes a deep dive into the recent culinary culture of America. He posits that 2006 marked the beginning of a 12-year “golden age of American dining” when gastronomic experimentation blossomed in up-and-coming food capitals across the country, beyond New York City and the Bay Area. After the 2008 financial crash, scrappy young cooks launched a “veritable food Valhalla” of creativity and innovation “with as little money as possible,” celebrating local foods and glorifying “rural-chic” craftsmanship (like “hand-pickled... pickles”). The author follows prominent chefs, restaurateurs, bartenders, and neighborhoods that exemplified the zeitgeist: chef Gabriel Rucker’s irreverent interpretations of French cuisine at Le Pigeon propelled casual fine dining in Portland, Ore., and nationally, while André Prince Jeffries grew her family’s local hot chicken restaurant in Nashville, inspiring hot chicken competitors and sparking a nationwide obsession. Alexander’s sharp wit keeps the narrative moving, notably with a take-down of Guy Fieri (that riffs on a notorious New York Times review of a Fieri restaurant) that begins with the question, “How do you really feel about Guy Fieri?” This astute reflection on an era of American food culture will give foodies a new perspective on the restaurants they love and the dining experiences they’ve grown to expect. (July)

Publishers Weekly

Narrator Holter Graham’s conversational style is perfect for this look at the American food boom of the twenty-first century. This well-researched history focuses on a handful of trendsetting chefs and restaurants to tell the story of how social media, television, cultural movements, and global flavors changed Americans’ answer to the age-old question: What’s for dinner? Graham infuses his delivery with a range of moods to convey, for example, the chefs’ passion for their work, frustration with its challenges, struggles with substance abuse, and joys of success and recognition. Listeners meet Anja and Emily Mitra, who brought Indian food to the Bay Area; learn how Gabriel Rucker helped make Portland, Oregon, a food destination; and gain insight into Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond’s background. C.B.L. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

AUGUST 2019 - AudioFile

Narrator Holter Graham’s conversational style is perfect for this look at the American food boom of the twenty-first century. This well-researched history focuses on a handful of trendsetting chefs and restaurants to tell the story of how social media, television, cultural movements, and global flavors changed Americans’ answer to the age-old question: What’s for dinner? Graham infuses his delivery with a range of moods to convey, for example, the chefs’ passion for their work, frustration with its challenges, struggles with substance abuse, and joys of success and recognition. Listeners meet Anja and Emily Mitra, who brought Indian food to the Bay Area; learn how Gabriel Rucker helped make Portland, Oregon, a food destination; and gain insight into Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond’s background. C.B.L. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

AUGUST 2019 - AudioFile

2019-04-14
A back-of-the-house, behind-the-scenes look at new restaurants and passionate chefs.

Making his book debut, James Beard Award-winning food journalist Alexander offers an energetic, scattered chronicle of the food world from 2006 to 2017, a decade, he asserts, when "independent, chef-owned, casual fine-dining restaurants" created a culinary revolution. He locates the revolution's birth in Portland, Oregon, where a young chef named Gabriel Rucker opened a small restaurant, Le Pigeon, generating hype that "morphed from local buzz into a national fever pitch," putting Rucker—and Portland—on the map of culinary stardom. Rucker, writes the author, invented a new aesthetic: "the mismatched chairs, the Goodwill plates and silverware, the lack of tablecloths," along with "scratch-kitchen-level food made by hand using local ingredients." Rucker is one among the many individuals Alexander profiles, gleaned from nearly 100 interviews with cooks, chefs, and bartenders whose ambitions, challenges, successes, and failures add up to "a mosaic of the last decade's sprawling, mercurial, pyrotechnically creative culinary ecosystem." There's Tom Colicchio, who learned how to cook by working at top New York restaurants. At 26, he earned a three-star review from the New York Times, soon opened Gramercy Tavern with prominent restaurateur Danny Meyer, and went on to establish his own restaurant, Craft, "radical in its simplicity." When reality TV producers wanted a chef to judge a food competition show, Colicchio was high on the list; the show was Top Chef. There's Anjan and Emily Mitra, who struggled to open an Indian restaurant in San Francisco and ended up so overwhelmed by their success that they lost sight of their original motivation to share the texture, balance, and "crazy versatility of flavors" of South Indian food. There's Phil Ward, innovator of the craft cocktail movement that spread across the country. Alexander's choice of characters seems random, and their stories, though engaging, don't cohere into an overarching analysis. Initially claiming that the revolution is over, the author concludes that "a fresh torch" is likely to be lit.

A colorful yet rambling history of transformations in the food world.

Kirkus Reviews