Stuart Brioza - State Bird Provisions: A Cookbook

At State Bird Provisions, the unusual restaurant that I opened with my wife, Nicole, you eat before you even order. Before you receive a menu, you ogle an array of small plates displayed on the multitiered carts that roam a room that is about a tenth the size of the dim sum parlors that these carts probably bring to mind. You point, you chat, you wonder, and before you know it, youre slurping briny raw oysters topped with kohlrabi krautsupreme freshness paired with fermented funkinessor biting into delicate dumplings filled with guinea hen confit seasoned with warm spices, brown butter, and preserved lemon.

Dinner continues as the food you actually ordered hits the tablefried quail with sweet-tart stewed onions and shaved Parmesan, buckwheat pancakes topped with cured beef tongue and horseradish bchamel, and trout with hazelnuts, mandarin, and brown butter spiked with citrus and fish sauce. And all the while, the carts keep coming, adding to the array of bold flavors that shouldnt go together but do, at a restaurant that shouldnt work but does. Today, the operation runs as smoothly as we could have ever hoped, a choreographed dance on the edge of a cliff. Especially considering that almost every aspect of the restaurant was a total accident.

In 2010, Nicole and I were in search of a restaurant space. We had worked together for years, first at Tapawingo in Ellsworth, Michigan (population 400), and most recently at the wine temple Rubicon in San Francisco, which had closed after a fifteen-year run. Since then, wed been catering from our home base in the Bay Area while we slowly sketched out a business plan for a restaurant inspired by trips to Chile and Peru, where we had eaten our favorite meals at roadside places that cooked everything over a wood fire and served it family style. Unlike so many ideas wed had for restaurants in the pasthypothetical themes and designs and cuisines hashed out over a little too much whiskeythis one felt real. We were ready to begin the patient search for just the right space and to thoughtfully consider the menu. We felt no urgency, though. Because, for the moment, we were short on money and crazed from work, but as happy as wed ever been.

But soon, the party would have to end. We were running our business out of our small apartment in Hayes Valley, and it was about to feel a lot smaller. Nicole was pregnant with our son, Jasper. We needed to fast-forward our plan for a restaurant, so we began scouting spaces but kept coming up empty. When Jasper was born, my paternal instinct kicked in and the pressure started building. Some might say I was freaking out. A few weeks later, we got a call from an agent about a space on Fillmore Street, in a neighborhood called the Western Addition. The next day, Nicole and baby Jasper hunkered in our apartment while I went to check it out. I rode my bike, feeling too short on sleep to drive safely.

The landlord, it turned out, had two spaces available in the same building. There was a narrow sliver that had been a pizzeria; graffiti-covered and boarded up, it smelled like an old grease trap. Then, just next door, there was the second space, built in 1911; it was 3,000 square feet on two floors with a soaring arched ceiling that hinted at the buildings previous life as a movie theater. I was blown away. When Nicole saw it, she was too. Because the area was still rough-and-tumble, the rent was affordable. It was the perfect place for our first restaurant.

Except for the fact that there was no gas, no electricity, and barely any plumbing. And, oh yeah, it wasnt zoned to be a restaurant. Between the construction and zoning, the landlord guessed that opening a restaurant in the former movie theater would take years. Still, every morning for a week, Id strap Jasper in the BabyBjrn and walk past the space, wondering how we could make it work.

Lying in bed one night, Stuart wondered out loud, What if we rent both spaces? It was an ambitious idea, but the purpose was purely practical. That pizzeria space next door to our dream restaurant might have been small and uninspiring, but at least it had gas and a hood over the stove. If we gave it a quick makeover, we could open it quickly, serve some simple food, and generate some income while the real place slowly came together. The landlord was into it. So we took the plunge. Now all we had to do was decide what the space would become. The key, we decided, was to keep things easy. But we shouldve known. Easy just isnt our style.

As we pondered, we kept catering, Jasper crawling at our feet while I piped macarons and Stuart filleted anchovies, Jasper snoozing when we got home after events and scrubbed greasy hotel pans and Cambros caked with batter. Our favorite gigs were those where we got to serve a parade of little dishes to a standing crowdnot snacks but a dozen or so items that added up to a substantial meal. Because we cooked in peoples homes in open kitchens, the work felt less like catering and more like we were part of the party. We loved interacting with the guests. We loved that they could see the food before they decided whether they wanted to eat it. That allowed us to take more risks than we otherwise would have. When you write LAMBS TONGUE or CHOCOLATE CROQUETTES WITH CURRY on a menu, sometimes people are scared off. When you show them the dish, they say yeah!

We wanted to channel the frantic fun of those hors doeuvre parties. But without creating a standing-only restaurant, we didnt see how it was possible. Thank goodness for Stuart. Most people would stand inside an old pizzeria and see an old pizzeria. But when he saw the location of the exhaust hood, near the front of the space and visible through the window, it brought to mind the setup at Chinese restaurants. He could almost see the glistening ducks hanging on hooks behind glass.