Episode #2 Jeff Gordinier, Esquire

Hanna (1:34) Hi Jeff.

Jeff (1:36) Hi. How are you, Hanna?

Hanna (1:38) Good. Welcome to the show and thank you so much for joining us today.

Jeff (1:41) Well, thanks for having me. It's a nice thing. It’s nice to see people you know.

Hanna (1:46) Right. 

Jeff (1:47) When you’re stuck at home all the time, even to do this digital vista, it’s just nice to see familiar faces.

Michael (1:52) We’ll take it, we’ll take it.

Hanna (1:52) Agreed.

Michael (1:54) So Jeff, we’ve been locked down for the last few months.

Jeff (1:58) We have.

Michael (1:59) What do you miss the most? 

Jeff (2:00) People! I miss community. It sort of boils down to this meal that my wife and I had at Verōnika, a new Stephen Starr restaurant in, I think, the Flatiron District, that’s in this cool kind of photography museum.

As Lauren and I were leaving this restaurant Verōnika, it had a very narrow bar. As we were leaving the bar, I saw my friend David Litman. We saw Simon Kim from Cote restaurant. We saw our friend Yolanda, and it was so New York, you know? It was this thing... “oh hey friends what’s up?” It was that sense of community and comradeship that you feel in a hot restaurant in New York on certain nights, you know? It’s just a fun feeling. 

It’s sort of why I came to New York in the first place from California 25 years ago, hard to believe. I miss that. I find that that’s what’s really exciting at restaurants, whether they’re casual places or fancy places or new places or old places. It’s that sense of...oh we’re here, we’re here together in New York coming from all different backgrounds and we’re having a night out, you know? Does that make sense?

Hanna (3:09) Yes, and you know actually the feelings are mutual. Our community, our chefs and bartenders and restaurants and bar owners, they miss seeing you, too.

Jeff (3:20) Yeah, you know actually, this is interesting. Last week was the week that Lauren and I returned to restaurants. Obviously these were outdoor eating dining spaces and places where they were very strict about the protocol of observing social distancing and people wearing masks and everything, but as a reporter, I felt like I should experience this. 

As a person who writes about the food scene, I really felt like that was my duty to see what that felt like. I don’t know if it’s something I feel comfortable doing out night after night, you know, putting myself at risk, putting other people at risk, but you know, I did feel like as a journalist, I needed to see. 

We went to Le Crocodile in Brooklyn, in Williamsburg. It’s just spectacular. I mean, not to go to a restaurant in months and then go to Le Crocodile. My god, we felt so lucky. That first sip of the vesper was like ambrosia.

Then, we went up to a place called Stone Acres Farm, which is in Connecticut. It’s in Stonington, Connecticut, near Mystic, and there is Chef James Wayman. He’s a really talented, really kind of trailblazing chef, that definitely deserves more recognition. He and his team have all these different restaurants like Engine Room and Oyster Club. And Stuff,, They were basically doing an Oyster Club pop up. It just felt so glorious.

Then we went and got lobster rolls the next morning in Noank. I think it’s called, Noank, Connecticut, at a place called Abbott’s. It’s a famous place there. I’m rambling, but I'll tell you this, I felt really safe in each place, I don’t feel like there was a chance of exposure. I feel more anxious, I think, going to the supermarket.

Hanna (5:10) Yeah. I’m getting hungry actually from just hearing you. From oysters to lobster. I mean, I’m getting hungry. 

Michael (5:16) So just out of curiosity Jeff, do you think any of these new ideas, these new ways that restaurants are coping, are going to survive into the future, post COVID?

Jeff (5:27) Yes. I think what we’re seeing is what happens whenever creative people are put into a corner. We’re seeing innovation. People have to innovate to survive. That's another reason I wanted to go to these restaurants. I wanted to support these restaurants, these creative people whom I frankly just love and support them as much as I can with takeout. 

I live close to Blue Hill at Stone Barns. You know, Dan Barber’s place?

It’s one of the best restaurants in the world. It’s 15 minutes away from me so it’s so cool to see what they’re doing with these boxes. On Friday. we’re actually going to pick up a berry box. 

Hanna (6:07) We saw that.

Jeff (6:09) Yeah. We’re getting the berry box. We got the flower box once; the bread box. The fisheries box is really interesting cause, you think, how are they going to do oysters? They said “We have fresh oysters and we will shuck them for you and then you take them home.” I thought that doesn’t sound safe. How’s that going to work? Well, what turns out is they open them, they sort of half open them, and then they close them with a rubber band so each oyster had a rubber band. 

Hanna (6:38) Oh. 

Jeff (6:39) Yeah. They do advise you to eat them that night. So we get home, put them in the fridge, and eat them a few hours later. Pop them open and oh my god. They tasted so fresh and it was so good to have oysters again because, frankly, I’m not good at shucking. It’s not something we’re going to do at home. 

But what is really inspiring is seeing chefs and their teams bring that creativity to the table. It’s the food you’re so grateful to eat again It’s the delicious kind of food that you know, like, I’m not going to cook at home. I can’t cook like this at home. But it's more than that. It's just seeing their minds at work, seeing the form that hospitality takes. The way they care about us. Do you know what I mean? 

Hanna (7:21) Exactly.

Jeff (7:22) I’ve seen so many different manifestations of this kind of care and love that they put into these boxes, and delivery services and takeout and that's half of it. That's half of the nourishment that I feel we’re getting from it. 

Hanna (7:37) So Jeff, we noticed that you’ve written a lot more articles the last couple months.

Jeff (7:44) Oh yeah. You did notice that. That’s funny. You really paid attention, Hanna.

Hanna (7:48) We read them all.

Jeff (7:49) Oh my god. I’m sorry.

Hanna (7:51) How has this situation changed what you are writing about? 

Jeff (7:53) Yeah. That’s a great question. That’s very perceptive.

I mean my role at Esquire has changed, and it changed organically. Nobody told me to write more, or whatever. 

My title is Food & Drinks Editor. Now this is a good forum in which to explain this because I usually have to explain this four to forty times a day. I mean, it's so many emails. I’m not really an editor, just so everyone knows. It’s just sort of a nice title. 

I mean, I do play a little bit of an editing role in terms of scouting out talent and helping to commission pieces, but I’m just kind of a freelance writer actually. I play this role, almost a brand ambassador role, for the magazine. I can’t actually assign anything, so when people come to me and say well you know, we think you should cover this...I mean there’s a whole process that comes after that. Even if I agree, I go to Kevin Sintumuang, my editor. He’s my main editor, and then I’ll go to Sarah, and then Boskovich if it’s for the site.

For some reason when the pandemic hit and the shutdowns started, I just started writing like crazy for the site, not just for print. I don’t really know why.

I just felt I love this industry. I love chefs. I love bartenders. I love restaurateurs and entrepreneurs in this field. I love farmers, you know, and I felt this urge to speak up for them. 

My first couple of pieces were pretty light but then I did some more heavy weight stuff as time went on. There was one piece that was sort of about the Trump administration. 

Hanna (9:37) Mhmm, mhmm.

Jeff (9:38) Not in my mind, sufficiently caring about independent restaurants, which I still believe to be true even though there is some progress. But that’s a very weird circumstance. I’ll tell you about that piece because the traffic was crazy. I have never written anything like this, and it got actually millions of hits.

Hanna (9:57) And social sharing. I mean everybody was sharing this story. 

Michael (9:59) Yeah, because you had written what a lot of people were thinking but maybe hadn’t had the courage to articulate. You just put it all out there in black and white in one of the most hard hitting, soul-searing indictments that I’ve ever read.

Jeff (10:17) Thank you.

Michael (10:19) It was a beautiful job.

Jeff (10:20) I mean, again, the circumstances are quite strange. That wasn’t an assignment. Nobody told me to do it, nor did I tell anyone I was doing it, and the magazine.

It was a Friday. I was making breakfast for everybody and this idea started kind of worming its way through my mind. I grabbed this laptop and I just started typing exactly what you read.

I was traveling around Ohio and Indiana and they were red states. Then I kept writing, and then the piece got angrier and angrier. I honestly didn’t know what it was or if it was worth running. I’m being completely honest with you. There was no intention. It was like I opened a vein. And yes, it was stuff I was thinking about, texting with my friends about, but I had no idea it was coherent.

Then I turned it in to Michael Sebastian, who is the current Editor-in-Chief of Esquire, and then Ben Boskovich and Kevin Sintumuang. I was basically like, feel free to obviously just ignore it. They said oh no, this is pretty hot man. Really? They’re said it’s good, we’re going to run it in about a half an hour. 

I was, like, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let me fact-check some stuff...maybe I should soften it, or I don’t know. And they said, no no we’re just running it. They basically just pulled the trigger. Put it up and I thought, ok, well that doesn't even make sense. 

I shared it on Facebook because, you know, that’s what you do. I look back after I share it, and already in 5 minutes, 20 more people had shared it.  What’s going on here? It’s just weird how it was just very natural.

Pete Wells, who’s obviously a friend of mine, texted me “that’s the best thing you ever wrote.” And I was like, what? What are you talking about? So it became this kind of avalanche and I’m proud of that. I mean, I’m proud it touched the nerve and, you know, it’s almost like a band that suddenly stumbles upon a hit single and doesn’t really know how to write another hit single. I mean, I don’t really know how to do it again. It was just kind of random. 

I think actually, Hanna, this is like a form of therapy for me. Just stuck in the house, it’s easier to just start typing something. It’s kind of liberating to just think, well, I seem to have a platform as of now. Who knows in this economy, but might as well crank stuff out, you know?

Hanna (12:44) Obviously you are leveraging the social media to showcase what you love to drink and eat. How important is social media for you to find your stories and people that you want to interview? 

Jeff (12:59) Oh wow, these are good questions, Hanna. Thank you. 

As you may not know, I wasn’t even on Instagram the whole time I was at the New York Times. Which is freaking stupid. I could have had hundreds of thousands of followers, but the thing was, I didn’t want people to know where I was cause I didn’t want people to steal my ideas as a reporter. So if I was up in Newfoundland reporting about Chef Jeremy Charles and Canadian cooking scene up there, I didn’t want anyone to know that, you know? I wanted it to be my story. 

So I just stayed off, but when I went to Esquire and started working on finishing “Hungry,” the book, Lauren, my wife, you know she’s pretty smart about these things, she’s like, you gotta do the damn Instagram. So gradually, I built up this following. 

You know, it’s kind of funny to think I covered food for so long without being on it to answer your question. I don’t get ideas through Instagram, but I do deepen my understanding of the ideas. It may be that I don’t recognize it as content at that moment. You know you just see it, and you scroll by. I’m kind of an addict, so I’m just scrolling through all the time, but somehow it lodges in your brain and you remember it later.

I mean, this is the thing I try to tell people all the time. They’re like, I want to send you some vodka or something. I’m say ok, but there’s no quid pro quo here. I don’t. This is not how we work and not how I’ve ever worked. I don't promise to write a piece about anybody. That said, if it’s here and I try it and it’s good, I may end up writing about it four months later. You never know.

Michael (14:34) So looking ahead to the coming months, what kind of stories and what kind of personalities are you looking for to profile? 

Jeff (14:44)That’s such a good question.  

It changes so much, you know. I’ll be candid with you, not too candid, but somewhat candid. We’re working on the big September issue at the magazine. My idea for that changed three times for my column in there. It was originally going to be a home cooking thing, and then it shifted to a more pandemic-themed thing, and then it shifted to something that has more to do with Black Lives Matter and the uprising that we saw in the wake of the horrible incident in Minneapolis. George Floyd and everything. 

I mean I feel like Esquire has been commendably committed to covering black-owned restaurants and black chefs and wine makers etc. But, I mean, we could always do more and we’re stepping it up. So that column just changed. I wrote a different one a week ago. I wrote something else, so I won’t tell you what it is, but it touches on those themes more.

I would say I’m always looking for someone at the forefront, someone who is changing the game, someone who is changing the conversation, someone who will make us think. Diversity and inclusion have actually always been important to my coverage. They have for, you know, the entire decade plus that I've been a food writer. That would be amplified now, but it has always been important. So people coming to me with ideas, I would hope they would keep that in mind anyway. 

But look, the whole game has changed. I mean Hungry, my book, is about René Redzepi and Noma. The book came out last year almost exactly a year ago.

Hanna (16:21) Which we love.

Jeff (16:22) Thank you.

Hanna (16:23) It’s a fantastic book.

Jeff  (16:25) Well, when it came out it was a chronicle of something still happening. Now it comes out in paperback this month and it’s a chronicle of something totally gone. It’s a totally different book now. It’s now a time capsule of… It’s like if the sixties ended and you have this book that’s a chronicle of hanging out with Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin and Bob Dylan and The Beatles. I mean, that’s kind of what it feels like now. That whole era is over.

Noma is not over. Enrique Olvera and David Chang and Rosio Sanchez and all the people in the book, they’re continuing to do creative things. But, that kind of era of trailblazing global, highwire gastronomy, I mean, obviously because of the pandemic and other challenges, it's basically...we’ve turned a corner on that. We don’t know what comes next so I actually think this makes the book kind of even more fun to read.

Hanna (17:14) Mhmm.

Jeff (17:16) Because if people want to know what it used to be like...  

Michael (17:18) Back in the day.

Jeff (17:19) Yeah. This is a great resource. It’s going to be a fun read for you, you know. It's sort of like going to read Tom Wolfe’s “Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test” to feel what the sixties felt like. You know, any sort of story ideas that are connected to that mindset now seem sort of passe. I think that every food writer who has a brain is just thinking about new directions, or should be. 

Michael and Hanna (17:47) Absolutely.

Hanna (17:48) So we really enjoyed the article by Ivy Mix from Leyenda. 

Jeff (17:51) Oh yeah.

Hanna (17:52) She’s an incredible pioneer in doing so many different things, and charity through Speed Rack, and just as the voice of the beverage industry. So, as you know there, is a lot of great writers who happen to be chefs and bartenders and sommeliers and baristas. During this tough time, they have more time than before. Do you have any advice on how they can utilize their skills to raise their visibility?

Jeff (18:35) Oh wow.

Hanna (18:36) Can they submit the byline article to you? Just like Ivy Mix? 

Jeff (18:38) Yes. Yeah, no they should. Ivy Mix’s piece came, I believe, through Kevin Sintumuang, my editor who is friendly with her. Kevin is really the cocktail fanatic. 

Hanna (18:43) Oh yeah.

Jeff (18:44) The pieces by Jackie Summers.

Hanna (18:46) Oh, that was incredible.

Jeff (18:47) That was great. Omar Tate, J Mae Barizo, Amanda Smeltz, JJ Johnson. I played a role in all those, I will admit, in helping to bring them to our platform. In every single case, I’m thrilled we did and I hope we do more of that. What's really cool is to just run perspectives from these voices in a fairly unfiltered way. Just let them speak and let them write and run it and not interfere too much. So yeah, they should submit. 

The thing is though, they need to have something original to say. There have been people, a couple of people, who have come to me with things that are like…“I want to write about how my restaurant is navigating the pandemic.” Ok, what do you mean? I’m just being honest here. What do you mean? Are you doing it in some original way? Is there some next step way of thinking about this? “No, it’s just been challenging.” Well, ok. It has to be specific. 

I mean, Jackie Summers has a very, very specific perspective based on his experience as an entrepreneur, and a black entrepreneur at a time when he was the only, as far as he knows, the only person like him with a license to do so. I mean, it’s an incredible story.  

Hanna (20:03) Absolutely.

Jeff (20:04) I mean, you’d have to be a fool to say no to that story. It’s unique. As you know, Jackie Summers is one of the most charismatic and brilliant people ever, anywhere.

Hanna (20:11) Oh my goodness.

Michael (20:12) Absolutely.

Hanna (20:14) I would say from Jackie to Ivy to Amanda, I mean, all these first person voices and in-depth stories, it connects with you. You just emotionally connect with that person. I think we’re so busy, we want to read quick and go but this long-form storytelling is just, makes you sit down and read and just join their journey even if it’s 10 minutes. I don’t know if I had that luxury of taking the time to read that type of story before the pandemic.

Jeff (20:50) Oh yeah. That’s so interesting.

Hanna (20:52) And now, it has personally taught me to take time to appreciate everything more than ever.

Michael (20:54) We can’t get enough of them.

Jeff (20:56) Cool. That’s good to hear. I mean, I gotta say the traffic is really good on these stories. People are really reading them and that's super gratifying. That’s why we’re publishing them. To have an impact and have them be read. 

I think it’s important for writers who are pitching to us, or chefs and distillers and sommeliers who are pitching to us, to know that they don't have to try and replicate some fake Hemingway voice.  You know, just be yourself. Write as yourself. Amanda be Amanda. Omar be Omar. You know what I mean? 

I feel that’s important to communicate because maybe they feel, well... I don’t know. Am I not the Esquire person? It’s just like a general interest magazine with a beautiful literary heritage and we’re just looking for good writing. Good, true writing. That’s it. Just be you. 

Hanna (21:56) Love that. “Just be you”.

Michael (21:58) Great advice for any writer.

Hanna (22:00) So each episode we are going to have listeners' questions.

Jeff (22:04) Oh no.

Michael (22:05) Alright, so this question is from Michael Kennedy who is co-owner of Olmsted in Brooklyn. 

Jeff (22:08) Oh.

Michael (22:09) As I'm sure you’re aware.

Jeff (22:12) Yes.

Michael (22:14) You spoke about Esquire’s Best New Restaurant list. Obviously to do that in the past, you’ve traveled maybe 11 out of 12 months every year. You drove to numerous locations, probably tried hundreds of restaurants. Obviously, that is not the case this year. So how are you going to go about doing the Best New Restaurant list? 

Jeff (22:33) This is a topic of conversation in the digital hallways of Esquire Magazine and I suspect many publications. I think we will do it. We will adjust accordingly to the new structures and the new environment, but the compilation of the best new restaurants list is a very fluid and, frankly, somewhat random thing. 

Normally at this time of year I’d be traveling a lot. This would be peak research.  And I can't. We officially had the party in December, but the list last year was basically done in August. Me being me, I had a couple last minute additions. I ended up going to Baltimore loving Le Comptoir du Vin and squeezing that in. I mean, I drive my editors crazy, but by early September the 2019 list was essentially done. 

Then I start researching the next one. So, what I mean by that is, I already have some picks for 2020. They were picked a while ago because I kinda turned in a list to Kevin Sintumuang. Then I start going again. There are places I fell in love with at the end of 2019 and January and February 2020, believe it or not, that I already picked. Including, a possible #1 actually. 

So, then it all stopped, so I’m speaking honestly. I don’t really have enough of them yet. We’re going to see if I can travel a little bit, maybe in September. We might also see if Kevin wants to contribute to some of it.

I mean, I’m by no means...I don’t have any kind of ego in hoarding my powers. I am perfectly fine sharing it. Kevin has a great palette and a great eye so we might do it in tandem. We’ll see. We’ve been talking about it. We have some ways we’ve figured it out. You know, like Best Bars. When I got there, Best Bars was traditionally done by the esteemed scholar David Wondrich, who is a magnificent individual.  

Hanna (24:48) Oh yes, David.

Michael (24:49) The professor.

Jeff (24:50) Yeah. I mean just a great soul. He had parted ways with the magazine and it was determined that Kevin Sintumuang, being a cocktail fiend, and I would do Best Bars together. But, very very early, I felt like there needed to be other voices in the mix actually making it more pluralistic. More of a team effort would make it stronger. 

If you pick up the current issue, you’ll see we have Stephen Satterfield, Osayi Endolyn, Omar Mamoon, Beth Ann Fennelly, who is this incredible poet in Mississippi. We’ve had Ada Limón, Nicole Taylor, Jason Tesauro. It’s just so much richer having different voices. 

I’m not the type of person who just wants to create every single Best Bar myself. You know the thing is..journalism is really about accuracy and education, informing the reader. It’s also about entertainment. I think that these packages are often more accurate, more informative and more entertaining when there’s a lot of different voices and a lot of different perspectives. 

So bringing in a range of people for Best Bars has just made it better. So, you know, I bring that as context in terms of Best New Restaurants. Maybe there will be a different approach this year. 

Hanna (26:06) Jeff, I think we can’t actually talk and enjoy this conversation in under an hour because we share so much passion and love for restaurants and the hospitality industry.

Michael (26:18) Where can our listeners find you?

Jeff (26:20) I actually don’t have a Hearst address. This is a big reason people get a little confused because I’m not on staff. My email address is right there on my website. 

I’ll be honest, sometimes there are so many damn emails. I get a little testy and I just can’t handle it all. I mean, sometimes after a weekend with the kids, I don’t even check. I literally don’t check my email the whole weekend sometimes. I don’t have time and then Monday I log on and there’s 1,200 freaking emails and everyone wants a response. Everyone has got to be patient because there are so many. All the food media people will tell you the same thing. 

Hanna (26:59) Gotcha. How about people sending you DMs on Instagram or LinkedIn or Facebook? People know you’re very active on those channels. 

Jeff (27:10) Almost every time somebody DMs me I say, can you email me? That is mostly just almost custodial. It's easier for me to organize things if everybody emails me. 

Hanna (27:22) Jeff, thank you for being such an important voice for our community. Thank you. 

Jeff (27:27) And thank you for being such an important voice, too. 

Hanna (27:30) We really hope that we can see you in-person and drink a cocktail or glass of wine together at a restaurant or bar.

Jeff (27:37) That would be good.

Hanna (27:39) So thanks again and see you around.

Jeff (27:41) See you around.