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Jeffrey Citron and David Burke
04/26/2010 - By Teja Anderson
Photo: McKay Imaging (mckayimaging.com)
Friends
Fishermen
Foodies
Jeffrey Citron and David Burke –The Right Ingredients for Success
Take two raw men seasoned with success early on in their careers, pepper them with creativity, blend in a bit of celebrity and culture, stir in a proven track record for innovation and efficiency, let sauté in accolades, add a zest for life, and you’ve got the perfect recipe: The Burke Group - a joint venture between chef David Burke and entrepreneur Jeffrey Citron!
David Burke trained at the Culinary Institute of America. He then headed to France to hone his culinary skills, winning that country’s coveted Meilleurs Ouvriers de France Diplome d’Honneur at only age 26 for unparalleled skill and creativity with his native cuisine. Last year, as one of the nation’s most celebrated culinary innovators, Burke was inducted into the “Who’s Who of Food & Beverage in America” by the James Beard Foundation and given the distinctive, Menu Masters award from Nation’s Restaurant News. David is famous not only for his restaurants but also for his oft copied signature dishes like “Angry Lobster” and “Bronx-Style Filet Mignon.
While David is passionate about food and restaurants, Jeffrey is passionate about business, wineand fishing. Jeffrey, who started working on Wall Street fresh out of high school, was the CEO and founder of Datek Online Holdings Corp. It was once the fourth largest online brokerage firm. Currently, Jeffrey is the Co-Founder and Chairman of Vonage - although he considers himself to be retired since the summer of 2008. He competes in domestic and international fishing tournaments and maintains an extensive wine collection.
Just two years ago these ambitious men pooled their talents and passions and formed The Burke Group, which currently owns or operates nine restaurants in four states. Fishtail by David Burke (New York, NY), David Burke Townhouse (New York, NY), David Burke at Bloomingdale’s (New York, NY), David Burke Las Vegas, Burke in the Box at McCarran Airport (Las Vegas, NV), David Burke’s Primehouse (Chicago, IL), David Burke Fromagerie (Rumson, NJ), David Burke Prime and Burke in the Box (Mashantucket, CT).
The partners recently sat down with Living in The Jersey Shore at David Burke Fromagerie in Rumson.
LIJS: I heard that you are just a couple of Jersey boys….
JC: Actually I’m from New York. I grew up in Staten Island, lived in New York City for a while and also Florida. I came to the Jersey Shore for the first time renting a house in the early 90’s. My wife Suzanne had rented at the Jersey Shore, too and loved it. We tried renting out in the Hamptons once, but that really wasn’t for us. A bit too pretentious. So right after we got married we bought a house in Brielle. Our two children, Noah (9) and Kyra (12) were born and raised here.
DB: I grew up in Hazlet and still live in the area. My kids are Connor (22) Dillon (20) and Madeline (13).
LIJS: So when did you guys first meet?
DB: We met probably ‘92ish when I opened the Park Avenue Café with Alan Stillman (Smith & Wollensky, CEO) and Jeff and his wife Suzanne were customers. We had mutual friends, too.Then Jeff invited me out to his house for a Fourth of July party and we just kind of hooked up and we became friends. Then a couple years later I mentioned to him that it looked like the Peter brothers were going to unload the Fromagerie. “Are you interested?” He was like “Yeah, yeah; send me some paperwork on it.” I laid off for a while but then I’d see him again and mention it again and finally when it got down to crunch time I happened to see Jeff at my restaurant Townhouse in the city and I asked him again and he said again, “Send me the paperwork.” So I wrote something up and that’s how we got the ball rolling. It was a do or die thing. I didn’t want this place to be sold to somebody else; it could fall apart. They could change the name and it could ruin it. We wanted to keep it “The Fromag” - the legendary restaurant.
JC: I knew that this was a great restaurant. It has a great history in the community and of course a great history for David and I’d been coming to this restaurant for a long time as well. It was becoming very tired, but with such a great location - and Rumson is such a great community - that when David approached me about it I told him to send me something, anything, any piece of paper. Show me something with some numbers on it so that I can see if it makes economic sense. Sure enough, we were able to put the deal together because this is really the place where David first started in restaurants.
LIJS: You started out as a here as a busboy or something right?
DB: No, I started out as a dishwasher in another restaurant, but here at “Fromag” I was a prep cook. I was a kid that came in and did whatever the chef told me to do.
LIJS: Were you always interested in the restaurant business, even as a kid?
DB: It was where the money was. Once I got into the kitchen I saw that it was a great way to make a living; it was fun, it was challenging and you got immediate gratification. Even for a guy like me to make a turkey club, I know it might sound ridiculous, cutting it in four…that’s something I didn’t see at home. Or making clams on a half shell marinara. It’s simple but each time I learned a new thing, a new skill, I knew I was worth more.
LIJS: So you were an eager student.
DB: Well, the chefs back then, they didn’t really teach that much because they didn’t go to school. I mean, this was pre-Culinary Institute of American, way pre-Food Network. Being a cook was not a well regarded job. My dad wanted me to go to college; I was a fairly decent high school student. But he certainly didn’t want me to become a chef. A chef to him was like “Mel’s Diner” or army cooking. To be fair, there weren’t a lot of good jobs out there for American chefs because the American chef didn’t exist really. Most of the great chefs were European.
LIJS: Jeffrey, you didn’t go the typical college route after high school either…
JC: Yeah, I started working on Wall Street on July 5th, 1988 - literally right out of high school. I started working for a small, family friend’s firm doing bare bones basics like opening mail, making coffee. I’ve made a lot of coffee in my lifetime; I can make a mean cup of coffee. I can make popcorn, I can make sandwiches, and I can tell you where the good pizza places are in downtown Manhattan!
LIJS: You have been a leader and an innovator in the trading world and also communications; was this your first restaurant venture?
JC: No, this was probably my second time. I was involved in the restaurant business before. But this venture with David was a really good thing to do for me. Something we wanted to do, just forthe community, for New Jersey. It just felt right. Once we did this transaction we always talked about and looked at how David had all these other projects gearing up - Foxwoods, New York - so we sat down and looked at how we could pull everything together strategically. So about two years ago we put it all together and put all the properties in there and now it’s one big company. David and I are equal partners, with new projects about to launch which we haven’t made public yet…
LIJS: Okay, we certainly look forward to those. You mentioned pizza places before and that is actually our Weigh In question for this issue. What is your favorite pizza joint in Monmouth County?
JC: In Monmouth County? I would have to say Squan Tavern in Manasquan. They make a great pizza. But in Manhattan, hands down the best pizza is Patsy Grimaldi’s under the Brooklyn Bridge. We used to go there on a Saturday. We would walk across the Brooklyn Bridge, it could be snowing or freezing rain, and we would wait on line outside until they opened right at two o’clock. Every table was filled within five minutes. But David knows this because he used to live right across the street from Grimaldi’s.
DB: Yeah, I lived right across the street from Grimaldi’s. There was nothing on the strip, just a couple warehouses. The River Café where I worked is 200 yards away. Actually 110 yards away exactly because I measured it! I counted one day because we were talking about commutes. When Patsy started building the place, first he built the oven and he used the wrong cement because the coal gets really hot and so the mortar melted and the oven collapsed. The River Café back then was organized chaos to say the least and I was young to be a chef. We ran around with intensity. One day I’m in the kitchen and one of my guys comes to me and is like, “Hey Mr. Chef, whose the old guy using the slicer?” So I go back there by my office and he’s got six bricks of provolone cheese and he’s slicing away. So I ask if I can help him and he shrugs me off thinking I want to help him slice the cheese. So I’m like, “No! Can I help you? I’m the chef; this is my kitchen, that’s my slicer!” So he tells me he’s Patsy and that he just opened the restaurant nearby and he needed to use the slicer. I mean talk about cojones! That’s old school. But we became friendly.
LIJS: So, did he follow your progress?
DB: Oh yeah, we talked. Then when Park Avenue Café opened, we had a great table, near the kitchen for ten people and he books it and, you know, it’s worth about $150 bucks a head and he doesn’t show up and he doesn’t call. That’s a no-no because that table is booked six weeks out. So I called him up and I ordered 20 pizzas (Laughs).
LIJS: And…
DB: He still makes a great pizza.
JC: He makes it the way they do in Italy with the cheese on thebottom and the sauce goes on top; the American’s put the sauce on the bottom and the cheese on the top. It’s a very thin crust because the oven gets really hot.
DB: He makes a crustini almost. He takes the tomatoes from the can - “can fresh” - strains them out, but he doesn’t cook them so they don’t get all pasty or caramelized. Then he probably adds some sea salt, basil, a little olive oil. (They both nod and make yummy noises). It’s a great pizza.
LIJS: How about a great pizza place here in Monmouth County; it’s our Weigh In question?
DB: Danny’s Pizza in Red Bank. They have a good bar pizza. But honestly, I don’t eat that much pizza.
LIJS: You certainly have access to some of the finer foods in life, particularly seafood. You are probably best known for your fish dishes; having created such palate-pleasers as Pastrami Salmon™ (now available through Perona Farms) and Lobster Steak, not to mention your newest fish themed restaurant Fishtail.
DB: Yes, Fishtail has given me the chance to be as inventive with seafood as I’ve been with steak at my more meat-focused restaurants.
LIJS: Jeffery, I understand that you actually are quite the fisherman. Do you catch any of the seafood used in the restaurants?
JC: Absolutely! I fish all the time. When I go deep sea fishing much of what I catch comes to the restaurants; swordfish, sharks, mako sharks and my favorite, tuna - blue fin, big eyes and yellowtails. In fact we were down in Florida fishing and we caught some wahoo. For about a week we had wahoo on the menu and people were just raving about it. A lot of people had never tasted wahoo before because you just don’t see it on the menu in the Northeast.
DB: That’s because chefs tend to buy what people want. Swordfish, red snapper, salmon, tuna. They don’t want to buy a fish that might not move. But we had no trouble selling that wahoo. We get the ones from North Carolina. Think of the life of this fish: Caught in North Carolina on a beautiful boat, headed and gutted on the dock, private plane up to New York City and then served in one of the best restaurants…all within twelve hours. When people eat this fish that we catch, that Jeffery catches, you haven’t tasted a better fish. Forget the garnish and sauces; the fish alone is superior to any fish you’ve ever tasted and people will notice. It’s not like fish; it’s like steak.
LIJS: Speaking of steak, you’re rather well known for that as well…
DB: Yes, we have a great steak house in Chicago. It’s called The Primehouse. It has won a ton of awards and it’s ranked in the top two or three in Chicago. The James is also opening in Soho. We’ve got the deal just about signed; 150 seats and an outdoor garden on two levels. Foxwoods is also a steakhouse and that’s doing great. We have our own bull. “Prime 207L” (Two O’ Seven L.). He lives at Creekstone Farms in Kentucky. He weighs 2,500 lbs and his lineage falls into the top 1.5% of all prime production.
LIJS: You raise all your own meat?
DB: Pretty much. We have our own slaughterhouse, but it’s not like you think. We call it “The Stairway to Heaven.” It was specially designed by Dr. Temple Grandin, the autistic professor who works with animals and in particular cattle handling. The animals go around on this conveyor belt and we play music for them and get them to relax. It’s a very humane way of treating them.
LIJS: You also do a lot in the community as far as charity events…
DB: Even in last year’s recession. I figured if we kept saying “yes” and gave out dinners for two or four at charity events as auction items and what naught, then people would see that we care about the community and not just about one or two organizations.
LIJS: How has the current economy affected you? Many restaurants have been pretty adversely affected?
DB: Well, we had a challenging last year but this year we are off to a great start. We’ve gottenbetter at tracking, we have better systems in place, and we’ve hired some new people. We didn’t lay anyone off because of the economy; we hired more people. Not as cooks, but as office people to analyze the data to see where and what we need to do to make more money and improve. I was like screaming and yelling under my breath that we didn’t need another numbers cruncher, we needed another chef…but it turns out, we did. So we hit the gates this year and at our bi-monthly meetings it is all about the numbers, all about customer satisfaction. What are we going to next? Look in to the future, look at the marketing. This is what we need to get done. We have empowered our GM’s (General Managers) and our Chefs to run the stores instead of me trying to run everything. We are hiring better people, who we may have to pay more, but who we won’t have to babysit.
JC: So now that he is freed up, David in his brilliance scouts around the country looking for projects. It’s a great relationship because I get to say “no” and he gets to say “yes” (Laughs).
LIJS: How have you improved or changed things here at Fromagerie?
DB: Well a big success for us over the past year has been our Tuesday night “Burger Night”. We own Tuesday nights in town. Salt Creek Grille has Wednesdays and I think Undici has something going on Monday nights, so we all kind of respectfully have taken a night. Danny’s in Red Bank it now doing “Burger Night” but that’s okay because I am flattered by that and I really like him and if someone wants to copy me, well, that’s okay.
JC: Well, we call it “Burger Night” but I call it “Denim & Diamonds Night” because a lot of the women in the area come, they put their diamonds on, they put their jeans on...its more casual for the men too. About 60% of the clientele are women. It’s exactly the opposite of a “cougar night” though. The women can come here and not get harassed by twenty year old guys. They can come with their girlfriends and they can come with their kids. Everyone really has a great, fun, casual time.
DB: It’s a cult. People always say, “I love Burger Night!” It’s a great deal. For $25 bucks you get a salad, a burger, fries and a glass of wine or beer and we have a guy playing acoustic guitar. It’s our third best night of the week, if you don’t count Sunday Brunch.
LIJS: Yes, your Sunday brunch is legendary!
DB: We just kick off a beautiful buffet brunch. “Eggs-traordinary”! We try to do things a little more unique. We incorporate things like cotton candy, a chocolate fountain. We make our own doughnuts, chocolate crepes.
LIJS: Kids must love it!
JC: My kids love it!! As soon they get here they run up to the guy to get chocolate chip pancakes. It’s a problem because they want to come to brunch every week and they can’t because they would weigh 400lbs.
DB: (Chuckles).We are going after the kids; the next generation.
JC: The restaurant business is all about making people feel good and David is the best at it. Like our “Can O’ Cake.” Whenever he sends that out to a customer, their eyes light up. They just really enjoy the presentation and they take the first bite and they are like, “Wow, that is the best thing I have ever tasted!” That is when you really feel great about being in the restaurant business. Happy about what you do, happy about where you live. Those things are important in life.
LIJS: So you both like living at the Jersey Shore?
JC: What is great about living at the Jersey Shore is that in the morning I can go down on the beach. My kids are on bicycles, they are on the beach, in the pool. My kids swim every morning when it’s nice out! You can wear flip-flops practically year round - and we have the fishing. You can have a boat, right on the river. It is such a great place to live and a great place to raise kids. It’s beautiful. I wouldn’t live anywhere but the Jersey Shore!
DB: The people I’ve met - customers, friends, people who have moved out of Monmouth County - they always come back. You have the beach, the easy commute to New York City, the great restaurants. You’ve got farms, if you like horses. You’ve got the horse track. We have it all here.
David Burke
Favorite Restaurant:
Grissini in Bergen County
Favorite Music:
Counting Crows
Favorite Movie:
“The Pope of Greenwich Village”
Pet Peeve:
“People walking over things like trash on the ground and not picking them up”
Three People You’d Like to Have Dinner With:
Thomas Jefferson, Jim Morrison and Alain Duchamp
Jeffrey Citron
Favorite Restaurant:
Portofino in Tinton Falls and Undici in Rumson
Favorite Music:
Black Eyed Peas
Favorite Movie:
“Somewhere in Time”
Pet Peeve:
“When people show up late to appointments or reservations”
Three People You’d Like to Have Dinner With:
Ayn Rand, Alan Greenspan and Martin Scorsese
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