Eddie Huang’s Business-Partner Polycule Gets Messy

In this series, “Looking to Settle,” Eddie Huang chronicles his search for a downtown restaurant space.

After we registered our interest in the Carrie Bradshaw–coded West Village space, the landlord requested that we submit a deck as well as an operator, which is something I’ve never had since I handled most of the operational duties myself alongside a general manager at Baohaus. That said, Baohaus was a 400-square-foot box, and most sit-down restaurants have an operator who handles the business of opening the restaurant, including finding the location; negotiating the lease; collaborating on the concept, the brand, and front of the house; in addition to setting up the back end.

Here, I should mention that my search for an operator was running concurrently with the search for a location and that it actually began in Los Angeles, around September of last year, when I was looking to open a restaurant there.

People say L.A. has great food but New York has great restaurants, and I found that to be true when I moved there. Throughout my years in L.A., I opted out of chef-driven dining because — besides Animal, Totoraku, and perhaps Found Oyster — it didn’t have the iconoclastic energy that usually draws me to the genre. While some people’s definition of chef-driven is simply that there is a chef who may or may not have taken photos with the side of a pig over their shoulder, my definition requires a rebellion. There has to be a fuck-you in that restaurant somewhere, like Joy Division’s “Shadowplay” or Wu-Tang’s “C.R.E.A.M.” video with trash cans burning in Tompkins Square Park.

Without chef-driven food, I spent a lot of time in the San Gabriel Valley; at taco trucks, omakases; crushing Persian food in Glendale; enjoying romantic meals at the Polo Lounge, the Tower Bar, and other Establishment restaurants with fine art and a patio like Michael’s, Chow’s, Lolo Wine Bar, Capo, and Baldi. Those were the restaurants Los Angeles excelled at because Hollywood is an Establishment town. Everyone makes money by kissing the ring, and, in turn, the people with rings leverage that power in every aspect of your life. There was one momentary blip in that cycle: Me Too was a direct rebellion against the gruesome machinations of this town and the men who ran it. Outside that moment, everyone resumed contorting themselves to serve the Establishment in one way or another to survive. That willful ignorance is what drives these fabulous Establishment restaurants with fantastic art and the Santa Monica breeze flowing through the patio; they exist outside any concept of time, space, or reality, technically engineered to convince you, the diner, that everything is in its proper place.

As I contemplated the prospect of opening a restaurant in Los Angeles, I was resigned to serving these people intentionally boring classics in a sardonic tone with a side of nice art in a restaurant I would call Chez Huang, a play on the one local Los Angeles restaurant I loved with a passion: Chez Jay, a French dive-bistro off Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica where you’ll always find a homeless homie smoking L’s at the bus stop outside.

That all changed after the fires.

While on the run, my wife, Natashia; our son, Senna; our dog, Mr. Chow; and I stayed in six different places in Southern California, trying to figure out where to live. The time to be sardonic had passed. My world was literally on fire, and I was mad. There was misinformation everywhere, kids in our neighborhood were getting sick with respiratory issues, and I couldn’t stop reading about how California bailed out the power companies after the last fire.

For the sake of our son’s health, we called it quits on Los Angeles and moved back to New York despite the insane financial position it put us in. I still had to pay for the rental home we’d been staying in as well as the mortgage on our L.A. home that was under renovation and, finally, first and last month’s rent on the apartment we found in Murray Hill. My monthly nut came out to about $42,000, and I thought about getting hit by a city bus so that my wife could collect life insurance.

Then an angel appeared …

On my first day back in New York, my good friend of over 15 years, Maxwell Osborne, randomly saw I was home and told me to go to the Celtics-versus-Knicks game with his homie, Dylan, who pulled up with a shaved head, A-shirt, big old Submariner, and an all-white leather Avirex jacket, foreshadowing the immaculate white-boy energy New York was about to feel in a few months with the arrival of Jaxson Dart and Cam Skattebo to the Giants.

The Knicks got blown out, but I made a friend in Dylan, who happened to own a downtown bar with a kitchen, the Flower Shop. Coincidentally, it was also the bar I went to with Natashia the first night I met her, which had me on high alert: Was this important? What was the universe saying? Ever since the fires broke out three days after Mars retrograded into Cancer, it felt like spooky things were happening and I needed to pay attention. For weeks, I was smashing the Chani app, checking my astrology and the astrology of the day, the week, the month, the year ahead; I was deep in the shit trying to decipher all the signs and symbols.

“Babe, this is not how you are supposed to use astrology,” said Natashia.

“Something spooky is happening, and I need to be alert.”

“Astrology is like the forecast: It gives you a sense of the vibes, but it isn’t going to tell you what’s going to happen TODAY in your life. You have to live your life.”

A couple weeks later, I was lying on the floor of our living room perusing the Places app for inspiration when I came across a restaurant we’ll call Casablancas. It was probably the most beautiful restaurant I’d ever seen in downtown New York with walls that reminded me of the caverns in Cappadocia, Turkey, accented by smart, cheeky furniture and horny light fixtures. I went on Resy to see what the restaurant had available and noticed that every slot between 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. was completely available, which piqued my interest.

Before I could dig any further, Max hit me up to join him for dinner at the Corner Store, so I decided to get up off the floor and live my life. When I arrived, Max was already mid-meal, devouring a French dip surrounded by friends, including a lovely woman who was taking photos of every dish, the table, then tagging everyone present, including me.

We weren’t there for long. Twenty minutes later, we were all in an SUV heading over to Chez Margaux, a private club that’s quite difficult to get into but one that Max treats like the Kips Bay AMC.

“Wassup. I got … 13 tonight,” he said to the doorman, who smirked and shook his head.

“Right this way.”

We sat down, ordered some drinks, and the lovely woman asked me my birthday, which I took as a sign that I needed to find alternate seating since my wife is the FBI–CIA–Powerpuff Girls–Supreme Court, and talking about my Big Three (sun, moon, rising) with a single woman is a felony in my home. At that exact moment, a dapper gentleman about my height appeared at the table. He had a gold-capped tooth and seemed cool, so I got up, went to the bathroom, and by the time I returned, he was sitting next to the lovely woman, as he should have been.

Voilà.

I introduced myself to the Dapper Gentleman, and within seconds, Maxwell was over our shoulders.

“Yo, y’all should talk. You’re both great restaurateurs, among many other things.”

I exchanged pleasantries with the Dapper Gentleman, we sniffed each other out, and it turned out that he owned Casablancas. I absolutely took this as a sign and started to manifest.

“Your restaurant is beautiful,” I said, as if it were a prized racehorse.

“Thank you,” he said graciously.

We exchanged numbers and decided to meet up another day.

The next day, as I was settling into a lazy Sunday, I got a text from my wife with an “lmao” accompanied by a screenshot from her “homie,” the contents of which can be distilled to this: “Yo, does Eddie know [the lovely woman]? I matched her on Raya, but she never responded.”

I had totally forgotten about the interaction since I thought I had successfully ninja’d myself out of it, but when I pulled up her Instagram and saw that the entire first page of her grid was flewed out photos in various exotic locations, I immediately copped a plea and accepted my punishment.

For a couple months, I was not allowed to hang out with Max, but I did meet the Dapper Gentleman in Gramercy for coffee that spring. He told me that the Bedford Cheese Shop on Irving Place was available and that he had an in with the landlord. I personally love Gramercy and the location is handsome, but I looked around and quickly deduced that my customer wasn’t on this block. That said, I was intrigued about the prospect of working with this man. He had excellent taste, wore nice-fitting gingham shirts, and had a gold-capped tooth! Who doesn’t like a gold-capped tooth?

I told him straight away that whether it was this space or another, I’d like to work with him. As I waited with bated breath, he sighed, looked the other way, and responded that his plate was full but that if certain things fell through, he’d reach out.

It didn’t make sense. Why were we meeting if he was that busy? This meeting could’ve been an email. Then I realized that perhaps he wasn’t that busy but just wasn’t impressed after meeting me.

Fuck it. I went and bought new pants at C’H’C’M’.

A couple weeks later, I was taping Canal Street Dreams, the podcast I co-host with my wife, at the Canal Street bar Time Again when we were interrupted by contractors dragging things out the back door. It was the third time it had happened; one of the partners behind the bar kept scheduling contractors during the pod despite Despot, who runs it, telling him not to. It was a sign we needed a new spot.

I had been hanging out with Dylan this whole time as buddies and had become a bit of a regular at the Flower Shop. So I asked him if he’d host our podcast there, and he told me via voice note to meet him at the Bar Bianchi friends-and-family opening. It was the exact hang that I needed after a few very difficult months, and we had a great time sipping all kinds of natural and unnatural wines, picking at small plates, talking about all the things we’d do this summer, and somewhere in between a sip or a bite, he agreed to host the podcast.

What a fucking night, I thought to myself, when suddenly the Dapper Gentleman appeared.

“Hey,” I said like a jilted lover.

“Hey,” he responded.

I got up, shook his hand, a word salad was tossed back and forth, and he veered off. I sat back down.

“You know that guy?” I asked Dylan.

“The Dapper Gentleman? Of course! He’s got some great spots.”

“Yeah, I talked to him about working together, but ‘his plate was full.’”

“Mate, what are you trying to do?”

I told Dylan about my plans to open a restaurant.

“Why haven’t you asked me?” he said.

“’Cause I like you! We’re homies. We go on long walks in the rain and share olives together. I may date you if my wife leaves me. I don’t want to ruin the vibe by asking you about business.”

“Brother, I love business! Talk to me about business!”

One thing led to another, and two weeks later in June, Grub Street’s Tammie Teclemariam announced the Gazebo pop-up at the Flower Shop.

About 48 hours after that article dropped, the Dapper Gentleman started sending me listings for restaurant spaces like he was Mr. Big, and I, like Carrie, shuddered in my Bottega UGGs, spilling a Dunkin’ Donuts cereal-milk latte on myself.

After the first week of dinners in June, my phone as well as Dylan’s were ringing off the hook. Our plan was to work together on a permanent restaurant, not just the pop-up, but he was also spending a lot of time in Austin, was booked for a function in Montauk, and was busy running the four venues he already had on his hands. While the desire to go on long walks together and potentially open a restaurant was there, I could see the writing on the wall.

That’s when Noah, my broker, spoke a name: “Have you met Dean Jankelowitz?”

“Jack’s Wife Dean?”

“Yeah.”

“Broooo, that’s my guy!”

“My partner, Michael, was just with him yesterday and mentioned we were working together. He wants to meet.”

I’d been meaning to call Dean since I’d gotten back to New York, but my impostor syndrome had stopped me because he is an absolute legend in the restaurant world and I was down on my luck.

I’d known Dean since my Baohaus days on Rivington Street; he was the manager next door at Schiller’s. On an almost weekly basis, he’d run in screaming “Eddie Huang!” with shots of tequila, have some baos, hang out for a bit, go back to work, then come back with more tequila. While I’d gone on to write books and host shows, Dean built an empire of restaurants, beginning with Jack’s Wife Freda on Lafayette Street. Of all the people I’d crossed paths with early on, I really looked up to Dean because I’d seen him do it day in and day out at Schiller’s and then successfully transfer that energy to the staff at his five restaurants that were stunningly booked, busy, and consistent.

A couple weeks later, we sat down with Dean and it immediately felt like a reunion.

“Eddie! You know I’ve always loved your food. I love the way you do things. Whatever it is you want to do, I’m in. I believe in talent.”

“That’s it? You don’t want to check under the hood?”

“Eddie, I trust you. I’m here to support in any way I can, but I have a question: What happens when Hollywood comes calling again? Because it inevitably will.”

“The restaurant is my focus right now.”

“The restaurant is your focus right now, but what happens when it isn’t?”

While I’d become disenfranchised with Hollywood and wanted to put the fires, the business, and hiking in my past, I would be lying if I said I didn’t still have things going on. There was a show I was still attached to pitch and eventually showrun, there was a script out for casting, and my debut novel would be coming out soon.

“You don’t have to convince me you’re done, Eddie. I just need a guarantee. I need you to put a few bucks in the deal, because I’m not investing in a concept; I’m investing in you, and I want you to feel this.”

“Could I use a few pieces of art as collateral in the transaction?”

“Come on! You got to feel this, Eddie. You won’t feel that.”

“What about a house in the Hollywood Hills? Would you like to buy my house, Dean?”

He laughed and my heart sank as I looked at the rose-gold Vacheron Constantin Overseas with the green dial on my wrist, because with next to nothing in my bank account, I knew that I would be saying good-bye to this watch if I moved forward with Dean.

A few weeks later, Dean came to the first night of dinners in July, the same night we were offered the West Village pocket listing. He loved the food, loved what he saw, but still hadn’t softened on the stance that I needed to cut my left arm off with the Vacheron attached so that I would feel the transaction. This is why Noah and I were so excited when the West Village pocket listing came around. For very little money up front, we could take that space and turn the restaurant on without cutting my arm off.

So we asked Dean if he would be open to being the operator on our pitch to the landlord, but he balked. I got the news through Noah on the second-to-last night of our July dinners.

“What’d he say?” I asked.

“He just wasn’t feeling it,” Noah reported. “Said it was too small, not your audience, not your energy. He’s still interested in supporting you on this project, but he doesn’t like that space.”

“Got it. What do you think we should do? I like Dean.”

“I love Dean! If we were able to attach Dean’s name to this project, it’s a shoo-in for this landlord. But the landlord isn’t going to budge. He wants to see another operator, so lemme know if there’s anyone else you have in mind.”

There was someone on my mind. He’d been on my mind the whole time. So I spoke to Natashia about it.

“I don’t know, babe. He already curved you once.” she said.

“But then he started sending listings again.”

“Only because Gazebo was all over the internet.”

I paused. I was such a fan of the Dapper Gentleman that I didn’t want to acknowledge how he was moving.

“You need to work with people like Dylan and Dean, who are excited to work with you. You’re always attracted to the person or place that doesn’t want you,” said the woman who canceled our wedding the day of before eventually showing up.

She was right, though. I had mommy issues, and they reared their head in every aspect of my life. Like Lobo, I’d love for the Dapper Gentleman to want me.

So I texted him.

“Hey, man, wanna come to Gazebo?”

After a few hours, he responded that he wouldn’t be able to make it in July.

“August?” I offered.

A month later, I was in the weeds when Natashia came into the kitchen.

“He’s here.”

I walked off the pass for a moment and looked through the peephole in the kitchen door.

“Table seven.”

And there at table seven was the Dapper Gentleman in a well-fitted gingham shirt with his sparkling gold-capped tooth.

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