Tag: Fuel Cafe

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Fuel gets in the pizza game; Dodo straight out of Russia.

Outside Fuel Cafe, on Madison in Midtown, hangs a banner declaring “Weird Pizza.”

According to Don Gaines, who’s the slice guy at Fuel, the idea was to be playful, to note that you won’t find your Neapolitan pizza here. “We’re making our own version of pizza,” says Gaines.

Their own versions include the Carrot Hawaiian, with carrot ham (a Gaines invention) and pineapple; and Shroom-sation, with mushroom cream, cremini, and oyster mushrooms.

Gaines says he got into pizza via baking bread. The sourdough bread he was making would be a pretty decent pizza crust, he thought. He perfected his crust and then he started inviting people over for Pizza Cult, where folk got to try his creations for free. Gaines, who is vegan, perfected a melty vegan mozzarella with cashew and brown rice culture. Toppings could get creative — miso-soaked potatoes, lemongrass tofu, squash strips, etc. He uses organic flour and a sourdough culture for his pizza crusts.

Gaines then reached out to Erik Proveaux, the owner of Fuel Cafe. He wanted to talk to Erik about opening his own restaurant. Proveaux discouraged him, telling him it was really hard. He suggested starting at the farmers market, which Gaines did.

The pair hooked back up again when Proveaux wanted to re-do Fuel’s menu. For devoted Fuel patrons, the menu is no longer recognizable. The very popular veggie burger is gone (though still available through the food trucks and frozen at the restaurant). The menu is now more vegan-friendly, though there is some fish and shellfish.

Don Gaines serving up a Carrot Hawaiian pizza at Fuel Cafe

Beyond the pizzas, there’s polenta with chunky veggie stew, walnut loaf over smashed potatoes, and wild-caught cod for entrees. Sides include the very tasty pan-fried smelt, which can be substituted for oyster mushrooms, an herb lentil salad, and the Caesar-esque salad with a creamy tahini dressing. Among the sandwiches are a Banh Mi, a black-eyed pea falafel, and roasted veggie.

But this is about the pizza. When pressed to define his style of pizzas — is it artisan? — Gaines says, “It’s real.”

Fuel Cafe, 1761 Madison 725-9025, fuelcafememphis.com

Dodo Pizza is a Russian-based pizza chain now in 11 countries with 330 locations. The first location in the United States was in Oxford, Mississippi, which opened in 2016. (They also serve pizza at the Ole Miss stadium.) The second area location is in Southaven. The third U.S.A. operation will be in Memphis at 6155 Poplar, set to open in May.

Andy Kirievskiy, the franchisee, says when the Oxford store opened, Dodo offered one size, with no customizations or phone orders. He quickly learned that would not fly in America. “We were hit pretty hard,” he says.

The Memphis store will offer three sizes and a build-your-own option. Among the pizzas on the menu are the Meats, with pepperoni, ham, Italian sausage, and bacon; Chicken BBQ; Spinach Feta; Chicken Club; and Veggie with a ricotta sauce.

The idea to expand into the U.S.A. came from the editor of Pizza Magazine Quarterly, which is based in Oxford. A writer for the magazine said Dodo founder Fedor Ovchinnikov “may just be the Steve Jobs of pizza.”

Kirievskiy says that Russia doesn’t have a pizza style, per se, like Chicago or New York. Instead, Dodo’s focus is on the best ingredients and business transparency. The restaurant’s financials are available online, and action in the kitchen is live-streamed. “Every customer can see how the kitchen works,” explains Kirievskiy.

One thing that Dodo had to figure out was what works in China and America, which they did.

“The things we do, we do well,” Kirievskiy says.

dodopizza.com

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Fries with That?

The French fry has been getting some extra love and attention at local restaurants, and patrons are taking note. It’s hard to narrow down the contenders to a top tier, but Fuel Café, Slider Inn (which is related to Bardog Tavern), and the Brass Door have really done the potato proud and are worth a taste.

At Fuel Café and in the Fuel Food Truck, the French fries are downright pampered. Owner and chef Erik Proveaux has put a lot of time and energy into creating the perfect fry. “I like them to be crispy on the outside, not greasy, and fluffy on the inside with just the right golden-brown color,” Proveaux says. To this end, he has developed a process that yields pretty consistent results.

First, he takes good old Idaho potatoes and cuts them using a wall-mounted French fry cutter. He lets them fall into a bus tub of cold water to soak for at least two hours. Then they are drained and dried on a sheet pan with paper towels. Next, he par-fries them in 300-degree peanut oil and lays them out on sheet pans to cool in front of a fan until they get to room temperature. He wraps the sheet pans, freezes the fries, and later brings them back out to thaw only enough to be separated and bagged up for use on the line.

“They are held in a small freezer in the kitchen, and when we get an order, we fry them to golden-brown deliciousness and toss them in fine sea salt,” Proveaux says.

For those who like fancy dipping sauces with their fancy fries, Fuel has them covered. They serve a plate of fries with three dipping sauces: a creamy truffle Parmesan sauce, a garlicky rouille (homemade olive-oil mayonnaise with smoked paprika and chipotle powder), and sweet chili ketchup sauce.  

Bardog Tavern and Slider Inn owner Aldo Dean says that he got into the restaurant business to sell alcohol. Since Tennessee laws require bars to sell food, Dean figured he might as well serve great food.

Bardog and Slider Inn serve the same fries except the ones at Slider Inn have a little skin on them.

“They’re quarter-inch shoestrings that are shipped in frozen and already cut,” Dean says. Dean likes the shoestring fries because they don’t have a long fry time. “Some places double fry them for extra crispiness, but we don’t have time for that,” he says.

What really sets the fries apart is the special mixture sprinkled on them when they come out. “It’s a secret blend. I can’t tell you what it is,” Dean says. After a pause, he says, “Okay, it’s salt and sugar — a 50-50 mix.”

Dean will not, however, divulge the exact recipe of the legendary bourbon mayonnaise used for dipping. “I should probably get it patented,” he jokes. It was inspired by a dip he had in a Belgian restaurant called Pomme Frite. Both of Dean’s restaurants sell a ton of fries, but Slider Inn sells considerably more due to its more limited menu.

The fries at the Irish pub the Brass Door are also making a name for themselves. Rumor has it that the secret ingredient is duck fat. “It’s all true,” owner Seamus Loftis says. “But I cannot credit the Irish — only my chef, Scott Donnelly.”

Donnelly starts with hand-cut Idaho potatoes, blanches them, and then fries them in a combination of regular fryer oil, lard, and duck fat. “The duck fat and lard impart a slightly sweeter, more potato-y flavor and help get the potato crunchy on the outside and creamy on the inside,” Donnelly says.

The restaurant is currently selling about 500 to 600 pounds of French fries a week. “The hardest part is blanching and frying at the right temperatures,” Donnelly says.

The fries are available as a side or a starter. The starter features a savory house-made curry sauce.

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Food & Wine Food & Drink

Trucking Along

CREDIT: Justin Fox Burks

When the Memphis City Council passed an ordinance last April granting food trucks a permanent presence in the city, many Memphians were overjoyed. Soon the happy buzz about the new ordinance turned to bewilderment: Where are these food trucks?

Otho Sawyer of the Memphis and Shelby County Health Department explains that the permit process to start a food truck is as rigorous as any brick-and-mortar restaurant — just on wheels.

“[Applicants] have to submit a plan showing us the layout of the vehicle with all the equipment, a menu that matches up with the equipment in the vehicle,” Sawyer says. “There are specific requirements that aren’t that easy to fulfill if you don’t have experience. And many of these people don’t have that experience.”

After working through the food truck plans with applicants, Sawyer sets up a meeting to inspect the truck. This can take some time.

“I’ve had very few trucks to pass the first time I look at it,” Sawyer says.

Now, some six months after the ordinance was passed, the first wave of food trucks is getting permitted. So far, Sawyer says they’ve granted permits to 21 trucks, with five more pending.

What should we expect from this first graduating class of trucks? Well, barbecue, of course. At least six of the 21 are barbecue, two are taco trucks, a few serve wings and turkey legs, and YoLo will keep serving its wildly popular frozen yogurt.

Fuel Café was granted a permit last week, given their considerable catering experience.

“We’ve done movie catering all over the country and worked for FEMA,” says Erik Proveaux, who co-owns Fuel Café with Carrie Mitchum. “We actually just turned down a job for HBO in Baltimore because we wanted to focus on the food truck here.”

The Fuel Truck even catered the Food Network’s Great Food Truck Race — a cross-country competition among food trucks — when it filmed in Memphis last spring.

Proveaux’s experience with mobile food vending — and perhaps more important, the fact that he already owned a food truck — allowed him to be on the leading edge.

“[Food trucks] are expensive,” he says. “I would have had to work out some financing, but the fact that the truck’s paid for meant I only had to do a few specific things to it.”

The cost and labor associated with a food truck might stymie some restaurateurs, but for others, the mobility offers a new experience that makes the additional culinary outlet worth the effort.

“The restaurant’s fun, but it’s sort of the same every day,” Proveaux says. “The beauty of a food truck is there’s no particular place I have to be every day and there’s no set menu. As the seasons change, we might get into more soups and whatever seems appropriate and whatever people like. We’ll have some fun with it.”

“I’m thinking tacos like we did for the Food Truck Fare downtown,” he says. “Organic chicken, bison, and vegetarian and vegan tacos made from our veggie burgers. Then we’ll probably do grilled cheese and our vegetarian chili.”

Proveaux isn’t sure where he will set up his truck first, but he plans on using the gold standards of food truck marketing — Twitter and Facebook — to let fans know where to find the truck.

Fuel Café, fuelcafememphis.com