Interview: Chef David Bull On Year One At Congress + Second (Part One)

2011 was a banner year for David Bull and his Congress Austin concept. Less than three months after opening, the restaurant vaulted from hot newcomer to king of the mountain status after receiving the Austin American-Stateman's first five-star review in several years. The crowds arrived, and more praise followed. Texas Monthly named it the "best place to eat right now." Celebrities like Jimmy Kimmel, Rachael Ray, and Billy Gibbons were spotted catching late-night meals. The New York Times and Wine Spectator both suggested that tourists make it a point to stop by. And so it went. Aside from a few benefit dinners and food festival events, Chef Bull and his ace team mostly spent the year with their noses to the grindstone, tweaking the Congress, Second, and Bar Congress menus and working to meet the huge number of covers that came in.

Earlier this month, we called Chef Bull during a rare week off to ask for his thoughts on the launch of Congress, the state of Austin dining, and what the restaurants have in store for us in 2012.

As of about two weeks ago, you've made it to the one year mark at Congress and Second. It's been pretty amazing, with Bon Appetit's "10 Best New Restaurants" recommendation, five stars from The Statesman and praise from the Wine Spectator... among others. Was there one accolade that you're particularly proud of amongst the litany of things that have come about over the last year?

Gosh, it's kind of a toss up between Bon Appetit and Esquire - just because the impact was very different. I think the Esquire accolade was something more on the professional or the industry side, and the Bon Appetit was such a must-read magazine for our clientele. Not saying that the Esquire clientele and readership aren't as well, but it just had a really positive impact when Bon Appetit [praised] all three concepts and I think Bon Appetit also summarized what we've tried to achieve in all different outlets. So it was nice to be recognized as far as the entire concept is concerned. I think that was really special. Locally, I really can't wait to frame the Tribeza article that said that I was an influential person in the city. That was pretty nice! Outside of the actual food, it was also personally nice to be recognized for contributions to the city of Austin which we're very thrilled to be a part of as well. Hmm - that's not a specific answer.

No, it's close enough! When we first came in to Congress, I think the thing that really stood out that was totally different than any other restaurant in Austin was the service, and the way that your service team kind of seems to float around the room and just collectively make everything happen. When you were planning the restaurant, how did you actually approach that and try and elevate it compared to perhaps what we're used to in most other places?

Well, I think it definitely started with the team selection from the get go. A lot of the guys that are on the Congress floor and at the podium have been with us before. So the institution of the expectations and style and responsibility of the service staff was kind of an inherited situation to begin with, so it made the transition of opening much, much easier. We didn't have to sit around and talk about who we were or what we were trying to accomplish or what the goals were. It was an immediate expectation that I think they hit the ground running from day one and it was very important to us to foster the idea of an intuitive, anticipatory, non-abrasive service as an absolute must. And really, it's about the actual individual team members. They all have great personalities. They all care deeply about the success, not only of their table and their individual guests, but the overall concept, the overall operation. That's always been apparent to me and that comes through - and they're all helping each other out. It's really a model, and we're fortunate enough to have the people that can follow the model, but it's based on their own care and concern.

On the Congress side, we've done the three course option with a couple of extras and that's been a meal that took three hours. So, I have to ask you, how many people go seven course and hang out for the whole night?

We just did that math, and we're looking at about 28% of our guests. So, roughly a quarter - more on some nights. There'll be nights when we'll do 40-50%. Friday and Saturday nights, especially, based on who's in town or when it happens that everybody got married on that particular weekend.

Moving over to Second, I was also going to ask you about that menu because over the course of the year - there's definitely seasonal change, of course, with produce and seasonal food - but the actual length of the menu and some of the contents have definitely bounced around over time. Were there any big surprises to you about things that were and weren't working? Maybe dishes you loved that weren't selling or dishes that you weren't necessarily thinking would be a hit that were. Just curious about some of your experiences with figuring out the casual side of the equation.

That's actually been probably the biggest challenge that I've had in my career is the menu development for Second Bar + Kitchen because the space itself is vast, the clientele is vast, and the times of day are very different. So it's been fun. If I took anything personally, or had favorites, I wouldn't last very long. We want Second to be really completely based around our guests' responses and the dishes are specifically changed according to what they like, and sales, and things that have worked. And functionality, as well. The size and shape of the table was something that we had to learn really quickly, because there's a lot of small tables that couldn't fit [some of the] food. The fact that people were ordering many shared plates, even the entrees, also really changed the way we operated the kitchen. We were ready to transition and ready to change right away as soon as we kind of opened, and left some things vague, and left some opportunities to change within our operation. I think that was very helpful. Pepperoni soup is still a hit! I'm shocked. We sold almost eleven thousand pommes frites last year, and I think nearly ten thousand fried pickles, which is great. We're proud of that because that means we're doing something right and people like that particular dish. So I don't see those changing any time soon, and it's nice to have a couple staples that people talk about and come back for and we're happy that we can make those things consistent. We're going to change the pizzas. We're working real hard. And a new thing we've rolled out is we're making all of our charcuterie in-house now, which is something that is really fun for the guys. And we're always working on the cheese.

When she heard I was talking to you, my wife told me to lobby for the Eggy Brunch Pizzas to return someday.

Perfect.

I'm sure everybody has their thing.

For sure. We're literally working on Congress menus right now and it's so hard. You talk about changing the beef tartare or the lobster bisque and people start to freak out. But how do we continue to push the envelope and continue to create when we've set up some staples and some expectations? You can't have the best bisque you've ever tasted and then come back even six or eight months later [and it's gone.] You're going to be looking for that bisque because you told your friends about it. I don't know. That's a big challenge for us, especially on the Congress side, because it's such a limited menu.

It's a high class problem to have, I'd think.

I do. I agree.

You guys got hit with the five-star Statesman review and were pretty busy early on, and as a result, there hasn't been much in the Congress and Second spaces in terms of pairing dinners, winemaker dinners, or "special event"-type evenings. I know you do cocktail specialty nights at Bar Congress, but that's more limited in scale. Is that something that you want to do, or something you're OK not doing?

We [try to] constantly question and to constantly move forward. But really, in our first year of operation we were very specific on not doing anything different. We wanted to make sure - even going forward for next year - we're going to be very specific on what we choose to put our effort towards. Because it doesn't do anyone any good to host 12 wine dinners a year and have your regular service or your regular offerings suffer for that. And our space is very limited. We've done a couple things for the Austonian. We've done a couple things for certain key players in the community. But if it doesn't sell, and it takes our space on a particular night or a particular day, there's a lot of time and energy promoting it, and and writing the menus, and so on. Luckily, we're busy enough to have had the opportunity to focus on our guests walking in our door. And that's where our priorities stood for the entire year.

Fair enough.

People ask about us doing Groupons. Why, why? Absolutely not! Why would we discount our products? It doesn't make any sense. Hopefully we'll never have to get to that point. We served close to 125,000 people this last year. That's 12,000 people a month. We're doing everything we can to make sure that those people are totally happy and satisfied and that's taken all of our effort and all of our energy and focus for sure.

Part two of our talk with David Bull will run on Friday, January 27th. Photo via CongressAustin.com.