WHETHER GREY SWEATER FITS I S MORE THAN A MATTER OF TASTE
Chef Andrew Black’s journey from Jamaica to the 405 diningscape was the subject of recent coverage in The Oklahoman, which gave me an opportunity to visit Grey Sweater for an evening of relaxation, education, and art good enough to eat. h A product of the partnership between Black and La Baguette Bakery co-founder Rudy Khouri and their Culinary Edge restaurant group, Grey Sweater is part of a plan that took years to come together at the corner of NE 4 Street and Walnut Avenue in Deep Deuce. h “We first put pen to paper six years ago,” Black said during a recent interview at Grey Sweater. “These things don’t happen overnight.” h Until a couple of weeks ago, there were three restaurants from Culinary Edge beneath the Maywood Apartments. La Baguette recently made way so Black Walnut could grow.
That La Baguette will eventually resurface in Yukon, and Black Walnut, Black’s “mood restaurant,” just got a banquet room for its broad range of casual diners with even broader urges behind their dining intentions.
Grey Sweater represents Black better than any restaurant he’s devised.
He will tell you that the name references gray’s lack of allegiance to boundaries. He will tell you a sweater represents the kind of comfort and warmth crucial to the experience he and his staff deliver.
While those things are true, there is the matter of a gray cardigan that was once chef Black’s default garment. A garment he said former staff began to tease him about.
But he stuck to it.
“People told me I was crazy,” is a phrase chef Black leads with a lot when he’s talking about Grey Sweater. Whether it’s choosing to deliver three separate tasting menus simultaneously, not offering a static menu, or the likelihood Oklahoma would embrace an avant-garde dining concept.
The success of Nonesuch buoyed his opinion that Oklahoma diners were sophisticated enough about culinary arts to want more.
“Listen, we love those guys at Nonesuch,” Black said. “We love what they’re doing, but there is room for both of us. Oklahoma has showed me that.”
Like Nonesuch, Grey Sweater offers only a chef ’s tasting menu and food is served in multiple courses with optional beverage pairings.
Aside from broad strokes, Grey Sweater examines different avenues.
The dining experience begins with a reservation, which draws a follow-up call from a Grey Sweater ambassador who interviews the guest for about three minutes. The call isn’t only for intel about food allergies or wine options, it’s intended to begin the process of alleviating anxiety.
“We know everything we need to know about you when you dine in here,” Black said. “We wanted our customers to come and feel at home. The food has to be good. The cocktail has to be good, but it’s how we made you feel at the end of the evening. That feeling is what Grey Sweater is all about.”
Black said he’s got customers who have dined at the chef ’s bar so often they have their names on chairs. People who Black and his ambassadors get to know.
“Everything is intentional, it’s all about the detail, the consistency, We hire based on three things: integrity, empathy and the desire to get better each and every day,” he said.
Grey Sweater is the culmination of Black’s nearly 35 years in food-service, dating back to his first job in Jamaica at the age of 14.
Take, for instance, the street cocktails available at Grey Sweater and Black Walnut.
“It just hit me that in every country in a poor village there is a street cocktail. I
didn’t want to play in the traditional cocktail, so growing up in Jamaica, I remember my dad would take rum and sorrel, and and he would ferment that for the entire year, and that’s what they drank in December.”
If Black Walnut is painted in moods, Grey Sweater is sculpted out of curiosity.
“It’s kind of my lab,” Black says of the chef ’s bar. “It’s a lab filled with a lot of curiosity. All the ambassadors are curious, so it’s not just I’m the one who is curious, right? Everyone around me is curious. That’s what make it so beautiful.”
Offering five-, seven-, and 10-course tastings with wine pairings available in different ranges plus a water menu, Grey Sweater has seating at the chef ’s bar and at small private tables around the adjacent dining room.
“Service is the same whether you sit at the chef ’s bar or in the dining room,” Black explained. “You just have a little more privacy and a little less of the kitchen experience.”
Currently serving 46 per night, seatings are spread out so guests have their seats until they’re ready to leave.
“I don’t want anyone worrying about clearing a table,” Black said.
Once dinner begins at Grey Sweater, service can come from any direction and it arrives in the form of food, drink or answer. Questions are few. Far fewer than most diners will recognize. By the time you’re seated, most of the pertinent questions have been asked and answered so it’s time to sit back and relax.
Even the flatware is delivered with each course, so guests don’t have to worry about etiquette.
Seated in the corner of the chef ’s bar, I started my 10-course adventure with gorgeous Santa Barbara Uni and Ossetra Caviar served in a lovely glass globe. An audacious and tasty way to start things.
Perhaps my favorite course was No. 2, a simple turnip cooked by sous vide and served under a coconut and cilantro muddle with a sauce begging for a straw.
Then came some adventure in which an utterly pristine Savage Blonde Oyster wore mango pearls in strawberry snow followed by a savory “ice cream” made of roasted cauliflower cream and consommé wrapped in a fried pastry that arrived in a playground of dry beans. Courses like these dare your palate to break from the comfort zone for a taste of the possibilities.
But then a Buerre Monté Scallop under a hearty scoop of Kaluga Caviar swoops onto your palate, and heroism has a flavor profile.
In a flurry of salt, fat and acid, the beat intensified with seasonal tomatoes in a confit with escargot caviar, and squab, glorious squab, dancing with black truffle in a tart shell filled with fresh veggies in a placid pond of aged balsamic and sherry reduction, and a lamb tenderloin matched with mashed Bonita potatoes.
The first of two ice creams arrived before my palate was sure it was ready for dessert.
One bite of cucumber and mint ice cream made clear that it was. The finishing Orange Chai Ice Cream carried well its smoky pistachio crumble, while the whole troupe splashed in Raspberry Beer Reduction.
As fussy as those fancy foods might sound, the vibe at Grey Sweater is as casual as the cardigan that inspired the name. Despite the succession of blacktie dishes that dutifully posed for pictures before saying goodnight, coats were rare and ties nonexistent amongst fellow diners.
While comfort is essential to the dining experience, the kitchen is founded on creative freedom.
“If somebody is trying to be an aspiring artist and you don’t give them a canvas to practice on, then what good are you doing?” Black asked.
For information about tasting menus, wine pairings, and reservations, go online to greysweaterokc.com.