Estadio: What Makes a Restaurant Magical?

I have a problem with Estadio. I keep writing love letters to this restaurant. At some point, I am supposed to regain a little critical distance. I am supposed to stop telling people that they need to go, stop raving about whatever I ate last time, and perhaps find a new restaurant to obsess over. Estadio is making that very difficult.

After my last extraordinary dinner there with a group of younger lawyers, I decided to return with the more mature contingent of lady lawyers. These were not just dinner companions. They are some of my dearest friends, people I love very much, and I wanted this dinner to be something special for them.

Life gives all of us enough stress and worry. For a few hours, I wanted these women to be able to put all of that down. I wanted them to eat extraordinary food, drink things they loved, laugh, be cared for, and experience the particular kind of comfort that comes from sitting around a table with people who know you and love you. And, admittedly, I wanted to show off my new chef crush, Jeremy Goslin. I had been carrying on about Jeremy and his cooking, so this dinner came with some risk. There is nothing quite like dragging a group of discerning women to a restaurant you have relentlessly praised and then sitting there hoping it lives up to the mythology you have created around it.

Jeremy did not disappoint. He charmed the shit out of my guests. Which brings me to something I should probably address.

A Brief Note About the Cussing

Those who know me personally already know that I have a potty mouth. Professionally, I tend to keep it restrained. I know how to behave in polite company. But I have now written enough of these posts that I think you deserve to hear a little more of the voice that is actually in my head when I eat something extraordinary. Sometimes “beautifully executed” is accurate. Sometimes “exceptional” is appropriate. And sometimes the only intellectually honest response to a plate of food is, “Holy shit.” Estadio produces an unusual number of those moments. So, dear readers, forgive me. I am going to let my inner voice out for this one.

But What Actually Makes a Restaurant Magical?

Jeremy came to the table, talked about the food, explained what he was doing, and displayed the kind of infectious enthusiasm that makes you want to taste whatever he wants to cook next. But personality only gets you so far. Then you have to cook. And holy shit, can this man cook. I have been thinking about what makes a restaurant magical since this dinner.

It isn't simply excellent food. Charleston has plenty of restaurants capable of producing an excellent plate of food. It isn't expensive ingredients. It isn't beautiful plating. It isn't a charismatic chef. It isn't knowledgeable service or an interesting beverage program. I think the magic happens when all of those things become something greater than their individual parts. It happens when you stop feeling like a customer who ordered dinner and start feeling as though the people in the restaurant are genuinely excited to have you there and cannot wait to show you something. That was this dinner.

We trusted Jeremy. We let him cook. And one dish after another arrived until a table of otherwise reasonably civilized women spent much of the evening negotiating who was getting the last bite of each dish.

When Onions and Mushrooms Cause Arguments

One of the dishes was calçots, the long Catalan onions traditionally charred until their exteriors are blackened. These arrived deeply charred, sweet and tender beneath that exterior, with a slightly spicy sauce and peanuts. They were onions. They were also delicious.

Then came the chanterelles. There was nothing gimmicky about them. They were beautifully cooked, earthy, rich, and intensely flavorful, with lemon alongside to cut through the richness.

We fought over them. That became something of a theme. And it tells you more about Jeremy's cooking than any luxury ingredient possibly could. If you can put a plate of onions or mushrooms in front of a table and make people care deeply about who gets the last bite, you are doing something right.

Heart and Liver. Yes, Really.

My favorite dish of the evening was one of Jeremy's specials: lamb liver schnitzel. Holy shit. The exterior was wonderfully crisp. Inside, the liver was tender and absolutely packed with flavor. This was not a dish that required the qualification that it was “good for liver.” It was simply spectacular.

And somehow I had trouble choosing it as my favorite because I was still thinking about the beef heart skewers. The heart was beautifully cooked, deeply beefy and incredibly flavorful, served over a blackberry sauce that provided this wonderful fruity counterpoint to the meat. I could have eaten plates and plates of it.

If you had told me before dinner that I would spend the next several days trying to decide whether lamb liver or beef heart had been my favorite dish, I might have questioned some of my life choices. But here we are.

The other ladies were not quite as enthusiastic about my growing love affair with organ meat. Jeremy had them covered.

Something for Everyone

The seared grouper was magnificent. It had a serious, deeply golden sear on the outside while the fish inside remained moist and glistening. This is deceptively difficult cooking. The difference between a beautiful crust and overcooked fish can be a matter of moments. The grouper was spot on. Even the woman at our table who does not particularly love seafood was fighting for her share.

Then there was an off-menu chicken special with Spanish ham. It was beautifully browned, incredibly juicy and packed with flavor. We fought over the last piece of that too. Well, technically, we stopped fighting. We let the judge have it. She is a judge, after all. We may have temporarily abandoned our table manners, but we have not completely lost our respect for the judiciary.

Trust the Chef

By late in the meal, we were nearly full. Nearly. We wanted one more small thing, but none of us particularly wanted to make another decision. So we asked Jeremy to make us one last dish of something we had not already tried. That is a wonderful moment in a restaurant. You have stopped ordering and started trusting.

Out came four of the largest fucking scallops I have ever seen. And they were perfect.

I mean actually perfect. They had a delicate sear on the outside and interiors that were tender, barely cooked and still glistening. They were topped with thin pieces of some glorious Spanish cured-pork situation and surrounded by a light, peppery butter sauce. Four women who were already nearly full proceeded to lose our collective minds. That dish captured something about the entire evening. We did not know what was coming. We didn't need to. We trusted him.

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Little Gifts Matter

At another point, Jeremy appeared with four little glasses of a vivid orange-red drink as a gift from the kitchen. It was a peppery, tomato-rich gazpacho, light enough to drink from the glass, and all four of us loved it. It wasn't a major course. We hadn't ordered it. It wasn't necessary. Maybe that is exactly why I remember it.

Hospitality is partly about the things a restaurant is required to do well. Magic often comes from the things nobody required them to do at all.

And Then There Are the People

Jeremy's cooking may have been the original reason I wanted to bring everyone back, but this dinner reminded me that a magical restaurant is never the work of one person.

Jillian Lyons took care of our table, and she understood that hospitality is not about reciting a wine list. She listened to what each woman liked and expertly guided the wine drinkers toward glasses that suited them.

I don't drink, so I put myself in the hands of Bar Director Lauren Ganaway. This is another place where Estadio gets it. At too many restaurants, the person who doesn't drink gets relegated to soda, iced tea, or an overly sweet mocktail assembled as an afterthought. Lauren treats nonalcoholic drinks as actual drinks. Like the kitchen, she looks locally for ingredients, including locally made Sweatman's sodas, and approaches the NA side of the bar with the same creativity and seriousness given to cocktails. I simply let her send me whatever she thought I would like. Everything was excellent. And then she brought me the tomato soda cocktail. I don't know precisely what kind of witch's brew Lauren created in that glass. I just know it was so fucking good that I immediately needed a second one. Then the wine drinkers tasted it. When they finished their wine, they started ordering their own tomato soda mocktails. That may be the highest compliment I can give a nonalcoholic cocktail program. If you can convert a dedicated wine drinker, you are winning.

The Familiar Ending

Finally, because apparently none of us had eaten enough, we finished with Jeremy's Basque cheesecake. I already knew what was coming. The other ladies did not. Watching them discover it was almost as much fun as eating it again myself. After an evening of surprises, this was the familiar ending I had been waiting for, and it blew them away.

And somewhere around then, I realized I no longer needed to explain why I had brought them here. They understood.

The Magic

I think I finally understand why I keep writing about Estadio. It isn't because every dish is elaborate. Some aren't. It isn't because everything involves expensive ingredients. Some of the most memorable things Jeremy served us were onions, mushrooms, heart and liver.

And it isn't because I have developed a ridiculous chef crush, although Jeremy Goslin's talent and considerable personal charm are certainly not hurting matters.

It is because this restaurant understands something that is difficult to manufacture. A magical restaurant makes you feel cared for without making the hospitality feel rehearsed. It surprises you without showing off. It takes its food seriously without taking itself too seriously. It hires people who know their craft and then gives them enough freedom to share it with you.

It is Jeremy coming to the table excited to explain what he has cooked.

It is Jillian figuring out what each person wants to drink rather than simply asking what she wants to order.

It is Lauren making the non-drinker at the table feel like she has access to every bit as much creativity as everyone drinking wine.

It is a little glass of gazpacho you never asked for.

It is fighting over chanterelles.

It is discovering that beef heart is something you could happily eat by the plateful.

It is respecting the judiciary enough to surrender the last piece of chicken.

It is asking the chef to bring you anything he wants and getting four enormous, perfectly cooked scallops.

It is watching your friends discover a cheesecake you already love.

But I think it is something more than all of that. I brought some of my dearest friends to Estadio because I wanted them, for a few hours, to feel nothing but love and comfort. I wanted a table where nobody needed to worry about anything. I wanted them fed beautifully, to enjoy drinks that seemed made just for them, laughter, ridiculous arguments over the last mushroom, and the feeling that somebody else had everything handled. Estadio gave us that in the food, in the drinks, in the service, and, most importantly, in the spirit of the place.

We all walked out feeling a little renewed. That is what I mean when I call a restaurant magical. The best restaurants do more than feed you. For a few hours, they create a small world and invite you inside it. If they are very good, you leave thinking about what you ate. If they are magical, you leave feeling better than when you arrived. We did.

And I left just a little smug because my reputation for knowing the very best places to eat remains fully intact.