Elin Hilderbrand - The Blue Bistro

“The bar is popular for two reasons,” he said. “Duncan and our indifference.”

“Our indifference?”

“Well, Fiona’s indifference. She hates the bar. She think it’s all about money.”

“Isn’t it all about money?”

“Oh, yes,” he said. “Yes, it is.”

At midnight, the crackers came out of the kitchen: parmesan rosemary. Adrienne took a handful and offered the basket to Thatch. He nodded at the kitchen door. “I’m going to eat,” he said. “I’ll pick you up tomorrow night at seven.”

“Where are we going?” Adrienne asked.

“Where aren’t we going?” he said.

Night Off

Notre Dame magazine,

Volume LXVII,

September 2004

“GREEN AND GOLD GOES BLUE”

Thatcher Smith (B.A. 1991) believes there are two kinds of people in the world: those who eat to live and those who live to eat. Until he was twenty-two years old, Smith, owner of the Blue Bistro, a highly successful restaurant on Nantucket Island in Massachusetts, categorized himself as the former.

“I grew up in South Bend, a town that is virtually devoid of cuisine. My mother left the family when I was young and my father and brothers and I subsisted on shredded wheat, bologna sandwiches, and pizza. And Burger King, of course. But nothing you would ever call cuisine.”

So how did this native of South Bend, and Notre Dame graduate, end up in the restaurant business? He gives credit to the girl next door.

Fiona Kemp (daughter of Hobson Kemp, a professor of electrical engineering at Notre Dame since 1966) lived four houses down from Smith growing up.

“There’s a picture of Fiona and I on our first day of kindergarten,” Smith says. “I can’t remember not knowing her.”

Because of a childhood illness, Ms. Kemp could not participate in sports. So she turned her energies to an indoor activity: cooking.

“She was always making something. I remember when we were about twelve she made a chocolate swirl cheesecake sitting in a puddle of raspberry sauce. She invited some of the boys from the neighborhood over to eat it, but it was so elegant, none of us had the heart.”

After graduating from John Adams High School together in 1987, Smith and Kemp went their separate ways. Smith enrolled at Notre Dame, where he majored in economics. He planned to join his father and brothers at what he modestly calls “the family store”: Smith Carpets and Flooring, which has five outlets in South Bend and nearby Mishewaka. Meanwhile Kemp enrolled at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York. She wanted to fulfill her dream of becoming a chef.

Smith and Kemp reunited on Nantucket Island in October 1992.

“Fiona had been working on the island for two years at that point,” Smith says. “And she felt ready for her own place. She convinced me to visit, and once I saw the island, I decided to leave South Bend behind. I sold my interest in the business to my brothers and took the money and invested it in Fiona. I knew there was no way she would fail.”

Indeed, not. Smith and Kemp bought a run-down restaurant on the beach that had formerly served burgers and fried clams, and they transformed it into the Blue Bistro, with seating for over a hundred facing the Atlantic Ocean. The only seats harder to procure than the seats at the blue granite bar are the four tables out in the sand where the Bistro serves its now-famous version of seafood fondue. (Or, as the kitchen fondly refers to it, the all-you-can-eat fried shrimp special.) Many of Ms. Kemp’s offerings are twists on old classics, like the fondue. She serves impeccable steak frites, a lobster club sandwich, and a sushi plate, which features a two-inch-thick slab of locally caught bluefin tuna. Ms. Kemp relies on fresh local produce to keep her plates alive.

Ms. Kemp’s cooking has been celebrated in such places as Bon Appétit and the Chicago Tribune. She was named one of the country’s hottest chefs by Food & Wine in 1998. All this notoriety comes despite the fact that she is, in Thatcher Smith’s words, “a highly private person. Fiona doesn’t give interviews. She doesn’t allow herself to be photographed. She doesn’t believe in the new craze of ‘chef as celebrity.’ Fiona just wants to feed people. It has never been about the reviews or about the money, even. For Fiona, it’s all about love; it’s about giving back.”

For Thatcher Smith, running the Blue Bistro is a dream come true-a dream he wasn’t even aware he harbored. “I love every minute of my work,” he says. “The fast pace, the high energy, the personal interaction, the management challenges. And yes, I love the food. Once I tried a plate of Fiona’s steak frites, I learned the difference between tasting and eating. I knew I would never hit the drive-through at Burger King again. I became a person who lives to eat.”

TO: Ade12177@hotmail.com

FROM: DrDon@toothache.com

DATE: June 7, 2005, 7:33 P.M.

SUBJECT: possible dates

How about the last week in July? Love, love.

Adrienne was so nervous when she woke up on Wednesday morning that her ears were ringing. Where are we going? Where aren’t we going? The blue dress hung in the closet on a padded hanger that Adrienne had borrowed from Caren without her permission. When Adrienne had gotten home the night before, she went online and looked up the article about Thatcher in Notre Dame magazine. Then she lay in bed for nearly an hour thinking about it. It gave her a better sense of Thatcher than the other articles. He came from a family of men who worked in carpet and flooring. His mother had left, maybe for that very reason: too many men, too much carpet. Adrienne wondered about Fiona’s “childhood illness,” just as she wondered about everything else regarding Fiona. She had liked the story about the cheesecake. She could imagine Thatcher and his grubby twelve-year-old friends staring at the marbled cheesecake sitting in a bright pink raspberry pond as though it were a work of modern art they were being asked to understand.

Adrienne heard the swish of Caren’s bare feet against the floorboards of the hall, then the espresso machine. She looked at her clock: It was nine. She had hoped to sleep in, but there was no chance-too much on her mind.

By the time Adrienne made it out to the kitchen, Caren was alone, sipping her short black, flipping through the pages of Cosmo.

“Where’s Duncan?” Adrienne asked.

“I have no idea.”

Adrienne eyed the glossy pages of the magazine. Caren was reading an article entitled: “Is Your Relationship on the Rocks? 10 Early Warning Signs.”

“Are you fighting?” Adrienne asked.

“I have no idea,” Caren said again.

“Oh,” Adrienne said.

“You’re off tonight?” Caren asked.

Adrienne poked her head into the fridge for some juice. “Yep.”

“You’re going out?”

Adrienne got a glass out of the cabinet, steeling herself. What was the first thing Caren had ever told her? I know the dirt on every person who eats at the Bistro and every person who works there.

“I am,” Adrienne said.

“With Thatch?”

“Yes,” Adrienne said. She let out a long exhale; it was a relief, having it spoken. “What do you think?”

“I’m psyched to work the front,” Caren said. “It’s such a breeze.”

Adrienne recognized that as some kind of slight, but she let it go. “What do you think about me and Thatch?”

“I think you should be careful.”

Adrienne poured her juice and sat down across the table from Caren. Caren was not exactly her friend, but Adrienne knew she wouldn’t lie.