If it's Thanksgiving, that must mean the Hearty Boys ( business and life partners Steve McDonagh and Dan Smith ) are busy making hundreds of Chicagoans happy, thanks to their service that allows people to order holiday items and then pick them up this Wednesday and Thursday, Nov. 25-26, at their new restaurant, Hearty, 3819 N. Broadway.
Windy City Times talked with Smith about Hearty and his own hunger ( to return to the kitchen ) .
Windy City Times: What exactly does the Hearty Boys' empire encompass? It's been a couple years since we've talked, and I believe things have changed since then.
Dan Smith: The catering business has gotten much, much larger; we have a corporate division now. Social catering is still going strong, knock wood; a few caterers have gone under. Whatever we're doing I'm just going to keep on doing it.
Since [ you and I ] spoke, the book [ Talk with Your Mouth Full ] came out. We continue to work on TV projects, and the newest we're doing is the new restaurant, Hearty.
WCT: Is the TV series [ Party Line with The Hearty Boys ] still around?
DAN SMITH: It's in reruns, but the Food Network has gone in a direction that we weren't really comfortable with—and I think, to a certain extent, the Food Network wasn't completely comfortable with an out gay couple. So we're looking at other options with other networks.
WCT: The last time I was [ at 3819 N. Broadway ] , a restaurant called Frill was about to open. The concept sounded nice.
DAN SMITH: It was a great concept. What happened, though, at that point was that our son, Nate, was maybe a year [ old ] . We just had too much going on, and we wanted to spend more time with him. Opening a restaurant would have taken me away, definitely.
What we did instead was open the TV-studio idea ( HBTV ) , which was great but was a big-ticket item. It did great until the economy [ spiraled ] . But we still have the concept and we still have it in the back of our minds.
Less than six months ago, I said to Steve, "You know what? I want to do another restaurant." [ It was ] partly because I haven't been cooking for two years because the business got so big. ... We're in our third week, and we're doing great.
WCT: So tell me about the food at Hearty.
DAN SMITH: It is authentic American comfort [ food ] , but we've taken it and twisted it. There's a menu behind you.
WCT: [ Looking at menu ] I thought my eyes were deceiving me: Beefaroni? Tuna noodle casserole? The ultimate mac and cheese? A lot of this stuff takes me back to my childhood.
DAN SMITH: That's exactly the point. But, to take tuna casserole as an example, we've bumped it up. [ The casserole contains seared ahi, egg noodles with a light saffron cream, peas and wild mushroom puree topped with a crushed potato-chip crust. ] The dish has all the elements of your mom's tuna casserole. The tuna casserole and the Beefaroni are the two most popular dishes. People come in two to three times a week.
WCT: I believe it. So will the menu be seasonal?
DAN SMITH: Yes. It won't only be seasonal but, once we get our legs, we're going to be changing things out every couple of weeks. It'll remain a fresh menu.
WCT: However, with comfort foods, you might want to keep some of the same items on the menu.
DAN SMITH: And we will. The Southern-fried chicken is a huge seller; it has corn-flake crumbs that are spiced up, and we soak it in buttermilk so it's really, really tender. And the creamed collards are great; I've had [ Southerners ] tell me that they're the best collards they've ever had.
WCT: Really? Because I'm from the Atlantic area and the owner of a local restaurant that will not be named once told me that his place had the best crab cakes I would ever have in my life. They were OK.
DAN SMITH: [ Laughs ] Well, you'll have to come in and try the collards.
WCT: And what are [ Hearty's ] drinks like?
DAN SMITH: The drinks are similar. Steve did some old classics that he revised. I think the Pegu club [ a mix of Hendricks Gin, Cointreau, bitters and fresh lime ] is about 100 years old, and was named after an officers' club in Burma [ now Myanmar ] . [ Hearty's mixologist, Brendan, overhears and interjects. ] The drinks have the same structure [ as classics ] but has modern liqueurs in them.
The cool thing about the wine list is that it's strictly American—but it's not just California. We have wines from Georgia, Oregon, Wisconsin; we have an ice wine from Georgia that's amazing.
We're both pretty passionate about keeping [ the menu ] America-centric. We've got Arrowhead Mills grits, goat cheese from downstate; for New Year's Eve, I'm doing a chocolate-pudding flight with Scharffen Berger chocolate from California.
WCT: Let's talk turkey. What's lined up for Thursday?
DAN SMITH: Oh my gosh. We've been doing our take-away menu for years. The recipes are tried and true and solid—and our clientele is, too. We have some people who have been coming back for 10 years.
What we do is brine our turkeys, but we don't roast them. Steve and I feel very passionately that you should have that smell in your house on Thanksgiving. The menu is on the Web site—and guidelines are there as well.
See www.HeartyBoys.com to order.
