“There was nothing soft about that opening. Nothing,” says Giuseppe “Joe” Grisafi, executive chef and Corked co-owner, shaking his head and gesticulating with his hands. The buzz was positively electric about the restaurant he opened the weekend of October 20, 2013, that to say they were blindsided wouldn't even begin to explain it. He's talking about how utterly shocked he was about how ill-prepared the entire restaurant was, from behind the line to out on the dining room floor and back again. “It was the worst night of my life. That weekend was my personal Kitchen Nightmare,” he says.
The invocation of Gordon Ramsay is serious, full of intent; Grisafi adores the fiery British chef for his exacting standards and fastidious attention to detail. “On that first night, that Friday night, we had to tell hostesses to turn people away at 8, 8:30; we just couldn't keep up. Food was not coming out.” He shakes his head and shudders visibly upon retelling it.
Well, that's one way to start an interview—with a candor and directness that's fairly unusual among restaurant owners.
The invocation of Gordon Ramsay is serious, full of intent; Grisafi adores the fiery British chef for his exacting standards and fastidious attention to detail.
Most people know that new restaurants are often inconsistent during the first six months and sometimes even into their first year of life. Certainly, the 31-year-old Grisafi is very familiar with this environment and its peculiar pressures. He's basically been in the business all his life, growing up with his dad's restaurants including Taste of Italy on Catasauqua Road and then opening his own outpost, Roma, not too far from there in 2010. (His brother Paul is now running the kitchen there).
These days, like any new baby, Corked Wine Bar & Steak House in downtown Bethlehem requires his full attention. It's a place that's been in the making for at least two years, gutting the space—the former Morning Call office—and completely remodeling it. Grisafi says he wanted to be the first wine bar in the Lehigh Valley, but Artisan Wine & Cheese Cellars just down the street beat him to the punch, although not by much, plus it's a different vibe. (I'm not sure if he's really 100 percent accurate about that. Jac & Co in Easton was serving flights at its cozy downstairs wine bar before it closed about a decade ago, but it was a decidedly more laid-back effort than Corked.)
Admittedly, we have spots with similar offerings, but Corked differs from the other wine-centric, steak-serving restaurants in the Lehigh Valley on a few counts. First, it's situated in downtown Bethlehem, not isolated all by itself (Blue); in a complex with other shops (Shula's); or in a noisy casino (Emeril's Chop House). Secondly, its entrees are not a la carte: the steaks arrive with a starch and vegetable of your choice, along with the ubiquitous wedge salad, scaled down for a side. (Pasta and non-steak entrees receive the salad, too.) And finally, Corked distinguishes itself in a really significant way—and here's where wine and/or beer purists may bristle at this comparison—because it basically treats wine like beer by offering at least 32 on tap. The restaurant features Napa Technology wine machines, unique around here but not in bigger markets, which provide a careful method of storing and serving wine in order to best preserve it. However, instead of being pulled from individually styled, logo-driven tap handles, like beer, it's a simple push of a button. They're offered by the 1-ounce (taste), 2.5-ounce (half) and 5-ounce (full) glass. You can, of course, splurge and buy the bottle.
“It's not quite a club, not quite a lounge. It's a lively lounge.”
When you first walk up to the bar, the uniformity of presentation—the eight sleek metal machines and their individual bottles, all backlit and lined up with labels facing outward—reminds one of slot machines. “We wanted this to be fun fine dining,” Grisafi says. The restaurant's marketing motto is, “Put some luxury in your nightlife.” Think big-city style; Vegas, not New York or Philly. That's no accident, as Grisafi visited Las Vegas, in particular Ramsay's restaurants, for some research and reconnaissance, coming away with and then instituting a shortened but similar kitchen pass and the same electric red hood in an open kitchen set-up, as in the famed chef's Vegas steakhouse.
Vegas is all about being bigger, flashier and brighter than the next piece of eye candy you encounter. Corked's intermittent fiber optic lighting scheme alternating hot, bright colors on the gently undulating white walls plays into that. So does the sheer scope of its dining room, ready to fill 210 people into various seating arrangements. Think tables; large, somewhat private, high-backed booths; a lounge-y area in the front by the windows and in the back; and a long black concrete bar whose surface is flecked like confetti with tiny, intermittent LEDs. Adding to the vibe is the fact that the kitchen is open late, until 1 a.m. on the weekends, in order to feed all those people who get hungry after dancing to the DJ who shows up those nights. “It's not quite a club, not quite a lounge. It's a lively lounge,” Grisafi says. Speaking of which, the vibe there even during dinner is lively and loud. “Any busy restaurant is loud, and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying,” he says. Still, Grisafi is planning to address the acoustics of a space with a lot of hard surfaces as best he can, post-construction. “Everything bounces,” he says.
“Put some luxury in your nightlife.” Think big-city style; Vegas, not New York or Philly.
Think swanky—it's the kind of place with the kind of interior that does what a restaurant is supposed to do: transport you somewhere else with its creative vision, from the greeting at the door to the décor to the music to the service to the food and drinks and back again. Corked seems designed to make you feel like a million bucks while you're there, but you won't need to get spendy about it, unless you want to. The most expensive steak, the 24-ounce prime Tomahawk ribeye, checks in at $57, but soups and appetizers start at $7 and go up from there.
One of the advantages of its wine system is that the restaurant can open and store a really expensive bottle of wine that ordinarily wouldn't be economically feasible to serve by the glass: the Opus One Red Blend, a much-heralded collaboration between Robert Mondavi and Baron Philippe de Rothschild of Chateau Mouton Rothschild. (Opus is known for it's painstakingly handcrafted approach to Bordeaux red blends from California.) It's $17.50 for a 1.5-ounce pour or, $360 by the bottle. The wines can be stored for up to 60 days with no degradation in quality thanks to their system, but they're typically gone in six to eight days, Grisafi says. One thing worth noting: don't go asking for a house wine, because there really isn't one. “We are not serving Turning Leaf or anything like that. We do not carry white Zinfandel, period,” says Karen Moyzan, bar manager, laughing and shaking her head. “We are not offering Lambrusco,” Grisafi says. “No, there's no Riunite here,” Moyzan says. All laughing. Jokes aside, there are plenty of entry level, approachable wines—the least expensive full glass, which will periodically change, is $9.
That old dining adage rings true here. “There's something for everyone here on this menu, at every price point. We have the same steaks as Emeril's, Pat LaFrieda's, but we charge less,” Grisafi says. Echoing that sentiment—the crowd is varied, too. “We have corporate people in here with their American Express black cards who want to have a great time just as we have men and women in their late 20s and even families,” Moyzan says. And what are they ordering? It's slowly growing and changing as Grisafi figures out what works and what doesn't. You're likely to encounter dishes that are popular standards at Roma, albeit gussied up a bit more for a splashier dining room: smoked Gouda lobster mac and cheese, bacon-wrapped scallops, shrimp Limoncello. There's definitely pasta on the menu, but you'll also encounter 12-inch thin crust “pizzettas” with fancy, carefully considered toppings to a salt-roasted beets and burrata salad. “That's a Gordon Ramsay thing. No goat cheese with beets here,” Grisafi says.
Grisafi is certainly suffused with Ramsay's spirit. The chef's burst of honesty at the beginning of the interview was merely prompted by asking for the restaurant's opening date. But as ugly as it may be to discuss, it happens. There are humans involved; we're not a perfect bunch. And Grisafi remains practical and professional about it. “You can only improve from learning the negative,” he says. “I have a brigade of culinary all-stars. CIA, Johnson & Wales and NCC graduates. They are all highly passionate people who want to reach perfection with me,” he says.
