Once in a while, some duty will call Eve Aronoff outside her restaurant during service hours. She'll catch a glimpse of the twinkling lights inside and the name, "eve", painted on the understated sign outside. For just a moment she'll see eve as so many other people see it – elegant, casual, a place for special occasions. And in that moment it'll hit her full-on that the word on the sign – meant to evoke a sense of the first woman, and of twilight – is also her name.
She gets self-conscious just thinking about it.
But eve – the restaurant - did just under $1.5 million in sales last year and has carved itself a solid niche in Ann Arbor's abundant restaurant scene. Eve – the human – spends her days so immersed in the details of running her restaurant that the full reality of it sometimes takes her by surprise.
OK, that'll be enough reverie. Back to the kitchen. Aronoff is happiest when she's working with food, tasting food, caught up in the dynamic of a busy dinner service, watching every plate that goes out to make sure it's right.
"I just really like the feeling of creating something," said Aronoff, who admits being hit by that same sense of self-conscious surprise when she first saw a published copy of her cookbook "eve Contemporary Cuisine, Methode Traditionnelle." "(Creativity) is exciting to me in a way that could drive other people crazy, because that's what I think is fun to talk about. I like creative challenges. The restaurant is a big creative challenge. All day, every day there are creative challenges within it."
Aronoff, 40, grew up in East Lansing, the daughter of two college professors who like to cook and entertain. She got her first restaurant job in Boston, working as a prep cook to earn spending money while she studied comparative literature at Brandeis University. She learned her way around a restaurant kitchen while studying the works of Albert Camus. After college she moved to Ann Arbor and styled a culinary curriculum for herself, climbing from prep cook to line cook to sous-chef to chef de cuisine to chef.
She sharpened her line cook skills at the Common Grill, learned about the business of running a restaurant at the Red Hawk Bar and Grill, did an immersion course in pastries at the Gandy Dancer, got an intense education in fish at Monahan's Seafood Market, and helped Cafe Zola open up its dinner service.
In 1998 she took what she'd learned to Le Cordon Bleu in Paris and earned degrees in culinary arts and wine and spirits.
"What made the biggest impact on me was being around that culture and chefs who were that passionate about what they did," she said. "It allowed me to refine my style."
Back in Ann Arbor, she gathered a group of investors, found a space in Kerrytown, and opened eve in 2003.
"I'd cooked in restaurants for 14 years, so I thought I was more ready to do it than a lot of people who open restaurants. But I didn't have a partner or a really experienced general manager, so people would say 'How do you do this?' and I was like, 'I have no idea.'"
Rick Halberg, the former chef/proprietor of Emily's in Northville, recently filled that partner/general manager void, and he's an important sounding board for Aronoff, but she says the restaurant is still a community endeavor.
She and her staff put a lot of effort into making things seem effortless.
Casual elegance is easy to pull off when it's just Aronoff doing a dinner for a couple of people. Add 25 staff and 100 guests and there's lots of potential for miscommunication, which is why Aronoff has lists and instructions for everything.
The flowers on the tables, for example, shouldn't look like wedding bouquets. They should look like they were pulled from someone's garden. So there's a "flower list" of a couple dozen of Aronoff's favorites - peonies or dahlias, ranunculus, and a whole bunch more. Whoever fetches the flowers takes the list and comes back with big bouquets of pinks, oranges and blueish purples.
Aronoff holds weekly two-hour meetings with the staff, going over everything from the menu to which direction the toilet paper in the bathrooms should pull from.
"It's a lot of details," she said. "People, when they come to work at the restaurant, are like, 'You've got to be kidding.' I am particular, but it's for a good cause. I'm not controlling just to be controlling."
Aronoff's staff is made up of people like server Sarah Normile, who are as emotionally invested in the restaurant as she is. Normile's been there since the first year and she's willing go to any lengths to satisfy a customer's special request, is on board for any challenge and manages to never give Aronoff the feeling she's being too demanding.
"It's great to have people like that by your side," Aronoff says. "The staff really, really cares."
So do the guests. Ann Arbor's foodie culture is one of the things that drew her in the first place. Aronoff and her kitchen staff make everything from scratch, except for the few items made by local artisans who simply do it better. They get their smoked fish from Durham's Tracklements and Smokery, a shop conveniently located out the front door and around the corner which happens to make a smoked salmon that earned raves from the New York Times.
"The people we work with are really passionate about what they do, so they don't see me as being crazy," Aronoff said.
But lest you think this is a foodier-than-thou establishment, eve's wine bar menu offers a Jamtini – made with Grey Goose Vodka and Aronoff's mom's homemade Michigan plum jam. The menu at eve changes constantly, not just four times a year. Consider it the culinary version of Michigan weather – reflecting everything from end-of-winter impatience to summertime abundance. Aronoff was Slow Food Huron Valley's delegate to an international conference in Italy last year, but from her perspective slow food is more a matter of common sense. The best stuff is the freshest stuff, and the best, freshest stuff comes from people you know.
It's an organic advocacy rather than a formal one.
"Its how you live your life," she says. "It's like, we do as many benefits as we can, but I can't necessarily go to the homeless shelter every week. But when we see (homeless people) on the street we always invite them to come by the restaurant after we close because there's food we'd have to throw away that we can't send to Food Gatherers. You make (what you believe in) a part of your life."
Amy Whitesall is a Chelsea-based freelance writer. Her work has appeared in the Ann Arbor News, Crain's Detroit Business and Michigan Today, and you can find her online at www.activevoicemedia.com. Amy's also a regular contributor to Concentrate and Metromode. Her most recent story was MASTERMIND: Bee Mayhew. (PS. When it comes to hockey, Amy seriously rocks the boards)
Photos:
You May Think This is Posed but you'd Be Wrong. Eve is Always Happy in Her Kitchen-Ann Arbor
Atmosphere is Key to Eve the Restaurant-Ann Arbor
Eve and One of Her Cooks at Work-Ann Arbor
THE BEST AFTER DINNER MINT EVER!!!-Ann Arbor
The View From the Kissing Booth-Ann Arbor
Shrimp Salad-Ann Arbor
Getting Art Into the Mix at Eve Restaurant; Part of Shades' Art Show-Ann Arbor
Eve Checking Out Her Incredible Cookbook-Ann Arbor
All Photos by Dave Lewinski
Dave Lewinski is Concentrate's Managing Photographer. He happens to think Eve is the best restaurant in Ann Arbor and think Eve is the best person in Ann Arbor. He enjoyed soul food and art at Shades Agee's Urban Art Show that was held at Eve.
DISCLAIMER:The musings and comments expressed by David Lewinski in no way reflect the views of Concentrate or any of its affiliates.
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