Q&A: Crab Is Joe's Middle Name
Chef Matthew Dunn puts crab back in the spotlight and creates zesty new shareables at Joe's Crab Shack.
By Monica Rogers, Contributing Editor -- Chain Leader, 6/1/2008 12:00:00 AM
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Director of Culinary and Executive Chef Matthew Dunn is offering guests at Joe's Crab Shack more crab dishes, zesty new flavors and value. Read or listen to an extended interview with Matthew Dunn. |
Joe's Crab Shack launched an auspicious new menu in May. It's the first since Landry's sold Joe's to New York-based private-equity firm J.H. Whitney last year. It's also the first time customers will get to taste the talents of Matthew Dunn, who joined Joe's as director of culinary and executive chef in January. Dunn spoke to Chain Leader about his efforts to put crab back at the center of the plate and offer zesty new tastes and values.
A big push with the new menu has been to put the emphasis back on crab. Can you talk a bit about this?
The brand hadn't really paid its due to crab. One of the things we did was to put crab right in the centerfold [of the physical menu].
We've also brought on a spicy crab flavor, which pays homage to our Southern roots. We basically took the flavors used in a Southern crawfish boil and are using those to season our crab.
We've also got a crab steam pot for two, so people can really dig into a giant, generous bucket of crab with sausage and potatoes and corn and some nice drawn butter to dip their crab in.
You've also increased your shareable starter options with new dishes such as the Crab Nachos, Craveable Crab Cakes, Seafood Fun-due and Mussels Marinara. Can you tell the story behind the creation of a couple of these fun dishes?
The Mussels Marinara is a new twist on a surprisingly successful Garlicky Mussels dish. Initially we thought mussels might be too narrow in scope of appeal for the normal Joe's eater, but people have really taken to them. Putting marinara sauce with them is something we hope will play a bit stronger up in our Northeastern Joe's units, as the dish has more of an Italian flavor to it.
Our Seafood Fun-due is a nice, thick and rich seafood and spinach dip with crawfish tails and shrimp and lots and lots of Monterey Jack cheese with a little baked topping of mushrooms and garlic bread crumbs. It comes out nice and brown and bubbly and toasty with some garlic bread to dip in it. We have a couple of other dips, but I wanted to have something that had more of a chunky seafood aspect to it.
You're a third-generation New Orleans native. How does that background figure in your approach to seafood?
If you grow up in New Orleans, you learn a lot about seafood. It really made it an easy transition for me to what Joe's is looking for.
You spent years as an executive chef for Texas cooking great Stephan Pyles and are a Southwestern taste leader in your own right. I wonder how that figures in your approach at Joe's?
I was just really enamored with the types of flavors he was able to get out of just keeping simple things in mind. Knowing that a nice smoky flavor always goes well with a little bit of citrus, for example, and that a little bit of lemon always goes well with a little bit of cream. It isn't rocket science, but not everybody knows how to make that work, and that's something Joe's has an edge on now.
With the uncertain economy, restaurant chains are more carefully balancing food cost with the need to give guests that quality experience. What's that mean for you now as you're shaping the new menu?
There are always things we're going to have to rework on the execution side of it. But we're really focusing on bringing what we consider to be the best quality we can offer at our price point. I don't want to be remembered as the chain who decided to take things off of people's plates in order to make it more affordable for us.
Read or listen to an extended interview with Matthew Dunn.
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