Toque of the Town: A Walk on the Wild Side

Chef Eddie Matney’s bold flavors add fine-dining nuance to Wild Noodles.

By Monica Rogers, Contributing Editor -- Chain Leader, 12/1/2004

With 30 seconds left on the air, Eddie Matney is moving as fast as he talks, rushing to plate a garlic-cornmeal-crusted calamari appetizer before the cooking segment ends. “Wait! Wait!” he says, “I’ve gotta show you this,” squirting on a chile-lime mayo garnish as the credits roll. With an effusive personality and stories to match nearly every one of his cooking methods, it’s no surprise that Matney—one of Arizona’s most-famed chefs—spills over margins. “Isn’t that good?” he encourages, as one after another TV anchor digs into his boldly flavored creations.

But Matney’s energy is not just for show. A working chef in the best sense, self-taught Matney splits time and creative thought between his namesake fine-dining venue in Scottsdale, Ariz., and his growing fast-casual chain, Wild Noodles.

Matney initially founded Scottsdale-based Wild Noodles in 2000 with a different name (World Noodles) and partner. Despite growing national acclaim for his fine-dining work, Matney stayed on as menu maestro and part owner when CEO and President George Krotonsky bought the concept in 2002.

“I love noodles,” says Matney. “Kids love noodles. Everybody loves noodles, even with Atkins. My thing was that if I was going to do a nationwide noodle deal, it had to be different.”

For Matney, different noodles has meant “more than Asian and never bland.” That’s where the “Wild” in Wild Noodles comes in. Noodle categories travel Asia, America and Italy with some regional spins. Sonoran Pasta, $7.50, for example, is a Southwestern-styled entree featuring fettuccini with tomatoes, caramelized corn, spinach, and chicken or beef in chipotle cream sauce with cilantro and garnished with lime wedges.

Dishes frequently include zesty surprises. Mac & Cheese, $5.85, is sauteed with garlic and finished with a sprinkle of chile flakes. Beef Stroganoff, $7.50, in cabernet cream sauce is topped with horseradish-spiked sour cream. And the sauce on the $7.50 Chicken Enchilada egg noodles gets extra kick from cumin.

Up a Notch
“People taste and say, ‘What is that? What is that?’ They know there’s a little something in there that takes it up a notch.

Suddenly it’s so much more interesting,” Matney says.

The combination of ethnic eclecticism with bold and zesty flavors is directly responsible for Wild Noodles’ fast franchise growth, says Krotonsky: “The food is what’s selling this franchise, and that goes back to Eddie. We’re totally chef driven.”

Just two years after it started franchising, the 12-unit chain has signed area developers in 13 states and has contracts for 215 more stores. Thirty-five units will open in 2005, with up to 500 scheduled to open in five years.

Beverly Hills, Calif., restaurant consultant Larry Sarokin says, “Having a chef at the helm is a plus for the concept.” His only caveat: “From a franchise-growth perspective, continually tweaking the menu becomes complicated and expensive, so eventually moving to a core menu with quarterly or seasonal specials would be a good move.”

Despite Wild Noodles’ burgeoning size, Matney says he’ll stay hands-on with recipe development and training, traveling to units as needed. He intends to create training videos of line builds and CDs with more training tips.

Top-selling Tuscan: Wild Noodles’ Chicken Caesar features crisp greens with tender chicken.

Since the chain’s inception, Matney has shaped dishes for the menu at the Cactus and Tatum stores, passing out samples on the spot and interacting with guests.

Some ideas hatch out of Matney’s fine-dining venue. For example, the idea for Wild Noodles’ $6.95 Spring Ravioli Salad, introduced in January, piggybacked on the “much-loved toasted ravioli I’ve served at my signature restaurant for years,” Matney explains. “There, I do lobster ravioli with seasoned bread crumbs, fried and served with a tomato-basil sauce. At Wild Noodles, we forego the bread crumbs to avoid having a one-use item in our inventory, and we fill the ravioli with a more cost-effective cheese.” To make the salad, Matney toasts the ravioli in a wok until golden brown and then serves them over a green tossed salad with Parmesan cheese and Mediterranean-lemon vinaigrette.

Likewise, Matney patterned Wild Noodles’ Lasagna in a Bowl, $6.95—fennel-Italian sausage, lasagna noodles and ricotta-cheese sauce mixed with marinara—after one of his most popular lasagnas.

In-Born Abilities
Other Matney methods go back to his Lebanese heritage. Raised on the East Coast in a family where mom cooked Mediterranean specialties for 10 to 40 relatives every Sunday, Matney’s ken for bold Middle-Eastern flavors developed early.

Leading the low-carb pack, Wild Noodles’ Double Protein Saute includes an 8-ounce portion of chicken or beef, sauteed with broccoli and zucchini.

His love for the kitchen followed soon after. Small in stature, Matney was so short at 15 when he started as a broiler cook for a bustling restaurant called 1896 House in the heart of the Berkshires, “I had to stand on milk crates to reach the grill.” Never formally trained as a chef, Matney’s ability to put flavors together well at various restaurants in Stockbridge, Mass., caught the attention of Phoenix restaurant magnate Lee Cohn, who hired Matney as executive chef for his Big 4 restaurant Steamers Genuine Seafood. “I was 25 and virtually unknown,” says Matney.

Nineteen years later, while Matney has taken most of the challenges of dividing time between a fine-dining independent and fast-casual chain in stride, differing food costs and sourcing parameters have been a tough adjustment. “You can’t put a $6 piece of chicken on a bowl at Wild Noodles,” he says. Keeping costs down, Matney cross-utilizes ingredients, avoiding “stand alones,” and farms out sauce making to the company’s manufacturing facility. “That also helped with consistency,” he adds. Food cost is at 23.5 percent; labor, 28 percent.

“Everybody loves smores!” says Matney, explaining the “why” behind his Won Ton Smores, crisp fried, cinnamon-sugared won tons topped with chocolate sauce and marshmallow.

New Evolutions
Matney’s recent menu development “answers the low-carb call.” Launched in January, Wild Noodles’ five-item low-carb section includes the best-selling Double Protein Saute, $7.95, a double portion of chicken or beef sauteed with broccoli and zucchini; and Egg Foo Eddie, $7.50, broccoli, spinach, snow peas, eggs, green chiles, mushrooms and jack cheese in a low-carb tortilla wrap. Continuing on the theme, three new lettuce wraps, Teriyaki, Muy Bueno and Mama’s Zesty, all $5.95, have been in test since August. And Matney hints that a soy-based sausage entree is soon to come.

Matney also revamped several existing menu items this year to enhance flavors and add interest. “People’s tastes in food are always evolving. If you don’t stay ahead of that, you’re dead in the water,” he says.

Patterned after a recipe from his fine-dining venue, Lasagna in a Bowl tops lasagna noodles with ricotta-cheese sauce, marinara sauce and fennel-Italian sausage.

Teriyaki Stir Fry, $6.95 with veggies or tofu, $7.50 with chicken or beef, $8.25 with shrimp, was already a top-selling dish at 11 percent of the menu mix. It is now finished with a sticky glaze and toasted sesame seeds. “The seeds, which we toast in sesame oil, add great flavor and crunch, as well as adding to the presentation,” says Matney. “I got the idea from my wife, who showed me how the toasted seeds could enhance sushi.”

Noodles Primavera, $7.50, a new dish in the Italian section, evolved out of the Creamy Pesto dish Matney had on the previous menu. “The public knows primavera better than pesto,” he explains. While the former dish blended tomatoes and fusilli pasta in creamy pesto sauce, the new version includes an abundance of veggies—broccoli, snow peas, onions, zucchini, mushrooms and tomato—in the sauce.

In another strategic move, Wild Noodles increased portion sizes and menu prices in January, aiming to boost checks an average of 50 cents. Enhancing the change, staffers deliver bigger bowls of food to tables with big serving spoons and set tables with stacks of appetizer-sized plates, encouraging sharing. Check averages have jumped 80 cents.

Efforts to boost dinner traffic to 20 percent to 30 percent of sales have also been successful. “We sent bounce-back cards to lunch attendees, offering discounts [of $5 off purchases of $12.50 or more] at dinner,” says Krotonsky. Because dinner traffic increased by 5 percent to 7 percent, “It’s a method we’ll use again,” he says.

Another forthcoming initiative—showcasing regional dishes on specials menus—is a tactic Matney is currently exploring. “That will give us the opportunity to meet regional tastes and add new news.”