The music that plays in my head when I think about Josh Habiger’s career so far is almost surely different than what the chef might spin on the turntable at his Wedgewood-Houston restaurant Bastion. Low-key but intense, Habiger might reach for disco-era Rolling Stones or something out of left field like Shintaro Sakomoto’s bouncy Japanese psych rock.
But when I think of Habiger, I keep hearing DJ Khaled. Too much of an arena favorite? Maybe. But Christ Almighty, all this guy does is win, win, win. Habiger’s career even has a musical arc to it. He first hit it big as part of a duo, opening The Catbird Seat in 2011 with Erik Anderson, before finding pop success as a solo act at Pinewood Social. Now in the critical-darling phase of his career, he’s doing some of the most creative work anywhere with Bastion. It’s not really a surprise that he’s on the list of semifinalists for Best Chef: Southeast in this year’s James Beard Foundation Awards. Habiger sat down with the Scene to talk about his style, why music ended up being a big part of his restaurant and that Beard nomination.
You’ve got a very particular style at Bastion. Where did it come from?
My first shot was in an old-school, off-the-highway small-town diner with maybe 15 seats at the counter and a little dining room, too. But you’d have all these regulars come through, and we knew what breakfast they were having. And there were these two nuns — we’d see them from across the street. We’d have their food ready by the time they sat down, because it was like a game, but it was just amazing, just the type of community built around that restaurant. It was in St. Joseph, Minn., Kate’s Kitchen. It has since closed and reopened. A woman that actually was a waitress when I worked there ended up buying it and opening it. It’s not the same. But it was just a remarkable place, and the original owner of the place was great. My mom worked there when she was pregnant with me, and she was a waitress — she didn’t like it. We lived in the trailer park next to it. It was convenient.
The woman that owned it at that time passed it on to her daughter, and her daughter had a farm, and we were doing frozen-patty burgers and stuff like that, but with tomatoes that came from her garden, and lettuce that came from her garden, and the buns came from the local bakery and it was just — it wasn’t doing that because that was the cool thing to do at the time. It was doing it because it was cheaper and easier. And it’s funny, though, it’s kind of come full circle — now it’s kind of the cool thing to do. That was the first gig that I had, and years later I think I just worked at some fancy fine-dining restaurants, and I never felt comfortable as a guest there. I wanted to create an environment where we use the same dedication and we’re still striving for the same style of food — same attention to detail, but just a different attitude, a different type of hospitality.
The dishes your kitchen puts out are often very creative. Can you describe the process of going from idea to plate and who’s responsible?
Yeah, I think what we’re striving for is, to me, a good dish is something that tastes familiar and new at the same time. And that sounds easy. It’s actually, I think, kind of difficult to achieve. You want it to be like, “How do you make something that is universally familiar?” But at the same time it’s like, “How do you wow someone?” So you can do it by creating a certain set of flavors and presenting them in a different way, or you can kind of do the opposite and present something that looks familiar but likely tastes different. Recently we had a little waffle cone with chocolate fennel jam and chicken liver mousse and freeze-dried blueberries on top. And it looks like a little ice cream cone, but then flavor-wise, it has kind of the pâté-on-toast thing, so it’s new but it’s also familiar.
As far as the way the kitchen works, we have talented people in there, so I think there’s kind of a hierarchy, I would say. But if [chef de cuisine Brian] Baxter wants, he can put whatever he wants on the menu. That guy’s food is awesome. You know I’m lucky to have him there, and then some of the other guys it might be more like, “Hey, we offer the feast [a ticketed option where a table of diners gets a number of small and large-format dishes],” which can be like a testing ground for a new dish. I might say, “Hey, why don’t you try that tomorrow on the feast, and we’ll see what happens,” and give it to one table instead of every person that comes in here. I think with the feast, too, it’s a little more freeform, and you’re getting a bunch of side dishes and stuff, so we have room to experiment there, and I think that’s part of the fun. But we just kind of test things out, we talk things through, sometimes I think there’s certain notes that you have to hit. You should have some sort of contrast in texture. It can be a really subtle contrast, or it can be like a purée or something crunchy. Something sour, something sweet, acidity for a pop, some sort of richness of the dish is in that direction. You want the fresh crunch of something, maybe bitterness, definitely well-seasoned. I think the folks that work in the restaurant are pretty capable, so it’s very collaborative right now, which I like.
If you weren’t a chef, what would you be doing right now?
Oh, man. I don’t know. I feel in some ways, it’s all I know, but it would be something in hospitality. Sometimes, every now and then, I have to go to the doctor, the hospital or something like that, and I just kind of observe the interactions and all these points of contact that could be so much better. Man, I just wish these people could hire me as a hospitality consultant and teach them how to make people feel better. You know, it doesn’t cost extra money. You have to inspire the people to want to do hospitality, and there’s people that are resistant to that.
Explain to the average reader what the Beard Awards mean. What do you think it means to be nominated, and does it have an impact on the restaurant?
Yes. Man, I struggle with this question. ... I have posted some notes on social media about it, because I think it’s good, it helps with the restaurant. People see that, they notice it. There are people that travel and dine and then look at your awards, just like where they are going to decide to eat when they get to your town. I definitely take that into consideration when I go eat somewhere. I’m not exclusive, like, “Oh, does this guy have a Beard,” or, “I’m not going to eat there if he doesn’t have a Beard,” or whatever.
But, I don’t know, it’s nice to be noticed for working hard and following your path for a long time. Even though sometimes it can be a little monotonous and a little disheartening — you know, are we doing the right thing? Are we doing a good job, are people happy? It’s nice to get some sort of recognition, but, I mean, honestly it’s my fifth time on the long list [of semifinalists]. It’s my second time for Best Chef: Southeast, and then Catbird Seat, Pinewood Social and Bastion were on the long list for Best New Restaurant. And, I don’t know, I don’t see myself on the short list. It’d be cool if it happens, ’cause I would like to take a trip to Chicago, to see my friends. But at the end of the day, I’m still the guy that’s cooking the steak and pairing the silverware and refilling the water glass and all that, so it doesn’t really matter, you know.
Let’s talk about the music at Bastion. You use it to set a vibe for the room that’s enjoyable, and the turntable is a centerpiece in the restaurant. You’ve got a lot of vinyl in there right now.
Yeah. It’s getting more and more. We’re running out of space. Bastion is set up to be [like] if you were going to a dinner party at somebody’s house. I built the place with all residential equipment. I wanted it to feel like the breakfast bar, somewhere in a normal home’s kitchen. And then there’s the tables too, the vintage stereo equipment and all the vinyl is, I think, a more tangible, physical way to play music. It looks cool, it’s nice to have that in the corner. But I think ultimately it forces us to re-evaluate the music every 20 minutes. Every time somebody flips or changes a record, you can kind of look around the room and say, “Is this the direction we want to be going?” You can kind of use it so if the room needs to be livened up a little bit, you can put something a little funkier on, and if the room is getting a little too lively, you can put something on to mellow people out. There’s certain records that are staples. I would say Some Girls by The Rolling Stones is probably the most played record in Bastion, just because any time of the night, it kind of works. And I feel like, if there’s some older people in the restaurant, they kind of bop their head because they remember when it came out or whatever. But honestly, that record, Some Girls specifically, if someone had never heard of The Rolling Stones and you told them it was the new band from East Nashville, they would probably be like, “Oh, these guys are good.”
