Sometimes you have to adapt to survive. In early January, Shaved Duck owner Ally Nisbet closed the well-regarded restaurant in order to retool, rethink and then reopen. The name may have stayed the same, but walk into the new Shaved Duck and the only other resemblance to the previous incarnation is the look of the place. Nisbet is now offering a budget-friendly menu of American favorites: barbecue, chili, flatbreads … and business is better than ever.
You are actually at the helm of the smoker. We smoke every single day. Our pork butts take about 18 hours; our brisket takes ’round about the same. Our ribs, about six, seven hours. It’s a lot of hours, but it’s great fun.
At the old Shaved Duck, you weren’t in the kitchen. Why do you want to do the smoking yourself? It goes back to passion and really having a great time. It’s something I’ve been doing for a long time [at home]. Doing it on this level is so much more fun, and the smoker we’re using is a very authentic wood-burning pit. We use a combination of red oak and hickory. The hickory gives a really nice smoky flavor and the red oak kind of balances it out.
You serve your barbecue dry, with the sauce on the side, so the rub takes center stage. We have a 17-spice rub for our ribs and pork. We have a 10-spice rub for our poultry. The rubs themselves, we basically had the entire crew, the front of the house, back of the house, everyone [getting in on] making the rubs. I want the front of the house to get involved with the back and the back involved with the front. There’s only a few of us here, and it’s important for me that everyone understands every aspect of the business. In other words, my host can go and tend to the smoker.
And you have three signature barbecue sauces? We’re working with three right now. I’ve got a mustard-based sauce, a vinegar-based sauce and the tomato-based bourbon barbecue sauce. It’s turning into our signature. I don’t think we necessarily meant it to, but the demand we’re getting for it – a lot of people coming in, getting it to go.
Is it sweet? Is it spicy? It’s quite sweet. But when we added the bourbon to it, it really balanced out. And the bourbon gives it kind of an oaky, smoky kind of flavor. It complements the smoke very well.
And the chilis: Right now you have four chilis ranging from a mild white duck chili to a superhot one using what kind of pepper? A bhut jolokia. It’s from a region in India. I’ve gotten them from India – they are grown in California, but all the research I did said the California ones are far down the Scoville units.
You said the hot one is so hot that you can’t eat it! I can’t eat it. I mean I really can’t eat it. Some of the guys can; I can’t. When we first did the chili, I was amazed. I thought it was too hot. And then we had people coming in, they said it was pretty hot, but they wanted it hotter. So we made it hotter. But the thing is, the flavor profile of the chili is actually fantastic. A lot of people say that it’s their favorite one.
Some people are bemoaning the passage of the original Shaved Duck because you were doing some creative, higher-end cooking and now it’s approachable Americana food. But you made this decision so you could stay in business. When we first started off, we were very busy and everything was going great. When the economy started to slip, the higher-end restaurants, not just us, started to suffer a bit. At The Scottish Arms, we were fortunate, we didn’t suffer. We haven’t suffered. We’ve done well. And the reason for that, I believe, is the casual environment and the food. It was a very, very difficult decision to make. I was proud of what the Duck was … but I’ve got to go with my gut feeling. My gut feeling was that it wasn’t going to rebound any time soon. When you’re running a more fine-dining restaurant, it’s an expensive restaurant to run. Food cost is higher, staffing is higher.
And now, is your volume up? Our volume is up across the board. I think it’s down to how approachable the menu is. We do have people that come in [and say they] miss the old Duck. But I think the neighborhood as a whole is getting behind us a bit more because it doesn’t hit the wallet quite as hard. … People are coming in on a more regular basis.
The vibe is laid-back. It’s the kind of place where you can and want to hang out. It’s much more casual and you’ve added live music. It’s down to what I’m passionate about. If you’re not passionate about this business, if you’re not passionate about what you’re doing, it’s not going to work. I’m extremely passionate about The Scottish Arms. It’s my heritage and I love what we’re doing there. I think [the Duck] is embracing me being in America now. I’ve been here for 12 years and I’ve enjoyed American culture a lot too. It’s embracing the barbecue, the smoked meats, the [live] old-time acoustic music.
I bet the tables don’t turn very fast when the musicians are performing. No they don’t! We do the music later on the weekends for that reason.
The Shaved Duck
2900 Virginia Ave.,
St. Louis
314.776.1407
This article appears in Apr 1-30, 2009.