Atlanta chef and restaurant consultant Eddie Russell has been pitching TV show ideas for years. He finally hit the jackpot with "Belly Up," a new Cooking Channel show debuting Monday June 16 featuring Russell helping failing bars or bistros fix up their menus and ambiance.
"Belly Up" is not a new concept. From "Restaurant Impossible" to "Bar Rescue," consultants are fixing struggling businesses up and down the TV dial.
Russell, a Douglas County native who most recently ran the Inman Park restaurant Parish, said his show focuses on food and food concepts, which often pop up on screen as he mentions them. (In a sample episode, the word Crudo is defined as "raw" and refers to thinly sliced fish drizzled with oil, acid and seasonings.)
"We come up with flavorful dishes that can work in a bar setting," he said over lunch at Decatur's Victory Sandwich Bar. "We also teach them how to run an effective kitchen and learn how food cost works."
His approach lacks the verbal bite of the infamous Gordon Ramsay, grand-daddy of this world with his Fox show "Kitchen Nightmares." Russell doesn't spit out food or lash out at the owners in frustration.
"I've gotten good at being disarming," Russell said. "I'm a very matter-of-fact dude. It's about being honest, not necessarily being nice."
He said diners are more sophisticated than they used to be, fueled in part by cooking shows: "You can't just serve crap to college students and assume they'll eat anything. You can't just stick chicken in a lousy flour tortilla and think you have a dish."
Many bar menus are unfocused and bloated, he said. If a bar wants people to hang around, don't give them huge portions of food that makes them want to go home and fall asleep. Provide them with tasty treats that complement their drinks and can easily be shared with friends.
Cooking Channel aired a pilot episode you can watch below that aired last summer and did well enough for the network to order six more.
Russell chose Victory Sandwich Bar for the interview because he considers it a prime example of a well-operated bar that serves great food. He complimented its focused menu featuring signature items such as his lunch choice: the "beeter," a sandwich packed with pastrami-flavored beets, white kimchi and Thai mayo. "I love things acidic," he said. "I could survive on Kimchi and rice."
The Atlanta resident spent years in Athens under the tutelage of Hugh Acheson, a local chef who operates four restaurants including Empire State South in Midtown and is well known as a tough judge on Bravo's "Top Chef."
"Eddie has a great smile and a smart wherewithal in the kitchen," Acheson said. "He loves being industrious and finding the flaws and fixing them."
The first sample episode I watched featured a bar/restaurant in Charleston, S.C. called Cork but renamed Cannon Trattoria. Here was what a local Charleston paper wrote soon after the show was taped but before airing.
TV preview
"Belly Up," 9 p.m. Monday, starting June 16, Cooking Channel
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