Caroline Schiff is as well known for her topknot chignon as she is for her whimsical pastry creations. To her over 50,000 Instagram followers, with whom she shares images of homemade sourdough focaccia and recommendations for hole-in-the-wall restaurants everywhere from Paris to Los Angeles, the New York-based chef is a doyenne of both food and culture.
After more than three years at Brooklyn’s acclaimed steakhouse Gage & Tollner—where she helmed the pastry program, of course—Schiff is surprising fans once more, leaving to open her own diner with business partner Tori Ciambriello. As they make preparations, Schiff is hitting the road with a series of pop-ups. August 16-18, she will preview some of the diner menu at the Ace Hotel in Palm Springs.
CULTURED caught up with the native New Yorker to learn more about her love of marmite, the near-Proustian power of griddled corn muffins, and what to expect from her future diner. Did we mention griddled corn muffins?
Where are you, and what's in your system?
I'm in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. I make my own sourdough bread, so for breakfast I had sourdough toast with a jammy egg. I cook it for seven minutes and peel it right away so the yolk is nice and jammy, then I do a little bit of olive oil and sea salt. And I just had some leftovers for lunch, which was a whole grain veggie salad with beets and carrots and some shaved kohlrabi and fennel. I had that with a little bit of hummus and baba ganoush.
When did you first know that you wanted to work with food?
From the time I could walk, I wanted to be at the stove, which is a terrifying place to have a child. It was really about baking in those days and leafing through cookbooks. I loved going food shopping; I wanted to go to farmers markets. People find themselves in professional kitchens and even home kitchens and get intimidated, like, “Okay, what am I going to cook? What am I going to do?” And I just felt from day one it was so intuitive for me.
You left Gage & Tollner at the end of March. What have these past few months been like for you?
It's been wonderful, but I do miss being in a restaurant kitchen. I love the pace of it. I love the people. I love working service. I'm a bit of a night owl, so those hours suit me. There's a lot of freedom that is not going to last—I know I'm gonna be back in restaurants soon, so I want to take advantage of it now. When you're in restaurants, it's really hard to cook for yourself. You get home and you're kind of tired, so you make scrambled eggs or something like that. Now it's fun to be like, “Oh, l I have some farmers market vegetables. What do I want to do with them?” Also travel has been a huge thing for me. It's something that when you're in a restaurant, you don't have the freedom to do.
Have you had any crazy culinary discoveries or eureka moments during these recent travels?
I was just in Corsica, which was amazing. I felt like all my senses were so activated. It was a yoga retreat, so we stayed in this big Airbnb, and on the property there were apricot trees, so I was picking apricots and baking with them for everybody. You'd go into town and everywhere has chestnut ice cream, which I haven't had before. There was a little supermarket that had local cheeses that weren’t even labeled; you just grab one and try it and it's delicious! Corsican wine is also really interesting and it's not something that we see a ton here in wine shops and on menus, so that too was such a discovery. There was a little fruit cellar on the street before you took the stairs down to the beach and I got some beautiful yellow plums and nectarines, and I'm like, “This tastes like candy.” We don't get that here, and it's really just so special.
As a native New Yorker, what are your first memories of diners?
When I was a kid, I was obsessed with the rotating diner case with all of the pies and the cakes. I would just stare at it; that's a very core memory. I also remember I was with my mom and we were driving somewhere upstate, maybe the Catskills, and we stopped at a diner. I got a griddled corn muffin with salted butter. I was like, “This is unbelievable. And so simple!” I love food that is comforting and not fussy. I think that simplicity is one of the appeals of a regular diner. When people ask me about the project and what kind of food I’m going to do, they always ask if I’m going to do it with a twist. I'm like, “It's just a diner, and I want it like that because I want people to feel like they can come all the time.” I've spent a lot of time in fine dining restaurants and the beauty is that people come in for celebrations and you make it really special for them, but I just want this to be part of people's everyday lives. They can pop in on the way to work to get a coffee and a pastry; get that griddled corn muffin; maybe sit at the counter for 15 minutes. With a diner you have to keep up the pace, so figuring out how I'm going to set a kitchen up that’s built for a team that can work together and put out great food quickly will be a fun challenge.
What would be your ideal diner itinerary in New York?
I like the vibe at Cobble Hill Coffee Shop. I really want to sit there and have an omelet with some veggies and cheese, and I want rye toast and home fries. For lunch, I'm probably going to Neptune Diner. I want grilled cheese, swiss and tomato on rye bread—I'm a really big rye bread fan. Then a pickle, french fries, coleslaw, and I like to dip my fries in mayo. For dinner, there's this really amazing diner in midtown. If you just walk by, you're not gonna see it—I’m pretty sure it’s called Astro Diner. The decor is amazing. I always want the big Greek salad, but I also want fried appetizers: mozzarella sticks, jalapeño poppers, onion rings. For dessert, I’m going to the Madison Restaurant—it’s called a restaurant, but it's a diner—on the corner of 53rd and 1st Avenue. I went all the time in high school. I love a strawberry or vanilla milkshake or a really good Brooklyn blackout cake. Or cheesecake! I’ll have both.
What do you want to see less of and more of in the New York restaurant world?
One of the things I love about New York restaurants is that there are restaurants that fit every need and occasion. It has been really cool to see more casual places open up. Everything that we buy is more expensive now, so being able to keep things accessible is refreshing.
Now, some rapid fire questions. What is your go-to bodega order?
Over easy eggs on a toasted roll with butter and Swiss.
What do you splurge and save on?
I splurge on cheese; I love good cheese. Good butter is really important for what I do, and good chocolate too. Staples like canned chickpeas or canned black beans—I don't think that those need to be anything fancy.
What are the best things that you've eaten recently?
I had amazing croissants in Paris, both plain and one that was filled with chocolate and pistachios and almonds. That was at Boulangerie Utopie. In Corsica, I made—not to shout out my own food— this very simple apricot, cherry, and pistachio tart. It was just sweet enough and it had that acidity and was just of the time and the place. More recently, I have been going to the Hellbender Nighttime Cafe in Ridgewood. It's very casual; you order at the bar and they have incredible quesadillas and tostadas and tacos and a fried Oaxacan cheese with a spicy tomatillo sauce.
What is your weirdest culinary obsession right now?
I wouldn't say it's my latest obsession, but I've always really liked marmite, which is basically yeast extract. I went to university in the U.K. and it's a really big thing there: marmite on toast with butter. It’s really salty and kind of funky; you either like it or you don't.
Is there a film or TV show about a chef that you can relate to or aspire to?
That's a tough one because so many of them I see and I'm like, “This is so not realistic.” A movie that I love, though it’s not really about a chef, is Babette’s Feast. There’s a whole elaborate scene of candied fruits and the people experiencing it are so uncomfortable because they live in such an austere way. I love the imagery of all of this incredible, whimsical, indulgent food.
What is the dish that you feel most represents where you're at in your life right now?
My focaccia. I know that's not a dish, but I feed my sourdough starter every day and I make bread almost every other day with it. Since I'm not in the restaurant, it's become part of my routine: I wake up, I make coffee, I feed my sourdough starter, by the evening it's ready to chill, and then the next morning I take it out, I make my coffee, I feed it, and then I bake it. I love going to the beach, and I always make focaccia sandwiches for everybody I'm going with.
