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\n Baxtrom ran his Brooklyn restaurants from 2016 until 2025. He still operates Five Acres in Manhattan.
\n Photo: Courtesy of the subject\n <\/p>\n
The restaurant Olmsted<\/a> opened in Prospect Heights in 2016, but in some important ways it could have been a million years ago. \u201cChef-driven\u201d restaurants appeared at a regular clip, prices weren\u2019t anywhere near as high as they\u2019ve become, and Anthony Bourdain was still alive. That last detail might feel out of place when discussing the business of one specific Brooklyn restaurant, but two years later, in June 2018, the gastro-intellectual\u2019s demons caught up to him. Four years after that, in 2022 \u2014 as the industry was attempting to get back on track after COVID \u2014 The Bear premiered. Christopher Storer\u2019s series dramatized the behind-the-scenes chaos, stress, and anxiety many real-life chefs experience in and out of their jobs. It\u2019s difficult not to think of that show when talking to Olmsted\u2019s chef, Greg Baxtrom, who is from Chicago, the city that is basically a co-star to Jeremy Allen White and Ayo Edebiri. Baxtrom grew up about 25 miles south in a small town called Frankfort, Illinois, raised by parents with the same South Side accents and blue-collar ethics as many of the characters on The Bear. I\u2019ve never met Baxtrom\u2019s father, but since I grew up with a family from the same part of the Windy City area, I can picture the way one of his most important life lessons looked, sounded, and felt. That was when Baxtrom, still a kid, tried to quit the Boy Scouts.<\/p>\n \u201cMy dad said the only way I was allowed to quit after being there for 12 years was I had to go up to everyone \u2014 and there were 90 people \u2014 thank them for their time, shake their hands, and say that I was leaving.\u201d Baxtrom says he tried to work up the courage to do that, but couldn\u2019t: \u201cI just sat in the car. Eventually I just went back in.\u201d<\/p>\n We\u2019re sitting in a private room of another of Baxtrom\u2019s restaurants, Five Acres<\/a>, and his eyes begin watering as he tells me about his dad. For a moment I think it might be allergies, but as a sufferer myself, I track the pollen count carefully and know that\u2019s not the case on this day. Instead, the longer we talk, the more I come to understand that Baxtrom, one of Brooklyn\u2019s most successful chefs and restaurant owners of the last decade, is trying to get his life together. Anybody who has done that knows it\u2019s a painful process with no predetermined end date, and Baxtrom has to face a lot of uncomfortable truths in order to move forward. \u201cI\u2019m a little bit of a clich\u00e9,\u201d he says without flinching, \u201cin that I\u2019m a bipolar alcoholic.\u201d<\/p>\n The stated reason for our meeting is to discuss Baxtrom\u2019s first cookbook, Nothing Matters \u2026 But Delicious<\/a>. He says there likely could have been an Olmsted book at some point, but he doubted anybody besides locals and a few chefs would have bought it. Instead, his book is collection of recipes that showcases his balance of high-end and lightheartedness \u2014 including recipes for a cheese-and-pepper meatloaf; cauliflower okonomiyaki I always ordered at another of his restaurants, Mason Yaki; and his take on perfect chicken fingers \u2014 as well as a testimonial. As the subtitle says, it\u2019s a \u201cradically honest cookbook.\u201d In it, Baxtrom tells his story, about his alcoholism and mental-health issues, how he let people down, and how his family saved him. He tells me he doesn\u2019t want to make recovery his thing; instead, he is focused on telling his truth. Some people go on very public redemption tours because their failings were made public. In Baxtrom\u2019s case, he seems intent on making amends because he realized the person he\u2019d been, and moving on means coming to terms with radical honesty.<\/p>\n After growing up knowing he wanted to be a chef, Baxtrom spent years working at some of the best restaurants in the country \u2014 Per Se<\/a>, Alinea<\/a>, Blue Hill at Stone Barns<\/a> \u2014 and it wasn\u2019t exactly overnight success when Olmsted was a hit right out the gate. It also wasn\u2019t a surprise when that restaurant\u2019s renown gave way to two more businesses in the same neighborhood. Living there at the time, I had a perfect view of the rise of what I would jokingly call \u201cBaxtromville,\u201d with Maison Yaki (later rechristened Petite Patate) opening in 2019 across the street from Olmsted, followed by Patti Ann\u2019s about two blocks away in 2022. That sort of success can mess a person up, the whole gilded-cage-of-one\u2019s-own-making phenomenon. Some can\u2019t cope with the pressure to keep it going or follow it up, while others might feel boxed in by all the success. For Baxtrom, it was the lack of boxes that made him unravel.<\/p>\n \u201cIn all those other restaurants where I worked, each night before the train ride home, I\u2019m writing down: brown-butter sauce, chives,\u201d he explains. \u201cI\u2019m writing not just what I have to do, but the order in which I\u2019ll have to do it the next day from ten in the morning till five o\u2019clock. Then the restaurant opens and a chef or an expediter is telling you what to do, in the order you should be doing it. I was in this box following these rules; I just knew what I had to do with my time.\u201d<\/p>\n