Gage And Tollner: Former Employee Recalls Working With Edna Lewis

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN, BROOKLYN — Looking back now, chef MJ Adams thinks of her time working at historic restaurant Gage and Tollner as the beginning of a years-long friendship with its famed chef, Edna Lewis, and, in many ways, the launch of her own culinary career.

But, really, what started it all, she said, was a picture of asparagus from 1987.

"There was a March '87 issue of 'Food & Wine' (magazine) that featured Edna Lewis and she had asparagus on the cover," recalls Adams, who was working for "Women's Day" magazine at the time. "It was even before I went to culinary school...and I was reading it and thought, 'Oh my god, I would love to meet this woman.'"

For whatever reason, Lewis' story reminded Adams of growing up, she said, and she was struck by the "love coming off the page."

So, after finishing a six-month culinary program, Adams saw another article about Lewis working at Gage and Tollner, the famed Fulton Street spot that first opened in 1879, and decided to give the restaurant a call.

"I find in life if you want something you just have to reach out," she said.

Restauranteur and owner at the time, Peter Aschkenasy, ended up hiring Adams to work in the kitchen. She would help Lewis feed the hundreds of customers that frequented the historic restaurant for nearly a year, and the two kept in touch afterwards, even when Adams moved to South Dakota to open her own restaurant.

She has held those memories of her friendship with Lewis, who died in 2006, close over the years, Adams said, keeping letters, photos and even an old ice bucket from her time at Gage and Tollner in a collection of memorabilia.

But those memories have come even more to the forefront lately, with the announcement that Gage and Tollner will be revived by a team of restauranteurs for the first time in 15 years.

The restaurant, which stood on Fulton Street for 125 years before closing in 2004, will reopen its doors as early as this fall thanks to culinary team St. John Frizelli, Ben Schneider and Sohui Kim, who raised more than $400,000 online to revive the historic spot.

Gage and Tollner, which served the likes of Mae West and Truman Capote, was known in its earlier days for its luxe oyster and chophouse menu, serving 25 preparations for oysters and the four variations on Welsh rabbit, according to a history on its new website.

But the way Adams remembers it under Lewis' direction, the restaurant was an homage to simple, good quality, Southern-inspired cooking.

Moments like shopping for coffee beans — because Lewis said if you weren't going to roast and grind your own you might as well buy it from a can — cooking Christmas dinner for 500 people, or even just watching Lewis in the kitchen still stick out in her mind, Adams said.

"To this day (I remember) watching how she would gingerly take a little quail and cross its legs," Adams said. "Taking the time to just get that little extra touch of making it special — that really went into her food and people loved it."

The new restaurant owners recalled Lewis' unique influence on the restaurant, too, explaining on the website how she was the first to change up the menu in 100 years. Her signature dishes like Charleston she-crab soup, spoon bread, and rhubarb pie became favorites, and some stayed on the menu even after Lewis retired in the 1990s.

Lewis was from Freetown, Virginia and the granddaughter of an emancipated slave who had helped found town, according to a biography on her foundation's website. Over her decades-long career she became well known for her contributions to American cooking and owned a restaurant in Manhattan's East Side. She would cook for celebrities such as Marlon Brando, Tennessee Williams and Salvador Dali.

Adams said she has taken Lewis' reverence for food into her own career, even in simple ways like always shopping for local, fresh ingredients at farmers markets even if that wasn't the norm in her town in South Dakota. Her restaurant The Corn Exchange in South Dakota has since closed, but Adams has gone on to host a show about food in the state and now has a new cookbook on the way.

Another memory of Lewis, she said, was her stamina.

Adams said she remembers Lewis, even though she was in her 70s at the time, running the kitchen in heels and colorful African-style dresses. She would take the train from Hell's Kitchen to the Downtown Brooklyn restaurant each day, Adams said.

"The restaurant industry is so exhausting, you have to have a passion for it," she said. "She was a work horse and never complained."

For the upcoming revival, Adams said she hopes the new team keeps as much of the original restaurant environment as they can. She remembers the restaurant's "beautiful mirrors," the gas-lit dining room and collections of souvenirs from its history in glass cases by the entrance or in the storage areas downstairs.

"It was one of the first places I really realized ambiance (makes a difference)," Adams said. "It just has so much rich history."

The new owners have said the restaurant has for the most part been preserved given its landmark status. It was the third interior ever, and first restaurant, to be landmarked by the city, following the New York Public Library and Grant's Tomb. The exterior is also landmarked.

The revived restaurant will use this historic structure to create a 70-seat dining room, a 40-seat bar area, two combinable private dining rooms seating up to 60, and a separate 30-seat tropical cocktail bar upstairs, according to the crowdfunding page.

Adams said she hopes to visit the restaurant once it is back up and running.

For now, she said, she will reflect on her time with Lewis, who she credits in some ways for starting her culinary career off on the right foot.

"She just had this energy about her (and) made you feel like the most important person in the room," Adams said. "I feel very lucky to have met someone like that."