The Hot 10: State Bird Provisions

I'm Nicole Krasinski.

I'm Stuart Brioza, we're here at State Bird Provisions,

a restaurant that is the culmination

of our collaborative efforts, creative efforts.

Partnership. It sounds so official.

Do you have documentation for that?

(upbeat instrumental music)

There were a few things that we wanted

out of this restaurant.

Obviously, a different style of service.

The main thing we always talked about

in the aesthetic of the restaurant

is sort of like a workshop, where you have

skilled craftsmen and artistic people who workshop dishes.

Oftentimes, the path of getting to a great dish

is more interesting than the great dish itself.

Sometimes, it's just a matter of what you have around, too,

and you're like, I gotta use this,

and turn that into something great,

and those things are the things that surprise you.

One of the best things is like when that cart goes out,

and it's just blazing with dishes.

The initial thing that people say,

Oh, like dim sum, totally!

But kind of interwoven into that

are like hors d'oeuvres, and tapas.

It's really or less borrowing a service style.

We leave something wanting more,

you can't have the entire menu.

Many have tried, but it's 30 dishes.

The quail was a dish that Stuart conceptualized,

and it can never come off the menu.

We were sort of dreaming and joking around,

and we were like, you know, we should just open

a fried quail shop and call it State Bird,

and of course, it became much more than that,

but that was the original little seed of the name.

I think a lot of the implicit success of the restaurant

is based on the fact we've been together

for almost 18 years, and even before

we were cooking together, we were

doing other artistic endeavors.

I feel like we're busier and busier,

and we're better and better, which is

the ultimate dream of a restaurant.