- There's that quote steak dinner.
When we succeed this or when you turn this,
I'm gonna take you out for this steak dinner.
There's something about celebrating
over a big piece of meat
and a big glass of wine.
Hi, I'm Ford Fry
and we're at Marcel on the west side in Atlanta.
This is Where Hollywood Eats.
Every time we start a restaurant
or I'll start something, I have
to put it all down through photos and so forth.
I knew I wanted to do a Frenchy steakhouse
and I knew I wanted to kinda pull back
from the early days of Continental cuisine.
I was thinking like boxers are always mentioned
in steakhouses, or old boxers who've kinda gone
to retire open steakhouses,
so I thought it'd be fun and kinda silly.
There's always some sort of element of humor added
into everything we do.
The humor of Marcel was bringing it back
to 1970s-era New Jersey
where all the chefs were
imported from Europe
and all doing pretty much the same type of food,
the same menu, little dark, dim-lit candles on the table.
When you come in, you feel like you're somewhere else,
you feel like you are in another time,
in another place, and everything is just over the top,
whether it's from the highest in quality meat
that's here to the seafood to all the old-school
tableside stuff that's being done.
It's just like a theater, almost.
I think the film culture has been huge for Atlanta.
They come to Marcel all the time.
I mean, it's like every Friday or Saturday night,
someone's filming here.
Atlanta doesn't bombard them.
I mean, I think everyone notices them,
then they try to leave them alone.
I think people are just pretty excited
to kind of see what's going on
and all the filming going on.
It's pretty new for the South.
Everyone asks, "What do you put on your steak
"to make it so good?"
And it's not what we put on it.
We want it to be the best quality in the city,
no matter what it costs,
no matter what we would end up having to charge.
Consistency, the highest level and consistency was
the most important thing.
And then it's all about just preparing the meat
and then the way we do that,
which I think is kinda the way I would wanna cook
a steak for myself.
My favorite cut of steak,
and it's really the cap of the ribeye.
We're taking this little curve piece
off the whole ribeye because that one little piece is
absolutely the best part.
It's not big chunks of fat on this.
It's just little lines or little dots
and that's what's gonna make it really, really flavorful.
Seasoning then with some good olive oil,
Maldon salt, fresh-cracked pepper,
and then start it on the grill.
When I cook steak, I love to get a little wood on it.
It's gotta have like a little wood flavoring.
Then we're gonna rest the steak
and then just kinda let it settle down a little bit
and get really soft
and then the magic really comes
at the very end, when we pick it up,
which is a big knob of butter and beef fat,
fresh thyme, smashed garlic,
and then we're just gonna bathe that
in that buttery, fatty mixture,
and that's gonna form this crusty layer
over the top.
Then we're gonna serve that
with some fresh, house-made fries
and a little bit of that pan butter over the top.
There always needs to be
that little dredging factor
of the steak that you can dip your fries,
and that's it.
What I love about cooking is
I love ingredients.
I think it all just starts with ingredients,
and so my goal is to figure out how
to cook it respectfully,
how to get the most flavor
out of that one ingredient.
We traveled a lot.
My grandparents, my parents, they took us
all over, so food was really important in my family.
I think our job is to provide an experience
for our guests and when they leave,
you know, I want them leaving saying,
"Wow, that was a great experience
"and well worth everything."
But at the end of the day,
we never really take ourselves too seriously.
It's just food.
It's just a good time,
and it's about really providing a place
for people to come and hang out
and enjoy their company.