When we last left him, Stewart Woodman, the Food and Wine-awarded Top Young Chef in America, was happily cooking in his molecular gastronomy-inflected hip-hop accented restaurant Heidi’s.
That was last week. This week, Woodman is putting the final touches on plans to revamp the former Duplex in Uptown as… Drumroll please… Birdhouse!
It will be: “A lot of raw vegetables,” Woodman told me. “It’s going to be healthy, lot of vegetarian and vegan offerings, something that’s good for our bodies, and isn’t offering food we wouldn’t want to eat every day. Heidi and I wanted to open the sort of restaurant that we’d want to eat at and bring our kids to every day. And this is it.”
Birdhouse will be small, 54 seats, but will serve three meals a day, and be open continuously from 7 a.m. to 1 a.m., with table (not counter) service. They’ll have a beer, wine, and liquor license, and the chef de cuisine will be Jordan Hamilton, Woodman’s current sous chef from Heidi’s.
“There’s a whole team of kids at Heidi’s who have been with us from the beginning, and they deserve the chance to do their own thing,” Woodman told me. “This is Heidi’s and my first owner opportunity, it’s so exciting to be able to give someone a chef job.”
Projected opening: Late April or May.
“I’m so excited I can hardly stand it,” concluded Woodman.
I bet all the vegetarian and healthy eaters in town will be equally thrilled. Chef-driven everyday eats? That’s a birdhouse every family needs.
