Pforzheimer and Mahr-Batuz's new cookbook rolls the top down on tapas

The Barcelona Cookbook
By Andy Pforzheimer and Sasa Mahr-Batuz (Andrews McMeel Publishing), $29.99

Recent college grads take heart! If you're starting to worry that a double major in ethnomusicology and leisure studies has left you virtually unemployable, consider the case of local restaurant entrepreneur Andy Pforzheimer.

Pforzheimer graduated from Harvard in the early '80s with degrees in Philosophy and Russian Literature. "Those are not useful precursors to many jobs," he concedes. Luckily, Pfozheimer had also spent a sabbatical abroad apprenticed to a chef in the Burgundy region of France. So, he left Cambridge not only armed with an Ivy League sheepskin, but a desire to turn cooking into a career.

It could be argued that the time Pforzheimer spent with the Hasty Pudding crowd also awakened a taste for foreign cultures and a philosophical approach to dining that contributed to his ultimate success as the co-owner of the Barcelona Restaurant and Wine Bar chain.

Or not. With six locations in Connecticut, including a new one in Stamford, plus a Barcelona Cookbook in the works, even Pfozheimer isn't quite sure how it all happened. "My career has had a life of its own," he says with a laugh, adding, "as do most where you look back and say, 'How the hell did I get here?'"

He began with a Forrest Gump–like odyssey through the trendy food world of the '80s and '90s. After doing "post-graduate work" in the kitchens of upscale California eateries, including a stint at the first Hard Rock Café in Hollywood, Pforzheimer hit New York City right around the time the term "celebrity chef" was coming into vogue. First he talked his way into a job with Anne Rosenzweig at Arcadia. (Her major? Anthropology!) Next, he followed Rosenzweig to the fabled 21 Club, where he found himself fixing "power breakfasts" for Manhattan's movers and shakers and creating a hamburger that landed on the cover of the New York Times Magazine.

On a rare day off, he met and fell in love with actress Zelie Daniels. "I was Off Broadway," Zelie recalls. "A dancer in that show was dating Andy's roommate. I went to her parents' weekend house and was included in a dinner that Andy cooked." Wooed by his food, the two were married in 1989 and Pforzheimer began to look for a job that would allow him stay at home at night.

He'd heard Martha Stewart was about to launch Living Magazine. So, he lured the burgeoning lifestyle maven to the restaurant where he was working and, once again, seduced a lady with a great meal. Stewart hired him as the magazine's food editor and the Pforzheimers were off to Connecticut.

After a short time in Westport, however, Pforzheimer felt the tug of the cafe trade and began to moonlight as a consultant. "People get into the restaurant business without the slightest idea of how to run one," he explains. "One of the people who came my way was Sasa Mahr-Batuz. He had the idea for a tapas bar based on ones he'd seen while when he lived in Spain and Portugal. The concept was cool. I'd never seen anything like it."

Mahr-Batuz's concept also appealed to Pforzheimer because it married his passion for cooking to a reasonable work schedule. The idea was to prepare the food in the afternoon and leave it for the bartender to serve in the evening. So, he offered himself to Mahr-Batuz as a partner and the pair opened their first location, a 38-seat wine bar in the heart of SoNo.

The menu centered on authentically Spanish, appetizer-sized dishes. "People liked the small food idea," says Pforzheimer. "But they wanted menus and waiters. So, it morphed from a bar counter to a full restaurant, to a bigger restaurant with a patio, to more than one restaurant."

Once again, he found himself working long hours, but hours that were rewarding and allowed for the occasional compromise. "In the beginning, he was gone until well after midnight," Zelie Pforzheimer says. She insists, however, that anytime the family really needed him, her husband was there. "Like when our dog ate our youngest son's pet bunny," she says. "Ross called him in tears. [Andy] was in the middle of a huge catering event and he left to comfort him. This is why we're still married!"

With the launch of latest Barcelona on Summer Street in Stamford, Pfozheimer claims that life has gotten a little less hectic. "This will be the eleventh restaurant I've opened," he explains. "The nice thing, at this point, is not that you're going to do everything perfectly, but that you're going to forget less."

All of his chain's signature dishes will be on the menu, along with frequent surprises inspired by ingredients supplied by local farms. For example, Millstone Farms in Wilton brings produce every Wednesday to Barcelona's chef's meeting. "We never know, until that day, what's coming," Pforzheimer says. From there he encourages his chefs to take whatever they get and each create something unique with it for their individual locations.

Also in evidence at the new locale will be Barcelona's relaxed approach to dining. "People eat differently over in Spain," Pfozheimer notes. "They treat the restaurant experience with less reverence. Our managers and waiters are all trained to let people treat the restaurant the way they feel like treating it. If someone wants to come in, have a salad and a glass of water and stay for a couple of hours, that's fine!"

The only one who can't seem to relax at Barcelona is Pfozheimer. With his restaurant empire seemingly under control, he's been filling the time by collaborating with Mahr-Batuz on The Barcelona Cookbook, published last month. The two of them even took most of the photographs that are in the book.

"We promised people some very specific recipes for dishes that we've had on the menu for years and followed through — turned a pinch of this and a pinch of that into measurements and the steps for how to do it," Pforzheimer promises.

If Pforzheimer isn't entirely sure of how he got to where he is today, you can rest assured he likes where he ended up. And, on any given evening, that's probably one of his restaurants. "I miss being there at night, when the place is full and people are having a good time," he admits." That's why you do it — why I got in the business in the first place."