OUTDOOR COOKING FROM A LIFE WELL-TRAVELED
Grillworks was founded in 1978 by Charles Eisendrath, a journalist, foreign correspondent and avid culture-explorer.
His assignments with Time Magazine in the 60s and 70s took him and his wife Julia all over the world, with pivotal stays in London and Paris, where his two sons Ben and Mark were born, respectively. While in Paris Charles received an urgent new posting, to cover the expected return of Peron to Argentina. The young family picked up and trekked to their new home, Buenos Aires.
Ben on a Normandy beach before departure to Argentina.
Though already an unabashed francophile, Charles was smitten by the live-fire cooking culture he found in this new-to-him capital. The Sunday Asado wasn’t simply a local pastime, it was religion. A high tradition rivaling any to be found in a chapel.
Not only impressed with what he saw in the cities, Charles discovered the gauchos of the Pampas; ponchos worn cape-style across their backs and daggers on their belts. At night their skills at the fire would rival any cook he’d seen, anywhere. Truly the cowboys of the southern hemisphere, these romantic icons quickly had children Ben and Mark wearing gaucho hats, panchos and even slinging bolos like American kids would frisbees.
But reality interrupted the family’s newfound Argentine romance. Trouble was afoot next door in Chile and Time’s closest correspondent was Charles. Word of an impending coup sent him to Santiago in haste, leaving Julia, Ben and Mark behind in the relative safety of Buenos Aires.
It was 1973, and the most harrowing period in Charles’s professional and personal life. He learned that the safest place when the shooting started was his hotel room’s bathtub. The whereabouts of every safe basement within a sprint of the city center. And how serious journalism could be in a place where the profession was viewed as an enemy. He finally got his long-delayed appointment to interview President Salvador Allende, only to witness the presidential palace bombed on the morning of his meeting. More chilling – the appointment was kept, but with General Augusto Pinochet.
He’d had enough. Charles never aspired to be a war correspondent. He had a family and a desire to live a long life of adventure, not a short one of strife. When a chance at The University of Michigan’s Journalism Fellowship came, he seized it.
Argentine Inspired. American Made(r).
Academia suited him. The Eisendraths were happily settled in Ann Arbor, Michigan with a new family of interesting people surrounding them at the U of M. But to Charles one thing was sorely missing. Grilling. Not in the American outdoor cooking way of the time, of burgers and hot dogs over briquettes or gas, but that of Argentina. Charles couldn’t even find a grill in the United States that could perform the magic he’d seen in and around Buenos Aires.
So he set out to make one. During his academic summers he built prototype after prototype, using the traditional parrillas of Argentina as the model, but shooting for more ease of cooking over a whole wood fire rather than only over coals. Fourteen family unveilings occurred before Eisendrath was satisfied that he’d hit upon his ‘perfect’ grill. He named it The Grillery, and presented it with some fanfare to his perplexed professor friends.
But the cooking fires, the elegantly simple and attractive design of this new grill, and most notably the wildly successful dinner parties proved to even Charles’s most skeptical friends that ‘The Grillery’ was something special. Shortly his dinner guests wanted their own. Then their friends wanted one. Julia was reluctantly pressed into service taking the orders that were becoming increasingly frequent. A letter sent on a lark to food critic James Beard resulted in a call from a man who said “Hi – it’s Jim Beard, could you come to New York?” Soon after that visit and Mr Beard’s purchase of a Grillery, he began commenting on it in his column.
A patent on The Grillery was granted in 1982, and Grillworks was formally founded.
25 years of adventures in outdoor cooking followed. This little grill and its double-sized sibling graced the patios of chefs and movie stars alike. If they could find the journalism professor (and his CFO Julia), a Grillery could be made for them.
“Magnificent”
- JAMES BEARD
Grillworks 2.0
Over the years eldest son Ben watched and learned. He earned his allowance stamping serial numbers into the grills before they went out the door. At the family farm in northern Michigan his primary chores were cutting, stacking and sorting the wood-heated home’s supply of firewood. For the living room fireplace, the wood stove, the furnace, and, of course, the grill. He was being trained.
Years later, working in big dot-com, Ben got a call from his father saying “I’ve had my fun” and that he was halting Grillworks, it was like a gut-punch. It made sense to Charles – his metalworkers had all retired or died, and he didn’t want to go looking for a new way to keep what was always a side-passion going. But to his son, it was bigger. Grillworks couldn’t just go away, could it?
So when on a 2005 fishing trip with Charles and Mark (in Argentina, of course) their father mentioned he was thinking of selling the trademarks and formally ending his company for good, Ben said:
“Dad – don’t”.
Grillworks was reborn with Ben Eisendrath at the helm in 2007. From the original shop drawings came ideas Ben had been developing in his head since childhood. Built-ins, double grills, large-format customs, and most notably, statement professional grills designed not to hide away in the back kitchen, but to build restaurants around.
Outdoor Cooking, Indoor Cooking, at Home and in Professional Kitchens
His father’s old customers hailed the rebirth of their favorite grill company, but almost immediately chefs discovered Grillworks was their premier partner in an ancient cooking style. Ben took on the challenges presented by the cutting edge of the culinary community, learning what they dreamed to do over natural fire, whether it was indoor or outdoor cooking, and in turn serving as the ‘professional pyromaniac’ to each. It has been a natural and fruitful partnership that has resulted in novel designs, accolades, and of course unforgettable meals.
Now when Charles travels, he calls Ben first to find out which “Grillworks restaurants” he can visit at his destination.
HOME GRILLS
We make a wide array of grills tailored to the home environment, both self-contained and integrated into architectural designs and kitchens. These range from small patio wood burning grills to pieces designed to be the center of your home’s cooking experience.
PRO GRILLS & SYSTEMS
Restaurant and event spaces present unique challenges which we consider opportunities to awe chefs and guests. As such we offer dramatic self-contained designs, pieces to be integrated into ambitious larger hot lines, and full-custom wood burning hearth arrays for the ultimate in live fire purity.
“Less a tool than a source of Inspiration.”
“The Infierno started as a collaboration between Blue Hill and Grillworks ― a grill we could customize to our style of cooking, and to our food. Which is exactly what we got ― a grill that is not only beautiful (it is a centerpiece of conversation in the restaurant), but also versatile, serving alternately as grill, hearth, broiler, smoker and more. It is such a dynamic machine that we now customize our style of cooking to it. We’re constantly challenged to use it to its full advantage.”- CHEF DAN BARBER
ARE YOU READY…
to make the jump to the ultimate live-fire cooking experience?
