The Malört Report
Welcome to our Tuesday edition, where we feature great writing about food. Thursday is for recipes.
IN THIS ISSUE: Sumo diets, potential union-busting in Brooklyn, and the secret sauce behind Malört. (Plus more excavation of the Epstein story.)
Appetizers
ショートスタック
A thrift store in Santa Barbara yielded this excellent anonymous photograph of two sumo wrestlers bulking up on a visit to California in what appears to be the late ’70s/early ’80s. Please write to us if you know anything about the subjects or the photographer! —A.T.
Achilles, Torn & Busted
Some Greenpoint, Brooklyn, locals were likely shocked on Monday morning to learn that 12-year-old restaurant Achilles Heel closed its doors over the weekend. “It’s with tremendous sadness that we announce the closure of Achilles Heel. Last night was our final hurrah,” the Instagram post wrote. “The business has faced a protracted period of financial hardship and we’ve reached a point where it is no longer viable to continue operating.”
Sources tell Gourmet that the timing is particularly suspicious. As Eater reported yesterday, staff there had begun the process of unionizing. But Achilles Heel management was only informed of the union effort on Friday. Word on the street is that the 17-person staff allegedly had a meeting with their manager only two days before the closure, presenting their intentions to join forces with the nearly two-year-old union at its sister bakery She Wolf. Achilles Heel staff had resolved to use the collective bargaining process to equitably handle long-festering issues of pay transparency, work culture, and overall protections.
Management, however, didn’t seem too amenable to the conversation. Per sources, they shut down the talks and didn’t communicate with workers all weekend. The staff was allegedly only informed of the restaurant closure via an email sent mere hours before the Instagram post.
Achilles Heel is owned by the Marlow Collective, which includes other well-known restaurants like Diner and Roman’s (as well as the now-defunct Marlow & Sons). On its website, the Collective says, “We are a values-driven organization committed to providing supportive, respectful workplaces; to sourcing seasonally, locally and organically and building longstanding partnerships with our farmers and producers; and to creating meaningful experiences that celebrate and connect the communities we serve.” Yes, chef.
Neither The Marlow Collective nor the now-former Achilles workers returned requests for comment. —C.G.W.
The Malört Report
By Sam Dean
Checking in with the guy behind one of America’s favorite regional liquors.
Zach Jarosz runs the Jeppson’s Malört factory down in the industrial zone by the concrete banks of the Chicago River, where he and his team pumped out around forty thousand cases of the intensely bitter wormwood-flavored booze last year—about 30 percent more than they were making the year prior, at a time when the industry as a whole is hitting the skids.
Zach is a great talker. Over two interviews, which we’ve edited together here for clarity, we spoke for hours about the liquor industry, food production, and the ups and downs of la vie Malört. Is this idiosyncratic beverage the solution to our nation’s problems, or is it just an industrial solvent? Why not both.
Before we get into it, a capsule history: