Fahrenheit Cranks Up The Heat
Edited by Bob Krummert
Restaurant Hospitality, October 2002

If you believe that demographics are destiny in the restaurant business, it's a little hard to explain everything that's going on in Cleveland's historic Tremont district. Granted, you can find scattered pockets of gentrification and there are plenty of artist-types camped out here and there. That's a tribute to the areas dose proximity to downtown Cleveland and its dynamite skyline view. But primarily this is a blue-collar neighborhood where people of modest means reside in older, single-family homes. Their sense of community and neighborhood is high. But in terms of per-capita income and the other buying-power metrics beloved by restaurant marketers, Tremont barely qualifies for a hot dog stand.

But in suburban-polite Cleveland, Tremont offers the same sort of edgy, Bohemian thrill ride you can get in neighborhoods like Tribeca in New York City or Lincoln Park in Chicago. It's what compelled Tremont pioneer Michael Symon (Food & Wine "America's Best New Chefs," 1998) to open his landmark restaurant, Lola, several years ago. The area is now home to six or seven adventurous chef-driven restaurants.

Chef/owner Rocco Whalen's Fahrenheit is the latest entry here, and his pitch-perfect formula has been an overnight sensation. Whalen cooks the kind of inventive food customers want, he serves it to them in a casual-yet-classy room, and he charges them about what they want to pay.

So where did a 25-year-old guy get so smart so fast about the restaurant business?

Mainly, out West. When Whalen, a native of Cleveland, got out of the Pennsylvania Institute of Culinary Arts, he pestered his way into a job at Wolfgang Puck's Obachine in Phoenix. Then he moved on to Granita in Malibu and, finally to a job as sous-chef at Puck's flagship operation, Spago in Beverly Hills.

Whalen worked hard ("four years in L.A. and I only saw the beach once," he says) and learned from the master. Not just about food, but about what it takes to run a successful restaurant. "Wolf taught me that it's not about you, the chef-owner. It's all about making people happy."

Back in Cleveland, Whalen made plenty of people happy in his next gig, executive sous-chef at Blue Pointe Grille, a thriving seafood spot in Cleveland's downtown Warehouse district. After a quick stop at the highly regarded Lock-keeper's Inn, he and his partners signed a lease on a corner spot in Tremont.

Fahrenheit hit the Cleveland dining scene like a firebomb. Gushing reviews typically began with a "where did this guy come from" angle and moved on to rhapsodize about the food, the room, the bar and the cost.

Tell-it-like-it-is Cleveland Scene restaurant critic Elaine Cicora was reduced to griping about the type font on the menu and the style of wine glass used at Fahrenheit ("noted mostly to prove that no place is perfect") so as not to gush. And word is that Esquire tabs Whalen as a "Chef To Watch" in its "Best New Restaurants" issue next month.

Whalen says his signature appetizers include a rare beef summer roll with mango and baby greens, horseradish vinaigrette and apple syrup ("soon to be a winter roll," he says) priced at $7 and a goat cheese and artichoke spring roll served with tomato and arugula salad with sweet mustard vinaigrette that goes for $7.50. Heading the entree list is "our coffee crusted pork loin," Whalen says. "We must have served a thousand orders of it since we opened." The full description: "Java & mustard crusted pork tenderloin, sweet potato and macadamia mousse, balsamic demi-glace." It costs $17. "I keep everything under $20," he notes.

"In my mind, Fahrenheit is like a mini-Spago," Whalen says. That means that the stars of the show include some exquisite pizzas. Popular numbers here are a 4-cheese and white truffle pizza ($14) and one made with portobello mushrooms, goat cheese, roasted garlic, caramelized onions and herbs ($12.50).

The smooth-running front of the house is in the hands of the Repas sisters: Kim and Rocco's significant other, Kelly. This trio has the place on track to pull in $1.4 million in its first year. That's quite a nice number considering the $23 check average and a dinner-only policy. Business is so good that Rocco and Kelly just bought a house around the comer from the restaurant.
So what's the secret of their success? It's twofold. One is the down-home feel of the place. Rocco may have made his bones in L.A. but he left the attitude behind. The second is price. 'I've cooked in L.A., and Cleveland diners are just as sophisticated as they are out there--and they expect more value," Rocco says.

By figuring out how to give it to them, Whalen's got himself one white-hot operation.