ichael Schlow and Christopher Myers are seated on comfy banquettes in the lower floor of Radius. Behind the two restaurant owners, there's a glimpse of the luxurious private dining room - tables set with white tablecloths, the wine cellar showing off its liquid wealth. The scene feels like a stage set before the curtains rise: A deliveryman wheels in a dolly stacked high with boxes of wine, and a waitress, just off her lunch shift, chats as she goes by.
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Schlow is in his chef's whites, Myers is in an elegant dark suit. They both have their serious, grown-up miens on, ready to discuss the 2 1/2-year-old restaurant's rise to national fame.
Business is good, they say, despite the downturn in the economy and the turmoil after Sept. 11. December's calendar for private parties is full and the prime reservation spots on weekends are booked two weeks in advance. Lunch has been down a bit, but dinner is great.
Myers talks about the care they take in pricing out ingredients and working with purveyors, and Schlow talks about how slow cooking preserves the flavor and moisture of meats and fish. They shift in their cushions a little as they talk, substantial men in their prime years (Schlow is 37 and Myers is 43), who set out to put Radius on Boston's, and the nation's, culinary map - and who succeeded. Radius captured No. 25 this year in Gourmet magazine's list of the top 50 restaurants across the country, and garnered many other awards before that (Clio also made the Gourmet list at No. 42).
A shadow flickers across Schlow's face for just a second: ''But we're always afraid the phone will stop ringing,'' he says. Myers frets that the important thing is to persuade people to return. ''We want them to come back in February.''
That sets off a sort of counterpoint to the discussion of the restaurant. For there's an intriguing side story to this polished place where chef Schlow is known for his exacting standards in the kitchen and Myers oversees impeccable service: It's the friendship factor. Once the two get going, they swing into the barely suppressed banter of old friends. Myers finishes Schlow's sentences, even about cooking; Schlow teases Myers about his late-night habits.
They readily admit to hanging around with each other off the clock. ''Last night,'' Myers says conspiratorially, ''we were doing market research.''
At Maggiano's Little Italy, they confess. ''The number of plates zooming out of the kitchen was amazing,'' says Myers of the big Italian-American chain restaurant in Park Plaza. (About their plans for opening an Italian restaurant in Back Bay or the South End, both partners are coy and unspecific.)
Schlow and Myers met in New York in the late '80s. Myers, who had come to Boston to pursue a doctorate in English at Harvard, segued into the restaurant business at Michela's in Cambridge and later managed Rialto. In 1995 he persuaded Schlow, who had worked in New York, Long Island, and New Jersey for Pino Luongo and others, to take the job of chef at Cafe Louis.
The plan for Radius was hatched soon after, and both men brought collaborators to the project. From Rialto came the effervescent Esti Benson as general manager. And Schlow's longtime pastry chef, the masterful Paul Connors came, too. The team dynamic is evident, and so is the amount of time and effort put into the restaurant, in which the two admit they live their lives. Myers, his prominent eyebrows arching, mutters about ''the relationships falling apart all over the place the first year.''
Though the two banter, they don't joke at all about what Radius means to them. They recall stopping for gas on the way back from Vermont before Radius was built. Myers came out to the car waving a Playboy magazine that listed its pick of the Top 25 restaurants in the country. ''We vowed to be one of those restaurants on a list like that,'' Schlow says.
The first reactions to Radius were sometimes unnerving, they admit. It was perceived as trendy, but also as really expensive, says Myers, a hint of exasperation in his voice. ''As if all of the restaurants in the same strata weren't just as expensive.''
He muses that some early visitors missed Schroeder's, the old-fashioned meat-and-potatoes establishment that preceded Radius. ''There was something about the stark polish'' that upset some, he says. ''Esti has softened it up,'' he says of the subtle alterations by Radius' stylish manager.
The two joust verbally about lighting. ''There's a lighting battle every night,'' Myers says. He and Benson work toward a dramatic mood, but ''Michael wants the lights up.''
''You've got to be able to see the food, the colors,'' says Schlow. He fusses, he admits, when it comes to food, and acknowledges his reputation of being demanding.
After walking up the stairs and into the oversized kitchen, Schlow checks the cooks. One young man dices red peppers into tiny, very even squares. ''He'll do a quart of those,'' Schlow says. ''If they're not right, he'll do it again.''
Young cooks have to learn habits to get used to good techniques, he says. The kitchen is mammoth, but Schlow says the size is unchanged from the previous restaurant. ''It would have cost more to change.'' Racks gleam with copper pots and skillets, chosen for even cooking. Schlow introduces Gabriel Frasca, his chef de cuisine, praising him as a ''student of food.''
On one side is the cool little alcove of pastry chef Connors. Through four restaurants, Connors has matched his elegant creations to the complexity of Schlow's savory food. Their friendship is easy, a bit of joshing about ages (at 44, Connors is the eldest of the trio) and golf. Connors offers a taste of a luscious goat cheesecake with huckleberries, the sweetness of the berries playing brilliantly off the tang of the creamy cheesecake.
As Schlow remarks about the beauty of vegetables in the fall season, he laments the end of native fruit and looks forward to the tropical varieties that arrive at peak ripeness in winter.
What constitutes a Radius dish is a subject that Schlow, with interjections by Myers, obviously loves to talk about. His food, despite its precisely cut vegetables and designed color contrasts, isn't delicate. Just reading the menu shows that: slow-roasted prime rib with potato puree, baby carrots, pearl onions, haricots verts, and a red wine reduction; coriander-crusted duck with a warm salad of fingerling potatoes, green olives, yellow pepper, and cumin jus; an appetizer of foraged mushrooms that includes a warm porcini-chestnut soup and a chilled mushroom consomme terrine and a beggar's purse of leeks. The three are designed, Schlow says, to contrast the soup's creaminess, the clarity of the terrine with its clear consomme, and the crunchy exterior of the purse.
The duck, he says, is poached in olive oil at 115 to 120 degrees, the result of long experimentation to get the temperature just right; each degree changed the texture and the taste of the duck. ''Rather than me dictate what to do with a product, the product tells me how best to proceed,'' he says.
Finding time to test and experiment is hard, he says, sneaking 30 to 45 minutes out of a demanding restaurant schedule. But, he believes, ''we have a responsibility to the customer to find the best way.''
Myers adds that they decided at the beginning to ''cook for the guests and not for the critics.'' The philosophy has to be, he says, to ''run the restaurant from the front of the house backwards,'' meaning that creativity in the kitchen can't trump the diner's wishes.
Part of that effort is Schlow going out to talk to the diners each night, ''working the tables'' to discover what people did and didn't like. With an abashed grin, Schlow says he had a recent Saturday night off, but felt restless at home. ''Finally, I went in to the city, put on my [kitchen] outfit, and went out and talked to the guests.''
The lull has set in, time for family dinner - when the cooks eat their meal - today a vegetable stew. Schlow and Myers walk out into the dining room where Benson has spread candy on a shelf. The young cooks and even Schlow and Myers reach for the little bars of Nestle's Crunch and chocolate-covered caramels.
''This is what we really do at Radius,'' says Benson, laughing as she and the owners, friends with a common mission, discuss candy brands.
