Master of the Grill

Michael Greenstein grew up cooking side-by-side with a mom who regularly hosted dinner parties for forty people in their Baltimore home. His passion for cooking began at age five, when he would stand on a stool while helping. It is no wonder he became a chef. After forty-two years of cooking professionally, he still enjoys hosting a dinner party every night at Revolution Woodfire Grille, the Lambertville restaurant where he presides as executive chef.

Greenstein was most recently the executive chef at The Reeds in Stone Harbor, New Jersey, then managed by New Hope-based Refined Hospitality, the current owners of Revolution Woodfire Grille. (A development group that includes Refined Hospitality is eyeing a commercial project on Coryell Street in Lambertville. See story on page 54.) Revolution sits along the Delaware & Raritan Canal in a building long occupied by Hamilton’s Grill Room, a revered space in the annals of Lambertville restaurants.

Though not a culinary school graduate, Greenstein has learned from masters. He worked as a stagiaire under Julian Serrano at Masa’s in San Francisco and Jean-Georges Vongerichten at The Drake in New York. He’s also worked for Larry Forgione at the groundbreaking An American Place in New York and for Jonathan Waxman at restaurants in Massachusetts and Colorado. “I was lucky to work with great people,” Greenstein says.

The menu at Revolution is more stable, allowing customers to develop favorites they can return to enjoy again and again. Diners can choose between a steakhouse-style experience with meat and fish, expertly prepared on the restaurant’s namesake woodfire grill, paired with an enticing list of sides like white truffle mac and cheese and horseradish Yukon smashed potatoes. Greenstein is no stranger to wood-burning grills, having cooked on them during his years as a corporate chef. “A wood-burning grill is great for the amount of flavor it puts into things,” he says.

Revolution’s creative three-course, prix fixe menu, offered Tuesday through Thursday, changes every week, sometimes day to day. Greenstein’s carefully edited tavern menu offers complete meals, like a cheeseburger grilled to perfection on the open fire and accompanied by French fries and a trout meunière with lemon-caper brown butter, mashed potatoes, and sautéed spinach, a meal that reflects the chef’s classical training.

Greenstein says he would like to see Revolution become somewhere people come “just because it is Tuesday.” He hopes a recently completed bar near the front entrance will encourage customers to visit just because they feel like going out. “I think it will make the restaurant a little more comfortable and a little less special occasion,” he says. But patrons are still welcome to bring their own wine, for which Revolution charges a $15-per-bottle corkage fee.

Greenstein is a self-described American cook who draws inspiration from cuisines around the world. “That is what American is to me. It is an amalgamation of all these places,” he says. “I like to cook simple food. I get simple products and treat them well.”

Revolution secured a liquor license about a year ago, and its recently completed bar room at Revolution is clubby and intimate. “Getting a liquor license here is what needed to happen,” Greenstein says. A brightly lit back bar displays an enticing array of liquors while eight taps promise many choices for beer lovers. There is seating for eight at the bar and table seating for ten. With a nod to the past, parts of the murals that date to the days of Hamilton’s Grill Room have been retained in the room.

While reserving one of the dining rooms at Revolution for a private party is possible, those craving more intimacy can book The Saloon, inside a cottage directly behind the Boat House. Featuring a table for ten, Greenstein calls it “a beautiful space.”

The pasta section of the menu at Revolution is a favorite of Greenstein’s. (Pasta is often what the chef cooks for himself). “I would die if I had to stop eating pasta,” he says.

The restaurant’s walls are filled with paintings by Lambertville artist and gallery owner Gordon Haas. “It is about supporting him and helping him drum up business,” Greenstein says, “and helping us to get some beautiful paintings on the wall.”

From his first restaurant job as a busboy at his aunt and uncle’s restaurant in Baltimore, when he was 14 years old, Greenstein has never lost sight of the lessons he learned while standing on a stool in his mother’s kitchen. No. 1: Always have a bowl big enough to mix all your ingredients. And No. 2: Make sure all your ingredients are at room temperature.

“I just try to make people happy,” he says. “That is why I have been cooking for four decades.”