There’s something about talking over a meal that makes people loosen up. It’s the proximity of your knees under the table, the intimacy of sharing food, the lubrication of a little wine. This is not a set-up for drunken confessions. It is a method for coaxing the truth out of public figures used to communicating mostly in talking points. Ultimately, I want On The Table to show my guests the way they really are.
But I may have set myself up by asking David Fhima — the smooth, accented restaurateur whose empire crumbled last year amid rumors he was roughly a million dollars in debt — to be my first.
The truth is that I’ve known David for more than four years: I’ve interviewed him twice before and talked with him personally more than a dozen times. But even after sitting down to a meal with him recently, I still have no idea who he really is.
Ask around town and you’ll hear that David is a master chef, a hack, a thrill seeker, and a dreamer. You’ll learn he grew up in Morocco, London, or maybe Provence. He had as many as 17 siblings and got kicked out of two or four or possibly seven different boarding schools. He was once a minority partner in L’Orangerie in Los Angeles, or, more likely, one of their top maitre d’s. He’s a good guy who got in over his head, or a con man who’s been running a shell game, transporting unpaid liquor from one restaurant to another in the back seat of his car.
In "Without Reservations" — a terrific profile by Steve Marsh that appeared in the September 2004 edition of Minneapolis/St. Paul magazine — Fhima admitted to being a “bullshitter” and a control freak. He skewered local food critics for panning Louis XIII, talked about opening versions of his eponymous Fhima’s restaurant in Chicago and Wayzata, raved about the imminent opening of Lo-To, and claimed to be in negotiations to host a show on the Food Network.
Two years later, there was neither a Food Network show, nor a Fhima’s in Chicago. Lo-To had launched but then closed its doors for a short time, due to unpaid utility bills. Louis XIII was shuttered so quietly, Edina socialites kept showing up for lunches and finding the doors locked. News of his financial troubles was far more widespread, however. In June 2006, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported that Fhima owed more than $900,000, including $39,000 to his fish vendor, and at least $180,000 to the IRS.
Over the intervening year, there have been rumblings of continuing problems, such as bounced paychecks at Fhima’s.
But the people who’ve worked with him — even the ones who’ve been burned — tend to be forgiving. Scott Mayer, local public relations legend and the founder of the Ivey Awards, worked with Fhima until near the end.
“The thing about David is, no matter what happens, you just can’t get mad,” Mayer says. “Because at the heart of things, he’s just a genuinely nice person.”
And I have to admit that despite everything I know, I feel the same way. Having lunch with David Fhima is restorative in a strange way. However vain and quixotic he may be, he’s also authentically kind and interested in the people around him. He reminds me, in this way, of a very smart and naughty nine-year-old who dreams of being king.
Perhaps this is why people keep throwing money at him.
We meet in May at A Rebours, the bistro that shares a block with Fhima’s. David arrives precisely at noon, dressed all in black, wearing dark glasses and carrying nothing but a small European satchel.
“This is the earliest lunch I’ve had in years,” he announces as he sits. “At my age [46], I’ve tried to change. But no way. I’m a night person, and I’ll always be a night person. I think my DNA is made up for the restaurant business.”
He has just returned from three days in North Carolina, where he was doing business for Bahram Akradi, founder of Life Time Fitness and Fhima’s new employer-slash-savior.
In the aftermath of his financial woes, Fhima tells me, Akradi — a longtime acquaintance — stepped in to propose a deal: He would take over LoTo and rebrand it LoTo Life Cafe, then turn around and use the concept in Life Time facilities throughout the country. Fhima would join Life Time as executive chef in charge of more than 50 cafés around the country, and develop a fine dining concept for the higher end clubs.
Fhima is understandably grateful. “Life Time is a company that if you walk into any club, no matter how incredible they are, it doesn’t do justice to Rahm’s vision,” he raves.
He’s landed on his feet, yes. But when we begin talking about Louis XIII, Fhima’s mood becomes more sober. And he is ardently philosophical when he describes the past year: “Whether or not it’s true, I’ll always believe that challenges are like magnets. I think they’re like these little animals that walk and pick a place where they can’t knock people down. There’s so much to be learned from a failed dish, a failed relationship, a failed financial experience. More than to be learned from success. If you keep getting up and getting up and getting up, challenges become fun.”
Say what you will about David Fhima, he does keep getting up.
After giving me many of the same quotes he’s given other reporters about the closure of Louis XIII — including that it was misunderstood; that it was too good for the Southdale mall; and that it suffered from his being split between kitchen and front of the house — he hunkers down abruptly and looks me straight in the eyes.
“Looking back, I don’t have any regrets except for one. When I knew it wasn’t working, I should have cut my losses. And I knew within three to four months. I should have cut my losses and owed ten times less than I do now.” He shrugs then, and his face changes, becoming tough again.
“But I was trying to stick by my concept and make it work, employing people, and staying true to what I believed. What sends me is that some people try to put my financial failure on the same level with my talent as a chef. I know a lot of very talented chefs who have not been able to make a go of it. But there are a lot of successful ones I wouldn’t trust to butter my bread.”
Leave a Reply