(4 of 4)
Summer rolls without mint; puttanesca without anchovies. Those are the compromises that have made the Cheesecake Factory such an inviting target. One critic derided the "something for everyone" aesthetic as "a repository for all other corporate-restaurant concepts." Overton can live with that. "We just try to be really good, with strong flavors," he says. "Authenticity isn't anything that we really care about." He's ready for the purists who will complain that the cured meat in a new pasta amatriciana really ought to be guanciale, made from pork jowls, rather than pancetta, pork belly. "You know what? Most of our people do not care," Overton says.
He isn't on a mission to educate; he would rather be the hitmaker. Take dulce de leche, the sweetened milk cooked down to a caramel that is a staple of Latin American desserts. Overton had considered it for a cheesecake flavor for years, but he waited for a cue--Häagen Dazs' introducing dulce de leche ice cream--before trying the bittersweet, burned-sugar taste on his customers in 2002. It now ranks as the chain's fifth most popular of 40 cheesecakes.
Strong sales are the only measure of success that really matter for any of the new dishes that will soon appear on the menu. The lasagna got the ax, but the Bolognese sauce with white truffle oil will get a shot as a pasta entrée, along with a spinach, poached-chicken and bacon salad, a crab hash made with potatoes and onions and the pasta with four roasted tomato sauces--including puttanesca without anchovies. If they don't sell, they're gone, no matter how much Overton or any critic loves or loathes them.
In this way, the Cheesecake Factory is the closest thing in the restaurant business to democracy in action. Overton reminisces about dishes he loved that never found a constituency: the torpedo dog, a kosher hot dog with red onions and sweet mustard baked into a pizza-dough crust; a pasta made with melted onions, cream and cognac. White-chocolate macadamia nut had been a top-10 cheesecake flavor for years, but it has fallen to the bottom five and is on the way out. Lamb and veal might appeal to critics, but "we just can't sell it," Overton says. Special interests, like vegetarians, get a few concessions. And as in any democracy, sometimes the voters surprise you. Thai lettuce wraps--a pileup of satay chicken, coconut curry noodles, sprouts and vegetables--are among the top-three appetizers in every city the Cheesecake Factory serves.
Overton decided years ago that he would never limit his menu to one style of cooking. "There's nothing America wants to eat that we won't put on there," he says. By keeping the door open to Asia, Latin America and Africa, he created a menu as inclusive as America itself. Today Americans' increasingly sophisticated tastes are posing a new challenge. "You can't just slip things by anymore," Okura says. They can watch the secrets of four-star chefs on TV, and they may know firsthand what "authentic" tastes like. Forget critics or consultants. The only people who can push the Cheesecake Factory to turn up the spice, turn down the butter or give the anchovies another look are the people who eat there. The mirror, as it turns out, works both ways.