Trey Rintala runs his Bertie’s Intergalactic Diner pop-up at Carrollton Station Monday through Friday. On Monday nights, the Biscuits n’ Jam features a special menu and his spouse, singer Meryl Zimmerman, leading a jazz jam. After years working in local restaurants like Meauxbar and The Joint, as well as in Whole Foods’ kitchen and doing catering, Rintala jumped into relief efforts during the pandemic and then decided to work for himself doing pop-ups. To see his changing menu of “stoner food meets French technique,” see @berties.intergalactic.diner on Instagram or carrolltonstationnola.com.
Gambit: How did you get into pop-ups?
Trey Rintala: Before Covid, I was at Meauxbar for six years. I was the sous chef and pastry chef. Once Covid hit, the restaurant closed. I started a nonprofit and we would collect money to feed out-of-work musicians and artists and service industry workers. It was called Tres Bon Food Fund. Every week I would post a menu and prepare individual meals. It was grab-and-go. People would swing by my house and pick up three or four meals. I would do like 150 meals a week every Wednesday. That kept me going until I ran out of my savings and I had to get a real job.
While I was at Meauxbar, I had dabbled with pop-ups to do something fun on weekends. So I started doing the circuit of build-your-own-kitchen outdoors, outside of bars. I was at Happy Raptor and Parleaux (Beer Lab). It has evolved into this high-brow/low-brow, stoner-food-meets-French-technique.
One of the reasons I left the industry is I jumped on every mine. I said yes to every extra project. Now is my time to strike out and do it on my own terms and set my own boundaries. All of that has blown up to be a saving grace for me, doing it for myself.
Gambit: How did you develop your style of cooking?
Rintala: I went to school for anthropology. I was always fascinated by the importance of sharing meals and food tying cultures together. I draw my influences from all over the place. I pull inspiration from travel. I’ll take a notebook with me and jot down things that inspire me and come home and try new dishes. We recently were in Massachusetts, and I came back and wanted to work with fresh produce and make popovers. I try to offer up things you don’t get anywhere else.
It’s all just what I feel like cooking. I change the menu a lot. I have built a following that trusts me. If I want to try something out, I’ll put it on the menu at a budget price to get them to try it and give me feedback. It’s kind of democratic.
Bertie’s is 99% scratch made. Everything except the ketchup. Because no-one wants homemade ketchup. I learned that the hard way. I used to do currywurst and make the ketchup, and people would be like, “Do you have Heinz?”
Sushi is an art so precise that every detail counts.
Gambit: What do you like to put on your menu?
Rintala: The pizza rolls and the mac ’n’ cheese pancakes are things that have been on since I started. Those are the things that people would raise hell if I took them off.
There is a restaurant in New York called Shopsin’s. It’s a family-run diner and general store. Currently it’s in Essex [Market], this huge food hall. The owner was mildly famous, like the “Seinfeld” Soup Nazi. You had to know what you wanted to order. No substitutions. All that. Kenny Shopsin, he’s a hero of mine. He passed a couple years ago. His menu had like 900 items. People would come in and order stuff, and he wouldn’t remember exactly what was in it, but he’d make up a simulacrum. It’s sort of improvisational cooking of “I trust this guy. I’ll see what he’s coming up with.”
The pizza rolls are a microcosm of that concept. There’s a pepperoni pizza filling. It’s an elevated version of grocery store food. Not in an ironic way, but re-interpreting a childhood classic. There’s some ’80s and ’90s nostalgia, like for creamsicles, or visions of cereal milk. Sometimes I’ll incorporate some sort of processed food item. I won’t crumble up Doritos, but I’ll make my own Dorito powder.
Mac ’n’ cheese pancakes are based on a Kenny Shopsin specialty. You take pancake batter and put it down on the griddle, and while it’s cooking, you layer boiled pasta and shredded cheese, and I’ll have add-ons like pepperoni filling. When you flip the pancake, you get this nice caramelized cheese and the pancake absorbs all the rendered fat. It’s almost a little custardy in the middle. Basically, it’s pasta and cheese suspended in a pancake, but the way it comes together on the griddle is out of left field. I serve it with honey. I haven’t seen anyone else here doing it.
The Monday menu we started a couple months ago. My wife is a jazz singer. We try to find ways to work together. She hosts a weekly jazz jam, we call it Biscuits n’ Jam. I have been selling it as the premiere late-night jazz jam and Popeyes tribute. So it’s fried chicken and buttered biscuits, red beans and rice, coleslaw, and a couple of selections from the Bertie’s menu. She sings on the Natchez until 9, and then she comes over here and we go from 10 to 1. We’re trying to make it the place to be on Monday nights. I have a service industry happy hour. I want it to be affordable.
I like to make food. I like the personal relationship I am building with people and having less steps between me and the customer. This is my art project. This is my band.
Gambit previews the second weekend of Jazz Fest 2024.
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