5-ish Questions with Camille Lindsley of HAGS
By queers, for everyone! HAGS is the East Village restaurant spinning fine dining on its head with a stellar tasting menu AND a pay-what-you-can Sunday fun day. We chat with co-owner Camille!
Describe what you do in the industry?
I am the co-owner of HAGS, an 18 seat, queer, fine-dining restaurant in the heart of the East Village in NYC. I wear a ton of hats from beverage director, GM, reservationist, and toilet scrubber. I am getting to live my dream running a really niche/weird concept-driven restaurant with my life partner & co-owner/co-conspirator, Telly Justice! HAGS has been open for a little over a year and a half now and it’s been incredible to see what we’ve accomplished with such a small team (never more than 13 people aside from Telly and I) in a tiny restaurant.
What are you hopeful for/how are you trying to leave the world a little better than you found it?
I really hope to inject more sensuality (and therefore more fun) in wine. Wine and food can be a great tool for better connecting to your senses, which is a life skill applicable to so many things! No matter if you’re a newbie or if you’re a professional sommelier, we all drink wine for the sensual aspect, yet I find that it’s easy for all kinds of rules and dogmas to make us forget that!
What challenges are you facing within your industry as a small biz owner/hospitality worker/part of wine and beverage?
Running a small restaurant can be grueling to say the least, but I find the most important and rewarding struggle in trying to avoid ubiquitous trends in food, beverage, service and menu style. There are so few truly original ideas anymore, and it can be frustrating to try and think of something new, but finding a new perspective, a new process, can provide for fun and rewarding experimentation- like any artistic endeavor! Finding inspiration in non-food related spaces is often my go-to.
What do you wish people knew about wine/your job?
I’m here on this earth to make you fall in love with dessert wines! I truly love nothing more than getting to pour someone a really lusciously slutty Sauternes or a salty Sercial and getting to watch people change their minds about thinking they hated dessert wines because they don’t wanna drink room temperature cheap Port. (Nothing against Port but we all have had some gross Port out of a chunky crystal decanter sitting on the piano of a weird hotel, or maybe I’m just scarred from a bad experience!)
What are you reading/listening to/watching?
I just finished The Gentrification of The Mind by our East Village neighbor and living literary legend, Sarah Schulman. She talks a lot about the interconnectedness of the legacy of the arts and restaurants in the East Village in the 80s and how the AIDS crisis forever altered the landscape of this neighborhood. I think learning this history of our community in this neighborhood is super important, and she’s one of my favorite authors to read. Sadly, I don’t have as much time to read these days- so I’ll let you in on the kind of embarrassing thing I’ve been loving watching- returns of MTV’s Headbangers Ball on YouTube. I’m a huge dork and I absolutely love metal. Back before I got into wine I was a punk and got into metal and industrial music and all that- and still love to listen to that kind of stuff today. The re-runs have lots of crap but also some great old videos of Mercyful Fate that are over the top, campy, 80s metal gold.