March 5, 2024 • 40 mins
In a profession that is ever changing and always challenging, Eric Ripert is an inspiration. He's been the chef, and co-owner, of New York's legendary Le Bernardin for more than 30 years. He is a mentor to many, and someone who so many chefs look up to.
Today, I'm here in New York with him at his Michelin three-star temple to fish and seafood, talking about us living in different cities, while cooking the food of different countries. But you know what? We're a lot alike: Two chefs with much to share.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair
over the last few days. When I tell people we're
doing a podcast with Eric Repair, their face is light up.
(00:21):
At the River Cafe, we spend our days making ravioli
with ricotta viieleenchi anti, pannacotta with grappa. But when we
as chefs come together, we talk about French food. The bouliebss,
the palm d'au finoise, the tartetans. Eric Cook's French food
were inspired by Italian but maybe we're not so different.
(00:42):
He's been the chef at Bernadine, his Mission and three
star Fish and Seafood restaurant for more than thirty years.
I'm ahead by four years, having cooked at the River
Cafe since nineteen eighty seven and a profession that is
ever changing and always challenging. Eric is an inspiration, a mentor,
and someone we look up to today. I'm here in
(01:02):
New York with him talking about us living in different cities,
cooking the food of different countries. But you know what,
we're pretty much the same. Two chefs with much to share.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Thank you, thank you so much for being here, and
thank you for this great introduction.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
No, that's true. So I thought it would be disrespectful
for the great chef to read a recipe from the
River Cafe. So I would like you to read it
yourself of one of your recipes, and we chose.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
The few soup.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
I'm going to start with a quote from you, Eric. Yes,
and you wrote in this book, think about your favorite dish.
For many of us, it's something we ate in childhood,
whose deliciousness lies in how uncomplicated it is. For me,
it's a simple fish soup made by my grandmother. This
(01:54):
is the most rewarding way to approach cooking, using culinary
knowledge to achieve simplicity.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yes, I have very vivid memories of grandma doing the
fish soup youtail.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Oh, for sure, tell me about your grandma.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
So I had two grandmothers, one was Italian, one from Provence,
and they both made fish soup by the way, of course,
But my favorite memory is the one from the Italian
grandmother because on the weekend the family would gather together,
like all the uncles and cousins and my grandfather and
(02:32):
grandma and so on, and they would go fishing and
scuba diving and catching whatever they would catch, and then
my grandmother was in charge of the lunch. She would
make the table for twenty people, twenty five people. She
would prepare a lot of things, salads and appetizer, but
she would prepare for the fish soup. So whatever fish
(02:54):
was coming back, it will be cleaned very quickly, and
then she would make the fish soup. They're own side
and we will eat that fish soup. I don't know
an hour later or two hours lad that was cooked
under the trees overlooking them. Yes, no, close to antibet
between auntiebe and and can.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Okay, well, do you want to read the recipe and
we can talk more about we're going to talk about.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
So for the fish soup, we use a quark cup
of extra vaginallyve oil, one medium onion thinly sliced, half
a bulb of fennel trimmed and thinly slice as well,
four cloves of garlic chopped, one teaspoon of saffron thread,
three cups of can whole tomato with their juice, a
(03:43):
corek cup of perno one bay leave, two pounds of
egg chile skin cut into chunks. Or you can ask
a fishmonger for Lian white fish scraps potentially find the
salt and freshly grinded black pepper. And then in a large,
(04:05):
heavy bottom pot you eat the extravaginallyve oil over medium heat.
You add the onions, the fennel, the garlic, and you
sote for five minutes. You steer in the saffron and
cook until the vegetables are soften and translucent, which takes
about five minutes. Again, then you crush the tomatoes with
(04:27):
a fork. You add them to the pot along with
perno and the bay leaf. Then you season the fish
with sea salt and white paper and add it to
the pot. You add enough water to cover the fish
by about one inch. You bring it to seamur and
you cook for twenty five minutes. Then you remove from
(04:48):
the heat and you let stand for five minutes. You
remove the bay leaf, and then you strain the broth
through a colander into a pot. You pure the fish
and vegetables badgies ah.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
You put them yeah in.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
A food meal and whisked the pury back into the broth.
And then you season with sea salt and white pepper,
and then you divide into among warm bowls. So that's
the recipe of the book inspired by Grandma Grama was
not using egg. She was using whatever she was she
was adding.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
And you said she made this every week? Did she
always make this version of it?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Was very similar to this. And she will improvise a
lot as well, you know, I mean for the book
we had to say half a cup, quarter of a cup.
She was not measuring. She was like, okay, give me
the garlic, let's feel it and let's drop it. And
the same thing with the onions. It was very instinctive.
She didn't have to really follow a recipe.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Amazing, And did she inspire you to cook? Then she
was the person that made you want to be a chef.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
My two grandmothers inspired me a lot, and my mother
was an amazing, amazing chef.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Tell me because it was interesting, always say that in
all these interviews that we've done.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
The grandmother, the Italian one was cooking very Italian soul food.
She was cooking like great Italian, Northern Italian food, and
I loved it. And then my grandmother from Provence was
doing the same with proven sal food as well, which
is a little bit similar than Northern Italian, but as
(06:28):
some stal differences.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
I did the drive quite recently from Santa marc Rita
to Genoa to Nice and suddenly you were in Italy
and now you're in France, and you know, the farinata
which they do in Italy is the Italian version of
the socca, so yeah, which is in Nice. And what
(06:51):
else do they cook?
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Like my grandmother in Provence, she was from the region
of Avignon, so in Avignon they're not close to the sea,
they are obviously inland, and she would do like a
baby leg of lamb roasted. And then my grandmother, the
Italian grandmother, wouldn't do that, but she would do She
(07:14):
would do alsobuco, for instance, My grandmother in Provence would
do a cocoveraine. My grandmother in Italy didn't know what
cocoveraine was. And those were subtle differences, but they were important.
My mother was obsessed with the chefs from novelle cuisine
at the time, so the Michelle Gerard, the Paul Booquz
(07:38):
that generation. And at home she was cooking lunch and dinner,
those elaborate meals with appetizer, main course cheese which she
didn't cook, and dessert that were different from lunch to dinner,
on a different pattern of tablecloth, different china. It was unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Would she be cooking for She was.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Cooking for myself, stepfather and my sister when when she
was old enough to be at the table with us,
because she's much younger than me.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
She did this every day, every day.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
She would Well, she was a business lady, so she
was in fashion industry. She was importing the brand Courage
for Spain, Spain and underground. Yes, and so she was
very busy with the business. But she would wake up
at five am to prepare the meal and then she
she would finish whatever needs to be finished, all the
(08:37):
little details during lunchtime, and then same thing at night.
And sometimes after the dinner she would start to cook
for the like the desserts. Like if she was doing
I don't know a baba room, she would start to
let the baba do you know rise and so on. Yes,
(08:58):
I mean it was amazing.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
She would have liked to have done that as a career.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
No, No, she was she wanted She wanted to do
it because for the art of doing it, for the
love of doing it, and she wanted to feed the family.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
So you had this incredible life of having food that
was cared you know, it was a priority in her day,
and your stepfather.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
And different styles too. Did you ever cook with her
with my mom later in life, because on the beginning,
they allow me to watch and eat anything I wanted,
but they really didn't want me to touch anything. They
were like, you're going to mess up the kitchen, don't
touch it. So I was eating, and just before I
went to culinary school, my mom started to allow me
(09:43):
to help her in the kitchen.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
She sounds amazing and she's still cooking.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
She cooks for herself, and she sent me pictures sometimes
and I'm like, oh my god, this is amazing. Like
the other day she did the dog comfee and then
you know, she hasked, I don't know what you call it,
those little for the for the bone, those little white.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
White things yeah, yeah, white yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
So she still have those kind of details, and I'm like,
oh my god, how can you do that?
Speaker 1 (10:15):
How do you look back at the food of the
nouvelle cuisine? What do you think when you when you
think of that food.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Well, as you know, nouvelle cuisine at one point became
really a bad world, and it became a caricature.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Of big plates and food and.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
I always have this image of like three string beans
parallel to each other. But novelle cuisine on the beginning
was a revolution. We were coming out of the era
of escoffi. It was a different mindset where the sauce
was not hiding anymore the flavors, but the sauce was
enhancing the star of the plate, which was whatever protein,
(10:54):
mostly or vegetable you decide. And also it was the
first time that chefs were playing their food. Until then,
the food was on platters and the waiters were serving
the food or the clients were serving themselves from the platter.
But the first chef to say I'm planning my food
(11:16):
in my plate was the drug Row.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
So you grew up in a house where food was
a priority, where your mother cooked, your grandmother's cooked. Tell
us when about your journey to becoming a chef, from
being a child that wasn't allowed in the kitchen to
being I think a fifteen year old that started cooking.
What happened at fifteen when you decided to be well.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
At fifteen, I cannot go to school any longer because
my grades are so bad. So I ended up in
the principal office with mom and is explaining to her
that I have to find out what they call a
vocational school or a career. That's nineteen eighty and I
(12:05):
look sad, but I'm really happy because I want to
go to culinary school. So the principal promised to my
mother that he would do everything possible to send me
to a culinary school. And he had a friend who
was a principal in Perpignon, and I was accepted. I
don't know how, but I was accepted in culinary school.
(12:27):
And then I was a very good student there.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
So that's the thing, if you find what you love it.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
I really loved everything about the restaurant industry. I was
the first year. We were waders and cooks. We were
learning both and we had some classes of a knowlogy,
which is about the wine. And I was having a
blast and my grades were excellent. In matth I was
(12:54):
still a bit weak, but I was putting a lot
of efforts. I was good in Spanish because I live
in Adora, so I would I could speak Spanish and French.
I didn't speak English at the time. And in the
kitchen I was a little bit bored because we were
learning old fashioned recipes. From Escoffia basically, so I was
(13:16):
a bit bored, but I knew I was learning the basics.
So I was very diligent about listening to what the
directions were from the teachers, and my grades were great
on the first year. On the second year, same thing.
At my exam, which was after two years, I had
(13:37):
to do a gulash and a rice pilaf with Langostin's
in a source nin two yer and I did a
good job because I graduated with honors. And then I
was like, this is the beginning. I mean, I knew
it was the beginning. I wanted to be the chef
(13:58):
that I am today. I wanted to be in a
restaurant that has a big kitchen with a lot of equipment,
with a lot of cooks, a lot of waters, a
lot of a great team, beautiful china, and a great
wine cellar and everything else. And that was my dream.
So at seventeen years old, I write a letter to
(14:19):
the eighteen three star Micheline restaurant in France, because I
was eighteen at the time, and nobody answered. Nobody. So
then at one point I go back and I write
to the two stars, and then Maxims sent me a
letter saying we don't have a spot for you, and
that's my only letter. And then three months later I
(14:42):
received a letter from Latyo darjan And at the time
they were three stars, of course, and they were celebrating
in nineteen eighty two their four hundred year anniversary. Anyway,
I ended up at seventeen years old in Lato dar
Joon in Paris. After reading that letter, I call them
and I said, you know Americ repair and I received
(15:03):
your letter and when when do you need me? And
I said, we need you tomorrow, And well tomorrow it's
going to be tough. But three days later I was
with my suitcase in Paris.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Where did you stay?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
In a tiny hotel? And then I find finally a place.
It took a couple of months to find a place.
It was very very seventeen in a kitchen like that.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Yeah, you know, what was the culture of the kitchen?
What was it like?
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Very old fashioned? A lot of abuse, veriable abuse, physical abuse,
And that was the culture in those kitchens at that time.
And and also I have to say I was the
youngest in the kitchen, and I was not necessarily the best,
and they were they were patients, but at the same time,
they were very abusive and and as you probably know
(15:57):
in France, it was a philosophy behind it. First of all,
it made no sense to me, but they wanted to
break you psychologically and rebuilt you as a champion, which
is ridiculous. I think it was more an excuse to
let the chef be abusive and have those tantrums and
(16:18):
be aggressive. And someone who's angry is it's not someone
who's It's not a quality to be angry. Let's put
it this way. So I learned. I learned the hard way.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Do you think you've given up?
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Ever, No, I never thought of giving up. I was
obviously at times down and not happy, but my vision
of becoming the chef that I became was never compromised.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
The ambition kept you, kept you going.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
It was, yes, but the ambition was not about being
number one, being radied, or being The ambition was to
cook great food and create an amazing experience. And it
has always been my vision all my life.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Did you know the River Cafe has a shop. It's
full of our favorite foods and designs. We have cookbooks
and then in Napkins Kitchen were chout bags with our signatures,
glasses from Venice, chocolates from Turin. You can find us
right next door to the River Cafe in London or
online at shop the River Cafe dot co UK From
(17:37):
Tour de Jean, how long did you stay there?
Speaker 2 (17:40):
To Darjent, I didn't stay too long. I stayed about
a year and a half. And then the chef called
me in his office and said I heard that you
want to move, and you because you want to change,
And he said I will tell you when you're leaving.
And I said, yes, chef, of course. And a month
later he said, go to this place, it's called sham
(18:03):
Ask for the chef. His name is Joel Robischow, and
he's waiting for you. I'm basically like eighteen and a
half nineteen and I go there. I have no idea
where I'm going. And I met with Joel Robbie Schan
very sweet man, very kind man, great contacts. And then
(18:25):
he's telling me that I'm starting in a month from now.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
And was the culture in that kitchen the same? Was
it abusive?
Speaker 2 (18:34):
And Robbie Shaw was not violent physically or it didn't
didn't want violence in his kitchen?
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Was there violence actually physical violence?
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yes? Chefs were kicking you in the shoulders. Sometimes it
was some physical battles in the coolers or in a
staircase or things like that. It was definitely, but Robbie
Sewan it was very different. He didn't want that. He
was not a screamer, but it was very, very difficult,
(19:07):
and it was a painful experience with him as well,
because he was so demanding on himself and so demanding
on the team. He was never happy and every day
was coming and every day he had some negative comments
every day, but not necessarily articulating what was wrong, just
(19:32):
like a frustration about it. And I don't know if
you ever heard that, but he was looking at every
plate coming back in the kitchen, and when something was
left in a plate, even a tiny, tiny bite, it
was a disaster.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
How long did you stay that?
Speaker 2 (19:49):
So I did a year and something and then I
went to do my military duties, so I was of
course sent to the kitchen. Were yes, But on my
first day in the kitchen was Calamari American. I was like, hey,
this is cool. And then the Calamaria American was basically
frozen calamari with a beshamele ketchup and brandy and then
(20:14):
at night they were doing spaghetti with something and they
managed to burn the spaghettis in the water. The heat
was coming from underneath. They dumped the spaghetti's the stock
to the bottom of the pot where it was in
Castel Sarazen, which is in the south of southwest of France,
(20:38):
near to Lose. So anyway, I went to see the
general and I said to him, I don't mind to
do my military duties, but please get me out of
this kitchen because I'm going to be depressed. And he
laughed at me and he said, I'm going to send
you to the commandos. You're going to learn. And I
was skinny like this, like I was like looking at
(20:59):
him like you know, I can't do that, and he
laughed and he said, you want to be my waiter.
I said, yeah, I would love to be your waider.
He said okay, and I became for the rest of
my stay in the militaries the waiters of the general.
I served the food. I didn't cook. And then on
my last day I received a call and I thought
(21:21):
it was a joke, and they called me and they said,
you have a call. It's Joel Robbie Shan calling you.
I'm like, that a joke, it's not possible. And I
look and it's a number I call and it seemed
and he's like, oh, thank you for calling me back.
I heard that you've done with the military duties. I
would like for you to come back and I would
(21:43):
look for you to be the chef person and Jamin
and what do you think. At the time, I had
a girlfriend, many things were happening in my life. I
was not really excited to go back to Paris, and
I said, can I think about it? And he said, yes,
of course, you have thirty seconds.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
I was like, yes, chef. And I went back to
Paris then and I did two something years again with
him in the fish in charge of the fish station.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Well, let's go back to coming here. How did you
end up in So.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
I went to see Joel Robischan and I said, you know,
we'd like to travel the world and can you help me?
And he sent me to the water Reghatt Hotel in Washington,
d C. And I worked with Jean Repalladin, who was
an extremely talented chef.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
And what was the culture like the culture in the
kitchen was.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
In Washington, dis very relaxed, small team. Jean Repaaladin was
very creative. I was happy because for me it was
a different experience. I learned very classic food at Lato Darjean.
Then I learned rigor and techniques with Joel Robi Schan
and then with Jean Repaadin. I had a lot of
(23:02):
inspiration from him to be creative.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
But I think with that, you know, I think with cooking,
if you have the bigger first, then you can have
the kind of maybe relaxed after well, you know, to
not have that background.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
And now you have to start.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
You have to start.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
You have to start with the basis and the bigger
and then you can start to be creative. And then
you have to learn how to manage also a team people.
And that was Gilberlo cause in le Bernardin. When I
joined in nineteen ninety one, I was twenty four years old,
and he said to me, look, I want someone to
(23:40):
take care of my kitchen, and if you respect the
philosophy of le Bernardin, which is the fish is the
star of the plate, then you can do whatever you
want here and I will support you. And I had
this support until he passed away in nineteen ninety four.
Then I became partner with my gillocouse his sister, and
(24:01):
the rest is story history.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
I think it would be interesting to talk about the
culture of the restaurants that were, you know, existing, the bullying,
the anger, the tantrums, the physical abuse, you know. I
always say that I once had a young woman chef
come to the River Cafe and she was describing her
experience in another kitchen and she said that the chef
(24:26):
had stood over her she was getting souflets out of
the oven, and he said, you know, this frying pan
is in my hand, and if those tuflets are not perfect,
it'll be on your head. And I said, you know
what you should have done is put the soufles back
in the oven, got up, walked out and gone to
the police. The police because that kind of threat is
(24:46):
illegal and it should be illegal, and you cannot do that.
And I think that the fact that that's this was
probably twenty years ago. But I think it's very interesting
how our profession, which was based on a kind of
terror of teaching three people through fear rather than hope,
has hope change. I mean in your restaurant, it has
(25:08):
at my restaurant, my friend's restaurants. You know, in London,
we don't tolerate that. And also we have an open kitchen,
so you can't do that. We have an open kitchen
which does not allow anyone to share.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Of course, well you can always have people who are
vicious and find a way to do it in the back.
But in America I find a kitchens in general very civilized. Here,
I definitely have I do not promote any misbehavior. I
(25:42):
have zero tolerance. And if you misbehave and it's not
a big mistake, we give you one more chance, and
then you're not working with us any longer. You have
to be It doesn't matter if your genius or first
of all, it's no genius is but matter if you
are excellent or not excellent. You have to be a
(26:02):
team player. You have to work with others, and you
have to be polite and kind and grateful and motivated
and hard working and passionate, and then you belong to
the team. But we have zero to leerents from his behavior. Zero.
It's totally unacceptable.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Well, I know that food here is so respected and
so deliciousness.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
I think you're coming from you.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
And I think that the interesting thing I think is
that food is in fashion. People always say to me,
you know, what do you think is a new food trend?
Or what are people going to be cooking? And what
are people eating? And it doesn't really interest me very much.
But the fashion is a food. It's what we're all
trying to do, to work harder, to do what we
do better, and we're thinking about sustainability all the time.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Sustainability is very important. I mean, I don't care about
trends at all. The cooking at Lebernarda is it's based
on personal experiences. I travel quite a bit in my
life in many I mean basically all the continents, and
(27:18):
depending where I go, I come back and I have
a lot of ideas and I discover new flavor, new techniques,
new ingredients, and then we integrate it into the style
of Le Bernardin And I work very closely with the
Soo chefs as well. They also travel during the vacation
and they go to many places and it's a collaboration
(27:42):
in between us inspired by what we love and what
we see, but we don't think about trends at all.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Did you travel lot to Asia? Did you Japan? Of Japan?
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Japanese for me was a revelation when I went there.
Not why in every aspect of the culture of Japan,
the search for perfection knowing that you will never achieve
perfection that is not motivated by business, which means money.
(28:16):
It's very refreshing for a restaurrator from New York that
they have respect for the ingredients. That is incredible. And
in the nineties I was in Peru before it became fashionable.
It was again very influential on us for quite some
(28:39):
time to understand the culture of the savic and the marine,
edit fish and so on.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
You have one restaurant, so.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
We have Le Bernardin and then we have another restaurant
in the Cannan Islands called Blue Bio rec Repair, and
we work with an hotel called the Red Carleton, which
is famous. Yeah, chain of hotels. The team comes here
gets trained by us, or we go there and train them.
I go there twice a year and the rest of
(29:08):
the time I have at Lebanadere.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Do you find it challenging? Fish wise?
Speaker 2 (29:11):
In cam An Island, we use local fish mostly what
is it? Grouper, snapper, spiny lobsters, shream, mai mahi wahu.
I mean it's a lot of species.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
That's a local Oh yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Like from the local fishermen. Yes.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
If you like listening to Ruthy's Table for would you
please make sure to rate and review the podcast on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, o, wherever you get
your podcasts. Thank you. You were saying that people now
(29:56):
are eating out. You can't get a reservation in a
restaurant in New York. Maybe it's post pandemic, but I
do think restaurants have shown us how important restaurants are
to culture, to a city, to people. I once had
to go to my granddaughter's school and I said, why
do we go to restaurants? You know, we go to restaurants.
Why do we go When child raised their hand and said,
(30:18):
we go to restaurants for a birthday, we go to
a restaurant. When my grandparents come to town, we go
to restaurants. When my granddaughter raised, we go to restaurants
when there's nothing at the fridge. And I thought that
was It is interesting why people go to restaurants and
why they are important to us. Why do you think
they are?
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Well? New York is a big city, like London, it's
a lot of people visiting from all over the world.
It's a lot of New Yorkers who are going out,
and we cater to many people who seek a different experience.
I think our mission is to deliver the experience the
(31:00):
clients is seeking without necessarily asking, but just understanding what's happening.
And it's easy to understand what the clients want. If
you see a bunch of businessmen and they're very intense
and they're sharing paper at the table, you know they
are in business. If you see a couple and they
all tachiev and kissing, and you know, it's like it's
(31:24):
not the same experience as the businessman. And then if
you see someone taking pictures of the food, or if
I go to the dining room looking at me, following me,
and you know it's someone very interested by our industry
and those experience. We have to basically adapt to the
(31:45):
client and have flexibility and make sure that when they
leave they're very happy, they have a smile in their face.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Do you stand on the past? Do you see every
plate that goes out?
Speaker 2 (31:57):
I do, and not only I stay on the past,
but I also work in the kitchen and I taste
a lot that one on me but we have testing
spoons made of corn starch that you can use. The
very inexpensive and of course it's recyclable. It's not like plastic,
and you can taste and throw the spoon if you wish,
(32:20):
because we don't want to double deep obviously, and I
don't want the cooks also to carry.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
I hate that when I put that in the back.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Disgusting, and to put it in the pot with water,
it's like no. So we have those those testing spoons,
and I taste a lot of the thing. I have
only one meal a day and the rest is testing.
You test before, before, before service and during services.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Yeah, it's interesting, I find, you know, I was thinking
if I could. It's how you give the feedback. I
don't know about you very much smaller restaurant. When I
go to eat there and I have something that I
don't think is up to what it should be, it's
always for me it's a conundrum because do you tell
them you know then and there? Do you go and say,
(33:05):
you know, they're so expected, our chefs, you know, they
want to know what I thought, Did I enjoy it?
And if I say, well, actually, you know, the spinach
had too much salt, or the sea bears was grilled
too long. Not the greatest thing to do at the
end of the evening. If I do it in the
morning and I go and I say, that was a
great meal. Then I come in in the morning and
I say, actually, you know what, what I had last night,
(33:26):
that's not a good time. It's how you how you
can feedback. The best thing is when you're working that
I'm there, and so at the moment when you taste it,
you say, actually, no, no, no, we're not doing this.
So we're not doing that. How are you? Because they
care so much our chefs, don't they They.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Nobody is happy to do about job. Now, I don't
think so. But what we do, first of all, when
we arrived, when I say, weez the two chefs and
the chefs that they have, and then that they are
controlling the kitchen. When we arrive, it's always before lunch,
at least half hour before for the lunch, and we
taeste all the preparations of the kitchen, all the mission,
(34:04):
plus all the sauce. We have about four different, fourly
different sauce, and we test and we commend before we
test the sauce, and we test everything in the kitchen.
We caliber our palette. So we buy some industrial Swiss
cheese that is not really good, but it's perfect in seasoning.
(34:28):
It's neither to salty, neither to blend.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
It's like very neutral neutralizes you.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
So no, when you test it, sometimes you may find
it salty, which means your taestbirds are very sensitive to salt.
Sometimes you may find it very bland, and you know
your your test birds are dull. So therefore you know
more or less where you stand. And then we test
the sauce and we give it made it feedback to
(34:58):
the socier, and when we test the ves balls and
everything else, we give immediate feedbacks to them. I'm very direct.
Whatever is right is right, whatever is wrong is wrong.
But I'm very articulating my criticism. If I have to,
I explain to them why I believe it's not it's
not right. What does What happened during the process. Maybe
(35:20):
the source was cooked too long and then we lost
the vibrancy that we're supposed to see in that source.
And so I'm very detail oriented in my positive or
negative criticism.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
We have to be, because otherwise we're selling out.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Food that is not or we cannot do that.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
I said to them the other day. You know, my
obligation is to you to give you a good working environment,
to give you a beautiful kitchen, to give you a view,
to give you the equipment that is working. But also
our obligation is to the person who's eating the food,
who's coming in tonight. It may have saved up to
(35:58):
be able to come here. Optionally, we're celebrating a birthday.
We're just we're just coming for me and we want
to express what we do. How often do you change
the menu.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
When we have a good idea, Well, you know, of
course it's it's very inspired by the season. But it's
true that when we we always challenge ourselves to renew
our menu as much as we can, and we print
the menu in house, so it gives us a lot
of freedom to say, okay, today we change it. We
(36:30):
have we have two good ideas, we're going to change
the menu and and we'll see what happens in a
couple of weeks. We never have specials, and we always
make sure that when we create new dishes, we push
the envelope and take time before we decide it goes
(36:51):
on the menu, because sometimes the first impression is that
is that, oh, yeah, that's good, and then you tell
actually something was missing and it's work that goes into
the process and it takes time.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
And with fish, because you're such a fish based restaurant,
do you you know, do they call up and say,
we have no turbot today, we have no sea bass,
or the sea bass isn't good enough to sell you,
or or is it pretty dependable?
Speaker 3 (37:17):
No.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
When the weather is rough, I mean, especially in the
North East coast of America is where we buy our fish. Mostly,
like eighty percent of the seafood that we serve is local.
When I say local is not New York City. It's
main from Carolinas to Canada, or even like Florida to Canada.
(37:40):
But when the weather is very rough, we have to change.
We cannot buy something that is not on a market
or some old fish.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
And if there's a day when you don't have what
you want or you're feeling that you might need some
comfort and you look for the food. But what would
you turn to in terms of a food that might
be view comfort.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Well, if I really want comfort, I do it on
the weekend, and I cook the food for yourself. I
cook for the family and myself. I like to share.
I don't you know. I will never see myself having
a bottle of wine or a glass of wine and
(38:24):
then eating and not not being surrounded by friends and family.
And I do that on the weekend because the weekend
for me, the weekends have sacred and since I'm the
only guy with white hair in the kitchen, I'm allowed
to take my Salurdays and Sundays and be with the family.
And therefore I take my weekends. I stay in New
(38:45):
York or I have a country house, but we go
out one night to be pampered and to have an experience,
and then the second day I'm cooking and I have
so much fun. You know. It's like a way to
completely disconnect from the world, from the reality that we
(39:07):
perceive round us. And I'm not being a blast.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
I'm so happy you are. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Thank you. Lots of love dots all love to you too.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Thank you, Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four
in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
Ruthie's Table four is produced by Atamei Studios for iHeartRadio.
It's hosted by Ruthie Rogers and it's produced by William Lensky.
This episode was edited by Julia Johnson and mixed by
Nigel Appleton. Our executive producers are Fai Stewart and Zad Rogers.
Our production manager is Caitlin Paramore and our production coordinator
(39:57):
is Bella Selini. Thank you to everyone at the of
A Cafe for your help in making this episode.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
Mmm mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm hmm
You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair
over the last few days. When I tell people we're
doing a podcast with Eric Repair, their face is light up.
(00:21):
At the River Cafe, we spend our days making ravioli
with ricotta viieleenchi anti, pannacotta with grappa. But when we
as chefs come together, we talk about French food. The bouliebss,
the palm d'au finoise, the tartetans. Eric Cook's French food
were inspired by Italian but maybe we're not so different.
(00:42):
He's been the chef at Bernadine, his Mission and three
star Fish and Seafood restaurant for more than thirty years.
I'm ahead by four years, having cooked at the River
Cafe since nineteen eighty seven and a profession that is
ever changing and always challenging. Eric is an inspiration, a mentor,
and someone we look up to today. I'm here in
(01:02):
New York with him talking about us living in different cities,
cooking the food of different countries. But you know what,
we're pretty much the same. Two chefs with much to share.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Thank you, thank you so much for being here, and
thank you for this great introduction.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
No, that's true. So I thought it would be disrespectful
for the great chef to read a recipe from the
River Cafe. So I would like you to read it
yourself of one of your recipes, and we chose.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
The few soup.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
I'm going to start with a quote from you, Eric. Yes,
and you wrote in this book, think about your favorite dish.
For many of us, it's something we ate in childhood,
whose deliciousness lies in how uncomplicated it is. For me,
it's a simple fish soup made by my grandmother. This
(01:54):
is the most rewarding way to approach cooking, using culinary
knowledge to achieve simplicity.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yes, I have very vivid memories of grandma doing the
fish soup youtail.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Oh, for sure, tell me about your grandma.
Speaker 2 (02:10):
So I had two grandmothers, one was Italian, one from Provence,
and they both made fish soup by the way, of course,
But my favorite memory is the one from the Italian
grandmother because on the weekend the family would gather together,
like all the uncles and cousins and my grandfather and
(02:32):
grandma and so on, and they would go fishing and
scuba diving and catching whatever they would catch, and then
my grandmother was in charge of the lunch. She would
make the table for twenty people, twenty five people. She
would prepare a lot of things, salads and appetizer, but
she would prepare for the fish soup. So whatever fish
(02:54):
was coming back, it will be cleaned very quickly, and
then she would make the fish soup. They're own side
and we will eat that fish soup. I don't know
an hour later or two hours lad that was cooked
under the trees overlooking them. Yes, no, close to antibet
between auntiebe and and can.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Okay, well, do you want to read the recipe and
we can talk more about we're going to talk about.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
So for the fish soup, we use a quark cup
of extra vaginallyve oil, one medium onion thinly sliced, half
a bulb of fennel trimmed and thinly slice as well,
four cloves of garlic chopped, one teaspoon of saffron thread,
three cups of can whole tomato with their juice, a
(03:43):
corek cup of perno one bay leave, two pounds of
egg chile skin cut into chunks. Or you can ask
a fishmonger for Lian white fish scraps potentially find the
salt and freshly grinded black pepper. And then in a large,
(04:05):
heavy bottom pot you eat the extravaginallyve oil over medium heat.
You add the onions, the fennel, the garlic, and you
sote for five minutes. You steer in the saffron and
cook until the vegetables are soften and translucent, which takes
about five minutes. Again, then you crush the tomatoes with
(04:27):
a fork. You add them to the pot along with
perno and the bay leaf. Then you season the fish
with sea salt and white paper and add it to
the pot. You add enough water to cover the fish
by about one inch. You bring it to seamur and
you cook for twenty five minutes. Then you remove from
(04:48):
the heat and you let stand for five minutes. You
remove the bay leaf, and then you strain the broth
through a colander into a pot. You pure the fish
and vegetables badgies ah.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
You put them yeah in.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
A food meal and whisked the pury back into the broth.
And then you season with sea salt and white pepper,
and then you divide into among warm bowls. So that's
the recipe of the book inspired by Grandma Grama was
not using egg. She was using whatever she was she
was adding.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
And you said she made this every week? Did she
always make this version of it?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
Was very similar to this. And she will improvise a
lot as well, you know, I mean for the book
we had to say half a cup, quarter of a cup.
She was not measuring. She was like, okay, give me
the garlic, let's feel it and let's drop it. And
the same thing with the onions. It was very instinctive.
She didn't have to really follow a recipe.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Amazing, And did she inspire you to cook? Then she
was the person that made you want to be a chef.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
My two grandmothers inspired me a lot, and my mother
was an amazing, amazing chef.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Tell me because it was interesting, always say that in
all these interviews that we've done.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
The grandmother, the Italian one was cooking very Italian soul food.
She was cooking like great Italian, Northern Italian food, and
I loved it. And then my grandmother from Provence was
doing the same with proven sal food as well, which
is a little bit similar than Northern Italian, but as
(06:28):
some stal differences.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
I did the drive quite recently from Santa marc Rita
to Genoa to Nice and suddenly you were in Italy
and now you're in France, and you know, the farinata
which they do in Italy is the Italian version of
the socca, so yeah, which is in Nice. And what
(06:51):
else do they cook?
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Like my grandmother in Provence, she was from the region
of Avignon, so in Avignon they're not close to the sea,
they are obviously inland, and she would do like a
baby leg of lamb roasted. And then my grandmother, the
Italian grandmother, wouldn't do that, but she would do She
(07:14):
would do alsobuco, for instance, My grandmother in Provence would
do a cocoveraine. My grandmother in Italy didn't know what
cocoveraine was. And those were subtle differences, but they were important.
My mother was obsessed with the chefs from novelle cuisine
at the time, so the Michelle Gerard, the Paul Booquz
(07:38):
that generation. And at home she was cooking lunch and dinner,
those elaborate meals with appetizer, main course cheese which she
didn't cook, and dessert that were different from lunch to dinner,
on a different pattern of tablecloth, different china. It was unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Would she be cooking for She was.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Cooking for myself, stepfather and my sister when when she
was old enough to be at the table with us,
because she's much younger than me.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
She did this every day, every day.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
She would Well, she was a business lady, so she
was in fashion industry. She was importing the brand Courage
for Spain, Spain and underground. Yes, and so she was
very busy with the business. But she would wake up
at five am to prepare the meal and then she
she would finish whatever needs to be finished, all the
(08:37):
little details during lunchtime, and then same thing at night.
And sometimes after the dinner she would start to cook
for the like the desserts. Like if she was doing
I don't know a baba room, she would start to
let the baba do you know rise and so on. Yes,
(08:58):
I mean it was amazing.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
She would have liked to have done that as a career.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
No, No, she was she wanted She wanted to do
it because for the art of doing it, for the
love of doing it, and she wanted to feed the family.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
So you had this incredible life of having food that
was cared you know, it was a priority in her day,
and your stepfather.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
And different styles too. Did you ever cook with her
with my mom later in life, because on the beginning,
they allow me to watch and eat anything I wanted,
but they really didn't want me to touch anything. They
were like, you're going to mess up the kitchen, don't
touch it. So I was eating, and just before I
went to culinary school, my mom started to allow me
(09:43):
to help her in the kitchen.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
She sounds amazing and she's still cooking.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
She cooks for herself, and she sent me pictures sometimes
and I'm like, oh my god, this is amazing. Like
the other day she did the dog comfee and then
you know, she hasked, I don't know what you call it,
those little for the for the bone, those little white.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
White things yeah, yeah, white yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
So she still have those kind of details, and I'm like,
oh my god, how can you do that?
Speaker 1 (10:15):
How do you look back at the food of the
nouvelle cuisine? What do you think when you when you
think of that food.
Speaker 2 (10:20):
Well, as you know, nouvelle cuisine at one point became
really a bad world, and it became a caricature.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
Of big plates and food and.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
I always have this image of like three string beans
parallel to each other. But novelle cuisine on the beginning
was a revolution. We were coming out of the era
of escoffi. It was a different mindset where the sauce
was not hiding anymore the flavors, but the sauce was
enhancing the star of the plate, which was whatever protein,
(10:54):
mostly or vegetable you decide. And also it was the
first time that chefs were playing their food. Until then,
the food was on platters and the waiters were serving
the food or the clients were serving themselves from the platter.
But the first chef to say I'm planning my food
(11:16):
in my plate was the drug Row.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
So you grew up in a house where food was
a priority, where your mother cooked, your grandmother's cooked. Tell
us when about your journey to becoming a chef, from
being a child that wasn't allowed in the kitchen to
being I think a fifteen year old that started cooking.
What happened at fifteen when you decided to be well.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
At fifteen, I cannot go to school any longer because
my grades are so bad. So I ended up in
the principal office with mom and is explaining to her
that I have to find out what they call a
vocational school or a career. That's nineteen eighty and I
(12:05):
look sad, but I'm really happy because I want to
go to culinary school. So the principal promised to my
mother that he would do everything possible to send me
to a culinary school. And he had a friend who
was a principal in Perpignon, and I was accepted. I
don't know how, but I was accepted in culinary school.
(12:27):
And then I was a very good student there.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
So that's the thing, if you find what you love it.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
I really loved everything about the restaurant industry. I was
the first year. We were waders and cooks. We were
learning both and we had some classes of a knowlogy,
which is about the wine. And I was having a
blast and my grades were excellent. In matth I was
(12:54):
still a bit weak, but I was putting a lot
of efforts. I was good in Spanish because I live
in Adora, so I would I could speak Spanish and French.
I didn't speak English at the time. And in the
kitchen I was a little bit bored because we were
learning old fashioned recipes. From Escoffia basically, so I was
(13:16):
a bit bored, but I knew I was learning the basics.
So I was very diligent about listening to what the
directions were from the teachers, and my grades were great
on the first year. On the second year, same thing.
At my exam, which was after two years, I had
(13:37):
to do a gulash and a rice pilaf with Langostin's
in a source nin two yer and I did a
good job because I graduated with honors. And then I
was like, this is the beginning. I mean, I knew
it was the beginning. I wanted to be the chef
(13:58):
that I am today. I wanted to be in a
restaurant that has a big kitchen with a lot of equipment,
with a lot of cooks, a lot of waters, a
lot of a great team, beautiful china, and a great
wine cellar and everything else. And that was my dream.
So at seventeen years old, I write a letter to
(14:19):
the eighteen three star Micheline restaurant in France, because I
was eighteen at the time, and nobody answered. Nobody. So
then at one point I go back and I write
to the two stars, and then Maxims sent me a
letter saying we don't have a spot for you, and
that's my only letter. And then three months later I
(14:42):
received a letter from Latyo darjan And at the time
they were three stars, of course, and they were celebrating
in nineteen eighty two their four hundred year anniversary. Anyway,
I ended up at seventeen years old in Lato dar
Joon in Paris. After reading that letter, I call them
and I said, you know Americ repair and I received
(15:03):
your letter and when when do you need me? And
I said, we need you tomorrow, And well tomorrow it's
going to be tough. But three days later I was
with my suitcase in Paris.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Where did you stay?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
In a tiny hotel? And then I find finally a place.
It took a couple of months to find a place.
It was very very seventeen in a kitchen like that.
Speaker 1 (15:30):
Yeah, you know, what was the culture of the kitchen?
What was it like?
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Very old fashioned? A lot of abuse, veriable abuse, physical abuse,
And that was the culture in those kitchens at that time.
And and also I have to say I was the
youngest in the kitchen, and I was not necessarily the best,
and they were they were patients, but at the same time,
they were very abusive and and as you probably know
(15:57):
in France, it was a philosophy behind it. First of all,
it made no sense to me, but they wanted to
break you psychologically and rebuilt you as a champion, which
is ridiculous. I think it was more an excuse to
let the chef be abusive and have those tantrums and
(16:18):
be aggressive. And someone who's angry is it's not someone
who's It's not a quality to be angry. Let's put
it this way. So I learned. I learned the hard way.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Do you think you've given up?
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Ever, No, I never thought of giving up. I was
obviously at times down and not happy, but my vision
of becoming the chef that I became was never compromised.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
The ambition kept you, kept you going.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
It was, yes, but the ambition was not about being
number one, being radied, or being The ambition was to
cook great food and create an amazing experience. And it
has always been my vision all my life.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
Did you know the River Cafe has a shop. It's
full of our favorite foods and designs. We have cookbooks
and then in Napkins Kitchen were chout bags with our signatures,
glasses from Venice, chocolates from Turin. You can find us
right next door to the River Cafe in London or
online at shop the River Cafe dot co UK From
(17:37):
Tour de Jean, how long did you stay there?
Speaker 2 (17:40):
To Darjent, I didn't stay too long. I stayed about
a year and a half. And then the chef called
me in his office and said I heard that you
want to move, and you because you want to change,
And he said I will tell you when you're leaving.
And I said, yes, chef, of course. And a month
later he said, go to this place, it's called sham
(18:03):
Ask for the chef. His name is Joel Robischow, and
he's waiting for you. I'm basically like eighteen and a
half nineteen and I go there. I have no idea
where I'm going. And I met with Joel Robbie Schan
very sweet man, very kind man, great contacts. And then
(18:25):
he's telling me that I'm starting in a month from now.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
And was the culture in that kitchen the same? Was
it abusive?
Speaker 2 (18:34):
And Robbie Shaw was not violent physically or it didn't
didn't want violence in his kitchen?
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Was there violence actually physical violence?
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yes? Chefs were kicking you in the shoulders. Sometimes it
was some physical battles in the coolers or in a
staircase or things like that. It was definitely, but Robbie
Sewan it was very different. He didn't want that. He
was not a screamer, but it was very, very difficult,
(19:07):
and it was a painful experience with him as well,
because he was so demanding on himself and so demanding
on the team. He was never happy and every day
was coming and every day he had some negative comments
every day, but not necessarily articulating what was wrong, just
(19:32):
like a frustration about it. And I don't know if
you ever heard that, but he was looking at every
plate coming back in the kitchen, and when something was
left in a plate, even a tiny, tiny bite, it
was a disaster.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
How long did you stay that?
Speaker 2 (19:49):
So I did a year and something and then I
went to do my military duties, so I was of
course sent to the kitchen. Were yes, But on my
first day in the kitchen was Calamari American. I was like, hey,
this is cool. And then the Calamaria American was basically
frozen calamari with a beshamele ketchup and brandy and then
(20:14):
at night they were doing spaghetti with something and they
managed to burn the spaghettis in the water. The heat
was coming from underneath. They dumped the spaghetti's the stock
to the bottom of the pot where it was in
Castel Sarazen, which is in the south of southwest of France,
(20:38):
near to Lose. So anyway, I went to see the
general and I said to him, I don't mind to
do my military duties, but please get me out of
this kitchen because I'm going to be depressed. And he
laughed at me and he said, I'm going to send
you to the commandos. You're going to learn. And I
was skinny like this, like I was like looking at
(20:59):
him like you know, I can't do that, and he
laughed and he said, you want to be my waiter.
I said, yeah, I would love to be your waider.
He said okay, and I became for the rest of
my stay in the militaries the waiters of the general.
I served the food. I didn't cook. And then on
my last day I received a call and I thought
(21:21):
it was a joke, and they called me and they said,
you have a call. It's Joel Robbie Shan calling you.
I'm like, that a joke, it's not possible. And I
look and it's a number I call and it seemed
and he's like, oh, thank you for calling me back.
I heard that you've done with the military duties. I
would like for you to come back and I would
(21:43):
look for you to be the chef person and Jamin
and what do you think. At the time, I had
a girlfriend, many things were happening in my life. I
was not really excited to go back to Paris, and
I said, can I think about it? And he said, yes,
of course, you have thirty seconds.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
I was like, yes, chef. And I went back to
Paris then and I did two something years again with
him in the fish in charge of the fish station.
Speaker 1 (22:16):
Well, let's go back to coming here. How did you
end up in So.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
I went to see Joel Robischan and I said, you know,
we'd like to travel the world and can you help me?
And he sent me to the water Reghatt Hotel in Washington,
d C. And I worked with Jean Repalladin, who was
an extremely talented chef.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
And what was the culture like the culture in the
kitchen was.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
In Washington, dis very relaxed, small team. Jean Repaaladin was
very creative. I was happy because for me it was
a different experience. I learned very classic food at Lato Darjean.
Then I learned rigor and techniques with Joel Robi Schan
and then with Jean Repaadin. I had a lot of
(23:02):
inspiration from him to be creative.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
But I think with that, you know, I think with cooking,
if you have the bigger first, then you can have
the kind of maybe relaxed after well, you know, to
not have that background.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
And now you have to start.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
You have to start.
Speaker 2 (23:17):
You have to start with the basis and the bigger
and then you can start to be creative. And then
you have to learn how to manage also a team people.
And that was Gilberlo cause in le Bernardin. When I
joined in nineteen ninety one, I was twenty four years old,
and he said to me, look, I want someone to
(23:40):
take care of my kitchen, and if you respect the
philosophy of le Bernardin, which is the fish is the
star of the plate, then you can do whatever you
want here and I will support you. And I had
this support until he passed away in nineteen ninety four.
Then I became partner with my gillocouse his sister, and
(24:01):
the rest is story history.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
I think it would be interesting to talk about the
culture of the restaurants that were, you know, existing, the bullying,
the anger, the tantrums, the physical abuse, you know. I
always say that I once had a young woman chef
come to the River Cafe and she was describing her
experience in another kitchen and she said that the chef
(24:26):
had stood over her she was getting souflets out of
the oven, and he said, you know, this frying pan
is in my hand, and if those tuflets are not perfect,
it'll be on your head. And I said, you know
what you should have done is put the soufles back
in the oven, got up, walked out and gone to
the police. The police because that kind of threat is
(24:46):
illegal and it should be illegal, and you cannot do that.
And I think that the fact that that's this was
probably twenty years ago. But I think it's very interesting
how our profession, which was based on a kind of
terror of teaching three people through fear rather than hope,
has hope change. I mean in your restaurant, it has
(25:08):
at my restaurant, my friend's restaurants. You know, in London,
we don't tolerate that. And also we have an open kitchen,
so you can't do that. We have an open kitchen
which does not allow anyone to share.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Of course, well you can always have people who are
vicious and find a way to do it in the back.
But in America I find a kitchens in general very civilized. Here,
I definitely have I do not promote any misbehavior. I
(25:42):
have zero tolerance. And if you misbehave and it's not
a big mistake, we give you one more chance, and
then you're not working with us any longer. You have
to be It doesn't matter if your genius or first
of all, it's no genius is but matter if you
are excellent or not excellent. You have to be a
(26:02):
team player. You have to work with others, and you
have to be polite and kind and grateful and motivated
and hard working and passionate, and then you belong to
the team. But we have zero to leerents from his behavior. Zero.
It's totally unacceptable.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Well, I know that food here is so respected and
so deliciousness.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
I think you're coming from you.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
And I think that the interesting thing I think is
that food is in fashion. People always say to me,
you know, what do you think is a new food trend?
Or what are people going to be cooking? And what
are people eating? And it doesn't really interest me very much.
But the fashion is a food. It's what we're all
trying to do, to work harder, to do what we
do better, and we're thinking about sustainability all the time.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Sustainability is very important. I mean, I don't care about
trends at all. The cooking at Lebernarda is it's based
on personal experiences. I travel quite a bit in my
life in many I mean basically all the continents, and
(27:18):
depending where I go, I come back and I have
a lot of ideas and I discover new flavor, new techniques,
new ingredients, and then we integrate it into the style
of Le Bernardin And I work very closely with the
Soo chefs as well. They also travel during the vacation
and they go to many places and it's a collaboration
(27:42):
in between us inspired by what we love and what
we see, but we don't think about trends at all.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Did you travel lot to Asia? Did you Japan? Of Japan?
Speaker 2 (27:55):
Japanese for me was a revelation when I went there.
Not why in every aspect of the culture of Japan,
the search for perfection knowing that you will never achieve
perfection that is not motivated by business, which means money.
(28:16):
It's very refreshing for a restaurrator from New York that
they have respect for the ingredients. That is incredible. And
in the nineties I was in Peru before it became fashionable.
It was again very influential on us for quite some
(28:39):
time to understand the culture of the savic and the marine,
edit fish and so on.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
You have one restaurant, so.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
We have Le Bernardin and then we have another restaurant
in the Cannan Islands called Blue Bio rec Repair, and
we work with an hotel called the Red Carleton, which
is famous. Yeah, chain of hotels. The team comes here
gets trained by us, or we go there and train them.
I go there twice a year and the rest of
(29:08):
the time I have at Lebanadere.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
Do you find it challenging? Fish wise?
Speaker 2 (29:11):
In cam An Island, we use local fish mostly what
is it? Grouper, snapper, spiny lobsters, shream, mai mahi wahu.
I mean it's a lot of species.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
That's a local Oh yeah, it's.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
Like from the local fishermen. Yes.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
If you like listening to Ruthy's Table for would you
please make sure to rate and review the podcast on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, o, wherever you get
your podcasts. Thank you. You were saying that people now
(29:56):
are eating out. You can't get a reservation in a
restaurant in New York. Maybe it's post pandemic, but I
do think restaurants have shown us how important restaurants are
to culture, to a city, to people. I once had
to go to my granddaughter's school and I said, why
do we go to restaurants? You know, we go to restaurants.
Why do we go When child raised their hand and said,
(30:18):
we go to restaurants for a birthday, we go to
a restaurant. When my grandparents come to town, we go
to restaurants. When my granddaughter raised, we go to restaurants
when there's nothing at the fridge. And I thought that
was It is interesting why people go to restaurants and
why they are important to us. Why do you think
they are?
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Well? New York is a big city, like London, it's
a lot of people visiting from all over the world.
It's a lot of New Yorkers who are going out,
and we cater to many people who seek a different experience.
I think our mission is to deliver the experience the
(31:00):
clients is seeking without necessarily asking, but just understanding what's happening.
And it's easy to understand what the clients want. If
you see a bunch of businessmen and they're very intense
and they're sharing paper at the table, you know they
are in business. If you see a couple and they
all tachiev and kissing, and you know, it's like it's
(31:24):
not the same experience as the businessman. And then if
you see someone taking pictures of the food, or if
I go to the dining room looking at me, following me,
and you know it's someone very interested by our industry
and those experience. We have to basically adapt to the
(31:45):
client and have flexibility and make sure that when they
leave they're very happy, they have a smile in their face.
Speaker 1 (31:53):
Do you stand on the past? Do you see every
plate that goes out?
Speaker 2 (31:57):
I do, and not only I stay on the past,
but I also work in the kitchen and I taste
a lot that one on me but we have testing
spoons made of corn starch that you can use. The
very inexpensive and of course it's recyclable. It's not like plastic,
and you can taste and throw the spoon if you wish,
(32:20):
because we don't want to double deep obviously, and I
don't want the cooks also to carry.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
I hate that when I put that in the back.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
Disgusting, and to put it in the pot with water,
it's like no. So we have those those testing spoons,
and I taste a lot of the thing. I have
only one meal a day and the rest is testing.
You test before, before, before service and during services.
Speaker 1 (32:45):
Yeah, it's interesting, I find, you know, I was thinking
if I could. It's how you give the feedback. I
don't know about you very much smaller restaurant. When I
go to eat there and I have something that I
don't think is up to what it should be, it's
always for me it's a conundrum because do you tell
them you know then and there? Do you go and say,
(33:05):
you know, they're so expected, our chefs, you know, they
want to know what I thought, Did I enjoy it?
And if I say, well, actually, you know, the spinach
had too much salt, or the sea bears was grilled
too long. Not the greatest thing to do at the
end of the evening. If I do it in the
morning and I go and I say, that was a
great meal. Then I come in in the morning and
I say, actually, you know what, what I had last night,
(33:26):
that's not a good time. It's how you how you
can feedback. The best thing is when you're working that
I'm there, and so at the moment when you taste it,
you say, actually, no, no, no, we're not doing this.
So we're not doing that. How are you? Because they
care so much our chefs, don't they They.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Nobody is happy to do about job. Now, I don't
think so. But what we do, first of all, when
we arrived, when I say, weez the two chefs and
the chefs that they have, and then that they are
controlling the kitchen. When we arrive, it's always before lunch,
at least half hour before for the lunch, and we
taeste all the preparations of the kitchen, all the mission,
(34:04):
plus all the sauce. We have about four different, fourly
different sauce, and we test and we commend before we
test the sauce, and we test everything in the kitchen.
We caliber our palette. So we buy some industrial Swiss
cheese that is not really good, but it's perfect in seasoning.
(34:28):
It's neither to salty, neither to blend.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
It's like very neutral neutralizes you.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
So no, when you test it, sometimes you may find
it salty, which means your taestbirds are very sensitive to salt.
Sometimes you may find it very bland, and you know
your your test birds are dull. So therefore you know
more or less where you stand. And then we test
the sauce and we give it made it feedback to
(34:58):
the socier, and when we test the ves balls and
everything else, we give immediate feedbacks to them. I'm very direct.
Whatever is right is right, whatever is wrong is wrong.
But I'm very articulating my criticism. If I have to,
I explain to them why I believe it's not it's
not right. What does What happened during the process. Maybe
(35:20):
the source was cooked too long and then we lost
the vibrancy that we're supposed to see in that source.
And so I'm very detail oriented in my positive or
negative criticism.
Speaker 1 (35:33):
We have to be, because otherwise we're selling out.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
Food that is not or we cannot do that.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
I said to them the other day. You know, my
obligation is to you to give you a good working environment,
to give you a beautiful kitchen, to give you a view,
to give you the equipment that is working. But also
our obligation is to the person who's eating the food,
who's coming in tonight. It may have saved up to
(35:58):
be able to come here. Optionally, we're celebrating a birthday.
We're just we're just coming for me and we want
to express what we do. How often do you change
the menu.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
When we have a good idea, Well, you know, of
course it's it's very inspired by the season. But it's
true that when we we always challenge ourselves to renew
our menu as much as we can, and we print
the menu in house, so it gives us a lot
of freedom to say, okay, today we change it. We
(36:30):
have we have two good ideas, we're going to change
the menu and and we'll see what happens in a
couple of weeks. We never have specials, and we always
make sure that when we create new dishes, we push
the envelope and take time before we decide it goes
(36:51):
on the menu, because sometimes the first impression is that
is that, oh, yeah, that's good, and then you tell
actually something was missing and it's work that goes into
the process and it takes time.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
And with fish, because you're such a fish based restaurant,
do you you know, do they call up and say,
we have no turbot today, we have no sea bass,
or the sea bass isn't good enough to sell you,
or or is it pretty dependable?
Speaker 3 (37:17):
No.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
When the weather is rough, I mean, especially in the
North East coast of America is where we buy our fish. Mostly,
like eighty percent of the seafood that we serve is local.
When I say local is not New York City. It's
main from Carolinas to Canada, or even like Florida to Canada.
(37:40):
But when the weather is very rough, we have to change.
We cannot buy something that is not on a market
or some old fish.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
And if there's a day when you don't have what
you want or you're feeling that you might need some
comfort and you look for the food. But what would
you turn to in terms of a food that might
be view comfort.
Speaker 2 (38:04):
Well, if I really want comfort, I do it on
the weekend, and I cook the food for yourself. I
cook for the family and myself. I like to share.
I don't you know. I will never see myself having
a bottle of wine or a glass of wine and
(38:24):
then eating and not not being surrounded by friends and family.
And I do that on the weekend because the weekend
for me, the weekends have sacred and since I'm the
only guy with white hair in the kitchen, I'm allowed
to take my Salurdays and Sundays and be with the family.
And therefore I take my weekends. I stay in New
(38:45):
York or I have a country house, but we go
out one night to be pampered and to have an experience,
and then the second day I'm cooking and I have
so much fun. You know. It's like a way to
completely disconnect from the world, from the reality that we
(39:07):
perceive round us. And I'm not being a blast.
Speaker 1 (39:13):
I'm so happy you are. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
Thank you. Lots of love dots all love to you too.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Thank you, Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four
in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
Ruthie's Table four is produced by Atamei Studios for iHeartRadio.
It's hosted by Ruthie Rogers and it's produced by William Lensky.
This episode was edited by Julia Johnson and mixed by
Nigel Appleton. Our executive producers are Fai Stewart and Zad Rogers.
Our production manager is Caitlin Paramore and our production coordinator
(39:57):
is Bella Selini. Thank you to everyone at the of
A Cafe for your help in making this episode.
Speaker 1 (40:03):
Mmm mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm hmm
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.