November 5, 2025 • 54 mins
For over 40 years, Drew Nieporent conceived many hit dining concepts under his Myriad Restaurant Group including Nobu, Tribeca Grill, Rubicon, Montrachet, Corton, Bâtard. In his 2025 memoir, “I’m Not Trying To Be Difficult,” Nieporent shares how a kid from New York’s East Side pursues his dream of working in hospitality and, ultimately, delivers customers memorable dining experiences. He shares stories from (his words) the restaurant trenches and dealing with his chefs and restaurant critics.
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The Connected Table is broadcast live Wednesdays at 2PM ET and Music on W4CY Radio (www.w4cy.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
The Connected Table Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Media (www.talk4media.com), Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-connected-table-live--1277037/support.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:21):
W FOURCY Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Hello, welcome to the Connected Table Live where your hosts
Melanie Young and David Ransom. You're insatiably curious culinary couple.
We love bringing you the stories of the amazing people
we meet, greet and eat with around the world and drink.
And we are broadcasting from New York sort of virtually
from what was one of our hangouts back at the day,
(01:05):
Tribeca Grill, in the beautiful neighborhood of Tribeca. We miss
New York right now, right, yeah, we do, we do.
We miss foliage fall, foliage fall, foliage. To be nice.
We're excited. Our guest today has been he's been a
guest on the show before in twenty sixteen. But life
has changed so much and he has so much more
to say today, and he's back because he's a dear
(01:26):
friend and we're excited to have him. We're talking about
one of the greatest restaurant tours of both times. The
Goat Drew me Poorent. He conceived a slew of hit
dunning concepts under his Myriad Restaurant group. Let's talk about Noboo, Tribeca, Grill, Rubicon,
mohmerche Corton, Battard, Daily Burger, and many more. And he
(01:47):
has come out with a really fantastic I've read it
twice memoir called I'm Not Trying to Be Difficult Stories
from the Restaurant Trenches. Reading this, I felt like I
was there because so much of what Drew talks about
in this book is what I lived, because it was
my heyday in New York as well, working on major
(02:08):
programs often with true like New York Restaurant Week when
there's a whole family, really fun numerous fundraisers which he
was always graciously donating to, and being there. I think
we passed paths a million times, see Cap, you name it.
And now he's with us today, Dreni poorn welcome and
a big hug from us.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Thank you very much. Now, thank you David Well.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
It's great to see you and looking good. I must say,
you look good. This phase of your life is becoming
to you, Drew.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Well, I just lost fifty two pounds on zep bound. Yeah,
but it really is my diet. I han't a slice
of bread in six months, or rice, potatoes, pizza, Chinese food,
poor boys, no reading, We just not eating any starts.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
So it's gone right, you look great, Curious after you know,
all these years in the business, you decide to write
your memoir now again it's I'm not trying to be difficult.
Let's talk about why now and why this title and
how you came up to work with this.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Well, you know, I've had a long and very storied career.
Not everyone has the ability to open a slew of restaurants.
I opened forty in about forty years, maybe even a
few others that don't even make the cut. But now
you do have a couple of restaurant groups and individual
(03:44):
chefs who are opening at the speed of lightning. But
I look back on my career and the longevity of
the career and the quality of the restaurants, and it's
pretty extraordinary. And not everybody is Robert de Niro's partner
for thirty five years. Not everyone can claim to create
(04:05):
something as robust and successful as No Boot, which is
now sports fifty seven locations around the world. So I
put pen to paper, and I hope I wrote an
entertaining memoir. It wasn't really an aspiration of mine to
(04:26):
do a book. I actually see my career, my life
a little cinematically, so I really would love to have
a movie. But saying that is harder harder to enact
than one realizes, even when Robert de Nero's your partner.
So anyway, the book I started writing about a year
(04:49):
and a half ago with Jamie Feldmar. It was a
terrific person. She had written The don Angiefood, the don
Angie Cookbook, and she had also written Naomi Palmeroy's cookbook,
you know, the Portland chef who unfortunately passed away. But
I didn't know. I didn't know Jamie at all. Somebody
(05:11):
else was supposed to do the book and they decided
that they couldn't do it. So when names were being
proposed to me, I didn't know. I knew somebo I
didn't know a number of them. And then I met Jamie,
and I just there was immediate chemistry. I kind of
liked her boldness or her youth. And just a side note,
(05:34):
she when she sent me the first few pages of
what she had written, there was a curse on every page,
maybe more than one curse. So I called her up.
I said, you know, Jamie, I don't curse like that.
She goes, yeah, you do. I said, no, I don't
like that. Yeah you do. I said, well, you know,
when you say a curse word, it has more meaning
(05:57):
than on the rit page. So clean up some of
the curses. She sent me back a copy with it,
you know, about eighty percent missing, And immediately I found
my voice. I heard my voice right, and you know,
she wrote, she wrote a tremendous book.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Your voice really comes through. I have to say, I
felt like it was. I called you after I read
it the first time the second time, and I said,
this is an amazing book. It's your voice and it's
quite remarkable. And you're a New Yorker. You don't have
a New York accent, but you were born and bred
New Yorker. Which David is too. You grew up in,
(06:36):
you know, like the wonderful affordable housing part of New
York that we all wish we could live in on
the East side, right, and I know exactly where I
can see it.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Oh yeah, Peter Cooper, Stuvesant Town. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like
we all wanted to live there, those big brick buildings
with the green windows.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, you never leave, you never leave the I.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Mean honestly, I looked upon that kind of like a
prison cell. But yeah, because apartments on every floor and
they were all the same. And but you know, that
was actually fantastic to grow up at Peter Cooper. There
were playgrounds built in friends. I walked to every school,
my grade school, junior high school, and Stivesont High School.
(07:19):
So the location was fantastic.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
And oh it's a great place.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
I love. I love growing up. Yeah, I love growing up.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
So I loved hearing you and your older brother Tracy
used to talk about your mom, sybyl She's an actress,
very successful actress, and your dad worked for the State
Liquor Authority. Kind of interesting combo. It made you you
guys went out a lot. How did that experience?
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Yeah, it's basically what happened. I mean, my mother was
a very successful actress as a child on radio before
television even existed, and very theatrical and really pretty. I mean,
my mother was gorgeous. My father was fourteen years her senior.
(08:04):
He married at thirty seven, and he worked with the
State Liquor Authority, which licenses New York restaurants. And this
is the sixties, and the people opening restaurants in New
York were right off the boat. They were the immigrants.
And these restaurants were all very authentic, and the food
was like unbelievable. And my father had a way I
(08:25):
always talk about how we took the application from the
bottom of the pop put it on the top of
the bile, expedited the process. They were forever, indeeditive, and
they would invite him to bring his family to have
dinner at their establishments. So I got exposed to like
the greatest food, God's green Earth in the sixties, and
(08:45):
I just I just I took to it. I was exposed.
I loved it. I wanted to be a chef, you know,
and that was my career path. I didn't have to
think twice about it. And I studied about food. You know,
I watched the Galli Bi Gourmet and Julia Child and
Red Cookes and cooked at home, and you know, that's
(09:06):
what I was going to do, but I wanted to
become a chef. Then what happened basically was one day
my mother said, you know, I was talking to Willie
Weisberg's mother and she said, there's a hotel school at Cornell.
And I'm like, mom, Cornell's an Ivy League school. I'm
number five hundred in a class of seven hundred. A
step said, I ain't getting into Cornell, and she goes, well, yeah,
(09:28):
let's apply, blah blah blah, and I got in. I mean,
it's an amazing story. I got into Cornell School of
Hotel Administration nineteen seventy three four and it was the
best experience because the student body was made up of
(09:48):
students from everywhere, from Europe and Asia and South America
and of course somewhere from the United States. I mean,
if I had gone to a state university, which was
my I would have been going to school with everyone
from New York State. How boring is that? Instead, I'm
like meeting people from the Bahamas and Georgia, you know, Greece,
(10:10):
and I mean, so the first day at Cornell was
just an experience. The first day and you know that
was my destiny, really was. But guess what. It wasn't
a hotel school like in Europe, like Losanne. So my
first cooking class, and I talk about this in the book.
(10:33):
You know, they had a culinary and teach cooking. But
he didn't teach you how to cook. He teach how
to open a can and heat it up, put it
in a bowl, and that was that. So I was
very upset, very disappointed. And one day, just walking through
the carters of Cornell, the hotel school, I saw a
(10:55):
notice looking for six students experienced in Russian service to
sail to the following ports Leningrad, Oslo, Dublin, Copenhagen, Stockholm.
And I'm like, looking at this, I'm like, I never
worked as a waiter ever. But I call the guy
up Uva Christiansen, a German student. Do you have experience?
(11:19):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, got a lot of experience and
boarded the MS Mistafjord in June of nineteen seventy four.
And the first night, I mean there's sixty waiters and
I'm wearing a light blue shirt, which is not what
a waiter wears. Waiter wears a white shirt. So I
was added by about fifty nine other waiters also carrying
(11:43):
a tray with two hands when they're carrying the trail
above their hot you know, so they knew I was
an impostor. But it's kind of like learning how to
ride a bike. You know, you do it more than
once and you learn. And that's what happened with me.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
That's a great story. Well, you've worked in that, so
you know, I know how to balance a tray on
my shoulder.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Sometimes you have to make it right.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
The little captain's jacket and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
But you also have an You also had another quality
that I think paved your destiny. You right in the
book that you were the kid who knew everybody, like
you get to know everybody. And I was that kid too.
Were you that kid? I was that kid. I knew
everybody by name when I got to my new class
every year. And that's a gift, and it's a gift
(12:34):
to carry through you throughout your entire life.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yeah. I mean, I'm not certain if it was my
mother or my father who led me in that direction,
but my mother was kind of miscongeniality. She was very
friendly and made friends very easily. And you know, for me,
it's an education every time you meet somebody and get
(12:58):
to know somebody, I mean now later in life, it's fantastic.
How many people Well, well, first of all, if you're
in the restaurant business, people find you. You know, some
people from early in your life find you. And then
when you write a book, obviously if the book's any good, anyway,
people find you. But yeah, it was always really like,
like Melanie, You've always, you know, like you've had such
(13:20):
a great personality, so meeting people for you is easy.
You're outgoing and energetic, and I'm sure David you know
similarly you guys are like that. But yeah, with me,
it was like I was a bit of a politician.
I'll be honest, but I didn't run for any office.
But it was like I was a bit of a politician.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
You kind of have to be went in the restaurant
business there, don't you true.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
David's nickname people his friends were calling the Matre d
from life. Yeah, people call it because David knows how
to make people at ease. He has that ability, which
is also important.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
To my friends in the restaurant business called me the
major d of life.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
But you know, whenever I see you, you would always
you know, as I wrote on social media, you're the guy.
And you know New York is famous for Hi, how
are you? I got to go to the next person
behind you, right, there's that like high hi, and you
move on, and a lot of people do that. I
may have done that actually in my life, but you
always had the ability to look someone in the eye
(14:18):
and greet them by name and maybe like they were
somebody before you move to the next person, which is
how life is in New York, right.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Yeah, I mean I think you know. Obviously in the
restaurant industry, there's a lot of talk about hospitality. Yeah,
but it has to be sincere number one. Number two
is it's kind of a balance between familiarity and not
(14:51):
being so familiar, like letting people have their anonymity if
that's what they want. Some people just want to be
served and left alone, and you got to be able
to read that. But some people want the personal touch.
And obviously, if you can remember somebody's name, like the
the second time they come to your establishment, and you
(15:12):
greet them by name. You know. That's there's a great story.
When I was working at twenty four Fifth Avenue, it
was called it was a restaurant ninth Street and Fifth Avenue.
I was just a manager. But James Beard lived around
the corner right on twelve Street and sixth Avenue and
well actually between six and seventh. But so he came
(15:34):
in one night and he was at the end of
his you know, his life. He's old, and he ordered
a Manhattan Neat and I really didn't understand what neat meant.
So I looked it up and you know, figured it out.
And then so the next time he comes in, when
he sits down, I go to the table and I go, uh,
(15:55):
may I bring you Manhattan neat? And he did like this,
you know, like a stun looked towards me. It was
like it was like a moment of Wow, yeah, that's cool,
you know, because he really that I took him by surprise.
And that was James Beard. I mean, that was pretty
(16:16):
pretty impressive. The only other time thing that little things
like Craig Clayborne was of that generation as well. New
York Times Calmness said when he went to a restaurant.
He knew he would get good service if when he
stirred his drink and took the swizzle stick out, that
somebody removed the swizzle stick. So I remember that also,
(16:40):
and I agree with him. I mean, because it's an
attention to detail. It's a little thing. It's like I
tidy my table every time I go out for dinner,
Like I move you know, glasses I don't want on
the table to the end of the table. And you
know then, but you're in this generation of they have
to ask do you want to do you want us
(17:00):
to remove that? Well kind of you know it's right,
it's going to fall off the table if you don't
remove it, you know. But those are the those are
the little things I think that stick with you.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
Yeah. I always put the crumbs from the bread and
a little pile on the table and wait for them
to be picked up. That's our test, that's my test.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
He does all the time. He puts them at the table.
That takes a picture because he is a friend somewhere
who like they have a joke about it, but that detail. Look,
are you going to crumb my table? Because he doesn't
like crumbs on the table? Talk about the.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
I thought about bread that doesn't leave crumbs nowadays. Nowadays,
you know, most restaurants don't have tablecloths, right, so when
you break into the bread or you you know, you
break it in half, it leaves so much debris on
the table. So I can relate, David, I can relate
to that.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
Yeah, yeah, that's my it's my little test. The otherwise,
I always like to move the flowers and the salt
and pepper to the other edge of the table from
the middle of the table.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Yeah, because well because yeah, but are either of you
left these? Because yes, okay, so I noticed. I think
it was Gale Green, who you know. They would mark
her with the fork on the left and the knife
on the right, like that's proper, and she would always
switch it. Yeah, I think it was her, I'm pretty sure.
(18:22):
And then the waiter's never got the memo. I mean,
they switch it, and so the next time they still
do it the way they want to do it. So,
you know, I think you have to pick up on
the cues of the customer.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Well, I think I think you hit a point on that,
you know, and you talk about that in the book,
because it's not only cues and the customers. But like
in terms of you know, the biggest challenges in the
restaurant is is obviously profitability if there's any and how
to cut corners, but do it in a way that
it doesn't look like you're cutting corners in a bad way.
You talk about that with Nobou is a good example,
(18:56):
which is how you talk about it's one of the
highest grossing restaurants, but you did things that saved money
as well while you had no.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Was you know, I gave a the welcome conference. I'm
sure you've been to the welcome conference. Uh Will Goodara's
terrific welcome conference does a great job. And he asked
me to speak, and it was really running late, and
I was the last speaker, and I was huge. Also
I had just been fitted with a heart monitor and
(19:29):
he wanted me to speak about in the moment, and
I had a whole I had a whole speech which
I just put aside, and I talked about a little
bit about heart monitor, which was not very topical to
a you know, a restaurant savvy crowd. But at the
very end, I said, now I'm going to tell you
how to make money in the restaurant business. No boot Uh,
(19:54):
no table costs, Noboo, no bread and butter, Nobu, no silverware, chopsticks.
You just saved one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Okay, now, no, Mooo,
Downtown we'll do How did I say this? I think
(20:20):
I said five hundred covers? Yes, okay, yes, Noble Downtown.
I gotta get the numbers right. Noble Downtown will do
five hundred covers tonight at one hundred dollars per person.
Noble Uptown, we'll do five hundred covers tonight at one
hundred dollars per person. That's fifty thousand in both places.
That's one hundred thousand dollars a day. That's the way
(20:43):
you make money in the restaurant business. And I walked
off the stage, and I think the program ended on
a It wasn't an hour late, which I like it
when the trains run out of time. But anyway, so Nobu,
you know, look, I'm reading Fireproof right now. Curtis Stuffie's book.
Have you read that. He's the chef from Chicago. He
(21:07):
used to work for a LINEA and Charlie Trotter, And
I mean, you know, like my book, you know, I
mean stuff happens. But his book, his father killed his
mother and then killed himself. I mean it's like, I mean,
that's that's heavy.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Yea.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
In his book, he doesn't spare any expenses. The chairs
were one thousand dollars. The paper that they're going to
print the menu on, you know, and this is a
couple of years ago was like a dollar piece, which
you know, but they reprint every day, so the paper
is a dollar given away. And I'm reading this book
(21:47):
and I'm like, no, I'm not doing it like that.
That's not me. And and and like like I had
a party here. I had a book party here, and
Nobu brought these wooden boxes. They're very attractive with the sushi.
And I'm doing another party, so I call it the
girls caterian person and Yamobodo, I said, I'm going to
(22:11):
need this much sushi. She says, well, I'm going to
I'm going to put them either in the wooden boxes
or in these black laquer containers. I said, well, which
is cheaper? She said, well, the wooden boxes that we
sent you last time are eleven dollars apiece. I said,
how much of the lacker of boxes? She says, no,
it's like a buck to two bucks, I said, give
me the locker, okay, in the kitchen at Dribeca, girl,
(22:34):
I have I think there were twelve of the wooden
boxes from the last party that were just sitting there.
I sent them back to Nobu yesterday. There you go
that way.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
I think a lot of people don't realize, if they're
not in the business, just how much money goes into
creating the restaurant experience, that it's behind the scenes that
they'll never know about.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
Yeah, but guess what, David, it's very easy to spend money,
very much. So yeah, it's very easy money. I mean,
I tell you just a quick aside. This is not
in the book, but Paulie Brent, who was my chef
at Courton where we got two Michelin stars right out
of the gate like a little New Orleans restaurant, yesterday
(23:21):
or the day before. So anyway, so I'm attending the meeting,
you know, because we always have staff meetings right before
we open. And a couple of days earlier I had
spoken to him. I said, did you read the article
on the New York Times? Lobster is at an all
time low. You can buy lobster for nothing, because oh,
thank you for letting me know. So now we have
(23:43):
the meeting. So now we have the meeting, and it's
like tonight a special is lobster lobster, and I'm like,
what the hell is a blue lobster. They're from Nova Scotia.
The meets its sweeter than the main lobster. And he
(24:05):
proceeds to talk about this special. So the second the
meeting's over, I'm calling my purchasing guy at Tribeca. Thank
how much of these goddamn blue lobsters cost? Oh no,
he didn't have an accent. There's seventeen dollars a pound,
what like lobsters? Like five ninety five blue lobsters. Where
(24:25):
they meet is and anyway, this was the ongoing torture. Yeah,
this is the torture.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Well, you talk about that blue lobster. And I had
to laugh because Paul. I remember Paul from Atlas, and
I remember he and Nina Griscom had a big flirtation
and a James barad auction disappeared for a while and
that he ended up beer place. I have a fight.
So we we go there. My friend Patrice Sanaka said,
(24:54):
I want to take you anywhere you want to go
and I picked that, you know, the restaurant, and Paul
was there and his his dishes were so will out there,
like once had a little guy sitting on the edge
of the bowl fishing into the bowl or something. It
was incredibly creative but difficult. I don't know where he
is now, but no.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
You know, it's it's an amazing thing because my mother,
after being an actress as a young person, she became
a theatrical agent and then she became a casting director.
Of course, the casting director finds jobs for the actors,
but specific to what they're asked to cast. So my
(25:33):
mother casts these commercials and you know, like when you're
a kid, you're changing the channel with the changer. That
was a big thing with us. My mother's ah, I
want to see Paul Dave Ballaban or you know, Paul
Lee or she had cast these actors in the in
the commercials. Okay, casting. So when I choose a chef
(25:59):
for a rest, it's the most important thing you do,
and you don't do willy nilly, and you choose somebody
and you don't choose somebody else. So I used to
make these lists and like five six names and whoever
I chose. I'd look at the list maybe a year later,
and the other five people did really well. The ones
I didn't choose, but the one I chose, we always
(26:21):
got three stars. Always, so Paul le Bran, we got
three stars court Tone. He got hosed by Frank Bruni
of the New York Times. He opened a restaurant called Guilt.
It was supposed to get three stars. It didn't. And
yet we come in, we opened the restaurant, we got
three stars, and he still had to hose me. He
still had to, you know, like you prove to himself
(26:44):
that it was him that got the three stars, not us,
or it wasn't a team. You know, the word team
now is and every single restaurant slips the team. The
kitchen the team. And yet he didn't somehow conform to
(27:04):
the team. So he had to go to Brooklyn, not
saying anything to me, but I knew, you know, a
cook came out of the kitchen and said, when do
we going to Brooklyn. I'm like, what are you talking about?
Paul says, we're going to Brooklyn. So he hid it
from me. I went and I researched the place and
the hotel in Williamsburg all this nonsense, and then when
(27:26):
push came to shove, I was like, I'm not going
to compete with myself. He's going to open a place
serving hamburgers in a less expensive fair. I'm running a
restaurant with one hundred and fifteen dollars prefix. So you know,
when we finally sit down, he says, yeah, no, I'm
gonna I'm just letting you know I'm going to keep both.
And he said, well, that's very nice, Paul, but I'm
(27:48):
not going to compete with myself, so you go have
a nice time in Brooklyn. And that was that I
can stand on my own two legs. You know, I
did it with David Boulay when I was twenty nine
years old, and he was the best, There's no question.
Looking back on it, he was phenomenous, a total and
(28:09):
difficult in more ways than you can imagine. But is
cooking his food incredible? Yeah? It was beyond approach.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
Well, he was a visionary and a perfectionist.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
How do you do if you write about these genius shafts?
I mean you, I mean really, you were the casting
director of the restaurant industry and you write about these
two Do you write about these genius, incredibly difficult shots
that didn't know how to manage money and dealing with them,
and that insults injury. And this hit home for me
because running an agency, the worst thing that could happen
in pr is when one of your staff takes off
(28:40):
with your list, which happened to me, and then you know,
tries to solicit client. So I felt the pain that
you did when you found out that David Boulet was
planning to rest in peace to open literally down the
street from you. Well, I mean, and then the same
with Paul across the river. But how do you work
(29:01):
that in your head?
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Honestly, especially when I was younger and I thought it
was beyond reproach. I'm like, I'm such a nice person.
My parents are unbelievable. I take after them. I treat
everyone with respect and dignity. It's like and they all
want to fly fly the coop. I mean it's with Boule,
(29:25):
I mean Bouley, it was really like putting your nose
in it into it. Like he would sit in the
dining room and friends of mine would be at the
next table and he's negotiating with some real estate jerk
about opening this that or the other. And one time
I just went in the kitchen. Uh there was a
(29:46):
guy named Ray Bradley, wonderful person. And I grabbed him
and I said, Ray, come here a second, I said, I
brought him out. You know, the kitchen was sort of
hidden around a corner, so I brought him out. Said
you see that if any thing ever happens here, that's
the reason. But you know, basically saying, you know, he's
negotiating in the dining room. And then so I had
(30:08):
to kill the goose that laid the gold land. I
couldn't wait for him to give notice. Yeah, and you
know it would have been a cost to eleven. And
guess what happened. This is a really this is I
don't know who could ever pull this thing off. But
I hired a friend, not a not a three star
chef to replace Boulet. I hired a friend and hired
(30:32):
an entire kitchen staff. They trained at the River Cafe
that Charlie Palmer let them train there. At one point
Charlie called me up and said, hey, are you sure
you want to do this? I said, why, Charlie? He said, well,
this guy's not that good a cook, he said, Charlie.
I know, I kind of know, but this is not
(30:53):
about replacing a three star chef anyway. So on the
day I let Boulet go, it was a Sunday, He's like, nah, no, no, no,
you know, it comes back down to Masha and the
entire new crew is now in the kitchen at Mas
and he couldn't believe his eyes that he saw these
all these new people. We opened the next day Monday,
(31:17):
and very good customer of my Penny Trnk, is walking
towards the kitchen. So I see her and I walk
over to he. I said, Penny, can I help you?
She said, oh, I just want to tell David that
tonight was the best meal we've ever had here. And
this is the first night of Brian Whitmer's tenure. So
(31:42):
I knew immediately that I was going to be okay, okay,
But it took me a number of years to understand
because I do have, you know, perhaps a touch too
much ego, hubrist whatever, Yeah, to understand that it is
a team effort, that every component works together. I never
(32:07):
saw myself as the be all and end all, but
when you have to replace the chef, you have to
really know what you're talking about or know what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Yeah, it's like replacing a pilot for a appliant.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
I don't know about that. Well, you have to replace
it with a pilot, definitely.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
But you know you can do that and you had
a lot of success of it. You went on from
mo Maerchee to Courton Batard and back just for the audience.
You know, you did all this starting it's about forty
years ago, which Tribecca was nothing and now it's everything.
But the one thing and I'm curious what you think
(32:47):
about this now, is you couldn't deal with the critics.
The critics were like the little things that KVID hadn't
attack you, and you were zing you have some great
reviews and you had to ding the reviews. How do
you ask that? And what do you think about the
way they're doing criticism now because now with the New
York Times, like two critics the ones here when there right.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Well, this is this is a very important part of
my whole story because when I was just an employee
or a manager of a restaurant, one of the owners
came over to me one day and he said, this
is what I want. He shows me a two star
review in the New York Times that me, me Sharon
(33:30):
had given a restaurant This is what I want? Now?
Why two stars? Because me, me Sharon And a two
star for me me Sharon was like a three star
from anybody anybody else. And she was so powerful in
the seventies that I studied her scrupulously. I mean, like,
you know, to the point where I wouldn't even put
(33:52):
a shrimp on a dish because every review said the
shrimps tasted aviadine. And she was hillacious about a pepper mill.
You know, back on those days they had those baseball
bat pepper mills, the ones yeah, yeah, yeah, And like
you know, they come over with the pepper mill and
(34:12):
they go, would you like pepper on your salad? And
you know, you say, I haven't even tasted it. How
do you know I need pepper or want pepper? Right?
I mean he was tasted it. So I studied me
and me Sharon. And the restaurant we opened was twenty
four Fifth Avenue with a woman chef by name a
Leslie Rebson, who was at a restaurant in a village
called Restaurant Leslie. Very very talented woman, very strong, minded
(34:39):
obviously and me me Sheridan doesn't show up for like days,
and then on a Saturday day, which was a sleepy
time for the restaurant, the restaurant court mem says, she
just walked in mad me sharing because I had them trained,
you know, had a picture of her. So I used
(34:59):
to live a literally lived across the street. Somehow I
was in the village. I got to the restaurant, took
her order. I didn't take an order, but the waiter
took a order when the kitchen first course went out,
and then for the entree, it was taking forever. She
was trying to do what you're not supposed to do
(35:19):
with a food critic, just be natural, put your best
foot forward. But she was like, and when the review
came out, believe it or not, and this was very
instructive to me. We got we did get two stars
from Mimi shared it very nice review. And she said
the long delays between the courses seemed to be the
(35:41):
problem of the kitchen because there was nobody eating there
on the afternoon that I came. So she literally was
intuitive enough to see that, because up til then it
was like, what the service is back, the waiters are terrible.
You know, the service was slow, because nobody ever blamed
the kitchen, which is essentially where the service Hemny's from.
(36:03):
You follow me all the way that doesn't carry a plate,
the waiter screws up. He maybe didn't take your order correctly,
which happens obviously, but anyway, so I studied the critics then,
and if we have time for this, it's the best story.
It's in the book. I went to work at La
Grenui Loure Jeans with Daniel Blude by reserve the paragorg
(36:28):
George Briguet, and when one day they called me and
they said, oh, you're not going to believe. Brian Miller,
the food creter in the New York Times, came in
and I go, how did you know it was Brian Miller?
And I said, well, we didn't. But he was joined
by Pierre Frene. And everyone knew Pierre Frene, especially in
French restaurants. So I said, well, what did he make
the reservation under? I said Benson. I said, okay, do
(36:53):
me a favor. If you ever get Benson ever again,
call me. So I bring my tuxedo. I'm building rae.
Now bring to a tuxedo to the construction site. Three
weeks later, Drew, we have Benson. I put on my tuxedo.
E train is on the corner of Canal, comes up
on fifty second Street, right where La Grenui is walk in.
(37:13):
They're like, what the hell are you doing here? There?
He is the food critic of the New York Times, Benson.
And then when he pays the check, I'm outside with
a little camera. There were no cell phones. And then
I followed him from fifty second Street to the New
York Times forty third Street, running up the stairs of
Saint Patris Cathedral down the block, and I have twenty
(37:34):
five pictures of his back. I don't have one good picture. Now.
I open morache and I'm putting the wine away, and
I'm taking deliveries and I'm answering the phone. The phone rings. Hi,
we like to come eight o'clock. Two people. No, No,
I'm sorry, I don't have eight o'clock. I can take
you six six fifteen, six thirty. Okay, Benson, could you
(38:02):
hold on one second please? Oh you know, we have
a cancelation. Come at eight o'clock. I put my mother
on one side of the table. I put my girlfriend,
who is now my wife on the other side of
the table, and you know, my mother's going, oh my god,
this restaurant is so attractive and the food is so delicious.
I've been here twelve times, and you know, so Benson,
(38:25):
you know aka Brian Will gets up to have a
smoke and I go over to my girlfriend. I said,
what is he saying? And she says, it's the damnest thing.
They're speaking French, because it's why. Yeah, anyway, every time
he made a reservation on the Benson Boulet and I
get into the subway to take the subway to New
(38:48):
York Times on the Friday, the Thursday nights because the
paper would come out of Friday, they put out the
paper around ten thirty. We get the paper and it's
Maroche New French in downtown, three stars and guess what.
Guess what? I had a sixteen dollar menu, one six
(39:12):
three courses. I could have stadium. The phone never stopped ringing.
So George, Briguel Paraguardy goes Glue called me. He said,
lou congratulation. Did you know it was him? I said, George,
if you ever get Benson on your reservations, beware. So
(39:32):
two years later, the Peerligo three stars. I called George
George before I could finish. George says Blue it was
like you will whispering in my yeah. And so it's
the food critic thing is kill or be killed. It
(39:52):
is an elaborate cat and mouse game. And let me
tell you something. Frank brune he was a master. He
would make a reservation one day under Doug Charles, then
he would maybe under Charles Doug he would book fake
phone numbers. I must have like sixteen names for that guy. Wow.
(40:16):
And we opened Quurton because this was going to be
the Redemption PAULI Brandt Redemption. And he doesn't come in
for weeks, and it's late one night, it's like nine
thirty and party comes in. I don't even look at
the party. I bring them over to the I knew
where I was going to see them, and I sit
(40:36):
them down and the next thing, Frank Bruney is literally
in my face. It's his birthday.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
He says, he doesn't wear disguise.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
No disguise, no, no, no, no, the guy's at all.
And I turned around and my staff is like looking
at me like we know, you know, like they knew
it was him. And we got three three stars from
Frank Brunney and actually they made a movie Pulled a
Matter of Taste about Pauli Brandt. Woman followed him for
many many years, Lovely Woman from New Zealand. And then
(41:13):
we got to Michelin Stars and here's a restaurant and
by the way, one of the James Beard Journalism Award
the movie mm hm. And this guy has to fly,
this guy has to fly the coop. That's why, that's
why I had to write a memoir to tell these stories.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Was there a restaurant that got away from you that
you wish you had?
Speaker 3 (41:39):
And there's a lot of things. Thomas Keller sent me
a business plan for the French Laundry, which I thought
was for Cocta. It's like, what the hell in the
middle of no place, you know, And I gave it
to my business manager, who was also a little for Cocta.
But he was like, you got to you know, somebody smoking,
(42:00):
you know. I mean, I never talked about that, but
I did pass on that. Todd English kind of hoes me.
We both were doing restaurants with w and they, you know,
came over to me, said let's do a restaurant together
and yeah, let's do it. And then I came back
to New York and they called him and said, oh,
it's a pity about Todd, right. I said, well, what's
a pity? He says, well, he said he doesn't want
(42:22):
to work with you. I go, you know, that doesn't
sound right. So anyway, I called him my own No,
that's that's not true. Blah blah blah blah blah. And
then he opened what was it called his famous restaurant
in Boston. Yeah, I lives in the w Yeah, Union Square,
(42:44):
one Star. Yeah, he was the king of one one Star.
Then Rick Bayless and I had a little once once,
you know, because yeah, Rick Bayless for crane that didn't
come to pass. And then, you know, I could point
to a couple of things in the book. I talked
about Nobu's noodles. Nobody didn't want to Noble's noodles. Mama
(43:09):
filled the Yeah, let's put it that way. We had
done we had done Noba's noodles. You know, maybe I
would be flying private now.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
Yeah, he didn't want Nobody didn't want to do. No,
he didn't want to do noodles. There's something negative about them,
I think he said, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
He just isn't. He doesn't. He doesn't dig. He doesn't
dig Ramen. But guess what. And I predicted this, I
didn't have to predict it. But and it's not like
the prediction means anything. When I had a French restaurant
called Marochet, you know, quasi French, I put pasta on
the menu and John louispalad that came in one day.
And Jean Louipala that was the greatest chef on God's
(43:45):
green earth. He was a master, and he was a wonderful,
generous human being. And he ate that pasta and he
goes is good. He spoke, and then I would put
pasta pasta pasta. So I knew Ramen would hit Mama Fuco.
(44:06):
To this day, that location is jammed.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
Yeah, I mean it's you know, so if we had
done Nobu's news. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
Anyway, well you did pretty good with burgers. I you know,
I'd never been to the burger place at Madison Square,
but you're you're selling a lot of burgers.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
Everything about that hamburger is the proof is in the pudding.
That hamburger. There's a whole story there. But I had
worked in McDonald's of course.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Yeah, exactly. And that was what's the impetus for the
daily burger? You came up in the system.
Speaker 3 (44:43):
I just tell you quickly that. So they called me
up and they said, we're spending a billion dollars at
Madison Square Garden. Would you like to do a concession?
And I go, yeah, I'll do a chicken parmesan sandwich
and they go great. And then they called me back
in two days and says, you got the hamburger?
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Whoa.
Speaker 3 (45:00):
This was twelve years ago. Shakeshack at Furst had just started.
He was the king, right, And I go, no, no,
I'm not doing the hammer because the hamburger at Madison
Square Garden sucked. So well, that's all this left. If
you don't do the hamburger, no don't, You don't get anything.
So I swear to I got off the phone. I said, well,
(45:21):
I got the bun, I got the meat, I got
the condiments, but I don't want to cook it on
a flat top whittle like the stupid, insanely bad smash
burger Bolooney places that you read about and everyone, oh
my god, the smash burger. It's like when you cook
(45:43):
a piece of charcoal. You know, it's like so anyway,
I find a conveyor belt, grills the burgers up and down,
eighteen burgers in four minutes, toast the buttons on the bottom,
perfect medium, rare. We wrap it in a pleated paper
(46:04):
that is genius. It holds in the heat. Put it
on a flat top. We'll sell two. I'm going to
the next tonight. Actually, two thousand hamburgers a game, two thousand,
and they're delicious. And it's been twelve years. And guess what,
they just signed us to a seven year extension. Wow,
(46:26):
that's why I think the proofs in the pudding. And
by the way, we started with one concession in the building,
then two, then three, then four, then in the Madison Club,
then in the Delta Club, then in the private suites.
Why by demand, that's right.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
Look what Danny did, Look what Danny did with Shakeshack.
You could be going that way.
Speaker 3 (46:46):
You know, I'm not going to talk against a billionaire.
Speaker 4 (46:49):
Yeah, Melanie. Melanie always says that the Union Square Cafe
made Danny famous and Shakeshak made him a billionaire.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
You know, you make your money and you know Bobby
plays through well, Bobby, it's all about the Burgers. It's
like the burger is where if you crazy.
Speaker 3 (47:02):
Let me tell you. I'm going to tell you something
about Danny. Yesterday I sent him a clip I found
this I went through I was going through old VCRs
because I carved the Turkey one day on Good Morning
America and Michael Strand as a friend of mine through
the football days. But I'm trying to get on Good
Morning America good luck, so you know, he said, I'm
(47:24):
trying for you, bab, and I said, yeah, no, I
carved the Turkey on Good Morning America with Charlie Gibson
and Joan London. So I find this tape where this
is unbelievable. This is a guy interviewing Danny Drew and
Sirio Maccioni, and it's kind of a short interview. And
I'm going to send this to you after this interview
(47:46):
because Danny Meyer looks like he's about twelve years old
and his air is so curly it's hilarious. And of
course he when he's asked the question, he's Danny Meyer,
so you know who it is. So I send this
to Danny Meyer and Danny was like, I cannot believe.
I don't remember this. I gon't know how you have this,
(48:08):
but it's insane, you know, And that's my life. I
keep everything. My wife she would have thrown everything out
by nile if I hadn't hid things, you know. And yeah,
I mean that's what I do. I send things to people.
They're like, where the hell did you get you know,
thirty years ago? And just you know, like I just
(48:30):
had my book party here, Rebecca growing, you know, Marty,
my party of thirty five years. Marty Shapiro goes, you know,
you have an engraved bottle downstairs. It's like an ebicanezer.
It's like, I know, eight bottles or whatever of Tatanger.
I said, what does it saying? It says it was
given to you at an event in the Hamptons in
nineteen ninety five. I said, oh, it's thirty years old.
(48:52):
Said yeah, okay, let's open it. So at the book party,
we go to open this thing, and I swear to god,
you know, my Somalia is a genius. David Gordon he
dorks the cork, so I'm like, oh, good luck. But
then he gets the cork out and it was delicious.
It had bubbles. We served it to the whole group. Wow,
(49:12):
So longevity in life. If we can live to be seventy.
You know, both my parents died at a very early age.
If you can live to be seventy, God bless, that's
my goal.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
I think that's a great way to wrap this up.
And with that because you get very reflective at the
end of the book, like we all have when we've
had a rich, long career and you worry about relevancy
that yeah, you've achieved so much at this point you
can rest if you choose. But how do you Is
there something you say to yourself every day or is
(49:46):
there like one thing left you'd like to do, just
briefly to kind of wrap it all up. You did
the memoir. I think you should be doing a museum
based on what you just talked about with what you well, yeah, by.
Speaker 3 (49:56):
The way, it would be called Jerusalum Jum believe it
or not. I have content for that. But anyway, because
I don't know if you probably went the stars in
San Francisco, I was always like so enamored how he
had that. On your way to the toilets, you could
see everything about Jeremiah Tower. It was like, so I
kind of did that here at Tripeca Grill Listen. I've
(50:19):
had a storied career, but what you learn is that,
and especially today, you could get a full page in
the New York Times and nobody will see it. And
or you can get a full page of New York Times.
You can put it on your Instagram and your followers
will see it, and that's the only people who will
see it. So what I would say is this, forty
(50:40):
restaurants with nobu as the cherry on the top is tremendous.
What I do one more thing, Yeah, in collaboration with
somebody who's got the money, because I'm was never good
at raising money. And I would do a Jewish deli
because years ago Michelle Rochard did the Broadway Deli in
Santa Mani and it was a stroke of genius, but
(51:03):
for some reason it didn't last. But the bread, hry bread,
specifically on deli sandwiches is god awful. So I'd have
fresh baked bread, great corn, beef and beers from me obviously,
and the mustard's really important. Also, I would I would
have superior do.
Speaker 2 (51:22):
You open it? We're coming coming. We love a good
we love a good sandwich. Myself true It's been so
great to see you looking good. By the way, congratulations,
maintain your life.
Speaker 3 (51:36):
You know how much respect to have for you and David.
I wanted to do this. You made it very easy.
Feel like we just started this. This went very fast.
But I love you guys, and you're an excuse for
me to get back on a plane, go to New Orleans,
and who knows, I might even break for dinner at
Admirals because I can get in that I want to.
Speaker 4 (51:57):
That's this big two more seats than we can join you.
Speaker 3 (52:00):
Yeah, but they're nice people. You know. I went to
the super Bowl in New Orleans. What was it two
years ago? Was it two years? It was nat ye
this year and I visited, uh my friend Donald link
Kochon was tremendous and t and lally over at Commander's
Palace and had brunch there and that was tremendous. So
(52:20):
I love New Orleans. I'm on a diet, so I
don't know what I can eat. But I even went
to Antoines because I've never been to Antoine's and had
delicious luncheon at Antoines before I got back on the plane.
So I love New Orleans. That's an excuse to see
my friends.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
We will welcome you with open arms, and of course
we always love coming to New York again. The book
is I'm not trying to be difficult. By the way,
I finally reading this book, knows what your a I
knew your AOL address for years was hose. I won't
say the rest of us.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
Now I know why everybody everybody hoes me. That's why
you know.
Speaker 4 (52:58):
I was thinking that too because I used to email
you at address at that address, and I was like,
what's the meaning of rose? And now I finally figured
out after this conversation today, we figured it out.
Speaker 2 (53:07):
Okay, stay well, okay.
Speaker 3 (53:09):
Like wise, I love you and I love you too, Drew.
Speaker 2 (53:12):
Thanks for having me and if you have crazy a
hug too. All right, you've been listening to the Connected
Table Live. What a great conversation with all friends. I'm
so happy pick up Drew's book. It's really a terrific read.
Go out and support your local restaurants. It's a tough
business to be in. We can't wait to go out anytime.
(53:33):
We can just do it. It's a great way to
see friends, have an experience and support a great community
because the restaurant industry is always there to support and
give when there is a need. You've been listening to
the Connected Table Live. Follow us on the Connected Table.
You can see all the shows and over sixty five
podcast channels and of course the Connected Table TV on YouTube,
(53:56):
and always stay insatiably curious. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (54:01):
The cost bas
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(00:21):
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Speaker 2 (00:41):
Hello, welcome to the Connected Table Live where your hosts
Melanie Young and David Ransom. You're insatiably curious culinary couple.
We love bringing you the stories of the amazing people
we meet, greet and eat with around the world and drink.
And we are broadcasting from New York sort of virtually
from what was one of our hangouts back at the day,
(01:05):
Tribeca Grill, in the beautiful neighborhood of Tribeca. We miss
New York right now, right, yeah, we do, we do.
We miss foliage fall, foliage fall, foliage. To be nice.
We're excited. Our guest today has been he's been a
guest on the show before in twenty sixteen. But life
has changed so much and he has so much more
to say today, and he's back because he's a dear
(01:26):
friend and we're excited to have him. We're talking about
one of the greatest restaurant tours of both times. The
Goat Drew me Poorent. He conceived a slew of hit
dunning concepts under his Myriad Restaurant group. Let's talk about Noboo, Tribeca, Grill, Rubicon,
mohmerche Corton, Battard, Daily Burger, and many more. And he
(01:47):
has come out with a really fantastic I've read it
twice memoir called I'm Not Trying to Be Difficult Stories
from the Restaurant Trenches. Reading this, I felt like I
was there because so much of what Drew talks about
in this book is what I lived, because it was
my heyday in New York as well, working on major
(02:08):
programs often with true like New York Restaurant Week when
there's a whole family, really fun numerous fundraisers which he
was always graciously donating to, and being there. I think
we passed paths a million times, see Cap, you name it.
And now he's with us today, Dreni poorn welcome and
a big hug from us.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Thank you very much. Now, thank you David Well.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
It's great to see you and looking good. I must say,
you look good. This phase of your life is becoming
to you, Drew.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
Well, I just lost fifty two pounds on zep bound. Yeah,
but it really is my diet. I han't a slice
of bread in six months, or rice, potatoes, pizza, Chinese food,
poor boys, no reading, We just not eating any starts.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
So it's gone right, you look great, Curious after you know,
all these years in the business, you decide to write
your memoir now again it's I'm not trying to be difficult.
Let's talk about why now and why this title and
how you came up to work with this.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Well, you know, I've had a long and very storied career.
Not everyone has the ability to open a slew of restaurants.
I opened forty in about forty years, maybe even a
few others that don't even make the cut. But now
you do have a couple of restaurant groups and individual
(03:44):
chefs who are opening at the speed of lightning. But
I look back on my career and the longevity of
the career and the quality of the restaurants, and it's
pretty extraordinary. And not everybody is Robert de Niro's partner
for thirty five years. Not everyone can claim to create
(04:05):
something as robust and successful as No Boot, which is
now sports fifty seven locations around the world. So I
put pen to paper, and I hope I wrote an
entertaining memoir. It wasn't really an aspiration of mine to
(04:26):
do a book. I actually see my career, my life
a little cinematically, so I really would love to have
a movie. But saying that is harder harder to enact
than one realizes, even when Robert de Nero's your partner.
So anyway, the book I started writing about a year
(04:49):
and a half ago with Jamie Feldmar. It was a
terrific person. She had written The don Angiefood, the don
Angie Cookbook, and she had also written Naomi Palmeroy's cookbook,
you know, the Portland chef who unfortunately passed away. But
I didn't know. I didn't know Jamie at all. Somebody
(05:11):
else was supposed to do the book and they decided
that they couldn't do it. So when names were being
proposed to me, I didn't know. I knew somebo I
didn't know a number of them. And then I met Jamie,
and I just there was immediate chemistry. I kind of
liked her boldness or her youth. And just a side note,
(05:34):
she when she sent me the first few pages of
what she had written, there was a curse on every page,
maybe more than one curse. So I called her up.
I said, you know, Jamie, I don't curse like that.
She goes, yeah, you do. I said, no, I don't
like that. Yeah you do. I said, well, you know,
when you say a curse word, it has more meaning
(05:57):
than on the rit page. So clean up some of
the curses. She sent me back a copy with it,
you know, about eighty percent missing, And immediately I found
my voice. I heard my voice right, and you know,
she wrote, she wrote a tremendous book.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Your voice really comes through. I have to say, I
felt like it was. I called you after I read
it the first time the second time, and I said,
this is an amazing book. It's your voice and it's
quite remarkable. And you're a New Yorker. You don't have
a New York accent, but you were born and bred
New Yorker. Which David is too. You grew up in,
(06:36):
you know, like the wonderful affordable housing part of New
York that we all wish we could live in on
the East side, right, and I know exactly where I
can see it.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Oh yeah, Peter Cooper, Stuvesant Town. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like
we all wanted to live there, those big brick buildings
with the green windows.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, you never leave, you never leave the I.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Mean honestly, I looked upon that kind of like a
prison cell. But yeah, because apartments on every floor and
they were all the same. And but you know, that
was actually fantastic to grow up at Peter Cooper. There
were playgrounds built in friends. I walked to every school,
my grade school, junior high school, and Stivesont High School.
(07:19):
So the location was fantastic.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
And oh it's a great place.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
I love. I love growing up. Yeah, I love growing up.
Speaker 2 (07:25):
So I loved hearing you and your older brother Tracy
used to talk about your mom, sybyl She's an actress,
very successful actress, and your dad worked for the State
Liquor Authority. Kind of interesting combo. It made you you
guys went out a lot. How did that experience?
Speaker 3 (07:41):
Yeah, it's basically what happened. I mean, my mother was
a very successful actress as a child on radio before
television even existed, and very theatrical and really pretty. I mean,
my mother was gorgeous. My father was fourteen years her senior.
(08:04):
He married at thirty seven, and he worked with the
State Liquor Authority, which licenses New York restaurants. And this
is the sixties, and the people opening restaurants in New
York were right off the boat. They were the immigrants.
And these restaurants were all very authentic, and the food
was like unbelievable. And my father had a way I
(08:25):
always talk about how we took the application from the
bottom of the pop put it on the top of
the bile, expedited the process. They were forever, indeeditive, and
they would invite him to bring his family to have
dinner at their establishments. So I got exposed to like
the greatest food, God's green Earth in the sixties, and
(08:45):
I just I just I took to it. I was exposed.
I loved it. I wanted to be a chef, you know,
and that was my career path. I didn't have to
think twice about it. And I studied about food. You know,
I watched the Galli Bi Gourmet and Julia Child and
Red Cookes and cooked at home, and you know, that's
(09:06):
what I was going to do, but I wanted to
become a chef. Then what happened basically was one day
my mother said, you know, I was talking to Willie
Weisberg's mother and she said, there's a hotel school at Cornell.
And I'm like, mom, Cornell's an Ivy League school. I'm
number five hundred in a class of seven hundred. A
step said, I ain't getting into Cornell, and she goes, well, yeah,
(09:28):
let's apply, blah blah blah, and I got in. I mean,
it's an amazing story. I got into Cornell School of
Hotel Administration nineteen seventy three four and it was the
best experience because the student body was made up of
(09:48):
students from everywhere, from Europe and Asia and South America
and of course somewhere from the United States. I mean,
if I had gone to a state university, which was
my I would have been going to school with everyone
from New York State. How boring is that? Instead, I'm
like meeting people from the Bahamas and Georgia, you know, Greece,
(10:10):
and I mean, so the first day at Cornell was
just an experience. The first day and you know that
was my destiny, really was. But guess what. It wasn't
a hotel school like in Europe, like Losanne. So my
first cooking class, and I talk about this in the book.
(10:33):
You know, they had a culinary and teach cooking. But
he didn't teach you how to cook. He teach how
to open a can and heat it up, put it
in a bowl, and that was that. So I was
very upset, very disappointed. And one day, just walking through
the carters of Cornell, the hotel school, I saw a
(10:55):
notice looking for six students experienced in Russian service to
sail to the following ports Leningrad, Oslo, Dublin, Copenhagen, Stockholm.
And I'm like, looking at this, I'm like, I never
worked as a waiter ever. But I call the guy
up Uva Christiansen, a German student. Do you have experience?
(11:19):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, got a lot of experience and
boarded the MS Mistafjord in June of nineteen seventy four.
And the first night, I mean there's sixty waiters and
I'm wearing a light blue shirt, which is not what
a waiter wears. Waiter wears a white shirt. So I
was added by about fifty nine other waiters also carrying
(11:43):
a tray with two hands when they're carrying the trail
above their hot you know, so they knew I was
an impostor. But it's kind of like learning how to
ride a bike. You know, you do it more than
once and you learn. And that's what happened with me.
Speaker 4 (12:00):
That's a great story. Well, you've worked in that, so
you know, I know how to balance a tray on
my shoulder.
Speaker 2 (12:05):
Sometimes you have to make it right.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
The little captain's jacket and all that stuff.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
But you also have an You also had another quality
that I think paved your destiny. You right in the
book that you were the kid who knew everybody, like
you get to know everybody. And I was that kid too.
Were you that kid? I was that kid. I knew
everybody by name when I got to my new class
every year. And that's a gift, and it's a gift
(12:34):
to carry through you throughout your entire life.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Yeah. I mean, I'm not certain if it was my
mother or my father who led me in that direction,
but my mother was kind of miscongeniality. She was very
friendly and made friends very easily. And you know, for me,
it's an education every time you meet somebody and get
(12:58):
to know somebody, I mean now later in life, it's fantastic.
How many people Well, well, first of all, if you're
in the restaurant business, people find you. You know, some
people from early in your life find you. And then
when you write a book, obviously if the book's any good, anyway,
people find you. But yeah, it was always really like,
like Melanie, You've always, you know, like you've had such
(13:20):
a great personality, so meeting people for you is easy.
You're outgoing and energetic, and I'm sure David you know
similarly you guys are like that. But yeah, with me,
it was like I was a bit of a politician.
I'll be honest, but I didn't run for any office.
But it was like I was a bit of a politician.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
You kind of have to be went in the restaurant
business there, don't you true.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
David's nickname people his friends were calling the Matre d
from life. Yeah, people call it because David knows how
to make people at ease. He has that ability, which
is also important.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
To my friends in the restaurant business called me the
major d of life.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
But you know, whenever I see you, you would always
you know, as I wrote on social media, you're the guy.
And you know New York is famous for Hi, how
are you? I got to go to the next person
behind you, right, there's that like high hi, and you
move on, and a lot of people do that. I
may have done that actually in my life, but you
always had the ability to look someone in the eye
(14:18):
and greet them by name and maybe like they were
somebody before you move to the next person, which is
how life is in New York, right.
Speaker 3 (14:27):
Yeah, I mean I think you know. Obviously in the
restaurant industry, there's a lot of talk about hospitality. Yeah,
but it has to be sincere number one. Number two
is it's kind of a balance between familiarity and not
(14:51):
being so familiar, like letting people have their anonymity if
that's what they want. Some people just want to be
served and left alone, and you got to be able
to read that. But some people want the personal touch.
And obviously, if you can remember somebody's name, like the
the second time they come to your establishment, and you
(15:12):
greet them by name. You know. That's there's a great story.
When I was working at twenty four Fifth Avenue, it
was called it was a restaurant ninth Street and Fifth Avenue.
I was just a manager. But James Beard lived around
the corner right on twelve Street and sixth Avenue and
well actually between six and seventh. But so he came
(15:34):
in one night and he was at the end of
his you know, his life. He's old, and he ordered
a Manhattan Neat and I really didn't understand what neat meant.
So I looked it up and you know, figured it out.
And then so the next time he comes in, when
he sits down, I go to the table and I go, uh,
(15:55):
may I bring you Manhattan neat? And he did like this,
you know, like a stun looked towards me. It was
like it was like a moment of Wow, yeah, that's cool,
you know, because he really that I took him by surprise.
And that was James Beard. I mean, that was pretty
(16:16):
pretty impressive. The only other time thing that little things
like Craig Clayborne was of that generation as well. New
York Times Calmness said when he went to a restaurant.
He knew he would get good service if when he
stirred his drink and took the swizzle stick out, that
somebody removed the swizzle stick. So I remember that also,
(16:40):
and I agree with him. I mean, because it's an
attention to detail. It's a little thing. It's like I
tidy my table every time I go out for dinner,
Like I move you know, glasses I don't want on
the table to the end of the table. And you
know then, but you're in this generation of they have
to ask do you want to do you want us
(17:00):
to remove that? Well kind of you know it's right,
it's going to fall off the table if you don't
remove it, you know. But those are the those are
the little things I think that stick with you.
Speaker 4 (17:12):
Yeah. I always put the crumbs from the bread and
a little pile on the table and wait for them
to be picked up. That's our test, that's my test.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
He does all the time. He puts them at the table.
That takes a picture because he is a friend somewhere
who like they have a joke about it, but that detail. Look,
are you going to crumb my table? Because he doesn't
like crumbs on the table? Talk about the.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
I thought about bread that doesn't leave crumbs nowadays. Nowadays,
you know, most restaurants don't have tablecloths, right, so when
you break into the bread or you you know, you
break it in half, it leaves so much debris on
the table. So I can relate, David, I can relate
to that.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
Yeah, yeah, that's my it's my little test. The otherwise,
I always like to move the flowers and the salt
and pepper to the other edge of the table from
the middle of the table.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
Yeah, because well because yeah, but are either of you
left these? Because yes, okay, so I noticed. I think
it was Gale Green, who you know. They would mark
her with the fork on the left and the knife
on the right, like that's proper, and she would always
switch it. Yeah, I think it was her, I'm pretty sure.
(18:22):
And then the waiter's never got the memo. I mean,
they switch it, and so the next time they still
do it the way they want to do it. So,
you know, I think you have to pick up on
the cues of the customer.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Well, I think I think you hit a point on that,
you know, and you talk about that in the book,
because it's not only cues and the customers. But like
in terms of you know, the biggest challenges in the
restaurant is is obviously profitability if there's any and how
to cut corners, but do it in a way that
it doesn't look like you're cutting corners in a bad way.
You talk about that with Nobou is a good example,
(18:56):
which is how you talk about it's one of the
highest grossing restaurants, but you did things that saved money
as well while you had no.
Speaker 3 (19:07):
Was you know, I gave a the welcome conference. I'm
sure you've been to the welcome conference. Uh Will Goodara's
terrific welcome conference does a great job. And he asked
me to speak, and it was really running late, and
I was the last speaker, and I was huge. Also
I had just been fitted with a heart monitor and
(19:29):
he wanted me to speak about in the moment, and
I had a whole I had a whole speech which
I just put aside, and I talked about a little
bit about heart monitor, which was not very topical to
a you know, a restaurant savvy crowd. But at the
very end, I said, now I'm going to tell you
how to make money in the restaurant business. No boot Uh,
(19:54):
no table costs, Noboo, no bread and butter, Nobu, no silverware, chopsticks.
You just saved one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Okay, now, no, Mooo,
Downtown we'll do How did I say this? I think
(20:20):
I said five hundred covers? Yes, okay, yes, Noble Downtown.
I gotta get the numbers right. Noble Downtown will do
five hundred covers tonight at one hundred dollars per person.
Noble Uptown, we'll do five hundred covers tonight at one
hundred dollars per person. That's fifty thousand in both places.
That's one hundred thousand dollars a day. That's the way
(20:43):
you make money in the restaurant business. And I walked
off the stage, and I think the program ended on
a It wasn't an hour late, which I like it
when the trains run out of time. But anyway, so Nobu,
you know, look, I'm reading Fireproof right now. Curtis Stuffie's book.
Have you read that. He's the chef from Chicago. He
(21:07):
used to work for a LINEA and Charlie Trotter, And
I mean, you know, like my book, you know, I
mean stuff happens. But his book, his father killed his
mother and then killed himself. I mean it's like, I mean,
that's that's heavy.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
Yea.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
In his book, he doesn't spare any expenses. The chairs
were one thousand dollars. The paper that they're going to
print the menu on, you know, and this is a
couple of years ago was like a dollar piece, which
you know, but they reprint every day, so the paper
is a dollar given away. And I'm reading this book
(21:47):
and I'm like, no, I'm not doing it like that.
That's not me. And and and like like I had
a party here. I had a book party here, and
Nobu brought these wooden boxes. They're very attractive with the sushi.
And I'm doing another party, so I call it the
girls caterian person and Yamobodo, I said, I'm going to
(22:11):
need this much sushi. She says, well, I'm going to
I'm going to put them either in the wooden boxes
or in these black laquer containers. I said, well, which
is cheaper? She said, well, the wooden boxes that we
sent you last time are eleven dollars apiece. I said,
how much of the lacker of boxes? She says, no,
it's like a buck to two bucks, I said, give
me the locker, okay, in the kitchen at Dribeca, girl,
(22:34):
I have I think there were twelve of the wooden
boxes from the last party that were just sitting there.
I sent them back to Nobu yesterday. There you go
that way.
Speaker 4 (22:48):
I think a lot of people don't realize, if they're
not in the business, just how much money goes into
creating the restaurant experience, that it's behind the scenes that
they'll never know about.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
Yeah, but guess what, David, it's very easy to spend money,
very much. So yeah, it's very easy money. I mean,
I tell you just a quick aside. This is not
in the book, but Paulie Brent, who was my chef
at Courton where we got two Michelin stars right out
of the gate like a little New Orleans restaurant, yesterday
(23:21):
or the day before. So anyway, so I'm attending the meeting,
you know, because we always have staff meetings right before
we open. And a couple of days earlier I had
spoken to him. I said, did you read the article
on the New York Times? Lobster is at an all
time low. You can buy lobster for nothing, because oh,
thank you for letting me know. So now we have
(23:43):
the meeting. So now we have the meeting, and it's
like tonight a special is lobster lobster, and I'm like,
what the hell is a blue lobster. They're from Nova Scotia.
The meets its sweeter than the main lobster. And he
(24:05):
proceeds to talk about this special. So the second the
meeting's over, I'm calling my purchasing guy at Tribeca. Thank
how much of these goddamn blue lobsters cost? Oh no,
he didn't have an accent. There's seventeen dollars a pound,
what like lobsters? Like five ninety five blue lobsters. Where
(24:25):
they meet is and anyway, this was the ongoing torture. Yeah,
this is the torture.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Well, you talk about that blue lobster. And I had
to laugh because Paul. I remember Paul from Atlas, and
I remember he and Nina Griscom had a big flirtation
and a James barad auction disappeared for a while and
that he ended up beer place. I have a fight.
So we we go there. My friend Patrice Sanaka said,
(24:54):
I want to take you anywhere you want to go
and I picked that, you know, the restaurant, and Paul
was there and his his dishes were so will out there,
like once had a little guy sitting on the edge
of the bowl fishing into the bowl or something. It
was incredibly creative but difficult. I don't know where he
is now, but no.
Speaker 3 (25:11):
You know, it's it's an amazing thing because my mother,
after being an actress as a young person, she became
a theatrical agent and then she became a casting director.
Of course, the casting director finds jobs for the actors,
but specific to what they're asked to cast. So my
(25:33):
mother casts these commercials and you know, like when you're
a kid, you're changing the channel with the changer. That
was a big thing with us. My mother's ah, I
want to see Paul Dave Ballaban or you know, Paul
Lee or she had cast these actors in the in
the commercials. Okay, casting. So when I choose a chef
(25:59):
for a rest, it's the most important thing you do,
and you don't do willy nilly, and you choose somebody
and you don't choose somebody else. So I used to
make these lists and like five six names and whoever
I chose. I'd look at the list maybe a year later,
and the other five people did really well. The ones
I didn't choose, but the one I chose, we always
(26:21):
got three stars. Always, so Paul le Bran, we got
three stars court Tone. He got hosed by Frank Bruni
of the New York Times. He opened a restaurant called Guilt.
It was supposed to get three stars. It didn't. And
yet we come in, we opened the restaurant, we got
three stars, and he still had to hose me. He
still had to, you know, like you prove to himself
(26:44):
that it was him that got the three stars, not us,
or it wasn't a team. You know, the word team
now is and every single restaurant slips the team. The
kitchen the team. And yet he didn't somehow conform to
(27:04):
the team. So he had to go to Brooklyn, not
saying anything to me, but I knew, you know, a
cook came out of the kitchen and said, when do
we going to Brooklyn. I'm like, what are you talking about?
Paul says, we're going to Brooklyn. So he hid it
from me. I went and I researched the place and
the hotel in Williamsburg all this nonsense, and then when
(27:26):
push came to shove, I was like, I'm not going
to compete with myself. He's going to open a place
serving hamburgers in a less expensive fair. I'm running a
restaurant with one hundred and fifteen dollars prefix. So you know,
when we finally sit down, he says, yeah, no, I'm
gonna I'm just letting you know I'm going to keep both.
And he said, well, that's very nice, Paul, but I'm
(27:48):
not going to compete with myself, so you go have
a nice time in Brooklyn. And that was that I
can stand on my own two legs. You know, I
did it with David Boulay when I was twenty nine
years old, and he was the best, There's no question.
Looking back on it, he was phenomenous, a total and
(28:09):
difficult in more ways than you can imagine. But is
cooking his food incredible? Yeah? It was beyond approach.
Speaker 4 (28:17):
Well, he was a visionary and a perfectionist.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
How do you do if you write about these genius shafts?
I mean you, I mean really, you were the casting
director of the restaurant industry and you write about these
two Do you write about these genius, incredibly difficult shots
that didn't know how to manage money and dealing with them,
and that insults injury. And this hit home for me
because running an agency, the worst thing that could happen
in pr is when one of your staff takes off
(28:40):
with your list, which happened to me, and then you know,
tries to solicit client. So I felt the pain that
you did when you found out that David Boulet was
planning to rest in peace to open literally down the
street from you. Well, I mean, and then the same
with Paul across the river. But how do you work
(29:01):
that in your head?
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Honestly, especially when I was younger and I thought it
was beyond reproach. I'm like, I'm such a nice person.
My parents are unbelievable. I take after them. I treat
everyone with respect and dignity. It's like and they all
want to fly fly the coop. I mean it's with Boule,
(29:25):
I mean Bouley, it was really like putting your nose
in it into it. Like he would sit in the
dining room and friends of mine would be at the
next table and he's negotiating with some real estate jerk
about opening this that or the other. And one time
I just went in the kitchen. Uh there was a
(29:46):
guy named Ray Bradley, wonderful person. And I grabbed him
and I said, Ray, come here a second, I said, I
brought him out. You know, the kitchen was sort of
hidden around a corner, so I brought him out. Said
you see that if any thing ever happens here, that's
the reason. But you know, basically saying, you know, he's
negotiating in the dining room. And then so I had
(30:08):
to kill the goose that laid the gold land. I
couldn't wait for him to give notice. Yeah, and you
know it would have been a cost to eleven. And
guess what happened. This is a really this is I
don't know who could ever pull this thing off. But
I hired a friend, not a not a three star
chef to replace Boulet. I hired a friend and hired
(30:32):
an entire kitchen staff. They trained at the River Cafe
that Charlie Palmer let them train there. At one point
Charlie called me up and said, hey, are you sure
you want to do this? I said, why, Charlie? He said, well,
this guy's not that good a cook, he said, Charlie.
I know, I kind of know, but this is not
(30:53):
about replacing a three star chef anyway. So on the
day I let Boulet go, it was a Sunday, He's like, nah, no, no, no,
you know, it comes back down to Masha and the
entire new crew is now in the kitchen at Mas
and he couldn't believe his eyes that he saw these
all these new people. We opened the next day Monday,
(31:17):
and very good customer of my Penny Trnk, is walking
towards the kitchen. So I see her and I walk
over to he. I said, Penny, can I help you?
She said, oh, I just want to tell David that
tonight was the best meal we've ever had here. And
this is the first night of Brian Whitmer's tenure. So
(31:42):
I knew immediately that I was going to be okay, okay,
But it took me a number of years to understand
because I do have, you know, perhaps a touch too
much ego, hubrist whatever, Yeah, to understand that it is
a team effort, that every component works together. I never
(32:07):
saw myself as the be all and end all, but
when you have to replace the chef, you have to
really know what you're talking about or know what you're doing.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Yeah, it's like replacing a pilot for a appliant.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
I don't know about that. Well, you have to replace
it with a pilot, definitely.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
But you know you can do that and you had
a lot of success of it. You went on from
mo Maerchee to Courton Batard and back just for the audience.
You know, you did all this starting it's about forty
years ago, which Tribecca was nothing and now it's everything.
But the one thing and I'm curious what you think
(32:47):
about this now, is you couldn't deal with the critics.
The critics were like the little things that KVID hadn't
attack you, and you were zing you have some great
reviews and you had to ding the reviews. How do
you ask that? And what do you think about the
way they're doing criticism now because now with the New
York Times, like two critics the ones here when there right.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
Well, this is this is a very important part of
my whole story because when I was just an employee
or a manager of a restaurant, one of the owners
came over to me one day and he said, this
is what I want. He shows me a two star
review in the New York Times that me, me Sharon
(33:30):
had given a restaurant This is what I want? Now?
Why two stars? Because me, me Sharon And a two
star for me me Sharon was like a three star
from anybody anybody else. And she was so powerful in
the seventies that I studied her scrupulously. I mean, like,
you know, to the point where I wouldn't even put
(33:52):
a shrimp on a dish because every review said the
shrimps tasted aviadine. And she was hillacious about a pepper mill.
You know, back on those days they had those baseball
bat pepper mills, the ones yeah, yeah, yeah, And like
you know, they come over with the pepper mill and
(34:12):
they go, would you like pepper on your salad? And
you know, you say, I haven't even tasted it. How
do you know I need pepper or want pepper? Right?
I mean he was tasted it. So I studied me
and me Sharon. And the restaurant we opened was twenty
four Fifth Avenue with a woman chef by name a
Leslie Rebson, who was at a restaurant in a village
called Restaurant Leslie. Very very talented woman, very strong, minded
(34:39):
obviously and me me Sheridan doesn't show up for like days,
and then on a Saturday day, which was a sleepy
time for the restaurant, the restaurant court mem says, she
just walked in mad me sharing because I had them trained,
you know, had a picture of her. So I used
(34:59):
to live a literally lived across the street. Somehow I
was in the village. I got to the restaurant, took
her order. I didn't take an order, but the waiter
took a order when the kitchen first course went out,
and then for the entree, it was taking forever. She
was trying to do what you're not supposed to do
(35:19):
with a food critic, just be natural, put your best
foot forward. But she was like, and when the review
came out, believe it or not, and this was very
instructive to me. We got we did get two stars
from Mimi shared it very nice review. And she said
the long delays between the courses seemed to be the
(35:41):
problem of the kitchen because there was nobody eating there
on the afternoon that I came. So she literally was
intuitive enough to see that, because up til then it
was like, what the service is back, the waiters are terrible.
You know, the service was slow, because nobody ever blamed
the kitchen, which is essentially where the service Hemny's from.
(36:03):
You follow me all the way that doesn't carry a plate,
the waiter screws up. He maybe didn't take your order correctly,
which happens obviously, but anyway, so I studied the critics then,
and if we have time for this, it's the best story.
It's in the book. I went to work at La
Grenui Loure Jeans with Daniel Blude by reserve the paragorg
(36:28):
George Briguet, and when one day they called me and
they said, oh, you're not going to believe. Brian Miller,
the food creter in the New York Times, came in
and I go, how did you know it was Brian Miller?
And I said, well, we didn't. But he was joined
by Pierre Frene. And everyone knew Pierre Frene, especially in
French restaurants. So I said, well, what did he make
the reservation under? I said Benson. I said, okay, do
(36:53):
me a favor. If you ever get Benson ever again,
call me. So I bring my tuxedo. I'm building rae.
Now bring to a tuxedo to the construction site. Three
weeks later, Drew, we have Benson. I put on my tuxedo.
E train is on the corner of Canal, comes up
on fifty second Street, right where La Grenui is walk in.
(37:13):
They're like, what the hell are you doing here? There?
He is the food critic of the New York Times, Benson.
And then when he pays the check, I'm outside with
a little camera. There were no cell phones. And then
I followed him from fifty second Street to the New
York Times forty third Street, running up the stairs of
Saint Patris Cathedral down the block, and I have twenty
(37:34):
five pictures of his back. I don't have one good picture. Now.
I open morache and I'm putting the wine away, and
I'm taking deliveries and I'm answering the phone. The phone rings. Hi,
we like to come eight o'clock. Two people. No, No,
I'm sorry, I don't have eight o'clock. I can take
you six six fifteen, six thirty. Okay, Benson, could you
(38:02):
hold on one second please? Oh you know, we have
a cancelation. Come at eight o'clock. I put my mother
on one side of the table. I put my girlfriend,
who is now my wife on the other side of
the table, and you know, my mother's going, oh my god,
this restaurant is so attractive and the food is so delicious.
I've been here twelve times, and you know, so Benson,
(38:25):
you know aka Brian Will gets up to have a
smoke and I go over to my girlfriend. I said,
what is he saying? And she says, it's the damnest thing.
They're speaking French, because it's why. Yeah, anyway, every time
he made a reservation on the Benson Boulet and I
get into the subway to take the subway to New
(38:48):
York Times on the Friday, the Thursday nights because the
paper would come out of Friday, they put out the
paper around ten thirty. We get the paper and it's
Maroche New French in downtown, three stars and guess what.
Guess what? I had a sixteen dollar menu, one six
(39:12):
three courses. I could have stadium. The phone never stopped ringing.
So George, Briguel Paraguardy goes Glue called me. He said,
lou congratulation. Did you know it was him? I said, George,
if you ever get Benson on your reservations, beware. So
(39:32):
two years later, the Peerligo three stars. I called George
George before I could finish. George says Blue it was
like you will whispering in my yeah. And so it's
the food critic thing is kill or be killed. It
(39:52):
is an elaborate cat and mouse game. And let me
tell you something. Frank brune he was a master. He
would make a reservation one day under Doug Charles, then
he would maybe under Charles Doug he would book fake
phone numbers. I must have like sixteen names for that guy. Wow.
(40:16):
And we opened Quurton because this was going to be
the Redemption PAULI Brandt Redemption. And he doesn't come in
for weeks, and it's late one night, it's like nine
thirty and party comes in. I don't even look at
the party. I bring them over to the I knew
where I was going to see them, and I sit
(40:36):
them down and the next thing, Frank Bruney is literally
in my face. It's his birthday.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
He says, he doesn't wear disguise.
Speaker 3 (40:45):
No disguise, no, no, no, no, the guy's at all.
And I turned around and my staff is like looking
at me like we know, you know, like they knew
it was him. And we got three three stars from
Frank Brunney and actually they made a movie Pulled a
Matter of Taste about Pauli Brandt. Woman followed him for
many many years, Lovely Woman from New Zealand. And then
(41:13):
we got to Michelin Stars and here's a restaurant and
by the way, one of the James Beard Journalism Award
the movie mm hm. And this guy has to fly,
this guy has to fly the coop. That's why, that's
why I had to write a memoir to tell these stories.
Speaker 2 (41:34):
Was there a restaurant that got away from you that
you wish you had?
Speaker 3 (41:39):
And there's a lot of things. Thomas Keller sent me
a business plan for the French Laundry, which I thought
was for Cocta. It's like, what the hell in the
middle of no place, you know, And I gave it
to my business manager, who was also a little for Cocta.
But he was like, you got to you know, somebody smoking,
(42:00):
you know. I mean, I never talked about that, but
I did pass on that. Todd English kind of hoes me.
We both were doing restaurants with w and they, you know,
came over to me, said let's do a restaurant together
and yeah, let's do it. And then I came back
to New York and they called him and said, oh,
it's a pity about Todd, right. I said, well, what's
a pity? He says, well, he said he doesn't want
(42:22):
to work with you. I go, you know, that doesn't
sound right. So anyway, I called him my own No,
that's that's not true. Blah blah blah blah blah. And
then he opened what was it called his famous restaurant
in Boston. Yeah, I lives in the w Yeah, Union Square,
(42:44):
one Star. Yeah, he was the king of one one Star.
Then Rick Bayless and I had a little once once,
you know, because yeah, Rick Bayless for crane that didn't
come to pass. And then, you know, I could point
to a couple of things in the book. I talked
about Nobu's noodles. Nobody didn't want to Noble's noodles. Mama
(43:09):
filled the Yeah, let's put it that way. We had
done we had done Noba's noodles. You know, maybe I
would be flying private now.
Speaker 2 (43:18):
Yeah, he didn't want Nobody didn't want to do. No,
he didn't want to do noodles. There's something negative about them,
I think he said, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
He just isn't. He doesn't. He doesn't dig. He doesn't
dig Ramen. But guess what. And I predicted this, I
didn't have to predict it. But and it's not like
the prediction means anything. When I had a French restaurant
called Marochet, you know, quasi French, I put pasta on
the menu and John louispalad that came in one day.
And Jean Louipala that was the greatest chef on God's
(43:45):
green earth. He was a master, and he was a wonderful,
generous human being. And he ate that pasta and he
goes is good. He spoke, and then I would put
pasta pasta pasta. So I knew Ramen would hit Mama Fuco.
(44:06):
To this day, that location is jammed.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 3 (44:13):
Yeah, I mean it's you know, so if we had
done Nobu's news. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
Anyway, well you did pretty good with burgers. I you know,
I'd never been to the burger place at Madison Square,
but you're you're selling a lot of burgers.
Speaker 3 (44:28):
Everything about that hamburger is the proof is in the pudding.
That hamburger. There's a whole story there. But I had
worked in McDonald's of course.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Yeah, exactly. And that was what's the impetus for the
daily burger? You came up in the system.
Speaker 3 (44:43):
I just tell you quickly that. So they called me
up and they said, we're spending a billion dollars at
Madison Square Garden. Would you like to do a concession?
And I go, yeah, I'll do a chicken parmesan sandwich
and they go great. And then they called me back
in two days and says, you got the hamburger?
Speaker 1 (44:58):
Whoa.
Speaker 3 (45:00):
This was twelve years ago. Shakeshack at Furst had just started.
He was the king, right, And I go, no, no,
I'm not doing the hammer because the hamburger at Madison
Square Garden sucked. So well, that's all this left. If
you don't do the hamburger, no don't, You don't get anything.
So I swear to I got off the phone. I said, well,
(45:21):
I got the bun, I got the meat, I got
the condiments, but I don't want to cook it on
a flat top whittle like the stupid, insanely bad smash
burger Bolooney places that you read about and everyone, oh
my god, the smash burger. It's like when you cook
(45:43):
a piece of charcoal. You know, it's like so anyway,
I find a conveyor belt, grills the burgers up and down,
eighteen burgers in four minutes, toast the buttons on the bottom,
perfect medium, rare. We wrap it in a pleated paper
(46:04):
that is genius. It holds in the heat. Put it
on a flat top. We'll sell two. I'm going to
the next tonight. Actually, two thousand hamburgers a game, two thousand,
and they're delicious. And it's been twelve years. And guess what,
they just signed us to a seven year extension. Wow,
(46:26):
that's why I think the proofs in the pudding. And
by the way, we started with one concession in the building,
then two, then three, then four, then in the Madison Club,
then in the Delta Club, then in the private suites.
Why by demand, that's right.
Speaker 2 (46:41):
Look what Danny did, Look what Danny did with Shakeshack.
You could be going that way.
Speaker 3 (46:46):
You know, I'm not going to talk against a billionaire.
Speaker 4 (46:49):
Yeah, Melanie. Melanie always says that the Union Square Cafe
made Danny famous and Shakeshak made him a billionaire.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
You know, you make your money and you know Bobby
plays through well, Bobby, it's all about the Burgers. It's
like the burger is where if you crazy.
Speaker 3 (47:02):
Let me tell you. I'm going to tell you something
about Danny. Yesterday I sent him a clip I found
this I went through I was going through old VCRs
because I carved the Turkey one day on Good Morning
America and Michael Strand as a friend of mine through
the football days. But I'm trying to get on Good
Morning America good luck, so you know, he said, I'm
(47:24):
trying for you, bab, and I said, yeah, no, I
carved the Turkey on Good Morning America with Charlie Gibson
and Joan London. So I find this tape where this
is unbelievable. This is a guy interviewing Danny Drew and
Sirio Maccioni, and it's kind of a short interview. And
I'm going to send this to you after this interview
(47:46):
because Danny Meyer looks like he's about twelve years old
and his air is so curly it's hilarious. And of
course he when he's asked the question, he's Danny Meyer,
so you know who it is. So I send this
to Danny Meyer and Danny was like, I cannot believe.
I don't remember this. I gon't know how you have this,
(48:08):
but it's insane, you know, And that's my life. I
keep everything. My wife she would have thrown everything out
by nile if I hadn't hid things, you know. And yeah,
I mean that's what I do. I send things to people.
They're like, where the hell did you get you know,
thirty years ago? And just you know, like I just
(48:30):
had my book party here, Rebecca growing, you know, Marty,
my party of thirty five years. Marty Shapiro goes, you know,
you have an engraved bottle downstairs. It's like an ebicanezer.
It's like, I know, eight bottles or whatever of Tatanger.
I said, what does it saying? It says it was
given to you at an event in the Hamptons in
nineteen ninety five. I said, oh, it's thirty years old.
(48:52):
Said yeah, okay, let's open it. So at the book party,
we go to open this thing, and I swear to god,
you know, my Somalia is a genius. David Gordon he
dorks the cork, so I'm like, oh, good luck. But
then he gets the cork out and it was delicious.
It had bubbles. We served it to the whole group. Wow,
(49:12):
So longevity in life. If we can live to be seventy.
You know, both my parents died at a very early age.
If you can live to be seventy, God bless, that's
my goal.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
I think that's a great way to wrap this up.
And with that because you get very reflective at the
end of the book, like we all have when we've
had a rich, long career and you worry about relevancy
that yeah, you've achieved so much at this point you
can rest if you choose. But how do you Is
there something you say to yourself every day or is
(49:46):
there like one thing left you'd like to do, just
briefly to kind of wrap it all up. You did
the memoir. I think you should be doing a museum
based on what you just talked about with what you well, yeah, by.
Speaker 3 (49:56):
The way, it would be called Jerusalum Jum believe it
or not. I have content for that. But anyway, because
I don't know if you probably went the stars in
San Francisco, I was always like so enamored how he
had that. On your way to the toilets, you could
see everything about Jeremiah Tower. It was like, so I
kind of did that here at Tripeca Grill Listen. I've
(50:19):
had a storied career, but what you learn is that,
and especially today, you could get a full page in
the New York Times and nobody will see it. And
or you can get a full page of New York Times.
You can put it on your Instagram and your followers
will see it, and that's the only people who will
see it. So what I would say is this, forty
(50:40):
restaurants with nobu as the cherry on the top is tremendous.
What I do one more thing, Yeah, in collaboration with
somebody who's got the money, because I'm was never good
at raising money. And I would do a Jewish deli
because years ago Michelle Rochard did the Broadway Deli in
Santa Mani and it was a stroke of genius, but
(51:03):
for some reason it didn't last. But the bread, hry bread,
specifically on deli sandwiches is god awful. So I'd have
fresh baked bread, great corn, beef and beers from me obviously,
and the mustard's really important. Also, I would I would
have superior do.
Speaker 2 (51:22):
You open it? We're coming coming. We love a good
we love a good sandwich. Myself true It's been so
great to see you looking good. By the way, congratulations,
maintain your life.
Speaker 3 (51:36):
You know how much respect to have for you and David.
I wanted to do this. You made it very easy.
Feel like we just started this. This went very fast.
But I love you guys, and you're an excuse for
me to get back on a plane, go to New Orleans,
and who knows, I might even break for dinner at
Admirals because I can get in that I want to.
Speaker 4 (51:57):
That's this big two more seats than we can join you.
Speaker 3 (52:00):
Yeah, but they're nice people. You know. I went to
the super Bowl in New Orleans. What was it two
years ago? Was it two years? It was nat ye
this year and I visited, uh my friend Donald link
Kochon was tremendous and t and lally over at Commander's
Palace and had brunch there and that was tremendous. So
(52:20):
I love New Orleans. I'm on a diet, so I
don't know what I can eat. But I even went
to Antoines because I've never been to Antoine's and had
delicious luncheon at Antoines before I got back on the plane.
So I love New Orleans. That's an excuse to see
my friends.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
We will welcome you with open arms, and of course
we always love coming to New York again. The book
is I'm not trying to be difficult. By the way,
I finally reading this book, knows what your a I
knew your AOL address for years was hose. I won't
say the rest of us.
Speaker 3 (52:52):
Now I know why everybody everybody hoes me. That's why
you know.
Speaker 4 (52:58):
I was thinking that too because I used to email
you at address at that address, and I was like,
what's the meaning of rose? And now I finally figured
out after this conversation today, we figured it out.
Speaker 2 (53:07):
Okay, stay well, okay.
Speaker 3 (53:09):
Like wise, I love you and I love you too, Drew.
Speaker 2 (53:12):
Thanks for having me and if you have crazy a
hug too. All right, you've been listening to the Connected
Table Live. What a great conversation with all friends. I'm
so happy pick up Drew's book. It's really a terrific read.
Go out and support your local restaurants. It's a tough
business to be in. We can't wait to go out anytime.
(53:33):
We can just do it. It's a great way to
see friends, have an experience and support a great community
because the restaurant industry is always there to support and
give when there is a need. You've been listening to
the Connected Table Live. Follow us on the Connected Table.
You can see all the shows and over sixty five
podcast channels and of course the Connected Table TV on YouTube,
(53:56):
and always stay insatiably curious. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (54:01):
The cost bas
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