From Paris to New York: Jonathan Waxman on Food, Wine, and Cooking’s New Frontiers

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
We're very lucky, Paul, because you think about all these people
that have brought their contribution to American
soil, whether it be Greek,
Thai, all the regions of India, all the regions of China,
you know, Japan, Korea. I mean,
it's amazing. I think we're so lucky. Sit

(00:23):
back and grab a glass. It's Wine Talks with
Paul K. Welcome. To Wine
Talks with Paul Kay. And we are in studio today in beautiful Southern
California, Monrovia, broadcasting all the way through to
New York with our good friend Jonathan Waxman. We'll get to
introductions in a second. Wine Talks is available, of course, on

(00:45):
Spotify, Pandora, iheartradio, wherever you hang out for your
podcasts and always sponsored by the original Wine of the Month club, now
sporting the Bordeaux and Napa series wine
clubs. This is such an honor to have you on the show, Jonathan.
Mr. Waxman, chef, probably have lots of
accolades. Thank you for being on the show today. My pleasure.

(01:06):
Happy to be here. Just starting out. I mean, it is 65
degrees today in Southern California. How about.
Well, it's interesting, Paul. Yesterday in New York, it was almost 50 degrees
and I was talking to one of my ex
chefs in Houston, it was 10 degrees. So I.
The world is topsy turvy. We

(01:29):
probably have to talk about climate change and the world of wine as well.
I did want to say one thing, though. Going through this and
wanting to have you on the show. And I've read Chef's Drugs and Rock and
Roll, I've read your three cookbooks, or at least the intros and prologues and things.
But we have a pretty amazing list of mutual friends,

(01:49):
not the least of which is our friend Melvin Masters, who, I don't
know, I think I've been buying from him for probably 30 years now. But
Bruce Neiers, an old friend, used to
sell wine to my dad in the 70s. That's so funny. So
I first met Melvin in 1979 when
I was at Michael's and he was at Jordan Winery at that point

(02:12):
and he was the wine director for Tom Jordan and
getting the winery open. And I was picked
to do the opening dinners at the Jordan Winery
by Melvin. And Tom was very
generous and he said, look, you know, what are you going to serve? I said,
I don't know, Tom. He goes, well, that sounds great. Here's my

(02:34):
plane. Fly around wherever you want in California and pick up
whatever you need. A true story.
And so I arrived. I was working for Michael
McCarty at the time, and it was Michael, myself and Nancy
Silverton, I think was one of the sous Chefs. And
we arrived at Jordan on this turbo prop plane,

(02:56):
and the wings were filled with food, and we just
unpacked, you know, Catalina lobsters that I
picked up in, literally in Santa Barbara. Wow. Lambs
from Sonoma. I got king salmon that we
picked up in Point Reyes. And it was, you know, we just. And I got
off the plane and Melvin and Janie were there to meet me. And

(03:18):
they go, so what are you making for the first dinner night? I said, I
have no clue. Let's pick out the food. And
we unpacked all the stuff. We laid it out in this beautiful kitchen they had
at the Jordan winery. And I just sort of walked around and
picked out some stuff. But what I really wanted to know was what kind of
wines they wanted to serve. That was because they hadn't told me

(03:41):
ahead of time. And I always feel. Feel that wine comes
first, food comes second. So I wanted to make sure that
whatever we served married up well. So Melvin then proposed to
have lunch. And I remember I made. I got some of the
lamb legs from, you know, the spring lambs from
Sonoma. And we, We. I cooked lunch. And of course, he had

(04:02):
Beaujolais for lunch. Not. Not Jordan. And I remember the
lunch went. Figure that out. 5:30 in the afternoon. And all of a sudden we
realized we had to cook dinner that night for the. For the dinner. The one.
Yeah. But it all, you know, those days you had more stamina than. Than a
horse. And it all worked out well, that. So anyway, that
I've got all this conversation to talk about Michaels and Nancy and.

(04:26):
And Janie and. And Melvin. But
was that normal to just get on a plane and go around and pick up
your. No, I. You know, it was. Nothing
was ever normal about anything I did with Melvin, to be
honest with you. Character, you know. Yeah, character and a
half. And, you know, Melvin and I became best friends.

(04:49):
You know, we bonded over that, and we ended up
becoming partners. And I read that
three restaurants in New York starting in
1983. Was Janie part of that?
She was a trained chef. Did she work at Chez Panisse for a while? Jane,
Janie is funny. What happened was, you know, I had been at
Michael's since 1979. It was 1983, and

(05:13):
I wanted to move to New York for some reason, don't ask me why.
And Melvin invited me for
lunch at the Four Seasons when I was in New York.
It was Janie's birthday, actually, and we had lunch at Four
Seasons. And back then, the Four Seasons was the most magnificent place to have lunch.
And we sat and had one of those lunches that went from 12 to

(05:36):
whenever, till, you know, till dinner. And during
that lunch, Melvin and Janie said they had moved to New
York and they wanted to open up a fish restaurant and
name it after Billingsgate, the old fish market in London,
which is sadly no longer there anymore. And
they said, we'd like to have you think about becoming the chef

(06:00):
for the restaurant. I said, well, you know, it's funny you said that. I'm actually
thinking about moving to New York. So we talk about it. Anyway,
so long story short, we ended up sort
of changing Billingsgate to, you know,
more of a Waxman style restaurant.
And Jenny said, Grace gracefully said that, you know, why don't you

(06:22):
be the chef? And you know, I'll, you know, I'll,
I'll be there, but not, not in a, you know, real active role. And,
and Melvin and I started jams, which stood for Jonathan and
Melvin. Wow, I didn't read that. And the thing that. That's what it stood
for. Janie's a trained cordon bleu,
I think. Right. She's a magnificent cook.

(06:44):
And, you know, might have been better for his
marriage that he didn't do this with Janie. So
who knows? But, yeah, I remember. So,
Paul, the funny thing was they had bought a house up in Bethlehem,
Connecticut. So we used to go up there before we found a space. You
know, in New York there's an old adage, you either have a space

(07:07):
and you don't have an investor or you find an investor, you don't have a
space. So at that point we had a space, but no investors.
And we were desperately seeking a name. And Melvin
and I were stuck on the bus coming back from Bethlehem, you know. Right. You
know, next to the bathroom. And it was pretty disgusting. And
going back to New York early in the morning and he looked at me with

(07:29):
his sort of baleful eyes that we have to come up with a name right
now. So I just blurted out, you know,
I don't know. And he goes, you know, in French there's this expression, la
vieille d' or son confiture, which means life is not worth living without jam,
which really means life isn't worth living without. Without cash.
Confiture meaning money. Yes. Right. And so we

(07:52):
just said, we both said at the same time, jam. And that's how.
Oh, Jonathan, Melvin. And then the s. I'm not gonna tell you what that means.
Well, all right, so that's, that's Mel. And Mel
is Mel. In fact, he's been in here in the studio last time he was
in town, and he's promised Magnums
at Willy's Wine Bar when all this clears up. So

(08:15):
we'll get you on the list. Because, you know, and. And
be through. Melvin. Mark and I became very good friends.
So I've been going to Willie's. It's the greatest since
the beginning. So that's like 83, I
think, when he started. I think 1980.
1980, because it's been that. Exactly that. Oh, yeah, he just released

(08:39):
his book. Well, I have. I have a poster in my house.
It's the 1986 or 87, you know, Willie's
poster that my dad brought back. And he also had a
signed and autographed a menu that. That Mark had signed.
And we were up in Napa, my wife and I, during
COVID Actually, I was doing some podcasting, and we were walking down through Yountville,

(09:00):
and there's a little condo complex on the right side as you're headed into Yontville
from the north. And I spy. My wife
actually spies a poster through the window. So here we are, like Peeping Tom's looking
through this guy's living room window, and there's a Willys wine bar poster. It wasn't
the same one, but it was my wife because that looks like a Willy's type
poster. And so it looks like, lo and behold, I took a picture and emailed

(09:21):
it to Mark. He says, yeah, that's one of our posters. He says, where is
this? I go, it's a Gonville Napa. I said, you were already out here.
People are paying attention. But then I was watching
one of the TV stations during COVID It was on the news station.
And over the guy's shoulder who's in, you know, broadcasting from his home,
is the poster that I have at my house, a Willy's poster. So I took

(09:43):
a quick still shot of that and sent that to Mark, and
we became friends through those sort of this communication and because of Melvin is
too. So you're in Magnum's at Willy's.
I don't know. I suppose summertime or sometime before it
frees up. But how about Bruce Neiers? I was talking to Bruce the other day,
had him on the podcast as well. He used to come to see my father

(10:05):
in 1972 and 75 and sell him wine
from Joseph Phelps. What he says, he goes,
oh, you got to say hi to Jonathan for me. So. So I
first met Bruce when I worked at chez
Panisse. In 1977. And I
had worked in Napa, actually, maybe before that, because I had worked at Domain Chandon

(10:26):
in Napa Valley. I think I met him then. Or Barbara. I
can't remember who I met first, but Barbara was great friends with Alice,
of course, and as was Bruce. And, you know,
Chez Panicks was nothing but a kind of a great place to
have friends hang out and have dinner and drink wine and,
you know, talk stories. And that's when I

(10:49):
first met Bruce. But I got to know Bruce even better
when I was at Michael's.
Alice threw a 10th anniversary party
at Phelps in 1981 and
invited Michael and
myself up with our than girlfriends. And,

(11:13):
you know, Bruce and I spent a lot of time at that party for some
reason, drinking margaritas and talking about life.
And we bonded. And then he
used to come out and hang out at Wally's. Steve
Wallace had become a really good friend. And so I
used to spend a lot of time with Steve and Bruce. What

(11:35):
a party. Carl Domaney and the
whole. That whole group of people.
And you know, Paul, it was really a remarkable time, I have to tell you.
You know, we're going to talk about Michaels in that period.
Ken Frank, we become friends. He's been on the show. He wants to want
you to come back up to latoke and do another show. But one

(11:57):
that surprised me. We'll get into the guts of this conversation. But I was talking
to Mark Toll yesterday. He's a vendor. He'd been around the wine business for a
long time. And he says, well, Jonathan Waxman used to stay at Sandy
Garber's house when he came.
Well, that's a. That's actually a kind of funny story. So when I was at
Domain Chandone, I.

(12:18):
I started off in the pastry department and then I moved over to the savory
department. And I used to cook lunch.
That was my job. And one of the waiters was a guy named
Ralph Meyer. And Ralph. And Steve
Gordon was another waiter, used to sort of torture me. Over
there was. The kitchen was in the basement and we had a microphone and

(12:41):
a video set up. And they would yell at me to send food
up in the dumb waiter. And, and. And
Ralph and I and Steve became really good friends. And Sandy
at that time was working at.
For Mondavi as a tour director. And she hated me.
Yeah, hated me from. Hated me. Hated me from day one. And

(13:05):
she just did. It was a long story. Some other time, we'll
talk about it. But in any case, when
I moved down to LA to become work at Michael's and
Ralph and Sandy Ralph came down to LA because he was going to film school
at ucla. And so we sort of
reconnected in that point. Sandy Ralph and I became somewhat

(13:28):
inseparable. And that's
funny. That's really funny. Yeah. So we've been
really great friends since 1977. She's a
character. Well, she called the other day looking for a
place to move a lot of Rose real fast. She extended herself
a little long, but I think I've been buying from her for, I don't know,

(13:51):
20 years. At least 20 years. And Mark, the sales guy was telling me, he
goes, well, well, I asked Jonathan, where should I go in Tennessee
for a dinner. And you recommended this. I can't remember the name now,
Western something, but it's a fried bologna sandwich. He wanted to make sure
I mentioned that. Oh, yeah. So that's.
It's called the Great Waxman is asking for

(14:13):
recommending a fried loni sandwich. Okay. Well, there's a wonderful
honky tonk called Roberts on Broadway in
Nashville. And it's a place that is the most
egalitarian bar in the world. And they have the best
Nashville groups that play there. There's
no cover charge. There's seemingly no. They don't

(14:36):
card anybody, but they give people once over.
And the only admission is that you go in and, and
dance and. And listen to music and eat fried bologna sandwiches
and drink cheap beer. I don't know. That sounds pretty. It's
really. It's really. Honestly, I took Giada there
one. One night and I think, I think Giada has ever had a

(14:58):
better time in her life dancing and having a great time. It was really.
No pictures? No, no pictures. Okay, good. Sorry.
You touched on a couple things just through these stories. I want. I was going
to peel back anyways, I'll get to them and we'll talk about your career. Getting
into, you know, the aha moment that Freya Troglo and
places like that. But, you know, you said something interesting. It's kind of just

(15:21):
started at my house, even though we've been doing this a long time. And that
is. You said wine first and then
we're going to cook around the food. And you know, so much of. I think
so much of many people that just that like wine and maybe cook at home
or go to dinner will start the other way. They'll start with, well, what am
I eating and what should I drink? And I've become.
When I get home now, particularly through confinement,

(15:45):
like I feel like a Beaujolais. I feel like
an aged Burgundy. I feel like. And then what should
we eat? Is that. Yeah. Is that the way you approach it?
Well, it's sort of. You know, I'm
loath to use this word, but it's an organic process. You know,
Sandy and I go to the market in Santa Monica

(16:07):
and we shop for food and bring the food home and kind of lay it
around. And. And then she starts talking about wine first. What do you want to
drink? I love that because, you know, then
you start thinking in your head, what, how can I turn
this food into something that will marry up well with those wines we want to
drink now, invariably, we don't stick to the program.

(16:29):
Well, that's because, you know, you'll just. Everything, you know, like, life goes
sideways. But I think it's important.
I think, you know, I was very lucky when I
went to Berkeley for a short period of time, UC
Berkeley, and I took an enology course. And
it was back in the day when it was taught, you know, very much on

(16:52):
the old. On. On the Davis standard. It was very textbook
and chemistry oriented. It was very
passionate at all. But what was nice about it was I
got to learn, you know, so the core values of
winemaking and the wine. The wine process.
And because I worked at Domain Chandome, you know, I got to, you know, go

(17:14):
into the. Into the winery and wander around.
They let me see everything. And the winemakers were
very open about how they did things.
And that really helped me along the way, I think, to
understanding how important wine is in my world. Well,
so I'm going to venture. Say your restaurants embrace that

(17:37):
concept. Barbuto and jams,
wherever. That's an important part of the equation. And
I wrote down here, I know, because particularly with the Italian food,
nothing makes me cringe more than when I see somebody
come to, let's say, Union here in Pasadena
and bring open a bottle of Duckhorn Merlot when.

(18:01):
Ah SAHM has spent a lot of time and energy to pair up the
foods of the restaurant to the wine list and present to
the public something that would be interesting to taste and be with. And
I don't have any problem, of course, bringing wine to a restaurant I think is
fine, but I just want to talk about wine's
evolution with their indigenous foods. You spent time in

(18:23):
France, where you. Where you were near Lyon, you know, in
Rouen, right. Fred Tragro. And. Well, I was
very lucky by. I went to school in Paris. I went to La Verne cooking
school. And, you know, What?
And I actually used to go take classes at the Blue Fox when it was
Steven Spurrier. I didn't know Melvin and Steven had a

(18:45):
relationship at that time. And actually. And Tim Johnson was there and everything.
But in any case, you know, there
was a. We took an Easter classmates. And I rented
this horrible car that had a 2 by 4, 2
by 2 by 4 holding up the front seat. And I said, let's go to
all the best restaurants in France that we could afford.

(19:07):
And the first restaurant we went to was Trois Gros and
Rouen. And I had never,
I actually had been to a three star restaurant before that. I'd gone to Chez
Denis, you know, the famous Chez Denis in Paris,
which was underwhelming at best. But
I, I had to go because of that whole, you know,

(19:29):
article in the New York Times. But I. We went to, you know, Trois
Gro and they, number one, it was the middle of,
you know, the first of Easter. It was cold, it was
snowy outside. But they welcomed us as if we were, you
know, the, like royalty. And they,
and they, and they served this sort of classic Trois

(19:51):
Gro menu of, you know, the foie gras that was seared
that I never had before, the fresh foie gras. And then
they had this dish, you know, the salmon o lazai, which is, you know, the
famous dish with vermouth and cream. And then they had
roast duck with cassis berries and

(20:12):
their famous cake. And then after the meal, they took us into the kitchen and
showed us the kitchen. You know, I,
I don't remember the wine at all from that meal. But
the next day, everybody abandoned ship
except for one person because they had just said, I'm not going to eat like
this the rest of our lives. We're done. So this one

(20:33):
Trencherman and I, and we were about to leave and it was snowing,
and Jean, trial girl walks up to us. What are you guys doing for lunch?
And we said, well, we were thinking about heading down the road. He goes, oh,
come and have lunch. It's on me. So he sat us down in the
bar area of 12 row and he just says,
I'm going to cook for you. And he brings out a. A

(20:54):
so filled with ice and a pewter
jug filled with flurry. Wow.
Duck it on ice. Wow. And it probably was
the best meal I've ever had in my life. They serve, they serve this little
dish. It was called panache of poisson, which these little
fish from the river, the little sonde.

(21:16):
And they were just poached in a little bit of courbillon with a little beurre
blanc on top. And then we had
light lunch. We had cote du boeuf with
these, you know, gratin potatoes that they make at foie gro.
And, and we just drank Fleury with that.
So. And, and I, and tell you, Paul, you know, that to

(21:40):
me was, you know, sort of that,
that, that awe moment where you
realized that I was going to do this the rest of my life. That's for
sure. Yeah, it really was. But you were cooking
school at the time, right? I was, but, you know, I had no idea. I
was, I was, you know, I was a musician that, you know, turned, you know,

(22:02):
I got to go to cooking school and everything else.
And, you know, it was that seeing that kind of
just perfectionism with
everything was. Everything was the graciousness, the hospitality,
the service of the wine. Everything else was so
comfortable and so passionate, yet,

(22:27):
you know, he didn't get in the way. He didn't come over and bug us
during lunch. He just wanted to make sure we were happy. And it
taught me a million lessons that day. And it really stuck with
me. Do you think that aha moment, I mean, it
definitely has to happen in the wine business, and I'm going to guess it has
to happen in the culinary side for you to take on that schedule, to

(22:48):
take on the role of not only entrepreneur, but as
chef. And then, you know, all the headaches and all the headwinds of opening a
restaurant. I mean, isn't that where the passion comes from? A moment like that
at Trois Gros where you're like, okay, I get it now
100%. I had another one during that time period.
I had this Austrian girlfriend who had a car.

(23:11):
I didn't, I didn't date her for the car benefits.
And one Sunday we, I said, let's go out
to the champagne country and go wine tasting. Of course, we arrived
too late for wine tasting on Sunday. And I realized that they were, you know,
they're Catholic. They're Catholic and they don't do tastings a lot. On
Sundays they go to lunch. So we, I looked in the guidebook

(23:33):
and there's this two star restaurant called Boyer, which was not in
Rennes at that time, was out in the countryside near Epernay. And we showed up
this little country house and Sunday lunch and about one o' clock
I walk in and stupid me, you know, of course they're booked, you
know, and, you know, probably months ahead of time. But the woman at the front

(23:54):
looked at us and took pity on us. And they created this little tiny table
for us off the side. And I remember
sitting down and having a bottle of
61 go say, wow.
And
the first course was a salad of

(24:15):
mosh petals, lamb's lettuce to
people, lamb's tongue lettuce, if people don't know what it is, with olive oil,
sea salt, and shaved paracord truffles on top. And that
was it. That's it. That was it. And you think about it,
you know,
there was no real skill there other than

(24:38):
perfection of choosing perfect ingredients, serving them
perfectly, and having the restraint to not
not, you know, put too many things on the plate and
knowing what would go well with champagne. And I, I,
to this day, you know, I. I try to emulate that. I never
really can because, you know, sometimes those ingredients, because

(25:01):
they've been using it for hundreds of years, it's difficult
to do that. But it was really, you know, it really. That was another
awe moment, I think, for me. It seems that
cuisine, then, is that. Would you. Would you call that. Because you're talking 19. What
did you say, 70 or 80 something? This is 1976. Yeah.
So was that nouvelle cuisine? Did they have nouvelle? I mean, it sounds

(25:23):
nouvelle. It doesn't sound like. Yeah, it was. It was. It was, I would think,
what people now call nouvelle cuisine. And I think there's.
There's. There's a lot of sort of, you know, controversy about
what that meant. But what it meant was, I think these guys in France
and Freddie Girardet, of course,

(25:43):
they were sort of tired of the sauces that were, you know, that they
cooked, you know, a month ahead of time and just
reconstituted, which is what a lot of restaurants did, because it was just economical.
And they threw away the old ruse and they had
natural reductions, but I think. But it was more. That the
cooking got more delicate and it got more

(26:06):
refined, and it got. And food became
prettier. It looked better on the plate. You know, there was a
strong, you know, obviously, you know,
Bocuse and Roger Verger and all those people, they had
a certain style about what they did, and
that style became what is known as nouvelle cuisine. But what it

(26:28):
really was was taking the old classics and kind of
reinventing them a little bit or adjusting them.
And I think that's evolution. It has to happen, you know,
otherwise a business doesn't work, you know, I think so. And no, I
really think that that happens in every. Everything. But I was very lucky to

(26:49):
be in Paris when that was happening. So it
served me well. Well, it took. Well, it took until, what, the 80s?
One of my favorite subjects is haute cuisine in New York, you know, Le Pa?
On and Lutesse. And. And then why then did
this idea that you're saying in 76 that you tasted in.

(27:09):
In. In Leon or Le Ron, you know,
how did it land in America? Was, was. Was Alice
Waters like the linchpin of this idea
moving forward, or was that an accident? And now
that you're in New York, was what was happening in New York at this time,
was it still the les of the world that were pouring, you know. Yeah,

(27:31):
I, I shame out of things. I think if you had to pinpoint
one, one area was Los Angeles, you
know, when, you know, certain chefs,
you know, like l' Orangerie and, you know, those
restaurants, I think they were more in tune
with what was going on, like in the south of France with Roger Verger and

(27:54):
in other places. And Alice was
tangential in that respect. I don't think that
she was really influenced by some of those guys as much as
she just had her own style. And it happened to
be coincidental in many ways to what they were doing in France,
though, You know, Pierre Trois Gros sent

(28:19):
his son to work at Chez Panisse
right before I was at Chez Panisse. So there was
some sort of, you know, you know,
communication amongst, you know,
chefs around the. Between France and Italy
and Switzerland and even in England at that point. And I

(28:42):
think, you know, you know, it's like any good idea. It spreads. It spreads like
wildfire. And, you know, people gravitated toward it,
but it was hard to kind of pinpoint where it really
sort of took place in America. Now, I love Lutestown, and
Andre Soldner was sort of my uncle when I first moved to New York, and
he was really my mentor and. But his food was not

(29:04):
what I would call, you know, cutting edge
food. He was much more of a classic. Seemed very traditional, according
to his cookbook, anyway. Very, very traditional, which I really appreciated as
well. Yeah, I think there's room for, for everything. So I think
there's, you know, that's why I really appreciate when people do
go back to the classics and do you sort of channel, you

(29:26):
know, older recipes, which is what Alice
really did at Chez Panisse. She went back to old books and she looked up
recipes, but she probably did serve them in her style,
which probably could be called nouvelle cuisine, which is kind of interesting.
Well, I have to tell you, I've been after the Hundred Foot Journey.
I told you, my daughter. My daughter's a boulanger in New York. She

(29:49):
went to Isanjo for pastry school, and she ended up at
the New York French Cooking School. She worked for Benno for a while. When they
earned the star. She was the boulanger of record for the Michelin star they
earned, which they now are closed and reopened. So
we've seen a lot of the passion it takes to do this,
but I've tried to make the five mother sauces now. I think I

(30:12):
got the sauce tamat kind of under control, the bechamel,
but, man, I could not eat the espanol. I tried to make the
beef broth from scratch, and it.
I don't know. I don't know what I did. I'll tell you a funny story
about sauce espanol. So one of my jobs before Chez Panisse, I went
from Domain Chandon. I went to

(30:35):
work in Monterey at the Monterey Bistro, which is no
longer there. And the chef was. The owner was this old
German guy who was very classically trained from the 40s and
50s, and his chef was this very small,
wiry, very nice French guy. And I said,
you know, so, you know, how do you make your sauces? He comes in and

(30:57):
shows me in the. In the walk in There is this
24 gallon VAT of sauce espanol.
Really? I said, so how often do you make it? He goes, I make it
once every three months. And so I would happen to be there
on the day he made it, and literally he made this big
vat of. Of beef bone broth

(31:19):
in one pot and he cooked it overnight. And he put a
can of tomato paste in and two cans of tomatoes, and
it was this bubbling cauldron of beef
madness. And then his other pot, he made this roux
with a number 10 can of flour
and oil,

(31:43):
and he made this roux. And then he sifted, you
know, this cauldron of beef broth into
the roux and cooked it for about an hour and a half, this
bubbling thing, and it stiffened up
like glue, stuck in the walk in.
And every day he would go in and scoop up

(32:05):
enough that night. And you think about it,
and that was what people had done for years. Yeah, but
real sauce espanol, when I was at Chez Panisse and other places that we
did, really is. It's a wonderful. It's a wonderful sauce
if it's done correctly. It's really amazing. Well, you're lucky you didn't go on day
29, because

(32:28):
that's like the time I would have had sushi and mammoth, and it was the
day before the fresh shipment was coming in. You know, it's just not exactly,
you know, it's an important. This aha moment,
just for reflecting on that a second, do you think,
for a young chef, and I'm going to say this from experience, when my daughter
was looking for places to learn how to cook and

(32:49):
bake, we went to ICA in Napa and listened
to that speech, and we went to the one in New York. And it
seemed like at that moment, the pitch by the chef
was more about, well, if you don't want to go to college, you can come
to food school, and then we're going to make you. Well,
everybody thinks they're going to be a TV chef, but it seemed like more of

(33:10):
an outlet for people that didn't want to go to college than it was for
passionate people to learn how to cook, or at least the techniques of cooking to
go do something. Because this is a tough industry, and it takes a lot of
energy and passion. I mean, just watching my daughter get up at three in the
morning to go bake, you know, is enough. You can't do it without
that passion. What's the current temperature for

(33:31):
coming into the industry for young chefs? Well,
obviously, Covid is, you know, throwing everything, you
know, to. For a loop. But
heretofore, you know, I think one of the big
pushes that my friends and colleagues and
peers are trying to do is throw a wider

(33:52):
net to attract more individuals into our business.
And I think, you know, that
for good or bad, TV has drawn people to our business.
So they see people like Bobby Flay and Giada and
Michael Simon and people like that, and they said, well, they look happy and
successful and rich, and they're doing something

(34:15):
they love. You know, I'd like to do that. And
the problem is that it, as you and I
well know, it's. It's tough work. You know, the old
adage is, you know, if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Because kitchens are. They're, they're hot, they're sweaty,

(34:36):
they're uncomfortable, they're
just delicious. I love being in the. I love being in the kitchen,
but you have to be that type of person.
Now, do you have to be in the kitchen to be a chef? Absolutely not.
You could work for, as a private chef in someone's home. You could do
what your daughter does and, you know, work in a different department where you

(34:58):
don't have to work on the line. You have a different
style of cooking. You could be a pastry chef, you can make
ice cream. There's lots of different facets of it.
There are certain people that are very good at just the
economics of food and they
go into the business part of it, which is, I think, one part of my

(35:20):
business, which I think is sorely lacking. You know, I like
to be able to attract more MBAs,
more people that are, you know, that are business
trained individuals that would like to be in the food business.
But the most important part of the food business is that it really is
like a family. And the culture that I

(35:44):
was lucky to, you know, glom onto very early on
and hopefully, you know, in my restaurants I try to emulate that, is
that we try to create places where people can
grow as individuals. And the most important thing I think about is, is
trying to elicit people's passion and find out what
they're good at. And a lot of people are very shy and they don't really.

(36:06):
They're reticent about talking about what they really like and really want
to do. And I, I feel that's kind
of. I, I've, I'm pretty good mentor in that respect. And,
you know, I try to get out of people what they're good
at. And I think, you
know, we all, we all should find that little spark in our

(36:29):
belly or that little fire, whatever, whatever
you want to be. If you want to become a welder, you want to become
a doctor, you want to become a winemaker, whatever it is, that little
passion would, will make you happy.
You know, it sounds like you have the business part of it down pretty well.
I mean, maybe the numbers aren't so great when it comes to whether you sit

(36:49):
around and look at them, but certainly how to grow a staff in
an environment that's quick and hot and fast paced and filled
with sometimes complaining customers, and you're tapping into
the resources of each employee to maximize their
experience with you. Anyway, that's a huge part of business, isn't that?
Yeah, I think that, you know, you look at it rather than a business, you

(37:13):
look at it as a family and that they're part of your family, they're part
of your sort of extended family and that, you know, you, even when
they leave, you still feel responsible. Like I was talking to
Mark Peel, who was Nancy's husband
at Campanile the other day, and, you know, he still says, you know, you're
still my boss. Yeah, from 1980, I'm

(37:35):
still his boss, you know, and, you know, I always Laugh about
that. But I think, you know, to be a good boss is
a difficult thing and you make a lot of mistakes and you do a lot
of silly things and you say, say stupid things sometimes. But
if your intent is correct and you, and you, and you're
mindful of, of your place and in your business,

(37:57):
the most important thing is making good. Food for people, for sure. You know,
and, you know, I think that at the end of the day, if that's the
goal that's ever present. So I think
I've been lucky in that respect that I didn't shy away from
that. You brought up an interesting point because in Andre's
book, and I talked to him yesterday, by the way, Mr. Soltner, Chef Soldier. I

(38:19):
don't call him Andre. We're not that close. But he's gonna be on the show
pretty soon when he gets back from a trip he's taking. But he talks
about in the book that he didn't really pay attention to the numbers. He
was, I forgot who he was talking about. His wife or somebody was doing the
numbers and he didn't really care. He ordered what he wanted to order and he
made what he wanted to take. And they would tell them, you know, toward the
end of the month maybe that things aren't looking so great that we got to

(38:41):
do this or do that. And in today's environment, and
my, my wife's cousin owns a restaurant here in Pasadena called Mi Piachi, has been
around 30 years, which is a huge time frame in certain Southern
California for restaurants. And you know, it's not so easy.
I mean, it's just not that easy these days with the cost of labor and
the cost of government and the cost of food and, and you want

(39:02):
to produce high quality food that tastes good, you got to find good
food that tastes good. How
is this relate to? This is really what the question is.
You've got chef centric restaurants like yours, right? Like
Espago, like, you know, Chez, and then you have
corporate restaurants and here's like a Danny Meyer who's got like

(39:25):
this amazing chain of, you know, burger joints and
a couple restaurants in New York or maybe more.
How does a restaurant like that, like yours
manage all those pieces still
squeak out of profit so you can be there the next day and employ all
the people that you're mentoring. I mean, how does that happen these days? You know,

(39:47):
Paul, I'm going to say this and you're going to laugh, but a lot of
it's luck. Well, you know, I'll tell you A funny story. So
when Barbudo was about 5 years old, it was
9th 2009. The crash had just
happened in New York, and obviously the world and
our business just dropped precipitously.

(40:10):
It was the darkest days in January of
2009, and certain people told me that
I was going to go to business, and that didn't sit well with
me. So I fought as hard as I could. And
then I got a call from this woman, Sarah Abel, who is my
PR person for Baltz & Co.

(40:32):
In New York. And she goes, jonathan, I want you to do this TV show
called Top Chef Masters. I don't have to do. I'm not doing
any TV show. That's, you know, Bobby Flay worked for me, and Bobby did great.
And, you know, I was Bobby's mentor and he worked for me for a long
time and he, he did great. I said, I'm not gonna be. I'm not Bobby
Flay. I'm, you know, I'm, I'm too ugly and I don't want to be.

(40:53):
And she kept pestering me and pestering me, and I just told her to, please
don't do it. And then I got a phone call from Tom Colicchio, and he
goes, jonathan, just fucking do it. And
I went on the show, and we
went from 0 to 100 miles an
hour in April in the restaurant, doing the TV

(41:14):
show. Now, that wasn't serendipity, that
was sheer magic of, you know, tv.
And I was very lucky to, number one, have
lasted as long I was trying to get fired every week I was on TV
because I was so out of shape and old and tired
and, you know, I wanted to go home. But at the end of the day,

(41:37):
Paul, what was interesting to me was that, number one, I love doing tv.
So that was. I was wrong about that. And I loved and that worked
out, but it was miraculous for my restaurant.
Now think about someone else who doesn't have that, that ability to
be on TV or, you know, have that exposure. How do they make it
work? You know, I think you just have to grin and

(42:00):
bear it, and you just have to use every ounce of
intellectual and physical power to make things work.
And, you know, I, I, it's, it's a tough business. And
never sacrifice the quality of the food. No, but I think
it's tough. But I think that the tougher it is, sometimes the
harder you try, and the harder you try, the better the product becomes.

(42:23):
True. You know, so prune.
I just thought of that, you know, unbelievably.
Eloquent article that she wrote about
closing. And what my anecdotal story with that is that when my. When we decided
after my daughter graduated from University of Southern California, I said, now, if you want
to go to cooking school, you find, you know, so she went to Isanjo. I

(42:43):
told you that we're going to send her to New York, and she's going
to go to the French cooking school, which I think is now icc, which is
now closed. She calls and says, well, I'm not going to go to school now.
I go, what do you mean? She goes, well, Prune offered me a job. I'm
like, you're. No, you're not. Because a lot of chefs have told
her, you know, cooking school is not that important.

(43:05):
Get yourself in on the line and get. Get working. And so she
toyed with this idea. But I. I paid a lot of money to send her
to New York and get an apartment. She's going to just do this.
And then we learn that, you know, what a sad environment.
You know, if she's coming back or any rumor of what's going on with Prune
in the future. Well, well, the good thing about Gabrielle is

(43:26):
that she is a magnificent writer. Yeah.
Clearly that, that will. She'll be able to
channel that into a bank account that's sustainable. That's
number one. Number two is that I do hope she
comes back. I hope restaurants of her type will come back.

(43:46):
I have no idea. Yeah. You know, I think, you know, I think now
that that New York got smart and is allowing,
you know, restaurant workers to get vaccinated, I think that's.
That's a game changer for everybody for sure. Because that was the
thing that really has present prevented me from reopening was.
Was the safety of my customers and my staff.

(44:09):
And, And I think now that we have the
wherewithal to protect the staff initially
and hopefully customers as well, that that
will create some hope. But,
you know, I don't. I have. I don't have a crystal ball. I don't know.
There's barbud. I really don't know. I don't know. I don't know.

(44:30):
Tough. On the call, you mentioned that the TV talk, being on TV
being so important or having been so important for the restaurant. How
important is the Michelin Etoile,
the book, the Guide, three stars. How important is that to
the career of a restaurant, at least at that level of food quality you're trying
to present? Well, you know, when I went to France

(44:53):
in the mid-70s and mission guide was
everything. You know, if you got in the Michelin guide, you got a, you got
a star, two stars, you know, three stars. That was, you know, the
ultimate. That was everything. And
I bought into that philosophy
of, you know, pleasing the Michelin

(45:17):
style person or whoever, whoever made that guy.
And, you know, when Michelin decided to go worldwide, I thought
that was really interesting. But I still think
back in the day when it was just centered really
in France and a little bit in, you know, other countries
that were, you know, connected to France. It was a little tighter, a little

(45:40):
more succinct, you know, but it's a
valuable guide. I still use it. It's right next to
my toilet. I always have a commission guy there. I'm not,
I'll be honest with you. Great place. And,
you know, I think that the romance

(46:01):
of finding that little restaurant tucked, like you
talked about, the hundred foot journey tucked into a village that you have to
drive hours to or your car breaks down in front of this two star restaurant
that you didn't know existed and you walk in tired and hungry.
And, you know, the word restaurant means to restore one's spirit. And that's
what the Michelin guide to me means that you find this place. There's

(46:24):
a little place that I go to. We go every summer to
Talwar. A friend of mine has this wonderful house there. We go
every summer, spend two or three weeks there. And there's this restaurant that
I found, it's about an hour away outside of
Aix le Bain. And it's this young couple and this beautiful
little restaurant overlooking the vineyards of this, you know, Savoir

(46:46):
vineyards. And, you know, I went in there for the first time, I
talked my. I brought my two sons and, and a couple other people
and it was a revelation. Paul. Wow. Here's this young couple
out in the middle of nowhere cooking food
that was magical. And it was of a place. It
wasn't importing lobsters in Brittany and, you

(47:08):
know, you know, lamb from
Germany. It was all food from that region, from
that little valley. And you could taste it. And then you had
the wines, all these amazing, you know,
wines from that region that were. That are extraordinary, that don't
travel. You'd never see them in this country. You know, Kermit lynch has

(47:30):
a few of them, you know, things like that. But seeing that sort of
dedication, they probably have 12 tables, 15
tables. Wow. To me, that's the Michelin guy.
That's it in a nutshell. It seems like food is
food. Wine obviously are partners. But the idea
behind going to a place like that, in a restaurant that's tucked away, that's only

(47:52):
using local foods, it's somebody else's hands preparing, and they come up with
flavors that maybe Jonathan Waxman's never tasted before. And
that then that can change from vintage to vintage. For instance, with a
wine and how complicated and infinite the
idea of good food can be. And
finding little places like this. I don't. My listeners know that the Michelin

(48:14):
guy, which started like in the late 20s, early 30s, and it was meant for
you to drive out of Paris and go use up your tires so that
you have to buy more tires from the Michelin people. I mean, that's what. That's
what the whole point was. So. And I find that fascinating
to have learned that. So the. The.
There's a movie. I don't know if you've seen it. My French, you know,

(48:36):
I take French, but the American in the English translation is the
Wing or the Thigh.
It's a funny movie. It's a. It's in French. It's probably from the
70s. It's about two competing food guide
people, and they're trying to sabotage each other. And it's a huge slapstick comedy. So

(48:57):
if you haven't seen it. Oh, I love that. Well, it's interesting that, you
know, when I. The reason I went to Paris in the
first place, one of the reasons was I saw this guide called
the Juilliard Guide to Food. It was written by
Gomeau. And so when I
went to France and Go Mio at that time was actually more

(49:21):
influential and probably a little more avant garde than Michelin.
And so you looked at Gomeau to find the nouvelle restaurant,
nouvelle cuisine restaurants, and they were more, I think, a little more
topical, not as stodgy as Michelin was. Michelin was a
little more comme il faux, a little more traditional. But
I love. I felt that they really were warring against each

(49:43):
other. You know, that's what Mayweather was. And. And I love that. I
love that sort of juxtaposition. Now, in Italy, funny enough,
they have a lot of guides. And, you know, when you go
there and you go to the bookstore, there's like eight or nine guides of
food that are all very competitive and they're very
dense and they go into, you know, they're very

(50:06):
wordy and they're talking about these places. And I wonder how do they have
the time to do that? You know, go to these restaurants and all they do
is drink, drink and eat and write. You know, these flowery phrases about these
restaurants, but it
informed me about where to go. So that was
important. Well, it's, you know, the, the contemporary

(50:28):
app. I, I don't use any of them. Foursquare, Yelp, I don't care
because I, I can't trust a bunch of people. And you can't trust
those ratings anymore anyway because they're so. They're so
congested with false information. And so I, that's
why I find refreshing about the guide is that at least, you know, that is
a baseline of quality, a baseline of what food should

(50:50):
be and service should be, that you have a reasonably expect the
reasonable expectation that the food's going to have,
you know, it's going to survive your expectations. You know, there's, there is a
dive. What's the name of the show? Drive Ins, Diners and Dives. Gee
Fiori Show. And there's an app and I've used it for fun
and, you know, I'm like 50, 50 with it. I mean, I went to one

(51:12):
place in Tennessee. It was like bad. It was really bad. And
so, yeah, I thought. But I think like
anything, you know, you want it, you want it to be a fresh guy.
That's. You wanted to
be newly minted. You wanted to get, you know, you want to make sure.
I should look at the air data that show maybe. Exactly.

(51:34):
You know, and I think, you know, and listen, the restaurant business, you
know, things happen. So that's, you know, you know, restaurant changes,
change his hands. So, you know, you never know. I wanted to shift gears a
little bit. You're in Italy and, and
you don't tell this to the French. But when Catherine Medici
came to. The Medici came to from Florence and she married King,

(51:57):
was it King Henry? You know, she brought with her these Italian
cooks and it's purported that she, you know, taught the
French how to cook. You know, the Russians taught you how to serve, serve food
and they touch how to cook. But there's, there's such a dramatic difference
between Italian and French cooking. I find that hard to believe or find an
interesting belief. But how important in America were

(52:20):
the immigrants that came here bringing their. What
they didn't know was necessarily any kind of cuisine to
the extent that now Armenian food or Russian food or Chinese food or
Italian food is the staples of what we eat. But how
important is it? Well, I was very lucky. My. My parents, my
father's Bronx and my mother was from Bed Stuy and they moved out to California,

(52:43):
I always say, ostensibly to have me in 1950 or 49
and I remember as a young kid, my mother was an
intrepid cook and diner, and she would
travel to Fresno to buy grape leaves to make dolmas. She would
go into Chinatown to find rice noodles.
She would scour these.

(53:05):
There's a place called Ratto's in Oakland. You know, the barrels to find
the best, best olives and, you know, wow. You know, the best
olive oil and, you know, and I've never
understood how she had that passion. I mean, it didn't, you know, it.
She. It was never really explained to me. But I
think, you know, we're very lucky, Paul, because you

(53:28):
think about all these people that have brought their
contribution to American soil, whether it
be Greek, Thai,
all the regions of India, all the regions of China, you know,
Japan, Korea. I mean, it's
amazing. I think we're so lucky. We are. You

(53:51):
know, I think it. The. The layers that
are available to us now. If you go to any supermarket
or any farmer's market and you see the amount
of food and the rainbow effect
of all these different cultures colliding
in the supermarket, I think it's fantastic. Do you think

(54:15):
the New World. These people came, like I said, they didn't know what are. They
came, they brought their food, they made it at home because that's what they had
to do. But do you think that part of our food
culture is because we had nothing indigenous,
Maybe corn? Right? I mean, this. We had an open book. And
Jacques Lardier said in Louis Jadot, like, that's what. That's what the New

(54:37):
World's about. There's no shackles. There's. We're not forced to grow Pinot Noir
here. So, yeah, I think there's a little bit of that. But I always love
the idea. Like, I read, when I was reading Lonesome Dove about, you know,
going on the prairie and knocking a prairie chicken over the head and roasting
over the fire. You know, we had things they,
they. We didn't grow a lot of stuff, though. You know, the, The.

(54:59):
The. You know, the. The Native Americans really did have
a food culture that we're just now finding more about.
You know, Anastasia corn, for instance, back from the 12th century,
you know, there's. There's. You know, anthropologists are
still gleaning what, you know, what was here. But I think
in a way that it was really

(55:23):
like, think of these guys from Genoa going to San Francisco.
They went. Obviously, they went to another port and they knew how to fish.
And that was. That was not alien to them. They became
fishermen, but then they Brought their wine stocks with them. So they brought up to
Napa Valley and they planted them, you know, they. They planted
olives. They, you know, they wanted to have the food from their country,

(55:46):
so they started growing these things. And then other cultures did the
same thing, bringing their little bits and pieces from home, or they say
or write to their cousins in the old country. Can you send me some,
you know, some asparagus or whatever? And. And
as. As that developed and people started
becoming, you know, I remember the whole story about Meyer

(56:08):
lemons. Fred Meyer from, you know, this botanist from
California went to China and found this, you know, this
crazy lemon. He brought it back, and now we have Meyer
lemons everywhere in the world. Yeah, think about.
Exactly. Think about avocados. Think about all these different. Think about blood
oranges. When I was a kid, oranges were orange. Yeah.

(56:29):
I didn't. I didn't know it. Blood orange. When I first went to Venice and
I had blood orange juice, I thought they were kidding me, but it was
the greatest thing ever. So I think we're so lucky that
these people brought their food with them. And not just. Not
just their food, but their recipes,
you know, about how to do. You

(56:51):
know, I'm in love with Mexican food. I really am.
I'm just gaga over Mexico. Come to la. Open a decent
place, will you? And, you know, I'm just. I'm
enthusiastic about flavor in particular. I'm
enthusiastic about colors in food. I'm enthusiastic about. But as I get
older, I'm more. Also

(57:14):
more in tune about how food affects us
both, you know, in our. In our. In
our deepest soul. But, you know, that we're healthy with it. And,
you know, so the. The, you know, the amount of things that I've
changed my way of eating dramatically. And
I realized that I'm enjoying food more.

(57:38):
I'm tasting it better now. I have a better. I love. Like,
that's really. Before COVID my wife
or, you know, my daughter would go to the farmer's market, and they just buy
whatever they want, you know, and then they put it out and they go, okay.
And they would go off, do something, and they say, okay, we hopefully dinner will
arrive in two hours. And I love that. And.

(57:59):
And the things they bring back from the farmer's market are astounding.
Paul. I mean, think about Jerusalem artichokes. When I was kidding, there
wasn't. Maybe they existed, but I didn't actually see them,
you know, I think the most amazing vegetable on the planet.
And they're really good for you. And who knew? So, you know,
I, I'm, I'm enthusiastic even more

(58:21):
about what the future of food will be in America
and if. And, and going back to this story about trying to get, you know,
people in, involved our business, you know, so it's hard. Who
cares? You know, life is hard, really. You know, it doesn't really matter. You
know, it and, you know, it's like, like anything.
It's only hard for the first four or five years.

(58:45):
Well, but it, if you have the passion, like, look,
I've been. This is my 31st year. I've tasted 100,000 wines.
I don't think it really hit me until maybe five, seven, ten years ago.
There was something very special about what we were doing in uk, what we're doing
and the product that we were selling. And it's no longer work now. I like
coming to work. I like turning people onto

(59:06):
really interesting vintages of wine that they can hold
in a glass and go, I either want to taste this again and
figure out what it is, or I'll move on to the next one. But whatever
it is, I challenged you to do something with your palate.
In fact, the other day I tasted. I couldn't believe it. I bought two cases
just for my cellar wine from the Canary Islands.

(59:28):
And when, when you. In my database of wines that when I taste, I
put everything in a database, and if I start to spell a grape that's already
in the system, it pops up as, this must be Chardonnay, this must be
Cabernet. And nothing was coming up. When I was putting Listin Negro
and, like, where, you know, I had never tasted the grape, I had never
tasted the wine from the Canary Islands. And it was volcanic

(59:49):
all the way. It was absolutely fascinating wine. I said, I got to put this
in my own cellar. And that's. That's exciting. That's exciting. It's
really. Those little discoveries is so great. You know, one, one
thing, you know, when I started doing this, I mean, the only reason I did
Barbuda was, you know, I, I. My
neighbor, new neighbor upstairs for me here in New York is

(01:00:11):
a Italian fashion photographer,
Fabrizio Ferri. And he and his wife, Alessandra Ferri,
who at that time was the most famous ballerina in the world, had moved in
upstairs for me. And they used to sneak downstairs and I'd
be cooking dinner, and Fabrizio is this big bear, like, guy, and
he would come in and invite himself to dinner. We became friends. And

(01:00:34):
he said, you know, Jonathan, you have this restaurant called Washington Park. But I had
this little space on Washington Street. Would you ever think about
opening a restaurant? So I said, no, I don't want to do it. So he
said, just come over and see it. So I walked over there with Jimmy Bradley
from the Red Cap. And I walked by and Jimmy Bradley said, that's a dump.
And I wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole. Anyway, so Fabrizio kept bugging

(01:00:55):
me and bugging me. So I finally said, oh, yeah, I'll do this restaurant with
you. And I said, what kind of, you know. He goes, we're going to be
doing an Italian restaurant. I said, you know, I'm a nice Jewish boy from Berkeley.
I don't do Italian food. I'm not worthy of that. He goes, no,
Jonathan, you don't get it. You cook like my Roman mother.
I said, what are you talking about? He goes,

(01:01:17):
that's funny. You're not from the same place. You don't.
You don't have the same, you know, cultural background. You don't.
So I open up an Italian restaurant. But what was great about
that was that I got to go to Italy and start
doing more wine tasting. Now I had with Tim
Johnson and Mark Williamson, I had done. I actually done the

(01:01:39):
first Tribuchiere tasting in. In really, in Alba
Piedmont in the 90s. And so I've been going to Italy a
lot for wine and for food, and I just loved it. But now I got
to go back and I realized the hidden
treasures of Italy. And one of them were these little
wines in these little regions that I'd never heard of. And, you know,

(01:02:01):
and all of a sudden you discover this stuff and you just. It just
boggles your mind. And, you know, I love the. I love
that discovery, you know. You know,
it's like Palo Bella. First time I drank
one of the Sagratinos, I almost fainted. I'm sorry. But
it was. I think it was. It was such a revelation for me because,

(01:02:23):
you know, I, you know, listen, I love Roti. I love all those great wines,
the Rhone and blah, blah, blah. But I had this wine, the Sagratino from
Palabe, and it's still, to me, like a temple.
And, you know,
how does that person take a grape, a simple grape off the vine
and turn it into this magical

(01:02:45):
substance? And so that was very lucky for me. And that's why
a part of Barbudo, I think, was such a treasure for me,
because I got to put those wines on the wine list. And, you know, occasionally
I would pop a bottle open and Michael Kelly, who's my wine director, who's been
with me since day one, we've gone on the journey together.
And since then, he's not just been

(01:03:08):
Italian centric, he travels the world wine wise.
But his palate of mine are very similar. And
we talk about this thing about bearing food and wine.
I think my food is so simple that it's,
it's not wine agnostic, but it does
have a wider, I think,

(01:03:32):
palate in terms of what could go well with my food.
And I like that. I like being able to sit down. Whether you want a
simple glass of rose or do you want to have a, you know, a glass
of champagne with a certain dish, they both
will work well, they'll marry well with that dish. They'll
just have. You'll have a different flavor profile and you'll have a different experience,

(01:03:53):
which I think is fantastic. I love that. Next time you go to
Montefalco, my friend is the mayor, retired mayor
there. Valentino Valentini. Okay. The guy should
have been a movie star or something. You know, as we're getting on an hour
here, and I wanted to touch one subject. We have so much, there's so much
still we could share. I wouldn't even talk about the, the, the Michael,

(01:04:14):
Michael's restaurant days, but
we used to go to this San Francisco food festival every year. Fancy
food festival. I used to do the whole show. We'd walk up and down, and
I always had this question. I asked chefs and I ask friends,
and the question is this. I'm standing at the booth where they're selling bone
sucking barbecue sauce or something. And I asked the young man, I said, okay, I'm

(01:04:35):
gonna ask you a question. If I brought forward from 1945
or 1958 or somewhere in that range, a reputable
steak from a reputable steakhouse. In other words, it wasn't one of the charlatan beef
people that, you know why the USDA got involved, right? A real
steakhouse. And you put it next to a steak from, let's say, Fleming's or Ruth's
Chris or one of the today's steakhouses. Which one would taste better?

(01:04:57):
And he says, well, let me ask my mom, because she used to serve
at one of those steakhouses in the 40s,
overcomes this woman, she must have been 90. And she says, absolutely,
the steak from 1940 would be better. And we've got places
like Blue Hill Farms with biodynamic foods and obviously
wine and organic wines and biodynamic wines and raw wines. All these new

(01:05:19):
evolution of wine business is happening.
And the concept of you are what you eat, eats, and you are what you
drink, drinks, how does that play in.
I don't say the quality of the food. I mean, if you and I went
to the market together and I went to the organic section and you went to
the conventional section, vice versa, and we cooked everything exactly the same, the same

(01:05:40):
temperature, the same serving, would one necessarily taste better?
You know, that's such a subjective thing, Paul. I think it's
so hard. It's such a huge subject. I'll tell you a funny story. So
my uncle worked at Hebrew national in their
butcher in the 50s. And when they come to our house

(01:06:01):
in New York, from New York to California, he used to bring what was
called shell stakes. We're talking about 1961. 62.
And I remember the eye of the steak was about 8 or 9 inches,
and it was perfectly marbled. Wow. And, you
know, I remember. I remember the taste of that steak right now. And I
think, you know, going back to that whole Blue Hill thing, I think what. What

(01:06:24):
Dan and other people are doing is they're trying to get back to what steaks
were like in 1940. I think you're right. Right. You know, I think before
there was pesticides and before there was, you know,
mechanized growing machines, and before there was,
you know, you know, all this stuff, people just. They survive,
you know, I grew up on a farm in. In Sonoma. You know, we, you

(01:06:45):
know, we. We had composting because you had to do it, right? We had,
you know, we, you know, we dug out the weeds because you had to do
it. But I remember putting a board on top of the BlackBerry bush in my
grandmother's backyard and picking a pail of blackberries and coming back with an
empty pail. My grandma says, well, what happened to blackberries? And she looked at me,
I was smear with BlackBerry juice. I. I think,

(01:07:07):
you know, these kind of things are what.
What bring me back to those basics. Right. And
I. I applaud anybody that. That tries to do that.
So, you know, whether it's conventional farming or organic
farming, as long as it's dubbed with love and care,

(01:07:27):
I think it tastes pretty good. Yeah. You know what I mean? Does that make
sense? It does. I think you're right. It comes down to how much passion
you have in preparing it and growing it. I mean, if you can, I'm sure,
conventionally grow beautiful vegetables and beautiful fruit that tastes really good if you.
If you care, if you're just doing it for the work that's probably a different
story, but. And you need a mentor, you need some. You need

(01:07:49):
to learn from somebody or you learn by mistake, which is the hardest way of
doing, because that's the way I've done it. It's far better to have
learned from a master, whoever that person is.
You know, that 90 year old woman in the back is where. Who I'd want
to learn from. The part that gets to me is they
bring the wines in here, for instance. And I had a great conversation with

(01:08:11):
Isabelle Legeron. She's got the raw movement. I had
a conversation which is a book you should read. If you haven't called the
hotel at Place Vendome. It's Tilar Mazio who wrote Veuve
Clicquot's book Widow Clicquot. But she talks about. The liberation of Paris is
phenomenal. She turns out, since I love the book, I was talking to her.
She has a sparkling wine house on Vancouver island, you

(01:08:33):
know, probably the least hospitable place in the world to grow champagne grapes. And
she closed because of COVID but she doesn't even disgorge her sparkling
wine. So you get this wine which. Which now reading
Widow Clicquot was the wines from the 1750s. You know, they didn't know
how to get the stuff out of there. So now they're trying to figure it
out, like. And she wants to sell it that way. So. But the point I

(01:08:55):
was going to make is I taste a lot of, you know, these really bad.
It's like I don't want to drink it just because I think I'm doing
myself a favor. Even though it's still 14 alcohol.
I don't want to have to stomach it just because it's raw or organic or
biodynamic. I want to enjoy it. I want to emote over it. I want to
have a conversation about it. So I'm not going to force myself to drink something

(01:09:16):
because I think it's contemporary and hip to do.
It should taste good. I mean, it should still create experience. Isn't that
the bottom line? You know, that's why I think tasting blind
is so important. Yes. That you know that you really should not
know what's in the bottle or you should guess.
You shouldn't see the shape of the bottle. But you, but you pour it in

(01:09:38):
the glass and you know right away you're gonna pinpoint it
to pretty close relative. Relative degree. And as soon as
you smell it and people think, well, you have to taste it. No, as soon
as you smell it. You're 90% there, you know,
And I think that's the beauty of winemaking, because it's about
the winemaker and the terroir and

(01:09:59):
putting those two things. That's why I love going to. I love going to Piedmont.
I stay with Pia Buffa from Pia Cesare, and
I love walking with him in the vineyards. I love going out and getting my
finger. I love getting my fingernails into that dirt and seeing
what. Seeing those steep, you know, trails in Barolo, walking around
and, wow, it's so. I can smell it. Romantic. It's

(01:10:22):
so romantic and so beautiful. But then you sit down the table and you. You
try, you know, 202007
Barolos, and they're all so different.
It's good work if you can get it. Say. Say, you know, same,
same year. So different, my children. It is a
fascinating part of the. I mean, that's. That. That is the.

(01:10:45):
That. That's the part about wine that's different than any other beverage in the world.
Right. I mean, you drink Jack Dallas because it tastes like Jack Downs. You drink
a Heineken because it tastes like Heineken, but you drink a Barolo
from the specific district because it's going to taste different the next year and the
year after that and the year after that. And that's the part that, to me,
is fascinating about grape. And the grape taking on the terroir

(01:11:07):
and the winemaker really getting out of the way
to let that express itself. That's hard. That's
really hard. Paul, you think about it, you know, it's really hard not to intervene.
Yeah. Not to try to. Not to try to tinker with your product.
You know, it's what chefs do. Chefs tinker too much. You know,
we're past an hour, Chef, and I don't want to take any of your time.

(01:11:29):
I hope we can do it again. I do want to talk about your three
books real fast. We've got. The latest is the Barbudo, which is
recipes from the restaurant. They are. And the
simple recipes we're talking about. You know, we're talking about.
We're trying to talk about what the quintessential Barbuda recipe is And.
And carbonara comes to mind. You know, it's.

(01:11:51):
It's good pasta, good
guanciale, good eggs and good
cheese, and that's it. What else. What else is there in life?
I mean, you think about it, but it's how it's
cooked and how it comes together, which is the magic and.
Coming from your hands. We've Got the Great American Cook, which is

(01:12:13):
more traditional American type recipes,
that's. More recipes from jams. And it sort of channels
my love of regional American cooking. And
I'm such a lover of New
Orleans food and Southwestern food and
food of the Northeast. You know, I could live in Maine,

(01:12:36):
but, you know, it's, it's, it's my sort of little ode to American
food. And I'm, you know, I'm, I'm American boy,
what can I say? And your first book was Italian My Way.
That was first, right? Yeah, yeah, that was, that was my second book. Okay, so
the Great American Movie was first. And, you know,
Italian My Way was really kind of my love

(01:12:59):
poem to my travels in Italy. And, you know, I, I got to
spend, you know, vacations with Alice Waters in Siena, and
I got to, you know, hang out in Positano
with this and eat amazing. You
know, Italy is remarkable in terms of food,
and the more you go, the better you like it.

(01:13:22):
I'm chef. Thank you again for the time. Hope we can do it again. We're,
we are due in New York. Nothing can be open if
you're going to open again, but we're going to be out there visiting my daughter.
She's having her first child this month.
She lives in Manhattan Village, and she just got off
a short stint with Daily Provisions.

(01:13:44):
She revamped their bread program and got them
some fresh. So have a crack at the Multi Grain and multi. And
Danny is so amazing. I mean, to have that sort of vision and,
and what's her first name? Lisa. Lisa. So she
just finished it about. I don't know, they called her in and said, can you
help us with this program? She spent about three weeks and they just

(01:14:07):
released the breads, I think, last week. You must be so proud. You know,
really, seriously, before we get off, I'm not sure that I would have
ever felt that before. I'm Armenian and you're Jewish, so, you know what pressure
the parents would put on for other careers and do things and, you
know, you know, why can't you be like you're. And when she got back
from France and she worked here in Southern California, she worked at Superba, she did

(01:14:29):
their breads, and then went to New York and worked for Lincoln. She
worked at Lincoln with Jonathan Benno. Jonathan grabbed her and brought her to
Benno and Leonelli. So I, I can't tell you how
proud I am about somebody who's pursued her passion
and her love of, of cooking and bread. In fact,
when she played softball in high school when I got home from work and she

(01:14:51):
was baking, she had had a bad day on the field. This
was her, like, release to just regroup
herself. And, and we were, she was destined to do this. And so I, I
thought, I never thought I'd be proud of having a baker. And
I'm, you know what? To me it's. Matt, it's, it's magical.
It really is. And, and it's. To me, it's. They're the real

(01:15:15):
magicians. They are field. They're fantastic. I look forward to one
day having a glass with you, chef. And if you
do, if you do get out to Southern California and you hang out with
Sandy, you know, maybe we'll have a chance to do that. I would love to.
Cheers. Thank you so much. Thank you. Cheers. Take care. Thank you. Bye bye.
Bye bye. Very good, Chef. Thank you.

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