by Scott Haas
I explained that I was not talking about his mother and apologized for what I had said.
“No, c’mon,” he said, “you said it. You ‘got out.’ Got out of what?”
I kept backing away from him, but there was no place to go. The guy was wiry, eyes blazing, and committed to a course of action. I could not appeal to him.
Andrew saw what was happening and stepped between us. After he moved the line cook to a safe distance away, Andrew came back to apologize for his line cook.
“What was that about?” I asked Andrew.
“Richie doesn’t get out much,” Andrew said.
I would not say that Andrew is a calm person, but he has several attributes often associated with being a calm person such that when a situation he is in is chaotic, he does not react emotionally to it. It is not that he is oblivious to what is going on. Far from it. It just does not interest him. Social cues appear to him, I think, almost like notes in sheet music. He can choose to respond to them or not.
That disposition was evident when we met at The Dutch in the private cellar room that looks like a hidden gambling and hooch parlor from Prohibition days.
“I’ve been on grand jury duty for ten days in a row,” Andrew said, after I had introduced him to Tony. “Ten cases a day. We had to watch video surveillance tapes. Rape, murder, mayhem. They don’t fuck around.”
“Are you stressed out?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Andrew said. “The other night my wife’s like, ‘Let’s watch CSI,’ and I’m, like, I’m going to bed. On top of grand jury duty, I’ve got leftover food poisoning from a week in Paris.”
He leaned forward. Andrew is tall, lean, and often very quiet. I do not have to draw him out, but he uses words more carefully than most. He seems precise in his thinking, which is consistent with his strong musical interests. Back when he completed parochial school in Cleveland, he chose between going to Berklee School of Music and the Culinary Institute of America, having applied to and been accepted by both schools.
“So being here must be a refuge from what you hear in court,” I said.
“It is,” Andrew said. “Not always. The business attracts a certain type of person not adjusted to the norms of daily life.”
“Right,” I said, “that’s who they are not, but who are they instead?”
“Usually it’s someone who doesn’t see themselves on a PTA board in the suburbs,” he said. “We have a lot of ADD going on, too. Look, you don’t have to be talented. If you can work at Federal Express putting small boxes into big boxes, you can work in a kitchen. It’s the physicality of the work that’s important. Having a general work ethic, too, whatever that is.”
“That may be true for cooks,” I said, “but what about chefs? Who becomes a chef?”
“You have to find your cooking voice,” Andrew said. “It doesn’t happen for some people, but you have to try to find it. It comes from food you experience while traveling, from your family, and from training experiences.”
“If you’re twenty-two years old,” said Tony, “and I’m not trying to sound like an old man, but expectations are different now from when we started out.”
“It’s true,” said Andrew. “There’s been a shift culturally in the world of the professional chef. I would have to say that there’s been a whirlwind of interest in the profession. A lot of people are getting into the business having no idea what it is. White-collar kid families, kids who never worked in high school.”
“It’s a huge slap to one’s ego and pocketbook,” Andrew said. “Imagine being that white-collar kid making ten dollars an hour and watching a kid from Guadalajara who can do the work a lot faster than you!”
“No one tells them what it’s like,” said Tony.
“I paid for my school myself,” said Andrew. “My dad was in the marble terrazzo business. The family was salt of the earth from Friuli. Hardworking family guys. They owned a business in south Cleveland.”
“So what’s your advice to someone starting out?” I asked.
“First thing,” said Andrew, “get a job. Work at Applebee’s for six months. I don’t care what you’re doing. Pick up potato skins. Go fucking wash dishes. Make artichoke dip. So you understand what the business is. My cousin, she’s from Akron, Ohio, I brought her to New York. She mopped floors. She worked with whiny little bitches. She’s here two years. Now she opened her own place. She’s not afraid to work hard. It’s not how it’s portrayed in media.”
“I imagine that you have situations then with young cooks who can’t keep up with your demands,” I said. “How do you deal with your frustration with them?”
“I’ve changed over the years,” Andrew said. “I had an immature chef life before. Now we schedule more time training people so that they get it. Not just me. Sous chefs, chefs de cuisine, we all do the training. There are more people involved.”
“And if someone still doesn’t get it?” I asked.
“I’ll throw people off their station and do it myself,” Andrew said. “If I have to. Look, everyone has a bad day. There are a million variables. But the difference between now and when I was younger? There are more teams involved these days.”
Andrew is forty-one, a year younger than Tony.
“Yelling and screaming, yelling and screaming,” Andrew said. “Chefs and sous chefs? Sometimes that’s all they do. There’s not a lot of teamwork then. At my places, Locanda and The Dutch? There’s not much yelling that goes on.”
“Is that because of the teams you’ve built?” I asked. “That’s the trend in medicine, you know. The doctor decides and writes the orders, but it is a team approach to the patient these days. The patient benefits from the observations or insights of everyone on the team.”
“Here’s how I see it,” said Andrew. “If we’re doing a lot of yelling, it is a failure on our part because we’re not hiring the right people.”
“If I had a fifty-seat restaurant, I might feel differently,” said Andrew, “but we’re busy at two restaurants and I’m opening a third in Miami. On Saturday night? Locanda did a thousand covers.”
“Wow,” I said.
“I can’t be there every day,” said Andrew. “That’s why I have a team. It also allows for creativity.”
“When you walk into Locanda Verde,” asked Tony, “how often are you finding something wrong despite the fact that you have a top team in place?”
“Rarely,” said Andrew. “My teams are heavily incentivized. I self-funded The Dutch. Look, once you get the second restaurant, it’s different, man.”
“In building these teams,” I asked, “you must choose people who want to cook for you. How do you help them stay disciplined?”
“I help them develop a sense of responsibility,” said Andrew.
“There are also emotional and psychological components,” said Tony. “I mean, just because someone can cook well and then move up, it doesn’t necessarily mean they can lead.”
“Right,” said Andrew. “And you’d better be passionate about the business. You have to live the business. Being socially awkward, I’m not part of the nine-to-five society. I don’t even know what a nine-to-five job is.”
“So how do you see yourself?” I asked Andrew.
“I say to my guys: ‘I’m Joe Torre and we’re gonna build the Yankees. That doesn’t happen on Day One.’ Restaurant life has kept me out of more trouble than not,” said Andrew. “I got into plenty of trouble in high school. Restaurants? They give me a regimented life.”
I WALKED BACK TO WHERE I WAS STAYING ON FORTY-SIXTH AND THIRD, AT a friend’s apartment, and the long, solitary time gave me the opportunity to think about what was happening. The two chefs Tony had met ran operations on scales vaster than his, and I wondered how it made him feel. I knew he did not like it. Showing me an article in New York magazine on Esca’s “decline,” asking if Andrew noticed problems at Locanda Verde when he was not there. Tony would not acknowledge to me that these chefs might teach him something about decreasin
g stress and providing good food. He saw expansion as a step that would lead to compromise in the quality of the food and the dining experience.
I saw things differently: I felt that by building teams, establishing layers of trust in people, and delegating authority, a chef could be a facet of a restaurant’s success rather than its only reason for being in business.
I recalled a conversation I had had with Tony months ago while on the floor at Craigie.
I had said, “You’re lucky to have this place, it gives so much purpose to your life,” and he had said, “They’re lucky to have me!”
It wasn’t a good situation, it wasn’t a bad situation, it was simply how Tony chose to be a chef, and if he suffered for it, and he did, that was his choice. That suffering served some psychological purpose. It broke my heart. Every restaurant tells a story; this was his. In doing so, Tony illustrated that there is a home for each of us. Craigie was the home he built.
NINETEEN
Stars in Their Eyes
TONY HAD TO RETURN TO BOSTON THE NEXT MORNING TO WORK AT Craigie, and I went to see Daniel Boulud with my friend Sasha, who is a starstruck twenty-six-year-old eager to work in restaurants. I met Daniel sixteen years ago. Every time we get together, I learn something new from him.
“Hold on,” Daniel said when he saw me walk in. “I’ll be right with you. I’m with a Master!”
We were at his latest venture, Boulud Sud, off Broadway and near Lincoln Center, and Daniel was saying good-bye to Jacques Pepin at the door.
We were seated at the bar, sipping water, and when Daniel returned, he put on a very serious face and said, “Have you eaten?”
A server stood to his right.
“We’re all set,” I said.
“Have some hummus,” Daniel said. “Or baba ghanoush.”
“I don’t want to get you mad,” I said, “but we’ve eaten. Really.”
“Please bring them desserts,” he said to the server. “Yes? Okay?”
“Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”
“So tell me about the book,” he said.
Daniel is a dead ringer for Jackie Chan despite being French. He moves and talks rapidly, better at anticipating than most.
“What is the book about?” Daniel asked.
“ ‘Being in the weeds,’ ” I said.
“En la merde,” he said, and then more politely he changed it to “dans le jus.”
Daniel laughed.
“Thomas Keller and me,” he said, “we’re never in the weeds!”
“Oh, sure,” I said.
“No, I’m joking,” Daniel said. “The real motivation, the real joy of cooking, it’s when you’re entering the weeds. Then the battle starts. The high concentration, the precision.”
His food arrived: a small, simple Greek salad. Our desserts were brought over as well.
“Give the young lady the grapefruit givré,” Daniel said, “and give Scott the cassata.”
I ate as we talked. Sasha leaned over to me and whispered, “This food is amazing!”
“There are clean weeds and dirty weeds,” Daniel said. “Clean weeds are when you’re in full control, it’s exciting, exhilarating, nonstop, you can’t take a breather, you’re cruising.”
He took a bite of the salad.
“And dirty weeds?” I asked.
“You have to redo plates,” Daniel said. “A customer goes outside to smoke, but his food is ready to bring to the table. You can’t get out of the weeds, there’s a rush of people, you’re working so fast.”
“I understand how you’ve learned to deal with it,” I said. “After all, you’ve been cooking for forty years.”
“Forty-five,” he said.
“But how do you motivate the younger cooks?” I asked.
“We teach them the proper way to do things,” Daniel said. “We don’t compromise on product. We use first-quality equipment in the kitchen. We give them the supervision and support they need. It starts with the chef, but it trickles down. It’s all about the structure of my brigade. I have a pyramid of chefs at Restaurant Daniel. Me on top, two corporate chefs, then a chef de cuisine, and six sous chefs with four on and two off. This way I can concentrate on food and administration. Look, the hardest thing in our business is consistency. Educating young chefs: techniques, seasoning. If you can teach your cook consistency—master it—you have accomplished your duty as a mentor.”
His iPhone started ringing. He handed it to me. The photo on its surface was of Alix, his daughter, with whom I spent time in Boston when she was a student at Tufts.
“Do you have one of these phones?” Daniel asked me. “How do I turn it off?”
I showed him.
“Thirty years ago, becoming a chef was different,” Daniel said. “We weren’t super educated. It was a job. You didn’t need an education to be a chef. Kids today? Some of them come to me from the Ivy League, they’re very smart, they get it.”
“So you don’t feel, like some chefs I’ve spoken to, that this generation of cooks lacks commitment?” I asked.
“Not at all,” he said. “They made a choice! They are more sophisticated than we were: attentive, focused, consistent. Good people to work with and trust. My early days? You know what I call them?”
Daniel laughed.
“The Bastille days!”
“You talk about your ability to establish a workable structure,” I said, “and to mentor others. What in your family background contributed to that?”
“Nothing,” he said.
He turned sullen.
“Nothing?” I asked.
“Well, let’s say it kept me humble,” he said. “Hardworking, passionate about food, passionate about people. You have to remember I was born on a farm.”
“Yes,” I said. “You see, your family did shape you!”
“Maybe,” he said.
Maybe not. He wished it were not true.
Plates were cleared. He insisted that we put orders in for espresso.
“You started as a cook,” I said, “but you became a chef. What does a cook need to become a chef, talent aside?”
“Every cook has a chance to be a chef,” said Daniel. He spoke rapidly, as usual, the tumble of words barely able to keep up with his thoughts. “How would I define a chef? You have to influence the next generation of cooks, have an impact on the industry, be an imprint in the path of the city and country where you are working, stay motivated, have good motor skills, be intelligent—very important! Be patient and elevate talent, and show loyalty.”
Our espressos arrived. Daniel’s was in a large cup. He tilted the cup and looked at the server.
“Is this a double espresso?” Daniel asked.
“Yes,” said the server.
“Do we have smaller cups here?” he asked calmly. “But large enough for a double espresso?”
“Yes,” said the server.
“So next time,” Daniel said, “please serve the espresso in a smaller cup. It will stay warmer.”
Daniel returned to the topic of loyalty. “Of course,” said Daniel. “I have a stable now of two hundred and fifty cooks and chefs. We reward them. We have incentives.”
A smaller cup arrived holding a double espresso. The larger cup was removed. A manager came over to tell Daniel that Philip Seymour Hoffman was at the bar and had wanted to say hello, but had had to run.
“He’s here something like four times a week,” Daniel said. “I’ll try to see him next time.”
“I wouldn’t say that you’re calm,” I said, “but you don’t seem too stressed these days. Not like when we first met.”
“We’re not the most stressful restaurant group on the planet,” Daniel said. “I’m not part of the FY generation.”
“The FY generation?” I asked.
His eyes twinkled and he gave me a big smile.
“You don’t know what that is?” he said.
“No,” I said.
“Hah!” He laughed again. “It’s the ‘fuck you’ gene
ration. The younger generation of chefs.”
“Tattoos? Fuck this and fuck that?” I asked.
“Exactly,” Daniel said.
“I suppose David Chang epitomizes that,” I said.
“Right,” he said. He laughed. “Every time I see David he looks more stressed than before.”
Daniel mimicked Chang by moving his head side to side, twitching his hands, throwing his shoulders back and forth, and saying, “ ‘Yeah, Daniel, it’s fucking crazy these days!’ ”
We sipped our espressos.
“I ask myself: ‘Can it last?’ ” said Daniel. “This attitude? This punk attitude. Is it sustainable? At the end, you have to be a successful businessman.”
Daniel looked at the bottom of his cup and called the server over.
“Do you see these grounds?” he said to her. “There should not be grounds. Is it the machine? Or does the person making the coffee not know how to do it?”
“I’ll check,” said the server.
“Please,” said Daniel.
“I have good people around me,” Daniel said, “because every day I worry about something.”
“Right,” I said, “but you seem to manage your stress well.”
“Look,” he said, “I don’t think cooking should be something you want to quit.”
The server returned.
“I adjusted the grind on the machine,” she said. “It’s working better now.”
“Not because she didn’t clean it?” he asked.
“No,” said the server.
We were finishing up, so talk turned to our daughters. Alix was in Singapore working for an investment fund; my daughter was in Brooklyn working as a consultant at Bridgespan.
“Yes,” said Daniel, “Alix will probably sign a two-year extension.”
“Singapore is too far,” I said. “I miss having my daughter in the same city!”
He laughed.
“You have to open a restaurant, Scott,” Daniel said. “That way you have a family around you.”
NEXT TO DANIEL, THOMAS KELLER IS THE CHEF FROM WHOM I HAVE learned the most about the restaurant business. He is also the most intimidating: towering, speaking quickly with me, and more focused than anyone I have ever met. I always feel as if I have to be on my best game with him, and I imagine those who work for him feel the same way.
