Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Deborah Clatter is the biggest name in a very small
Speaker 1: profession restaurant recommender, not reviewer recommender. Here's how she puts it.
Speaker 1: It's not about look what's hot and happening. It's about
Speaker 1: what's happening for you just grabbing a bite on a
Speaker 1: Thursday night birthday. I'm here to supply you with an
Speaker 1: adventure or comfort. Clutter can tell you the best mofongo
Speaker 1: in the Bronx and which Michelin two stars accommodate siliacs.
Speaker 1: I've known her for years, going back to her days
Speaker 1: as a lighting designer on some of the best and
Speaker 1: most challenging stages in New York. She's risen just as
Speaker 1: high in her newfield. Restaurants are eager for her clientele,
Speaker 1: so she keeps a low profile. We did not post
Speaker 1: a headshot for this next episode, and her name isn't
Speaker 1: even on her website eat Quest and y C. That
Speaker 1: anonymity will be familiar to anyone who knows about restaurant critics.
Speaker 1: But unlike with critics, not just Cletter's face, but her voice,
Speaker 1: even her taste are absent. From her work too. You know,
Speaker 1: I check out a swath of restaurants for other people's taste,
Speaker 1: not my own, because my taste, honestly would be you know,
Speaker 1: I like places where waitresses have been working there for
Speaker 1: thirty five years. I'm not going to make everybody else
Speaker 1: do there. When you say you do this and you're
Speaker 1: tilting towards your clientele, what do they typically want? The
Speaker 1: most popular request and I know you'll identify with this
Speaker 1: is quiet. It's like Pankotonia. Why do I love pankota
Speaker 1: You want to know why? There might be a little
Speaker 1: little Coltrane on the background. I'm having my eggs in
Speaker 1: my croissant with Coltrane very low, you know. And there's
Speaker 1: another place sound like I like the food, but you
Speaker 1: know they're playing that particular music and they're playing it
Speaker 1: that loud because they want to get you out of
Speaker 1: there as fast as possible. Well, music sets the pace
Speaker 1: for a meal, and it just you know, you look
Speaker 1: at somebody like Alex Stupac, who has Empon in um Midtown,
Speaker 1: and he also has Empon al Pastore, which is tacos
Speaker 1: in the East Village at pastor. He plays the music
Speaker 1: he said as loud as humanly possible. Why because there
Speaker 1: it's dealing with people who are younger, and it's people
Speaker 1: who are also um, you know, want to have a
Speaker 1: good time, want to get off the sort of the
Speaker 1: buzz and the high of like being there with this
Speaker 1: great music and eating tacos and all that. So that's
Speaker 1: like a rock concert. But he said that the Empyon
Speaker 1: in Midtown is like the studio album. He put in
Speaker 1: these sound panels so that people can it's convivial and
Speaker 1: fun and all of that, but you can also hear yourself.
Speaker 1: Think you have to know your audience. It doesn't bother
Speaker 1: you in some restaurants you go to with the music
Speaker 1: is playing, of course it does. A friend of well,
Speaker 1: a friend of mine was was eating in Brooklyn to
Speaker 1: a place that I sent her and she said the
Speaker 1: music was really loud. So I said, is it possible
Speaker 1: that you could just turn it down a little bit?
Speaker 1: And the person said the waitress said, that's how it's
Speaker 1: done in Brooklyn. Oh, really right, And and that's how
Speaker 1: it's done in Brooklyn. Really, we don't have a lot
Speaker 1: on our mind, so really, what's the getting in the
Speaker 1: way of we want to have a good time. We
Speaker 1: want to have a good time. That's what I really meant.
Speaker 1: So anyway, but I think that people want to go
Speaker 1: somewhere where they can actually have a conversation. And that
Speaker 1: comes up so often. And it's only really true in
Speaker 1: America because equals it's global, even though it's called Equest
Speaker 1: and y see um and I've got people, I got
Speaker 1: people all over the plans. You're you're, you're the equest
Speaker 1: NYC is booking people around the world. Yeah, I do
Speaker 1: Italy a lot. I do. I have my Bible you
Speaker 1: gave me, you do, It's true, I can update it nowts.
Speaker 1: I know I go a little overboard because I get
Speaker 1: really excited and I think, oh no, wait, you have
Speaker 1: to eat here, and you have to try this. But basically,
Speaker 1: I get so many people who say, we wanted to
Speaker 1: go to dinner. We spent an hour looking at the internet.
Speaker 1: We got overwhelmed by the amount of choices. So we
Speaker 1: went to the same place we always go to, and
Speaker 1: we want to go somewhere else, So where can we go?
Speaker 1: So sometimes people come to me for a list of
Speaker 1: ten new places new to them. They want your recommendation,
Speaker 1: meaning they don't come to you and say I want
Speaker 1: to go to pair say or whatever, and you or
Speaker 1: there was something right that who were very self determining.
Speaker 1: There's some of your self determining. But I'm really not
Speaker 1: that person. I mean, I'm happy to do that that
Speaker 1: can but what I pay you, if they pay me,
Speaker 1: I'm you know, I'll do whatever you want me to do.
Speaker 1: Um No, but it's but what's fun for me about
Speaker 1: it is that it's kind of like a dating service
Speaker 1: for people in their food. I asked certain questions such as, uh,
Speaker 1: tell me three places you hate in three places you lot.
Speaker 1: So this is a questionnaire. They feel like everything is online. Um,
Speaker 1: everything is by email. It's not. I don't have a
Speaker 1: formal questionnaire, although I probably you know, should you're not
Speaker 1: on the phone with anybody? Not? Really, they don't get
Speaker 1: the food. They declared a sex phone sex voice. A
Speaker 1: lot of deals with that voice. But I'll tell you
Speaker 1: I should tell them to call. It's really self robbery
Speaker 1: that you're not doing. But you do it by email.
Speaker 1: I usually do it by email, and people are welcome
Speaker 1: to call me. It's just that people seem to you know,
Speaker 1: they're busy, they don't pick up, so that wouldn't work,
Speaker 1: really think about it, and you have a standard set
Speaker 1: of questions. I have just a couple of basic ones,
Speaker 1: and then the questions are determined by who they are,
Speaker 1: if they're you know, I did. Somebody came from London
Speaker 1: last winter over the holidays and they had children ranging
Speaker 1: an age from eighteen to six and they wanted to
Speaker 1: go places with them. That was not easy and macaroni
Speaker 1: cheese exactly. So I had to sort of come up
Speaker 1: with a whole range of things. Plus, you know, I
Speaker 1: branched out a little. They wanted some activities and all
Speaker 1: of that. So I got very involved with the Knicks
Speaker 1: organization because they wanted to go to a basketball game
Speaker 1: and you know, I found them the right seats and
Speaker 1: all that kind of stuff. So they do some other
Speaker 1: things as well. They did and it was kind of
Speaker 1: it was fun actually, but but basically I stick to food.
Speaker 1: But it was interesting to define things that I thought
Speaker 1: would appeal to everyone. And I love the challenge. I
Speaker 1: love the challenge of somebody sort of saying like, here's
Speaker 1: all the things I won't eat, here's what I don't like. Um,
Speaker 1: now find me something that I want, right, And I
Speaker 1: feel like, okay, they want you to read their mind.
Speaker 1: They do. I want you to tell me what I
Speaker 1: don't even know about myself. Can I tell a lighting story?
Speaker 1: Is that? Out of that you can do whatever you want.
Speaker 1: Years ago I had a client when I was doing
Speaker 1: interior lighting, and he said, and he had a couch
Speaker 1: in the middle of a big room and aloft and
Speaker 1: no tables near nothing else. And he said, I want
Speaker 1: to read on the couch, but I don't want any walstconsins,
Speaker 1: I don't want any ceiling light, and I don't want
Speaker 1: any lamps, you know. And I thought, like, okay, a
Speaker 1: miner's hat could work out well for you. But with
Speaker 1: a torch he summoned you snap and I could record
Speaker 1: it for you could move your eyes over the page
Speaker 1: in the dark. And I'm reading here. I want to
Speaker 1: go back, and mentioned to people, said they don't lose
Speaker 1: track here. You and I met in nine when I
Speaker 1: was when we were doing Prelude to a Kiss. We
Speaker 1: did that at eighty nine and then we went nine.
Speaker 1: You want into the film, and you were doing lighting
Speaker 1: design in the Theater of Broadway, and you were very
Speaker 1: close with Norman, the late Norman Renett, who directed the play,
Speaker 1: and you were doing that kind of work, and then
Speaker 1: you went into residential lighting, the garden lighting, mostly because
Speaker 1: garden lighting is like getting to light a set without
Speaker 1: having to worry about the actor's faces. So you have
Speaker 1: nobody saying like make it brighter, they're not laughing, um,
Speaker 1: you know, and you get to do all the sort
Speaker 1: of evocative, mysterious How did you design in the theater
Speaker 1: over work? Um? Gosh? Uh years? I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: like for sixteen years or something when you stopped. Why
Speaker 1: did you stop? I stopped partly because all the directors
Speaker 1: I knew were either going to TV, film or dying.
Speaker 1: Norman passed away from you, remember, so for you, just
Speaker 1: the lands, the landscape you changed, and I missed it.
Speaker 1: I missed the collaborative experience of it. But my other
Speaker 1: passion was always food, and I was always the person
Speaker 1: that people asked, you know, like where can we go?
Speaker 1: What can we do? And you know, in the early
Speaker 1: days before the internet, Norman and I would want we
Speaker 1: had no money, and we would walk all over the
Speaker 1: city all the time just for fun, and you'd walk
Speaker 1: into neighborhoods that were not gentrified and you'd find this
Speaker 1: like fantastic little place that no one knew about because
Speaker 1: there wasn't an internet, And you know, then we drag
Speaker 1: people down there, and you know, I would drag people
Speaker 1: down there and find places, and it just it's something
Speaker 1: that always made me really happy to do. You know,
Speaker 1: finding a restaurant, reading a menu is is sort of
Speaker 1: a calm experience for me. It's it's it's pleasure back then,
Speaker 1: wandering the streets with Norman and you had no money.
Speaker 1: Dining is expensive, and so how do you manage to
Speaker 1: go and sample? How do you know all these places?
Speaker 1: Do you just have a word? Are you always the
Speaker 1: honored guest at the table because you're such an expert?
Speaker 1: You of a lot of friend Seriously, because I know
Speaker 1: people like this. That is partly true. If I picked
Speaker 1: the place and I tell them what we're going to
Speaker 1: do and what we're going to have and stuff, I'm
Speaker 1: at the table. Totally true. And Norman and I used
Speaker 1: to we used to go to a coffee shop around
Speaker 1: the corner from the theater company that we ran, and
Speaker 1: um and the guy the waiter there knew us and
Speaker 1: he treated us like it was twenty one and and
Speaker 1: I was a little late one day and Norman was
Speaker 1: waiting for me, and the waiter came over to him
Speaker 1: and said, um, are you waiting for her? You can
Speaker 1: always sort of make an occasion I think out of
Speaker 1: anywhere you go and for me, I can supply you
Speaker 1: with luxury. I can also supply you with an affordable alternative,
Speaker 1: because there's so many great places to eat in New
Speaker 1: York that are not expensive and so eat. Question I
Speaker 1: see is not about, you know, you have to have
Speaker 1: a lot of money and you have to go here.
Speaker 1: It's really about you know, finding like a great dumpling
Speaker 1: in uh, you know in Queens, or finding you know
Speaker 1: something low, you know, great eggplant, Parmersian hero. Exactly what's
Speaker 1: changed in New York in terms of dining, Oh, that's interesting. Trends,
Speaker 1: things you see, attitudes, cost I mean there's always trends,
Speaker 1: like right now, I think that vegan has become so popular,
Speaker 1: so now there are vegan restaurants popping up everywhere, and
Speaker 1: and then there's also sort of the whole let's have
Speaker 1: a lot of meat and cheese. So they're you know
Speaker 1: burgers that the Emmy burger, which is from the pizza place,
Speaker 1: but they're burgers legendary. It's you know, like two patties, cheese, sauce, pickles,
Speaker 1: the works on a pretzel bun, and and and so
Speaker 1: partly because time is being what they are in the world,
Speaker 1: everybody really wants comfort they do. You find that's true
Speaker 1: in your work, in my work, it may not make
Speaker 1: them feel good right after, but it makes them feel
Speaker 1: good while they're doing it. And you can sort of
Speaker 1: like get a little bit of solace from today's news.
Speaker 1: And high end Korean has taken off, and um, you
Speaker 1: can't swing a dead cat without hitting a really good
Speaker 1: pizza place. There are so many people coming from Naples
Speaker 1: to have an opening here as well as in Naples.
Speaker 1: High end pizza high end pizza. But there's also slices,
Speaker 1: not ninety nine cent slices, but three dollar and fifty
Speaker 1: cent slices are making a comeback. So there are some
Speaker 1: really fantastic places where you know, you can go get
Speaker 1: a slice, and there's a cocktail bar there too, like
Speaker 1: Scars Pizza on Orchard Streets. It's like where you would
Speaker 1: go after school to have a slice with your friends.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of that going on too, and
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people doing you know, poly
Speaker 1: g who's who has a really great pizza restaurant in Greenpoint.
Speaker 1: But um he um, he just opened a slice place
Speaker 1: that's been long awaited and much heralded in the Slice world.
Speaker 1: Slice World, It's true. Man, there's a magazine called Slice World.
Speaker 1: Don't don't laugh. There is, there's the website Slice Adam
Speaker 1: who ran it, and then there's Scott who does these
Speaker 1: pizza tours there. You know, there's it's a singular focus.
Speaker 1: But man, they know what they're doing. There's nothing like
Speaker 1: a good slice, a friend, it's a hot meal. Why
Speaker 1: you eat pizza. It's a hot meal, and it's filling,
Speaker 1: and it's good vegetables, dairy, protein, protein, brand all the
Speaker 1: food groups, that's right, all the old fashioned food groups.
Speaker 1: But yes, I know what was You know we were
Speaker 1: gonna say, go ahead, go ahead, you go. Well, it's
Speaker 1: gonna just say that. I think trends, you know, they
Speaker 1: go also with the way the planet goes. I mean,
Speaker 1: now everything is becoming about sustainability. And so there's a um,
Speaker 1: a sushi restaurant. It's the only sushi restaurant in New
Speaker 1: York that does sustainable sushi. Um And I'm forgetting what
Speaker 1: street it's on, but they do in Omaka, sees you
Speaker 1: sit at the counter and you you know they'll still
Speaker 1: present to you what you know, the chef feels is
Speaker 1: good that day and what what you know what he's
Speaker 1: going to serve? No, just a sushi master. And there
Speaker 1: are things now like you know there's crowd cow you
Speaker 1: can there's literally crowd cow funding. What does that mean.
Speaker 1: One of the people started was a guy who started
Speaker 1: Urban Daddy, which is a restaurant site people off and
Speaker 1: go to and um. It's so that he realized that
Speaker 1: people were getting meat from farms, but not everybody can
Speaker 1: like buy a whole cow and store it and all
Speaker 1: of that. So you can participate with like fifty people
Speaker 1: and by the section of cow you want from a farmer,
Speaker 1: then you know where the meats from, you know what
Speaker 1: you're getting. You're supporting small farms. It's right, which is
Speaker 1: so much nicer because you don't feel forced to go
Speaker 1: back there again and food waste. Someone like Dan Barber,
Speaker 1: who has Blue Hill and Stone Barns in in Terrytown.
Speaker 1: A couple of years ago, he did what he was
Speaker 1: calling garbage dinners and taking the parts of vegetables and
Speaker 1: meat that everyone chucks because it's like, that's not the
Speaker 1: pretty part. And um, you know, so we don't need
Speaker 1: the stems, so the broccoli, or we don't need the
Speaker 1: you know. And here, oh well, I mean if you're
Speaker 1: a chef and a chef and you're chopping up the
Speaker 1: broccoli and you just take the florets and that's part
Speaker 1: that you're going to beg yes, exactly, and so now
Speaker 1: these dinners. So all these chefs came and they created
Speaker 1: dinners only out of the parts that weren't pretty rescued fruit,
Speaker 1: and it was fantastic. You know. The idea now I
Speaker 1: think for now and forever is zero waste and we
Speaker 1: can't afford it as as a planet. In beef production
Speaker 1: is one of the two three culprits that's clappering exactly
Speaker 1: forest and they're cutting everything down to grays beef cattle.
Speaker 1: But describe your childhood and food in your childhood, your family,
Speaker 1: your home, what was it like. Um, we always had
Speaker 1: cousins and other people. Every one would come to our house,
Speaker 1: so we had the house where people would crash. He
Speaker 1: was a businessman and um, coming from a culturally Jewish household,
Speaker 1: not a religious Jewish household, it was really about food.
Speaker 1: It's Italians, and I think Jews are very food focused,
Speaker 1: and so everyone cooked. And my sister and left when
Speaker 1: I was still young. She got out of there, she ran,
Speaker 1: but the only thing she could make when she left
Speaker 1: were Swedish meat balls. Um. I remember my brother went
Speaker 1: away to college and he came back and he was like,
Speaker 1: I have to make my begea mill sauce for you,
Speaker 1: and um, you know, and he was so excited about it.
Speaker 1: And my mother always if you told my mother you
Speaker 1: like something, she wouldn't make it again. But if you
Speaker 1: told her, you know, you didn't, she sort of experiment further.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't don't really know why, but and
Speaker 1: you know, I was really indulged. My mother would make
Speaker 1: me something else if I didn't like what she was making.
Speaker 1: And that's probably why I was picking too, because I
Speaker 1: got what I wanted. But she would make things like
Speaker 1: banana meat loaf. Um. It was like no, please, please,
Speaker 1: don't to do that again. But she also made something
Speaker 1: that we all called slop. It remains. It was remains essentially,
Speaker 1: and she put all together and we all loved it.
Speaker 1: And we didn't fte friends over and say we're having
Speaker 1: sloped tonight if you want to come for dinner, that
Speaker 1: doesn't um when you get out of the house, when
Speaker 1: you leave home, and where do you go to school?
Speaker 1: In Madison, Wisconsin? Because you wanted to be a radical?
Speaker 1: I want to be radical and um. And also because
Speaker 1: there was a lighting professor who taught there who has
Speaker 1: since departed the planet, but he was really well known.
Speaker 1: He lit all over the world, but he did things
Speaker 1: like the ballet and the opera and at the mad
Speaker 1: And you knew then that's what you wanted to do.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, because I always sort of related to light,
Speaker 1: even as a child. I understood light and shadow. So
Speaker 1: he was teaching there and I wanted to study with him.
Speaker 1: And so you're at Wisconsin for four years. You go
Speaker 1: four years and graduate? Yeah, you graduates, says in that papacy.
Speaker 1: It's my resumecy. My parents are did I can tell
Speaker 1: the truth? Wait wait, Elizabeth Warren ain't runing for president.
Speaker 1: You're on your own. And I know that things changed
Speaker 1: for me significantly in terms of food, But I think
Speaker 1: of these milestones. I think of these benchmarks in terms
Speaker 1: of my relationship to food and how that changes over
Speaker 1: the years. And some very significant things. And the first
Speaker 1: turn of the dial is leaving my home and going
Speaker 1: to school, where all of a sudden, you know, what
Speaker 1: I eat is up to me. What I'm going to
Speaker 1: eat I decide because when I was back home as
Speaker 1: a child, my mother would cooked dinner. If she had
Speaker 1: six kids. My family had no money. My mother would
Speaker 1: make roasted chickens and vegetables in a salad. Everybody ate. Well,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of other things we didn't have, but
Speaker 1: everybody had clothes and food my my father's insistence. And
Speaker 1: I go to college, what I'm gonna eat is up
Speaker 1: to me? And uh. There was a place of years
Speaker 1: ago in Washington and Georgetown on the Canal called the Foundry.
Speaker 1: It's interesting how the first thing I did was get
Speaker 1: a job as a way to where I could eat,
Speaker 1: because you get a shift meal. But I think unconsciously
Speaker 1: I put myself at these things. In these jobs, I
Speaker 1: did student activities and things where there was food being served,
Speaker 1: and I could eat things that I couldn't afford to
Speaker 1: pay for because I was on a meal plan. Fantastic, yea.
Speaker 1: But for you, how did you eat when you were
Speaker 1: in college. I do remember the first night that I
Speaker 1: was there walking through the town at night, thinking I
Speaker 1: can go anywhere, I can do anything. We can I
Speaker 1: can go get something to eat, I mean something cheap
Speaker 1: and obviously and all that. But everyone was in the
Speaker 1: same boat, so you were together, um and it was
Speaker 1: really exciting. But being in Wisconsin, it was a lot
Speaker 1: of cheese and that wasn't good. You know. In the end,
Speaker 1: of course, all that dairy was time well spent. If
Speaker 1: Deborah Cletter gets a client seeking the best cheese in Wisconsin,
Speaker 1: a good way for you to spend time is in
Speaker 1: the Here's the Thing archive. If all the food talk
Speaker 1: is driving you to the fridge, Dr Robert Lustig will
Speaker 1: put a damper on that. That's called addiction. We know
Speaker 1: how that works for all of these other drugs of abuse.
Speaker 1: Turns out sugar does the same same thing. It's the
Speaker 1: same as cocaine. The difference is that for cocaine you
Speaker 1: gotta go find it, whereas for sugar we have what
Speaker 1: we call system saturation. It's everywhere, you can't escape it.
Speaker 1: The charming, if alarming Doctor Robert Lustig can be found
Speaker 1: anytime with the rest of our past interviews and Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing dot org coming up New York's foremost restaurant recommender,
Speaker 1: Deborah Cletter of e quest NYC, makes her case against
Speaker 1: Yelp and trip Advisor. This is Alec Baldwin and you're
Speaker 1: listening to here's the thing now more With Deborah Clutter
Speaker 1: of eat quest NYC. She caters to her clients when
Speaker 1: and crazy things, but has a clear sense of what
Speaker 1: any restaurant needs to be great. What differentiates good and
Speaker 1: bad is conviviality. If a restaurant wants you to be there,
Speaker 1: if they're happy to make you the food and they
Speaker 1: want you to have a good time, it's sublime. It's
Speaker 1: just this wonderful experience. And you know that they're really
Speaker 1: happy for you to be eating their food, so you're
Speaker 1: really happy to be dining there. I've developed a pretty
Speaker 1: keen sense of when I'm around the person who I
Speaker 1: know they derive great pleasure from preparing food and serving food.
Speaker 1: They love to see people eat their food, and there's
Speaker 1: a kind of a glow they have. There's a kind
Speaker 1: of an incandescence thing. And so the thing for me
Speaker 1: now is that because I'm trying so much now to
Speaker 1: manage food in my life, and I'm wondering do you
Speaker 1: factor that into your recommendations with people? Do they ever
Speaker 1: say to you, I need healthy food, are going to
Speaker 1: be very careful. You know, it's interesting that hasn't come
Speaker 1: up as much as one would think. But I think
Speaker 1: the movement now is like the whole paleo thing, and
Speaker 1: so there are people eating like dachis and broths and
Speaker 1: consummes that the your fish is poached in and all that.
Speaker 1: But I think that there's comfort and there's health, and
Speaker 1: those two. You know, it's diametrically opposed, and there are
Speaker 1: people who leaned one way and lean the up. So
Speaker 1: most of the people that are engaging your service, they
Speaker 1: don't they don't bother with that. They're there to go
Speaker 1: blow it out or just enjoy it. I mean, because
Speaker 1: it really doesn't have to be about something special. It
Speaker 1: just has to be about something good or comfortable for
Speaker 1: their economic bracket or you know, the kind of atmosphere
Speaker 1: they want. I mean, it starts. You know, I started
Speaker 1: doing this years ago because I would plan people's evenings
Speaker 1: for them. I just got into like I knew somebody,
Speaker 1: this intern working at some in an office that a
Speaker 1: friend of mine was running, and he wanted to propose
Speaker 1: to his girlfriend. So another friend and I just we court.
Speaker 1: We we coordinated the whole evening. We said where you're
Speaker 1: going to go meet for drinks, where you're going to
Speaker 1: actually have dinner, where you're going to propose to her,
Speaker 1: what table you're going to sit at, how that's all
Speaker 1: going to go down. And we did the whole evening
Speaker 1: for him, and then we started doing that for other people.
Speaker 1: She ultimately moved to Italy with her family. UM, so I,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of stopped that and just kept doing
Speaker 1: what I was doing. But it was always in the
Speaker 1: back of my mind. And when you know, the recession
Speaker 1: happened and people weren't doing so much garden lighting, and um,
Speaker 1: I wasn't really doing theater. I thought, okay, food, Um
Speaker 1: this is you know, everyone always asked me where to go,
Speaker 1: and I always like knowing where to go, and I'm
Speaker 1: always intrigued by something, and you know, I just sort
Speaker 1: of I'm like a steward of um you know, of information.
Speaker 1: I just you know, it's out there and other people
Speaker 1: can find it too. It's just that I'm obsessed with it. Cook. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do, do I do. I used to go really
Speaker 1: sort of high end fancy. You know, you're well, my
Speaker 1: signature dishes my shrimp risotto, but that's not really dazzling
Speaker 1: wild Argentinian shrimp, but it's it's more about how you
Speaker 1: cook it. And I will not reveal the secret, but um,
Speaker 1: I don't even tell other people that there's a few
Speaker 1: little key things in it that make it what it is.
Speaker 1: And I honestly think it's the best trimp risotto I've
Speaker 1: ever had. I like rock shrimps. I went to a
Speaker 1: place once on vacation down there in North Carolina and
Speaker 1: I thought, oh my god, I mean this was shrimp
Speaker 1: they caught right there fresh and it was just mean
Speaker 1: a tasted like something. Yes, when when you can really
Speaker 1: taste the food, that makes such a difference. It's like
Speaker 1: carrots from the farmer's market actually taste like carrots, not
Speaker 1: a bag of what's called baby carrots but are just
Speaker 1: you know, cut up bigger carrots in a supermarket don't
Speaker 1: taste like carrots. They might be filling, and you know,
Speaker 1: you can chew them and you can slice them and
Speaker 1: put them in things, but when you taste the carrot
Speaker 1: and you really get the carrot taste, it's remarkable and
Speaker 1: you know, and I think that's part of people want
Speaker 1: to know where their food is coming from now. They
Speaker 1: want to know what they're eating, so, you know, and
Speaker 1: that's why I think like the crowd. But you can
Speaker 1: find that at less expensive places as well as more
Speaker 1: expensive places. It's all out there. When you go to
Speaker 1: a restaurant, what's the first thing you look for, it's
Speaker 1: the whole nison send. Are people enjoying it? I mean,
Speaker 1: do you do? You feel that sort of buzz and
Speaker 1: you smell it and it smells really good, and it's
Speaker 1: it's almost like a sixth sense that you walk in
Speaker 1: somewhere and you feel like this is where I'm supposed
Speaker 1: to be. I get it. I think this is going
Speaker 1: to be good. When you when people are enjoying their food,
Speaker 1: there's just that buzz, there's there's your You know that
Speaker 1: you've come into a place where it's not about pretension,
Speaker 1: it's not about um. You know, the masquerade of this
Speaker 1: place is supposed to be good, so I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: like it. It's really like people are enjoying their food here.
Speaker 1: The waiters seem to be enjoying giving it to you.
Speaker 1: The cooks are happy making it for you. You're happy
Speaker 1: to be there eating it, and that really is what
Speaker 1: it is. It really doesn't, you know, there's not it's not.
Speaker 1: I I personally love a neighborhood feel. I love you know,
Speaker 1: old world. I love a dive. But when I'm looking
Speaker 1: for clients and um, you know, and I'm when I'm
Speaker 1: going out to eat it and checking all these places out,
Speaker 1: I'm looking for things that might appeal to all kinds
Speaker 1: of people. I'm not just looking that. That's my test.
Speaker 1: So it's not just about me, it's about what that is.
Speaker 1: So people ask me favorites and I don't. I generally
Speaker 1: don't reveal them because it's not about me. But you're
Speaker 1: going to reveal them to me, and temail um described
Speaker 1: for me. Give me a high end and a low
Speaker 1: end of just a meal. You remember a place, you
Speaker 1: remember you went there, and those all right? All perfect?
Speaker 1: Can it be out of the country, It can be
Speaker 1: anywhere you desire. Okay. One of my most favorite places
Speaker 1: in the whole world is Palazaccio's, which is an Umbria
Speaker 1: and it's outside of Spoletto, and it's a family run restaurant,
Speaker 1: and you know, my heart just sings whenever I think
Speaker 1: about it and the you know, the idea of getting
Speaker 1: back there. And one of the most amazing things that
Speaker 1: they make is this artichoke ravioli and it's and all
Speaker 1: you know, it takes them half a day to make it.
Speaker 1: And you know, one of the things I think people
Speaker 1: want to go out to eat for is for something
Speaker 1: that they can't make at home or they won't make
Speaker 1: it home, because it's just two times et someone's made
Speaker 1: an effort. And so when they make the artichoke ravili,
Speaker 1: not only do they have to make the fresh pasta
Speaker 1: and make the actual ravioli and all of that, but
Speaker 1: they cook the artichoke. They take each leaf off, they
Speaker 1: scrape all the little bits of what you know, the
Speaker 1: artichook meat off of each leaf, make a like make
Speaker 1: a paste out of it exactly. And the heart of
Speaker 1: the artichoke is what goes into each violi, but the
Speaker 1: pace goes into the sauce and um. And so when
Speaker 1: you eat, it's just heaven. It's heaven. There's just there's
Speaker 1: nothing else like it that just it melts in your mouth.
Speaker 1: It's just extraordinary. And it's called palazaccios and it's on
Speaker 1: the via Flaminia outside of Swoletto and family run helicopter
Speaker 1: than that UM and then they're definitely meals in New
Speaker 1: York and a place like UM for Chinese food, the
Speaker 1: Little Pepper Um, which is well known now. I happened
Speaker 1: to find it the first night they opened in a
Speaker 1: little basement in Flushing, because I was looking for a
Speaker 1: different restaurant that had moved, and so I was with
Speaker 1: some friends. We thought, this kind of smells good and
Speaker 1: it's just funky. Let's check it out. And it was sublime.
Speaker 1: And then I started, like, you know, getting friends to
Speaker 1: go there all the time, and I would go there always.
Speaker 1: And now they've moved and they have a place on
Speaker 1: in College Point and they bought the building, so it's
Speaker 1: a slightly more upscale UM. But nothing in there is
Speaker 1: bad and I feel at home when I go there.
Speaker 1: I feel at home with the food. I know the dishes,
Speaker 1: I have my favorites. I order way too much and UM.
Speaker 1: And I think of you for this because because one
Speaker 1: of my favorite things about dining with you is that
Speaker 1: you know, we can go to a restaurant and you'll say,
Speaker 1: you know, I'll have the chicken, you have the steak
Speaker 1: or you know, and also I'll steak or something like that.
Speaker 1: But then if you're if my eye wanders over anywhere
Speaker 1: in the menu, you say, what are you looking at?
Speaker 1: Let's get it. I learned that from Michael Blue, my
Speaker 1: former agent. I remember that Blue would say, I say,
Speaker 1: I can't make up my mind the salmon or the chicken.
Speaker 1: He goes, get both. I can't make up my mind
Speaker 1: the soul or the pasta. Get both. What do we care?
Speaker 1: What do you care? It's great because you and I
Speaker 1: would end up with a table filled with like several entrees, appetizers, sides. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, let's get the pizza, Let's also have the pasta,
Speaker 1: Let's also have this, and you know, and that's what
Speaker 1: I So that's kind of how I think sometimes, Like
Speaker 1: I don't understand when people limit me and they say
Speaker 1: things like I think we've ordered enough, Like I don't
Speaker 1: think we have no, No, you don't get it. I'm
Speaker 1: the one that determines when we've had enough. Do you
Speaker 1: remember when we had dinner at an unnamed restaurant that's
Speaker 1: very popular. Um, you had a group of like ten
Speaker 1: people and we were all at the restaurant and the
Speaker 1: waiter came over and he was telling us about the salmon.
Speaker 1: And he said, the salmon was wrapped in Kashmir, you know,
Speaker 1: every night of its life, and it was they read
Speaker 1: a good night moon before it went to sleep. And
Speaker 1: I went to Princeton. It was caressed. They carried it
Speaker 1: here across the country from the Pacific Northwest. And you said,
Speaker 1: I'd rather get a piece of trout from a guy
Speaker 1: named Joe driving the truck and flings it in through
Speaker 1: the door. That that that whole boutique thing with food.
Speaker 1: I mean, listen, I want Kobe beef when I first
Speaker 1: first heard about that, I mean everything about handling food. Uh.
Speaker 1: And what about the low end? What's the place you know?
Speaker 1: Well a little? I mean, you know, I hesitate to
Speaker 1: call them low, but I mean a place like Eisenberg's.
Speaker 1: Do you know on Fifth Avenue? You know I love
Speaker 1: their tuna sandwich. I mean they do. I never thought
Speaker 1: you'd say that. I've been there. It's around the corner
Speaker 1: for my physical therapist. Oh do you get the Reuben.
Speaker 1: I go there and have an egg salad sandwich. You
Speaker 1: can get a half egg salad, half tuna, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to tuna really good. Tuna. I won't share with
Speaker 1: you the he doesn't my number one, which I call
Speaker 1: bachelor's surprise, which is my tuna salad sandwich. I make
Speaker 1: a tuna sala said. People have wept when they have
Speaker 1: my tuna. I'm gonna need to try it. If you're
Speaker 1: not going to do I'll take off Mike and involves
Speaker 1: some very simple I love tuna fish. It's tuna fish
Speaker 1: European style. Well, I'll tell you my favorite tuna is
Speaker 1: Rio Mara, and they don't export their Rio Marian extra
Speaker 1: virgin olive oil to America. You can only get in Italy,
Speaker 1: and you can ask any friend. I have cases of it.
Speaker 1: We get we get by the one from my wife.
Speaker 1: I get it from a Spanish grocery store. I used
Speaker 1: to eat fish every now and then I get sick
Speaker 1: of fish. But for all those concerns about age and
Speaker 1: health and everything, you always remember my brother and I
Speaker 1: getting a quart of fried rice from the local Chinese
Speaker 1: place take out and sitting on the curb in the
Speaker 1: parking lot. They didn't have any seating. It was take out.
Speaker 1: Only was a counter and we would sit down and
Speaker 1: we'd eat. It was like the perfect mix of the
Speaker 1: shrimp and the egg and the scallions in this and
Speaker 1: we'd sit there and eat. It was like we we
Speaker 1: might as well have had a table at Lutess. It
Speaker 1: was like the it with the greatest meal I've ever
Speaker 1: had in my life, because you're so craving that, and
Speaker 1: you're so jonesing for that, and you don't feel that anymore.
Speaker 1: You don't have a craving for something that crave now
Speaker 1: is the room. Food is not my enemy. Food is
Speaker 1: something I have to wrestle with. But the common thread
Speaker 1: of food is just I don't want to get too
Speaker 1: sappy here, but like who you're with, what's the vibe?
Speaker 1: You know? I I mean sharing food makes you part
Speaker 1: of a larger hole. And all the work that now
Speaker 1: people are doing with you know, like Jos Andreas and
Speaker 1: and doing all the world Central Kitchen and goings. Who
Speaker 1: don't know UM Chef Restaurant Tour, UM Washington, New York,
Speaker 1: l A. And he's going to every disaster and feeding people.
Speaker 1: So he was in Puerto Rico and he has fed
Speaker 1: so many people and got people cooking there and got
Speaker 1: people hot meals and really good meals. And the photographs
Speaker 1: are remember of like Paia pants that were as big
Speaker 1: as this desk, which people can't see, but it's big
Speaker 1: and exactly and it was just extraordinary. And so he's
Speaker 1: gone and organized for every disaster, and all kinds of
Speaker 1: people are doing that. There's such a humanitarian aspect now
Speaker 1: to food. There are a lot of refugee dinners. They're
Speaker 1: there are different groups that are either catering um, so
Speaker 1: they take people who have been displaced, and people are
Speaker 1: now like cooking and you can actually hire a caterer
Speaker 1: where people who were you know, exiled for whatever reason
Speaker 1: and are here are cooking for you, which is fantastic
Speaker 1: because it brings them a sense of home and it
Speaker 1: brings you, um, you know, some really great meal that
Speaker 1: you didn't get to have before. But it's the idea
Speaker 1: of just sharing food and sharing somebody's heritage and culture
Speaker 1: and and I think, you know, those of us who
Speaker 1: are on you know, on the good side of humanity
Speaker 1: are trying to to connect with that and to share that.
Speaker 1: You know. I asked the driver, you guys were so
Speaker 1: nice to send me a car. And I asked the
Speaker 1: driver on the way what he looks for in a restaurant,
Speaker 1: and he said, oh, he said, I go to Queens
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn and I eat Jamaican food. And I said,
Speaker 1: because it's home, and he said yes. The connection for
Speaker 1: people is, you know what makes them feel at home,
Speaker 1: regardless of whether that home was last year or childhood.
Speaker 1: Restaurant reviewers, how is that change has a change? Who
Speaker 1: do you trust? Now? Who do you? I do like?
Speaker 1: I like the New Yorker, I like Hannah Goldfield and
Speaker 1: UM and I like UM. I don't want to dispat
Speaker 1: or just do what I do. Would you just name
Speaker 1: the ones you like? Well? But the thing is, I
Speaker 1: like some of what some people say. Do you do
Speaker 1: dislike Wells? What he wants? I don't dislike Wells, but
Speaker 1: I don't agree with everything that he says. But I
Speaker 1: think I do think he's a very good reviewer. And I,
Speaker 1: you know, I clearly go to the Times every Wednesday
Speaker 1: to see what um, you know, what what he has said.
Speaker 1: But I trust people that I know more than I
Speaker 1: trust reviewers that are out there. UM And I think
Speaker 1: you know, you look at something like trip Advisor or Yelp,
Speaker 1: where so many people go to and as as a
Speaker 1: friend of mine pointed out to me, she was going
Speaker 1: to chang My in Thailand for going to live there
Speaker 1: for a few months. And she said, well, I thought
Speaker 1: i'd look a trip Advisor and I would see, like
Speaker 1: what restaurants they were recommending, and she said the top
Speaker 1: rated number one restaurant in chang My was a text
Speaker 1: Mex place, and I thought, no, thanks, I don't need
Speaker 1: to do that so people find you know, I guess
Speaker 1: all the people who go to Yelp or trip Advisor,
Speaker 1: if you find someone you like, I suppose you know
Speaker 1: that would mean something I I don't. I don't ever
Speaker 1: look at anything like that. I look at Yelps sometimes
Speaker 1: for addresses or do they take credit cards or you know,
Speaker 1: sort of hardcore information. But I noticed a review said
Speaker 1: the best sushi in New York, so I thought, okay,
Speaker 1: you know, I have to see I'll buy. And the
Speaker 1: person just said, this is the best sushi I've ever had.
Speaker 1: Of course I've never had sushi before, and I thought,
Speaker 1: like a ha, And to me, that sums up like
Speaker 1: that kind of local reviews. And you know, if it
Speaker 1: works for you, great. But what I do is I
Speaker 1: try and glean what somebody wants, and I keep a
Speaker 1: personal file on them or even if it's just a
Speaker 1: one time thing. I get, you know, by a listening
Speaker 1: answers from them on on my questions, I get what
Speaker 1: it is that they're looking for. We're interesting towards my
Speaker 1: last question, which is my dear friend Ronnie Dobson. I
Speaker 1: think you met who spent a good part of his youth. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, studied literature at Brooklyn College and uh as
Speaker 1: a very beautiful writer and one of the great uh
Speaker 1: minds I've ever known in my life. And this is
Speaker 1: amazing guy. And took a couple of years in different
Speaker 1: times of his life to travel extensively. One an a Frica,
Speaker 1: when in Mexico, and when he's in Africa, he's and
Speaker 1: he really does talk his version I mean, I'm really
Speaker 1: not exaggerating his version of like Woody Allen. He's he's
Speaker 1: the Jewish kid from Brooklyn and he's totally what he
Speaker 1: Alan's when you talked to him, he's like he'd be
Speaker 1: like on a hiking across Africa with a friend and
Speaker 1: they would come upon a boma and people would be
Speaker 1: cooking something and uh, and he really really ate everything.
Speaker 1: I mean, he ate anything. If if human beings are
Speaker 1: standing over a simmering pot and it could do or impala,
Speaker 1: it didn't matter. Whatever they're cooking. And there's some potatoes
Speaker 1: and carrots looked in there. He was down. He would
Speaker 1: have a big steam and bowl of whatever and he
Speaker 1: ate everything to me. That's like, you know, I like
Speaker 1: if if you guys got any you know, rice cakes
Speaker 1: and peanut butter like. But there's those things I can't eat.
Speaker 1: There's just things I can't know the things that you
Speaker 1: can't eat. There are definitely things like I I you know,
Speaker 1: I don't want things like brains and stuff. There's this
Speaker 1: really fantastic place um um called on al is Kebob
Speaker 1: Cafe that's been there for a long time on Steinway
Speaker 1: Street in Astoria, and Ali is this great man. There's
Speaker 1: no kitchen really, there's like a hot plate and um
Speaker 1: and he creates these incredible meals. He just comes over
Speaker 1: to you and he's like, what do you feel like today?
Speaker 1: And you kind of tell them. But there are things
Speaker 1: like the brain and stuff like if it comes to
Speaker 1: the table, I need to put up a little wall
Speaker 1: so that I can't even look at it because the
Speaker 1: brain looks like rain. Before Frank Booney, before Pete Wells
Speaker 1: and everything. The New York Times would write a restaurant review,
Speaker 1: and maybe a handful of times a year they would
Speaker 1: go to an outer borough. Yeah, if at all Brooklyn
Speaker 1: was where you went to buy a gun. No, it's true.
Speaker 1: They will have personal bodyguards out there. They don't need
Speaker 1: a gun. Right in that way that I'm describing, Ronnie,
Speaker 1: were you a fan of Bourdain? Oh god, yes you were. Yes, him,
Speaker 1: and and you know and Jonathan Golden from l A
Speaker 1: and um and people who who it's about people and
Speaker 1: culture and you know, and that that sort of energy
Speaker 1: and I just appreciate that so much, about what he
Speaker 1: did for the world and going off to these places
Speaker 1: and just saying like here there's this nobody a win,
Speaker 1: there's this culture that you can devour. The cultural thing
Speaker 1: was was riveting. It was riveting. And he also makes
Speaker 1: it exciting because when you travel and you you know,
Speaker 1: my favorite thing is if you tell me something's hard
Speaker 1: to find or hard to get, um rare, I want it.
Speaker 1: And you know, I will drag somebody through a jungle
Speaker 1: in Indonesia because there's a fish place on the beach
Speaker 1: called Neoman's and everyone loves the fish there. It was effortful.
Speaker 1: But then you get to this little stand with you know,
Speaker 1: like two tables and and it's a Neoman's fish because
Speaker 1: Neoman is one of the popular names there, and um,
Speaker 1: and the fish was incredible. It's it was just extraordinary,
Speaker 1: you know. And he's just grilling it on an open
Speaker 1: fire and it's as simple as it can be. But
Speaker 1: it's fresh and it's perfectly cooked. And you know, that's
Speaker 1: what I like about about Bourdain too, is that you
Speaker 1: just sort of feel like you hunted for something that
Speaker 1: now I want to find. You've led me somewhere. You've
Speaker 1: led me somewhere. Exactly if you had a single serving
Speaker 1: of one thing, what would the last meal b among many,
Speaker 1: what would it be read bread that really crusty on
Speaker 1: the outside, soft on the inside, where you can you
Speaker 1: buy it in the store and it's almost gone by
Speaker 1: the time you get home. You kind of have to
Speaker 1: get to so you have the one that you need
Speaker 1: to travel later. Exactly, you need to travel pack because
Speaker 1: you just keep breaking off another piece and if you
Speaker 1: can have butter on it, you know, fantastic or whatever
Speaker 1: your fantasy. But um, yeah, well then't end up dying anyways.
Speaker 1: Pile on that. But I would be corn in the coup,
Speaker 1: would it? I crave when we get to that August,
Speaker 1: that September Labor Day, the New Jersey Silver Queen, all
Speaker 1: those legendary late summer corn with lots of sugar corn
Speaker 1: on the cob. But I don't put butter on corn.
Speaker 1: And I don't know because the corn is so when
Speaker 1: you get a great piece of corn, think you're just
Speaker 1: tasting my butter. When I have corn in the cup,
Speaker 1: I have about six pieces of it, and so I
Speaker 1: have every other one test butter on. I'll do old butter.
Speaker 1: It's a palate cleanser, and then I do the butter,
Speaker 1: and then I have the little sell Bay, the one
Speaker 1: with Yeah, that's perfect, That's exactly right. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for doing this with me. Well thanks, it's fun
Speaker 1: to talk food with a friend. Um, I I tend
Speaker 1: to I never tested well, so I'm not good on
Speaker 1: on on questions on the spot. I always have to think, like,
Speaker 1: what what are you asking me? Why are you asking me? Well?
Speaker 1: What I love about what you do? I'm never going
Speaker 1: to say that wells and people who write for the
Speaker 1: Times are compromised in anyway. But there's a lot writing
Speaker 1: on what they do. I went with Frank Bruney. Uh,
Speaker 1: Maureen Down said you want to come with me and
Speaker 1: Frank and another person to go to de Batali's Del
Speaker 1: Posto when I had just opened up, and we went
Speaker 1: with Bruney and it was so eye opening to me,
Speaker 1: and Frank kind of took me through like the protocols
Speaker 1: and when he goes in and we were sitting there
Speaker 1: was really really really fascinating. But that's you know, he
Speaker 1: was the restaurant critic for The Times. Is a whole
Speaker 1: other thing going on. You was as much more. I'm
Speaker 1: a conduit, you know. I'm sort of like the conduit
Speaker 1: to you and a meal that I think you might
Speaker 1: really enjoy. I'm not saying that you know that this
Speaker 1: is right for everybody. I'm not sort of declaring that
Speaker 1: this restaurant's gonna last. For this restaurant's not gonna last.
Speaker 1: I just really like to think about I love reading menus,
Speaker 1: I love thinking about food, and there are so many
Speaker 1: good things to have. I mean, it's just something that
Speaker 1: I want to share more than it's about a criticism
Speaker 1: or an evaluation of a whole place, And I just
Speaker 1: want to share it I feel like I have this
Speaker 1: great dumpling, you have to have it too. I have
Speaker 1: this pancake, you have to have it too. And it's sublime.
Speaker 1: That was my old friend Deborah Clatter of Eat Quest NYC.
Speaker 1: She can source you a sturgeon and find you a
Speaker 1: food tour, but it's really all about that ineffable match
Speaker 1: between human and table. This is Alec Baldwin and you're
Speaker 1: listening to here's the thing to be f