Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from My Heart Radio. French chef Eric Repair is
Speaker 1: the culinary virtuoso behind one of New York City's flagship
Speaker 1: fine dining establishments, the Temple of Seafood. Le Bernardin. Repair
Speaker 1: has kept the restaurant at its peak for three decades,
Speaker 1: consistently earning three Michelin stars in addition to the accolades
Speaker 1: he's earned for La Bernardin. Repair himself has been honored
Speaker 1: as Top Chef in New York City and Outstanding Chef
Speaker 1: in the US by the James Beard Foundation. He is
Speaker 1: also the author of numerous cookbooks and a New York
Speaker 1: Times best selling memoir, and he hosted the Emmy winning
Speaker 1: TV series Avec Eric. All of this on top of
Speaker 1: his charitable work feeding the hungry with City Harvest. Born
Speaker 1: in the South of France, Chef Repair has a long
Speaker 1: and storied history with food. I wanted to know when
Speaker 1: he first fell in love with gastronomy. Actually it's linked
Speaker 1: to eating because as a young kid, I was always
Speaker 1: in the kitchen of my grandmothers, always in the kitchen
Speaker 1: of my mother and my I had the Italian grandmother
Speaker 1: one from province. They were cooking salt food and I
Speaker 1: love the vibe in the kitchen and the smell and
Speaker 1: the ingredients everywhere, the colors. I was going to the
Speaker 1: markets with them. They didn't want me to cook. That
Speaker 1: was allowed only to look and eat, and it's what
Speaker 1: I was doing. And I wanted to become a chef
Speaker 1: because I thought I would be in that environment. Those
Speaker 1: kitchens were very dreamy, and it was in the south
Speaker 1: of France, where you know, everything smells good. Old arms
Speaker 1: are strong, and you smell the melons and the basil
Speaker 1: and every think as as this fantastic smell and look.
Speaker 1: And I was four or five. I was obsessed with cooking.
Speaker 1: So when I was in school, instead of doing my
Speaker 1: homework at night, I was looking at cookbooks. So as
Speaker 1: you can imagine, I had bad grades. And then when
Speaker 1: I was you should be ashamed of yourself here right then,
Speaker 1: I was fifteen, and they called me at the principal
Speaker 1: office and they said, that's it's for you. You can't
Speaker 1: we have to find what they call a vocational school. Sure,
Speaker 1: and I was like, same here, I want to be
Speaker 1: a chef, that's it. And I went to culinary school,
Speaker 1: thinking that I would be in those dreamy kitchens and
Speaker 1: and so on. And then I started to learn the craft,
Speaker 1: and on the beginning is a bit boring because it's
Speaker 1: very academic, so I was not necessarily too excited. What
Speaker 1: was the school? What was the first when you went
Speaker 1: to Perpinion, which is in the south of France at
Speaker 1: the border of with Spain almost And then when I
Speaker 1: started in latour d round nineteen two and I'm seventeen
Speaker 1: years old, that's a real, real kitchen with like thirty
Speaker 1: fourty guys cooking, and and I'm like amazed and terrorized,
Speaker 1: and I make all the mistakes in the world, but
Speaker 1: I love it. And it's maybe that the moment. Maybe
Speaker 1: you're right, it was not when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: It was jin Paris nineteen When you're actually doing it,
Speaker 1: not studying it, I'm really into it, like like with
Speaker 1: my entire body and soul, and I'm giving everything. But
Speaker 1: when you see the Julia Child documentary that I loved,
Speaker 1: when she talks about her training and France, no women, No,
Speaker 1: it was no woman at the time, And for you,
Speaker 1: the same thing, yes, because the kids, First of all,
Speaker 1: it was not a job that that was attractive, like
Speaker 1: you were going in the kitchen because you were a
Speaker 1: bad student, or you were dysfunctional, you had problems, and
Speaker 1: your parents were like all the men in the kitchen
Speaker 1: with thos, go to the kitchen. At least you would
Speaker 1: have food. And and there was also very uh how
Speaker 1: can I say physical, like we had we didn't have
Speaker 1: the technology that we have in kitchens today. So it
Speaker 1: was very hot and the pants were like super heavy,
Speaker 1: and actually I burned myself. I burned my entire leg
Speaker 1: with like fifty gallons of lobster bisk or something. I
Speaker 1: mean like it was it was like so heavy I
Speaker 1: couldn't even lift it. So it was not an environment
Speaker 1: that women were really attracted. Then the media made the
Speaker 1: idea of cooking in professional kitchens kind of romantic, glamorous,
Speaker 1: but even today it's not that romantic and glamorous. It's
Speaker 1: really like it's tough now if it's it's all men
Speaker 1: back then, and you were two doors. When you're a
Speaker 1: young man, you're seventeen and you've only been in cooking
Speaker 1: school for a couple of years, how did they treat you?
Speaker 1: Where they were they mentors and they helped you or
Speaker 1: did they was like the military, and they were all
Speaker 1: sharing at you all the time. No, it was really
Speaker 1: very much like the military, except that the military sometimes
Speaker 1: I never understood the logic of what we were supposed
Speaker 1: to do because it was mandatory to be a military
Speaker 1: in fruence for one year. But in the kitchen it
Speaker 1: was the same, except that it was a logic. But
Speaker 1: they were screaming at you, and the way they were
Speaker 1: educating you was through humil humiliation, so you were going there,
Speaker 1: they were breaking you and then the idea was to
Speaker 1: rebuild you and make you a champion. Of course, in
Speaker 1: the process we were losing so many good people because
Speaker 1: it's not the right way to do it. But it
Speaker 1: was being kicked in the bud, being punching the shoulders,
Speaker 1: being insulted all day long, and so only with through
Speaker 1: a process. Yeah. But the other difference between and the
Speaker 1: military was at the end of the day, with the
Speaker 1: morn works was over, you had a nice Sam and
Speaker 1: Moose at the restaurant, not in the military, know, Sam
Speaker 1: and Moose at the military. Not really How long we
Speaker 1: went to jan two years? Two years? And where did
Speaker 1: you go from there? I went to a restaurant called Jaman.
Speaker 1: The chef was Royal Roberchan. He was considered at the
Speaker 1: time the best chef in the world with another chef
Speaker 1: in Switzerland. Fredit are they They were like no competition
Speaker 1: with those two guys, like very different styles. But Roby
Speaker 1: Shan was like wow, And for me it was a
Speaker 1: revelation when I when I met him, I was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, Okay, now we're talking. And so two
Speaker 1: years you're only now nineteen years old. Yeah. So when
Speaker 1: you go to the kitchen with Robert Shan, what what
Speaker 1: do you have that he wants? Why does he want
Speaker 1: you in that kitchen? He wants young people because we
Speaker 1: are more flexible, we don't have badabits. I had been
Speaker 1: training lad around the classic way, so I know my basics.
Speaker 1: I described that. So the basic the Blue Noon Blue
Speaker 1: is more like how can I say? It's a cotton
Speaker 1: place of school for people who are going to cook
Speaker 1: at home. It's not a school that prepares you to
Speaker 1: be in a professional kitchen like where I'm I am evolving.
Speaker 1: If we can make an analogy, I'm going to formula
Speaker 1: one and the other one is for you know, on
Speaker 1: Sunday driving your caspas something. So so it's it's no comparison.
Speaker 1: But Robbie Shawn wanted to have someone who knew the
Speaker 1: basics because without the basics, you cannot really build and
Speaker 1: evolve with more the precision that he wanted and for
Speaker 1: him was very important to have a young kid that
Speaker 1: was referred from my old chef to him. So he
Speaker 1: said probably the chef said, okay, so repair his discipline.
Speaker 1: He's not gonna answer. He's gonna work hard. He's going
Speaker 1: he master this and that he wants it, and he
Speaker 1: wants it. He wants to be there, which is always critical,
Speaker 1: Which is always critical, of course. I mean I always
Speaker 1: think about what is the space that I go into
Speaker 1: in my profession that calms me and makes me feel
Speaker 1: very centered. You can do a play and you can
Speaker 1: be very still, and you wonder what their response and
Speaker 1: after a very still response during the performance, they erupted
Speaker 1: into applause. They're sobbing, and they're you know, it's very strange.
Speaker 1: But for you, is that what this world became was
Speaker 1: a place where things made sense to you. You found
Speaker 1: out how it was home. Yes, when I entered the kitchen,
Speaker 1: I was very familiar, even if it was very extreme.
Speaker 1: The conditions of work, you know, like working sixteen to
Speaker 1: eighteen hours a day, I think thirty thirty minutes break
Speaker 1: and a little bit to it. I mean we were
Speaker 1: all skinny like that and white like ghosts. But we
Speaker 1: had the passion and we knew we were doing something
Speaker 1: very special. I love the rigor at the time that
Speaker 1: in that kitchen, that the discipline and the rigger and
Speaker 1: the beautiful place, the challenge of course all the time
Speaker 1: we were challenged, and the beautiful plates that we were
Speaker 1: doing and sending, and and then we had the feedback
Speaker 1: actually from the clients right away. I mean clients were
Speaker 1: saying it's good, or clients sometimes we're living a little
Speaker 1: bit of food in the plate and were terrorized because
Speaker 1: the chef will go crazy, like if someone was living
Speaker 1: in it was famous for looking at every plate coming back.
Speaker 1: He wanted to date everything. Yeah, and if someone was
Speaker 1: leaving something, it was a disaster. That's interesting. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was interesting, I'll say. But anyway, in those kitchens, it's
Speaker 1: control chaos. It looks like it's chaotic, But the more
Speaker 1: control chaos is happening, and the more pressure you have
Speaker 1: when you know what you're doing, you have this kind
Speaker 1: of revelation and you kind of like do things and
Speaker 1: in a very heroic way. And it was. It was
Speaker 1: like that, and it's still to day for me. When
Speaker 1: I entered the kitchen and it's like lunchtime, it's one o'clock.
Speaker 1: You have to feed every everyone in the dining room
Speaker 1: good food, obviously, but in a timely manner, in a
Speaker 1: clean plate and making sure that the food goes to
Speaker 1: the person that has ordered that plate and so on.
Speaker 1: It's an entire process, right, and I get sucked in
Speaker 1: to the process. I love it. There was a restaurant
Speaker 1: I worked in. It was called Enophelia. It was on
Speaker 1: the Upper West Side and it was a real frontier
Speaker 1: because there was almost nothing up there in the upper
Speaker 1: eighties and nineties, back in this is back in the eighties,
Speaker 1: and then the streets up there, way up in the
Speaker 1: nineties on off of Broadway and Amsterdam and Columbus, there
Speaker 1: was very little that was good in This guy opened
Speaker 1: a place where the wine list was what was featured.
Speaker 1: The food was very good. It was very small, and
Speaker 1: we would come to work at three thirty or four
Speaker 1: o'clock have the shift meal. They'd make us all a
Speaker 1: meal to eat and then when the when the shift
Speaker 1: was over, I was a service bartender. I made all
Speaker 1: the cocktails for the table. There was no bar. When
Speaker 1: we were done, we would sit down and the owner
Speaker 1: was lovely man, and he'd say he and the manager
Speaker 1: knew what the stock was to choose. You could choose
Speaker 1: a really nice bottle of wine. No, not the most
Speaker 1: expensive bottle, but you could have a forty bottle of
Speaker 1: wine back then or fifty. Oh yeah, he was very nice.
Speaker 1: The owner was a lovely guy, and he was never there,
Speaker 1: and he'd say to the manager yes, and the manager
Speaker 1: would open the bottle of wine. He'd pour us all
Speaker 1: a drink. And then they would dump all the money
Speaker 1: on the table that we made the money to divide
Speaker 1: between the waiters, bus boys and the service partender. And
Speaker 1: then they would roll a joint. They drove the biggest
Speaker 1: joint they could, the size of a flashlight. And then
Speaker 1: they would smoke pot, drink wine and count the money.
Speaker 1: And I remember it was like the greatest experience. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you don't do that, Aberna. In No, we don't up
Speaker 1: the coins. But in France also it's it's again like
Speaker 1: the military. You don't drink alcohol you don't smoke joints,
Speaker 1: you don't work, you just yeah, you have this incredible
Speaker 1: level of discipline and and that's it. Now when you left,
Speaker 1: Robi Shan, how many more restaurants in Europe did you work?
Speaker 1: And what year did you come to the United States? So,
Speaker 1: Robbie Shan, I do one year. Then it's so hard.
Speaker 1: I have to do my military duties. So I go
Speaker 1: see him and I said, I have to leave. Unfortunately
Speaker 1: it's mandatory, and he says, don't worry about it. I'm
Speaker 1: going to send you to the Eliza. You'll cook for
Speaker 1: me around president of friends at the time, I have
Speaker 1: the connections, don't worry and you did no, I want
Speaker 1: to get out of there. And I'm like, I need
Speaker 1: to get out of there and said, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I thank you so much. I have I have already
Speaker 1: my connections. Thank you appreciate. And I'm thinking I'll never
Speaker 1: see this man again in my life. I'll move on
Speaker 1: somewhere else, learn something else. On my last day of
Speaker 1: my military dude is he called me and said to me,
Speaker 1: I heard that is your last day. Do you want
Speaker 1: to come back and you're going to be the chef
Speaker 1: person you extracting, Yeah, he knew about I don't know
Speaker 1: how we knew, but you know. And I said, you know,
Speaker 1: sir chef, I need to think about it. I had
Speaker 1: a girl friend and so on. I said I need
Speaker 1: and he says, oh, for sure, think about it. You
Speaker 1: have thirty seconds. And I was like what as I
Speaker 1: said yes, and I went back to Paris and I
Speaker 1: did two more years with him. So I worked with
Speaker 1: Robbie Shawn for three and something else. Then, Um, we
Speaker 1: did the military service. You will into the military. I
Speaker 1: did my Yes. I thought you were gonna tell me
Speaker 1: that's when you dumped the lobster best on yourself deliberately. No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: did you get out of I did the military service?
Speaker 1: You did? Yeah? What you do in the PA? Come
Speaker 1: you cooked? So they put me in the kitcher and
Speaker 1: I was supposed to cook for the officers of the
Speaker 1: whatever I was. And the food was so disgusting. I
Speaker 1: had never seen that. They burned spaghetti is in the water.
Speaker 1: I have never seen spaghetti is burning in water. It's
Speaker 1: not possible. Well they did it. So I went to
Speaker 1: see the general and I explained to my situation. I
Speaker 1: was a young kid, and I said you know, I
Speaker 1: don't mind to do it, but you know I can't
Speaker 1: cook shoot food. And he said, I'm going to send
Speaker 1: you to the commandos. What do you think of that?
Speaker 1: So I look at him and I said, sir, look,
Speaker 1: I'm so skinny. I can't do the commandos. And he
Speaker 1: was laughing and said, what do you want? You would
Speaker 1: be my waiter? I said yeah, So I became his
Speaker 1: waiter for one year. I was the waiter of the
Speaker 1: general and then I went back to and then he
Speaker 1: sent me to do you to do us. So after
Speaker 1: the military serviation, you go back with Robert Shaw. Right
Speaker 1: after that you come to the States where there's more European.
Speaker 1: So after two years, I want to get out of
Speaker 1: rubbish from and I want to go to Brazil. So
Speaker 1: I love Brazil and at the time, I'm like, I
Speaker 1: find it very exotic, and I have a lot of
Speaker 1: friends there, and you know, I'm thinking it's gonna be
Speaker 1: a nice and it's gonna be a big party as well,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna have a good time. So I went
Speaker 1: to see Robbie, you're very young at this time. I
Speaker 1: want a party. And when I told him, he said, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm not sending you in a vacation, no way. So
Speaker 1: I said, I would like to go. He said, truly
Speaker 1: something else that's in Spain. He said, Spain. It is
Speaker 1: you live in Andorra, which was between friends and Spain.
Speaker 1: It's it's basically Spain. So I said to him, I said, well,
Speaker 1: don't ask me, tell me where I'm going. And he said, well,
Speaker 1: go in vacation. When you come back, I send you
Speaker 1: to Washington, d CEA. I worked at the Water Hotel.
Speaker 1: No what year nine, way after Nixon scandal, of course,
Speaker 1: but I am at the Water Hotel. They have a
Speaker 1: very good restaurant called Jean Louis French. It was probably
Speaker 1: one of the first French chef celebrity in the US.
Speaker 1: And from Robbie Strom kitchen, which is basically like the army,
Speaker 1: like Catholic school. Almost I end up in Woodstock where
Speaker 1: we're smoking cigarettes in the kitchen and different nbnce tiny kitchen.
Speaker 1: I learned a lot with him. He was extremely creative,
Speaker 1: as I recalled. Because I lived in Washington for three years,
Speaker 1: I went to college there. I went to g w
Speaker 1: first nineteen seventies six or nineteen seventy nine. I left
Speaker 1: and you go there in eighty nine, and you are
Speaker 1: in what is now the more of the modern Washington. Washington.
Speaker 1: Then when I went, it was still a very quiet,
Speaker 1: sleepy backwards when they make maybe three restaurants. It was
Speaker 1: sleepy too. Because I was bored to death and I
Speaker 1: wanted to come to New York. I was like, there's
Speaker 1: no way where you went. So Washington a year and
Speaker 1: enough because I had the visa, uh student visa eighteen months.
Speaker 1: So I did my visa and then I came to
Speaker 1: New York and I worked downtown with David Boulet for
Speaker 1: short period of time, and then I started at Lebanon Lebernard.
Speaker 1: And let's face it as like the Temple of restaurants.
Speaker 1: I mean, many of them have come and gone. I
Speaker 1: remember that I worked. One of my first jobs in
Speaker 1: New York was I worked at the least like court
Speaker 1: Pasque Pascal, who was the pastry chef. I worked for
Speaker 1: Gi Pascal. I know him, he was my pastriy chef.
Speaker 1: He said that the people from the court pass gave
Speaker 1: him the name. She said to him, oh you can
Speaker 1: have the name. And and and g who was a
Speaker 1: man who he loved me. He loved me. He was
Speaker 1: a very loving person. He was a very loving He
Speaker 1: would walk up to me and he put his hand
Speaker 1: on my face and said, oh, leck, I want for
Speaker 1: you to come to work every day. For me, I
Speaker 1: worked at the place delivering the pastries to uh look
Speaker 1: renowl pronounce like all the old school sign of the dove,
Speaker 1: all these. I delivered the pastries from Geat in a
Speaker 1: truck to the restaurants. So I worked with him. Well,
Speaker 1: Bernarden is all those spaces are gone? Bernardan is still here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think we were still here and we're still relevant
Speaker 1: and so on, because we basically question ourselves every day
Speaker 1: and we push ourselves and we have no ego about
Speaker 1: our accolades or anything like that. Whatever was yesterday doesn't
Speaker 1: exist anymore. Every morning we start again, and we want
Speaker 1: to create an experience for the clients. For the people
Speaker 1: who come. We want to push to envelope with our cooking.
Speaker 1: We want to create an ambience in the dining room
Speaker 1: that is very warm, considering that we are for fine
Speaker 1: dining restaurant. We want people to laugh. We want people,
Speaker 1: if they want to scream, scream. We want the dining
Speaker 1: room to be loud and so so we we always evolve.
Speaker 1: We changed decre since I am there three times, keeping
Speaker 1: some iconic items like the ceilings. You are a part
Speaker 1: owner in the restaurant, yes, you're not just a chef
Speaker 1: under contract. And as a part owner, obviously you have
Speaker 1: control over and that's in the back of the house,
Speaker 1: so to speak, and you have some significant control over
Speaker 1: the front of the house as well. Yes, of course,
Speaker 1: the fabric on the chairs, the flowers on the tail
Speaker 1: as you have some say yes. And then we work
Speaker 1: really well as a team with my business partner. It's
Speaker 1: it's really it's really a great pleasure to work together,
Speaker 1: which is I think very important to have partners that
Speaker 1: are aligned with the vision. Alberada is evolving all the
Speaker 1: time because we first of all, we refused to have
Speaker 1: signature dishes because the day the day you have a
Speaker 1: signature dish, you don't evolve anymore. And as you know,
Speaker 1: New York is pretty quick and fast. If you don't evolve,
Speaker 1: you behind the next day. The second is stop. That's it,
Speaker 1: it's over. We just have the passion and we want
Speaker 1: to do new things. Chef Eric Repair. If you enjoy
Speaker 1: culinary conversations, check out my episode with the author of
Speaker 1: in defense of food and cooked Michael Pollen, Amazing things
Speaker 1: happen at the table, and you know, as you give
Speaker 1: up cooking, you give up eating together. And when when
Speaker 1: you start going to the microwavable meal, everybody gets their own.
Speaker 1: And there's something about eating from the same pot that
Speaker 1: puts people on the same page psychologically, I think, and
Speaker 1: we give that up and increasingly we're eating alone. We're
Speaker 1: eating in the car of American food gets eaten in
Speaker 1: the car right now. Um, we eat alone way too often,
Speaker 1: and so we're losing. It's not just about the food.
Speaker 1: I mean, food is important, but there are the institutions
Speaker 1: that come with it. To hear more of my conversation
Speaker 1: with the author, Michael Pollen, go to Here's the Thing
Speaker 1: dot org. After the break, Eric Repair and I discussed
Speaker 1: the unparalleled importance of dessert. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're
Speaker 1: listening to Here's the Thing. For a chef working at
Speaker 1: the level that Eric Repair does, the standards that le
Speaker 1: bernardin must be excellence, and not just in food, but
Speaker 1: in presentation, design and hospitality. I asked Repair what he
Speaker 1: thinks are the hallmarks of good service, and in particular,
Speaker 1: what makes a good waiter. A good waiter is someone
Speaker 1: who's passion it and rocks hard and understand that he's
Speaker 1: here to create an experience for the clients. That's a
Speaker 1: good waiter. Of course, he has to have a good
Speaker 1: relationship with the kitchen and be knowledgible about the food
Speaker 1: and so and the wines and so on. But we
Speaker 1: are in a hospitality business. People come to the Banner then,
Speaker 1: not to have a waither star or chef star. No,
Speaker 1: we are here to make your experience the best we can.
Speaker 1: And the way there has to be very generous in
Speaker 1: this way, you know, has to be very given as
Speaker 1: to read also the client really well, you may come
Speaker 1: to the Bernarda and it could be a date and
Speaker 1: you in love and so on. The way there shouldn't
Speaker 1: be in the middle, and we say, right, we leave
Speaker 1: us alone. You've been really you've been reading my mind
Speaker 1: because right before you came, we were talking about over service.
Speaker 1: Yeah no, you don't want that. But you may be
Speaker 1: also celebrating a business deal. Okay, so it's the way.
Speaker 1: There should be a standing stay away. But if you
Speaker 1: have foodie and you traveled, and you you save money
Speaker 1: and and you're looking at everywhere, and the waiter should
Speaker 1: see that and then read your mind and know that
Speaker 1: you want interaction and you want to talk up food
Speaker 1: and you want to potentially visit the kitchen and what
Speaker 1: the hell? Yes, the waiter should be invisible until you
Speaker 1: need them. So, without naming the part of town you
Speaker 1: live in where your home is, are there restaurants that
Speaker 1: you walk out the door? For me, my wife and
Speaker 1: I have four or five go two restaurants in the neighborhood.
Speaker 1: We have dinner, rem united, We put our kids to
Speaker 1: dead every night, and we walk out the door the
Speaker 1: same restaurants. Is that the same way you live? Do
Speaker 1: you walk out the door and there will go to restaurants?
Speaker 1: Are you always reaching out and exploring new things always? Well,
Speaker 1: First of all, the big difference in between you and
Speaker 1: I is that when you go out, I'm cooking, right,
Speaker 1: So during the week, five days a week, I am
Speaker 1: in the restaurant. When you do go out to lunch
Speaker 1: on the weekend, one day we go out, one day
Speaker 1: we stay home. So when we stay oh my coop,
Speaker 1: because it's fun to cook at home is different. And
Speaker 1: then when we go out. I'm very loyal to places,
Speaker 1: but I like to explore as well, and so it's
Speaker 1: a mix of U. And sometimes I do trips like
Speaker 1: I decide to go for two weeks in Scandinavia and
Speaker 1: I do all the restaurant that I'm thinking that will
Speaker 1: inspire me, and I come back trying new things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and when you travel the world, what's the difference between
Speaker 1: the restaurant experience in Europe and in America? What do
Speaker 1: the Europeans do that the Americans don't do or vice versasa? Right? Um, Well,
Speaker 1: in Europe, the chef is always right. You don't discuss
Speaker 1: the chef the ideas of the chef. In America, the
Speaker 1: clients really challenge you if they don't like what you
Speaker 1: are doing, or if they don't understand, or it's no
Speaker 1: logic to have that without the But yeah, of course,
Speaker 1: in Europe, no, it doesn't happen. And then in fine
Speaker 1: dining in Europe, people are very quiet and silent. It's
Speaker 1: almost like they are in church, which I dislike. I
Speaker 1: like restaurant with ambience and good vibes and so on.
Speaker 1: So in the US, I've in fine dining, especially in
Speaker 1: the city like New York, the dining rooms are more
Speaker 1: vibrant and then I have to say what I like
Speaker 1: about Europe is the quality of the products that they are,
Speaker 1: you know, like when they serve vegetables, the test like
Speaker 1: what's supposed to taste here's a bit of a challenge.
Speaker 1: It is a challenge because we do not cultivate the
Speaker 1: same way, you know, like the soil is maybe not
Speaker 1: the same. I don't know, Like an artichock in the
Speaker 1: Mediterranean is not the same artichock that we eat here.
Speaker 1: The artigine, for example, anichuck that you would serve at
Speaker 1: Lebernardine is ground where California, California, where where most of
Speaker 1: the artichos are grown. And you know, it's like those
Speaker 1: gigantic farms and they have ways of cultivating and maximizing
Speaker 1: the land and it's factories and it's difficult. So now
Speaker 1: when in New York it's the good season which is
Speaker 1: going to start now, we use small farmers, local, local,
Speaker 1: and then you have a much much better product. So
Speaker 1: that's the difference in between Europe and in terms of
Speaker 1: quality of the food. My ex wife I loved Los
Speaker 1: Angeles and I were to go out there and work
Speaker 1: and I said, you know, what what is it you
Speaker 1: love about living here, and she without flinching, we're at
Speaker 1: Gelson's market and she picks up a tomato and she goes,
Speaker 1: you see that tomato? Shees, you can't get that tomato
Speaker 1: in New York. She said, that's a tomato, meaning that
Speaker 1: all of the farming and all the fresh food in
Speaker 1: the California experience just dwarfed the East coast and it
Speaker 1: doesn't travel well. Right, So I'm wondering, how difficult is
Speaker 1: it for you to get the things you need? The
Speaker 1: chicken you want, the beef you want, the pork you want.
Speaker 1: You have vendors you buy from. Are you in charge
Speaker 1: of that of the shopping or someone does it for you?
Speaker 1: Ultimately I am in charge, but of course people of
Speaker 1: course with different tasks and so on, and learning how
Speaker 1: to do it, and and so on. I have to
Speaker 1: tell you. And and lebernarda is mostly specialized in seafood.
Speaker 1: If you want to have good products, it's very simple,
Speaker 1: pay your bills on time, and do not bargain. Well,
Speaker 1: sometimes you have the exaggerate a little bit, but the
Speaker 1: price is the price, and you pay a S A p.
Speaker 1: And you get the best, and weever bargains and once
Speaker 1: the cheap price and doesn't pay his bills nor he's
Speaker 1: not going to get a good product. What was the
Speaker 1: impact of the COVID Did you close for some period
Speaker 1: that was really tough. We close on March thirteen, A
Speaker 1: week later the mayor or the governor. I don't remember
Speaker 1: close all the restaurants was, but I closed right away
Speaker 1: when I saw the bad news on TV, I was like,
Speaker 1: this is really bad. I don't want to have neither
Speaker 1: the clients or the employees being exposed. And I thought
Speaker 1: we were closing for three weeks, maybe a month. Night
Speaker 1: it was closed a long long period of time, almost
Speaker 1: like a year. And we couldn't take out because our
Speaker 1: food doesn't go in a box, and I couldn't pull
Speaker 1: the terraus because the experiences in our worlds. So what
Speaker 1: we decided to do. It's a collaboration in between City
Speaker 1: r Vest that rescue food that will go to waste
Speaker 1: that is perfectly fresh, and World Central Kitchen, the organization
Speaker 1: of Rossi Andreas, who's feeding people all over the world
Speaker 1: when it's a catastrophe right now they are in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: When it is the earthquake, they go to the earthquake
Speaker 1: and so on, and we use our kitchen to do
Speaker 1: four hundred meals a day every day on the beginning
Speaker 1: for doctor and nurses from our of states that we're
Speaker 1: staying in hotels, and the group paid for us. World
Speaker 1: Central Kitchen was helping us and City r Vest was
Speaker 1: giving us part of the food as well, so we
Speaker 1: were able to basically break even. And we did that
Speaker 1: from the military. Yeah, we did that from May to December. Now,
Speaker 1: why is the focus of le Bernardin and seafood and
Speaker 1: this is your philosophy obviously at your restaurant, Why don't
Speaker 1: you focus on that. I didn't open lebernard I came
Speaker 1: the opening eighty six in New York, the opening seventy
Speaker 1: two in Paris. Seats in Paris was like a very
Speaker 1: clearly restaurant dedicated to seafood because they were coming to
Speaker 1: Brittany was a sister and brother. Dad was a fisherman.
Speaker 1: Then you want to cook fish. They were cooking fish.
Speaker 1: And then they got one star Michel and then to
Speaker 1: star Micheland that they came to the US. Uh, New
Speaker 1: York Times give them four star right away they open,
Speaker 1: they get that huge accolade and it's an instant success.
Speaker 1: And they were cooking fish because it's their passion. They
Speaker 1: love that. And in NTE I was well trained because
Speaker 1: as you remember, I was chef past only at rob
Speaker 1: so I joined the team and I feel at home.
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is easy. It's a cook fish. I
Speaker 1: know to cook fish. And I get along really well
Speaker 1: with the brother who passed away ninety four. He mentor
Speaker 1: me with his style and these ideas and I we
Speaker 1: have a good exchange. I know some techniques that I
Speaker 1: have learned from Robbie Strom who was a great technician.
Speaker 1: He has a great philosophy, and we worked together. And
Speaker 1: then when unfortunately passed away, I took his position and
Speaker 1: and move on with lebern Adam. Who is your pastry chef,
Speaker 1: Orlando Soto? How important do you find? I mean, I
Speaker 1: never I never tire of seeing the childlike glow of adults,
Speaker 1: especially when they go to an expensive restaurant, very fancy restaurant,
Speaker 1: and they know they're gonna have like the the highest
Speaker 1: level of dessert. And I never tire of seeing their face.
Speaker 1: They're like children, yes, and they say would you like
Speaker 1: to see the dessert menu? And they're like oh yes,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, and they bring in the dessert and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: and I want to have this and this and this.
Speaker 1: What's your favorite dessert? What do you like a you do, yeah,
Speaker 1: with a lot of repression and vanilla ice cream. Then
Speaker 1: then I'll think about the colories. It's okay, Chef Eric Repair.
Speaker 1: If you're enjoying this conversation, tell a friend and be
Speaker 1: sure to follow Here's the Thing on the I Heart
Speaker 1: radio app, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. When
Speaker 1: we come back, Eric Repair discusses the future of food
Speaker 1: and the movement of sustainability. I'm Alec Baldwin and you're
Speaker 1: listening to Here's the Thing. Chef Repair is known for
Speaker 1: creating the type of cuisine that defines a destination restaurant
Speaker 1: full of pomp and pageantry. So I wouldn't help, but
Speaker 1: wonder what he might enjoy in his downtime. If you
Speaker 1: give me a cocoa van which is a stew of
Speaker 1: a chicken in red wine in the winter, I'm like,
Speaker 1: what can be better? Make that? You make it at home?
Speaker 1: You do? Do you do with the blood or no blood?
Speaker 1: It's illegal to told me you can, yes, I do
Speaker 1: it with the blood. Yeah, because at home. But my
Speaker 1: friend said to me. We used to go to uh
Speaker 1: this is an ancient reference, but I used to go
Speaker 1: to Fabia. Of course. I used to go to Tuva
Speaker 1: all the time, all all the time, and they had
Speaker 1: cocoa van And I asked him did they do the
Speaker 1: rooster blood? Did they blew the blood of the chicken?
Speaker 1: And they looked at me. They were like no, and
Speaker 1: then they winked at me. All our team at the
Speaker 1: time was going there every night. We went to Tuvambia
Speaker 1: every night after when I would work in the theater,
Speaker 1: and I would have coca every night and it was
Speaker 1: good good you like, yes, of course, yes, I have
Speaker 1: something in common with the Great Eric in terms of
Speaker 1: what we crave in terms of food. That is a
Speaker 1: that is incredible. It's incredible. Now, what's the first thing
Speaker 1: you notice when you go to a restaurant? If it's clean,
Speaker 1: it's clean. If it's clean or not clean, it's interesting.
Speaker 1: You should say that, And for me, not clean, or
Speaker 1: if it's a smell, I just can't interesting. Yeah, sometimes
Speaker 1: it's a it's a restaurant near where I live and
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say the name, obviously, and the
Speaker 1: guy does a good job, but it's a sushi place
Speaker 1: and I smelled the fish. I just can't. I just
Speaker 1: cannot get in. I opened the door and I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh no, no way. They wrote an article. They did
Speaker 1: this research into fish served in Japanese restaurants in California
Speaker 1: and particularly in l A and they identified that in
Speaker 1: some cases, over fifty of the fish that was served
Speaker 1: in the sushi restaurant was mislabeled. It wasn't what they said.
Speaker 1: It was not only in Japanese restaurant, in all rest one.
Speaker 1: Very often you find snapper is not a snapper stripe bus.
Speaker 1: It's not a stripe bus. And very few people can
Speaker 1: make the difference because how many times do you eat snapper?
Speaker 1: You know? It's a lot. I mean, like me, I
Speaker 1: just look at the fish. I know it's a snapper
Speaker 1: without the skin. It doesn't have to be like yeah,
Speaker 1: just look at the filly. I know, because it's my job.
Speaker 1: I do, and I eat, and if I tasted, I
Speaker 1: know immediately it takes me two seconds. Or codfish or
Speaker 1: ache ors, things like that. But a lot of restaurants
Speaker 1: are misleading. I see so much. Once I did a
Speaker 1: story with the New York Time. We went to the
Speaker 1: market it was about farm raised salmon versus wild salmon.
Speaker 1: So is it? Well, is it farm raise? And then
Speaker 1: they were analyzing. They took the samples and took it
Speaker 1: to to a lab. So I was with the journalists
Speaker 1: and they were like, what is that? And I was
Speaker 1: like farm raised? And he was saying wild and that
Speaker 1: one farm raise, and and and and in the market
Speaker 1: it was like wild and wild and wild and wild
Speaker 1: and out of the I don't know siry samples that
Speaker 1: we add, I said, this one is wild. It was
Speaker 1: the only one, and the and the lab confirmed that
Speaker 1: I was right. It was the only one. Else wasn't wild?
Speaker 1: Everything else wild. Obviously, people got a great lengths to
Speaker 1: secure a reservation at your restaurant. Bernardin would probably be
Speaker 1: the punchline and episodes of Signed Feld for how difficult
Speaker 1: it is to secure reservations in your restaurant. It's it's
Speaker 1: pretty bad. We have many people here who testified the
Speaker 1: fact that they've had their stresses now. But you do
Speaker 1: online reservations, correct, we do? And do you find that
Speaker 1: that's a positive, a negative or both? No, it's positive.
Speaker 1: It is why online reservation it's positive from on our
Speaker 1: point of view. It's easier because we don't need so
Speaker 1: many people on the phone to answer the phone. People
Speaker 1: can do it online and it's less stressful also for
Speaker 1: the people who are behind the phones. So that's one thing.
Speaker 1: And then as a client, you can go online at
Speaker 1: the time that you wish, you can make your reservation.
Speaker 1: So I think it's very convenient for the clients to
Speaker 1: be able to go online. And then sometimes you don't
Speaker 1: get the table because we don't give all our tables online.
Speaker 1: We save some of the tables and you have to
Speaker 1: call family, not for family, family of the restaurant people
Speaker 1: come over, so if someone else calls and we may
Speaker 1: have a table and you may have an interaction with
Speaker 1: someone with a real voice, and so on. The building
Speaker 1: that you're in, does the company that you're with your
Speaker 1: you and your party, Do you own the building? No,
Speaker 1: it's a least. Yeah, we have a least in that building.
Speaker 1: Since nine the building has changed ownerships a couple of times,
Speaker 1: but we have a great support from the building. That's
Speaker 1: what I was going to say, because many people who struggle,
Speaker 1: especially during the even before and after that, they struggle
Speaker 1: because this least situation is a difficult. You have a kind.
Speaker 1: We have a very kind, very kind landlord, and and
Speaker 1: they have always been since the beginning, very kind, And
Speaker 1: I think it's a win wind. We bring to the
Speaker 1: building a certain prestige, and we we bring a nice
Speaker 1: and the amenity for their clients in the floors and
Speaker 1: so on. So they like us, and we like them
Speaker 1: because they like us, which works. It's a wind. The
Speaker 1: reason I asked about the online reservation thing was because
Speaker 1: I have a friend of mine whose mother eats the
Speaker 1: same night, same time every week. She has dinner at
Speaker 1: Le Bernadin once a week. She's an old New Yorker.
Speaker 1: This is her thing that she loves. But I would
Speaker 1: imagine that you come into a room and it's friends
Speaker 1: and family people you've been cooking for them and their
Speaker 1: children and on and on for a while now, and
Speaker 1: then the online reservation runs the risk of the person
Speaker 1: showing up who don't understand what they're getting into, someone
Speaker 1: who might even attempt to send the meal back and say,
Speaker 1: I'd like you to cook. These lamp shops are like
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, It's like they're not friends
Speaker 1: and family. We we don't have that problem because I think, yes,
Speaker 1: because the restaurant has a certain reputation when we are
Speaker 1: not beginners. I mean, if you don't want the place,
Speaker 1: like google Le Bernard and you're like, Okay, it's an
Speaker 1: expensive restaurant. It's fine dining. It's not what I want.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to make a reservation. Oh they specialize
Speaker 1: in seafood. I don't like fish. I'm not gonna go there.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go somewhere else. So today, with with information
Speaker 1: that we get, we don't have that problem. But to
Speaker 1: go back to the reservation quickly. You know, we have
Speaker 1: people who come to three times a week, especially for lunch.
Speaker 1: You know, they work in the building. It's convenient, they
Speaker 1: do business at the table and so on. We always
Speaker 1: have to keep few tables that we released twenty four
Speaker 1: hours before, but two or three four tables for those clients.
Speaker 1: I mean, the part of our family really for you,
Speaker 1: do you sense that people are becoming more concerned about sustainability? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure. For quite some time, especially with the young clientele.
Speaker 1: The older clientele was less sensitive. But today I think
Speaker 1: we have been really bombarded with informations about what's happening
Speaker 1: on our planet, what's happening with the suffering of the
Speaker 1: animals in factory farms and so on. Right every day,
Speaker 1: it's NonStop, and it's not a trend. It's a movement sustainability.
Speaker 1: It's in the mind of everybody, everyone in your profession,
Speaker 1: certainly world for sure, we think about it. So what
Speaker 1: do we do. We don't. We do not serve endangerous species.
Speaker 1: We support local farmers, we support organic practices, we support
Speaker 1: actually all good practices and in general and so on.
Speaker 1: Because if we don't, if we don't do anything today,
Speaker 1: your children might my child, they're gonna have a world
Speaker 1: that has been sabotaged by the previous generations. We have
Speaker 1: to do something. So avoiding too many fair fertilizers, avoiding pesticides,
Speaker 1: and first of all, for your own good as well,
Speaker 1: for your own health and the planet. You don't want that,
Speaker 1: and for the planet, and you don't want to deplete
Speaker 1: the planet. You don't want to pollute the planet. I
Speaker 1: mean most the Earth is taking care of us, and
Speaker 1: we all here and we have to take care of it.
Speaker 1: And today people are really thinking about it. I want
Speaker 1: to say, I was so looking forward to doing this
Speaker 1: because I'm such an admirer of the more I read
Speaker 1: about you and your life and what you've done. I thought, Wow,
Speaker 1: what an amazing thing for any human being to be
Speaker 1: able to get to a place where in your field
Speaker 1: you are at the top of your field. You worked
Speaker 1: so hard that the boy that was fifteen years old,
Speaker 1: who's trying to lift the heavy paths in the kitchen
Speaker 1: and all the men are yelling, and look at where
Speaker 1: you've come to as a part of that line. And
Speaker 1: now you're at the top of the mountain. The culinary
Speaker 1: mountain takes you so much. I'm very unerable chef Rick repair.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Kathleen Russo, Zack McNeice, and
Speaker 1: Maureen Hoban. Our engineer is Frank Imperial. Here's the Thing
Speaker 1: is recorded at c DM Studios. I'm Alec Baldwin. Here's
Speaker 1: the Thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio.