Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you were listening to Here's the Thing.
Speaker 1: Nineteen year old chef Flynn McGarry's new Manhattan restaurant is
Speaker 1: called a Gem, which is Meg spelled backwards. Meg is
Speaker 1: Flynn's mom. The tribute is well deserved. Many mothers sacrifice
Speaker 1: for their son's success. Writer and filmmaker Meg McGarry sacrificed
Speaker 1: more than most. Nine years ago, she let twelve year
Speaker 1: old Flynn leave school. She home schooled him and helped
Speaker 1: him convert her California home into a pop up restaurant.
Speaker 1: She filled his bedroom with everything he demanded, Japanese grills,
Speaker 1: a soux vied, and knives for every occasion. Flynn's obsession
Speaker 1: started at ten, after his parents had divorced. Things were
Speaker 1: lonely and weird at home. Meg says that's when Flynn
Speaker 1: started cooking for her. Before long, she was doing dishes
Speaker 1: after Flynn's restaurant nights in their home in the valley.
Speaker 1: He was profiled in The New York Times, The New Yorker,
Speaker 1: and throughout it all. Filmmaker Mega captured the highs and
Speaker 1: lows on home video. That's one reason director Cameron Yates
Speaker 1: thought he could turn Flynn's story into his new documentary,
Speaker 1: Chef Flynn. It's the story of a complicated relationship between
Speaker 1: a mother and her son who just happens to be
Speaker 1: a culinary prodigy. He would practice his chopping and so
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, he was practicing his chopping because he
Speaker 1: was interested in it, but also, you know, he was
Speaker 1: a little kid who didn't really understand why his dad
Speaker 1: wasn't around. I'm using non alcoholic light line. How come
Speaker 1: because you're gloth? Flynn McGarry and director Cameron Yates joined
Speaker 1: me for a live event at guild Hall in East Hampton,
Speaker 1: New York, as part of the Hampton's International Film Festival's
Speaker 1: Summer doc series. We're very, very grateful this evening that
Speaker 1: we have both the director of the film and the
Speaker 1: subject of the film. Obviously a part of this whole thing.
Speaker 1: A big part of it is your age as an
Speaker 1: interesting moment when you're in the kitchen with some guys.
Speaker 1: I'm would imagine a lot of people your age would
Speaker 1: be like, you know, if somebody says I'm Joe, yeah,
Speaker 1: and instead you say I believe we've met. Do you
Speaker 1: feel that you've been aware of things on a level
Speaker 1: that's beyond your years most of your life. Well, I
Speaker 1: think an interesting thing is I spent most of from
Speaker 1: when I was twelve on not surrounded by people my
Speaker 1: own age by going to school, but I was surrounded
Speaker 1: by people in their late twenties and thirties, And so
Speaker 1: I think the thing that I gained from that was learning.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you think about it, like if I
Speaker 1: was in middle school, I would just be surrounded by
Speaker 1: a bunch of dumb thirteen year olds. We'd all just
Speaker 1: be dumb together until eventually we all learned all the
Speaker 1: same stuff. I mean, it was like I was the
Speaker 1: dumb thirteen year old, but I was surrounded by a
Speaker 1: bunch of people who have had all this life experience,
Speaker 1: and those were my years. You just weren't interested in
Speaker 1: the things that they were interested in. Yeah, and but
Speaker 1: but what I mean is like I think spending that
Speaker 1: time only with people who are fully formed adults and
Speaker 1: are fully matured people is going to obviously make you
Speaker 1: like speed that process a lot more. Because I couldn't
Speaker 1: be a thirteen year old around all these people. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't be able to keep up. But but but but
Speaker 1: a lot of thirteen year olds arguably that you'd put
Speaker 1: a young kid or whatever word you want to as
Speaker 1: a child in a room full of adults and he
Speaker 1: might shut down and be staring. He wouldn't respond the
Speaker 1: way you did. Like, do you think that you're just different?
Speaker 1: You're big part of it. What was your personality? You
Speaker 1: really are much more adult identified and you want to
Speaker 1: be an adults? You would you enjoyed it? Yeah? I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean there's a point where I very actively knew
Speaker 1: that I was different and I didn't want to be
Speaker 1: around a bunch of people in my own age because
Speaker 1: I had nothing in common with them. I had none
Speaker 1: of the same interests, really, And it was the thing
Speaker 1: where then I found this group of people that were
Speaker 1: had the same interest and I felt more comfortable talking
Speaker 1: with a group of thirty year olds than talking with
Speaker 1: a group of people my own age. How did you
Speaker 1: begin this process? Did you read about him in the paper?
Speaker 1: You heard about him? And how did you make this connection?
Speaker 1: My father actually handed me the New Yorker piece The
Speaker 1: Prodigy Talk of the Town, and I was immediately fascinated,
Speaker 1: and I kind of him out of the blue. I
Speaker 1: met up with Flynn and his mother, Meg, and his
Speaker 1: sister Paris as well, and I their dynamic was incredible.
Speaker 1: Like I was like, I have to make a film
Speaker 1: about you, um, please let me And they said no.
Speaker 1: Did you know what you were signing on too? I mean,
Speaker 1: what was that like for you? Was there a point
Speaker 1: where you really got sick of being followed and filmed
Speaker 1: and the subject of the film. Well, I mean the
Speaker 1: interesting thing when Cameron came along with so, I mean
Speaker 1: it was the time where I was very hesitant to
Speaker 1: let anyone film anything. Um, we got to know each
Speaker 1: other before even started filming. Um. But it was also
Speaker 1: an interesting thing of growing up with two parents who
Speaker 1: always had a camera that you were used to being filmed. Well,
Speaker 1: the interesting thing was I was sick of being filmed
Speaker 1: by my parents. Your mom was like Ken Burns a
Speaker 1: camera taking a really long documentary. I was a really
Speaker 1: huge kid. It was the thing where it was like
Speaker 1: the fact of someone else coming along who I trusted
Speaker 1: but was not my I mean, I was thirteen years old.
Speaker 1: I clearly did not want my mom filming, and so
Speaker 1: it was actually sort of refreshing to have someone else
Speaker 1: filming with a very new perspective and like not I
Speaker 1: mean because I was so used to cameras that the
Speaker 1: cameras weren't the thing. It was more about who was
Speaker 1: filming it than the physical thing that was there. Answer
Speaker 1: one question me, this is an odd question. Those sketches
Speaker 1: that you made on that little yellow legal path we're
Speaker 1: it almost looked like a New Yorker cartoon, you know,
Speaker 1: because everything pretty much to me looked pretty much the same.
Speaker 1: It was like a blob of little squiggly lines, and
Speaker 1: you were like broccoli, every different squiggle you knew what
Speaker 1: it was. Yeah. I stopped doing that after a certain
Speaker 1: point where I realized I wasn't the most visually talented
Speaker 1: artists when drawing things. I thought we need to get
Speaker 1: like Alan touring in here, like break the code or something.
Speaker 1: You know, it was there. I think that came from honestly.
Speaker 1: At that time, I was researching a bunch of chefs
Speaker 1: and I saw a lot of chefs were like drawing dishes,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, that's a good way to
Speaker 1: like see how to plate something, and then very quickly
Speaker 1: realized that that was not how I worked. And I
Speaker 1: would draw it out on a plate and be a
Speaker 1: bunch of blobs, and then I'd be like those blobs
Speaker 1: don't look right. There was a period in my life
Speaker 1: with my mother who had six children and no money.
Speaker 1: She'd take a nap at like four o'clock in the
Speaker 1: afternoon for like an hour, and I come home and like,
Speaker 1: the chicken was like burning in the oven. So I
Speaker 1: learned how to cook a little bit out of necessity.
Speaker 1: And your mother kind of intimated that as well, that
Speaker 1: she was, you know, post divorce, unhappy, preoccupied, a lot
Speaker 1: of takeout, and you stepped in to feel some kind
Speaker 1: of a vacuum. Was that the biggest part of it,
Speaker 1: or was there also prior to that. Did you always
Speaker 1: have a fascination with food preparation. I think that was
Speaker 1: definitely the impetus to it. I mean, I see that
Speaker 1: my mom doesn't want to do this, I'm gonna try
Speaker 1: it out. I didn't want to take out every single night,
Speaker 1: and then I just immediately had a super kind of
Speaker 1: intense connection to it. And there wasn't like a day
Speaker 1: that I was like, I'm going to make this and
Speaker 1: then I knew I wanted to do it. It was
Speaker 1: very kind of I wasn't really thinking about it when
Speaker 1: it was happening. We've always watched the Food Network because
Speaker 1: my parents didn't want to watch kids shows and we
Speaker 1: couldn't watch like adult shows. So that the happy medium,
Speaker 1: which I feel like is the thing with most families,
Speaker 1: is food television that's funny. So it was always sort
Speaker 1: of around that's really funny, Bugs, Bunny, American horror Story,
Speaker 1: and waste. And so that was I guess the only
Speaker 1: sort of exposure I had to it, um, because I
Speaker 1: was there wasn't some two one space odist the moment
Speaker 1: where you are like the gorilla with the bone sapiens
Speaker 1: with in your hand. It was very just kind of
Speaker 1: like I never thought too much about it, and I
Speaker 1: just sort of wanted to try it out. And I
Speaker 1: mean that's sort of the way that I've done most things.
Speaker 1: What was food to you prior to you making you know,
Speaker 1: very elegant, kind of high end dishes, Like what did
Speaker 1: you like to eat? I mean I was never a
Speaker 1: picky eater. Um, as much as I've always kind of
Speaker 1: talked down mom's food. She would always go to a
Speaker 1: nice market and get like healthy things, and I was
Speaker 1: like focused on like playing soccer, and I didn't ever
Speaker 1: really think about it as kids. I didn't care and
Speaker 1: then I think, I mean, it was sort of I
Speaker 1: needed that thing of my mom pulling back, but my
Speaker 1: sister didn't care. My sister was fine continuing to eat
Speaker 1: the same food. I reached a point where I was like,
Speaker 1: I want something different, and that was I think that's
Speaker 1: where it comes into not just a thing from food inherently.
Speaker 1: I just was the kind of person that wanted to
Speaker 1: see where it could go. I mean, we would have
Speaker 1: a rose chicken once a week, and I was like,
Speaker 1: there's something else we could do with this. I'm sure, Well,
Speaker 1: if you en, you're damn right, there's something we take
Speaker 1: it out of the flame. First of all, I say,
Speaker 1: my mom has never caught a chicken on fire. It
Speaker 1: was the funniest thing. Is like, the way that my
Speaker 1: entire family has always been with food is I always
Speaker 1: described them as they're scared cooks. I remember the fear
Speaker 1: my entire family would have when opening the bag of chicken,
Speaker 1: because no one wanted to touch a raw chicken. And
Speaker 1: then one day whatever, my mom was kind of preoccupied
Speaker 1: and it was like, okay, you take care of it,
Speaker 1: and I was ten. I could not care less. I
Speaker 1: was like inside the chicken, like holding it. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't care if you saw somebody's skull open, You're I
Speaker 1: enjoyed the sort of part to that. I had always
Speaker 1: seen this sort of hesitation to adding more salt, to
Speaker 1: doing anything like that was like fully kind of like
Speaker 1: cooking passionately. I mean, neither of my parents were like chefs,
Speaker 1: so it was cooking to feed your kids and to
Speaker 1: make sure that everything was fine. But there's no like effort.
Speaker 1: One more question that it came to me. Wine. It's
Speaker 1: a big part of a cuisine, and what was it
Speaker 1: like for you being a minor? What's it been like
Speaker 1: for you all that time where that was kind of
Speaker 1: cut out of your cuisine? Are you making up for
Speaker 1: lost time now you're drinking your ass off down there?
Speaker 1: And the lower side it was well, So when we
Speaker 1: were doing at the house, it was just it was
Speaker 1: illegal enough to be serving people food that we were like,
Speaker 1: you guys can bring your own wine. We're not going
Speaker 1: to people about their own wine. Um. I was thinking
Speaker 1: enough to be surrounded by people who were really talented
Speaker 1: in the wine world. And like anytime I was doing
Speaker 1: pop ups, I had this one friend, Max Going. He
Speaker 1: was the one who helped in the New York thing. Uh,
Speaker 1: and he would do all of the wind parents, at
Speaker 1: least inners of mine. And I think that actually helped me,
Speaker 1: from a very young age understand needing people with other skills,
Speaker 1: because when you're very ambitious kid who's just like I
Speaker 1: want to do all these things, the fact that you
Speaker 1: couldn't serve wine or because they go hand in hand,
Speaker 1: do you think it made you a better cook? I
Speaker 1: think it made me be able to rely on people
Speaker 1: and and understand that, like there's maybe one in a
Speaker 1: hundred restaurants where the chef actually chooses your wine. You
Speaker 1: have a wine director, you have someone who spends their
Speaker 1: life dedicated to that, the way you spend your life
Speaker 1: dedicated to food. Um. And so I think I learned
Speaker 1: that very early on. And then I mean, after I've
Speaker 1: finished school, I I moved to Europe to go work
Speaker 1: in restaurants, and that was why I actually learned a
Speaker 1: little bit more about wine and learned kind of how
Speaker 1: it pairs the food. But I had already been surrounded
Speaker 1: by these people who are talking about wine, who are
Speaker 1: sending me wineless, who are sending me pairings with these
Speaker 1: dishes that I had already had this huge frame of reference.
Speaker 1: But I knew where the grapes were from. I knew
Speaker 1: all the regions. I knew what paired with what, not
Speaker 1: from actually drinking it, but from having people who study,
Speaker 1: but from studying essentially like reading a book on wine forever,
Speaker 1: but not actually wine. Yeah you do what? What kind
Speaker 1: of one you drink? Night? Scenes? Please come on? United
Speaker 1: States of America. Uh, we'll talk about that now. When
Speaker 1: you make a film, and obviously you go into a
Speaker 1: cutting room, you spend how much time with him? This was?
Speaker 1: This was shot over the course of what period of time?
Speaker 1: Six six years? No? Yeah, absolutely. My mentor is Albert
Speaker 1: Mazel's and Great Gardens is one of my favorite films
Speaker 1: of all time. So not only untraditional family dynamics are
Speaker 1: I'm attracted to, but I'm there for the long term.
Speaker 1: Like the longitudinal documentary six years. You're in and out,
Speaker 1: in and out over exactly exactly, and editing was going on,
Speaker 1: and you go into the inning room with how many
Speaker 1: hours of footage you have to cut this down from?
Speaker 1: I mean, I would say anywhere probably like two hours
Speaker 1: of footage, but that includes all of his mother's footage,
Speaker 1: which to me was a huge attraction of the project
Speaker 1: as well, knowing that there was this treasure trove of
Speaker 1: archival footage that she shot, you know, for havewe any
Speaker 1: countless years as well? It is it safe to say
Speaker 1: you couldn't have done this without your mom? Confidently? I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't think you really understand how much sacrifice goes
Speaker 1: into what I was doing when you're in it, because
Speaker 1: I mean if I had any normal child or normal
Speaker 1: parents who were worked normal jobs and did not understand
Speaker 1: the sort of creative drive and this sort of unrelenting feeling,
Speaker 1: and if there wasn't any tread like kind of tragic
Speaker 1: thing that happened, I think none of this would have happened,
Speaker 1: because great things can have happened. When my family was
Speaker 1: pushed and there was like pressure, and there was all
Speaker 1: these things, and I think my mom totally could have
Speaker 1: said no a thousand times. We probably would have been
Speaker 1: way better off financially. But she understood that in the
Speaker 1: long term, supporting her child for what I wanted to do,
Speaker 1: regardless of the even would have worked out. Like the
Speaker 1: amount of times that like before that I had like
Speaker 1: wanted to be a rock star for a minute, and
Speaker 1: I like she bought me a guitar, and then like
Speaker 1: two weeks later, I was like, I'm done with this,
Speaker 1: and then like I'm a calendar. Well, no, that was funny.
Speaker 1: It's like I sold the guitar as I sold all
Speaker 1: my like soccer to do this. And I think especially
Speaker 1: the point at which she saw that this was a
Speaker 1: real thing that I was into, then it was became
Speaker 1: sort of more than that. And I mean even for
Speaker 1: like it was, I think in the time you don't
Speaker 1: realize it, but it was definitely like I don't think
Speaker 1: many teenagers spend that much time with their mother. Everything
Speaker 1: was so crazy, and it was nice to have someone
Speaker 1: there who's your family and kind of is like grounding
Speaker 1: for that. But then it was also great of like
Speaker 1: then when I at fifteen wanted to move out and
Speaker 1: go work on my own, it was like she was
Speaker 1: kind of like, Okay, I like spent enough time with
Speaker 1: you in these a couple of years that I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: kind of letting go more so now. So it was
Speaker 1: like it was a very intense thing and then kind
Speaker 1: of now our relationship is completely different than that. And
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, simply answered, I could not have done
Speaker 1: any of this without her. But I think it's also
Speaker 1: been a very interesting relationship between the two of us
Speaker 1: as far as a lot of things that were so
Speaker 1: untraditional and so frowned upon, like don't work with your family,
Speaker 1: and certain things like I think are the only reasons
Speaker 1: that I've gotten to this point today. But I wonder
Speaker 1: if in the future you had a thirteen or fourteen
Speaker 1: year old son or daughter and they told you that
Speaker 1: they wanted to bypass a lot of the traditional pathways
Speaker 1: that young people walk on in this country and skip school,
Speaker 1: and what happened. They wanted to go and you know,
Speaker 1: pick some high stakes game. They want to go sit
Speaker 1: at a desk at Goldman Sacks and trade and they're
Speaker 1: thirteen years old. They're just a prodigy. They're just this
Speaker 1: kind of crazy numbers person. And what would you tell them?
Speaker 1: What would they be missing? Well, I think I think now,
Speaker 1: I think the way that our culture is sort of
Speaker 1: moving is that I'm sure there are significantly more thirteen
Speaker 1: year olds who are asking that their parents because you
Speaker 1: have so many ways you can get knowledge that it
Speaker 1: gives this sort of false sense of knowing everything. And
Speaker 1: if I had this kid that was like, I want
Speaker 1: to go do this I think it would truly come
Speaker 1: from the reasons that they would want to go do it,
Speaker 1: because the reasons that I wanted to leave school and
Speaker 1: the reasons that I wanted to go cook, we're literally
Speaker 1: for no. It was never about like, I want to
Speaker 1: be a chef. It was never but I want to
Speaker 1: be successful. It was I want to try to master
Speaker 1: this craft, and the only way that I can do
Speaker 1: this is to go work in restaurants full time. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't a thing of like I want to drop
Speaker 1: out of school to be a celebrity chef, to be
Speaker 1: treated different than anyone else. It was I want to
Speaker 1: stop going to school full time to be treated like
Speaker 1: the lowest level of a cook. This is all I
Speaker 1: want to do, then yeah, but if for any other reason,
Speaker 1: like I think that's where the motives are really interesting now,
Speaker 1: is like, yeah, no one wants to go to school.
Speaker 1: No one's ever wanted to go to school. There's a
Speaker 1: very specific kind of person who loves going to school.
Speaker 1: Many creative people do not want to go to school
Speaker 1: because you think, oh, if I have my interest in art,
Speaker 1: in music, whatever, you have this false sense or whatever
Speaker 1: sense that you know something that everyone else doesn't know,
Speaker 1: and it's sort of that's where the motives of why
Speaker 1: you want to learn more are always really interesting. Of
Speaker 1: like I that, for some reason probably thought I had
Speaker 1: some false sense of I know this that no one
Speaker 1: else knows. But at that point at which I wanted
Speaker 1: to stop having a traditional way of growing up, all
Speaker 1: I wanted to do was learn. And I think that's
Speaker 1: where my parents saw that the way that I could
Speaker 1: learn the most was not from a traditional way of
Speaker 1: going to school, but from actually learning from a craft. Um.
Speaker 1: As far as things that are being missed out on,
Speaker 1: I mean, I've had lots of people be like slow down,
Speaker 1: like enjoy your childhood to all of these things. The
Speaker 1: amount of pushback that comes from doing something that is
Speaker 1: extremely different than what you're the normal path is comes
Speaker 1: from so much hesitation from every single person you talked to,
Speaker 1: whether it's your family, whether there's an interviewer, there's anything
Speaker 1: that from the point that I was thirteen years old,
Speaker 1: I've been getting asked at least once a week, do
Speaker 1: you think you're missing out on anything? No? I noticed
Speaker 1: I was going the other way by when you're standing
Speaker 1: there when you say it was we talked backstage and
Speaker 1: you say you're fifteen years old, and you say I
Speaker 1: think I'm gonna have a brain aneurysm. You under a
Speaker 1: lot of pressure. Need hands, Come on? Is there okay?
Speaker 1: But I needed to go calm down somewhere before before
Speaker 1: I have a brand annis. This is the worst experience
Speaker 1: I've ever had in my entirelor. Sorry, sucking hell. I'm
Speaker 1: talking to chef Flynn McGarry and the director of The
Speaker 1: Duck commentary about him, Cameron Yates sometimes at this point,
Speaker 1: and here's the thing. I suggest another similar episode you
Speaker 1: may want to dig into. This may sound far fetched,
Speaker 1: but Flynn McGarry's early certainty about his path in life
Speaker 1: reminded me of magician Penn Galette's early certainty about God.
Speaker 1: When I got to Junior High, I read the Bible
Speaker 1: and then came in with some questions. And I don't
Speaker 1: like the idea of their being a love greater than
Speaker 1: the love I have from my family and friends. And
Speaker 1: I do believe that humans are good on their own
Speaker 1: without this, and I don't think anything happens after we die.
Speaker 1: Penn informed his parents, left youth group, and he's been
Speaker 1: one of the country's most prominent atheists. For more than
Speaker 1: thirty years. Enjoy the rest of that interview about God
Speaker 1: and magic that here's the thing, dot Org, I'm out
Speaker 1: like Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing. Flynn
Speaker 1: McGarry is demanding both in and out of the kitchen.
Speaker 1: He has strong opinions about what diners should be looking
Speaker 1: for as well. I definitely feel like a thing to
Speaker 1: separate is restaurants you go to every day and restaurants
Speaker 1: that you're going to for an experience, and like, I
Speaker 1: don't eat it tasting many restaurants when I'm not working
Speaker 1: the same four places. I don't have any time. I
Speaker 1: want to eat something that I know is gonna be good,
Speaker 1: and then I want to go home if I do
Speaker 1: go to something that like I ate it. No. By
Speaker 1: the other day, I was in Copenhagen, and you need
Speaker 1: to go into it understanding that you're not going to dinner.
Speaker 1: Separate that you're going to think of that you're going
Speaker 1: to see a play thinking of like you're going to
Speaker 1: see a movie. You're going to see a very specific
Speaker 1: person's like expression of their of their art form, and
Speaker 1: like I I will say, like I mean, sure, every
Speaker 1: day we have people who want everything they're being served.
Speaker 1: It's a service industry. I totally understand that there's a
Speaker 1: certain level of like you need to give people what
Speaker 1: they want. But on the other hand, I think not
Speaker 1: giving restaurants in that caliber, especially when they're really small
Speaker 1: and really trying to do something different, not treating them
Speaker 1: like it's a really personal thing where yeah, one night
Speaker 1: might be a little off and one night they might
Speaker 1: not serve exactly what you want. But to be able
Speaker 1: to separate that from they're not doing that to serve you,
Speaker 1: They're doing that to showcase a very specific idea and
Speaker 1: a very specific art form. I think it makes people
Speaker 1: complain a lot less, like enjoy things a lot more.
Speaker 1: If you went into something just being like, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go to this place to see what this person has created,
Speaker 1: what environment they've created, what, yeah, atmosphere they've created, what
Speaker 1: space they've created, what food they've created, what every single
Speaker 1: detail that they've put out countless hours in creating and
Speaker 1: enjoy it because I mean, hopefully it tastes good, and
Speaker 1: like enjoy it for that, but also to be able
Speaker 1: to enjoy it as a theater. Theater do you do
Speaker 1: you do you play music? In your restaurant, em gem,
Speaker 1: what's the volume of the music. I want to say
Speaker 1: this because I am from that world, the people where
Speaker 1: if my wife will tell you, nothing makes me go
Speaker 1: insane more then if they have you know, the who
Speaker 1: playing at you know some crazy band that I love,
Speaker 1: by the way, But but that loud music in the restaurant.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite restaurants is you're gonna laugh, and
Speaker 1: literally it's only about sound. Foods. Okay, the food is
Speaker 1: what you expect. But I literally crave going to Panco
Speaker 1: Titian because they play very quiet music, all right, and
Speaker 1: you can sit there and think and read the New
Speaker 1: Yorker and have a cup of coffee and do your
Speaker 1: email in the back of you just here. Well. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the thing is like that is a very specific thing.
Speaker 1: I after a long time realized if we played really
Speaker 1: quiet music, the people in the restaurant would have a
Speaker 1: terrible time. I play the music that I want to
Speaker 1: listen to. It sort of just changes depending on you
Speaker 1: impose that on your diners because they're eating the food
Speaker 1: I want to eat. They're sitting Yeah, and you play
Speaker 1: it loud. We don't play it loud. We play it
Speaker 1: loud enough that you you don't necessarily hear all the lyrics,
Speaker 1: you don't hear anything but music. To me, it sets
Speaker 1: the pace of the room when you walk into a
Speaker 1: place and it's playing. If you walked in and we
Speaker 1: were just playing like classical music, you'd be like. It's
Speaker 1: like like if you walk into per Se and they're
Speaker 1: playing classical music, you know exactly what that restaurant's going
Speaker 1: to be. If you walk in and you hear a
Speaker 1: really weird like David Bowie deep cut song from the
Speaker 1: eight like, it gives you an instant sense of like,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be something different, and it is a
Speaker 1: marker for Also, like I now know within someone's meal
Speaker 1: when there's gonna be lulls in convert station because people
Speaker 1: are eating a bigger course and you know that they're
Speaker 1: gonna all be eating, so no one's gonna be talking
Speaker 1: at that time. And there's nothing worse than a dead
Speaker 1: silent restaurant when everyone's talking, when everyone's eating at the
Speaker 1: exact same time, chewing us to chew. But so we
Speaker 1: literally we time the music so when there's a course
Speaker 1: that everyone's chewing, your listening, and when there's when it's
Speaker 1: the beginning, you put things that are a lot more
Speaker 1: not abrasive, but a lot more kind of like songs
Speaker 1: that are gonna make you a little bit more like, Oh,
Speaker 1: they're going to set the mood for the night. They're
Speaker 1: going to be able to like take you out of
Speaker 1: your element a little bit. Because people come to restaurants
Speaker 1: like like ours and restaurant like this, but such like
Speaker 1: pent up, like they're scared. People come in. They're scared
Speaker 1: to talk to me, they're scared to do anything. So
Speaker 1: when you're playing things that are fun and things that
Speaker 1: are enjoyable, and you're treating it with a very kind
Speaker 1: of when I got you on the phone, finally, I
Speaker 1: was scared. I was scared to death for like three months.
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, And if I might be your favorite
Speaker 1: customer because I talk while i'm chewing. So if you came,
Speaker 1: we would not need we'd probably turn the music down
Speaker 1: and beat you. Last. Yeah, I'm a different customer. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna keep on talking. Now. How did he change? This
Speaker 1: is an obvious question. What did you witness among the things?
Speaker 1: Just so, how did he do other than just him
Speaker 1: maturing age? Was how did he change in the six years? Well,
Speaker 1: one thing. Does everyone know that he has a restaurant.
Speaker 1: He has a restaurant in the city from the Lower Side.
Speaker 1: Gem ye that I mean, yeah, I don't know what
Speaker 1: your crapp because you can't get a seat there. Forget it.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go about I mean, I have to say
Speaker 1: that was when I first met him at twelve or thirteen,
Speaker 1: he was like, I'm I want to open a restaurant
Speaker 1: in New York. And I think by the time I'm
Speaker 1: eighteen nineteen, and sure enough, you know, after five years
Speaker 1: of filming, you know, he opened up his first restaurant
Speaker 1: this fall. I mean this this past March. Um, And yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean for me, yeah, I mean he's grown up.
Speaker 1: I mean I've I've seen him grown up and and
Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, uh, you know, brothers in
Speaker 1: a way like we we become very good friends. And
Speaker 1: the same thing with Meg Flynn's mom as well. Um.
Speaker 1: But it's been an incredible experience to witness it. And
Speaker 1: I feel like this is just sort of the first
Speaker 1: stage of his life. And that who's the person in
Speaker 1: the piece that you quote you're reading from who calls
Speaker 1: your doogie houser who wrote that, Yeah, it's it's a
Speaker 1: critic film. I want to know what critic? What an asshole?
Speaker 1: They call you? Doogie Houser. I hated that um before.
Speaker 1: I thought that was so rude that one always got
Speaker 1: followed up with people being like do you even know
Speaker 1: who Doogie Houser is? And you should be like, no,
Speaker 1: I don't. Before we go to the questions, I wanted
Speaker 1: to just describe, you know. I was once asked by
Speaker 1: Maureen Dowd. She said, do you want to come with
Speaker 1: me to a sitting with Frank Bruty when Frank was
Speaker 1: the restaurant critic for The Times. When Frank is reviewing
Speaker 1: a restaurant, and she explained to me the protocols you
Speaker 1: go with Frank. Frank has to go to the restaurant
Speaker 1: and eat everything on the menu at the restaurant served
Speaker 1: lunch and dinner. He has to eat both lunch and dinner.
Speaker 1: There he goes UH sometimes for UH sittings. He brings
Speaker 1: a quartet of people. Everyone has to eat what Frank
Speaker 1: tells you to eat, so that Frank and sample everything.
Speaker 1: You're there to kind of enjoy Brunese experience. When he
Speaker 1: walks in the door, he focuses on the service first,
Speaker 1: because eventually they catch onto the fact that it's him,
Speaker 1: and the whole tone of the whole thing changes. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was a fascinating experience to watch Frank
Speaker 1: uh do his thing. We went to Del Posto when
Speaker 1: it was first opening up. Does The Times still have
Speaker 1: as much power in the restaurant world as the as
Speaker 1: they used to have? And what's it like for you
Speaker 1: when Wells came to review the restaurant. Is that's something
Speaker 1: that you're deeply concerned about it You just sit there
Speaker 1: and go, I got a job to do do. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do the best I can, and you've got a good review. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It was a review. Yes, it was a
Speaker 1: good review. Um, it was a very interesting situation. It
Speaker 1: was a weird thing where he gave us a lot
Speaker 1: of time. He had reviewed friends of mine's restaurants that
Speaker 1: had opened months after ours before ours, and so it
Speaker 1: was a weird thing where I was like, Okay, he's
Speaker 1: actually giving us time to like figure it out and
Speaker 1: and to answer to New York Times still has The
Speaker 1: day that review came out, we got a significant amount
Speaker 1: of reservations. It still has extreme power in the restaurant industry.
Speaker 1: I had random people I've never even met come up
Speaker 1: to me. John George came utween the Farmers Market was like,
Speaker 1: it's the best review ever went and what like it.
Speaker 1: I still think everyone reads it, especially in New York,
Speaker 1: and it has that kind of power to legitimize a restaurant.
Speaker 1: And I think that was the thing that I necessarily
Speaker 1: didn't think about when he was coming. Mostly what I
Speaker 1: was thinking when he was coming was how clean the
Speaker 1: bathroom was and how quickly his things were getting cleared
Speaker 1: and everything was going on. And obviously once he's there,
Speaker 1: there's nothing you to do. You're gonna serve the food
Speaker 1: that you're gonna serve everyone else and have to have
Speaker 1: that sort of confidence with it. But the thing that
Speaker 1: I actually personally really liked about the review was he
Speaker 1: said exactly what we are, which is, yes, you've read
Speaker 1: about me for seven years whatever, but this is a
Speaker 1: new restaurant that has room to grow, that is super
Speaker 1: ambitious but hasn't figured all out yet. And like it
Speaker 1: gave this sort of feeling to even the entire restored community.
Speaker 1: Like I've had chefs talk to me in a very
Speaker 1: different way after that came out about like he gave
Speaker 1: everyone a reason to root for this restaurant. Not because
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, funk these guys, because they just immediately
Speaker 1: opened and were perfect, but because the New York Times
Speaker 1: saw that You're very aspirational, but it's real. It's not
Speaker 1: like I'm a little wonder kid that was surrounded by
Speaker 1: all the money, had the most expensive everything to do
Speaker 1: everything perfectly. He saw that we wanted to go in
Speaker 1: a very different route from that and go a very
Speaker 1: small kind of kind of reset the clock on all
Speaker 1: of the East I mean, there's a lot of factors
Speaker 1: to it. I had known the people who had the
Speaker 1: space before, so it came in a very natural way.
Speaker 1: The timing of it was very natural. Um. But also,
Speaker 1: I mean, I've been living in New York for almost
Speaker 1: four years now, and I lived in Brooklyn. When Iver
Speaker 1: has moved there, I lived in the West Village. I
Speaker 1: never really truly felt a sort of sense of community
Speaker 1: and like neighborhood until I moved to the Lower East Side.
Speaker 1: And I think it's sort of epitomizes exactly what we
Speaker 1: wanted from a restaurant of like, there are some very
Speaker 1: nice things down there. There's still a little bit of
Speaker 1: grit to it. It still has like this sort of
Speaker 1: yearning for old New York that like my when my
Speaker 1: mom lived in New York would tell me stories about
Speaker 1: New York and the eighties and all these things that
Speaker 1: are the reason when you're a kid and you're hearing
Speaker 1: all these crazy stories about what the city was like
Speaker 1: that you want to move there. And then you move
Speaker 1: there and it's just like there's a Dwayne Read on
Speaker 1: every corner. And then it's well, not not in New
Speaker 1: York that's been overrun by speculative real estate. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: I mean, and I think the Lower Side is not,
Speaker 1: like it's not immune to that whatsoever. Our street is
Speaker 1: very interesting in the business forsythe and it doesn't feel
Speaker 1: there's like we're the most gentrified thing on our entire street.
Speaker 1: There's a barbershopod one would think that, but because we're
Speaker 1: so small, we haven't had any impact on what everyone
Speaker 1: else does on the street. And we haven't. We don't
Speaker 1: try to step on anyone's toes. The barbershop like watches
Speaker 1: out for us, like it feels so inherently well, it
Speaker 1: feels like community in the way that like the stories
Speaker 1: I would hear of old New York where you'd have
Speaker 1: a fine dining restaurant like a bunch of homeless people outside.
Speaker 1: Like it was this like connection of like every walk
Speaker 1: of life in one little area and everyone was respectful
Speaker 1: to each other and understood, like you have your place,
Speaker 1: we have our place. We're not going to mess with
Speaker 1: each other. We're just gonna say hi every morning. And
Speaker 1: like that's the weird thing is like, yeah, the guys
Speaker 1: on the street, they don't know, they don't really care
Speaker 1: what we're serving. But it's like we don't mess with them.
Speaker 1: If they're smoking weed off from the Russian we don't
Speaker 1: tell them the leave. We're just like you can go
Speaker 1: do your thing. We're gonna do our thing. And like
Speaker 1: we have this sense of community that feels so foreign
Speaker 1: to New York City now when this film, this film
Speaker 1: is coming out where we're gonna be opening the Film
Speaker 1: Forum and uh yes we're going streaming, you're on, you're
Speaker 1: in theaters, theaters. And then it always helps when you're leading.
Speaker 1: Man is a good looking guy. I've walked around everybody
Speaker 1: say or you got to see this. This guy's like
Speaker 1: James Dean, Have I told you I've been blowing you up?
Speaker 1: All over New York Man. Not that you need it,
Speaker 1: You've already had all kinds of press. But when you're
Speaker 1: cutting the film, did you find that it was that
Speaker 1: made it easier that you're protagonist to somebody who was
Speaker 1: kind of look like you could start in a movie. Sure,
Speaker 1: I mean our editor hand with the Elephant Boy, it
Speaker 1: might have been a little different store. I mean, um
Speaker 1: er a handabuck. I have to give it all credit too.
Speaker 1: She was an amazing editor. And yes, I think we
Speaker 1: have some mics around you. Let's take a couple of
Speaker 1: quickly and we have any questions, Pass the mic down
Speaker 1: and go I have a question. Um So in the film,
Speaker 1: at one point, your mom says, I'm a writer. I
Speaker 1: feel like I constructed this story. I made this narrative.
Speaker 1: Because I'm a writer. There is an element of me
Speaker 1: that I feel like I wrote this and it's really weird,
Speaker 1: and I don't know why I can't seem to get
Speaker 1: over that feeling of like the guiding of this story,
Speaker 1: like Okay, let's do a super club and then let's
Speaker 1: go here and let's do there. That there's some sort
Speaker 1: of element of like storytelling in it for me, and
Speaker 1: so it fed some part of me and we didn't
Speaker 1: see in the film. I think a response and so
Speaker 1: how maybe a few years after that happened, how do
Speaker 1: you respond to your mother feeling like she created the
Speaker 1: narrative of your life? Um, my mother is a very
Speaker 1: interesting way with words. Uh, And I think that knowing her,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there's something to be said about
Speaker 1: like she every step of the way was there and
Speaker 1: every step of the way was supporting it. And I
Speaker 1: think that was sort of what she meant by that
Speaker 1: was not that she was forcing it, but that we
Speaker 1: were very sort of aligned to the classic thing is
Speaker 1: like the kid and the parent are having very different
Speaker 1: ideas of where the kids should go. And my mom
Speaker 1: and I always sort of had the same feeling on things,
Speaker 1: like we were doing like together in a lot of
Speaker 1: ways of Like, I mean, I don't think my mom
Speaker 1: or like she didn't want a normal kid. She wanted
Speaker 1: a kid that was going to do something interesting. So
Speaker 1: I think it wrote together. It seems like your mom
Speaker 1: wanted the kids she could film all the time too,
Speaker 1: So maybe who else? Um? I noticed that not only
Speaker 1: are your dishes obviously delicious, but visually they are so
Speaker 1: beautiful it looks like a painting. And I know you
Speaker 1: said that you no longer do any of the drawings,
Speaker 1: but when you assemble your dishes, it is a work
Speaker 1: of art. And what inspires that kind of production for you,
Speaker 1: it's very random. I can't tell you the last time
Speaker 1: I've thought of a dish from how it should look it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think there's evolution and my cooking that
Speaker 1: went from trying to curate every single element of it,
Speaker 1: of drawing it and trying to figure out where it
Speaker 1: was going to go, to the point of saying, like
Speaker 1: leaving things natural to an extent. And I think that
Speaker 1: definitely came from just like being more confident in my
Speaker 1: cooking that I could make something that was beautiful because
Speaker 1: it was just done very well, not forced to be beautiful,
Speaker 1: like it wasn't it's not plated, it's just it's like
Speaker 1: assembled how it feels right. And I think that came
Speaker 1: with a confidence in being able to cook everything very well.
Speaker 1: There is a time where I was making sure everything
Speaker 1: was arranged in very interesting ways, and I realized that
Speaker 1: if you just cook something really well, it will inherently
Speaker 1: look beautiful. And maybe it's incredibly simple. And I mean
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's a much deeper explanation of where the
Speaker 1: influences come of color, compositions and all these kinds of things.
Speaker 1: But that's the X factor I enjoy of, Like I
Speaker 1: don't know where I'm going when I start plating something,
Speaker 1: and sometimes it doesn't work out. Sometimes I played it
Speaker 1: five times to until I get it to the right place.
Speaker 1: But I let the things I've made dictate where they go.
Speaker 1: What's your guilty pleasure? Like your home? You're freaked out
Speaker 1: having a shitty day. It's Floom McGarry eating fried peanut
Speaker 1: butter and banana sam, which is what are you doing? Man?
Speaker 1: What's your freak out food? Oreo mcflurry. We're all gonna
Speaker 1: eat one tomorrow. Trust me, we're all gonna be like
Speaker 1: Man Flynn. He knows everything. Man, you're gonna do. I'm
Speaker 1: not kidding. You're gonna do a guy like him, his
Speaker 1: age and you've been following him. It's like eight up.
Speaker 1: You're like app ted, you're gonna do a sequel on him.
Speaker 1: We're doing. We're doing like a radio piece actually about
Speaker 1: the opening the restaurant, because as you see the opening
Speaker 1: the restaurant is not in the film so we're updating
Speaker 1: that through him. Very cool. We got time for one more.
Speaker 1: Anybody else right down here in the front was your mom?
Speaker 1: I ever wondered why are you hanging out with twenty
Speaker 1: year old? Because I grew up in the strict world
Speaker 1: I could never do that. I mean, there's a definite
Speaker 1: point where my mom was like, why are these adult
Speaker 1: men hanging out with my small child? Ah? And then
Speaker 1: I would wonder that as a mother. It was a
Speaker 1: true concern of hers as a mother, but she meant them,
Speaker 1: and I think, like, it's always a funny thing, Like
Speaker 1: all of my friends world would always like love my
Speaker 1: mom because they're like she like would go up to
Speaker 1: them like well, like actually asked them like why are
Speaker 1: you hanging Why are you getting along with thirteen year old?
Speaker 1: Like none of that makes sense? And I think it
Speaker 1: was sort of especially to her when she saw that
Speaker 1: these people who were chefs and hand careers were like, no,
Speaker 1: we actually like talking to him, we like hanging out
Speaker 1: with him. I think it was when she could kind
Speaker 1: of step back a lot too and knew that, like,
Speaker 1: I was in good hands over here. Um, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: ask specifically about the night where you said you might
Speaker 1: have had an aneurysm. Did the volatility spill over into
Speaker 1: the directorial relationship on that evening or other evenings where
Speaker 1: there was there ever severe animosity between the two of you.
Speaker 1: Absolutely not. I mean that that Flynn on that night,
Speaker 1: specifically the night where everything went wrong, he was not
Speaker 1: focused on the cameras at all. I mean in general,
Speaker 1: when we were filming in the kitchen that we blended
Speaker 1: into the background, and luckily that kitchen was a larger
Speaker 1: one so it was easy to hide because but to
Speaker 1: me it was horrifying to be there as that was happening.
Speaker 1: The only thing we ever, you know, he got to
Speaker 1: know the mic the mute button on the microphone, so
Speaker 1: occasionally the case that we'd lose his audio and be like, Flynn,
Speaker 1: turn it back. I should have muted the button on
Speaker 1: the microphone. Thank you Flynn for sharing that with me.
Speaker 1: I really very early on of hit the mute button
Speaker 1: on the microphone. Yeah, I would forget that cameras were
Speaker 1: there and everything. And then I was still self aware
Speaker 1: enough that like in the back of my head always
Speaker 1: I was like, there is a mute button here, and
Speaker 1: I no one needs to know I did this one
Speaker 1: last question. So for people who are they cook their
Speaker 1: home and they my wife makes the best I've ever
Speaker 1: had in my life. And what's a mistake you see
Speaker 1: people make in the kitchen? Never add enough salt. They
Speaker 1: never add enough salt. Really, there's like, deep down, I
Speaker 1: feel like everyone with salt was like bad for you.
Speaker 1: That the reason I always tell people, the reason restaurants
Speaker 1: take you because you're fucking nineteen years old, That's what
Speaker 1: I mean. You got to hit the right balance of salt. Well. No,
Speaker 1: I mean the reason food taste better than restaurants, I
Speaker 1: tell everyone is because you add significantly more salt. You
Speaker 1: had more butter to everything, and you had more acidity
Speaker 1: to everything. Honey, did you hear what he said? Honey?
Speaker 1: It's the butter and salt, butter and red wine on everything. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That that is my only true afraid to flavor their food.
Speaker 1: If you put salt, brown butter, and lemon on any food,
Speaker 1: it will taste delicious. Wasn't that what the prices didn't listen? Please?
Speaker 1: This ever? Hair for Flynn McGarry. Cameron lates. Flynn McGarry's
Speaker 1: new restaurant is called Gem, where the tasting menu can
Speaker 1: be had for on prepaid. Please, and that's if you
Speaker 1: can get a table. Cameron Yates is movie about McGarry
Speaker 1: is called a Chef Flynn and will be in theaters
Speaker 1: this November. I'm at like Baldwin and you're listening to
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing, The Sun Come