Speaker 1: You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair
Speaker 1: over the last few days. When I tell people we're
Speaker 1: doing a podcast with Eric Repair, their face is light up.
Speaker 1: At the River Cafe, we spend our days making ravioli
Speaker 1: with Ricotta viielenchi anti, pannacotta with grappa. But when we
Speaker 1: as chefs come together, we talk about French food. The bouliebss,
Speaker 1: the palm d'au finoise, the tartetans. Eric Cooke's French food
Speaker 1: were inspired by Italian but maybe we're not so different.
Speaker 1: He's been the chef at Bernadine, his Mission and three
Speaker 1: star Fish and Seafood restaurant for more than thirty years.
Speaker 1: I'm ahead by four years, having cooked at The River
Speaker 1: Cafe since nineteen eighty seven and a profession that is
Speaker 1: ever changing and always challenging. Eric is an inspiration, a mentor,
Speaker 1: and someone we look up to today. I'm here in
Speaker 1: New York with him talking about us living in different cities,
Speaker 1: cooking the food of different countries. But you know what,
Speaker 1: we're pretty much the same, two chefs with much to share.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you so much for being here, and
Speaker 2: thank you for this great introduction.
Speaker 1: No, that's true. So I thought it would be disrespectful
Speaker 1: for the great chef to read a recipe from the
Speaker 1: River Cafe. So I would like you to read it
Speaker 1: yourself of one of your recipes, and we chose the
Speaker 1: few soup. I'm going to start with a quote from you, Eric. Yes,
Speaker 1: and you wrote in this book, think about your favorite dish.
Speaker 1: For many of us, it's something we ate in childhood,
Speaker 1: whose deliciousness lies in how uncomplicated it is. For me,
Speaker 1: it's a simple fish soup made by my grandmother. This
Speaker 1: is the most rewarding way to approach cooking, using culinary
Speaker 1: knowledge to achieve simplicity.
Speaker 2: Yes, I have very vivid memories of grandma doing the
Speaker 2: fish soup youtail.
Speaker 1: Oh, for sure, tell me about your grandma.
Speaker 2: So I had two grandmothers, one was Italian, one from Provence,
Speaker 2: and they both made fish soup by the way, of course,
Speaker 2: But my favorite memory is the one from the Italian grandmother.
Speaker 2: Because on the weekend, the family would gather together, like
Speaker 2: all the uncles and cousins and my grandfather and grandma
Speaker 2: and so on, and they would go fishing and scuba
Speaker 2: diving and catching whatever they would catch. And then my
Speaker 2: grandmother was in charge of the lunch. She would make
Speaker 2: the table for twenty people, twenty five people. She would
Speaker 2: prepare a lot of things, salads and appetizer, but she
Speaker 2: would prepare for the fish soup. So whatever fish was
Speaker 2: coming back, it will be cleaned very quickly, and then
Speaker 2: she would make the fish soup. They're own side and
Speaker 2: we will eat that fish soup. I don't know an
Speaker 2: hour later or two hours lad that was cooked under
Speaker 2: the trees overlooking them. Yes, no, close to antibet between
Speaker 2: auntiebe and and can.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, do you want to read the recipe and
Speaker 1: we can talk more about so we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about So.
Speaker 2: For the fish soup, we use a quark cup of
Speaker 2: extra vaginallyve oil, one medium onion thinly sliced, half a
Speaker 2: bulb of fennel trimmed and thinly slice as well, four
Speaker 2: cloves of garlic chopped, one teaspoon of saffron thread, three
Speaker 2: cups of can whole tomato with their juice, a corek
Speaker 2: cup of perno one bay leave, two pounds of egg
Speaker 2: chile skin cut into chunks. Or you can ask a
Speaker 2: fishmonger for Lian white fish scraps potentially finds the salt
Speaker 2: and freshly grinded black pepper. And then in a large,
Speaker 2: heavy bottom pot, you eat the extravaginallyve oil over medium heat.
Speaker 2: You add the onions, the fennel, the garlic, and you
Speaker 2: sote for five minutes. You steer in the saffron and
Speaker 2: cook until the vegetables are soften and translucent, which takes
Speaker 2: about five minutes. Again, then you crush the tomatoes with
Speaker 2: a fork. You add them to the pot along with
Speaker 2: perno and the bay leaf. Then you season the fish
Speaker 2: with sea salt and white paper and add it to
Speaker 2: the pot. You add enough water to cover the fish
Speaker 2: by about one inch. You bring it to seamur and
Speaker 2: you cook for twenty five minutes. Then you remove from
Speaker 2: the heat and you let stand for five minutes. You
Speaker 2: remove the bay leaf, and then you strain the broth,
Speaker 2: throw a colander into a pot. You pure the fish
Speaker 2: and vegetables badgies ah.
Speaker 1: You put them yeah in.
Speaker 2: A food meal and whisked the purrey back into the broth.
Speaker 2: And then you season with sea salt and white pepper,
Speaker 2: and then you divide into among warm bowls. So that's
Speaker 2: the recipe of the book inspired by Grandma Grama. Was
Speaker 2: not using egg, she was using whatever she was she
Speaker 2: was having.
Speaker 1: And you said she made this every week? Did she
Speaker 1: always make this version of it?
Speaker 2: Was very similar to this, and she would improvise a
Speaker 2: lot as well, you know, I mean for the book,
Speaker 2: we had to say half a cup, quarter of a cup.
Speaker 2: She was not measuring. She was like, okay, give me
Speaker 2: the garlic, let's feel it and let's drop it. And
Speaker 2: the same thing with the onions. It was very instinctive.
Speaker 2: She didn't have to really follow a recipe.
Speaker 1: And did she inspire you to cook? Then she was
Speaker 1: the person that made you want to be a chef.
Speaker 2: My two grandmothers inspired me a lot, and my mother
Speaker 2: was an amazing, amazing chef.
Speaker 1: Tell me because it was interesting, always say that in
Speaker 1: all these interviews that we've done.
Speaker 2: The grandmother, the Italian one, was cooking very Italian soul food.
Speaker 2: She was cooking like great Italian, Northern Italian food, and
Speaker 2: I loved it. And then my grandmother from Provence was
Speaker 2: doing the same with proven sal food as well, which
Speaker 2: is a little bit similar than Northern Italian, but as
Speaker 2: some sortle differences.
Speaker 1: I did the drive quite recently from Santa marc Rita
Speaker 1: to Genoa to Nice and suddenly you were in Italy
Speaker 1: and now you're in France, and you know, the farinata
Speaker 1: which they do in Italy is the Italian version of
Speaker 1: the socca, So yeah, which is in Nice. And what
Speaker 1: else do they cook?
Speaker 2: Like my grandmother in Provence, she was from the region
Speaker 2: of Avignon, so in Avignon they're not close to the sea,
Speaker 2: they are obviously inland, and she would do like a
Speaker 2: baby leg of lamb roasted. And then my grandmother, the
Speaker 2: Italian grandmother, wouldn't do that, but she would do She
Speaker 2: would do alsobuco, for instance. My grandmother in Provence would
Speaker 2: do a cocoveraine. My grandmother in Italy didn't know what
Speaker 2: cocoveraine was. And those were subtle differences, but they were important.
Speaker 2: My mother was obsessed with the chefs from Nouvelle cuisine
Speaker 2: at the time, so the Michelle Gerard, the Paul Booquz
Speaker 2: that generation. And at home she was cooking lunch and dinner,
Speaker 2: those elaborate meals with appetizer, main course, cheese which she
Speaker 2: didn't cook, and dessert that were different from lunch to
Speaker 2: dinner on a different pattern. Of tablecloth, different china. It
Speaker 2: was unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Would she be cooking for She.
Speaker 2: Was cooking for myself, stepfather and my sister when when
Speaker 2: she was old enough to be at the table with us,
Speaker 2: because she's much younger than me.
Speaker 1: She did this every day, every day.
Speaker 2: She would Well, she was a business lady, so she
Speaker 2: was in the fashion industry. She was importing the brand
Speaker 2: Courage for Spain, Spain and underground. Yes, and so she
Speaker 2: was very busy with the business. But she would wake
Speaker 2: up at five am to prepare the meal and then
Speaker 2: she she would finish whatever needs to be finished, all
Speaker 2: the little details during lunchtime, and then same thing at night.
Speaker 2: And sometimes after the dinner she would start to cook
Speaker 2: for the like the desserts. Like if she was doing
Speaker 2: I don't know a baba room, she would start to
Speaker 2: let the baba do you know rise and so on. Yes,
Speaker 2: I mean it was amazing.
Speaker 1: She would have liked to have done that as a career.
Speaker 2: No, no, she was she wanted. She wanted to do
Speaker 2: it because for the art of doing it, for the
Speaker 2: love of doing it, and she wanted to feed the family.
Speaker 1: So you had this incredible life of having food that
Speaker 1: was cared. You know, it was a priority in her
Speaker 1: day and your stepfather.
Speaker 2: And different styles too. Did you ever cook with her
Speaker 2: with my mom later in life, because on the beginning,
Speaker 2: they allow me to watch and eat anything I wanted,
Speaker 2: but they really didn't want me to touch anything. They
Speaker 2: were like, you're going to mess up the kitchen, don't
Speaker 2: touch it. So I was eating, and just before I
Speaker 2: went to culinary school, my mom started to allow me
Speaker 2: to help her in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: She sounds amazing and she's still cooking.
Speaker 2: She cooks for herself, and she sent me pictures sometimes
Speaker 2: and I'm like, oh my god, this is amazing. Like
Speaker 2: the other day she did the dog comfee and then
Speaker 2: you know, she hasked, I don't know what you call it,
Speaker 2: those little for the for the bone, those little.
Speaker 1: White white things, yeah yeah, those white yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So she still have those kind of details, and I'm like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, how can you do that?
Speaker 1: How do you look back at the food of the
Speaker 1: nouvelle cuisine. What do you think when you when you
Speaker 1: think of that food.
Speaker 2: Well, as you know, nouvelle cuisine at one point became
Speaker 2: really a bad world, and it became a caricature.
Speaker 1: Of big plates and food, and.
Speaker 2: I always have this image of like three string beans
Speaker 2: parallel to each other. But novelle cuisine on the beginning
Speaker 2: was a revolution. We were coming out of the era
Speaker 2: of escoffi. It was a different mindset where the sauce
Speaker 2: was not hiding anymore the flavors, but the sauce was
Speaker 2: enhancing the star of the plate, which was whatever protein,
Speaker 2: mostly or vegetable you decide. And also it was the
Speaker 2: first time that chefs were playing their food. Until then,
Speaker 2: the food was on platters and the waiters were serving
Speaker 2: the food or the clients were serving themselves from the platter.
Speaker 2: But the first chef to say I'm planning my food
Speaker 2: in my plate was the drug Row.
Speaker 1: So you grew up in a house where food was
Speaker 1: a priority, where your mother cooked, your grandmother's cooked. Tell
Speaker 1: us when about your journey to becoming a chef, from
Speaker 1: being a child that wasn't allowed in the kitchen to
Speaker 1: being I think a fifteen year old that started cooking.
Speaker 1: What happened at fifteen when you decided to be well.
Speaker 2: At fifteen, I cannot go to school any longer because
Speaker 2: my grades are so bad. So I ended up in
Speaker 2: the principal office with mom and is explaining to her
Speaker 2: that I have to find out what they call a
Speaker 2: vocational school or a career. That's nineteen eighty and I
Speaker 2: look sad, but I'm really happy because I want to
Speaker 2: go to culinary school. So the principal promised to my
Speaker 2: mother that he would do everything possible to send me
Speaker 2: to a culinary school. And he had a friend who
Speaker 2: was a principal in Perpignon, and I was accepted. I
Speaker 2: don't know how, but I was accepted in culinary school.
Speaker 2: And then I was a very good student there.
Speaker 1: That's the thing, if you find what you love it.
Speaker 2: I really loved everything about the restaurant industry. I was
Speaker 2: the first year. We were waders and cooks. We were
Speaker 2: learning both and we had some classes of a knowlogy,
Speaker 2: which is about the wine. And I was having a
Speaker 2: blast and my grades were excellent. In matth I was
Speaker 2: still a bit weak, but I was putting a lot
Speaker 2: of efforts. I was good in Spanish because I live
Speaker 2: in Adora, so I would I could speak Spanish and French.
Speaker 2: I didn't speak English at the time. And in the
Speaker 2: kitchen I was a little bit bored because we were
Speaker 2: learning old fashioned recipes from Escoffia basically, so I was
Speaker 2: a bit bored, but I knew I was learning the basics,
Speaker 2: so I was very diligent about listening to what the
Speaker 2: directions were from the teachers, and my grades were great
Speaker 2: on the first year. On the second year, same thing.
Speaker 2: At my exam, which was after two years, I had
Speaker 2: to do a gulash and a rice pilaf with Langostin's
Speaker 2: in a source nin two yer and I did a
Speaker 2: good job because I graduated with honors. And then I
Speaker 2: was like, this is the beginning. I mean, I knew
Speaker 2: it was the beginning. I wanted to be the chef
Speaker 2: that I am today. I wanted to be in a
Speaker 2: restaurant that has a big kitchen with a lot of equipment,
Speaker 2: with a lot of cooks, a lot of waters, a
Speaker 2: lot of a great team, beautiful china, and a great
Speaker 2: wine cellar and everything else. And that was my dream.
Speaker 2: So at seventeen years old, I write a letter to
Speaker 2: the eighteen three star Micheline restaurant in France, because I
Speaker 2: was eighteen at the time, and nobody answered nobody. So
Speaker 2: then at one point I go back and I write
Speaker 2: to the two stars and then Maxims sent me a
Speaker 2: letter saying we don't have a spot for you, and
Speaker 2: that's my only letter. And then three months later I
Speaker 2: received a letter from Latyo Darjan and at the time
Speaker 2: there were three stars, of course, and they were celebrating
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty two their four hundred year anniversary. Anyway,
Speaker 2: I ended up at seventeen years old in Lato Darjon
Speaker 2: in Paris. After reading that letter, I call them and
Speaker 2: I said, you know, Americ Repair and I received your letter,
Speaker 2: and when when do you need me? And they said
Speaker 2: we need you tomorrow, And well tomorrow it's going to
Speaker 2: be tough. But three days later I was with my
Speaker 2: suitcase in Paris.
Speaker 1: Where did you stay?
Speaker 2: In a tiny hotel? And then I find finally a place.
Speaker 2: It took a couple of months to find a place.
Speaker 2: It was very very seventeen in a kitchen like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, what was the culture of the kitchen?
Speaker 1: What was it like?
Speaker 2: Very old fashioned? A lot of abuse, veriable abuse, physical abuse,
Speaker 2: And that was the culture in those kitchens at that time.
Speaker 2: And and also I have to say I was the
Speaker 2: youngest in the kitchen and I was not necessarily the best,
Speaker 2: and they were they were patients, but at the same
Speaker 2: time they were very abusive and and as you probably
Speaker 2: know in France, it was a philosophy behind it. First
Speaker 2: of all, it made no sense to me, but they
Speaker 2: wanted to break you psychologically and rebuilt you as a champion,
Speaker 2: which is ridiculous. I think it was more an excuse
Speaker 2: to let the chef be abusive and I have those
Speaker 2: tantrums and be aggressive. And someone who's angry is it's
Speaker 2: not someone who's It's not a quality to be angry.
Speaker 2: Let's put it this way. So I learned. I learned
Speaker 2: the hard way.
Speaker 1: Do you think you've up?
Speaker 2: Ever, No, I never thought of giving up. I was
Speaker 2: obviously at times down and not happy, but my vision
Speaker 2: of becoming the chef that I became was never compromised.
Speaker 1: The ambition kept you, kept you going.
Speaker 2: It was, yes, but the ambition was not about being
Speaker 2: number one, being radied, or being The ambition was to
Speaker 2: cook great food and create an amazing experience. And it
Speaker 2: has always been my vision all my life.
Speaker 1: Did you know the River Cafe has a shop. It's
Speaker 1: full of our favorite foods and designs. We have cookbooks
Speaker 1: and then in Napkins Kitchen were chout bags with our signatures,
Speaker 1: glasses from Venice, chocolates from Terurin. You can find us
Speaker 1: right next door to the River Cafe in London or
Speaker 1: online at shop the River Cafe dot co UK. From
Speaker 1: Tour de Jean, how long did you stay there?
Speaker 2: To Darjent, I didn't stay too long. I stayed about
Speaker 2: a year and a half. And then the chef called
Speaker 2: me in his office and said I heard that you
Speaker 2: want to move, and you because you want to change,
Speaker 2: And he said I will tell you when you're leaving.
Speaker 2: And I said, yes, chef, of course. And a month
Speaker 2: later he said, go to this place, it's called sham
Speaker 2: Ask for the chef. His name is Joel Robischow, and
Speaker 2: he's waiting for you. I'm basically like eighteen and a
Speaker 2: half nineteen and I go there. I have no idea
Speaker 2: where I'm going. And I met with Joel Robbie Schan
Speaker 2: very sweet man, very kind man, great contacts. And then
Speaker 2: he's telling me that I'm starting in a month from now.
Speaker 1: And was the culture in that kitchen the same? Was
Speaker 1: it abusive?
Speaker 2: And Robbie Shaw was not violent physically or it didn't
Speaker 2: didn't want violence in his kitchen?
Speaker 1: Was there violence? Actually physical violence.
Speaker 2: Yes, chefs were kicking you in the shoulders. Sometimes it
Speaker 2: was some physical battles in the coolers or in a
Speaker 2: staircase or things like that. It was definitely, but Robbie
Speaker 2: Sewan it was very different. It didn't want that. He
Speaker 2: was not a screamer, but it was very, very difficult,
Speaker 2: and it was a painful experience with him as well,
Speaker 2: because he was so demanding on himself and so demanding
Speaker 2: on the team. He was never happy and every day
Speaker 2: was coming and every day he had some negative comments
Speaker 2: every day, but not necessarily articulating what was wrong, just
Speaker 2: like a frustration about it. And I don't know if
Speaker 2: you ever heard that, but he was looking at every
Speaker 2: plate coming back in the kitchen, and when something was
Speaker 2: left in a plate, even a tiny, tiny bite, it
Speaker 2: was a disaster.
Speaker 1: How long did you stay that?
Speaker 2: So I did a year and something and then I
Speaker 2: went to do my military duties, so I was of
Speaker 2: course sent to the kitchen. Were yes, But on my
Speaker 2: first day in the kitchen was Calamari American. I was like, hey,
Speaker 2: this is cool. And then the Calamaria American was basically
Speaker 2: frozen calamari with a beshamele ketchup and brandy. And then
Speaker 2: at night they were doing spaghetti with something and they
Speaker 2: managed to burn the spaghettis in the water. The heat
Speaker 2: was coming from underneath. They dumped the spaghetti's the stock
Speaker 2: to the bottom of the pot where it was in
Speaker 2: Castel Sarazen, which is in the south of southwest of France,
Speaker 2: near to Lose. So anyway, I went to see the
Speaker 2: general and I said to him, I don't mind to
Speaker 2: do my military duties, but please get me out of
Speaker 2: this kitchen because I'm going to be depressed. And he
Speaker 2: laughed at me and he said, I'm going to send
Speaker 2: you to the commandos. You're going to learn. And I
Speaker 2: was skinny like this, like I was like looking at
Speaker 2: him like, you know, I can't do that, and he
Speaker 2: laughed and he said, you want to be my waiter.
Speaker 2: I said, yeah, I would love to be your waider.
Speaker 2: He said okay, and I became For the rest of
Speaker 2: my stay in the militaries the waiters of the general.
Speaker 2: I served the food. I didn't cook. And then on
Speaker 2: my last day I receive a call and I thought
Speaker 2: it was a joke, and they called me and they said,
Speaker 2: you have a call. It's Joel Robbie Shan calling you.
Speaker 2: I'm like that a joke, it's not possible. And I
Speaker 2: look and it's a number I call and it seemed
Speaker 2: and he's like, oh, thank you for calling me back.
Speaker 2: I heard that you've done with the military duties. I
Speaker 2: would like for you to come back, and I would
Speaker 2: look for you to be the chef person and Jamin
Speaker 2: and what do you think. At the time, I had
Speaker 2: a girlfriend, many things were happening in my life. I
Speaker 2: was not really excited to go back to Paris, and
Speaker 2: I said, can I think about it? And he said, yes,
Speaker 2: of course, you have thirty seconds.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: I was like, yes, chef. And I went back to
Speaker 2: Paris then and I did two something years again with
Speaker 2: him in the fish in charge of the fish station.
Speaker 1: Well, let's go back to coming here. How did you
Speaker 1: end up in So I went.
Speaker 2: To see Joel Robischan and I said, you know, we'd
Speaker 2: like to travel the world and can you help me?
Speaker 2: And he sent me to the water Reghatt Hotel in Washington,
Speaker 2: d C. And I worked with Jean Repalladin, who was
Speaker 2: an extremely talented chef.
Speaker 1: And what was the culture like the culture in the
Speaker 1: kitchen was.
Speaker 2: In Washington, dis very relaxed, small team. Jean Repaaladin was
Speaker 2: very creative. I was happy because for me it was
Speaker 2: a different experience. I learned very classic food at Lato Darjean.
Speaker 2: Then I learned rigor and techniques with Joel Robi Schan
Speaker 2: and then with Jehan Repaada. I had a lot of
Speaker 2: inspiration from him to be creative.
Speaker 1: But I think with that, you know, I think with cooking,
Speaker 1: if you have the breaker first, then you can have
Speaker 1: the kind of maybe relaxed after well to not have
Speaker 1: that background and.
Speaker 2: Now you have to start.
Speaker 1: You have to start.
Speaker 2: You have to start with the basis and the bigger
Speaker 2: and then you can start to be creative. And then
Speaker 2: you have to learn how to manage also a team people.
Speaker 2: And that was gilberlo cause in le Bernardin. When I
Speaker 2: joined in nineteen ninety one, I was twenty four years old,
Speaker 2: and he said to me, look, I want someone to
Speaker 2: take care of my kitchen, and if you respect the
Speaker 2: philosophy of le Bernardin, which is the fish is the
Speaker 2: star of the plate, then you can do whatever you
Speaker 2: want here and I will support you. And I had
Speaker 2: this support until he passed away in nineteen ninety four.
Speaker 2: Then I became partner with my gillocouse his sister, and
Speaker 2: the rest is story history.
Speaker 1: I think it would be interesting to talk about the
Speaker 1: culture of the restaurants that were, you know, existing, the bullying,
Speaker 1: the anger, the tantrums, the physical abuse, you know. I
Speaker 1: always say that I once had a young woman chef
Speaker 1: come to the River Cafe and she was describing her
Speaker 1: experience in another kitchen and she said that the chef
Speaker 1: had stood over her she was getting souflets out of
Speaker 1: the oven, and he said, you know, this frying pan
Speaker 1: is in my hand, and if those tuflets are not perfect,
Speaker 1: it'll be on your head. And I said, you know
Speaker 1: what you should have done is put the soufles back
Speaker 1: in the oven, got up, walked out and gone to
Speaker 1: the police. The police because that kind of threat is
Speaker 1: illegal and it should be illegal, and you cannot do that.
Speaker 1: And I think that the fact that that's this was
Speaker 1: probably twenty years ago. But I think it's very interesting
Speaker 1: how our profession, which was based on a kind of
Speaker 1: terror of teaching three people through fear rather than hope,
Speaker 1: has hope change. I mean in your restaurant, it has
Speaker 1: at my restaurant, my friend's restaurants. You know, in London,
Speaker 1: we don't tolerate that. And also we have an open kitchen,
Speaker 1: so you can't do that. We have an open kitchen
Speaker 1: which does not allow anyone to share.
Speaker 2: Of course, well you can always have people who are
Speaker 2: vicious and find a way to do it in the back.
Speaker 2: But in America I find a kitchens in general very civilized. Here,
Speaker 2: I definitely have I do not promote any misbehavior. I
Speaker 2: have zero tolerance. And if you misbehave and it's not
Speaker 2: a big mistake, we give you one more chance, and
Speaker 2: then you're not working with us any longer. You have
Speaker 2: to be It doesn't matter if your genius or first
Speaker 2: of all, it's no genius is but matter if you
Speaker 2: are excellent or not excellent. You have to be a
Speaker 2: team player. You have to work with others, and you
Speaker 2: have to be polite and kind and grateful and motivated
Speaker 2: and hard working and passionate, and then you belong to
Speaker 2: the team. But we have zero to leerents from his behavior.
Speaker 1: Zero.
Speaker 2: It's totally unacceptable.
Speaker 1: Well, I know that food here is so respected and
Speaker 1: so deliciousness. I think you're coming from you, and I
Speaker 1: think that the interesting thing I think is that food
Speaker 1: is in fashion. People always say to me, you know,
Speaker 1: what do you think is a new food trend? Or
Speaker 1: what are people going to be cooking? And what are
Speaker 1: people eating? And it doesn't really interest me very much.
Speaker 1: But the fashion is a food. It's what we're all
Speaker 1: trying to do, to work harder, to do what we
Speaker 1: do better, and we're thinking about sustainability all the time.
Speaker 2: Sustainability is very important. I mean, I don't care about
Speaker 2: trends at all. The cooking at Lebernarda is it's based
Speaker 2: on personal experiences. I travel quite a bit in my
Speaker 2: life in many I mean basically all the continents, and
Speaker 2: depending where I go, I come back and I have
Speaker 2: a lot of ideas and I discover new flavor, new techniques,
Speaker 2: new ingredients, and then we integrate it into the style
Speaker 2: of Le Bernardin And I work very closely with the
Speaker 2: Soo chefs as well. They also travel during the vacation
Speaker 2: and they go to many places and it's a collaboration
Speaker 2: in between us inspired by what we love and what
Speaker 2: we see, but we don't think about trends at all.
Speaker 1: Did you travel lot to Asia? Did you Japan? Of Japan?
Speaker 2: Japanese for me was a revelation when I went there.
Speaker 2: Not why in every aspect of the culture of Japan,
Speaker 2: the search for perfection knowing that you will never achieve
Speaker 2: perfection that is not motivated by business, which means money.
Speaker 2: It's very refreshing for a restaurrator from New York that
Speaker 2: they have respect for the ingredients. That is incredible. And
Speaker 2: in the nineties I was in Peru before it became fashionable.
Speaker 2: It was again very influential on us for quite some
Speaker 2: time to understand the culture of the savic and the marine,
Speaker 2: edit fish and so on.
Speaker 1: You have one restaurant, so.
Speaker 2: We have Le Bernardin and then we have another restaurant
Speaker 2: in the Cannan Islands called Blue Bio rec Repair, and
Speaker 2: we work with an hotel called the Red Carleton, which
Speaker 2: is famous. Yeah, chain of hotels. The team comes here
Speaker 2: gets trained by us, or we go there and train them.
Speaker 2: I go there twice a year and the rest of
Speaker 2: the time I have at Lebanadere.
Speaker 1: Do you find it challenging? Fish wise?
Speaker 2: In cam An Island, we use local fish mostly what
Speaker 2: is it? Grouper, snapper, spiny lobsters, shream, mai mahi wahu.
Speaker 2: I mean it's a lot of species.
Speaker 1: That's a local Oh yeah, it's.
Speaker 2: Like from the local fishermen. Yes.
Speaker 3: If you like listening to Ruthy's Table for would you
Speaker 3: please make sure to rate and review the podcast on
Speaker 3: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, o, wherever you get
Speaker 3: your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Thank you. You were saying that people now are eating out.
Speaker 1: You can't get a reservation in a restaurant in New York.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's post pandemic, but I do think restaurants have
Speaker 1: shown us how important restaurants are to culture, to a city,
Speaker 1: to people. I once had to go to my granddaughter's
Speaker 1: school and I said, why do we go to restaurants?
Speaker 1: You know, we go to restaurants. Why do we go
Speaker 1: When child raised their hand and said, we go to
Speaker 1: restaurants for a birthday, we go to a restaurant. When
Speaker 1: my grandparents come to town, we go to restaurants. When
Speaker 1: my granddaughter raised her we go to restaurants when there's
Speaker 1: nothing at the fridge. And I thought that was It
Speaker 1: is interesting why people go to restaurants and why they
Speaker 1: are important to us. Why do you think they are?
Speaker 2: Well, New York is a big city, like London, it's
Speaker 2: a lot of people visiting from all over the world.
Speaker 2: It's a lot of New Yorkers who are going out,
Speaker 2: and we cater to many people who seek a different experience.
Speaker 2: I think our mission is to deliver the experience the
Speaker 2: clients is seeking without necessarily asking, but just understanding what's happening.
Speaker 2: And it's easy to understand what the clients want. If
Speaker 2: you see a bunch of businessmen and they're very intense
Speaker 2: and they're sharing paper at the table, you know they
Speaker 2: are in business. If you see a couple and they
Speaker 2: all achiev and kissing, and you know, it's like it's
Speaker 2: not the same experience as the businessman. And then if
Speaker 2: you see someone taking pictures of the food, or if
Speaker 2: I go to the dining room looking at me, following me,
Speaker 2: and you know it's someone very interested by our industry
Speaker 2: and those experience. We have to basically adapt to the
Speaker 2: client and have flexibility and make sure that when they
Speaker 2: leave they're very happy, they have a smile in their face.
Speaker 1: Do you stand on the past? Do you see every
Speaker 1: plate that goes out?
Speaker 2: I do, and not only I stay on the past,
Speaker 2: but I also work in the kitchen and I taste
Speaker 2: a lot that one on me but we have testing
Speaker 2: spoons made of corn starch that you can use. The
Speaker 2: very inexpensive and of course it's recyclable. It's not like plastic,
Speaker 2: and you can taste and throw the spoon if you wish,
Speaker 2: because we don't want to double deep obviously, and I
Speaker 2: don't want the cooks also to carry.
Speaker 1: I hate that when I put that in the back.
Speaker 2: Disgusting, and to put it in the pot with water,
Speaker 2: it's like no. So we have those those testing spoons,
Speaker 2: and I taste a lot of the thing. I have
Speaker 2: only one meal a day and the rest is testing.
Speaker 2: You test before before we before service and during services.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting, I find, you know, I was thinking
Speaker 1: if I could. It's how you give the feedback. I
Speaker 1: don't know about very much smaller restaurant. When I go
Speaker 1: to eat there and I have something that I don't
Speaker 1: I think is up to what it should be. It's
Speaker 1: always for me it's a conundrum because do you tell
Speaker 1: them you know then and there? Do you go and say,
Speaker 1: you know, they're so expected, our chefs, you know, they
Speaker 1: want to know what I thought, Did I enjoy it?
Speaker 1: And if I say, well, actually, you know, the spinach
Speaker 1: had too much salt or the sea bears was grilled
Speaker 1: too long. Not the greatest thing to do at the
Speaker 1: end of the evening. If I do it in the
Speaker 1: morning and I go and I say, that was a
Speaker 1: great meal. Then I come in in the morning and
Speaker 1: I say, actually, you know what, what I had last night,
Speaker 1: that's not a good time. It's how you how you
Speaker 1: can feedback. The best thing is when you're working that
Speaker 1: I'm there, and so at the moment when you taste it,
Speaker 1: you say, actually, no, no, no, we're not doing this.
Speaker 1: So we're not doing that. How are you? Because they
Speaker 1: care so much our chefs, don't they They.
Speaker 2: Nobody is happy to do about job now. I don't
Speaker 2: think so. But what we do first of all, when
Speaker 2: we arrived, when I say, weez the two chefs and
Speaker 2: the shifts that they have, and then that they are
Speaker 2: controlling the kitchen. When we arrived, it's always before lunch,
Speaker 2: at least half hour before for the lunch, and we
Speaker 2: taeste all the preparations of the kitchen, all the mission,
Speaker 2: plus all the sauce. We have about four different, fourly
Speaker 2: different sauce, and we test and we commend before we
Speaker 2: test the sauce, and we test everything in the kitchen.
Speaker 2: We caliber our palette. So we buy some industrial Swiss
Speaker 2: cheese that is not really good, but it's perfect in seasoning.
Speaker 2: It's neither to salty, neither to blend.
Speaker 1: It's like very neutral neutralizes you.
Speaker 2: So no, when you test it, sometimes you may find
Speaker 2: it salty, which means your taest birds are very sensitive
Speaker 2: to salt. Sometimes you may find it very bland, and
Speaker 2: you know your your test birds are dull. So therefore
Speaker 2: you know more or less where you stand. And then
Speaker 2: we test the sauce and we give it made it
Speaker 2: feedback to the socier, and when we test the ves
Speaker 2: balls and everything else, we give immediate feedbacks to them.
Speaker 2: I'm very direct. Whatever is right is right, whatever is
Speaker 2: wrong is wrong. But I'm very articulating my criticism. If
Speaker 2: I have to, I explain to them why I believe
Speaker 2: it's not it's not right. What does What happened during
Speaker 2: the process. Maybe the source was cooked too long and
Speaker 2: then we lost the vibrancy that we're supposed to see
Speaker 2: in that source. And so I'm very detail oriented in
Speaker 2: my positive or negative criticism.
Speaker 1: We have to be, because otherwise we're selling out food
Speaker 1: that is not or we cannot do that, I said
Speaker 1: to them the other day. You know, my obligation is
Speaker 1: to you to give you a good working environment, to
Speaker 1: give you a beautiful kitchen, to give you a view,
Speaker 1: to give you the equipment that is working. But also
Speaker 1: our obligation is to the person who's eating the food,
Speaker 1: who's coming in tonight. It may have saved up to
Speaker 1: be able to come here. Option we're celebrating a birthday,
Speaker 1: we're just we're just coming for me and we want
Speaker 1: to express what we do. How often do you change
Speaker 1: the menu.
Speaker 2: When we have a good idea, Well, you know, of
Speaker 2: course it's it's very inspired by the season. But it's
Speaker 2: true that when we we always challenge ourselves to renew
Speaker 2: our menu as much as we can, and we print
Speaker 2: the menu in house, so it gives us a lot
Speaker 2: of freedom to say, okay, today we change it. We
Speaker 2: have we have two good ideas, we're going to change
Speaker 2: the menu and and we'll see what happens in a
Speaker 2: couple of weeks. We never have specials, and we always
Speaker 2: make sure that when we create new dishes, we push
Speaker 2: the envelope and take time before we decide it goes
Speaker 2: on the menu, because sometimes the first impression is that
Speaker 2: is that, oh, yeah, that's good, and then you tell
Speaker 2: actually something was missing and it's work that goes into
Speaker 2: the process and it takes time.
Speaker 1: And with fish, because you're such a fish based restaurant,
Speaker 1: do you you know, do they call up and say,
Speaker 1: we have no turbot today, we have no sea bass,
Speaker 1: or the sea bass isn't good enough to sell you,
Speaker 1: or is it pretty dependable?
Speaker 2: No, when the weather is rough, I mean, especially in
Speaker 2: the north East coast of America is where we buy
Speaker 2: our fish. Mostly, like eighty percent of the seafood that
Speaker 2: we serve is local. When I say local is not
Speaker 2: New York City. It's main from Carolinas to Canada, or
Speaker 2: even like Florida to Canada. But when the weather is
Speaker 2: very rough, we have to change. We cannot buy something
Speaker 2: that is not on a market or some old fish.
Speaker 1: And if there's a day when you don't have what
Speaker 1: you want or you're feeling that you might need some
Speaker 1: comfort and you look for the food. But what would
Speaker 1: you turn to in terms of a food that might
Speaker 1: be view comfort.
Speaker 2: Well, if I really want comfort, I do it on
Speaker 2: the weekend, and I cook the food for yourself. I
Speaker 2: cook for the family and myself. I like to share.
Speaker 2: I don't you know. I will never see myself having
Speaker 2: a bottle of wine or a glass of wine and
Speaker 2: then eating and not not being surrounded by friends and family.
Speaker 2: And I do that on the weekend because the weekend
Speaker 2: for me, the weekends have sacred and since I'm the
Speaker 2: only guy with white hair in the kitchen, I'm allowed
Speaker 2: to take my Salurdays and Sundays and be with the family.
Speaker 2: And therefore I take my weekends. I stay in New
Speaker 2: York or I have a country house, but we go
Speaker 2: out one night to be pampered and to have an experience,
Speaker 2: and then the second day I'm cooking and I have
Speaker 2: so much fun. You know. It's like a way to
Speaker 2: completely disconnect from the world, from the reality that we
Speaker 2: perceive the round us. And I'm not being a blast.
Speaker 1: I'm so happy you are. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Lots of love dots all love to you too. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership
Speaker 1: with Montclair.
Speaker 4: Ruthie's Table four is produced by Atamei Studios for iHeartRadio.
Speaker 4: It's hosted by Ruthie Rogers and it's produced by William Lensky.
Speaker 4: This episode was edited by Julia Johnson and mixed by
Speaker 4: Nigel Appleton. Our executive producers are Fai Stewart and Zad Rogers.
Speaker 4: Our production manager is Caitlin Paramore and our production coordinator
Speaker 4: is Bella Selini. Thank you to everyone at the of
Speaker 4: A Cafe for your help in making this episode.
Speaker 3: Mmm mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Speaker 1: Hmm