Speaker 1: My name is Jeffrey Zcarrien and you're listening to Four
Speaker 1: Courses with Jeffrey Z. Carrion from my Heart Radio. Today
Speaker 1: we are continuing are Turning the Table series where our
Speaker 1: executive producer, Christopher Hesiotis takes over as our host and
Speaker 1: puts me in the hot seat to answer questions about
Speaker 1: how I got to where I am today. This is
Speaker 1: part two of our three part series. If you haven't
Speaker 1: listened to our first Turning the Table episode and you
Speaker 1: want to know more about how I first caught the
Speaker 1: culinary bug, go back and listen to part one. Now.
Speaker 1: In today's episode, we pick up my story right as
Speaker 1: I was formally stepping into the culinary world at LASERK,
Speaker 1: which was just an incredible experience in and of itself.
Speaker 1: But before I could even begin to imagine moving up
Speaker 1: in this world, I needed mentors. Christopher knew that mentorship
Speaker 1: is something I frequently asked guests about here on Four Courses,
Speaker 1: and he had a hunch that he needed to ask
Speaker 1: me too. We hope you enjoy. But Jeffrey, as you
Speaker 1: got your career started, you know you are an apprentice
Speaker 1: chef Atlas Circuit. You had you had a mentor in
Speaker 1: Alan Selach, the renowned chef. You speak a lot about
Speaker 1: mentorship when you talk to successful people on your podcast.
Speaker 1: I have a suspicion that this obsession of yours kind
Speaker 1: of dates back to these early days in your career.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me what it is about that relationship
Speaker 1: working with chefs that that really solidified that mentor mente
Speaker 1: relationship for you and how important it is. I really
Speaker 1: think that I'm gonna speak as a young man to
Speaker 1: all the young men and women now whore into the field.
Speaker 1: Mentorship is everything, even if it's not perfect mentorship, you know,
Speaker 1: you need to find someone. That's what I always say
Speaker 1: to people when they asked me, how do I know?
Speaker 1: How do I get involved? How what do I do?
Speaker 1: What do I do? I'm like, I don't have a blueprint,
Speaker 1: but what I can tell you is what you probably
Speaker 1: don't want to hear. And I said, you have to
Speaker 1: stop the thinking about money, stop thinking about how many
Speaker 1: hours you're working, and start thinking about, like what do
Speaker 1: you want your life to look like in five years?
Speaker 1: And then start thinking backwards. Right, It's like, okay, let's
Speaker 1: start from like, let's have to have this picture. Now,
Speaker 1: how do I start. What's the start point? I said,
Speaker 1: I can give you the start point, but that's it.
Speaker 1: I can't instruct you on manners. I can't tell you
Speaker 1: how to respect people. I can give you the start
Speaker 1: point and tell you that if you do this for
Speaker 1: at least a year, you'll have the secret and you
Speaker 1: don't have to learn it from me. You're gonna know
Speaker 1: exactly what to do because it will be right in
Speaker 1: front of you. They're like, Okay, well I'm here, I'm
Speaker 1: a year later, I've done what I want to do.
Speaker 1: Now I know what I want to do here. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go left for this much time. I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: right for this much time, and it's all gonna be answered.
Speaker 1: And I tell him very simply, to find someone, find
Speaker 1: the best person possible, and then write it all down
Speaker 1: on a list. Take those top five people you think
Speaker 1: are the best in the field, and then go put
Speaker 1: a bee next to them. By that, I mean those
Speaker 1: are bees. Go find a's because your natural inclination is
Speaker 1: to find people you actually think would be easy to ask.
Speaker 1: They'll say, yes, I said, those are the bees. You
Speaker 1: don't want the bees ever, Okay, those are for other people,
Speaker 1: not you. Do you want to be really great? Go
Speaker 1: for the a's people that you wouldn't dream of asking
Speaker 1: that you would say no, I could know, it's not
Speaker 1: a chance. Those are the people you want to ask
Speaker 1: and ask to work for them. Say what do you have.
Speaker 1: I'll do anything anything. I'll work in the front of
Speaker 1: the house, at the back, I'll do I'll do anything,
Speaker 1: bus tables, I don't know. I'll work as a late
Speaker 1: night prep, I'll do overnight. I'll do whatever you want
Speaker 1: if you can stick with it. The rest of it
Speaker 1: will be handed to you by yourself, and the rest
Speaker 1: is just going to be your story, not my story.
Speaker 1: And I said, that's exactly what I did. And I
Speaker 1: didn't have anyone telling me to do that. I just
Speaker 1: happened upon it. And I happened upon a guy named
Speaker 1: Alan Psiak who was Ella Syric And it was probably
Speaker 1: a couple of days after I graduated. I got a
Speaker 1: job at another restaurant. I didn't like it, and I
Speaker 1: asked someone at the restaurant who was another CI grad.
Speaker 1: He said, we'll go. You know, you should see. I
Speaker 1: think they're hiring it list Cirque. And I went to
Speaker 1: the Cirque and he told me, he said in a
Speaker 1: very bad English. To this day, he's one of my
Speaker 1: dearest friends. He's still alive. Thing he's eighties seven. And
Speaker 1: he said, I don't have a job now. I have nothing,
Speaker 1: no job. There's no job here. I have nothing. And
Speaker 1: I gave him, you know, the resume graduated. I said, well,
Speaker 1: I was just working next door over there. Said why
Speaker 1: are you leaving here? I said, I said the food
Speaker 1: isn't good. Just like that, I swear I saw a
Speaker 1: glimmer in his eye that was check one. So I
Speaker 1: felt a little confidence coming on board. He goes, and
Speaker 1: you know, you know it's you know, they're doing a
Speaker 1: good job there. I said, I know. I said, but
Speaker 1: I think there's better. And I didn't say it is
Speaker 1: better here. I said, I think there's better, and I
Speaker 1: knew it better. Was is I just ate around the world? Right?
Speaker 1: It was something else, and so I knew that the
Speaker 1: food wasn't good. I just didn't have the hierarchical standing
Speaker 1: to say it. Very brazen and kind of stupid, but
Speaker 1: it worked. And he said I don't have anything. I said, Jeff,
Speaker 1: I'll take anything. I've saved up some money. I'll work
Speaker 1: for free until something opens and he goes, Okay, come tomorrow,
Speaker 1: just like that. Matter of fact, he's a smart businessman, right.
Speaker 1: I learned a very dear economic lesson from him. So
Speaker 1: I started working the next day and I was at
Speaker 1: the bottom of the Totem pole. But I was Atlas
Speaker 1: circ And I want to tell you, I did some
Speaker 1: research before, and I knew Sarah MACCIONI, I knew what
Speaker 1: they had. They had three Star New York Time, they
Speaker 1: had Alan Psiach, they had everyone who was everyone was
Speaker 1: eating in that restaurant. I mean, every president, every star Hollywood. No,
Speaker 1: you just canna go back and look, it's been open
Speaker 1: since the early seventies. And uh, I was around two
Speaker 1: that I landed there after I graduated from CIA. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Jeffrey, for those that don't know, this is a
Speaker 1: big name. Can you paint a picture of what it's
Speaker 1: like for a guest to just walk into that place
Speaker 1: and what their experience is like. Yeah, so it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like going on working for like Robert
Speaker 1: de Niro or Danielle Craig or it's a big deal.
Speaker 1: And it was the biggest deal there was, and you know,
Speaker 1: it was the place to go and back in the
Speaker 1: early eighties and the seventies. This twenty seven thousand restaurants
Speaker 1: in New York. They were like six or eight or
Speaker 1: ten maybe top restaurants in New York back then. That
Speaker 1: was it. I mean, there were restaurants, but they weren't
Speaker 1: great finding and it was all French and Italian, mostly French.
Speaker 1: Like we were just discovering French cuisine and we were
Speaker 1: copying and imitating and all that, but we were like
Speaker 1: getting into it. And it really went rapid once it
Speaker 1: got in this country, because you know, it was like
Speaker 1: all this information about food and then Gourmet magazine and
Speaker 1: then Julia Child and all this is like it was
Speaker 1: really coming up, and there was starting to be celebrities
Speaker 1: around like Emerald Legassi and Jonathan Waxman and you know,
Speaker 1: Alice Waters, and it was American food was growing. But
Speaker 1: we were babies. This is was the pinnacle of the
Speaker 1: best French restaurant in the country. And I was working
Speaker 1: here for free. But I looked left and I looked right,
Speaker 1: and the roster of who was there all turned out
Speaker 1: to be one and two in three star michil and
Speaker 1: chefs later on in their career and very successful American chef.
Speaker 1: So the mentorship is everything. I never would have been
Speaker 1: able to do what I'm doing today or been able
Speaker 1: to talk to you about what I'm doing today. If
Speaker 1: I didn't have that mentorship, I would be doing well,
Speaker 1: I'm sure because I was. I'm scrappy and I'm a
Speaker 1: hard worker. But in the level of entry I've been
Speaker 1: given to the cultural luxuries of life. It's incredible and
Speaker 1: it wouldn't have happened unless I had that Alan Psyak
Speaker 1: sort of like holding my hand. It's showing me how
Speaker 1: to do it in his own way, which wasn't gentle.
Speaker 1: By the way. It wasn't always was gentle sometimes, but
Speaker 1: it was not always gentle because gentle didn't work the
Speaker 1: Jeffrey if you could go back to those late seventies
Speaker 1: early eighties days, not as a young scrappy guy offering
Speaker 1: his labor for free, but as a diner, as a guest,
Speaker 1: as someone you know, excited to go eat at list cerc.
Speaker 1: What would you order off of that menu? Wow, it's
Speaker 1: same thing I ordered today. It's no different. It's kind
Speaker 1: of crazy. No one's asking me that question. It's kind
Speaker 1: of wild. I think it's a it's it's the Dover
Speaker 1: soul that's done table side. If I see it on
Speaker 1: the menu, I ordered. I just closed the menu. And
Speaker 1: if it's really expensive, I expected to be really good,
Speaker 1: because Dover Soul needs to be expensive because it's a
Speaker 1: flight from the Straits of Dover. When a fish goes
Speaker 1: on a plane, it's expensive. And I remember to this
Speaker 1: day how we made it over there, because I was
Speaker 1: one of the people that prepared some of the musing.
Speaker 1: Plus he was probably the largest seller of white truffles
Speaker 1: in the country Cereal. I mean he would get kilos
Speaker 1: and kilos and kilos of white truffles. I remember receiving them.
Speaker 1: And white truffles are this fungus. They're all wrapped in paper,
Speaker 1: coming a big box, and there's like three guys bringing
Speaker 1: them in. Each one is to three back then now
Speaker 1: there's seven eight And he would buy kilos of them.
Speaker 1: I mean literally, the bill was ten fifteen thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: This is in the early eighties. That's wholesale. So I
Speaker 1: would have some white truffles in any form that we offered.
Speaker 1: I would have the Dover soul and I would have
Speaker 1: a kramber Lay. They had a great wine cellar, so
Speaker 1: I probably have a nice bottle of Burgundy, which is
Speaker 1: not really a fish wine, but I love burgundy, or
Speaker 1: a white burgundy, and that would be my lunch at
Speaker 1: Las Yerk. And when I think of food, actually I
Speaker 1: think of like those kinds of dishes because they're so
Speaker 1: hard to do because they're so simple. Right, It's like,
Speaker 1: you can't be a bathing suit model unless you look
Speaker 1: really good without any clothes on, and then any bathing
Speaker 1: suit you put on works, right, So if you're if
Speaker 1: you're a Kmart model or a Walmart model, which there are,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter if it's a six dollar bathing suit
Speaker 1: because it looks great because you look great. Right. It's
Speaker 1: the same for food, so people don't understand that. It's
Speaker 1: like not about complicated sauces. Yeah, we made all that stuff,
Speaker 1: and we had a whole list of menus of very
Speaker 1: complicated stuff. But that stuff you could hide, so the
Speaker 1: veals a little over overdone. You just pull a bit
Speaker 1: more saw us and no one knows it's still delicious.
Speaker 1: You can't hide behind cooking and fish properly. You can't
Speaker 1: hide behind the perfect custard because it has to be
Speaker 1: right at the sweet spot of about twenty degrees internal
Speaker 1: and it has to rest. And then if you overcook it,
Speaker 1: it's garbage. You have to understand white truffles, how to
Speaker 1: shave it, how thin to shave it. How what do
Speaker 1: you do with the scraps, because the scraps are like
Speaker 1: gold dust. How to make butter out of truffles, how
Speaker 1: to store them with eggs, then make truffled eggs, make
Speaker 1: the pasta with the eggs yolks that you make, store
Speaker 1: the truffles because they in permeate through the so all
Speaker 1: that stuff for bowl of pasta. It's literally butter pasta
Speaker 1: and shaped white truffles. But it's not right the dover soul.
Speaker 1: It's perfect as to be perfectly clean, perfectly cooked. It
Speaker 1: has to be held at just the right temperature, has
Speaker 1: to be seared properly with just the right flour. And
Speaker 1: then the sauce is a brown by the little capers
Speaker 1: and lemon, not too much, not too little, and it
Speaker 1: has to be just a little bit on the on
Speaker 1: the top, and then put the rest on the side,
Speaker 1: because you want that customer experience that crust and how
Speaker 1: you fell with a spoon not with a knife at table.
Speaker 1: I can tell by watching it whether it's cooked properly
Speaker 1: or not, because it has to be ever so little resistance,
Speaker 1: and all that is years and years and years of perfecting.
Speaker 1: It's like all these levels of intricacies that look easy
Speaker 1: and seam easy. And you say, I want to I
Speaker 1: want a piece of fish. I want to grill a
Speaker 1: piece of ficiently. Well, that's it, that's what you want.
Speaker 1: You're a chef. Why would you eat something. It's just
Speaker 1: the opposite of that. It's the domain of It's like
Speaker 1: pure acting and a great script. You don't need much action.
Speaker 1: When you see a movie that's really sensational, it's all
Speaker 1: about the acting. Then it's about the script, but it's
Speaker 1: about that presentational acting that you believe that character because
Speaker 1: it's they're so in the character you don't see the
Speaker 1: actor anymore. So it's kind of the same thing. But
Speaker 1: I don't know what the question was, Christopher, What was
Speaker 1: the original question? You say you were just talking about,
Speaker 1: you know, soul, That's what I would order delicious. Yeah.
Speaker 1: As you moved on in your career, you you became
Speaker 1: the executive chef at the twenty one club, you worked
Speaker 1: at Maxwell's Plumb. These are all places in the eighties,
Speaker 1: anyone in New York would know. But I think it
Speaker 1: was around right, you have a major career accomplishment leading
Speaker 1: the forty four at the Royalton's right, yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think that you know, you gloss still or something very important,
Speaker 1: not probably not purposely, but you know, I came from
Speaker 1: this incredible love of theater, and I ended up working
Speaker 1: in my first real restaurant, being at Les circ was
Speaker 1: like the equivalent of like Hamlet, you know, so I'm
Speaker 1: like working in this and everything that I loved about
Speaker 1: what I discovered in France, that front, the back, the waiter,
Speaker 1: the owners, all that conviviality, that the sexiness of its
Speaker 1: It's Hollywood. It was all Cirk in his tiny room
Speaker 1: was it was all these senses like bombarding you. So
Speaker 1: then there was the food, so it was almost the
Speaker 1: same thing. I was lucky enough to recreate this and
Speaker 1: I landed there. It was so serendipity, right, I just
Speaker 1: I sometimes think about, I'm like, how the hell did
Speaker 1: I end up there? Of all places? But yes, I
Speaker 1: was very fortunate to work in a lot of wonderful places.
Speaker 1: At the twenty one Club, which if no one's been there,
Speaker 1: it's really it's too bad it's closed. I hope they
Speaker 1: reopened it. But it was one of the most iconic
Speaker 1: places in the United States. And the wine cellar and
Speaker 1: there's a secret wine celler that's incredible. And Maxwell Plums
Speaker 1: where I um, you know, the stomping ground of Drew
Speaker 1: near parront So a lot of memories there. And the
Speaker 1: gentleen named Jeffrey Chatero called me out of the blue
Speaker 1: and said where moment again a new restaurant with Ian
Speaker 1: Schreeger called forty four at the Royalton, and I'd like
Speaker 1: to you to be the executive chef. And I was
Speaker 1: like shocked because I you know, I knew Ian Schreeger
Speaker 1: infamous from opening Studio fifty four. Steve rebelled and he
Speaker 1: went to jail, tax evasion and all that stuff, and
Speaker 1: then he came out and he was given a blank
Speaker 1: check by a good friend of his to open restaurants.
Speaker 1: And everyone told me, you're crazy, mis Ian Schreegar. He's
Speaker 1: like a club guy. He's not gonna open find food
Speaker 1: and blah blah blah. I said, no, no no, it's something
Speaker 1: differently here. I really felt something interesting, And you know,
Speaker 1: Philip Stark designed something that was blue and white carpet
Speaker 1: with ghosts. I mean, it was literally the most stunning
Speaker 1: but out there, freaky looking place you've ever seen. And
Speaker 1: I I did food that I felt was what I
Speaker 1: wanted to eat, like yummy food, the same memory I
Speaker 1: just created. I just okay, what's my memories? What do
Speaker 1: I feel I want to have? And I did it,
Speaker 1: and uh, those same dishes I use all the time,
Speaker 1: and so there's no difference in the factor of what
Speaker 1: do the flavors I want to have come out? There's
Speaker 1: different ways of getting to those flavors and different techniques now,
Speaker 1: but some of those techniques are those dishes are exactly
Speaker 1: the same, maybe a few less ingredients. And then I
Speaker 1: had the privilege of working for Ian for almost ten years,
Speaker 1: and you know, he was a true visionary and he
Speaker 1: probably single handedly was one of the two or three
Speaker 1: people that created boutique hotels, and that's what that was.
Speaker 1: And so I was fortunate enough to get the nod
Speaker 1: to go there. I was very scary because he didn't
Speaker 1: want to sign. So there's no sign. The restaurant was
Speaker 1: in the back of the lobby. Said to walk a
Speaker 1: hundred Everything that I knew was wrong. There's nothing what
Speaker 1: I thought was right, but it was so striking an illusionary.
Speaker 1: It ended up being a smash success, Like a smash success.
Speaker 1: And you know, Ian hired all these models, male models,
Speaker 1: only to work the front door and all the positions. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: everybody looked good and they were now Monty outfits, but
Speaker 1: no one was really very good server or very good
Speaker 1: at what they were doing. So the place was mobbed
Speaker 1: all the time, but the service wasn't what it should be,
Speaker 1: you know, and I used to It was frustrating for
Speaker 1: me because I got great reviews in the food and
Speaker 1: and lousy reviews on service, and everyone was so nice.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can't yell at someone who's in a
Speaker 1: money suit and a big smile. He's doing his best,
Speaker 1: but he just doesn't, you know, It's just not what
Speaker 1: he was trained to do. He wants to be an actor,
Speaker 1: or most of wanted to be actors. And I remember
Speaker 1: sitting down with them one day. I said, guys, I
Speaker 1: know you want to be actors like I would love
Speaker 1: being acted too, But you're in a restaurant here, so
Speaker 1: for the time being, the eight hours you're here, let's
Speaker 1: try acting like waiters and So that was my mantra,
Speaker 1: You just act like a waiter, you don't have to
Speaker 1: really be that good, And it worked some, but I
Speaker 1: actually spent nine years there to like complete surprise, with
Speaker 1: two different owners. It was a very very very formative
Speaker 1: food wise, business wise, but most importantly social media wise,
Speaker 1: because that place was the bee hive of SI New
Speaker 1: House in New House publication. Well, tell me, tell me
Speaker 1: what it's like to look out at a sea of diners,
Speaker 1: these these full tables, and to say that's a really
Speaker 1: well known person. That person can change my career, that
Speaker 1: person can really push me in the right direction. Is
Speaker 1: that what you're thinking? Or are you? Are you the
Speaker 1: kind of chef who's back in the kitchen and just
Speaker 1: just putting out the best food you can. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: had note, I got the glamour, and I guy knew
Speaker 1: who they were. You know, it was not one table
Speaker 1: every table, As a matter of fact, we had it.
Speaker 1: We had three sections of tables, section one, two, and three.
Speaker 1: And the further away you got from section three three
Speaker 1: was the okay seats two of the very good seats.
Speaker 1: One was it. And I saw people go from section
Speaker 1: three in a year or two they're in section two,
Speaker 1: and another year or two they're in section one. And
Speaker 1: then there was a hierarchy. In section one. There was
Speaker 1: this booth, the second booth, the third booth, the fourth booth.
Speaker 1: So I watched people go from the fourth booth to
Speaker 1: the first booth. So it's just this train of progression
Speaker 1: in this hierarchical magistrate of Conde Nast and all the
Speaker 1: publishing houses in New York City, the biggest ones. And
Speaker 1: I was fantastic to watch that dance. So you answer
Speaker 1: as no, I just cooked the best food, had great staff,
Speaker 1: The food was great. I love what I was doing.
Speaker 1: And there was a little gym upstairs, so I go
Speaker 1: up at three o'clock workout, and who was working out
Speaker 1: next to me mostly all the time was Madonna because
Speaker 1: that's what she had a trainer. It was a bizarre time.
Speaker 1: But those people in those seats never reviewed me. Those
Speaker 1: weren't the reviewers. Those were the Italian Vogue, French Vogue,
Speaker 1: g Q, Town and Country. I mean every publisher, everything
Speaker 1: that new house owned, which back then was everything, and
Speaker 1: it stayed that way for almost ten years. It was
Speaker 1: a big, big deal. And so you know, Grating Carter,
Speaker 1: who was the you know when a Vanity Fair. Now
Speaker 1: he's at airmil He started as an editor at Lichfield
Speaker 1: Times in Connecticut, and he came to New York and
Speaker 1: get promoted, and he went to various magazines and then
Speaker 1: finally he was made Vanity Fair ahead of Vanity Fair,
Speaker 1: and he went up those the seeding arrangement and we
Speaker 1: did a party for him a lot in his house.
Speaker 1: He hired us all the time when school, they would
Speaker 1: bring a bartender a bar back. It was delightful to
Speaker 1: us and we had a great time. And one time,
Speaker 1: we know, he brought this bar back. He was just
Speaker 1: probably nineteen twenty. He's a very sort of he looked
Speaker 1: like a young Hugh Grant, Okay, flipped hair, thin, very
Speaker 1: you know, very together, one of those kids that you
Speaker 1: could tell you want to be an actor too. Well.
Speaker 1: He brought him his drinks and Graydon liked this guy
Speaker 1: and he mentioned it. He ended up like him so
Speaker 1: much he made him one of his assistants. He then
Speaker 1: rose in the ranks of Vanity Fair to be one
Speaker 1: of the executive editors right under Graydon Carter, and he
Speaker 1: was in line for his job when he left. And
Speaker 1: this was a guy, he was a bar back. So
Speaker 1: you just you see that and you're like, and when
Speaker 1: we tell him we joke with him, it's like we
Speaker 1: like used to ordering him around and now he's this
Speaker 1: big shot. So whenever we saw him, it was like
Speaker 1: a you know, as an inside choke. But this is
Speaker 1: a type of environment during that those years and the
Speaker 1: eighties and nineties. It was shocking all this promotion and
Speaker 1: all the things that were happening, and things were just
Speaker 1: like going nuts back then, and really New York was
Speaker 1: kind of at its best and had some rough years,
Speaker 1: but it really was an amazing place to be. So
Speaker 1: that's the networking was way before the internet, way before
Speaker 1: social media. None of that was all done at a
Speaker 1: restaurant with a martini and it was meeting. It was
Speaker 1: a meeting, and I mean it was that you know,
Speaker 1: the three martini lunch was very much alive, but you know,
Speaker 1: you didn't have that texting and all came about so
Speaker 1: much later. And that's something Jeffrey that I think you've
Speaker 1: carried through your career, that idea of a restaurant as
Speaker 1: a social not even a destination, but an institution. Right,
Speaker 1: it's a if you look at restaurants you opened later
Speaker 1: in the two thousands, places like Town or Country, the
Speaker 1: Tutor House, the Lambs Club. Right, these are all really
Speaker 1: great spaces that you would want to hang out in,
Speaker 1: you would want to spend time in, even if there
Speaker 1: wasn't any amazing food, even if the kitchens were only subpart.
Speaker 1: But they weren't, right, They were really really solid places
Speaker 1: serving green food. No, no, we did. We were very fortunate.
Speaker 1: Like you know, I believe there's a streak there, and
Speaker 1: I don't really believe in awarding stars to restaurants. I
Speaker 1: believe in writing a review. But we've got three stars.
Speaker 1: I think three or four restaurants in a row, which
Speaker 1: is real is unheard of. The only person I really
Speaker 1: surpassed that was Alfred Portali, so it was something to
Speaker 1: strive for. But you're right, I would never open a
Speaker 1: restaurant unless I love the environment. It was cool and
Speaker 1: had to feel convivial, and I thought it was sixty
Speaker 1: forty environment to food. Now I think it's seventy. And
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean that thirty isn't Still. Part of what
Speaker 1: it means is you can have the greatest chef in
Speaker 1: the world with the greatest financer who can spend the
Speaker 1: most money, the best china, the best silver ware, all that.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. Anybody can get that. Anybody can
Speaker 1: go to Brooklyn, open a little restaurant and buy the
Speaker 1: best china, the best It doesn't mean anything. It's meaning less.
Speaker 1: What is meaningful is when that person walks in and like, Wow,
Speaker 1: this is what you know. It's that psychgeist. What is it? Well,
Speaker 1: what it is? It's very hard to do and recreate
Speaker 1: what it is isn't just one plus one is two.
Speaker 1: It's like, it's the music, it's the feeling, it's the wow,
Speaker 1: it's the flow, it's the lighting, it's all that stuff
Speaker 1: I mentioned to you that you love. And if you
Speaker 1: sit and you get great treatment and you're sitting down
Speaker 1: and the food is a B minus, that restaurants in
Speaker 1: a minus. Thanks very much for listening to Four Courses
Speaker 1: with Jefferys Carian, a production of I Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: Corner Table Entertainment. Four Courses is created by Jeffrey z Carrion,
Speaker 1: Margaret Zecarrion, Jared Keller, and Tara Helper. Our executive producer
Speaker 1: is Christopher Hasiotis. Four Courses is produced by Jonathan Habes Dressler.
Speaker 1: Our research is conducted by Jesselyn Shields. Our talent booking
Speaker 1: is by Pamela Bauer at Dogtown Talent. This episode was
Speaker 1: edited and written by Priya Mahadevan. Special thanks to Katie
Speaker 1: Fellman for help as recording engineer. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.