Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Arnold, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you alive from the heart of Manhattan and Rockefeller Center, New Stan Studios. Joined as usual with uh John behind me. How you doing? Doing great, thanks.
Yeah, everything good? Yeah, everything's great. Oh, nice. Got uh Joe Hazen rocking the panels. What's up?
Hey man, how are you doing? Doing all right, I guess. It's fine. You look good. Huh?
Sweaty. You like that? You like that sweaty look? All right. Uh I think on telephone, we've got uh Nastasi the Hammer Lopez.
How you doing, Staz? Good. Yeah? Yeah, nice. Uh how's uh how's the great state of Connecticut?
Fine. Great, uh what is it? Best small state best state, isn't that the motto? It's not really nutmeg, no one says that. Like on all if you go to a bookstore in Connecticut and they have a section on Connecticut, which they should, otherwise, why are you shopping there?
Right? It says small state best state. You know what I'm talking about, John? No. Oh, come on, dudes.
Thought you were my thought you were my Connecticut man behind. I love Connecticut, but I've never heard that. We got uh Quinn up there in uh Vancouver Island. Yep. Nice nice.
And do we have uh uh Mr. Molecules back? Yes, sir, I'm here. Jack, how you doing? I'm good.
I'm good. Yeah? All right. A little depressed, uh depressed overhearing your pre-show chat, but uh yeah. Oh, we were talking before the air with uh and as as uh you know as we do now, we'll introduce our special uh guest today is Mark Forgion, Fino, well-known uh chef of zillions of restaurants, a new hospitality group he's gonna be talking about.
Uh was the youngest iron chef, I think. Was that right? Is that does that still have meaning? Youngest iron chef? I mean, I guess I'm definitely not the youngest anymore, but I was 13 years ago.
Yeah, and if if you it turns out if you don't die, you're not the youngest of anything anymore. You know what I mean? Which is good. You don't want to be, you know, you want to uh stay alive. All right.
So uh so we were talking about before uh we were on the air is that uh you know how robots are gonna take over everything, and it's only gonna be like the small group of people who actually care, right? In other words, there's okay. Do you use the term shoemaker in terms of like a chef who doesn't really care, just showing up clocking their clocking their their job and getting out, but doesn't really have a passion for it. They're not bad with that. I call those nine to fivers.
Nine to fivers. So we used to at the at the FCI, the term everyone used to use is shoemaker, they're shoemaker, which is freaking weird because you know what? Making shoes, not it's a craft. It's a cra it's a freaking great craft. I mean, like a person who's good at making shoes, like that's the thing.
I don't know why we're insulting shoemakers, but it's like shoemaker. But in other words, like there's not gonna be that much room, you know, 20 years from now for the shoemaker. You know what I mean? Yeah, or the or the nine to fiver. I don't think we have a long enough uh session to go to get into all that, but you know, as we were saying before, it's it's just a little scary, but yeah, you know, that's why uh you know, I try to give advice to people all the time, like just you know, instead of joining, like try to try to carve your own path.
Right. Well, is it that we're all gonna be, in other words, like are we all gonna end up like wally where we're in like massage chairs all the time hooked up to like a virtual nightmare? Like with like stuff being pumped into us, or in which case we don't need to make money because it's all virtual, it doesn't matter. Or, right, are we gonna are we gonna all become rich because we can produce so much, or are we all gonna become poor because no one needs us anymore? Who knows?
Hey, so we weren't supposed to talk about that on air, but that's what we were talking about beforehand, and Jack was like, uh depressing. Is that pretty accurate, Jack? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. All right.
Uh all right. So uh now's the time on the show where we uh shoot the breeze over uh any interesting uh food experiences or whatnot that we've had over the past week. And for Jack, two weeks because you wouldn't hear anyone got anything uh anyone got anything good? Uh nothing on my end. Yeah, two weeks you haven't eaten one good thing.
You haven't made one good thing, you haven't eaten one good thing. No, no. So yeah, so uh well, I don't know. So Mark here, who you know is has like what now? How many restaurants you work in?
You're opening another one, reopening another one right now. He has an interesting food story related to the restaurant or unrelated to the restaurant. A little bit of both. All right, what do you got? What do you got?
Um, so um, you know, my family from from Italy, the uh the Italian side, we're from the the south, you know, a little just above the boot. Um and the way that we do ragu, I don't know if anybody on here is Italian, but um we do we do like a Sunday Sunday sauce. Um but one of the the kind of interesting things about the southern style is that you take the meat out of the sauce and you kind of keep it warm somewhere else. And you know, I had everything from um, you know, we had a a tongue in there, you know, beef shank, um, you know, pork copa, um, a whole bunch of different things. Like basically what everybody in the pot.
But then the cool part about it is you puree all the vegetables and the sauce and the fat, which is the best part because it emulsifies, and then you put that on pasta before you eat the meat. And every time I introduce this to somebody, they're like, you know, the it blows their mind that that you can like, you know, take something like this simple, and then after you eat this bowl of pasta, then you eat all the breezed meat with like salsa verde and pickled peppers and and um we're gonna initiate that at um at one fifth in a couple of weeks. So I figured I'd practice at home on Sunday. Oh, that's real that's that's super old school. Like that's uh is they do that in Italy because that's the way my stepfather's family always did it in Boston like the Boston Italians like that was the way.
But for you know there we were always it was always the same. It was always uh sausage with the fennel, pork chop, brajole meatballs. You know what I mean? Like we didn't have all the other fancy stuff in it like you know it's funny the stuff I just mentioned is the peasant stuff. What what do you say, Quinn?
That's where my family does it too. Oh yeah that my grandparents are from uh Calabria. Yep, Southern yeah and they call it gravy, not freaking sauce in Boston, right? And it's macaroni and gravy with and then the meat come out comes out separately. But there's something really nice about stodging it in not mean you know in in stages because it implies an arc to a dinner that is kind of there that just belongs.
You know what I mean? But how does it in a restaurant is that work in a restaurant setting to I guess it does if they're gonna be forced to have a tasting anyway. Or if they're doing it family style. Like what's what's the presentation going to be what do you think is going to work? We're about to find out we haven't done it before or yet um but the idea is you know we're gonna charge like a a prefix but you know in included in that prefix it'd be a Sunday night thing you know um you know you get the the two courses so you're not just like buying the Sunday gravy like on a and you get an individual bowl.
Like the idea will be like you know say it's four people you guys all order the Sunday sauce, and then everybody'll get their pasta first, and then we'll just put all the meat in a giant pot in the middle, and then everybody can kind of just pick at it and have fun. And you're kind of trying to bring like the Sunday sauce that in Boston that you you used to have, you know, into a restaurant setting. Yeah. Yeah. I kinda yeah, I haven't had that style in years because they're all dead.
Yeah. Like everyone, everyone that I used that used to make that uh for me in Boston is dead. So it's uh yeah, so it's like uh it's weird. It would be it would be interesting to have it again. Like I I've had that happen a couple of times.
So my stepfather's father who in Boston, he was a butcher, and his specialty was uh lamb. And so when I was a kid, he would get the baby lamb, you know, the unweaned like lamb. Uh, because he used to slaughter all of his own lamb. And that's why he got out of the business, actually. He's like, they're not gonna let me slaughter anymore in the city, so F it, I'm out.
You know what I mean? And uh I remember the first time someone served me baby lamb at a restaurant, and I almost cried. I was like, oh my god, baby lamb. I know that people probably are horrified, baby lamb it's delicious. Of course, at Easter time?
I cooked one last Easter. Really? Are you gonna do one this year or no? No, my my in-laws don't like lamb. Oh.
What about goat? They don't like goat, that's for sure. So they I got them a tenderloin and I ordered a little bit of lamb for me. Yeah. But I mean, it doesn't take that many.
I mean, baby lamb weighs what? Like I remember once I got one for him when he was like in his 90s, and I told him to wait, and I forget what it was. It was like 14, 15. Yeah, I was about to say probably 15 pounds. He's like, Oh, that's real.
That's not the garbage one. I was like, Yeah, dude. I mean, I'm not gonna buy you garbage. You're 90. This is your last time, maybe you're gonna ever have it.
You know what I mean? So, like, anyway. Uh old school, delicious. Um, all right, what about you, Stas? You got any food, any food stuff going on?
No. No. All right. What about you, Quinn? Quinn?
You always have a good uh some sort of good food taster that you've been working on. Uh actually, I I I didn't do much, but something that I found out at the grocery store that was very unusual. Fresh fenugreek. Huh. With just at the supermarket.
So I made like a you know, basic sort of pesto, get a pasta with like a little sh uh barona on top. It's pretty good. The leaves or the seeds. The leaves. Oh, yeah.
Yeah, like I'm pretty sure. Yeah, I only have the seeds. You know, I think I've said it before, fenugreek is that spice that I really like, and I never cook with it. Me neither. I have it, but like whenever I smell it, I'm like, oh, fenigree, yeah.
Like it's like, oh, you know, it's got that mapley smell from Sotalone. And I'm like, ooh, yeah. And then I I I have it at home, but I never like eh. It's got dust in the in the in the spice cabinet, probably. Yeah, yeah.
Well, I mean, yeah, I have my stuff well sealed. Mark, I'm telling my stuff well sealed. But, you know, in fact, I just went through, so like uh my uh I don't know if I talked about this. My wife, here's a here's a food thing I haven't talked about. My uh I have like at any one time, you know, a couple hundred pounds of grain in the house and beans, you know, all the stuff.
Beans, grains, rice, all that crap. A couple hundred pounds. And uh it was in bags. You know what I mean? Because I don't have like a garage, so I can't like put things into like five gallon drums and store them somewhere.
And so they were in bag and they were rolling around and like I'm I'm always petrified because it's happened, it's happen I've never had it spread through my entire pantry, but I've had bugs come in on stuff and then get into like one bag, but I've never had a transfer. And the bags were flopping all over the place, and so you're looking for a particular thing. So I bought all half gallon mason jars and I uh a thing that hooks my vacuum sealer up to the mason jar thing and a vacuum like uh my entire kitchen now is just like perfect mason jars labeled with all the stuff in it, and it takes um I forget how many pounds fit in each mason jar. It's like three or something like two, three pounds of uh three pounds of uh, you know, wheat fitting in, and so that's uh it's it's perfect now. Yeah, my wife would get literally get turned on by that.
Yeah, it's amazing. Well, my wife was like, I went from hating the kitchen. She also made me take all the liquor, which was all like kind of in the open place and put it back in the pantry where all these bags used to be. She's like, I don't want to see all these like half empty liquor bottles around. I'm like, all right, I don't care.
Drink them. Yeah. But anyway, so that's something, you know. Um, oh, here's something else. So uh I had to buy cake flour because my birthday last week.
And uh, so my son Booker, he likes to make the milk bar, you know, cake, which everybody loves that thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, he likes to make it so like the the way it's made, if in case, you know, I don't know, you live under a rock, you've never seen this cake, is she bakes a sheet cake, then like a thin sheet cake, like on a on a like a sheet pan, right? Not like a thick sheet cake, and then cuts out discs, and then chums up one because there's not enough left over because she doesn't want to waste anything, and then puts the icing and then makes cake crumbles and smashes it all together inside of an acetate ring, inside of a cake ring, and then sets it in the freezer overnight, pulls it out, and there you go, six inch cake, 60 bucks. Whatever it is.
You know what I mean? So, like there it is. So he he makes it, and of course, totals totals the kitchen, obliterates the kitchen. Like I could have made the cake a thousand times faster than it took to clean the kitchen after he was done with it because I don't know, whatever. He's autistic, whatever, it doesn't matter.
But he makes the cake. But he he makes me buy cake flour because of course he's not gonna shell out of his own pock. He's not gonna reach into his own pocket, even though he's 21 to buy his dad cake flour. Of course not. No.
So I go and I buy the swans down cake flour, which I buy, and for the first time ever I read the side of it. You know what it says on the side of it? Big lie. This is my thing. They say that it's 27 times times finer than AP flour.
That's garbage. That's just a load of horse hockey. That's just garbage. That's just not possible. You'd have to ask my pastry chef for that one.
Well, so like I didn't have time this morning because I just discovered this, like, you know, pretty recently. I was gonna do it. I I have a microscope at home. I'm just gonna freaking do it. I'm gonna look at it.
And, you know, I'm not one of these like, you know, I'm not gonna be like, we need a class action lawsuit. I need my three dollars back. You know what I mean? But like, come on, man. We should find a s Sieve that is 27 times finer than the next one, and then dump the flowers into him side by side and see what see what comes through.
Well, so they claim it's like, you know, three times smaller on a side, but then you know what uh someone on my Twitter put it in and was like, hey, they measured this back in 1933, and I don't think they've updated their copy. You know what I mean? So it's like maybe it was true in 1933, but it's just not true. And also, who gives a crap? Yeah, right?
I mean How's the cake come up? Good. There you go. Yeah, and I have to say, you know, she does that cake crumble, like which is like, you know, like a like a scruzzle top, but like, you know, with with uh what's it called? Uh what are those things?
Sprinkles. And uh confetti. Yeah, yeah. And uh he overdid it and they went brown better. Interesting.
Yeah, it gets took on that. Sometimes mistakes turn into the best ideas. Yeah, took on that brown uh that brown butter stuff, you know. Anyway. Uh what about what about you, John?
Anything anything in your restaurant world? No. Yeah, you fixed all the leaks in your ceiling. Finally, yeah. You don't have a watertight kitchen.
Yeah. Well, aren't you feeling it? So at least we'll see until it happens again. Where was the leak? Like, what was it leaking on to?
Because to me, that's always the most fun. And what was the source of the leak? Was it rainwater? No. Oh no.
It was over every inch of dish pit. So get anything clean. No, man. Shut everything down. It was.
Yeah, it was a lot of fun. Great. New York. New York. Yeah, I mean, like, you know, it's like uh you're always dealing with some other jerks thing here in this city.
You know what I mean? Like just age. I mean, everything in New York is old. Yeah. You know what I mean?
But even dealing with the vendors every week, like my linen company's been shorting me, and it's just like I think they do that on purpose. Yeah. I mean asked. Is it would it be cheaper to just I know that I don't know anyone that does it. Would it be cheaper just to get like a home washer dryer?
No? Not anymore. You had to pay somebody $20 an hour to do it. And used to be. Yeah.
I don't know. I feel like linen's is one of those things where we had a guy, I don't even know his name. We just called him Mopy. Because he was always so mopey. And then he would show up, but he would always get the billing wrong.
So we wouldn't pay for like three months. We wouldn't know what's happening. All of a sudden we would get three months of bills, and then we're like, what the hell's happening here? And I was a linen's always a nightmare. You know?
How harsh are you with your cooks on the number of towels they use? Uh I hate to say I used to be, but I'm not anymore, but I used to be and I'm not anymore. Yeah? Yeah. Well how I don't even remember.
How much is it? How much does it cost to have one of those things uh swapped out? I uh I hate to admit it. Uh uh, you know, I haven't looked at a a linen bill since I stopped like day to day on my own. It's all the same.
You know what I mean? Like, and at the end of the day, it's like you you could shop at the 10 different companies. They're all you know. Yeah, I feel like there's like it's just like five like we'll call it ten years ago, you know, like I would say you know, each cook got five towels. Five towels a shift.
That was it. Couldn't get any more. Don't you know, don't mess it up. Now it's just you know, they're everywhere. Twenty-three cents a kitchen towel is one of the quotes I have in my email.
What is that? 23 cents a table. Twenty three cents. 23 cents. Yeah.
I don't know. I don't know. The whole thing's uh I don't know. In France you get one. What the hell are you gonna do with one?
I swear to God, you get one towel. It's a big towel, but you get one. You get one towel and complimentary food poison. Yeah, you keep it keep it. You keep it tied to your uh to your apron.
Yeah, well, are you are you make everyone do the old school so that they can read for the paper? No, I don't. I tried it when I got back from France, and like there's a lot of things that in Europe that don't work in America, trust me. Yeah, I'm sure. Like, you know, like uh I remember well in your own butchering.
Nope. Well, so you uh, you know, you said that like uh I guess you went to France, you had already been when you did your your stages in France, you'd already been a sous chef here, right? You'd already started working for Laurent Torandell, but then Yeah, I I felt like I I got a little too promoted too early for where I was, and I was I was young. Um I think I was you know, I was like I was like, you know, one of those guys where you know I was the first one in, last one out. I'm not like bragging, I'm just painting a picture.
I think when chefs see that, you know, they're they're eager to keep them around. So, you know, like ah, maybe make him the AM sous chef. And like, you know, once you become a sous-chef, you can't like go back. It's like you're the next place you go, you're the sous chef again. You know what I mean?
And I just I kind of wanted to like, I don't know, learn a little more, or you know what I mean? I just felt like, and I also too, like, here being Larry Fo Jun's son, it was like, especially in New York, like it was just, you know, some chefs. It was like I never had a moment where I wasn't Larry Fo Jun's kid, like every day. You know what I mean? It was just no matter what.
That's probably good and bad. It's good and bad. If you did, I was just about to say, if you did something good, they'd be like, ah, your father must have shot you that. If you did something bad, like, oh, what'd your dad tell you that? Like, you know what I mean?
It was just like it never stopped. Still, still not really to this day, but I'm okay with it now. Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, it's been a long, long time. Yeah, but you add in like all those factors, and I was like, you know, I just I want to go somewhere where, you know, they don't care if I was a sous chef at my last job, they don't care that I'm Larry Fo Jones' kid, da da da. So also there it's more of a culture of like family lines of of chefs, right?
So it's not like Yeah, it's not a you know, a big deal there. You can come from a line of well-known chefs and still have to stand on your own there. Yes. Well, it's funny, speaking of my dad. My my my father worked at um the Connaud Hotel, and believe it or not, his comey was um one of the Toigros sons.
No, come on. And my dad says that this kid, it was it was Claude, who's now like the biggest chef in Brazil. But he said that Claude, the the amount of um, you know, the shit, sorry, S H I T that he had to deal with was like it made my dad feel bad. Like he was like, look, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna push it. Like no matter what Claude did, it was just like, you know, ah, the son of famous Tois Group.
So, like, you know, um, you know, they get it too there. But but again, I just wanted to go somewhere to like I hate to say start from scratch, but like, you know, I just wanted to like go and like get my butt kicked. Well, you didn't even speak the language. I didn't. Um, took like four or five months to get the language.
Um, and again, just to paint a picture, there you know, there was no TV, I didn't have a laptop. This was before phones, iPhones. Um, if I wanted to call my family, I went to the payphone in town. Um, so it was literally just like total immersion of the good news is you don't have to call your family that often. People don't think about this, they're like, Oh, you couldn't call your family.
And like the good news is you didn't have to call your family that often. I mean, yeah, man. I mean, it was it was total isolation, um, especially for the first three or four months. Um and so this was uh Michel Garard's place, right? Or however you're supposed to pronounce it, enfoncé.
Hey, again, John, Francophile. Michel Gerard. There you go. That's perfect. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's why that's that's the reason he's always here. Is in case we have a French word, you can just bust it out. Uh you know, it's three-star Michelin. It was in the middle, uh absolute middle of nowhere. You know, again, I wanted to do the antithesis of New York, and it was an hour drive in any direction, and you didn't hit another city.
I mean, it was nothing there. Like people who ate there stayed at the the hotel, which is also a five-star world-renowned spa. Um, and you know, it was it was exactly what I I think I needed and wanted, and then you know, I don't think I'd be sitting across from you right now if I hadn't taken that year and a half. Was he still doing uh I guess I mean uh at what point was cuisine mansour at that point, or however it's pronounced? Uh so when you stay there, again, there's there's no choices, like you can't eat anywhere else.
So when you stay there, there's three different restaurants to eat at. There's the the cuisine gourmand, which is like the three star. Then there was cuisine mention, which was like the we'll call it the spa cuisine, and then there was this restaurant which really kind of struck me the most was the La Fermogrieve, which was very similar to peasant, which I know we'll get into. Um, you know, you walked into this restaurant and it was very like rustic and French and farm. There was a pig always roasting on the rotisserie, and um, you know, everybody started their meal with a mason jar of foie graterine and you know, homemade crusty bread.
Like it was so not the same as the spa, was he? No, no. But it like you have to see it to believe it, but like it it actually looks like peasant, which you know, kind of full circle in life. You know, sometimes universe works that way. But is that where you spent most of your time in in the in the that one?
No, I uh I never really got to work there. I used to I used to ask if I could hang out in there like on my day off or days off or whatever. Um, but I never got to fully work there. I I did mention first and then gourmand, and um I I really hit it off with the the Poissonnier at in Logala Gourmand. So like I just basically was his call me essentially the whole time.
So how did it work if you were there and staying there? Did everyone like try to have the spa thing, which he's famous for, by the way. I mean, famous for this. Yeah, yeah. Then then the next day they go to the get the four grand pig, right?
I mean, like I don't know. I I didn't follow the guests around. I don't even think I ever saw the guest, to be honest with you. Um I don't I don't know exactly how that all kind of worked out, but yeah, he's still kicking, right? He's like 90 years old.
I mean, when I was there, he was in his 70s and he worked if he wasn't traveling, he worked every service at La Gourmand. He's like this tall too. Uh huh. Wait, we started out at like six foot one and then just keeps getting shorter every year, is what happened? He's he was a little guy, but I'm telling you to this day, I've never been in a room where everyone, you know, stands at attention when he walked in.
I mean, everyone. Didn't matter who you were, didn't matter what position you were. Like he walked in and you know, he would walk through and taste your stuff. I mean, the the intensity every day at at 5 30 or 6 o'clock, I can't remember. And it was every day.
You know, tasted the sauce, you looked at your mise en plus. I mean, it was wild. All right. So let's uh do our little bookkeeping here. So if you have any questions for marketing listening live on Patreon, call in to 917-410-1507.
That's 917-410-1507. And uh, how do they join the Patreon there, John? Patreon.com slash cooking issues. We've got a bunch of different membership levels. You get cool things at every level.
You can get the video feed at all levels, you get a uh discount to books at Kitchen Arts and Letters, you know, from guests that we have on that have books that can be sold. Um yeah, prioritize questions getting answered, access to the Discord and all these really great things. So you should join uh Patreon.com slash cooking issues. And if I can make a quick plug, Dave of the Playboy. Plugity plug, plug it, plug ity, plug ity.
Uh, one of my friends, uh, for those of you who are in New York City is organizing a sort of leadership event with uh Ari Weinswig from uh my god, what's the Zingerman's in uh in Ann Arbor, Michigan? It's gonna be a really great event. I am trying my best to go. It's gonna be at Alcoro, so there should be some great food too. Um reach out to me on Instagram.
Just trying, not gonna make it, just trying. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's a it's hard to take time off. It's true. Feel really guilty whenever I do, but whatever, that's a separate issue.
All right. Um, but yeah, reach out to me on Instagram, Nee Hole J. Yeah, thank you. Yep. Uh all right.
So you mentioned your dad. For those of you, I don't know, that don't know, uh, your dad's Larry Forgeon, who's like in the So I've said this a lot to people who have asked me, which isn't that much actually. So I haven't said it a lot because no one asked me. But it's like I think that there was in America a huge kind of shift in the 90s where into the early 2000s where people really started focusing on American food as American food and like as like a real important cuisine and we had our own voice as opposed to just mimicking what's going on in France or looking at what's going on in France. And then I had to remember when you were coming on looking as I was like, oh my God, but l your dad was doing this since the eighties.
You know what I mean? Like American Place opens in 83. Yeah. So he's like way early in the whole like America's a real place for food. Yeah, there's movement.
There's a picture that I have hanging in in Forge where you know he's wearing the token, the whole thing. But uh it's 1979, standing outside the River Cafe with American asparagus, morels, artichokes, like all in a basket. Um and that had never been done on the East Coast up until that point. And that's in the 70s, if you were thinking about it. Right, and he was cooking.
He was cooking with country ham, putting with eggs, like American, not just American ingredients, but also like some American American flavors, American ideas. It started as French cuisine with American ingredients, and then it kind of evolved into a lot of history reading books, and then it turned into, you know, him uh taking dishes from the eighteen hundreds or you know, the early nineteen hundreds of American dishes, you know. Right. So I don't I mean this is an aspect of American kind of restaurant culture that I I just don't feel gets enough play in where we became our own culinary force and really what you know like uh he's do he's doing he's doing that very early in it so I like I think this is uh well John you're as you're a student of uh history we I can used to worked at MoFAD do you think people like think about this kind of switch in American restaurant culture enough or no? No I wish they did.
Not anymore. I think I I think in 1990, right, if you had asked chefs, American young cooks, chefs, you know, they would kind of understand who and what was happening this like revolution. But now you know I agree like 2023 if you asked you know somebody like who are the most important American chefs of all time and I'm not making fun of these people I'm just saying this is who they'd probably say you know uh Bobby Flay uh you know Guy Fieri and uh you know where I'm going with this like it's just you know that the you know the the kind of the forefathers or the Mount Rushmore you know of the Alice Waters the Larry Four Jones the you know Dean Farring Paul Perdome like you know all the all the Bradley Ogden all these guys you know um sad to say but like anything they're just kind of getting you know washed away aged out or washed out or none of those people that I just named are ever on TV. Right. Well you know I this what's so because restaurant cooking is so youth oriented, uh, or can be youth oriented.
I feel like, and this bar is probably even worse, is that there is a lack of knowledge. So I remember I remember like, you know, all of my buddies in the early 2000s, they were like, none of these cooks know who none of my cooks know who, like, you know, you know, name name a name a French, you know, name a famous French. Yeah, yeah. All these guys, yeah, yeah. I mean, Robochon was still working here in New York, so they kind of knew because they're like, Yeah, I'll tell you, yeah, but like you know what I mean, but they they didn't know kind of the history that to the people who are even my age, right?
Like the Changs, the Wileys, like those guys, like them, that was still real history, but to the people who were 10 years younger than them, it was kind of gone. Yep. And so I had why I did a guest thing with Wiley. He did a uh this playing with fire series that we do at at Peasant. Uh half of my cooks didn't know who Wiley was.
I mean, I couldn't believe it. How do you not know who Wiley Defrayne is? The the institutional the institutional memory, and it's like so people who aren't on TV or don't have like uh, you know, the books or the you know it's just bizarre. Yep. And like uh it's very easy to trace histories, right?
If you take the time. But I just don't I feel like uh I don't know, maybe people just don't care about the history anymore. Yeah. I don't know. I w we did it um we haven't done it in a while, but we used to do these um like every week or maybe every month, you know, we'd we'd like pick one of those chefs, you know, and like we'd talk about them, whether it was not every day, but you know, maybe at like three or four different pre-shifts where we would just bring up, you know, uh a little history lesson that you could do in ten minutes.
I mean, it wasn't like, you know, we gave them a test or anything, but it was more just to like acknowledge because you know that's where I came from, that's where I grew up in. Yeah. And I and I know that I'm kind of lucky in that sense. So it's easy for me to say like, oh that nobody pays attention. Like I literally grew up with those people.
I mean going to the Brockfell Center event, it was all those people that I just named at the City of Meals on Wheels. Um so you know they're all very familiar to me and I have so much respect for it and so much respect for how hard they had to work and how hard they had to work to source those ingredients. I mean it it it it you you try to explain it I even to me I mean they used to have to have a car that would drive to the airport two or three times a day to pick up ingredients because it wasn't like now where I get you know from Tivoli mushroom company I'm not making fun of it. It's like but now it's I just press whatever I want into a phone and I have my mushrooms there the next day sourcing this guy were on the phones with a guy named you know Justin that was going out into the woods and picking whatever he could and then driving that to the airport and then the chefs would drive in the c I mean Yeah yeah different and still doing 150 covers a day. Yeah.
Yeah. Like try to wrap your head around that. It's like I think you know now that now that I'm thinking about it, talking about it, I think maybe one of the reasons uh I mean I back in the in the 2000s this wasn't the reason that people weren't paying attention to the history. I think that was just different because they were focused on like all the stuff that was coming out on YouTube. But there's also the phenomenon where I think because so many different people aren't represented in kind of the canonical history that they just want to be like, uh I'm not part of that, so I don't really want to learn it.
And I think that that's valid, but I think, you know, eventually when more people are part of the history, maybe people will want history again you know what I mean? I again I hate to sound like old man River here, but like I don't know about you, but like, you know, I used to come home from work and I would like read a cookbook. Yeah. Yeah. I you know what I mean.
Like now, never mind when they get home from work, that they're on the subway already on YouTube watching uh they don't know, somebody ride a donkey into the ocean off a cliff and do a backflip. You know what I mean? Because it got a million likes. You know what I mean? Like that video exists because that's what I'm gonna do right after.
But you know what I mean? Like it's just I love donkeys, it's just different, you know. Like, you know, I used to go to whatever name was Bonnie Slotnik's bookstore on my day on. You know what? We only went, John and I, for the first time only like three years ago went after so embarrassed.
Three months. Yeah, but I used to I used to sit at Barnes and Noble on the floor for three, four hours. I couldn't afford to buy a book. Listen, I think it's good and bad because uh I think it's I think it's good and bad. The the people it was so hard to get information.
It was so hard. Information was like gold. Like, even up until the 2000s, right? You could not get the information. So like I wanted to learn how to run a rotary evaporator.
There was nothing. There was no websites, there was no nothing. Nothing, right? So you called Wiley. Yeah, yeah.
Well, well, I taught no, I I I was the guy that brought anyway, so like, but like, you know, so we're working on stuff, and now that information is available in a way that allows people to grow so much faster. I think that's a 100% great. But the downside is that um a lot of the individual voice has been lost. So the miracle of of cookbooks back in the day was you could get lost in somebody's mind, you know. And uh I think that there's a kind of like that kind of understand human to human understanding that's transferred through a cookbook or long format thing or an album.
You know what I mean? Is like m not as prevalent. So I think that like for every gain there's a loss. I don't think ever I don't think anything's a hundred percent gain or a hundred percent loss. You know what I mean?
Agreed. Uh you just reminded me like I'm um of those days, and like I remember I stumbled across the the Zuni Cafe cookbook and um, you know, talk about getting lost. Like, you know, I was on the like, you know, I'd bring it to the beach and like read it as if it was, you know, like a a novel. And then I remember the first time I went to San Francisco, and you know what I mean? I would I couldn't have been more excited to go to go see this restaurant.
It makes it like, you know, but that was before I couldn't just Google what what does Zuni Cafe, you know, videos and like it's like it was like a pilgrimage just because I had found this book and like fell in love with what I was reading and her voice. How was how was the meal? Amazing. Yeah. My oysters, the Caesar salad, the chicken, you know what I mean?
Like everything you're supposed to eat at at Zuni and I was by myself and oh you like you like solo dining? I was meeting I don't remember what I was doing there. I was meeting maybe it was my dad, I don't know. I was meeting somebody in Northern California, so I went a couple days earlier specifically to to go to Zuni Cafe. I was probably like 20 years old or something like that.
Yeah, I don't know. But the staff staff like sat with me because I was by myself. It was just like a magical magical night. Do you uh do you automatically VIP solo diners? I always if if if I'm there and I see a solo diner, I will 99% of the time go over and strike up a conversation.
And you can usually get the vibe right away if they want to talk to you or if they don't. Um but you know, I usually bring them like a little amuse boost, just and then just hey, how's it going? It's funny. Sometimes when people uh have somebody coming to meet them, they'll they'll tell you that right away. So that you know so that you know that they know that they're not by themselves.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I Well, I'm just waiting for my wife. Uh it's it's all good, man. I was just coming over to say hello. Yeah, like you know, my my idea of solo dining is like inserting like uh five 50 cent hot dogs into my face on the run down the street.
You know what I mean? Like I love sitting by myself at the bar. Yeah, I do. I love it. I I'm not good at it.
You know what I mean? Like, I uh I'm well known for consuming everything very quickly. So yeah, very quickly. So, like, you know, this you know Nastasia's had many how many meals have I ruined of yours, Nastasia? So many, which is weird that you don't like dining by yourself because you think that you don't care whether people are there with you or not when you do have people there.
That's not true. It's just uh I eat so much faster when I'm alone than even when I'm with people. It's a it's it's uh so like and the same thing goes at a bar. So like someone puts a drink down, I don't have anyone to talk to, boom, boom. Yeah, you know what I mean?
And then and then what? I'm gonna sit. Oh, what am I gonna? I'm either gonna get shellacked or I have to sit there and wait. One way, staring?
Like this, staring. I mean, you could talk to somebody. No, who am I gonna talk to? I mean, so it sounds like you're pretty good at talking. Well, not that like when look, uh you have a radio chat.
Yeah, yeah, but like I I could talk to people who like here, you're coming here, and it's like, oh, he wants to talk to us because he's coming, so therefore we can talk. But like at a bar, this person is sitting next to me. I don't know them from a hot rock. Why are they gonna want to talk to me for? You know what I mean?
Anyway, it's always nice though when you do need somebody that that wants to talk. So it's like it's like a revelation, especially now. What do you think about people reading books at the bar? We used to have a couple people that would come in and read books. I used to do that, yeah.
But my day off, I'd I'd sit at the sit at a restaurant and at the bar with a book. Yeah. I find it hard, like part of my kind of mental thing, I find it hard to concentrate on first of all, I'm only ever reading boring technical stuff, so it requires a lot of concentration. And secondly, uh I it's hard to concentrate when the people next to you are having conversations that I can hear because it intrudes into my brain. It's like it's like somebody putting a small ice pick into my head and erasing so then I'll have to read the same line a thousand times in a row.
You know what I mean? That's the you read it, you read when you go out solo styles. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
You know what I don't like? I don't like the I don't like the solo the solo phone stare. Oh, when they're just doing it just to do it? Yeah. Oh, I had it.
Well, when they're just sitting there on the phone the whole time because it the light is bad. My issue with it is that they don't look good. You know what I mean? And so like they throw that blue light. I had this idea.
So nowadays, you know how your phone now at night, like it turns kind of yellowish, so that it's got the you I don't know whether yours does, but our phone, like at 8 p.m., they it puts like a yellowish tinge on the screen. Oh. Yeah. So people don't look as like blue and dead at a bar, right? But like my idea was what if you had a phone that was like um make me look good while I'm texting, and it it had like motion, like yellow, kind of like like a little bit of like a flame background, so that you had that like candlelight instead of this like death pallor, you had like this kind of candlelight vibe on your I I smell an app.
I smell an app. Yeah. I think it's a good idea. By the way, as we're talking about books, I just realized I I feel like I I have to give a shout out. Um, because I'm reading a book now that I'm I I haven't enjoyed reading a book this much in a in a while.
Is um uh Peter Hoffman's you just put out uh it's called 13 Ingredients. Yeah, Peter from Savoy? Oh yeah, yeah. What what are the 13 ingredients? I mean I can't name them off the top of my head.
What are some of them? I j I just finished reading about leeks. Uh-huh. Another one was garlic. Uh he he's like he tells his story through 13 ingredients.
And it it it it's I'm telling you, it's a great read. I don't cook with leaks even though I love them because I hate cleaning them. Yeah. Well he kind of says that in in the thing. But it's not a cookbook.
It's he puts one recipe per chapter. It's the story. It's it's the he's a really talented uh writer, and I used to love Savoy. All right. Well chilly, well uh I'll check it out.
I have not read it. Uh wait, no. Nope. Hasn't come across my writer. I'll check it out.
Uh all right. So your first job, you're working for your de first restaurant job, right? Or one of your first my first restaurant job, I was working at the Hofstra University country club. Oh Jesus. Well, as a bartender, I was like 15 years old.
What were those people like? Uh what were they ordering? I don't think I could say that. What were they ordering? Uh back then?
Was it vodka soda back then? Yeah, I mean, it was it was basically your your spirit plus soda. Those are martinis? Um good tips, bad scotch on the rocks. I mean, like I was 15 years old.
If I left there with 30 bucks in my pocket, I was happy. I started as a bus boy and the bartender quit. The guy was like, Can you pour drinks? I was like, I was totally bullshitting, but I was like, Yeah, of course I could pour drinks. And like I went back there and I was I had no idea what I was doing.
People were like, give me a scotch of the rocks. I give them like a pint catered with scotch. Sure, they were happy. I mean, I it took me a week or two. I figured it out, and somebody like semi trained me, but um, you know, imagine being in high school as a bartender, it was incredible.
Yeah, well, I'm sure that uh you know that I still had to put the tables away at the end of the night. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Uh well, so but your first well, one of your early jobs, you say when you were 16, you went to go work for your dad's place, American place, right? I did my first summer at at an American place.
Yeah. So what's that like like working in a place at your dad's gotta it's gotta in a way suck, right? Like we were going before earlier, like I remember you know, when I back when I had bars, like, you know, uh when a member of family would come, I would say, Listen, I'm not gonna intervene on your behalf, you're totally on your own. It's like, you know what I mean? Like, because he they he can't pull favorite card on you, or the or the whole staff will erupt, so it's gotta be hard.
Yeah, it it was, but you gotta remember, I was a kid. I mean, I was 16 years old, 17 years old, however old I was. Um I I also you have to remember, I didn't know like emotionally, mentally that I was going to work at one of the best restaurants in the country either. I just thought I was going to work at dad's restaurant. You know what I mean?
So, like I I, you know, I just was going to work. Like I it didn't like dawn on me until a couple years later, to be perfectly honest, you know. Um and you know, that first summer, you know, it's not like they like put me on the grill, you know what I mean? Like I was I was a prep cook and um, you know, I finally got to to make my you know my job after prep. I probably did prep for like a month or two.
And then, you know, I was finally allowed to make the mixed screen and Caesar salads. But is that where you said that you had the classic like first day where you like hacked your thumb off, you hacked the tip of your thumb off? Oh Jesus. Um that was that was before I did a summer starge. That was because I used to go in periodically, you know what I mean?
Like maybe go hang out in the kitchen before we like went to a Yankees game or something like that, like growing up. But yeah, I was I was in there for one of those days, like I was in there for a day or two, you know. And um I I remember the guy's name. I think he's pretty successful now. His name is Bill McPherson.
Um, but he he gave me a a cle a cleaver. Like again, it's like a meat, like a meat cleaver, not like a Chinese cooking cleaver. Yeah, a meat cleaver. I don't know again. Imagine giving like a 15-year-old kid a cleaver.
And he gave me this cleaver to chop chives. Yeah, it's a mistake. And now imagine you're a kid. So now imagine you know, you can just see what happened. And I was just like, not only that, the chives were ruined.
It's so bruised. Those chives were hosed. The chives these chives are ruined. You crushed them, you son of a bitch with this cleaver. You mean like your thumb is like I mean, listen, looking back on it, I I probably feel worse for Bill than I did for me.
I mean, I mean, when the chef your dad probably ripped him up. Well, never mind my dad. The my chef, uh, his name is Richie. Uh um, I mean, you know, Richie was a big guy. I mean, and I I can't imagine what he did to Bill for for doing that.
But um, it seems seems to be working all right, the thumb. That's okay. It still kind of goes off this way. But uh, but anyway, so I spent that summer, but again, I didn't know what I was doing. I was I needed money.
My dad was like, well, then why don't you work at the restaurant? Um, you know, and then I did the following summer for um um, I don't know if you remember Shinhuan, Maine in in LA. It's one of it was Wolfgang's Puck's second restaurant. Um, but the chef's name um was uh Kazuto, Chef Kazuto. Um they did a short-lived restaurant in Times Square called Above.
It did a summer in there, which was great because I had never worked with like um Asian ingredients like that, and it really um opened my eyes to like clean, simple, pure, you know, kind of zen. Is that how you work from that into uh Patricia's restaurant? So the sous chef at Above, his name was Gavin, who I met working at an American place. He then went to A Z. So then I think maybe the following year, like it gets all fuzzy in there, college, high school, I can't remember everything.
Um, but I think it was this when I graduated college. You still know you wanted to be a pro, right? No, I I didn't. I still didn't until this time. And your brothers and sisters aren't pros, right?
My one of my brothers is. Yeah. Um and my sister just became the GM of Peasant. Um but I graduated and I was kind of following Gavin. Like Gavin, um he he then became the the executive sous chef at AZ.
So I I went to A Z. Um, and then we opened Pazo, which turned into BLT steak. Um we opened Pazo. Um, and that was with Patricia and Gavin and Pinomafeo, who was an amazing chef and mentor. Um and then that was when the whole BLT thing happened in my life, because Pazo and AZ both closed.
And that was when Jimmy Haber hired Laurent Torandell. So let's talk Laurent Turandell. So you are working, and this is right around when this is happening, is when I was writing for Food Arts magazine. So like I was having to interview. Didn't we wear a lettuce jacket on the cover?
I don't know. I think it was food art. Yeah, I don't know, but like uh I don't remember har hardly anything. Michael Batterbury was one of my mentors who was food art. So he had me write that.
Uh I started writing for them in like 04. And uh I remember when BLT, so like you know, Laurent Turrandell, the LT from Laurent Turrandell opened uh steak first, right? When they opened, and then I think with Prime, I was writing an article on deck ovens, right? And you opened steak, fish, and prime, right? Yep.
Yeah. And uh I called Laurent Turandell and I was like, oh, you know, because I'm supposed to be talking about deck ovens. He's like, actually, I like panning steaks. So and it's we you so you but you guys said you cooked them in a pizza oven. But what is what is your feeling?
Because you were actually doing the the work opening those things on panning the steak versus deck ovens versus pizza ovens on steak back then, because that was when because to me the the Quintess Central American Steakhouse is a deck oven experience, right? Uh and you didn't start with a deck oven and the idea of panning in a restaurant, like you do it on a on a line in a French style place, but not or in a bistro, but not in like a steakhouse. So you want to talk about like like the theory of operation there? Yeah, I mean, honestly, I think it's most likely because of production. I mean, I think listen, if I if I'm cooking uh it's a tough answer to quite a tough question to answer, which I like better.
You know. Um I think if I was gonna tell you what I what I like the best when you're cooking a steak, like if it's just one steak, me and you, we're cooking, I get to choose what we're doing it on. It would probably be charcoal with a little bit of wood to add some smoke, and that would be my best way to. But as far as like a steakhouse goes and pan versus deck broiler, depends on the size of the place. You know, if if you're in a steakhouse and most steakhouses do a lot of steak, do 300 covers, right?
Somewhere around there. So because it's a steakhouse, that's probably 280 steaks a night. So you just do the simple math, you know, in a deck broiler, you know, like the one we had at BLT, for example, was a double. I mean, you could fit like 30 steaks on each level. That's 60 stakes at one time.
I mean, you never did that, but you how big is the sweet spot on one of those decks? Uh probably two feet by a foot, you know what I mean, which is where the guy's really working it. Right. But you could still sear, like he would pull the thing out. You know, let's say it's Saturday night, you're gonna sell 50 uh filet mignon, you get the marks on 50 steaks, boom, you put the thing in for a minute, you take it out, you put the steaks on the rack, you just seared 50 steaks.
Right. If you did that in a pan or panz, right? You're quadrupling time effort, and you know, when most people go to a steakhouse, they're looking for that char and that kind of you know, um grill mark kind of flavor, you know what I mean? Like that's what they want. So I think when you're working in like a restaurant, like for example, at Forge, um, you know, we pan sear the steaks, you know what I mean?
Um, but when I had American Cut, which I don't have any more in my steakhouse, we used the deck broiler, and again, it was because of how many steaks you serve. But the early days of ELT steak, which is where the question started, we were panseering most of it. But again, I think it was probably that was what he always intended to do. Because you gotta remember, at the time, you know, Laurent's kind of known for steakhouses now, but before that, Laurent was three-star, the place was called Cello. Um, you know, he came from Toigros.
I mean, you know, he just won something in Las Vegas for like the best French restaurant in Vegas. Like he was everything was, you know, arose, the time, garlic, butter, and we basted everything in that. Um, but Pazo had a woodstone pizza oven. So I remember Woodstone, are they still around? Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. So when Laurent took over this kitchen, Jimmy wanted to do a steakhouse, I think, or maybe I don't know, I don't know the exactly. I wasn't in those rooms. Um, but anyway, somebody wanted to do a steakhouse. So they obviously wanted to do it for the the most economically pleasing way.
So they were like, just use the kitchen. And Laurent was probably like, well, I'm gonna baste my things in a wood-burning oven, that'd be perfect. We'll do a steakhouse. And you know, you gotta remember like a a woodstone opening is I don't know, maybe 18 inches wide, maybe, you know, 12 inches tall, maybe. And you know, Laurent coming from France and who he is, you know, he's like, I want to, I want to do um, I want to set up a a grill in the wood-burning oven.
So, of course, I was a young, you know, kid, like, yes, chef, yes, chef, we chef. So we've we put a sheet tray into the uh oven and then put bricks on the sides of the oven, and then put she tray racks on top of the bricks, and then made a fire in the oven and then took the coals and put the coals underneath the sheet tray rack. This was by the way, for those of you who don't know, I'm pretty sure that you weren't legal to have open fire in that thing. Oh no, never mind legal. It was idiotic because like you could only fit two porter houses on this stupid rack.
It was a tiny, yeah, yeah. And to get in it, you had to go like this and then like this. For those of you that don't know, Woodstone actually, even though it's wood stone, like they say that gas works just as well in the in their ovens, and then if you're gonna use wood, you're supposed to be a little bit of wood on the sides, you fire it and you move it over to the edges. You're not supposed to fill it with racks. I mean it's not that big.
Fast forward to like, you know, the restaurant's busy now. And and by the way, that worked when we were doing friends and family and doing 30 or 40 covers. And it was great, and it was cool and sexy, and it was, you know, I mean, like it was like, whoa, this is amazing. And then, you know, all of a sudden you start to get busy, and you realize, like, all right, well, you know, order in you got six porter house and eight cote de bouffs on back, and you can cook it on a thing like this big. I mean, the limit was basically once we got over 100 covers, like come back in an hour, come back in an hour.
We gotta figure something else out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh well, so speaking of wood fires, so like you know, one of the well-known, like kind of everyone loved this restaurant. It still exists in the in the late 90s. Peasant opens up.
Frank opens Peasant in it's right by the French culinary. Where is it? It's on like Elizabeth. Yeah, Elizabeth. And ran it for 20 years.
And he was, I interviewed him about this about wood wood fires. Is that he basically is like, I'm gonna f do the wood fired, big old wood fired oven, which he basically built, right? And you know, classic, like, you know, whole roast pigs and all this. And it's just a a place, all the chefs I knew would go to peasant and you know, just have a a nice meal. And then he decides to give it up, give us the date, he decides to sell he sells you the restaurant.
You took it over. Well, I mean, I'll I'll tell you the backstory first and then I'll tell you when I took it. But so I I didn't because it's a funny crazy story. But um, I was hosting an event there for the New York Food and Wine Festival. I'd always loved Peasant.
I I lived on Mulberry between Grand and Hester for a little over 10 years. So like I ate it peasant probably 20 times. Um, you know, if you know, you know Frank, so like you know, I we were friendly. I don't I wouldn't say we're friends, but we were friendly. He always took great care of me every time I came in, you know.
He was always working at the pasta station. I mean, you know, chef chef. And I I gave I give this speech at the event that I'm at, you know, um, how much I love peasant and how much you know every chef kind of wishes deep down that they could be Frank, you know. But we have these, you know, delusions that we have to, you know, be on TV and have an Instagram account and open multiple restaurants, and it's kind of just like how the world has turned into. But Frank is a chef's chef, like, you know, old school.
Yeah, I tell him how much I love peasant and how much it's near and dear to my heart. Anyway, so after the speech, he comes over to me and he like gives me like this look. He's just like, Did you really just mean everything you said? And you know, I was like, Yeah, I mean, uh, you know, I'm a lot of things, but I'm not a bullshit artist, you know. And he's like, okay.
And like he like stroked his beard, and you know, we just drank a couple for the rest of the night. And then he called me like a couple months later, and he's like, I just want to make sure I'm gonna ask you again. You really mean everything you said? I was like, Yeah, Frank Jesus. And he tells me that they're retiring and da-da-da-da.
And um, you know, but I had no idea where he was going with this. I thought maybe he was gonna invite me back to do like a night, guess chef night. You know, he was asking chefs to, you know, we all do that towards the end of a restaurant. Um, and then all of a sudden I understand what he's saying, and I like cut him off. I'm like, Are you asking me if I want peasant?
He's like, Yeah, what the hell is he sound like I'm saying? What's the matter with you? And I was like, Oh shit. Yeah, I mean, wow. Uh, you know, this was in um August.
And I had already signed a contract to open a restaurant, a wood burning Italian restaurant in the meat packing district. You know, thank thank God it didn't happen. Yes, what meat packing is such a freaking nice again. I it was that that's a longer story why I wanted to do that, but it was a necessity. My wife was pregnant, it was a big thing.
Anyway, and I knew saying yes to peasant was gonna really say no to that. Yeah, I knew, but I I couldn't say no. I was like, I don't I don't care what's gonna happen. Like, no, you know what I mean? So I just said I said it on the phone, like, yes, I'll take it.
Yes, you know, we'll we'll figure it out. And then I'm like, when? And he's like, uh, well, December 31st is my last day. I'm like, December 31st, what year? Uh 2019.
Yeah. But I'm like, I'm like, Frank, this is it's September, man. Like, I how I yeah, I I don't know if I can get all this like done to open a restaurant in January. Like, you know, he's like, well, December 31st is my last day. Anyway, so I took it over January 1st, 2020.
I think everybody kind of knows what happened. Yeah, you had three good months there, Mark. I did. It was a it was a fun three months. Yeah, yeah.
Oh, geez, Luis. But it's back and you know, it it survived. Yeah, survived. Crushing. But that, yeah, so and it's still maintaining the same kind of the same kind of vibe with like a lot of the stuff off the off the wood.
He didn't ask me to keep it peasant. I asked him. Oh, really? And yeah, you know, Frank being Frank was like, you do whatever you want. Your restaurant now.
That's nice. But I kept the staff, most of them are still there. All the all the kitchen guys. I don't think I've lost any of them since he left. So uh before we run out of time, your your uh your flagship, your name restaurant, restaurant Mark Forge One's under renovations right now.
You want to tell that story, what happened? Uh yeah, yeah, man. Um New Year's Eve, seven o'clock at night. I mean, it's out of this, it's out of a book, it's out of a movie. I mean, seven o'clock at night, New Year's Eve.
We just had our first seating, and um, you know, the cooks look at the chef and they're like, uh, gas is gas is off. And you know, the chef's like, well, what do you mean? Just turn the knob. Like, I don't have time for this. Like, turn stop, you know, and they're like, no, chef, I'm done.
Who turned the gas off? You know, so we go around the back to see if the somebody turned off the thing. Gas is on. Go downstairs, we check breakers. Uh nobody knows what to do.
Because that just doesn't happen. No, no. I've had many things happen. Me too, man. I mean it's not like I said, this is that's not one of the so what happened?
So again, we had like I hear music, is that we got two minutes. So you know, the we we shuttle people to peasant and one fifth because we don't know what else to do. Um but how'd the gas go off? To this day, we don't know. We're still having an investment.
An animal like died in the tube? What happened? We still don't know. We just had everything repiped. Con Ed is trying to test it.
And everyone knows how awesome it is getting uh gas work done here in this. All right. So let me ask you some questions. So I was looking at the uh menu at peasant. I see you buy uh ham from Cesare Casella.
That's a great move. I see you're uh staying on your Mulberry Street roots and you buy uh stuff from DiPalos. Uh now here's the thing. Fennel pollen, I thought was gonna be a huge ingredient. You have fennel pollen with the roast pig.
That's something they used to do with peasants still, right? So you keep the fennel pollen. Why didn't fennel pollen ever become as big as I thought it was gonna be? Uh I don't know, but I I do think you see it at the I hate to say the right restaurants, but you know, the uh a lot of chefs that I know and respect use phenolplen. Yeah.
What about uh you put you put gremelata on a steak? I only ever used to have that on asebuco, my mom used to make and she put the gremelada on. You call it dad's gremolata, and people who don't know you, they're like, oh, your dad, that's nice. But like a bone marrow and uh red wine reduction. So you put the uh put the bone marrow instead of olive oil, it's bone marrow.
Oh nice. All right, strong. Uh and uh we're gonna run out of time. All right. I was gonna ask you about different yuckies, because I know you but I wouldn't have time.
How about this? Why don't you just say what it's like being the iron chef versus being a challenger? Because you're on both sides. Like, how much different is it when you know the kitchen? I mean, the iron chef definitely has the the upper hand in that sense.
You know what I mean? You figure out little tricks and nooks and crannies. Yeah, but are you like uh I mean, did you like doing that back in the day? I loved it. Yeah.
I mean, listen, I'm not hating on today's world, but there was a time when Iron Chef was so pure, and it was great ingredients and great chefs going against each other without any hoopla. Yeah. What was your favorite? What was your favorite one that you did? Favor of your episodes.
Uh, I just did swordfish and I really, really enjoyed it. Again, it was just like a pure ingredient. It wasn't like Halloween candy or something stupid. It was you like cooking with swordfish? Yeah.
I used I used to get it from Alex. He just retired. Blue Moon. Rod and Reel. I don't know.
Swordfish. I ate so much of it overcooked in the 70s that I never. I mean, I don't I don't just like go into key food and buy swordfish. You know what I mean? Like just a just a bag of worms.
You just buy a bag of worms. No, I mean, I get it from fishermen, straight from the fisherman. It's the only way I eat or buy swordfish. Yeah, someone needs to do a prep of just swordfish worms. Yeah, and I don't I wouldn't order swordfish in a restaurant unless it's a chef I know either.
Well, Mark, thanks for coming on. Uh we have more to talk about, but obviously we didn't get time. And uh I didn't even get to ask you on what the hell is the difference between a uh uh a pizza and a pizza. Is there a real freaking difference? Or is it just a little fluffier?
What's the difference? Oh no, the whole thing is different. It's it's rice flour, soy flour. Um that's in where Otto is. That's one fifth.
Ice cold water when you make it instead of you know warm water. It's you know, it's a three-day fermentation. It's it's as wet as you could possibly imagine. The hydration is like 10% higher. It's it's it's a whole different animal.
All right, so if you want to try these pizzas, you can go to uh one fifth, which was where Otto was, uh, where I used to have a big bar tab because they uh I did some work there and they paid me in bar tab and then they went out of business before I could use the we could honor it. We could honor well Mark thanks so much for coming on. Anytime cooking issues.
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