Tom Colicchio

Live from WSA, this is a very special episode of Expense Account. Our guest today is Tom Colicchio. You guys know him. Last night, I ate at Tom's restaurant, Kraft, which is celebrating its 25th birthday this week. And afterward, I went home and I watched the season premiere of Top Chef, which is in its 23rd season and its 20th anniversary. That's all to say that Tom Colicchio has been doing this for a really long fucking time. He's been cooking professionally for over 50 years. He was one of the early evangelists of new American cuisine in New York City as the founding chef at the Gramercy Tavern and at his restaurant, Kraft, of course. He's America's chef, and we all know, love, and some of us even fear him as a judge on Top Chef. It was so fun hearing all of his stories about old New York when Gramercy was a dangerous neighborhood and you could open a major 5,000-square-foot restaurant for just a few million dollars. We've talked his past, but also his present and his future, and we're to draw the line between being a judge and being a chef. I hope you guys enjoy. Cheers. Hi, Tom. Thank you so much for doing this. Of course. Thanks for taking the time. Thanks for having me. I was reading your GQ interview, and it got me nervous. Okay. It was like basically saying that you're scary. Oh. Are you scary, you think? No, I don't think so. Was that the woman on the boat? Yeah. Oh, that was bizarre. It wasn't saying that you're scary. It was saying that you immediately have the urge to want to please you. That's such a cool—I wish that I evoked that from people. It was really funny about that. The writer hasn't spent much time offshore on a boat, if any, and was expecting a very different experience. And so the first day— The first day we went out, it was pretty rough. But we were all—everybody else that was on the boat was pretty experienced going offshore. So we were just like, yeah, it's rough. It's no big deal. And he was kind of freaking out, but because we weren't freaking out, he figured this is normal. And then we came in, and it was like, yeah, it was a really rough day. He goes, oh, I thought it was just me. Yeah, I get really seasick. I only discovered this about myself a few years ago. I guess I've never been out on a boat until recently. Yeah, getting seasick's not fun. Yeah. So you're having a big week, right? I mean, it's the 25th anniversary of Craft. 25th anniversary of Craft, yeah. 20 years of Top Chef, too. 20 years of Top Chef. It's crazy, in one week. Yeah, it's a good week. Yeah, but you've been around for a long time. Exactly. That's all that means. All that means is I'm old. Yeah. How many years have you been cooking? Almost 50. 50 years? Yeah. Wow. Can we start at the beginning? Not the full beginning. We have an hour. I wanted to talk to you about Jersey. Okay. Do you watch The Sopranos? Sure. Do you like The Sopranos? I watched it twice. Yeah, it's amazing. Is that real? Do you think that The Sopranos is like. Some of it is, and some of it, I mean, you know, one thing, it's funny because my mother talked about this. If we ever cursed at the dining room table, that would not go over at all. I mean, no way. You didn't have a mom like Tony's mom, though. No, no, no, no. My father wasn't a momster either. But no, I mean, some of it is, you know, pretty accurate, I guess. Yeah, because you're from Elizabeth, New Jersey. And they have that little, they have the pork store there that everyone says is like the pork store that The Sopranos pork store is based on. Well, no, the pilot, it'd be shot in Elizabeth. Ah. And Santani's, which is the pork store that we used to go to, was in it. And then they moved it out of there. Mm-hmm. For some reason. I'm not sure why. The funny thing is, I was actually asked to do the final scene in the restaurant. They were going to do it in one of my restaurants. What? And then they decided not to do a fancy restaurant. They wanted to do something a little more like that. Yeah. Yeah. Ah. Yeah. That would have been. Yeah, they called us like, absolutely, yes. Oh, my God. Yeah. And then at the Emmys, the year, their last year, so they did a big, you know, thing for them at the Emmys. And Matt Weiner, who also did Mad Men. Yeah. And so I ran into him. And he's like, oh, my God, we love this show, you know, Top Chef. He's like, listen, we're having our final party. Why don't you come? I was like, all right, great. So I ended up, he's like, all the cast of The Sopranos and me and Gail. Yeah, it was pretty wild. Yeah. I guess on the topic, are you like, are you Don or are you Tony? Who would you say? What would your wife say? Not her. But being from New Jersey, something that I love about New Jersey is like all of the hot dog places. There's so many. There's so many like amazing hot dog places in New Jersey. In Elizabeth, we had two that we used to go to. There was Tommy's and there was Jerry's. They're related or not? They're right next door to each other. No, they weren't related. And Jerry's was there longer. But Tommy's did like, it was almost like a pita, like a half pita. There was like onions, peppers, and potatoes on the hot dog. And that was good. And the other one was more traditional. So you liked Jerry's? I liked them both. Yeah. Tommy's was probably better. And what was the name of the, I read your book, what was the name of the Italian restaurant that you were saying that you used to always go to growing up? Spiritos. Spiritos. Yeah. In fact, that's where they shot, oh God, there was some movie that came out like two years ago that was shot there. Because the restaurant closed. Like a mob movie or just an Italian? No, no, no. It was based on a restaurant. It actually wasn't a very good movie. Do you like food movies? Some. Yeah. Do you like Ratatouille? Yeah. Ratatouille is fine. Yeah. It's fine. The one I didn't like was when everybody got killed. What the hell was the name of that? Oh, yeah. The menu. I didn't like that at all. I didn't like the menu. It was terrible. I write sometimes about restaurants. And some of the restaurant critic people that I know loved the movie. I hated it. That was terrible. Like the burger thing at the end is so heavy handed. The whole thing was terrible. Yeah. It was terrible. The whole thing was really overwrought, really. Spiritos. Oh, yeah. Spiritos. Sorry. I got lost for a second. Yeah, Spiritos. You know, it was a neighborhood place. We used to go there mostly on, especially in the summer. My father was on a softball team. And so Fridays they would play at O'Brien Field, which is right near, right a block away from Spiritos. So we would always go there. So Friday night was the night my mom had off. So we would go watch the softball game and then go have pizza. But we would only eat. There was two parts of that restaurant. There was the bar. And then there was the dining room. And we were kids. Never went in the dining room. In fact, I didn't realize there was a dining room there until I was in high school. And after one of the basketball games, it was like, let's go to Spiritos. It was like, okay. And they were going in the side door. I was like, where are you guys going? It's around the corner. Like, no, it's here. Like, no, I come here all the time. Yeah. So we only ate in the bar. I can, like, smell the cigarette smoke in there. I thought that was pretty. But what was your order there? We used to get veal cutlet. So it was fried. Not veal parmesan, but veal cutlet. Fried. And we used to order, like, an antipasta with the veal cutlet. You got, like, a side of, you know, pasta. But we used to get, like, a salad with, like, you know, it had pepperoncini and artichokes and salami and cheese, like, provolone. I love that kind of salad. It was just, you know. So that was it. And they had good pizza, too. Yeah. Oh, fun. Yeah. So when did you move to New York? Were you going to New York all the time as a kid? Or, like, what was New York like for you? I started coming into New York when I was probably about, well, 15, 16, somewhere in there. I mean, we used to jump on a train. It was two stops away. Oh, yeah. And, you know, go to the Garden and see concerts. Oh, cool. Or, you know, just go. Were you eating at restaurants? Like, what was, like, the cool restaurant? No, no, I wasn't back then. I didn't have money in restaurants in New York back then. Yeah. But, no, I think the first restaurant that I remember going to in New York, I took my girlfriend and we went to a restaurant called Pierre Artunel. And the only reason we went there is they always had to advertise in gourmet. I was like, oh, I guess they're advertising. They're advertising gourmet. It's got to be pretty good. It was, like, an old-school French restaurant. And that probably had, like, a pate or something and, you know, chicken core. What did your girlfriend think? Oh, it was fun. We had a good night out. Yeah. Yeah. It was fun. So you moved to New York in what year? Probably, like, 88. 88. 88, 87, somewhere in there. Wow. Yeah. What was New York like? It was really different. Yeah. You know, back when I first started working in New York, before I moved into the city. So this is back in, like, 84. A lot of the waiters in the restaurant, I was at a restaurant called Quilted Giraffe. They were, like, artists and stuff. They were all, like, squatting in Soho. Really? Yeah. So sick. Yeah. All those buildings, they were just, like, empty, and people were just, like, living in them. But, no, New York was different. It was, you know, I remember watching Keith Haring, like, paint a mural. Huh. Like, down on Clarkson and Carmine, down by the school over there. Yeah. No, it was, you know, the city was great. It was different. It was, you know, it was affordable. Much more affordable than it is now. And then, you know, I was working in New York during the, you know, when AIDS hit, and that really put a damper on everything. Yeah, yeah. Everybody was really scared. Yeah. You know, the city was a little different then. It wasn't as built up. Times Square. Oh, yeah. I used to come through Times Square, and it was scary. Yeah. You know, there was no neon. I've heard all the stories. Like, it's dangerous, like, running from your car. Funniest thing. So I was going home one night. I had a Volkswagen Rabbit, and I'm driving home, I'm going towards the Lincoln Tunnel. And. you know there's traffic and so i'm waiting and this this prostitute comes by in front of the car and comes around it was summer my windows down it comes around and like you know propositions mean i'm like now i'm going home i get pulled over and i get a ticket for solicitation i'm going home it's like 12 30 i i work in a restaurant i'm driving home like they're probably working with her yeah it's obviously it was bizarre i got a ticket i was like come on you're still on your record solicitation do you think that it's a was a better time to be a young chef like it's so hard to open a restaurant now yeah it was much better than it um there were fewer restaurants number one yeah there was it you know it was very different like we were all like i remember being competitive like i wanted to be the best cook in the kitchen yeah and i prided myself on being fast and organized and you know we all were trying to work our way up but i think just from a creative standpoint you know back then if you were creative if you were a writer yeah actor musician you know you could live in the city and yeah it's crazy now it's impossible yeah i don't know how a young person who's creative comes here and lives yeah it's like impossible you just have rich parents is basically that yeah yeah but you know are you're like six to an apartment in you know queen somewhere yeah yeah it's just what a lot of cooks do yeah um you know i hear stories of the cooks they you know if you're if you're if you're rooming with someone who has a morning shift or an afternoon shift and night one person's in that's smart yeah someone should organize that but yeah it's changed it's changed quite a bit although i when i was cooking i didn't live in the city i lived out i was um living in east orange really which was a pretty easy commute yeah oh i guess it's that's like not a bad it's just like a few no it was near upsell college it was actually a beautiful apartment but it was a 30 minute ride and i back then i was driving a motorcycle so i would get in that pretty quick oh wow bad boy yeah but it was it was different definitely different i feel like i want to hear more about the cooking industry i want to hear more about the cooking industry i want to hear like it's such a legendary restaurant they don't make restaurants like that anymore no this was the old one the one that was on second avenue yeah um looks so cool it was a great experience you know number one we were only open monday through friday oh what yeah we were closed saturday and sunday what is the logic behind he only wanted to open five days a week we did 120 to 124 covers every night didn't matter so he was like i'm gonna close two nights doesn't matter what nights i close amazing and he and he wanted all he had a farm up in new paul and he would go on friday night and so he just restaurant was open monday through friday dinner only it was great that's amazing yeah like what kind of people were going there oh um you know warren beatty and oh yeah jackie monasas and and you know uh jackie joe yeah yeah she'd been there she was going um it was you know yeah every night was a party there yeah yeah it was legendary yeah it really was um but uh um and back then i mean they had like a higher probably 70 check average back then what yeah it was expensive i wonder what the the inflation calculator tell me that is 170 yeah it was expensive for one person or two people one for one person yeah back then yeah it was it was an expensive restaurant it was always like six hundred seven hundred dollars probably yeah it was it was a good restaurant it was it was it was interesting too because the um you know everything was pretty unorthodox compared to other restaurants because barry wasn't really a chef he was an attorney he was a lawyer and then started to open a restaurant in new paltz and then then opened then moved down to new york so it was uh it wasn't like a traditional kitchen and uh but i i really enjoyed working there and and uh i'm to this day i'm still friendly with how much do you get paid back then probably like 600 bucks a week or something like that i don't know i don't remember barry also you know if we had a good week um he didn't do it i thought it was everyone who got it but not everybody he would you know friday night just like hand me cash oh here you go he sounds like the coolest guy he was he was he was he was a little quirky but yeah i i get saturday and sunday off saturday and sunday off yeah that's crazy for us yeah i don't i don't know what i was making back then it probably came out to like 30 000 a year or whatever it was that's pretty good that's a lot that's really good i think it was i don't i was a sous chef i don't remember um it was a while ago and this was before after keller before after before so and then you went to france for a while uh yeah two different times i'm from france yeah after quilted i ended up going back to new jersey working at a restaurant called 40 main street i worked there as a cook and i went back as a chef yeah and then from there i know i did a stage and i came came back and then ended up working in in uh worked for keller at raquel and then after that i ended up going down to virginia beach to help a friend of mine out for about six months eight and nine months and then i went back to new jersey and i went back to new jersey and i went back to and then i came back and took the job at mondrian and then i left went to france and came back as a chef but i what it really struck me in the book and i had never even really considered is just like how available ingredients are now like you were talking about going to france and just seeing like this abundance it's still when you go to france or go to europe you feel that way but yeah like to think that the farmer's market wasn't always a given even actually the farmer's market back then was better really yeah because the farmers would grow stuff for you um and then they stopped because a lot of chefs would say oh grow stuff and i'll buy it and they'd grow it and the chef didn't buy it yeah yeah and so i thought there was much more interesting stuff back then that's so cool you know 20 years ago and now the farmers they know they grow what they they know they're going to sell yeah and it's more for the consumer yeah i guess there must have been more small farms back then no same amount of farms really yeah a lot of farms are still there but you know you get a lot of these people to say they they usually use farms and they go there and they leave with two bags yeah it's like come on yeah yeah we used to pull i used to pull up back then like way back when i was at mondrian i used to drive my truck right into the market like through the crack just park no not through the crowd no i would just pull up next to one of the farm stands like like you know come up over the curb and no one cared that's cool now they'd arrest you yeah so i guess when you're open grammar see that must have been like so cool to be so close to the farmer's market yeah yeah how much i guess this is another question that's hard to answer but how much did it cost to grow what year was grammar see grammar see was 94 94 like how much did it cost about three million dollars ago yeah that's and that's like um an institution like a huge restaurant like how many square feet is it it was 5 000 up 5 000 down yeah so that's that's so the basement wasn't finished the basement was offices in a prep kitchen and storage and our wine cellar um so really the only finished part was the upstairs and upstairs of the 5 000 feet upstairs probably about 800 to 900 feet upstairs and then the rest was down here in the bar do you feel like like when you're coming up were there many people who like were kids and they wanted to be chefs no yeah like i i see like so much more professionalized like especially i see it through top chef uh i guess top chef probably encourages a lot well i think i think yeah that food you know food tv definitely encouraged a lot of people and uh but um no back then i mean you still had a lot of people graduating from culinary school yeah and you had to see cia and you had johnson wells and then peter kumpf which turned into ice and uh french culinary institute you know was around so i kind of got lucky because right around the time when i decided i wanted to start cooking that's when american food really took off and so it was a great time to to to be there yeah um you're like one of the evangelists of new american cuisine yeah it wasn't it wasn't as saturated you know there were fewer restaurants fewer chefs that you had to keep track of um and then you had to start cooking and then you had to start cooking and then you had to start it was it was easier rents were lower i mean when we opened grammar sheet tavern around was nine thousand dollars a month for that space yeah that's a part of the book that really struck me is you saying that that neighborhood used to be dangerous oh yeah like what how can you even there was in that so on the corner of broadway and with the and 16th north of the farmer's market there was a club on the corner and someone got killed one night and i was like oh my god i'm gonna die i'm gonna die i'm gonna die What? Right in front of the club, yeah. Huh. Yeah, I got shot and killed right in front of the club. Yeah, it wasn't the best of neighborhoods. In fact, when I looked at that space at Gramercy, when I looked, you know, the whole front was boarded up with graffiti across the whole front. And, yeah, it was a little. People were telling you you were crazy to open over there? Yeah, it was a little seedy. It was a little seedy back then. I guess something that I wanted to talk to you about, like, that I know is something that. I hear you talk about it a lot, is actually just, like, restaurant culture and, like, how it can be toxic and how there's, like, be. I don't know. It's, like, I've been seeing all this stuff about the Noma pop-up recently and all of these, like, accusations of abuse in the Noma kitchen. And I used to work at a restaurant. It was, like. And a kid is pretty brutal sometimes. Like, I'd have burns all over my arms and, like. Yeah, you burn yourself. That's your problem. Yeah, it is my problem. Yeah, yeah. But the chef's like, carry, like, six plates that are, like. And they heat them up so hot. Yeah. I mean, I. I gotta say, I'd never. I never worked in a kitchen that I thought was abusive. Yeah, the chef would yell at you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The chef would give you a hard time. That's not nice. But it wasn't. It wasn't, like. I never got hit. I never saw anybody get hit. And it was. I wouldn't stand for that. If I got hit, I think I would have hit this money back. Yeah, yeah. But, no, I mean, I. You know, I'm not gonna say it didn't happen. Yeah, of course not. But, you know, looking at Noma. You know, it's one thing. I mean, to be the best in the world, you have to really. You have to really be driven. Yeah. And it's okay to push yourself, but you can't. And so it's like, you know, if you're an athlete, right, you, you know, you push yourself, you beat the hell out of yourself. You know, it's especially if you're like an Olympic athlete or something like that, you know, you're doing, you know, if you're a swimmer, you're working out, you know, in the morning, then you're doing weights in the afternoon, you have another session, you know, at nighttime, you're killing yourself. That's yourself. You're putting yourself through that. You know, you can't, if you're in a, in a restaurant and you want to push yourself that hard and there's a, you know, you need a team of people, you can't expect that someone's going to have that as much drive as you. Yeah. And if you think they do, then you're, you're kidding yourself. And, and to beat up on people, physically hit someone is just, it's so out of control. It's like, is the juice really worth, worth the squeeze? It's like, food is my big passion, but I can't like the restaurant being like, it's probably like minutely better. I don't think it's, I don't think it's worth it. And I think we're, what really happens is it's like the whole culture of stars and getting stars and are, you know, being on the top 50 list. Yeah. You know, if, if that's your, the reason why you're doing everything, then maybe you should really, you know, rethink why you're doing it. Yeah. But, you know, again, to, to, to, to physically hit someone, that's just. I feel like these types of stories have come up like a number of times, but there's never been a real reckoning. What's going to happen? I don't know. People maybe might not go to the restaurant. I guess they'd rather eat the food. The LA pop-up, $150, $150, $1,500 a person sold out. Sold out in three seconds. Yeah. So clearly. Yeah, I know. So no one cares or, I don't know. It's so, I don't know. I guess people. There's, there's, there's two things though. Yeah. Because looking at, you know, this whole idea that stages, that you're taking advantage of people. No, no, you're not. You're not. We don't do it in New York because it's against the law. You have to pay people. Yeah. But I, I, I staged in France. Yeah. And this whole idea that you have to be wealthy to do that. And so you, you, you're privileged. I wasn't wealthy. Yeah. I, I, I, I got myself a $99 flight on People's Express to go to France. I actually went to, to, to Brussels. Oh yeah. And then took a train to the restaurant to get into France. I saved up money to go. Yeah. And so that's a choice you make. It's like going to school. Exactly. It's a choice you make. In fact, it's, it's, I would rather see a, a, uh, an apprentice, like in a, in a real apprentice program where, you know, people can come in and work because I, I, I, I think if you did a two-year apprenticeship program in a couple of really good restaurants, you would know a whole lot more than coming out of a culinary school where you're paying for that privilege versus working for free. I mean, I think that's, that's a pretty easy equation. But what if your job is to personally fix the petals off of the flower to. Yeah. See, that's the, that's the thing is that's, that's not an apprenticeship. Yeah. You know, to do it, you'd really have to have it where people are working to put, you know, they're put through a system where they're working in prep, then they're working at Garnier, then they're on the line. And if you did it in a few different restaurants, if you worked in, you know, one year in one restaurant, you know, if you worked a year at craft and a year at LaBerna, then you'd know a whole lot more in two years than you would come out of a culinary school. Yeah. Um, and, uh, but you know, I don't, I, I don't know if we'd ever have a set, an apprenticeship program, like real apprenticeship program. Yeah. I'm surprised. I mean, I would think that a place like normal would have more of a, like a way to be nurturing to young chefs. Like that's something, that's the thing that's almost most shocking to me is that it's not more streamlined into making everybody. There's there's stages and stages. Like I know, like you didn't hear this from Ferran at all and he was driven too, but also you had to work the season there. Like, and I think like nowadays, like you see people, Oh, I stage at Noma when you look at their resume, they work there for a week. Yeah. Yeah. Everyone is like ex Noma chef. And it's like, when did you work there like six months? Like, yeah, that's not. Yeah. Um, but then some of them though would go back and, you know, work for years. Um, but I don't know. I, I, you know, it's what I, the disconnect that I have with that is I, I, I've been to Noma. Yeah. Everyone was so happy. Like the entire staff. I mean, I did a kitchen tour. Everyone was happy. Yeah. So I, I, it's, it's really weird. Yeah. I'm not saying it didn't happen. And, and, and, but it's just, there's, it's strange. Yeah. I mean, go to a restaurant and everyone seems happy. Yeah. But I also think that if, you know, if you're getting to the point where you're, you're so frustrated, you're going to hit someone, you know, go take a walk around block or something. It's just, it's not worth it. It's not worth it. Whatever, you know, it's not, it's not, it's food. Damn it. Yeah. You know, I, I tell everybody when we open, open a restaurant, you know, that no one dies on the operating table here. It's a restaurant. It's a restaurant. Yeah. Yeah. How bad could it be? Yeah. Bad service. Okay. Yeah. Whatever. Not going to die. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. How did you, how do you, how do you keep that from happening in your restaurants? Or I guess you must keep a close eye on your hiring and. Yeah, you do. Listen, I, you know, I, I, we made some changes at Kraft, you know, starting in June, we changed the menu from a family style to plate it. And it was a big challenge for the kitchen and the staff at the time was, they were all pretty green. I had a lot of people leave, so it was tough. And did I raise my voice? Absolutely. I did. Yeah. Um, it was demanding. Yeah. Never personal. Yeah. Yeah. It was only about the food and, and, and, uh, but you know, it wasn't, it wasn't ever abusive. Yeah. It was, you know, sometimes you got to get the point across and a little more, a little forceful, but again, it never was to the point where you get in someone's face, you know? Yeah. That's just, yeah. And, and there are times I find myself saying, I gotta, I gotta go for a, I gotta go to the kitchen right now. Yeah. But, uh, it's, I don't know. I had a Kraft last night. Oh, did you? I had a great meal. Oh, cool. Yeah. Jose. He's my, he's my server. He was amazing. One of the servers I've had. There's a good, it's a good team there. Yeah. I was very impressed with the server. The service was great. Yeah. Um, I love the room. Kraft was actually the first restaurant, like the first fancy restaurant that I went to in New York. I remember like saving up in probably 2008 to go to brunch. I remember it was like, was it not? Was it not a bar? Probably. Oh, maybe probably craft bar, craft bar. And it was like a big deal for me. I was like 19 years old and I didn't have a job. We did a brunch on there, but not at, uh, not at Kraft. Kraft was only, we tried doing lunch a couple of times there, but the format never worked. Family style never really worked for lunch. Um, but, uh, yeah, I mean, you know, design wise, that's, you know, we want an AI for that. Um, the architect did. Yeah. And, uh, it's, it's, it's held up and it looks great. And I was impressed with how it looked. Yeah. And we haven't really changed much at all. Yeah. So many restaurants love to be minimal now, but it's so nice to have like felt very dynamic. The, something I noticed about, about the design of it that I thought was interesting is that you can't see the kitchen. Kitchen in the basement. Yeah. Cause it's, I feel like every restaurant now, even if it's not an open kitchen restaurant, it's like always a feature of the restaurant to see you get a little peek of a white coat or something. Yeah. Now we're, we're, the kitchen's in the basement, you know, so it's really interesting to go up the stairs with the food down. Yeah. Yeah. Running upstairs. I mean, Gotham was the same way. Oh, wow. It was interesting. When I first looked at the space and I looked at the space next door at the same time and the space where, where Volata is now was a kitchen for a catering company. Oh, cool. And so originally I was going to put the kitchen there for the whole restaurant and then the dining room would have been the, the, the restrooms would have been downstairs in the basement with one handicapped accessible restaurant, you know, I'm a restroom upstairs. Yeah. So we would have had more seats and then the kitchen would have been right on the same level. And then downstairs was going to, you know, I could have put a private dining room downstairs and I couldn't get the leases to match up. And so we ended up doing the construction for craft. And about a year later we took that space. I thought it was cool to have the kitchen somewhere else. It made it, made it feel more like magic or something. Like you're like in this space and you're just like enjoying the space, like enjoying the ambience, enjoying your company. And then the food comes to you. It's not like I have to, I don't want to, sometimes you don't want to see the sausage being made. Yeah. You don't need to see it. Not every kitchen needs to be an open kitchen. And we have an open kitchen at Volata. This is actually very open. But yeah, I mean, design wise when we did craft Peter Bentele, who was the architect, you know, he and I talked a lot about the food and about the food and how it was served and how everything was really minimal. And so design, we wanted to follow that. And so what we did is we tried to do a restaurant that would have zero painted finishes. Oh, that's so interesting. It was expensive. I did love the textures of everything. Yeah. And that was all by design. And the wall was, you know, had two functions. One was to try to link the front because there was narrow space, link the front and back. And it was also inspired by Richard Serra. Oh yeah. I see that. The curves. Yeah. But I want it all natural material. So it was a lot of wood. What's the ceiling? Well, the ceiling is made of something called tectum. I thought it looked very cool. It's soundproof. It's soundproofing. It's like, it's nice and brutal. And we just put the, the copper washers up there and, and we were the first, I think the first restaurant to have the Edison bulbs. And I was, I was going to talk to you about inventing Edison bulbs. Well, part of it was because I had this whole idea where I wanted to see how things worked. And so if, If there was no moldings, I wanted to see where a wall hit the floor. And we wanted to see. Well, it's called craft. Exactly. Yeah. That was the whole point. The design wanted to follow the whole concept of the restaurant. But we wanted steel. We wanted bronze and wood, leather, again, all natural materials. We had to paint a few walls. It's just finishing using leather on all the surfaces just got expensive. It's holding up nicely. It made me feel like every restaurant is just so sparse. They should try a little harder or something to get vibes. But I like the food, to speak. But I thought it was a very beautiful room. That holds up. It's 25 years old. 25 years old next week. Wow. How are you celebrating your birthday? We're doing a party. And it's mostly for people who work there in the past. A lot of the chefs who worked with me are coming in. Some of the old servers, some of the managers. A few regulars are invited, friends. But it's really just a party to celebrate the people who spent. I think I'll be there. On Monday? Yeah. Yeah. So it's cool. It's going to be fun. Guess what my favorite dish was. I don't know what you had. What? I'll tell you what I got. And then you can guess what was my favorite. We had the beet cured salmon. We had the bitter green salad. We had the agnolotti. We had octopus. We had short rib. And we had monkfish. And then the chocolate. What was it? The chocolate dessert. I'd say octopus. Yes. You got it. It's good, isn't it? I loved the octopus. I wasn't initially going to order it. Because sometimes I've just been burned by octopus so many times. Yeah, I like that dish. That sauce is. What is it? I was trying to figure it out. It's hard to make that. So that is a fumé, fish fumé. But it's all red wine and a little bit of veal stock. But the way you make it is you bring it up to a simmer. You skim the stocks. You never skim it. And it almost forms like a raft, almost like a consomme. And so the sauce gets pretty clear. But it's really, really intense. And it takes about 16 hours to make, just to make the stock. Wow. And then you reduce it while it's still on the bones. And then we just roast the. I can't make it at home. No, it's hard to make. Yeah. Yeah, my wife and I were like really. We were using it as an excuse to just eat more of the sauce with our fingers. But we were really trying to unpack. What's the chili in there? So we make chili crisps. The spice is so. It lingers in such a nice way. Yeah, it's just chilies that we use. Chilies and garlic and shallots. And yeah, I like that. It's a good dish. So can we talk about Top Chef? Sure. 20 years. It's crazy. 23 seasons. Did you imagine yourself. Did you imagine yourself as a TV guy? No, I. No. Like, what was it like when you first started? Well, you know, the first time I did TV. Yeah. It was 1991. I had just won Food & Wine Best New Chef. And the Regis and Kathy Lee show. Ah. And they reached out to actually Food & Wine. And Food & Wine called me and said, do you want to do it? I'm like, yeah, sure. So I got there on a Friday. And I had a dish that I was doing. And the dish that I did was a braised red snapper. The snapper was braised in rosemary, lemon, vinaigrette. They were roasted red peppers. And then there was eggplant caviar that I sandwiched between layers of fried eggplant. Yeah. So the discs of eggplant that were fried. And so I brought the dish, everything ready. And we were with the producer. And I did a run through. And she said, okay, you'll be fine. So on the way out, just two guys that were there, stagehands. I said, what time should I come on Monday? I'll get here at 8 o'clock. Okay. So I get there at 8 o'clock. The producers just start yelling at me. Where were you? You missed rehearsal. I'm like, they told me to come at 8 o'clock. You're going to screw this up. And back then, you set yourself up. Yeah. And so I get there. And I'm like, are you cooking live? Well, eventually, yes. But right now, I'm just setting everything up and getting my dishes, getting everything out. I have all my swaps ready to go. And every five minutes, the producer would come by and go, you're going to screw this up. I should pull the segment. I can't believe it. And just like wouldn't. I was so nervous. I was freaking out. So start the segment. Regis comes over. We start the segment. I cut the eggplant in half, score it, put it in the oven. And I had one underneath. So he's messing with the oven. He's like, you've got to turn the oven on. I'm like, no, it's okay. You've got to come over here. And he goes, no, but the oven, you've got to go on. I'm like, don't worry. And so I take it out. And he goes, something. He said, well, I guess that's what happens when you miss rehearsal. And I'm like, I can't believe this guy just threw me out of the bus. And I'm sitting here doing this. It's a cooking thing. Anyway, it goes without a hitch. It just nailed it. And I'm still thinking, like, this guy, I can't believe he said that. So the segment ends. He goes over there. The producer comes over. She goes, that was amazing. That was great. She said, any time you want to come back, let us know. That was fantastic. I looked at her. I said, why did he throw me out of the bus like that? I said, I missed rehearsal. She goes, no, he missed rehearsal. So I looked at her. And she said, any time you want to come back, I looked at her. I said, I will never do TV again. This was the worst experience I've ever had in my life. And so, you know, obviously, I've done TV since. But no, Top Chef, they called me out of the blue. A producer called me out of the blue and asked me if I, you know, said we're doing this show and we think you make a great, you know, head judge. And I was like, no, I don't want to do it. And then she called back and said, well, we think you'd be great. Can we just get you on camera? Fine. So someone came with a camcorder and sat down and asked me some questions. Two days later, I got a call and they said, can you come to L.A. for a screen test? I said, no, I really don't want to do this. And I said, but here's what I'll do. There was a documentary made on the opening of Kraft. So I sent that to them. Yeah. And they called back and said, we want to make an offer. I was like, all right. So my calculation, because everyone told me not to do it. My wife was like, don't do it. My cousin was my attorney. Was there any other food reality show before that? There was. There was a show. It wasn't a competition show. And that's part of the reason I didn't want to do it. The show, the chef did not. It's like a bleak time for L.A. TV. The chef did not come off looking good. And so I didn't want to do it. And my calculation was, you know, I go to a food festival and I'm signing books. Yeah. And I'm sitting next to Bobby Flay. He signs 200. I sign 20. I don't think he had a better book. He was on TV. I was like, you know what? Let me give this thing a shot. And they sent me a bunch of DVDs, not even DVDs. Tapes. Tapes, yeah. What were they called? VHS. VHS, yeah. There you go. Ancient technology. And of Project Runway. I loved Project. That's why I went to New York. And we also knew, watched Project Greenlight. What was Project Greenlight? It was really interesting. It was actually Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Oh, yeah. When he made the, it was like they were making a directing, like someone to direct a movie. Yes. Yeah. And so we watched that. And so my wife and I, we were like, oh, yeah. My wife and I just, you know, just sat there and binged it over a weekend. It was like, all right. And so I agreed to do it. You're like, is it going to be called Project Food? It's like Project Greenlight, Project Runway. No, they told me it was called Top Chef. And then when I agreed to do it, our first season was in San Francisco. And we had no idea what we were doing, but it kind of worked out. Do you know who else they were thinking about? No. They never told you? I know, yeah. Oh. Yeah. So curious who else, but this alternate world that it could have been. Yeah, I don't know. I guess. I guess I could find out. But, yeah. And so that was, you know, kind of eye-opening doing production. Was the first season tough? It wasn't that it was tough. Well, it was a little funny. So the first season, one of the chefs who was the first to go was just off his meds or something. He was out of control. He was really out of control. Yeah. Where I was sitting there. It was really weird and uncomfortable. Where was the first season? San Francisco. Okay. I'm trying to remember. We were at the restaurant Fleur de Lis. And we were in, like, this. Yeah. Hallway area. And they were shooting us. And the chefs were, like, standing right there. And we're standing here. And they cut for a second. And the makeup person came over and stood. And the guy goes, yeah, put some hair on his head while you're at it. And look at this guy. Look at this guy. That's a funny thing to say. And then it got really ugly. And then it was bizarre because we, back then, we used to do Hype Fest, you know, where they shot all the promos and the commercials and stuff and the opening. Yeah. They had us all together. They don't do that anymore. Yeah. And. And he literally grabbed a flat of eggs and cracked it over someone's head. What? And I threw him out. I was like, you got to go. I mean. I walked him out. Got him. I've watched Top Chef change so much. It used to be crazy. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I used to like all of these, like, unhinged sous chefs and stuff that would come on. Yeah. Like, what's the guy? I liked that guy that would never do quick fires. Oh, Michael Midgley? Yeah. I liked him. I loved when, what's his name? Leia and Josiah kissed. Oh, yeah. Right. Right. I forgot about that. Fabio. I liked the, like, now, like, now it's serious. Now everyone is like, actually. It was serious back then. But I think back then, because now the contestants who come on, they grew up watching the show. Yeah. Yeah. They're like, I'm not going to be that asshole. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The asshole never wins. It's a serious person that wins. I think the industry's changed, too. Yeah. You think it's, that Top Chef is a reflection of the industry? Do you feel like it goes the other way? No, I think it's a reflection. I think it kind of happens at the same time. I don't think that Top Chef actually changed the culture in restaurants, but I think it kind of happened together. But it's definitely changed for the better. I mean, we were really trying hard to push all of the reality stuff out of the way and spend more time on the food. And it seemed that the viewers, I think, like it better too. I mean, people are telling me they prefer what we do now. Yeah, yeah. I mean, everyone is like, I actually want to eat their food. And it was kind of a wild time when it was like the molecular gastronomy time. Yeah. I was like, come on. Yeah. It's funny to watch those seasons now. Well, the funny thing about it is that like Marcel had no idea what he was doing. Yeah, yeah. No idea. You could tell. And it was just like, you just like talk about it. It was like, no way. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, it was fun back then. You didn't know what to expect. Now it's a little more controlled. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I liked that. I liked that. I liked that. I liked how wild it was. But now it's like, actually, like, I care about food. And so I'm not watching a reality show. I'm watching about trying to learn about. Yeah, there's a lot less reality. And it's so cool to see the, it does reflect the culture and food. Like seeing, I remember one season, there's like a season where everyone's making regional Italian cuisine. And then now it's cool. You have more like Caribbean and African cuisines and more like Southeast Asian cuisines. And you can see how different cuisines are popular and go in and out of style. Yeah. I mean, almost. I've almost never seen anybody like make French style dishes at all, which is interesting because it's really hard to judge something like that next to South, you know, Southeast Asian cuisine. And we talk about it too. Yeah. Because it's very easy to be seduced with high acid, high sugar. Yeah. You know, fat. Yeah. And so, and spice. Yeah. If you hit all those, those four things, it's, it, it creates a very round sensation in your mouth. And so you got to be careful not to be seduced by that. Yeah. That's something. That's something I struggle with all the time where I'm like, do I like this or is it just like trying to like separate how I think about acid from, I'm always, I'm always like, maybe it doesn't need, I don't know. People love like such high acidity salads. Everything's like, has to be like a. Yeah. But think, think about like French cuisine. That's why wine usually works for that. Because if you, if you, well, the acid doesn't have to be in the dish so much, but wine can add the acidity. Yeah. Yeah. And, and, but yeah, you got, it's gotta be, you know, that's why when I, when I, when I judge the first thing I'm looking for are the things that are less subjective is something cooked properly, something seasoned properly. Then you can look at the challenges and then you can look at balance. You can look at not only balance and flavors, balance of the items that are actually on the plate. Is everything cooked properly? There's a lot of times you focus on the protein, you don't focus on everything else. Yeah. So I think, I think a lot of times the chefs make it hard on themselves. They make dishes that are too complicated. You. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I get it. I mean, they're trying to impress us, but you should, you know, you pick and choose the time to do that. Something I always wonder about the show is like, and I guess about being a chef in general is like how much of being a chef is like doing festival stuff like that. I feel like a lot of the episodes are like, they're making food for like a big group, like a big thing when people are coming around and tasting it. Do you do that all the time? Not all the time. We do it a lot. Yeah. I don't know. Anytime it's an event. Yeah. If there's a fundraiser. If there's a fundraiser or something like that. Yeah. It's a walk around event. Yeah. The hard part is they're by themselves. Yeah. Where, you know, I do a walk around. I do an event like that. I'm, I'm, you know, three sous chefs with me. Yeah. But no, that's, that's legit. Yeah. I mean, I think our challenges are, are really good. And the producers that, that work on the challenges, you know, they, they, I think they do a great job because we don't do silly stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of the stuff is, is based on, you know, regional. Uh, you know, food customs. Yeah. Yeah. It's so cool now seeing like you doing like the Native American stuff. Yeah. Like, I don't know. It's important to see that kind of. Yeah. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, so I think the producers do a great job and it's not, it's not like, it's like silly stuff. Like here's a basket and it's like, you know, celery root, blue cheese and a jelly bean. That, that to me is just silly. And it doesn't, it doesn't necessarily show that you're a better chef because you could figure out how to put a jelly bean in a dish. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. Yesterday when I was at the restaurant, I just couldn't help but think about restaurant wars. Like, do you, do you feel like as someone that's a professional restaurant judge, like can you not turn it off when you go to a restaurant? Like when you eat at someone else's restaurant. Easy. You turn it off. Oh yeah. Easy. Really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, I, if I go on, if I'm going out, I'm going out to enjoy myself. I'm not, I learned a long time ago when I was in my twenties. Like if I go there and I'm with a date and I'm really critical, it ruins their night. Yeah. And so no, I, I, I. I don't, I don't, uh, yeah, I almost never even discuss the dishes. I mean, I just, I just eat. That's so funny. I mean, I guess it's your job. Yeah. And you did it before and you'll do it after. On the show, it's my job and that's, you know, but no, if I go out, I'm out to enjoy myself. So what's next for Tom? What's next? Retirement? Will you retire? Eventually. Yeah. That's like, like, what are you doing in retirement? What would I do? Yeah. Fish. Yes. That's a classic thing. You love to fish. I fish as much as I can. Fish, garden, play guitar, read more. I have, I find plenty of stuff to do. You ever Googled yourself? Yeah. Not, not recently, but. Funny, like the, the first results, it's like Tom with hair. When was the last time you had hair? Uh, it's how they like grow out. I have hair now. Yeah. But like, when was the last time you wore hair? I don't know. Uh, when the show started. You had hair at the first time? First season? Yeah. A little bit. Wow. I think, I think so. It was a very thin numb, but so probably 20 years, probably 24, 20, you know, 24, 24. When you were like blessed to be able to. Oh, maybe, maybe 30 years ago. I would look so bad if I shaved my head. I don't remember. Um, what's next? I don't know. Um, I am working on a project. Um, I'm not sure it's going to happen yet. So it could happen, uh, up in Hudson Valley, looking at something up there. Um, I'm looking. You know, I may kick around the idea of really just, you know, after 25 years, craft is like, you know, definitely slowed down. We had a, we didn't have a very good year. I'm thinking of maybe changing the whole thing. Wait, why did you, okay. This is something I meant to ask earlier, but so you changed like the whole vision for craft was family style. And then just recently you changed it to not family style. Why did you decide to do that? So we had noticed that after the pandemic, a lot of, you know, people weren't sharing as much. And if you looked at our menu, like a duck dish was $72, but it was for two to three people. Yeah. And I remember I, I got into a, um, on, on, on social media, a discussion about, um, congestion pricing. And I think I mentioned that, you know, it's just going to cost more money because we're getting, we're going to get charged. Our suppliers are going to charge us now for that. And, uh, and someone said, oh, you charge $70 for duck. And how dare you? And I thought about this. It was like, well, it's for two to three people. Yeah. But how would they know that if they just looked at the menu? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, you know, I, I just thought we were, you know, if people were certain that we're just kind of looking at men and menus and trying to decide where they're going, if they look at our menu, they'd think it was like way overpriced. Yeah. And, and again, we, we've noticed that, you know, we'd serve a 16 ounce pork chop and the person would take it from the center table and put it in front of them and eat it. And so we just decided to make some changes. Yeah. And, uh, it made sense at the time. And I, I like what we're doing. Listen, craft was always about, you know, sourcing great ingredients and treating them, treating them. Yeah. And we still do that. Yeah. Yeah. That hasn't changed. And we still have a few dishes that are for the table. Like. Yeah. You can still. The lamb and the. Lamb and the beef. And then we'll probably add some more stuff, you know, in the spring. But, um, yeah, so it was just a decision to, to make some changes. Yeah. But, uh, you know, there were times I'm thinking about maybe, you know, making some bigger changes in the dining room design wise. And. Oh, wow. Um, but not quite there yet. Yeah. Yeah. Um, what's the biggest fish you ever caught? Uh, probably like a 250 pound marlin, maybe. That's, that's huge. That's small for marlin. You eat it? I've been on a boat. No, no, no. I've been on a boat where I've seen 550 pound marlin come over. I wasn't on the rod. You're catching tunas too, right? Yeah. Yeah. We catch tuna. Do you eat the tunas? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Marlin, you can't keep. Ah, I didn't know that. They're game fish. You know, you shouldn't kill them. Yeah. Um. If they die, then you keep it. Yeah. Because they can die. Um. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, tuna, but tuna I'll keep. If we're out fishing, I'll keep one or two. Mm-hmm. Um, and never freeze it. What I'll usually do is portion it, bag it, and put it in a cooler on my front porch and call my friends and say, there's tuna on the front porch. Come pick it up. Yeah. So that's going to be your retirement, just dropping off tuna at everyone's house? Yeah. Just come and get it. But, uh, but yeah, I keep, I keep, you know, I will keep one or two, but. If we catch 20 fish, I'm not keeping 20 tuna. Mm-hmm. So at the end of the podcast, I do this thing. I guess I should have told you, but it's just basically where we just, we shout out two things that we like. I'll start and then, so you get the idea and then you can do it. So I was going to shout out Jose, uh, Jose, the server, but I already talked about him. Uh, so I'll shout out my friend Ella Quintner. She just came off their book, Obsessed with the Best. It's a cookbook. It's amazing. It's like, um, it's one, it's really beautiful. Her whole thing is. She went around the world to create the best recipes of all these different categories like the best chocolate chip cookies or thing and she makes it in like one million different ways and then makes like a grid of them and photo and looks so cool and the recipes it's cool because they're really nice and that some of them are actually like project recipes where you're actually making like the very very best version that's like a little bit complicated and some of them are like here's a little hack to make this simple thing a little bit better I made her like she did like a take on Marcella Hazan's Marcella Hazan's uh the tomato butter sauce it's classic but she did like one where you sear the tomato the onion and butter and you let it brown a little bit first and then you flip them over I don't know it's a nice step and okay cookbook's beautiful so that's my first one cool um shout out um all right um okay this is a little little I'm very surprised if any of your your people know this one so there's a a small guitar um maker in Vermont called Froggy Bottom Froggy Bottom Froggy Bottom Guitars and they make about 100 guitars a year and the guy Michael Millard who was the founder and the guy who made all the guitars he is retiring and he sold the company um the people who run it are still going to run it but he's retiring and he's he's making 12 guitars before he retires whoa you're getting one I'm getting one so I'm really psyched what's an acoustic or electric acoustic yeah wow yeah very small body guitar when do you get it um I'll probably get it in probably another month maybe um what's the first song you're gonna play I have no idea you need to figure that out no no no but I'm so I'm that's I'm getting I'm looking forward to that that that's sick yeah the last one of the last 10 guitars one of the last ever 12 that he's making and he's making them himself all you know they small production that's such a cool way to go out yeah yeah their guitars are really really sweet um so so that that that's my big shout out wow nice my second one is um friend of the podcast Eddie Wong he's opening yeah he's opening a new opening Bauhaus I'm going today for dinner I'm excited tonight's the yeah I got invited yeah yeah probably not going to go because my back is yeah fucked up to go anywhere I'll tell him you send his your regards um but yeah I'm excited it's and it's cool uh there's like a full menu I'm so excited to try it like good tofu I like Eddie I haven't seen in a while yeah and it's an interesting character awesome yeah so second one I don't know uh second shout out my my big shout out is spring I can't wait for it I'm so tired right now so let's go spring next week that's what I hear yeah yeah it's coming yeah tired of it nice well thank you so much you're welcome this is a pleasure sure thanks expense account is the production of feed me in partnership with public sound and substack our executive producers are Emily Sundberg Jason gauntlet and Ryan Woodhall our producer is Kami fatay our audio engineer is Luke Moldoff our video editor is Izzy Cross and our graphic designer is Justin Sloan expense account is recorded at WSA NYC for more episodes visit us at feedme.substack.com see you next week