Anthony Bourdain, Marco Pierre White, Michael Ruhlman (as Moderator), The Role of a Chef, 2008

it's good to be here it's good to be around cooks um i love cooks i learned how to cook and that changed everything in my life and it's not just because it gave me a body of knowledge uh to write about um it changed the way i thought about the world um as people are telling you today as we all know as as culinary people um we are trashing the earth in massive ways we're creating huge dead zones in the ocean because of the fertilizer and the pollution and the waste runoff we're growing horrible monocultures of corn we all know the phrase don't where you eat we are doing that here on a massive scale and we've just figured out that we need to get serious about this the people who first told us about this the people who first got us to pay attention were chefs they provided us information they showed us where to look um coming out now to talk about what it means to be a chef what it means to be a cook and what it means to be a chef are two iconic chefs marco pierre white everyone here knows the seminal book white heat it has never been recreated there was never anything like it beforehand in 1990 while another chef that i know uh was was i i believe he was selling paperbacks in the snow at 95th on broadway to feed his drug habit uh marco pieroway had created a vision of the chef that was true to chefs he showed how passionate how committed a chef could be uh through those beautiful black and white photographs seven years later no nine years later nine years later having cleaned up his act another writer another book publisher came along tony bourdain and wrote another book about the life of the cook that people embraced it is because cooks have something to tell us that is bigger than just about food cooks have something to tell us about the way we ought to live and that's why i love writing about chefs that's why i'm very pleased to be introducing these two seminal uh excellent foul-mouthed wonderful chefs to this stage to talk about what it means today to be a chef and to be a cook perhaps more importantly tony bourdain and marco pure white [Applause] can you go in the middle i think i'll stand yes i'm going to stand yeah because i'm going to i'm going to direct this too um first of all i want to know from you thanks thanks chef for being here are you a chef not anymore anymore tell us what you think it means to be a cook and what it means to be a chef is i think firstly if you're going to be a chef you've got to dedicate your life to your profession it's not something you play with when i was a boy i stepped into the world sorry i said it again when i was a boy i stepped into the world of gastronomy yeah there was no such thing as a celebrity chef right chefs were acclaimed boys came from a certain background they came from a world which tended to be working class you walked into that world which was the tail end of his coffees world right you bridge that you bridge these two worlds some people say and you walked into that world and you had your uniform your chef he screamed he shouted and you responded you did what he said the first thing you were taught was discipline yes chef to every command you never counted the hours you never looked at your money you were there to learn your craft you were there for the right reason to learn your job to better yourself as a person and that's all i did but you transformed the way people thought about cooks and about chefs is i'm a great believer in life that you fight for what you believe in and i wanted to be a great cook and i had certain privileges in my life those doors that opened had two three stars michelin above them and i was given opportunities by those great men whether it was alberto pierre kaufman or montblanc the rest of them and i got that breaking harvey's in 1990 and i met two people one was a photographer called bob carlitzclark who was a great photographer and the other was a man called ellen crompton bat who invented restaurant pr so i was around at the right time with the right look doing the right food in the right place people were bored of classicism they wanted something else bob and i created the book white heat together allen promoted it allen promoted me as an individual and so for the first time ever people had an insight into the world of a kitchen those black and white pictures which bob created when you think they were in the 80s that book is almost 20 years old and it's still being printed today and today i go and sign books and i'm shocked that people walk up with white heat it's out of date in many ways but what it does do is inspires through the pictures which bob created it makes people dream and that's all you can give a chef is a dream and it's up to him whether he wants to follow that dream you can never teach someone how to cook you can show them methods you can show them technique but great cooks teach themselves what then is the difference between the chef and the cook do you distinguish between the two your position in the in the kitchen a cook tends to be a young boy he's either an apprentice a commie or a chef to party once you get into that senior level then you become a chef what about today's chefs who run multiple restaurants that's their choice you can't knock them they're making a living we were talking about this earlier and you said that um there were there were three choices you had when you decided that you were going to move but that's when you're at that three-star level if you're a cook and you don't have a three-star reputation to defend you can do as you wish i think when you have three stars you have a duty to your brigade to the establishment to your clients if i go to a three-star restaurant tonight for dinner i expect the man whose name's above the door who won the three stars to be behind the stove so if that chef is not at that restaurant there is something dishonest about that well he's living a lie in many ways when i was a cook i worked 90 hours a week six days a week i'd leave home in the morning and i'd kiss my children goodbye i'd arrive home on a night time and kiss them good night in their beds you know you can only do that for so long before it starts to affect you you think i've been given so much i've realized my dream as a cook so one day i was fishing and i thought maybe it's time to retire from cooking to retire from the stove and i looked at my options my first option was to retain my position and my status within my industry and not kiss my children goodbye in the morning and kiss them good night when they're in their beds my second option was to live a lie a little long deliver life pretend i cook when i don't cook to question my integrity and everything that i ever worked for my third option was to be honest bring up the michelin make an appointment give them a date and tell them not to include you in your next guide that you will be retiring from the stove that's what i did the next day i was unemployed no status but for the first time in my life it allowed me to discover myself as a person because the energies that i had were going into me as a person and not into my food did i become a happier boy yes i did would i have liked to have lived a lie no tony what's a chef well i i'd like to i'd like to sort of track back a little to describe you know here i was in a kitchen in 1990 i guess when white heat came out and you know it's easy to discuss and we we often tend to those of us who were who were really affected by white heat and who never ate it at uh at mirabell or at harvey's or any any of uh marco's restaurants the effect of the book it wasn't just those amazing black and white photos you know where which were very important for us looking at the situation in america because here for the first time was a chef who looked like us it wasn't some roly-poly french guy you know with a mustache it was you know somebody who looked kind of like us it was the fact that those photographs were next to these in these impeccably crafted beautiful beautiful plates and and recipes that to us sounded and as best we could reproduce them in our own crude way were delicious um but i think what's what's kind of useful for people here in the industry to look at i mean or my i guess is that you know try to imagine this marco was correct me if i'm wrong you're the youngest chef to get three michelin stars the first british born chef to get three michelin stars england we're talking 19 early 90s this was huge and yet at the height of his success and fame and and you know everybody wanted a piece you know he had the salmon epiphany you know he's got a salmon on the hook and he decides you know what it i'm going back and i'm telling them they can have their stars back and i'm going to go off and do other stuff as best i can understand that involves shooting lots of animals and eating them uh but also you've made you very early on kind of made a transition that that a lot of chefs are making now is what does chef mean then it meant simply presumably a cook presumably who leads chef you're the chief meaning you're a cook who can somehow get other cooks to show up on time and do what needs to be done to execute your either your recipes or whatever recipes you've chosen to to do in your restaurant maybe you know post marco that that we've seen that definition start to change the chef has is a is becoming more and more the successful chef is becoming more a ceo than a than a working cook and marco is saying that they are no longer a cooker that these people are living a lie well is that a bet i guess i'll ask the question is that a bad thing i mean do we really do you think it's a good if you're 52 years old and you're standing there in the kitchen cooking every single order for your customers or even standing in your kitchen at 52 years old is this a reasonable expectation do you think your customers are to expect that of you and are you to expect that of yourself it might be a noble car 52. no weekend's ever off for you you talk about kissing your kids at night you know forget it we all know the restaurant business is a killer clearly the playing field has changed i'm saying you know i was speaking to some someone who i respect a lot earlier and they were saying you know i understand that when i go to jean georges restaurants john george is not going to be cooking my dinner for me but when i go to the flagship and i spend that kind of money i kind of expect them to be there is that a reasonable expectation or not i i i think it's how you as a chef you know as a successful chef manage those expectations keller st thomas of napa uh who we who we all i think saw as a hands-on guy a while back i think we're all kind of loosening our grasp on this unreasonable notion that we we i think we all of us somehow expect thomas keller or expected thomas keller to die behind the stove and i think it's a cruel and snobbish assumption and i was kind of relieved to read in the washington post i think it was where he's talking about himself now as a ceo with an obligation to the people who helped him get where he was as a working chef to find their own thing to set them up in their own businesses under this umbrella organization and to get bigger i don't know whether i find anything wrong with that you know particularly since i you know i sure haven't worked in nine years so um what's your response to tony here about jean george thomas keller people everyone respects if you look at the great restaurants of france georges blanc michelle gerard friday they didn't cook exactly behind their stove frying the meat but their presence was in the kitchen they were behind their pass they greeted their customers they were proper restaurateur chefs is to disappear off and charge high prices i think is wrong i think you have a duty to be there so for example when i was a boy alvaroo was behind the pass at 50 years old he turned up to do the pass he left after lunch he turned up in the evening through the pass he left after the last check he didn't physically cook behind the stove but he was behind his stove he was behind his pass he knew exactly what went on a good point i'm interested in what joel robuchon does next i mean i don't care if it's an atelier in in tokyo or new york or or or las vegas i'm i'm interested in what the what joe robushan as a spiritual entity who commands the loyalty of a lot of talented people who come up in his organization i'm interested in what he does i guess wanted to get rid of three stars he retired and then went on to do what he's doing now which tends to be a one star concept that's what he does but while joel had three stars he never left his kitchen he never left his business he was there for his punters okay he charged accordingly but he knew everything that went out if he didn't touch it with his eyes he touched it with his hands his palate his presence it makes a very big difference the chef's presence in a kitchen is enormous it's like if you look at the greatest football club in the world manchester united if alex ferguson wasn't on the touchline every day when they're playing would they get the silver they get no they wouldn't his presence on that touchline driving the troops making the decisions wins them trophies and the chef's presence is exactly the same in the kitchen it retains the discipline but do you want to eat that food anymore you want to eat a three-star michelin meal 14 courses it's gonna take you four and a half hours is when you think if you look at the modern day three star they control their clients by forcing these 12 course 15 call 16 course menus down their throats it's very easy to put one skull up on a plate times four for a table of four very easy if you look at the old world majority of people went off the a la carte that's when you had to cook when you've got a table of six with six different main courses they're dictating to you you're not dictating to them whenever you go to a three-star restaurant today they force you down this tasting menu road which one is boring secondly you you've forever been interrupted do i want to eat one little scallop no i don't i want to get a plate of scallops i'd like two courses i want to get stuck in fair question then and i don't like tepid food i mean how do you keep one little skull apart i don't get it okay fair question uh a three-star restaurant where they tell you how to eat your food four and a half hours or cats is deli where are you eating well firstly i don't want to eat in the chapel of rest because that's what it's like it's like dining in the chapel of rest and you're dictated to you're made to feel privileged that you're there forget it if you look at the great french restaurants of the 50s 60s 70s the 80s like maximes of paris la se la today la grande gerard's restaurant bakusi's restaurant they are proper three-star restaurants i was a boy who was inspired by the great three-star restaurants i love the whole romance of it the only thing that doesn't date within our industry is romance you walk into these new modern day temples of gastronomy they're quite boring in my opinion i don't get it 15 courses of what but that's me what are we getting courses yeah but we're all jaded feed bags here you know we've eaten everywhere we've eaten a lot of really great places but you know eating 15 cousins i'm kind of over it unless it's sushi the last great 15 course meal i had was at a sushi place in tokyo and i ate uh i think 20 courses in 20 minutes i get that all of them and it was the most amazing dining experience i've had in a really long time but you i mean i went to a restaurant two years ago and i was given two choices 18 or 24 courses that's my choice i've just flown in on a seven hour flight i'm exhausted so i go for the 18 courses like an idiot i'm now sitting there three and a half hours later thinking what am i eating i forgot and i and i'm now convinced i've had more than 18 courses and i said excuse me what course am i on to the major d and he said to me the chef slips in a few extra courses [Laughter] i said can i have the bill he said but you haven't had pudding yet why they want four puddings they just want to go home so so so is this style of eating do you think it's is it finished look as long as the public demand it they can have it it's not something that you are interested in i'm not interested in it you know i'm not you know who gets in this arrangement worse than anybody the pastry chef because they got to stay up really late they all have great pasties chefs you know and and all of these restaurants we're talking about they're they're amazing you know world famous pastry chefs and you know you're hitting course 18 halfway through your fourth or fifth meat course and you're thinking you're counting courses you're thinking i'm not making it through the cheese and i hope they send all the desserts at once because you know somehow the fact that i'm not eating is gonna get not noticed but but they get nobody eats it it's all you take the obligatory little bite and and that's it so what's wrong i mean where where what are we what are we getting wrong it's cooking by numbers isn't it that's exactly what it is i get painting by numbers i don't get cooking by numbers and it really confuses me i mean they show you the menu they should leave it there for you to look at you can tick it off as you go down but but it's your fault man nothing to do with me everybody wanted to be like you and they wanted to make those pretty things and and and they got a little maybe they just got a little over ambitious and but it's about controlling it's about controlling the punter it's taking them down a road it's one dimensional i i should point out by the way that i had a really remarkable meal at your place of you tree in the most insane establishment most delightfully insane establishment it's basically a pub out in the middle of where where is it it's in the middle of hamburg middle of hampshire wherever that is apparently marco needed some place to drag he shoots a lot of animals and he needed some place to drag them where they they would presumably cook them and see walk into this place it's like a country pub the ceiling's around half of our height you got to duck in there's some guy behind the stick cranking pints and the menu is your usual country menu of dead animals with with the bread pudding bread sauce and the traditional british accompaniment done impeccably of course but what's really cool is that on the menu there are all of these really wonderful classic dishes that that only in an alternate universe would belong in this this pub in hampshire the dishes from maxime and these ascofie era dishes and some greatest hits from his career that are available basically nowhere else on earth and and thoroughly thoroughly wonderful and and nobody's standing there saying you know and the next course is let me spritz the air and then but the bottom line is it's about feeding people it's about eating it's about getting stuck in do i want a waiter telling me how to eat my food do you think i need that i had it he gave me three tiny pieces of lamb and told me which one to eat first he told me they were different they were not different trust me i need to ask you to something uh about the new role of the chef that has recently happened i don't know if you know this but some chefs actually have television shows are you aware of that what is the role of the chef and the media and television shows is it a worthy goal for young cooks this television business you started doing shows you've been doing shows for years now is it a worthy goal for young chefs yeah no it's an undignified business and if any anyone who gets into the wrestling business hoping to get a tv show is you know kind of finding an obscure route i mean i i mean the general route to television is you know moved directly to fellatio i think but but i think uh i think we both of us neither of us when we first entered the restaurant business imagined a career in television and i'm going to guess while there might be some people who've gotten into the restaurant business in the hopes of later parlaying that into a television career it's a pretty bad way to go all i can say is i think i think the bigger question is first of all i think you're if you short answer i think you're if you're going in the business expecting to get on television or if that is your your goal uh i think the bigger question is do you have any kind of responsibility at all as a former chef or a current chef once you're lucky enough to you know if people are silly enough to give you a tv show do you have any responsibility at all to the citizens of the world what do you think question i think is i tend to do reality tv so but what i try to do is put as much reality into the show as possible i try to give people an insight into the world that i came from it's a vehicle for me to inspire people to want to cook to want to cook i love the way you try and put words in my mouth you're a journalist but i think you've got to try and my job is to try and inspire people to want to cook to have an affair with food to improve their quality of life i think that's what's really important you mentioned that you mentioned that a couple of times inspiring inspiration i think it's very important because i cannot teach anyone how to cook people teach themselves how to cook it's something that comes from within them as i've always said great cooks have three things in common the first thing they have in common is they accept the respect that mother nature is the true artist they are the cook secondly everything they do becomes an extension of them as a person and thirdly they give you an insight into the world that they came from the world that inspired them and they show it off on their plate and that's what great cooks truly do and if i sit and talk to a lot of cooks they tell me their story and i listen to their philosophy and then i ate their food it's so unhinged a lot of cooks just cook for the wrong reason they step into the industry to be stars to be celebrities to go on tv my advice would be to anybody who wants to be a cook as a profession is go in keep your head down do your job learn your trade as fernando said perfection is lots of little things done well and that's what it is and when i take people around me all i try to do is give them great understanding all i try to do is inspire them to get them to bring something from within themselves and if we think back my favorite cook was my mother and all great cooks if you look at their palettes a lot of them go way back into their childhood and what you have to do is give people you have to inspire them you have to get them to tap into the whole romance of gastronomy because food is very romantic it's very special but you're talking to a young cook who's working at a high-end restaurant in new york city and they're working 90 hours a week and they're they're turning potatoes all day long they're they're just you know they're just sort of stuck well firstly that when i started out that's exactly what i did what did it do for me number one i became incredibly disciplined incredibly patient incredibly fast at what i did because the quicker you work the more you learn also when you're doing all those hours you don't question it when you're doing all those jobs you're learning knife skills you're absorbing your environment the people around you are sharing their knowledge you learn more with your eyes than anything else tony you're known for your perfectionism in the kitchen right no um i i think i think for for the the cook you talk about who's turning potatoes in a cellar in a busy restaurant almost anyone they see on television is is a completely alien uh has really no relationship to them at all you know they're they're in the real world they're they're they're going to learn as mark i said from the people around them uh in a real world situation uh seeing someone on tv at this point in the game meaning they're already in the business they're already turning potatoes a tv chef has no reality for them at all they're not stupid they they get it you know okay hey wolfgang puck used to be a really important great chef but but the guy is on tv now has no relation to my to my life and no relevance to my life other than you know hey maybe when i'm 50 that would be a good gig um to me the best you could hope for the the most the the best role model you could have uh in american food television i think it's julia child you know she changed the world uh you know when i talk about a responsibility do you have any responsibility as a note i said former chef on television you know if you if you're on television as an entertainer you have no responsibility to anybody other than presumably to be reasonably entertaining but i think if you're a former chef i kind of owe it to the people you work with i think to not be foolish completely full of and i think that that's you know i i think that's why i you know looking back how and the further along the the the food television thing we go the better julia looks she she changed the world her cookbook was on every refrigerator uh always she didn't endorse anything ever you know she could have been to martha stewart of her time easily had a gigantic multimedia empire you know didn't do it um the recipes still work and you you looked you watched that show and you thought well you know maybe okay i don't know how to do that but she can do it and and it's a little extra work but i she's made me want to do it she raised expectations she as marco said inspires people and she changed the whole game for for cooks across the board and and made and also along the way you know made television about people cooking a viable concern so what's your point my point uh is you know put her at as the ideal and somebody who's saying you don't really you know all you have to do is crack open a can of cheese whiz and a box of triscuits and and it's okay i don't think it's okay okay i i think i think there's good there's good for the world uh food television and there's there's uh there's food television that's clearly bad for the world it's dumb things down it lies see anytime your host says man that's really good and and it's clearly uh it's bad food tv uh anytime someone tells you that what is clearly crap uh is is okay to feed your kids much less yourself then then it's bad food tv um you know like any other tv i guess you always have the option to change the channel so again back to back to being honest you would i would imagine you would agree with tony on those points i think i think you have to inspire but that's what you can do through a tv is inspire people you cannot teach people how to cook you inspire them to buy the right produce that's the first thing and then what you do is by what you do with it you inspire them and give them the confidence to want to have a go and that's what it is in a strange sort of way you're taking them by the hand come on have a go because all cooking is really is confidence when i was a boy i remember al beru when i first went to la garrosh i was the only english boy in the kitchen 19 years old in 1981 and i was the commie on the source with a boy called claude and albert called me into the service after service into his office sorry he said marco he said you can cook as well as anybody he says do not be scared of the stove he was absolutely right i was intimidated by a three-star stove it changed my life i went back the next day and i attacked the stove you have to attack the stove you have to have that inner confidence and that belief that you can do it and if you mess it up who cares because by messing things up you take great knowledge have another go as i always say i think this is the most important thing i would ever say to a young chef cooking is a philosophy it's not a recipe unless it's pastry then it becomes chemistry [Applause] does this mean you're finished all right i thought you'd have enough of me i want to ask one more thing uh chef what are you doing now who are you now what do you do yeah i'm just marco i'm myself it's a 24-hour job i mean really trust me all right should we should we open it up to questions or ready for questions would you like some questions quickly because there's probably a few quick people would like especially last question we're very lucky to have mark appear white here i'm donna pernomo from yono's restaurant in albany new york and to tony i just wanted to say um for two different reasons your segments one on beirut and the one on indonesia are particular favorites of ours and just some comments from you on filming those um wow one was really really you know one of the happier experiences of my life and the other was uh uh heartbreaking um the reason why was so powerful was because it was honest we weren't getting we weren't getting the news from anybody else this was a real show about what actually happened and some of you experienced it the best thing about doing the show is i get to do stuff i mean i get to do stuff that i i get to live out my dreams sometimes those dreams end up you know being turning into nightmares um you know i had certainly you know my heart broken in in beirut seeing this wonderful place pounded back 20 years um i get to see places like indonesia that are indescribably beautiful um uh you know i get to hang out with my heroes uh you know shooting bambi um but you know i think you know when you see you know i have the perfect job i mean the best job in the world i i go anywhere i want and i pretty much do whatever i want as long as i make television it but i guess every once in a while you bump into a real world that um you know you understand that you understand the rules that most people in the world live by which is that bad people could come at night and take you away that bombs can fall from the sky and kill you that there's not enough food that um that you know dinner could last four and a half hours and have 24 courses like that okay we have another question up here um hi my question is for marco i was wondering if you could tell me an example of a chef now that's working in the classical michelin sense that you referred to versus the more progressive uh multi-digestation courses that you see is there anybody doing that now in france in in europe i'm from west palm beach florida somebody you're looking for an example for marco of a multi of a french chef working now in a multi-start operation doing a a multi-course degres testion oh so uh oh what old school guys are out there doing it right would be uh not necessarily old school but who's doing it in the who's cooking and running their restaurant in the way that he admires versus what he said he has a issue with yeah yeah is it i can hear you sorry is if you look at someone like ellen passar in paris he's there behind his stove he's a man of nearly 60 years old he's a prime example if you look at someone like um he's behind his stove doing it every day i'm not saying he's on the sauce section he's behind the path he's running his restaurant boyer michelle gerald's still there doing it bakus who's 77 years old he's still in his restaurant every day it's a way of life for them and they're the chefs i truly admire who have won their three stars they've stayed loyal to what they worked hard for and they still work hard retaining it because it's a way of life for them it's an extension of them as a person do i want to eat in ellen de casa's restaurant well he's got so many of them but he's never there just another restaurant isn't it soulless when you walk into a great three-star restaurant run by a great three-star chef and his wife you know they're in the house you feel their presence i didn't hear the first part of the question she said what three-star restaurant or chef out there that's 25 or 30 years old and not somebody who's 70. well firstly there's no three-star chef who's 25 and 30. i was 33 and i'm still the youngest hi uh wayne edwards from the food people i'd like to ask marco um who he admires who's cooking at the moment particularly in the uk is if i'm looking if i was going to go for a michigan start dinner tonight in the uk i'd mostly go to the man what i can't sit on see my old friend raymond blong he's still there in his business behind his stove inspiring his troops 30 years on he's in many ways the last of the old world is raymond is the real deal i have a question i'm norman van aiken and i've been cooking uh since 1971. i was given white heat by charlie trotter in 1990 by the way and admired the book immediately the world has changed since you and i started in kitchens and my question is this what do you think about these tv guys that um scream and throw and decide that the lesson out there for the chefs is to get up in their face and throw at them and you know light their apron on fire what do you think about that [Applause] are we talking about gordon ramsay talking about someone does a pale imitation of you i love this man you're a funny boy the world has changed since 71 78 when i stepped into the kitchens as i think if you're a chef and you step onto tv you have a duty to your industry you have been given a stage to express yourself to show yourself off and the last thing you should be doing in my opinion is belittling people you're there to inspire that's all but chef you you were famous for making people bringing people to tears i was gonna add to that gordon ramsay made himself cry it was his choice oh do we have another question over here i saw somebody raise their hand okay hello my name is brian i'm a cook and i have um from new york i now live in boston uh utmost respect for all three of you chefs as authors and also as cooks one question i do have is basically where you guys didn't now find cuisine going um talking talking talking about food where it's been is your day old school going new school uh chemicals everything everything that's there uh why don't we move what do we all answer the question i mean for me what i'm noticing um among my chef friends and what i want more and more i'm becoming more in i want i just want to go straight to the good stuff okay i want to properly sauce i i never want to feel bad about wiping the bottom of my plate with a crust of bread um i i at this point in my life i i know what the good is i think and i want that and and i wanted to spend more and more i want to dispense with the nonsense and the artistic vision um that's that's not to say i am not in awe i mean to go to per se for instance and seeing that level of technique and that kind of vision all brought together in one environment isn't a wonderful thing but more and more i want just some really really good high test sushi um and i want to eat it over or i want if i get my tasting menu i want it over a counter i i don't want to wear a tie i don't want to behave for my waiter i just i want to be fed in an informal situation i don't want i i i want to feel comfortable uh that that's that's becoming more and more important to me what are you what are you looking for i personally think the most important aspect of any restaurant is the environment you sit in to eat your dinner i can go to a restaurant tonight and if i don't like that environment it doesn't matter how good the food is they give me i don't want to eat it i don't want to be there so i'm very sensitive to my environment and what i want is i want one course every night of something which is cooked really well and delicious if i want a steak i want a great steak cooked medium rare how i like it within the environment i want to sit in if i want a piece of fish i want it on the bone cooked deliciously a little bit of olive oil little lemon bit of salt crystal salad on the side that's me a great bowl of pasta a nice risotto michael simple stuff like tony said it's a good rule in writing too is uh the best rule of writing is just to take out the boring bits and that is uh how you would like to cook simple food i love that america is embracing fat uh that we're embracing pork belly that's a great sign that's a hopeful sign so i think we have nothing but good times to come in uh in our food world let me ask a question single next big thing ingredient what do you think or or or spectrum of ingredients i'm guessing cartilage i think you know we were fat at so last week i think we're moving into skin and cartilage i'll do that like our our you know chinese future masters the chinese and i think it's a good sign are you guys the the follow-up question from the guy from boston is he thinks you're spoiled that you've had all the 18 course meals but yes but lots of other people that haven't had them that when they do get to go to they really enjoy them i i i enjoy a long multi-course meal still i love great service i love really elegant easy service that makes me feel comfortable so yes once a year or twice a year i can do a long like that if the kitchen really cares about after your meal is it okay i mean is it is is there something wrong in the meal if you collapse into a bloated like a bloated farting gas bag moaning in bed praying to god to not throw up your twelve hundred dollars worth of food well the problem is you know because you feel like you wasted it the thing is you're right i am spoiled and i am jaded but is there something yes i think it's right i think it's fundamentally wrong with that it's selfish of the chef to do that they want to impress you you walk into a restaurant they want to impress you it's mark appear white they're going to as i said to you earlier the most poisonous sauce in a kitchen is a chef's ego and and i said and when you said that to me and it's very interesting and very good point you were also famous for having an extraordinary ego is that true i never fed 18 courses to anybody hi i'm marcelo from the big island of hawaii and my question is all three of you what do you think of the new trend of underground dining right now tony knows a lot about that you've done shows in that you've eaten a lot of that you should probably take that i think the more venues for cooks to stretch and the more venues for people to eat in i think it's a good thing i i think it's a positive trend i don't know that it's gonna i don't think it's a next big thing i think it is a basically elitist construct i think all of the bad things that people say about this they have a point but on balance i uh you know i like them i i think it's a good a good venue for cooks to do stuff in restaurants uh or to do stuff in an environment that uh or do things that they can't do in a restaurant elsewhere particularly i think they're really valuable when you're talking about illegal ingredients when you're talking about bootleg cheeses and stuff then i think it's the best thing ever do you have this stuff in england underground like sort of like a floating card game they meet in an apartment or a warehouse or you know borderline parties and we're too conservative in england yeah hi i'm chris i'm graduating cia in two weeks and i wanted to ask you what your opinion was uh obviously i think in your time food is more about elevating cuisine whereas i'm starting as a chef or i'm sorry starting as a cook who's a culture who is making things out of rich crackers and campbell's soup broth uh how do you feel young chef's responsibility is as far as bringing back fundamental cooking techniques to just middle america and people in general other than the convenience i think it's vital vital i think everyone i think you should have you have an obligation as a sentient human being to be able to roast a chicken to to be able to cut an onion i i think there's a baseline i think i think it's a worthwhile aspiration that every child uh every human be be taught how to feed themself and maybe a few others if at all possible to the best of their ability i mean should we cook should we know how to cook as humans i think so oh i think so absolutely it's a fundamental act it's a fundamental act of our humanity if we ignore it we ignore uh being human and connecting with other humans uh feet cooking for and with and dining with family and friends is one of the very it's one of the most important things that we do and if we don't know how to do it we're losing a lot maybe i think this group has been sitting still for a long time maybe like one more question just one more right up here who was raising their hand my name is miles quinn i'm from new york city i work at the berna den and i would like to know a word of advice for young cooks wait a minute you work at liberno down what can i tell you no no it's a great restaurant for young cooks show up on time that's what best best best advice i ever heard best that i could ever give show up on time every day it it says so much about you i think most chefs feel i'm going to guess most chefs feel i can you know that they can teach you to cook they can't teach character you know are you the sort of person worth spending time you don't have to teach skills to showing up on time demonstrates that you're a serious individual it sounds i'm facetious but honestly that's it show up on time marco you said a lot of great things about two and four young cooks what are your final words on i tell this young man to continue to allow his mother to guide him ladies and gentlemen cook chefs food people thank you so much thank you marco for being here thank you tony

Channel: StarChefs

Views: 210,845

Keywords: starchefs, star chefs, culinary magazine, culinary world, culinary, food blogs, food blog, food video, culinary video, culinary demonstration, culinary demos

Id: 5YtgHHS8z4E

Length: 50min 15sec (3015 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 29 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

god the way marco talks can make me cringe a little.