>> charlie: welcome to the broadcast. we continue our vacation schedule, by looking at some of the people who come to this table in the last year to talk about themselves and interesting things. tonight a subject, foodie. first, david chang. >> only as good as your last dish. i continue to believe -- it's not like if i was a sprint sprinter or physicist or say a golfer, then you can really measure yourself. here, it's very subjective. >> charlie: then ferran aid dree i can't. >> really all the senses. when you eat. you hear, you taste.

the feeling in the mouth. of the csk. >> charlie: finally tom colicchio. >> i notice that over time i started removing ingredients. i said, 15 years, 20 years from now what might it look like? that's what happened with crab. a very straight forward focusing on ingredients. >> charlie: food, foodies and passion for cooking coming up.

captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> charlie: chef david chang is here. his blend for flavor combinations have taken the food world by surprise and applause has followed. he's already won two james beard awards, oscars of cuisine and both "bon appetite" and ""gq" named him chef of the year in 2007 w ha three restaurants in momofuku. and newest ko, i am pleased to have him here for the first time. let me just talk about the biography it's very interesting. mother and father came from korea. >> yep. post korean war in the early '60s. >> charlie: settled in the washington d.c. area. >> northern virginia. >> charlie: in the washington d.c. area. then they got -- your dad first

worked in the kitchen washing dishes. >> in new york. then he found his way down south and -- >> charlie: selling golf surprise? >> then, got out of the restaurant business. owned a couple of restaurants. never envisioned that i would ever be in the restaurant industry got in the golf supply business. i played a lot of golf as a kid. >> charlie: you were good. >> well, i don't like to say i was good but i won a few tournaments, that's all i did. i went to golf camp. i never hung out with friends, i was always playing golf 365 days a year. >> charlie: were you about the same age as tiger woods at the time? >> he was two or three years older than me. >> charlie: he was a killer at that time. >> i think time i knew i was -- he was -- someone was a lot better i was trying to qualify for a tournament, the big i in houston, texas. he was already on the cover of the pamphlet to get in to the tournament i was like, he's too good. he was already legend back then. >> charlie: so, you finally

decided that about golf? >> i burnt out. i just think it was -- i wasn't mentally ready to handle the tournaments. it's such a stressful game. i think a lot of ways it defined who i am today. i mean, i was -- not a head case on the course, but it's so competitive you want to beat everybody. it's you against the course. you don't have to be the most -- the longest hitter, the best putter, you need to have the complete game. and the mental aspect. once i sort of realized what i was doing in sort of maybe accomplishing i sort of had, i don't know a breakdown, i didn't enjoy it as much. >> charlie: how did you go from golf to cooking? >> well -- slowly s. it was never in my path. it was career path that my dad never really envisioned. any of his children doing, because he -- we always saw him come home or very weary from

working in restaurants then the golf store. i just, after college, i didn't really want to sit behind a desk, that's not what i envisioned my life to do. that's 1999, i was like, well, most of my friends are miserable at their desk jobs working in wall street or law or whatever. i'm going to pursue something that i at least enjoy doing, that was cookingcooking. >> charlie: you liked it. >> i liked. >> charlie: what did you like about it? >> that you could work with something and get better at it. and sort of just tte. you're creating somethin using your hands, someing that was just the direct polar opposite of what i was doing in college or what i was doing groomed to do, which i had no idea. cooking was something that i felt i had honor in it. like a real craft. if i was had more dexterity i would have been like, i don't

know, a surgeon or something like that. >> charlie: and so, you went cooking you got a series of jobs including japan. how influential was that? >> it was life changing. i had small stent teaching english in japan, i promised myself i'd go back to japan to do it right. and to absorb the food culture and to stay there almost a year, it changed the way i viewed food. food didn't have to be good just for the nine dining level. that was one of the misconceptions that i had about food that you could only eat well like fine dining restaurants in new york, for instance. in japan from cheap restaurants to very fancy restaurants, everything was cooked with so much passion, very in gradient driven.

everyone cared about food. >> charlie: they love food in japan and practice the art of cooking to a high level. >> it's amazing. people that travel japan need to take there longer than a week, need to go for three weeks and soak up tokyo and other cities, it's unique culture, there's a lot to learn. but particular about food. >> charlie: one of the things that's clear about you is that you have a passion for chefs, period. you want to see that chefs get their due and have an opportunity to spread out. if you have your drdruthers there would be a lot more restaurants in new york and lot more good chefs working. >> it's too hard now to do it on your own. used to be enough to be a good chef, i felt i was like the last, when i started cooking, i saw the last of the age of the great chef, where you had to be the greatest technician. now it's not like that any more.

because once you became the greatest technician you want have the ability to open up your own restaurant any more. things started to change. in the '90s they were five or six restaurants where if you wanted to learn about cooking, you had to work there. now that's not the case any more. i have just the utmost respect for the old school, tray tradition, history behind it. and everybody that's done it the right way and i have hard time justifying my place with that world. >> charlie: why is that? >> because i don't think i paid my dues like everyone else. that's hard for me. i take it with a grain of salt sometimes. not sometimes, all the time. because i feel that thomas keller, even the people that, there's a lot of cooks out there i feel that are superior to me or much more talented that don't get the press coverage or the recognition that they deserve. and i just feel that for

whatever reason just happened to me, i speak my mind or i do this, i do that. not like i'm trying to g attention or anythg li that. trying t rve od food and trying to serve -- trying to treat our peopleike. >> charlie: not trying to attract attention. >> not just to do wha we believe in. >> charlie: let merv griffin pursue another idea, originality. that's what people say about you. you've taken these things and you have made it original. you have created by the things that you choose to do. >> that's another thing i have a hard time processing. i don't know if it's original. i think what wiley dufrane is original -- >> charlie: a big fan of yours. >> i love what he does. i think that he was a trailblazer, he allowed us to do what we do. i think what redo is really sort of just repackaging stuff. that's the way i look at it. >> charlie: somebody else get

exactly what i get at your place because they are already doing it before you started? >> well -- >> charlie: is that what you think? >> i feel that we're not doing anything ground breaking. we're just trying t again, i tell guys like -- i just feel, let's make something good, do it the right way. the right way, let's be resptful to the product. let's cook it with technique. let's try to do what we have with the -- with our limitations let's try our best regardless. even if it's a bad dish, someone doesn't like it, i want that guest to be like, at least they tried their best. i might not find the food agreeable, but i can see how much love and passion was put in to the food. >> charlie: when you created sombar, there weren't a lot of people dying to get in. you looked across the street it was full. you said to yourself, and to

your guys, i don't care. how many people come here but i want to make better food than they do. >> right. >> charlie: right? >> that happened at both noodle bar and ssam bar. and it just took a lot of -- i always say it was progression of accidents. we sort of just with a lot of great people, too. we have a lot of good people that offer great advice and great opinions and ssam bar was an example where i had an idea to do sort of fast food. it was a terrible, terrible idea. >> charlie: why it was a terrible idea? >> i decided to take a menu item from lunch from noodle bar that some obscure menu item make a whole restaurant out of it. nobody had any idea what the hell we were doing. i don't know -- retrospect i don't know what the hell i was thinking. >> charlie: not only that, this was a place you chose a location which was not a place that people went for lunch. >> no. 13th street and 2nd avenue. >> charlie: it was for lunch that your business depended, that wasn't smart at all. >> not at all.

zero, zero -- >> charlie: you stopped making fast food stuff. >> then listening to joaquin baka and tim hoe who became partners in it all, we started -- this is not how you do it. this is not how you plan a restaurant. you start fast food then we open up late night. serve eclectic menu from 10:30 to 2:30 in the morning. people started coming in more for the late night than for fast food. and i wanted to make sure it wasn't hubris or my own stubborn -- >> charlie: who came were chefs getting off work coming down there. they created a buzz, because they like had they saw. >> yes. then we switched it up. then the burrito, which was what we were serving, sort of, went bye-bye. >> charlie: so what came in after the burrito went bye-bye? >> we started serving anything. we started serving country h plates, we started doing -- we

make the food i can't even describe it. i say it's vaguely asian. >> charlie: there is deep within you this philosophy which i buy in to totally. which is, if you want to be the best, you got to work harder than everybody else at the core. not only you, but everybody that works for you, if they don't buy in to that idea then they're at the wrong place. >> right. it's trying to stay humble. as much as possible and i always tell people, a lot of new cooks that come in, congratulations, you chose one of the hardest jobs in the world. try to do it right. we're not doing anything special, we're not curing cancer. we're feeding people. particular now, food is special with food costs and all this other stuff, we got to do it right. be honest about it and have

integrity. a lot of these things i find that like people talk about the great chefs have already spoken out like chef keller talks about. i find myself sort of repeating what he session. he paved the way with trying to do things the right way. i don't know what the right way is. but it's working hard and it's busting your tail to do it right. >> charlie: how many nights are you in the kitchen? >> less and less these days. >> charlie: what are you doing? >> i don't like being in the open kitchen too much. i like being at ssam bar. i'm atko right now because our chef owner is sick. i don't know. i'm helping run the business. i don't want to be a lie s s that i'm at the kitchen every night. >> charlie: you make that clear. anybody who says that, who owns more than one restaurant they're at the kitchen every night is not telling you the truth. >> but for whatever reason, my

career has changed, i don't know how to define my job any more. some nights i'm working, some nights i'm not. i'll do whatever it takes to make the restaurants work. >> charlie: do you still delight in cooking, though? >> i love it. >> charlie: when you go home you order pizza and chinese takeout. >> that's true. i love cooking outside. but it's sort of -- not that much fun cooking at home. especially when you're out at the restaurants. your refrigerator doesn't have the walk-in all the fresh herbs and beautiful fish and chicken. you don't have a dishwasher -- >> charlie: so pizza will do. >> pizza will do. some cooks like cooking at home. i miss cooking the line as much as -- i wish i could cook more. >> charlie: do you, really? truthfully? >> truthfully. but at the same time it's weird because all of our kitchens are sort of open, i don't know if --

i have sort of different persona when i'mback there. >> charlie: people want to come in because your auto celebrity? >> i don't want to talk to them. not like i don't want to talk to them -- >> chaie: you have other things this do. >> yeah. i'm trying my best to ke a even temper and to have some balance. >> charlie: what's the likelihood we'll find one of your restaurants in las vegas? >> oh, man. that's the loaded question. i would say it's pretty good. i would say. >> charlie: do you have -- are you ambivalent about that? >> i'm not ambivalent. what it is is new york really hard to do business in new york. and what the dining public doesn't quite understand is that we're not a food culture like we are in france or italy or japan where you can sort of run a restaurant like mom and pop operation. i joke that i own a shoe store we have to sell s.u.v. shoes to pay the bills.

after that, then we're cooking. in new york with all the construction permits and everything and, are you handicapped compliant, it's hard because these buildings are tough and they're small and someone from las vegas you have an opportunity to do something fresh and new. all of our restaurants are very tiny. it's certainly another opportunity that -- >> charlie: you think 12 seats is tie know? is that what you have at k, no. >> yes, it's 12 seats. >> 12 seats. what if somebodyancy wanted to get a reservation? not possible. >> charlie: not even for the great frank bni? >> no only person we've ever done it for s been sam gelman my sous chef's mother. >> the if you don't do that you don't deserve to be alive. >> she came opening day we

reserve add slot for her. i thought -- >> charlie: what about the all the chefs that helped you along. all those people who were there for you when you needed advice and encouragement and to take you out of a funk and now they want to come eat at your restaurant, you say, no reservations allowed, get in line? >> i was hoping that they wouldn't ask. they can -- they can to go ssam before or noodle bar any time. >> charlie: but not ko. >> we're lucky that someone told me the other day that the web guy, we have 25,000 people registered to use nor 12 seats. it boggles my mind. >> charlie: what do they get there that makes this so valuable? >> they get the different ding experience. we wante to strip away all the nonsense. do we really need a wine expert all the other things th you see hat three star or four star restaurant. our go was noto be three stars. our goal was, let's again, serve the best food we can.

let's try to make the best food in new york city. regardless of anything else. regardless of our environment. i sort of like that die dichotomof sort of a envinment that issort of maybe just like a dive bar, for instance. why can't that place sve some of the most delicious food in the world. yotalk to people about food memories, they will say, i had this great fish taco. or i love roast chicken. or i love this. they're simple things, they're sort of devoid of those sort of fanciness that food is associated. to love food in america you have the stigma of being elitist in a way. that shouldn't be the case. i think americans should appreciate food more, that way maybe we'd eat less bad food or know where our food is coming from. >> charlie: what you described is what you don't get. what's not necessary. what do you get? what's the meal? >> you tenner a very small room, you're going to get variety of

can payse and then -- canape then raw fish dish. certain things that we want to sell. like we want raw dish. we want an egg dish. we want a pasta course. want fish coue. we want a meat course. those are the parameters we try to switch it upithin that. atever is st in that day, we've had -- we've been messing around with the menu, we have a short rib dish. the hard thing is, for the cooks is the menus not stayed the same but we want to change. we are constantly trying to push, not the envelope, but we're sort of add we want to change the menu. it's hard -- >> attention deficit disorder? >> when customers come in they read about some of the food items we have short rib dish or a fluke dish, one of the first courses with butter milk we don't have that sunday. they get upset. >> charlie: you made point when you find yourself less and

less cooking more and more entrepreneur, you have lost something that was important to you. when you were cooking, you knew what you were about and you knew how to measure our yourself. >> right. >> charlie: some entrepreneurs will say it's not about the money but that's the way we keep score. are you seriously saying, how do i measure how good i am, just putting more people in the restaurant is not necessarily, because a lot of people have done that and don't make great food. >> i'm figuring that out as i go. to measure yourself in this restaurant industry is pretty tough. there are some people that i would love -- i don't think i'd ever be -- it's weird to be mentioned in the same breath as these people. but i'm not. >> charlie: yes, you are. you are mentioned in the same breath. you are. >> these guys -- >> charlie: it's not because you mention they think of you in the same breath. all these people -- ruth doesn't take fools seriously, does she? >> i hope not.

>> charlie: here is her magazine. >> this is her magazine. >> charlie: let's see what she says here. hungry, david chang always fel like a misfit cooking in fine dining establishment, how ironic that is two new york city restaurants serve some of the finest foods around. >> i think if you believe that though, you're in a lot of trouble. >> charlie: yes, that's true. that's part of it. if you believe it you are in trouble. >> only add good as your last dish. i just refuse to believe -- it's not like if i was a sprinter or physicist or say a golfer, then you can really measure yourself. here, it's very subjective. all of this will be not obviously everything will be gone, but -- >> charlie: chang soulful cooking challenged the notion that innovation can only come with the hefty price tag. price, tell me about pricing? >> well, one of the things, it's

funny now after like four years we sort of have a philosophy, let's make delicious food of value. a value to the customer. like, it's happened to me, you to go a fancy restaurant or place that you hear, that you want to have great meal you leave you spend several hundred dollars you feel like you were ripped off a little bit. we want to make sure that wasn't going to happen. regardless of the price. that's proven to be more and more difficult these days with rising food costs. but that was the goal. let's make great food, let's try to undersell and overdeliver. >> charlie: how to your lifestyle different now that you're big and famous. rich and famous, whatever. >> no, no. i don't know. i'm trying to figure that tha out. i'm trying to figure out what my lifestyle should be. trying to have some life balance. is it all work? >> charlie: i tell you what's most important about you in

terms of my observation and i know nothing. you ask questions. you are asking questions. where am i? what is this about? how do i stay good? how do i do all that? yes, no? >> very much so. i think i evaluate myself maybe too much to a fault. >> charlie: david chang is man of credentials. that's true, french culinary school. what did you get there? what do they teach you? they taught me how to tear up vegetables. taught me a lot of different vegetables. >> charlie: good place to go. you learned what? >> french technique. like learning mathatics. at least in the western cooking. people forget that there's whole other -- >> charlie: french technique is mathematics of cooking is the -- >> arithmetic. >> charlie: i understand. >> lays down the foundation. for how to do stuff. >> charlie: he cooked in new york restaurants, won awards left the world where all those

credentials mattered. i wanted to use what i learned in, he opened momofuku ssam bar and noodle bar, tiny joints that reimagined ramen noodles and other asiann delicacies for the 21st century and: everything else. >> keep it simple. >> charlie: that's it? when you dream big dreams what do you dream? >> you know, just the goal is to make it happen for other people. it happened for me, but to dream big, everyone asks like, how do do you this, how do you do that? i was certainly lucky, you just got to go for it. you got to realize that you have very finite time on this planet and you got to go for broke. you have to go all in sometimes.

>> charlie: ferran adria has been called many things. the world's greatest chef. the salvador dali ever the kitchen. a culinary revolutionary. he is the owner and head chef of the restaurant el bulli located two hours of bars barcelona. if you energy get a table you'll be served a 30-course meal. the menu changes from one year to the next. the restaurant opened only half the year. the rest is spent rigorously researching ingredients and developing the menu. aspire and renowned chefs from around the worldcom to work there for free. among them jose andres who was the face of spanish food. he worked there between 1987 to 1989. he now calls a aia his master. he now owns eight celebrated

restaurants in beverly hills and washington. i am very pleased to have ferran adria and jose andres for the first time and hopefully many times in the future. welcome. >> thank you very much. >> charlie: what does it mean to you to see this all the time? best chef in the world, ferran adria? sometimes called an artist like picasso. what does it mean? >> it's horror. something terrible because i don't feel like the best chef in the world. but when others keep saying that you are, something, i guess, you have to live with. >> yesterday i was at the culinary institute of america and i gave a conference for 2,400 people, students.

i realize that i am like an icon for many young people. to me the real pressure is really to make sure that i will always be there for them and i will be a good example. you cannot let down to a young student 15 years old and that he sees you as honesty, the total thing in your kind of line of work. and that's a big pressure. >> charlie: let me talk about your relationship. you first knew about him when? >> i was 15, 16 years old. i work in barcelona and i kind of try to go to a school, i was always working, i never went to school. i spent a summer work in a little restaurant in brussels, in the town where elbull six located.

cooking paella for the tourists. >> charlie: you want to transform food. transform food. but you also want to satisfy four levels of pleasure. hunger, senses, emotions, and intellect. >> intellect is the most intent experience it is in the world. >> charlie: one of them? >> most intense because you can measure the intensity in many ways. is not other creative moment that we'll use the five senses. none. music is beautiful, but it's only the ear. >> charlie: the ear, the heart. >> but first let's talk about

the senses, the physical level. painting is only the eyesight. eating is really all the senses when you eat, you smell, you listen, you hear, you taste, the feeling in the mouth, obviously the heart, obviously the conversation. food, eating is something really complex. but because we eat every day, we don't want to see it as something very complex. a little bit of science fiction.

for a second that food will not be a physiological need. what would be the relationship with food then. because we really need to think that eating and breathing is the only two things that we go from the moment we are born until the moment we die. so, it is really very complex relationship. >> charlie: you can tell the world about the complexity behind eating. >> but, yeah, the people that are watching us right now, you know, we can be telling them about the back stage what's happening behind. but i am only interested in happiness. >> charlie: right. >> when you see a painting is the emotion.

why become something emotional? and why you will really feel very emotional when you are in front of a gastronomical experience. this zonal like one time itself. it's people when they are in front of picasso painting they cry. these other people they walk by and without even looking at it. it's the same painting. >> charlie: and that's the way you have to approach food, that individually it has to touch you as an indivivial. >> and we are in a mind where everyone, the guest, is the ones that they're going to be in charge of what is going to be happening.

because people are the ones that they're going to be deciding what is really emotional. especially when we're talking about of a vanguard cooking. because avante guarde cooking is no reference. something very emotional. within you eat a good meal, traditional meal you have previous reference with something else you made before. similar to the thing that i had in paris or the thing i ate in barcelona, you have a reference. but when you have in front of you a dish of avant garde cooking, you have no reference. when you go to japan you are think you are in another planet.

and about food, too. it is nothing like eating in the western world. not the food, the spirit behind the food. it's a new world. if you are in japan you get a dish in front of you it's only the relationship between you and the dish. are you ee mock physical about what you see or not. because if it's first time you've been japan you have no reference. the tea ceremony in japan is to cry. but you need to be willing to get in to that special world. because if not, you may think that that tea ceremony is

something very superior puffer laws -- superfluous and avant garde cooking is that. >> >> charlie: the word "molecular" comes up, you don't like it? >> i don't like it. because when i heard the term molecular it's a very cold image. about cooking. i don't like the name because it's really the contrary to what i want really to tell the world. >> charlie: happy, warm, touching, all the senses. what word would you use to describe the cuisine that you want to create? el bulli. >> finally he sees us clear. this is an important moment because it took me 25 years to

come with a name for my cooking. >> the cooking i do it's called el buulli -- el bulli, no othth names.s. >> charlie: that word describes what you do 1234. >> yes. because this is the easy version because the difficult version is way too difficult and complex to explain. >> charlie: you've also developed something called "fast good." >> yes. >> charlie: what is that? >> this was social study they did in spain.

>> people red to pay a little bit more for quality. in between a normal burger and a very good burger, but certainly a difference of three or four dollars. is people ready to pay more for quality? >> charlie: yes? >> no. the global level, no. i believe this is education problem. now let's change the term. this is not gastronome any more. we are talking about eating and health.

i am the president of a foundation with the chief cardiologist on mount sinai here in new york. that our work is to make sure that this course, children will study about food and our health. if we don't begin educating our youngsters, that's with socialw or social studies you want to do, nothing is going to be good. government people are spending millions and millions in programs that sometimes they are worth nothing.

no government in the world yet has committed to make sure that we will have one hour awake in the schools. and that's i iredible. the crisis we are facing today when we talk about economics is going to be nothing compared to the problem we're going to be facing when we talk about the health in a few years from now. and the government they're not going to be able to really pay the costs of healthcare. but if we don't teach children nothing we do is going to be worth it. >> charlie: why is el bulli only open six months a year,

just six months? >> why you don't do the program 24 hours a day? because you have to get ready to -- because i do creative cooking. avant garde cooking. i need time to create. i need time to create the scripts. >> charlie: there are lots of pictures in this book of you studying, studying menus, recipes. >> work, work, work. >> charlie: what are you looking for? >> i am looking for the culinary limits.

but there are no secrets, it's hard work, hard work, hard work. >> charlie: about everything? >> it's a very frivolous image about creativity. people may think it happens by chance, you need to work hard. >> charlie: someone said it's 99% perspiration, 1% inspiration. but there's also here title called "creative methods" meaning there is method. >> when you do creativity you can do two things. one, you will not look in to the past or second, you look in to the past to make sure that you will not copy.

in our case we've been analyzing ourselves continuously. we do kind of yearly creative ideas. and after i've been doing a yearly audit, it's something not so good because when you ask yourself sharks we keep going forward next year? but the only way really to keep creating every year coming up with new things is really analyzing yourselves continuously. >> charlie: you only want one restaurant? >> yes, because i cannot

reproduce el bulli. i will not be honest, i will not be honest with myself. >> charlie: tell me about a perfect meal for you. >> i don't like things in an absolute way. the best day, the best meal. today the best thing i can be doing is doing this interview with you. and i'm really trying to have a very good time in this interview. the best moment is every moment of your life. >> charlie: chef tom colicchio is here. the founder of two legendary

manhtan restaurants, gramercy tavern and crab. he's won three jes beard awardsnd chef of the honors from many magazines, in 2006 he left gramercy tavern to focus on craft chain that empire now includes craft los angeles, craft atlanta, craft steak and craft bar. guess what, there is witchcraft. 's also th head judge on bravo's hit reality show "top chef" i'm pleased to have him here for the first time. welcome. nice to have you here. >> good to be here. >> charlie: how did it start for you? how does one develop this passion that enables you to do what you've done? >> when i was about 13 or so, i just found that i enjoyed cooking, i enjoyed food. really enjoyed just kind of working with food. i most likely would have been diagnosed with a.d.d. i -- >> charlie: your attention was limited? >> well, the problem i had is, i

look back on it now, i would linger through recipes try to get through them. and so what i would do just try to read get the essence of it then go off and try to come up with what i thought the dish was supposed to be. but, no, j jt came from absolute love. then i was lucky when i was 15 my dad actually suggested that i become a chef. >> charlie: what did he know? he knew that he liked it? >> you know, he just tried to get all of his sons to follow in their passion, do something they really love. ers a corrections officer in county jail, i don't think he had any joy out that have job. that was really important that his children found something they loved to do and success was secondary. >> charlie: assumed if he had passion you'd be more likely to be success. >> yes. >> charlie: whose approval? >> other chefs. one of the things did i for the "rocky mountain post" we did a dinner together out there i was asked that same question. would i wanted from the

industry. i just want approval from my peer, is that i was doing something worthwhile. it's usually people who i've worked with like thomas keller and alfred and people like that who i get excited when they're in my restaurant. >> charlie: the ideas of food being pushed forward constantly? >> it's constantly being pushed forward. on the other hand there are times it takes a step back. i think craft was when i did craft, maybe jumping ahead, but to me that was in the context of gramercy tavern where i was doing plated food, always pushing it. craft was actually a step -- >> charlie: what is plated food? >> we plated food. craft is done family soil. craft was taking a step back. both taking a step back and looking forward. what i did was, all chefs we have repertoire of dishes that we carry around like security blankets and every -- >> charlie: like musicians. >> when string comes along you have the riff, is that you know. you dust off your spring

recipes. i noticed over time i started removing ingredients. so i said, well 15 years, 20 years from what my food look like? that's what happened with craft. became very stripped down, very simple straight forward focusing on ingredients and i noticed that the older i got the simpler the cooking -- i gravitated towards more simple style because you get older you have a confidence, you don't need the bells and whistles any more. >> charlie: what does that mean? >> really just about cooking really well and presenting food that was very simple, where you can actually -- it's difference between piece of shaker furniture or beidermeier. >> charlie: is there risk for you, you, and others like you, to become more entrepreneur and less -- >> sure? it's interesting question, because as -- i hate to say empire or chain, as we were opening other restaurants, it comes down to, you have opportunities to open

restaurants whether it's in different cities, you get approached by developer, you put a great deal together. i have a lot of young chefs who are looking for that next sort of position. the difference between being a sous chef and is he is about double their salary. you are looking for opportunities, because if you don't provide an opportunity for these guys and gals that are coming up, they will go work for somebody else. that's one motivating factor. the other is, years ago chefs didn't have these kind of opportunities to open a restaurant in vegas or do books andv. i never -- 30 years ago when i started cooking i didn't get in to this business to do books and tv the idea of everything a tv show was just so foreign 30 years ago. >> charlie: but you do it because you enjoy it? because it's a means to communicate the things that you have experienced and done and had fun all that? >> that's part of it. other part is another challenge. part is i think the idea of what a chef is is expanding and

changing. i think that i joke around, my wife always gives me a hard time when i say. this i got tired of sitting next to bobby flay at a book signing. >> charlie: he was on tv you weren't. >> exactly. going back to the original question as far as push can it, i think that my answer to that was, when i felt that the business side was starting to take up too much of my brain, i decided to step back do someg called tom's tuesday dinner which happens in our private dining room at craft where it's turned in to a restaurant, we do about 32 covers, a ten-course tasting menu i'm cooking pretty much everything except dessert. >> charlie: like $0? >> no, $15 for a ten-course meal. that -- $150 for a ten course meal. i'm thinking about the business and marketing like i should. and the other half i'm always looking at food again thinking

about combinations of food and so that's one way to sort of get the other hat back on. >> charlie: do you that once every two weeks? you put the other hat on? >> well, i put the other hat on. now it's the creative side is constantly working getting ready for that every other tuesday. >> charlie: do you have bad nights as a cook, as a chef? in the same way that golfer can have a bad day? >> sure. >> charlie: film maker can make a bad movie? >> yeah, i think so. i think the film maker i think, my wife is a film maker, i think it's a bad it it -- edit. there's always a good film somewhere in there you have to make it come out. we have -- >> charlie: even if she's responsible for the editing. >> usually you have some kind ever -- restaurants hoover bad nights. as a whole. a chef may have a bad night, chef what they do most people that don't know in the kitchen, chefs aren't cooking. >> charlie: chef just simply

managing and expediting, making sure. if you tasting, testing? >> you are. usually with aist tang spoon. tasting little portions of things, looking, walking around the stations to each cook and making sure things are salted enough and making sure that they're cut to precise. you are constantly schecking up on things. >> charlie: how about reviews? >> reviews are always important especially "new york times," morning magazine" here in new york. and there are lot of three-star restaurants that don't make it. a lot of one-star restaurants that have thriving business. so, they are important. >> charlie: one star restaurant they have thriving business something about the ambiance, you'll see friends there, like a club, something else is happening or not? >> well, it's interesting. if you poll people, they have done this, they polled -- reason why you go back to a restaurant, usually neighborhood is sort of third thing that's mentioned.

usually it's being recognized. >> charlie: being recognized. >> service. >> charlie: you walk in they make you feel like you're at home. >> there's always that moment. it happens to me you walk in to a restaurant you think, they're not going to have the reservation. there's always this -- i'm nervous, try to get your hark else up. i think that's -- reviews are important for egos, it's our scorecard. >> charlie: does it make you better? >> i think the desire to get a great review always makes you better. >> charlie: but do you learn from it? in other words, you see review, he's got a point there. >> it's one thing besides many things i learned from danny, i remember getting two-star review that i thought deserved one star at gramercy tavern when we first opened up. you kind of getting angry, you see the two-car you work.

gramercy there was -- expectations were so high. new york magazine ran piece, is in the next four-star restaurant? so, as he put it there's gold in those reviews. at first they stink. you read them. you got to look at them, okay, maybe this is happening. i remember getting a so-so review one of the few really one-star star review at craft steak. i agreed with some of it. i thought we served two. i know we didn't deserve three. i remember reading it, i was angry, i was mad. but i called up the reviewer, just said, all right, let's talk about this. >> charlie: you did? >> i always -- >> charlie: : aid what, okay? >> no: "new york magazine" every review i got i would say thanks or whatever. you don't know them, they come in anonymously. we have an idea what they look like. but they come in anon loosely. way tonight check in. there's one comment that frank brudi made that i didn't agree

with. i wanted to let him know that i didn't agree. also let him know that this restaurant will get better. and hopefully one of these days you can come back in and revisit. about a year later did he. and gave us two star review. that i thought was fair. >> charlie: if you wanted to sort of expand your knowledge of food and cooking. i'm going to give you four or five candidates. tom keller would be one. >> he and i worked together, i was his sous chef when he was at raquel here. >> charlie: which was not a success? >> no. it wasn't because the food. it was fabulous food. a schizophrenic restaurant. a bar on one side and serious restaurant on the other. it didn't know what it wanted to be. >> charlie: also, a perfect lesson of the fact that somehow something doesn't quite work out but the people who are there are brilliant. tom went on to -- >> doing a dinner together in a

few weeks we have cooked together we're looking forward together i have not eaten at el bulli. last time i was there, i was leaving the day this they could get me in i was leaving spain i couldn't get. the day they can get me in. i was lucky to get in. it was day i was leaving. i couldn't make it. no, i haven't. >> charlie: he has this passion that is -- you can feel it. >> part is, he has curiosity about food that -- you know, everything that he's developed, all these techniques that he's researched, they're all, at least from what i understand were answer to a problem. i have a problem, i want to create an affect, how do i do it? dollars then he goes finds a way to do it. >> charlie: exactly.

captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org