Jean-Georges Vongerichten: The Chef Who Raised the Bar

TRANSCRIPT

Jean-George Vongerichten: And most important that not many chefs do, any restaurateur, eat your own food. If you create, somebody create a plate, you create a plate, when you put a plate together, you have to eat it from beginning to end to see what’s missing. So a lot of people should test, but it’s important to eat. Finish your plate and see what, you know exactly what’s wrong or what to add, what to take away.

Dan Rubinstein: Hi, I’m Dan Rubinstein, and this is The Grand Tourist. I’ve been a design journalist for more than 20 years, and this is my personalized guided tour of the worlds of fashion, art, architecture, food, and travel, all the elements of a well-lived life. And welcome to the first episode of Season 13. It’s late May here in New York, and we’re just recovering from all of the celebrations stemming from Design Week here. Not to mention the launch of our first ever print issue, which I’m happy to say is now available online at thegrandtourist.net. Our guest today is a towering figure in food and hospitality and continues to push the conversation about dining forward decade after decade, both in New York and around the globe. Chef Jean-George Vongerichten. As a master of running a restaurant. He currently has dozens. His food can be found everywhere from Las Vegas and Kyoto to Marrakesh and Nashville.

While his training and upbringing was traditional to the core, over time this French chef became known for his ability to adapt his craft to the shifting tastes of the day, from ingredient choices, to restaurant concepts, from his recent sprawling culinary destination, the Tin building in Manhattan’s South Street Seaport, to the ever-popular vegetarian restaurant, ABCV. And those are just two examples in New York alone. While he’s opened up more than 100 restaurants in his day, his first in New York, JoJo on the Upper East Side, that opened in 1991 is still going strong today. He’s also known for taking a keen interest, similar to other chef guests of the podcast in all aspects of a new restaurant from the menus and signage to the interiors and architecture.

His latest concept is the 49 story Miami Tropic a residential concept in the city’s design district with interiors by firm Yabu Pushelberg. It’s two founders, also a recent guest of The Grand Tourist with architecture by firm Arquitectonica. The amenity packed space has everything from a private restaurant on the pool level, to a juice bar, squash court, and even a podcast recording studio. Maybe you need to find out if any one-bedrooms are available.

I caught up with Chef Vongerichten from his offices in New York to chat about his early start as a bad kid without much direction, what it was like serving food in the French military, what he learned about the picky New York eater, how the art of running a restaurant has changed in the post-pandemic era and more.

[MUSICAL BREAK]

You grew up near Strasbourg and a legendary part of your biography is that your mother, and I think your grandmother used to cook for the employees in your family’s business that I believe was in coal, correct?

That’s correct, yes.

Tell me about this business and what those meals were like. What kind of coal business was it, first of all?

I mean was the coal came through the barges from northern France from different mines.

Okay.

The time you know, 50s, 60s, all the way to, I would say early 70s. It was all coal heating. So the coal came from barges to the canal all the way to, it’s the suburb of Strasbourg. It’s a little town called, impossible to pronounce, like my last name.

Okay.

That’s the name of the town. So back in the days, my grandfather was, I mean, the barge were, the boat were trailed by horses in the barge to bring the coal from the north to the north of France to you know, all the, in France, you have all the canals. That was the way to bring merchandise to coal and etc.

Sure.

So my great-grandfather, the boat was stuck in the ice and he couldn’t move and he stayed that village and kind of claimed the land and distributed coal to the village and that’s where the house is still there since 1870. So when I grew up, it was like the back of the house was all mountain of coals.

And what was a typical lunch, let’s say?

I mean, it could be a bit of a piece of roast pork with cabbage and potato, lots of potatoes on, or chicken or a stew, you know, all kind of mostly meat. Fish was only once a day, once a week on Friday, or I guess [inaudible 00:04:41].

Good Catholics.

Good Catholic, it’s you know, fish on Friday. No meat. So it was all, but mostly pork, mostly pork sausages, pork roast, pork shoulder, sauerkraut, a bake-off, I mean, all the Alsatian staple, you know. That’s wintertime. And then summertime was a little lighter, but mostly potato. The warm potato becoming a potato salad in the summertime. But it was like a mini restaurant at home because feeding 45, 40 people, it’s like a-

Yeah, every day to service a day, I guess you know, lunch and dinner.

Yeah, it was like a …

Major operation?

That’s right. That’s right. So it was my grandmother, my mother, my aunt. There was like three, four people cooking every day for all the crowd, all of the workers and the family and eating all mostly together.

And if I were to get a time machine and go back in time and visit you as a young man, when you were around 16, 17, how would you describe this sort of young Jean-George?

The young Jean-George was a little delicate, a little crazy, a little … And also had a bike, had a slingshot. They call me the [inaudible 00:05:58] JoJo the Terror. So it was a little bit of a, you know.

You were a bad kid.

Bad kid.

Okay. So did you get punished a lot?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So if something went wrong amongst the sister, brother, the cousin or whatever around there I was, they always punished at me. It was me.

Were you good at school? Were you like a good student?

Absolutely not. I hated school. I hated, you know, to be. I’m a … I was an odd little guy, but a little kid, you know?

Yeah. There was an article in the times where you talk about a trip to a restaurant when you were 16 that sort of changed your life, and I think you eventually wound up working there. Can you take me us back to that time and to that restaurant?

Yeah, totally. So I started at age, my early 16, I mean 15. September, I was still 15. Next month I’m turning 68. I started engineer school and they pulled me out in January, because I was not there. It was like probably three miles from my house and I missed every class, everything. And after a few parents reunion, they decided to cut me loose because I was a bad example for everybody. So my father wouldn’t talk to me for three months and for my birthday they felt bad. And they said, “Okay, we’re going to take him to a place. Maybe he get inspired by something else.” But they had no ideas. So they took me. It was just because the family was so big, would never go to restaurants. We’re talking about 1973, so we never went to restaurants. It was mostly eating at home. Breakfast, lunch and dinner.

So that day they decided to take me to a restaurant, and it was a great one. It was a 3 star Michelin restaurant, pretty nice birthday for a sixteen-year-old. This was a revelation for me because it was like a … a sort of ballet of the waiters, the service, the food, the plating. For us, it was, we never plated food at home, it was all big pot on a table, you serve yourself. So going to a place where everything is like immaculate, and portioned and precise, I was like, “Wow.” I couldn’t believe that you could do a business or a career out of food. For me, food was just like home. Everybody served themselves family style. And it wasn’t art at the time, you know, 1973 food was many Michelin star restaurants around, but we never went to them. So at one point the chef come to the table and said to my dad, [inaudible 00:08:17] he asked for how was a meal.

I was like, I couldn’t believe the guy was coming with a big hat and all whites and clean. And he said was “How was dinner?” And then my father said, “Oh, it was the best.” And they saw my eyes like, wow, opening up. So at one point my father said to him, he said, “Listen, my son is good for nothing. If you look for somebody to wash dishes as a job, he’s free.” And actually the chef answered, “We’re looking for apprentice”. And I did a test two weeks after I went to the kitchen and my father dropped me off. I did a test, I spent a whole day there. I was like running around, asking everybody what they need. I guess they liked me because I started there three months after when it was the beginning of my career in a restaurant business as a chef.

And did you have any experience like cooking? Did you cook with the family at all when you were a kid? Were you ever recruited to help out in any way? Or is this totally new for you at the time?

No, I was comfortable with it because you know, life in my house was around the kitchen. So peeling carrots, taking peas out of the shell or even plugging a chicken, it was part of the routine every day, you know? Now chicken comes in a bag and you don’t have to take the feathers off.

And how was the apprenticeship? What was it like?

I never washed dishes.

Okay.

So it was like they really started me. It was great because they started me, they were very smart, the chef was very smart. He started me in pastry, because pastry is an exact science, so you measure everything. Otherwise it doesn’t work. If you make a soufflé or you don’t have the proper measurement. A simple vanilla ice cream you have to really measure everything to, it’s one quarter of milk, 200 grams of sugar, 12 yolks, three vanilla beans, etc. So if you don’t measure it, that thing doesn’t work. So the apprentice all started in pastry to really learn how to master the scale. It stayed with me until today, because all our recipes are very precise and very to the gram. Exactly like pastry. And I think today to be consistent, you have to put everything on a scale. You know? Otherwise everybody, it’s all everybody’s interpretation of that dish.

Yeah, no, especially with considering how many restaurants you you’re in charge of.

Exactly. So from pastry, I went to the hotline and I went to, I’m in garde manger, poissonnier, I learned everything. I was there for two and a half years. Then I went to the army on a boat. I think it’s one of the question.

So did you join the army?

At the time?

Were you joined the army or you were a civilian employee?

At the time it was mandatory to do a one year of army in France. I mean, they stopped it probably 20 years ago, but at the time you had to. Maybe 30 years ago at the time, you had to do one year. So I wanted to get rid of it early. So I was 19 and a half and I said, “Okay, let’s get out of the, let’s do the Army first.” I decided to, I mean, they give you a choice if you want to be. I mean, the chef wanted to send me to the Élysée in Paris because he knew the chef was cooking for the president, and I said, “I don’t want to be stuck in a kitchen in Paris. I want to see something.” So I choose to go to the Navy and I was on a boat for like a year. I cooked for one captain and two officers, just three people.

Oh, okay.

So it was wonderful.

You weren’t doing the cooking for everyone? Exactly.

No, no. There was a kitchen. So I was lucky that I guess with the three star apprenticeship, they put me in with an officer and two … one captain, two officers. So I cooked for the three people for a year, which was kind of a, you become lazy, you know? There’s nothing to do.

And where did the boat go? Where did they serve?

So the boat was based in Brittany, in Brest, and then we went to Portugal, went to Lisbon, we went to the Azores the Island, we went to Morocco, Casablanca, we went to all the way up north, to Hamburg, to Amsterdam, Portsmouth in England. So we traveled around. The boat was an entire submarine, so I did nothing. I never shot a gun. And if there would’ve be a war, I was useless. Had a couple of knives in the kitchen, that’s all I had.

But the captains were very well, the captain was very well-fed and happy. So hey, perfect.

They were happy, oh, yeah. Then after that I came back to l’Auberge de l’Ill, my apprenticeship, for six months because I needed to go back to the … The army teach me was really to drink, to smoke, to things that I wasn’t doing on a daily basis. But you had to kill the day.

Yeah. Wow. That must be so different.

It was great for me because I was experimenting a lot of things. You know, each time I arrived in Morocco, I went to the market, get some spices. When I went to Portugal, the beautiful seafood. So it gave me a little bit of a test for traveling and going around the world.

[SPONSOR BREAK]

And one of your early mentors was Paul Bocuse who is of course, one of the main forces behind Nouvelle cuisine, and he’s a major figure in the history of French cooking and so many people worked for him or crossed paths with him, especially the sort of French chefs that came to eventually found their way to New York. Can you tell me a little bit about him as a person and what you learned from him?

Oh yeah, he was, I mean, after l’Auberge de l’Ill I went to Louis Outhier first and then I went to Bocuse. Yeah, he was a personality, you know? Very … I mean I was still a commie and they put me in chef de partie. So I arrived there as a, I was doing the seabass en croûte. I was doing all the seafood, but he was a great mentor because he went to the market every morning, took another apprentice, I mean, commie, with him. So every other day you had to go with somebody else. He was driving the van, going to the market. He was flipping like four case of tomato on the floor and you had to pick one perfectly ripe.

So I was comfortable because of the ingredients. At home my mother was always going to the market and took me so I know exactly what a ripe tomato was and a good potato with all germs on it. So he took me to the market a lot. So I learned a lot of … You know when you go with your chefs you really, when you’re close by, you are sitting next to him in a van, going to the market, he talks nonstop. So you learn a lot of things this way.

I mean, the first thing when I arrived there, I thought it was a prank. I arrived there, check-in my room, and they asked me to get some nettles. I said, “I never cooked with nettles before.” So I went along. I said, “Where you get the nettles?” They said, “Oh, they grow wild like along the shore, but he wants only the tip.” You know when you have nettles the last two tips on top, like basil, you know, the tender one, the pale green. So I was like, “This is a joke. They sent me outside on the side of the river to pick up nettles, tips of the nettles.” I was like, “All right, I’ll do it.” When you’re an apprentice, I mean a commie, you have to do whatever they say. Oui, chef, yes, chef. So I went there, pick up all the nettles and actually they were using it in a soup, but it was like side of the road, between the road and the river I was like picking nettles. For two hours.

Oh gosh, did you … do you use nettles ever to this day?

I did that once and I repeated a soup from there as an homage, and it’s very tasty. So you know each time you go to a different region, I come from Alsace or go to south of France, you go to Lyon, you learn different ingredients, different style of cooking, and every chef has a, every mentor had a different style. Even taking a simple apple. When I was apprentice, I was toning the apple, peeling the apple around the pillar.

Right, like in a spiral.

In a spiral. When I went to the south of France, they wanted me to peel the apple this way. I was like, “Okay.”

Up and down instead, okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So every detail like that, every chef has his own pattern and his own way of treating vegetables or fish or it was a different style. But Paul was a different style because it was a lot of prep to do. You know, it was a busy restaurant and I mean great memories of the ingredients. His sauces were very Lyonnaise, you know, [foreign language 00:17:56], very rich, but delicious. It was just a different style. Different style.

And during your early years, you eventually found yourself in Asia and before you came to New York, and when you did come to New York, you opened Lafayette, which was a restaurant at the Swissotel, right?

Yep.

For one of your mentors, Outhier. Yeah. And I found your early review in the New York Times, which was where you were mentioned.

Amazing, no?

A glowing review back in the day was such an important … No photos, of course. Back then photos were difficult to get. Was that your first like big break, you think?

Yeah, totally. I mean, after Outhier called me back, he said to me, I was in … After Bocuse I went to Germany to another 3 star. So I did four different 3 star. I went to Munich and then he called me up and said, “Listen, I got a consultant gig in Bangkok. I want you to be the chef.” But I was 23, I’d never been a chef. So I skipped the sous-chef role. I went from chef de partie to chef. I was like, “My god, this is not going to work.” But after him calling me every day for two months, I said, “Okay, you know what? I’ll go. It looks like he wants me there. He trusts me and I’ll go.”

So I spent two years in Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong, Osaka, London, Geneva, and then I came to New York. Boston first. ’85 on ’86 in New York. Yeah, when that review come out, it changed my life. You know, CNN was in the kitchen the next day. First youngest 4 star chef in town and I was 29.

Wow, that’s amazing. What was New York for you? This was like mid 80s. Obviously you’re French, but you also had lived in Asia for many years and coming to New York back then in the 80s, it was such a different town, right, than it is today. What was your impression of New York when you moved here?

Oh, it was pretty amazing. I mean after five years in Asia, the only place I was comfortable was Chinatown because you went to the square market, there was a couple of apples and potatoes. There was nothing you still see today. So the only place where you had lots of ingredients and things I was comfortable with, the ginger, galangal, lemongrass, coming from Asia and all beautiful product was Chinatown. You have all this live fish and shrimp. So Chinatown was my … on the first six months my was my to-go place. It was interesting, because everything was flown in from California. The vegetables, there was no, the farmers that were not growing things in New York yet. It was coming from France as well from ranges. So it was very different than today.

Did you enjoy living in New York in the early days?

Yeah, I loved it right away. You know when you land in New York, a lot of people don’t like it, but I think it was always a dream to come to New York and arrive in New York for me was like, wow, you know, the energy, the people, and it was a perfect timing for me somehow, because there was all the revolution of food in New York happening in the late 80s between the magazine, the New York Times, the whole movement of …

I mean, Daniel Boulud was already here, Tom Colicchio, Thomas Keller, not only in the restaurant, but there were chefs somewhere like me or like Daniel. David Boulay, all the chefs. So I feel it was a whole revolution at the time of cuisine in New York. So I thought it was a perfect timing.

So first review from the New York Times was the 3 star first in ’86 when I arrived, three months after we opened from Bryan Miller. The restaurant was not doing that well because the food we were doing was very French. It was very, lots of cream, butter, and the speed was not there. I thought it was in France, people eating two hours for lunch, three hours for dinner, and it was the opposite. And then I decided the restaurant, the Swissotel, was owned by Nestlé and Swiss Air.

Well, you know, they gave me a little grief from the beginning like, oh my God, we’re losing money or this is not working. So I decided to really change the way I cook and I called Outhier, I say, “Listen, we can’t do this food here. It’s too rich. Takes too much time. People have 45 minutes, 15 minutes for lunch. So I need to …” So I started to get inspired by the home cooking of my mom. We did some roast chicken, I got a rotisserie. But always bringing a little bit of spices and a little bit of the sauce I was having with the chicken had a little bit of a tamarind in there. So I started to do something comfortable, fast, a little easier. Finding the best ingredients at the time was amazing. You can find a [inaudible 00:22:56] vendor coming. This lady I met in Boston in green benches, she was sending me halibut and sea urchin, live scallop, and I said, “I really need to adjust, make it more simple, make it much faster for lunch.”

In New York it goes fast. People talk. A month after the restaurant was packed for lunch, packed for dinner, and I decided to use more vegetable juices, vinaigrettes and flavored oil. And then a year after that, the Times came back, New York Times and they said, there’s a little revolution going in this kitchen. He really liked it, he gave me four star. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was three first then I got four, and that was in ’88.

And what was the pitch to the book people? Was it like, you know, I’m a French chef, I learned that heavy traditional stuff may not be … very complex things may not be right for American market, but I’ve learned how to simplify the spirit of French cuisine into something more simple. Was that the pitch that you …

Yeah, that was the pitch on top of it. It was more like adding some Asian, my Asian experience, five years. Tasting ginger every day, chilies. I started to spice up the food a little bit and that’s what made the difference. And they really loved it. They loved the building blocks of the flavor oil, the broth, the vinaigrettes. So there was a whole different style of cooking.

Did it sell? Were you happy with the results of the book?

Oh yeah, it was great. It was great. It was Simon and Schuster at the time. I don’t know.

Okay.

If you remember this company.

Yes. It’s still around.

I don’t know if they still exist. Is it?

Yeah, yeah, totally. And the following year came out JoJo, I think your first restaurant, your own restaurant in the city. Is that right?

That’s correct. So after five years at Lafayette, I decided to open my … I said, “you know, I’ve been cooking now for 15 years. I need to be on the other side.” I was ready to, I got a lot of offers to be a chef here or a chef there. And I said, “You know, if I move from Lafayette where I made my name in New York, it is really, I have to do my own.” And I find this little place called, I was walking around, I was driving with a bicycle, looking for things, and I saw this sign in front of JoJo for rent, but the restaurant was still operating. It was called Bar du théatre at the time. Kind of a bistro upstairs, kind of, there’s some music, live music at night.

So I went in there, look around, I had a drink and I called the numbers. I remember Johnson Realty, I called the number and they say, “Listen, the owner whose there now hasn’t paid his rent for nine months, and if you give me $10,000 tomorrow, it’s yours.” That was the rent at the time. I said, “Okay, but I need to find a partner.” I found him. Phil Suarez was a great customer of Lafayette. He came in like 50 times. Each time he came in he gave me his card. I have like 50 cards of his. You know, he produced Michael Jackson. He produced, he had an advertising company. He produced a different video, video clip at the time.

So he came with customers a every day and he said, “One day when you want to open your business, you call me.” I called him up, I said, “Listen, I think I found a place I want to open my own business.” He said, “Okay, meet me tomorrow with a business plan.” I was scared.

Wow. Obviously the restaurant was a big success and lasted quite a long time. Why do you think it was-

Still open.

Yeah, it’s still open. That’s what I mean. That’s what …

When you open a restaurant in New York, you have to be in touch with your zip code. On a field JoJo was the perfect timing, you know. ’91 was the first goal. I signed the lease the day the first Gulf War started. I think that was like January 25th or something, ’91. On that year, 250 restaurants closed down in the city. So it was a kind of an economic crisis. There was the war starting in the Gulf War on. I thought it was the right time. So I was doing my food, a little bit inspired by what I did at Lafayette, but for half the price, I said, “This is time. The business is a bistro setting.” I think it’s a neighborhood 64th between Lex and Third. I said, “There’s a lot of people living around here looking for you know, a simple, maybe not necessarily bistro food, but simpler food. A good price.” And it got packed right away. It was busy right away. You know?

And are you still in touch with that sort of zip code mentality even today? To get it to last this long it must have evolved over time, right?

Every restaurant we open is in touch with the zip code. It’s funny, we just opened last year, Four Twenty Five, which is on 56 and Park. It was the same zip code in Lafayette. So it was very comfortable to open in the same area. You know what it is? It’s all business for lunch. You know? Because you know what it is. It’s all business for lunch from Park Avenue. On nighttime you’re close enough from Upper East Side that people who live around there come as well, and it only worked. But this one was a little scary because September, not last year, but the year before we opened, we opened in December ’23, the streets were empty. Nobody was in the offices. So I was a little nervous about it for a minute, but then after we opened people started to come back to the office and things were good. So for me, it’s very important when you do a business, especially in New York, is to be in touch with your zip code.

And you’ve opened up, I think, more than 50 restaurants at this point in your career. Is that right?

Well, more than that. I think more. I think right now we have 62, but we opened as well a series of restaurants for Starwood, probably like 25 of them, so probably 100 around.

If I were to round up all of the young chefs that have ever come through your kitchen and said, “Okay, everybody, describe to me his kitchen,” what would they say? Someone who’s worked in 10 kitchens, but the one thing they all have in common is they’ve worked in your kitchen. What would they say is the spirit of yours that makes it unique?

They all would say, I think, keep it clean and then follow the recipe. Everything has to be-

What does that mean? Literally clean?

I always say to my chefs, you cook the way you look. So if you have somebody who’s with less stain on his jacket from top to bottom, his plates can be messy. I think you have to be … Hygiene is very important, I think, in the kitchen. And I learn that from a young age, and I try to teach that to the new guys on the new team that we have know. So cleanness is really important.

I think number two is probably follow the recipe. If you have any idea or any changes, I’m open to try anything. But once we put the menu together, it’s about consistency, like I said before.

Number three is get the best ingredient possible. The sourcing of the food is so important. Those are the three ingredients of success. It’s very simple. I would say probably sourcing the ingredients, follow the recipe, keep everything clean, sanitized, but sourcing the ingredients is number one.

So we buy probably from Union Square Market in all restaurant New York from May to October, 90% of it. So locally sourced and very … When you open a scallop live in the morning, you cook it at lunch or dinner, maybe they’re so fresh. We try to use a lot of wild seafood, try to … If you use farm things like chicken, mostly organic. But sourcing … I think they would say there’s three things. Sourcing the ingredients.

What is your approach to sourcing ingredients that might be different from anybody else that fixates on ingredients?

I was lucky to arrive in the mid ’80s, like ’86, because I’m using the same seafood supplier. We have so many men getting lobster for us on scallop, on cod. Uni, she only works with three boats, so she can take more customers. So I was lucky to meet people like that. So I remember farmers from Union Square coming with a seed catalogs and say, “What you want me to grow for you?” I said, “The entire catalog.” So that’s why today I think we were many chefs pushing that on how to go to the market. You have six different color carrots, five kinds of beets. You have things from … Who are amazing. And on the soil opposite New York, a lot of things are grown in black dirt. There’s those dry lakes. There’s a lot of … We’re working with a … There’s an aloe farm in Union Square. They took land where it’s an old dry lake that probably dried out 300 years ago, but the soil is full of minerals and it’s pretty amazing. It makes a big difference.

So sourcing the best chicken, the best … It’s all about that for me. And I think it shows in the food, and that’s, I think, the longevity of a restaurant. It’s really to be consistent, not only with the recipe, but you taste a carrot at ABCV, it tastes like a carrot. We know where it grows, we know how it stores, from organic seeds and etc. etc. It’s simple business. Good food, good service. It works. And being in touch with your zip code. That’s probably the most-

Oh, well, that’s good. You make it look like it’s not that simple, which is a gift. You told Food and Wine magazine once that if you had your way, you could open a restaurant every month. And now that we know you’ve done at least 100 restaurants in your day, what do you think is … Aside from knowing the zip code, when you’re really building one and opening one, do you enjoy that process?

It’s the best. When I was a kid I wanted to be … I never know I’m going to be a chef, but I was always fascinated by architecture, by design. So I’m kind of a frustrated designer. So when we build a restaurant, we work with people like Yabu Puschelberg, Christian Liergres, Thomas Johansen, Richard Meyer. We work with Frank Gehry, Norman Foster. We work with amazing architect on that. So building a restaurant is the most exciting because when you work through the plans, every detail of the chairs, the seats, the table, the tableware, whatever you touch, lighting … My best friend is a lighting designer from Observatoire, Herbie Descartes. We met 30 years ago. He lit the Mona Lisa as a school project. So if you can make a 300 old lady look good, he can light a restaurant. So probably the most exciting is designing it, working with this amazing designer or architect, and when you open the first month it’s very exciting. After that, the hardest part is to keep it to maintaining. Maintaining the consistency, maintaining the business, maintaining the … Make everybody happy. Make sure … It is very hard to, between the customer, the staff, and the thing … So for me, my dream would be to open a restaurant and, “Here’s the key, keep it going for the next 20 years.”

I’m sure you could probably build a business out of that, couldn’t you? I open them and then you have to deal with it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which we do now a little bit, if you want. All the restaurants we have in New York, the 22, we operate/run on being involved in every aspect. Payroll, labor cost. And then we take this know-how and we try to spread it out around the world. In Shanghai, we have two restaurant, Tokyo, Kyoto, Singapore. So we don’t own those people. I don’t like to call it license, but they’re more like we design it with them, we set it up, we give them the know-how, and then they run it for us. So I like that part.

So you’ve had such an impact on not just dining in general, but the New York scene and the way that people, what they desire and being in touch with that zip code. If a young chef came to one of your restaurants with a suitcase here, maybe they’re from France and they’re here as an apprentice, what would you teach them about that New York clientele that is unique here than anywhere else?

They’re like in every big city. They’re fickle. They’re here one day, they’re looking for the hot new place, the hot new dishes. But then inside them, they’re looking for something consistent too. We still have some customers at Giorgio that have been there from the beginning. Jean-Georges, we have a customer who come on … So you have the new one that you have to create. I always say that to my managers, because they’re the one in touch with the customer. I say always don’t just pamper the customer I created in this restaurant. Create some new ones. Pamper them, make sure they remember you. They remember one thing of the restaurant. It’s about experiences. Is it a casual restaurant? Is it a high-end restaurant? Whatever we do is people have to remember something to make them … We have to create cravings to make people come back. So whatever you do has to be impactful on every level. Is it a sandwich or an egg for breakfast?

And speaking of cravings, one of my favorite restaurants in New York is ABCV, which is your vegetarian restaurant.

Me too.

Not too far from here. Every once in a while I think about the roast cauliflower thing, I credit to you for becoming a little bit of a very popular dish popping up in vegetarian restaurants all over the place. But it was seen as kind of risky at the time. Did you get any pushback back then, or what was those initial conversations like to do something like ABCV?

We open ABC Kitchen about 12 years ago. Then we did Cousineau and everything. But even if ABCV was always … Because of the proximity of the market, it was always vegetable-driven. Lots of salad, lots of pizza with vegetables, lots of pasta with vegetables. We only have five proteins on the menu. The rest are vegetables. By popular demand, when that first place opened up, people say, “You should open a vegetarian restaurant.” But I said, “Okay, let’s do it.” With Paulette Cole from ABC we did ABCV. It was all about food as medicine, the whole thing. But I was very nervous.

So we started open only for breakfast and lunch. I was so scared that it’s not going to work for dinner that I say, “Let’s open lunch.” So for the first four months of ABCV, we did breakfast and lunch. I knew people would have the avocado toast, they would have the lunch, the salads, the thing, and eventually maybe the lady would bring the men at night with them, et cetera, et cetera. So we don’t open … Four months after we decided to open at night time. It was a little timid. Lunch was always busy, breakfast was always busy, and then it picked up at night as well. I think the vegetable forward was … It’s the future, I think, of food for sure.

Also, we find an amazing chef. Neil Harden is really one of the great talents. That’s another thing about when you open a restaurant is really to find the talent who’ll be running that place. Who will be breathing it, living it every day. Because I like to start something, but then I like to give it to somebody else to continue where we started. So you have to find the right person who has the right mind, the right taste, the right … So Neil Harden, I think he was the best person for that job. He worked for Pure Food and Wine for a little bit, then I think he opened a vegetable restaurant in Brooklyn and we crosses the path, and it was perfect timing.

And which vegetarian restaurant do you think, if someone came to you and said, “Oh, I have a hotel and I want to open up a vegetarian place,” would you be more apt to do it now? Or is it more challenging to create a really … Vegetarian seems like it would be simpler, but actually it’s probably more complex. You need even more amazing ingredients and you can’t rely on meat and things like that.

Yeah, yeah, but we use a lot of fermentation. We use a lot of spices as well. I think if you eat at ABCV, you don’t miss any of the protein that you would have elsewhere. It’s so flavorful. Even that cauliflower, you talk about roasted whole with that turmeric emulsion, all the condiments. You don’t miss a bit when it comes to … Oh you have to try this. We have a new avocado toast with grated pistachio on top. It’s unbelievable, and some mayo lemon.

So I think when you create flavors, is it for a piece of meat, piece of fish or vegetable, it should be equally flavorful. We don’t talk about just steamed vegetable with a little bit of a drizzle of olive oil and sea salt. So this is really … Every dish has a very complex transformation. Exactly how we would treat a steak, a piece of cod, or anything like it. I always say to my chefs, it takes two years to grow a steak, it takes two weeks to grow a radish. So you can see the energy, how much it takes to … So on myself, I don’t eat meat that much often. Probably twice a month.

Oh, okay. When did that start?

When I grew up. Meat was expensive. Trust me, there was more potato on the table and cabbage than the roast pork. So we were always eating like 60-70% of vegetables, 30% of meat. A little slice of pork, lots of cabbage, potato, and whatever it is. Leeks and all kind of rutabaga, turnip. So vegetables was always a big part of my diet when I grew up, because meat was expensive.

It makes sense.

Then when I came to America, having a 25 ounce steak and three string beans was shocking to me.

I’m curious, is there any ingredient after all of these years that maybe you were kind of like, “Hey, I just can’t find this ingredient in New York the way that I could back home in France.” Is there something that, after all these years, you’re just sort of like, “Yeah, you just can’t get good rutabaga,” or whatever it is,

That was true about 15-20 years ago. Not anymore. I think you find really all the artisans, even the cheeses in America are fantastic. The butter from Vermont. Things are a bit different because the terroir is different. Even when you go to Malzahar to Provence to Britain, you have different terroir, different things taste different. So the terroir in Upstate New York is different, but you find everything now from the milk-fed pig to the … You find every single thing. I don’t see one ingredient now that … Even more so, I think they grow wasabi now in upstate New York and in California. So you have a lot of … You look at Wagyu beef, all these ingredients. The milk …

A few things are different. I remember when I was an apprentice in ’73, I had to go get the cow. The milk from the cow was freshly milked, so it tastes a bit different than the one in a box. And we had to pluck our own pheasant, we had to skin the deer for the venison. We had to … Everything was came-

Farm to table.

Yes. It was really feathers and fur on. So today think kids think that everything comes in a bag. So I was very happy that I grew up with that. It sounds medieval, but it was-

You have your one foot in the pre-plastic wrapped society.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was just at the limit of the thing, ’73.

And when it comes to opening a new restaurant, your latest is … Well, there’s Miami Tropic with the interiors by Yabu Pushelberg, also have been guest on the podcast, and it’s on the border, I think of Miami’s Design District. Correct?

Yeah, it’s right on the border. It’s probably … What’s nice about it is it’s walkable. You can walk from the building to … It’s a block away from the design district. Behind us is Wynwood, a little more funky. And then you have Brickell and Midtown Miami right next to us. So it’s right in the center of all this. And there’s actually a Yabu and George and Glenn who approached me about this project. They wanted me to do an ABC on the bottom of the building. I say, “I don’t want to do another restaurant. I’d like to be part of the … I want to help you design the kitchen for the resident. I want to create some lifestyle. We have so many plates on different style of tabletops, plates, silverware, glasses, kitchen equipment. I want to help to pick the best juicer, the best microplane, the best … So please put me in part of a … I would love to be part of that lifestyle.” And actually we want to create an app on the phone that people can order, pre-order on … We stock your fridge, we stock your wine cellar. We do whatever pampering you need.

So basically you can live … You’re basically … They’re literally residences, correct? So they’re-

They’re all residences, yeah.

And there’s this private dining, which has become such a popular thing, this sort of mixture of private dining and residences, and this sort of mix between … Instead of a hotel and a restaurant, like a sort of a condo and a restaurant.

That’s right, that’s right. But the restaurant on the bottom will be an A, B, C. I call it the trilogy, will be kitchen, casino, and [inaudible 00:45:17] under one roof.

Oh, okay. Amazing.

So something for everyone.

And so people can come in, walk in, you don’t have to be a resident there?

No, yeah. But then above in a tower there’s a little bit of … It’s 48 floors. There’s a couple of restaurants there just for the residents.

Oh, okay. Amazing. And why do you think this is? Why trend now to mix residences with the restaurant business?

I think a few people are doing that. I think the Europeans are doing that. I think people, they want to be pampered. They want to know that … Because sometimes your name is equal to a great service, quality things. But I want to offer more. That’s why I want to stock the fridge on set two to call any stores and get food delivered. I can give you things that are restaurant quality, super fresh, try to reinvent a little bit the living of people. Because everything comes from outside, here would come from downstairs, from our fridge to your fridge.

And I believe that Glenn and George from Yabu Pushelberg will be designing a home for yourself there as well. Is that true?

Yeah. You know they live in my building on Perry Street in the West Village, so we’ve been neighbors for 20 years.

Oh great. So for your own place, what did you request from them?

Not yet. We have a meeting in a couple of weeks, but I have to pick up the-

Any ideas as to what you’re going to ask them for your pad in Miami?

Yeah. I like their style, to start with.

How do you like to live in … What kind of a home do you like to live in?

Already I’m living almost in an aquarium. It’s all window. My apartment is all glass window. Richard Meyer designed building. Inside I keep it simple. Simple as possible. I want the inside to come in. New York is my decor. Miami will be … The ocean, whatever is the surrounding. But keep it simple. I think they’re very … I like their look. I think between George, who’s Japanese, and Glenn, who’s Swedish, those are the two aesthetic I like. Clean lines and light. So we work perfectly together, so far. Actually we already designed the kitchen for most of the apartment, but you have a different shade. You can have a darker kitchen, you can have a lighter one in between.

And since you’re going to be living in that building from Miami Tropic, just to go back to that for a second, if you’re going to live-

Temporary. I’m going to be in and out.

But if you’re going to live there, you’re going to have to be able to order off the menu yourself, I’m assuming. Is there something on the menu you would make sure that is there so that you can order it whenever you’d like?

Probably the whole cauliflower. And if you want a home cooked meal, probably the chicken with the potato. The potato that tastes better than chicken would be on some more elaborate. But either you get some raw ingredients that we fill up your fridge or cooked ingredients. It’s like an apartment service. Pampering to the maximum.

There was an article recently I saw where they’re trying to explain why it was so hard to get a reservation in a good restaurant now. And to me, I guess it’s just a New Yorker, a lot of this started with the pandemic and there’s changes after that. Can you give me, from your point of view, how the sort of business of food and restaurant and dining has changed since then, now that it’s been a couple of years? How has it shaken out? What is the result? Where are we today in the history of dining?

It was a difficult moment. Everybody had a difficult time, but we survived. I think originally we survived. We had to change our business. For six months that we were closed before the outside opened, we were delivering food from our kitchen. So we had only a few workers, everybody wanted to deliver food, so we created a whole business. This is why I decided to do that for the residents is to really offer people to shop outside. We can give you whatever you need, made in house. So we created a whole new business. I call it, before it was room service, because we were in a hotel and a couple of restaurants I have are in a hotel, and now it’s apartment service. So the pandemic really recreated, in all the restaurants, apartment service. And all those apps that you have, all the delivery, the grub hub and all the stuff, which is amazing. It changed the life of New York. It kept us alive.

As well as the government. They really give us some great support to continue our business as well, which was great. Some people use it the wrong way. You had to use it for the rent, for taxes, for utility and et cetera, et cetera, but it changed the business a little bit. So for me, we had to reinvent ourselves a little bit. So we even created food that you had to build at home. For example, our crispy sushi with the salmon on the Chipotle mayo. We had the rice you had to warm up, and we give a QR code on how to assemble it. So that was very popular. We have a lactose with caviar. We give you a little tin on how to assemble some of those things. So we really made delivery food interesting, different. Great packaging, et cetera, et cetera.

And do you think that the restaurants today have turned … In-person dining, have things really changed in the day-to-day comparing today to the pre-pandemic era?

Yes, it changed a lot. I think people are much more demanding now because you can eat good food at home now being delivered. So they have more expectation, they want more experiences. Even at Jean-Georges we are sitting there at JG in a fine dining room and we changed our menu to mostly tasting. So we have [inaudible 00:51:14] where you eat a la carte. When you come in here, people, they’re looking for experiences. Especially the young … The clientele changed a lot. I would say we have a much younger clientele today. A lot of people moved to Miami, or the Hamptons, Upstate New York. The older clientele. And I feel like we have a much younger demographic now.

What do you think the younger clientele that can afford your food, what are these young … I guess they’re somewhat nouveau riche because they’re young. What are they craving that was different maybe seven years ago at this point?

I think they’re looking for quality, experiences, but even with a simpler restaurant, they’re looking for something a little more demanding. We’re to [inaudible 00:52:07] again since the pandemic, I think. Everybody had to. There’s more restaurants opening up now as well, but we were all, I feel New York City become a much younger city than it was before. So you have to be attractive with your own … I would say with the … People know food now. Everything’s available. Between the rating of restaurants, between what people see on the social medias. They can see if they see somebody posting a beautiful meal that they wanted to. So I feel like we spent a lot of time on the phone during the pandemic on, and I feel it changed a little bit of the standards are much higher.

Yeah, okay. So the bar has been raised.

The bar has been raised, definitely. Because I think the time we had to maybe watch cooking show, maybe it was just … And people exchanging the experiences during the pandemic, I think of cooking at home or getting a delivery from this place to that place, and a lot of people exchange the information.

All right. Well, do you eat out at other restaurants ever?

I do. Yeah, I do.

And do you like to go around and check out the competition in a way>

Yeah. For lunch, usually either I cook for myself or I try the food in the restaurant I’m in. At night I try what’s out there.

You don’t have to name names, but is there anything out there that’s sort of impressed you, or do you feel like there’s some new shift out there that might be changing?

Yeah. There’s a little more … It’s my type of food. There’s more and more Asian restaurants, I think. Korean, Japanese. So I think the trend is really … I think counter-eating. It’s a little faster, you have a relation with the chef a little bit.

Right, right. Like [inaudible 00:53:54] kind of vibe.

Yeah, I like that. But even … We opened a restaurant in Japan about 10 years ago, which is a sushi counter, but we serve our food from Jeju there, so it’s like eating it in a Japanese style.

Very nice.

So I think that’s … To name a few, it’s difficult to … For example, go to Penny. You’ve been there, to Penny?

No. Where was that?

Oh my God, yeah. It’s a seafood counter. I forget where it is. It’s on, I think East Fourth Street?

In the village?

So same thing. It’s a restaurant with I think 30 seats. It’s not a cafe, it’s really a seafood counter. You can have a piece of fish, a cooked lobster, some oysters, some … It’s all seafood. But that’s where I like to dine.

Lovely. If you had to describe an ideal Jean-George meal in three words, what would those three words be?

It to be fresh, spicy, and sexy.

Thank you to my guest, Jean-Georges, and to everyone at Dada Goldberg for making this episode happen. The editor of The Grand Tourist is Stan Hall. To keep this going, don’t forget to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter, The Grand Tourist Curator at thegrandtourist.net. And follow me on Instagram, @DanRubinstein. You can also purchase the first ever print issue of The Grand Tourist online now on our website, thegrandtourist.net. And don’t forget to follow The Grand Tourist on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen, and leave us a rating or comment. Every little bit helps. Til next time!

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