What I see young cooks do is I see them gravitate towards the shiny, funky little, and they're
all trying to head that direction, but yet they forget the basic building blocks.
If with your restaurant, I assume you guys have starters and training to cook.
No, there's no free Stodge or some more, you've got to pay everybody, but this whole
Stodge thing is going out the window, the fact that I have to...
For New York now, yeah.
It's very strange.
It's tough.
It's tough.
And it doesn't allow us to, I think, I know in San Francisco it was over a long time ago,
and it eliminates the ability to be able to train and to build crews and build better,
build cooks the way it should be done, because in the greater respect, this is a hand-to-hand
skill to talk.
I mean, you can go to school, you can get the basic knowledge, and you should get that
information, but in the end, you've got to put the hours in, you've got to stand on your
feet, you've got to take the abuse, you have to learn hand-to-hand.
With these new kids, and I like to ask this every chef that I talk with, with the kids
that are coming in, and they're going to Stodge for it, and they're going to spend
time with you, what do you suggest to them for preparing themselves?
I mean, whether they're in school or whether they're not in school, how do you get them,
you know, if you want to see them successful with you, what are you looking for, what do
you want out of them?
I try not to take the studies, and I'll tell you what, our restaurant is not really designed
or style, it's not the style that you're saying these new young folks that come out
of school, like they're looking for that, they're looking for that artistic ability,
they're looking for that cuisine that you need to, everybody needs to have under their
thumb, you know, it's something like, if you don't go through that process of going to
work for a place, like, you know, any of the top restaurants right now, whether it be Noma
or be, I don't know, any of the purses or Daniel or Jean-Jour, you need to go through
that process, and you need to be abused a little bit, and you need to see that artistic
path, and you need to follow for a little bit, because then once you come to us, we're
more of a for-profit business, let's say, you know, this is, we have very artistic
plates, and what we do is very, very beautiful, but it's a business, it's not an art studio,
you take more than 30 seconds to plate a dish, and you're going to get yelled at.
There's no tweezers in your kitchen.
Exactly, there's no tweezers in the kitchen, except in the butcher room, to take out, like
there's no tweezers, and it's a very different kind of kitchen, so I think everybody, and
I've had interviews with people, people that come out of CIA, or I think they're a perfect
example, and I hate to pinpoint that, but it's all culinary schools, and that's that
side of the business aspect of culinary schools, is that they put an impression on the kids
mind, you know, I mean, when I went to culinary school in the 80s, it was one of those things
where it cost as much to go to Harvard Law School as it did to go to culinary school,
and all that's debt, and all these kids that are out there doing the same thing, they're,
in essence, they're being advertised to saying, you know, you can be Gordon Ramsay, you can
be Thomas Keller, come to school and learn a craft, and the reality is that you leave
school with $60,000, $70,000 in debt after two and a half years, and you're going to
get paid $10 an hour, man, that's what you're going to get paid, and you're going to stand
on your feet for 14, 15 hours a day for the next 10 years, until maybe you're fortunate
enough to get a break, and to be put in a position where you can actually start to earn
your way up, and then you'll get $14 an hour.
It's not.
And then $14 an hour will last for another 10 years, until you're finally in a position
that maybe, you know, somebody's intelligent enough to put a little bit of money behind
you, and maybe you'll get that shot, you'll get that shot at the press room to actually
have the opportunity to create ownership.
And even ownership, like once you go forward, you can have ownership, but you still won't
make any money.
No, and I'm a prime example, I mean, how many restaurants have I owned now, and how
much debt do I still live in, you know, it's, you know, again, it's a glorified decision
earlier.
I don't need to own again.
I don't.
I don't.
You know?
Responsibility?
You know, people always say, well, do you have children, and I hear you always refer
to your kids, I'm like, yeah, I have about 70 or 80, you know, and there are all these
kids that I've mentored and that I've worked with, and that I've shown the level of leadership
and direction to, and, you know, I get to be a proud papa now because, you know, one
of my kids is the CEC at Co, and I've got another kid who's a rising star chef in San
Francisco, and, you know, another one of my dishwashers, one of my dishwashers, just
except their first executive chef position.
Wow.
I like it.
That's pretty awesome.
Yeah.
That's pretty awesome.
I have no idea what their food's like, but, yeah.
Okay.
But that's a testament, not to culinary school, but that's a testament to the amount of work
that you have to put in to get somewhere, and this is one of the only fields that you
can really, like, start as a dishwasher, and you can move up.
Yeah.
And I hit most of my...
It's all about the hard work?
Yeah.
The greatest cooks that I have started as a dishwasher.
Like, I almost want to start everybody that I hire as a dishwasher, and it becomes
such a, the restaurant business on your feet, 14 hours a day, plus, you know, five, six
days a week.
Like, it takes a lot of stamina.
You can make it in the dish pit, then maybe you can move on.
