498: Chef Bobby Flay Came Way Before TV Chef Bobby Flay

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0:31The competition in the restaurant business is fierce, but the camaraderie is fiercer. We have so much respect for each other. If there's a culinary question that needs to be answered, you can get it answered from somebody in the business. If I want to know something from somebody who I really respect, the answer is always yes. It's never like I'm not telling you my secrets.

0:53This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbard. What a fun conversation with the one and only Bobby Flay. Bobby joins us in the studio to talk about his New York City restaurant career, including highly memorable restaurants Mesa Grill, Bolo, Gato, and Bar American. We dig into how Mesa Grill was such a groundbreaking idea in the early 1990s, and how his cooking there brought Southwest flavors into the mainstream. We also talk about how beating Bobby Flay actually means beating Bobby Flay, and talk about some classic Iron Chef episodes. Finally, we dig into his great new cookbook, Bobby Flay, Chapter One.

1:33I hope you enjoy this conversation.

1:45Bobby Flay, welcome. This is Tastes. Good to see you. Good to see you, too. I'm excited to talk about this book. I mean, first off, I have to ask, where have you been dining out in New York? You know, you're here, you're working, you're doing television. I live here. You live here. You grew up here. I did. Yeah. I live in Tribeca, but I grew up on the Upper East Side. But at the time, it was called Yorkville. Yeah, I remember. It was actually a very, very cool area. There was a lot of Eastern European people that lived there, a lot of Czechoslovakian influence, a lot of Hungarian people. And there was amazing spice shops, like Hungarian spices and stuff like this.

2:21This is like in the 60s and 70s. So yeah, it was known as Yorkville then. Yeah. So are you eating at German restaurants as well up there? There were tons of German restaurants up there. That's the thing about that neighborhood. On 86th Street. Yeah. There's a ton of German restaurants. And then Schaller Weber, you know, has been there forever. It's like a German butcher shop. It's, you know, lots of influence. There was like a hint that they were going to go out of business at one point, but I'm glad they kept it going. They did not. Yeah. I have to ask, too, growing up in New York, you know, downtown, you're going to school.

2:53Are you eating slices often? Are you like a slice guy at that point in your life? Totally. I grew up in New York. I mean, it's basically it's the slice of pizza in New York City is basically, you know, your breakfast, lunch and dinner. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, so the book is really terrific in that it's called Chapter One and it doesn't talk about a lot of your television career and all the things we know you for. It talks about your life growing up and we're going to talk about many things here. Sweet remembrance of your mother, you know, in Atlantic City. and there's just some really great memoir there.

3:32What's the restaurant culture like in your family growing up? Are you going out to restaurants? Yeah, from time to time. My grandfather would take us out. You know, New York City, there was a very big culture of people going to Chinese restaurants on Sunday nights, like high-end Chinese restaurants. There's only a couple that exist these days. I think like Chun-Li Palace is still around. But for the most part, there was a handful of really great high-end Chinese restaurants that my grandfather, Willie, would assemble the family on Sunday nights. And we would go to these Chinese restaurants that served all these, I guess, I don't know if they were actually real Chinese cuisine.

4:15It was probably an Americanized version of Chinese cuisine. But that's how we grew up. Did you ever interact with Ed Schoenfeld, Eddie Glasses? Of course. Absolutely. I knew Ed for a long time. I know, me too. And Ed was like, he was like, you know, this Jewish New Yorker who was like the Chinese food ambassador. Crazy, right. Yeah. You know, until he passed away. I know. Rest in peace, Ed Schoenfeld-Eglasses. What a character. And, you know, he really did a lot to bring Chinese food. Of course, working with many Chinese chefs. He worked with David Kay. Do you remember that? Yeah, I do. David Kay.

4:48I know that name. I don't think I had David Kay's food. Tell me about it. Well, David Kay was a restaurant owner. He had a place called David Kay's and a couple other restaurants in New York. He was a tough guy. I think there was lots of Marjohn games in the basement kind of thing. But Ed worked with him, and he worked with a lot of different people. That was the sort of era of high-end Chinese restaurants in New York. And then what happened was, like, we sort of saw, like, a growing number of places that had the word wok in it. Like, wok number one, wok number two. And they were, like, more casual, more affordable, a lot of to-go.

5:29And it really created this culture of Chinese food to-go. And it kind of, in some ways, killed the high-end Chinese restaurant business, which I really miss. I yearn for those. Yeah, it's a great point. and astute observation, you know, the point at the menu Chinese of the 70s, you know, started obviously in San Francisco, but New York had such a scene. And it's interesting how, like in pop culture, I think New York had so many restaurants that we just became accustomed to those types of restaurants and it grew around the country. Yeah, for sure. I mean, obviously we still have a pretty sizable Chinatown here as well, but there was Chinese restaurants all over New York City.

6:10It wasn't just in Chinatown. Yeah, no, it's why this city is so unique. with so many of those. You write about your restaurants in the book and the recipes are informed by many of your established restaurants. I love the lines about Mesa Grill, opened in 1991. But I want to go back to a trip you took to the Southwest before that restaurant opened that really informed your interest and really piqued an interest in that cuisine. Tell us about that trip that informed this. I took a trip to the Southwest, the American Southwest, because I was really interested in contemporary Southwestern cuisine.

6:49And this cuisine was basically being invented in some ways in the Southwest of the United States. Now, obviously lots of influence from Mexico, but lots of influence from like the states that border, you know, from the southern borders, like, you know, from California to New Mexico, like, you know, Arizona, Texas, all those states that had a lot of influence from Mexico, obviously including the ingredients. But this cuisine was a slightly different version of Mexican cuisine. It wasn't quite Mexican cuisine, although it was obviously very much based in Mexico. it was a different approach and a lot of the ingredients were truly American because they were coming out of these American states and I fell in love with it because I was working for Jonathan Waxman and he had a restaurant called Bud's which was his second restaurant after Jams I worked in all three of his restaurants what a great name of restaurants that man Bud's was he and his partner Melvin Masters they called each other Bud So they named the restaurant Buds.

7:55And then Jams, of course. Well, Jams was Jonathan and Melvin's. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then Hulo's was named after a French character from a movie. And I worked in that restaurant as well. I worked in all of his restaurants. This is way before Barbuto, which we all know and love. Still around, yeah. Oh, it's flourishing. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So I went to the Southwest. A woman named Karen McNeil took me. she at the time was a very prolific journalist for food magazines, you know, like Bon App and Food & Wine and all those things. And she was like, I'm going to visit the Southwest. I'm going to go visit Robert Del Grande, Stephen Piles, Kevin Rathbun, who was working for Stephen Piles, but about to go out on his own as well.

8:44And, you know, these guys, like, they took me into their restaurants and they showed me what was up. Mark Miller was part of that way. Mark Miller, of course. Mark Miller, yeah. New Mexico knew everything about every chili pepper ever grown anywhere in the world. The guy was just like an anthropologist of chili peppers. And I went on this trip. And you have to remember, I'm like 21 or 22 years old. I'm like this bratty kid from New York City. And I want to cook this food. This is the thing I try to explain to people all the time. The restaurant business is the greatest business in the world. Okay?

9:18I am a absolute lover of the business. I don't want to talk about any more bad stories because there's so many great stories. And I think like they let me into their kitchens and this kid from New York, they did not know, okay? Let me into their kitchens, showed me what they were doing, how they were utilizing all these ingredients. And like it helped shape my career. what other industry does that? Yeah. None. You have to sign like NDAs to like get into a meeting in most industries. I always say like the competition in the restaurant business is fierce, but the camaraderie is fiercer. Yeah. We have so much respect for each other.

10:01We give and take, we trade employees, you know, if they want to go and try something different. If there's a culinary question that needs to be answered, you can get it answered from somebody in the business. you know of course you can look it up on google but you want to go to the source like if i if i want to know something um you know from somebody who i really respect whether it's like wolfgang puck or daniel balud or you know the guys from the southwest the answer is always yes it's never like i'm not telling you my secrets it's a wonderful business yeah and you know the recipe books are open too and if you go to a professional kitchen you see recipe books open it's not like some secrets i think that's like a mythology around restaurant cooking that of course You keep secrets.

10:44No, there's no secrets. Let me ask you about Southwest cuisine. So you do this trip and you end up back in New York and you end up conceiving and opening Mesa Grilla in 1991. Did you, Bobby, see an opportunity in New York to bring these flavors? I mean, you saw an opportunity, but you must have really seen an opportunity to excite New Yorkers, jaded New Yorkers on a new cuisine. Okay. A couple of things. First of all, I'm a New Yorker. And at that point in my career, the only thing I knew how to do was cook for New Yorkers. And that's a very separate skill. Also, to be fair, Arizona 206 was open by a chef named Brendan Walsh.

11:24And he was cooking delicious, contemporary Southwestern food. I was a lover of his restaurant. And so Mason Grill was not the first for sure. but I started cooking at a restaurant called Miracle Grill. Yeah. And this is where I picked up all these flavors and then after three years, I opened Mesa Grill. You write that you leave a crack open to bring back Mesa Grill in 2025 or future years. I'm going to take a sledgehammer to that and just say like, please, it would seem pretty cool to open this restaurant in 2025. Let me ask you a question. Did you ever go to Mesa Grill in New York? Of course, I went three times, I think, in my mind.

12:01So you remember what it looked like and all that? I mean, it felt extremely of the era of the 90s. It had a very 90s decor. Yeah, yeah. I mean, now that shit is hot. So like, bring it back. Well, like in your mind, is it the same? Does it have the same feel or is it something different? Well, it feels like the way Spice Market felt. It was a real occasion restaurant, Bar American as well. You go there and you get service. I think service is always important. Of course. And like we have such small spaces, these narrow spaces in Brooklyn. and I have said on this show many times and spoken to chefs, like I would love to see the event restaurant come back.

12:35I think Teresi did a great job to bring that energy back to New York. And I think there would be a real opportunity to do a big Bobby Flay event restaurant in New York. And the flavors too, would you go back to Mesa Grill? Flavors, that style? Dude, I'm bringing this legend. 2.0. I know. You know, a new look at it, you know? I feel like the flavors too in New York, when we have Empayon, a credible modern Mexican, that restaurant still crushes. We have so many great taquerias. I think our New Yorker diner is quite fluent in Mexico, but to bring more of the Southwest, you just outlined what Southwest is versus regional Mexican.

13:17Yes, please. What are you thinking? What's going through your head? I think about it every single day, multiple times a day. You have to understand this is the first time as an adult that I don't have two or three restaurants in New York City. So when I leave my apartment in the morning, I have no idea where to go. Because I always had my restaurants to go to first and foremost. So I think about it all the time. Yeah. I'm hoping that you sound like you have some plans and we'll have you back and talk about the restaurant. I mean, Gato, let's not - Oh, wait a sec. Hold on. There's nothing happening yet.

13:47I promise you. Okay. There's no leases. There's no like, I mean, it's just a thought you know it's like those things those leases you know this can be worked out pretty quickly oh really i guess you i guess you haven't signed any leases in new york city with landlords thankfully i haven't any landlords out there that want to make me a sweetheart deal give me a call i mean i think like when you talk about hospital and hotel groups i mean maybe that's kind of the model these days for sure and also just residential and of course our city is popping up if you look at this skyline it's changing um i want to move on because i got to talk about chapter one you write very clearly about recipes that are inspired by Iron Chef.

14:29And I think it's cool that you bring your record for Iron Chef, your 43, 16, and 2, and 61 battles. How do you think about your recipes in Chapter 1 from that show? Difficult to make at home. Because in Iron Chef, we always got pushed to the limit because everybody that came in there wanted to hit us over the head with a baseball bat, right? I mean, every chef that came in there wanted to beat one of the Iron Chefs. And I've done, you know, I did more battles than anybody. 61. By a lot. Yeah. You know, and so I was taken to task many, many times. And so you have to completely, you know, up your game.

15:07And a lot of times it wasn't like, let's put it this way. We weren't cooking comfort food. We were cooking food that was like clever, but also delicious, you know? Yeah, I think the book is, I would say, intermediate to advanced and very advanced. We're going to talk about a few dishes, including your fried chicken, which I think is quite a master work. Oh, thank you. Yeah, absolutely great recipe, and we'll go through it. But Iron Chef, what's the toughest loss you had? Toughest loss I've had. The toughest loss I had, I guess, was probably against Kevin Rathbun and his brother. I think it was like I want to say it was like elk or something or bison or something along those lines and it beat me pretty good actually Jose Andres beat me pretty well too Michelle Bernstein it was onion I was like you have to be kidding me those are hard ingredients like when somebody gives you lobster or like steak or pork or something you know it's always the center of the of the menu but when somebody gives you an onion to make five dishes out of It's not easy.

16:12After blooming onion, what do you do? Yeah, exactly. I mean, you could only pickle a few times, and of course you could do a roast, but you've only got a few. But I remember Michelle Bernstein did a great job with her onion dish. She used a lot of caviar. She was smart. Yeah, you got to go luxury, and you knew how the judges were going. But 43 wins, not bad, man. I commend you. Speaking of Mesa Grill, I emailed your collaborator Emily Timberlake yesterday, and she gave me some great insight. Quote, I was stunned because all the dishes from Mesa Grill, which was top of its game in the 1990s, feel so relevant today.

16:46Like, I want to cook all the Mesa Grill dishes today. I think that's a really cool statement about the modernity of that restaurant. How do you feel about Emily's words? That's really interesting. Well, first of all, I love Emily. She's a fantastic partner and collaborator. so skilled and just so perfect for this project and I think the thing about Mesa Grills cuisine is that there wasn't a lot of people doing that food and nobody actually took it on like I kept waiting for the the people who were inspired by it to help to open their own contemporary southwestern restaurants and it didn't really that happen I mean a little bit here and there.

17:33So the food never really got bastardized in any way. Like it was just, it lived on its own. They were very original dishes, obviously inspired by lots of things, but very original to Mesa Grill itself. And so in some ways, yes, do they need to be updated? And did I do that for the book? Of course I did, because some of these recipes are 35 years old. So yes, of course, it's not like I'm roasting a chicken. I'm making a shrimp and roasted garlic tamale like I needed to update it for today's you know cooking and whatever making it lighter making it brighter you know thinking about it a slightly different but those dishes hold up and so so the struggle for me would be if I open this restaurant how much do I evolve it it has to evolve somewhat you need a media narrative of course that's like part of it right have to evolved somewhat but in some in some cases i have some i have good foundations for a lot of them yeah i think uh it seems like the only thing dated in that restaurant when it closed was probably the decor because it feels like it was very let me tell you something about the decor we spent literally 280 000 to open that restaurant 280 000 the door to every restaurant costs that now i know i mean seriously no it was it was it was um it was a it was a it was actually a great study in in in trying to open a restaurant on a shoestring budget that was relevant yeah i think my example was only saying that you know it still felt very fresh but the bootstrapping restaurants makes really like heartful soulful restaurants one of your fried chicken recipes which you give a little bit of an origin story from iron shaft is a process and i love it buttermilk marinade charred lime, a seasoned flour.

19:21You bake before frying, which I'd like to hear a little bit more about. This is my fried chicken trick. I love this trick. I really, it's stuck out to me. Talk about this process. I can't wait to make this recipe. One of the things that I do, especially for home cooks and for the restaurants as well, is I take things that are really difficult to execute like perfectly. And I'll explain to you what I mean by that. And I try to simplify them, even though some people might consider it sort of like cheating the technique. Like who cares? So for instance, like one of the great dishes of the world is paella.

19:57Oh yeah. When you go to Spain and you cook a paella in the classic way you should be cooking it, it's in a paella pan, it's over live fire. You start with the rice, you cook the rice and you start adding the things and usually Usually paella has lots of different things in it. And what I find often is that sometimes not everything is cooked properly because some things are undercooked, some things are overcooked. But also you want the rice to be the right texture as well and get the socorot on the bottom. And it's really hard to do all those things. Okay. So what I tell people, especially at home, is to cook things separately and bring it together.

20:39Yeah. And I had the same process with fried chicken. Frying a chicken with the bone in and the skin on and getting the chicken perfectly cooked inside and perfectly crispy and the right color golden brown that you want is almost impossible to do it right every time. But if you save yourself some disaster moments by actually baking the chicken so that it cooks about three quarters of the way let it cool give it some flavor and then give it that coating that you want for the fried chicken then all you have to really worry about skin right is getting it crispy and when it's crispy you know it's done I love that sentiment and you also make the choice to use boneless skin on breasts and thighs which I think getting that boneless skin on breast is impossible in most grocery stores you need to ask for it which is like I love that cut but just take the skin off they always take the skin off because of that the 90s they're like don't eat skin come on guys like eat the skin we don't want skin I love the charred lime element I love the sauce I think there's also some red chilies in there as well there's red chilies in there as well it's like it's got like it's got like this kind of it definitely has like a little bit of it's like you know a little bit of like southwestern influence to it a little bit of Asian influence to it it's got tons of flavor Zooming out, Bobby, I mean, you, it seems, have a high metabolism for writing recipes.

22:19Given your TV work, the B. Bobby Flay series, the Iron Chef series, this book, I mean, how do you write your recipes? I feel like you're probably in your phone a lot writing recipes. I'm really bad at writing recipes, and that's why I have Emily Timberlake. I mean, basically, you know, the way that I operate as a cook and a cookbook author is I, you know, I come up with dishes. I cook the dishes. Usually they're dishes that I've cooked many, many times. And then I put them in basically unprofessional order on a piece of paper, usually a yellow pad with lines on it and a pencil. And I basically chart what I'm doing.

23:02A lot of times I never write down what I'm doing. I mean, that's a typical chef issue. Completely. I've written cookbooks with chefs. It's maddening. No, exactly. It's maddening to work with you guys. But then, you know, then you have professionals like Emily and she puts it into form. Yeah. But let's go back about inspiration. Maybe it's not just actual like, you know, fine point recipe that ends up in a book, but you clearly are thinking about - Food and flavors. Because you've got this high metabolism. You've got all these activities. activities so Bobby how are you like noting it down and how are you thinking about the world when you're walking around about food how does that work I can tell you one thing if I'm in your restaurant I'm thinking about what you're cooking yeah and and and I mean that in the most positive way I am not a hater I always root for people I always want things to be delicious when I go to people's restaurants and so if I'm in your restaurant I'm enjoying hopefully enjoying a delicious meal but I'm also thinking about what you're doing because there's there's things on this on that menu could be anywhere yeah that um i haven't thought of and it might really interest me but travel is really important to me i love traveling and when i no matter where i travel i mean i'm sure you're the same way when i when i when i book a flight i'm thinking about like where i'm eating and where i'm staying because that's going to be basically be my entertainment foremost no i'm the same way and i think many of our listeners are as well i mean i'm on the Delta flight and I'm like on wifi, like with the Google maps.

24:28I mean, that's always the way. Absolutely. What's the last great trip you took for food? I just took my team. They're sitting behind you. We went to Rome and Bologna. Oh, nice. Tonda all day in Rome? Yeah. And also, well, we went to Risholi. Yeah. I think Bologna has some of the best food in the world. Agree, heart. I mean, just - Mila Romagna is the best. It's just so stunning. It's so good. For Roman pizza, I was just there a few weeks ago. Did you have any good pies that you remember? I like I'm R. Me. Do you know that place? I didn't go there, but I know the name. It's fantastic. It's a really fun place.

25:03Da Buffetto is also fun. Yeah, totally. It's like eight euros for a pie. It's so good, thin and crispy Roman style. I like Roman style pizza. It's very good. Me too. I mean, I covet Midwestern Tavern from Chicago and Michigan, but I think Roman is probably my close second. just because that's thin. Oh, what's the place in New York that serves that kind of pizza? Oh, the tavern style? I mean, we've got like - What's the place in the village? Well, Emmett's. It's packed. Yeah, Emmett's is packed and that's a good style. That's a Midwestern pizza. Yeah, that's definitely Midwestern style, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

25:37You write about your Be Bobby Flay record. You're about 70 % wins, which is like pretty good for - Somewhere between 65 % and 70%. That's like the perfect number for TV because you tune in one out of three times you're going to be Bobby Flay. I don't do it for TV. Let me tell you something. two things. Everybody always says, do I let people win? Is it fixed? It's not. I can promise you that. You can ask anybody in the building. I mean, if it was, you would know because people like to talk, right? All the judges know exactly what they're doing. Nobody tells them what to do. They taste the food before they even come out.

26:14They taste it in a tasting tent and they have to decide before they see who cooked anything. That's the way it works there. Most people don't know that. I'm giving you like an exclusive. Bobby, I've known you for 30 minutes and you don't give sandbagging energy. You don't give an energy that you're going to like let someone win. I just, I'm sorry. Well, first of all, no chef wants me to let them win. None. There's not a single chef worth their salt that wants that. They want to beat me fair and square. And when they do, I'm happy for them. What gives you the biggest trouble then when you're, when you're actually going full speed with these chefs?

26:44Well, like I'm not a pastry chef, so it's a good way to really put me on my heels for sure. There's a great story about your mom, Dorothy Flay, hanging out at your restaurant in Atlantic City and really how she became almost like a second chef, a character there sitting. Second chef. Okay. She was like, my mom's gone now, but she spent, in her sort of later retired life, she lived in the Jersey Shore and I had a restaurant for 16 years at the Borgata called Bobby Flay Steak. And she liked, I mean, she liked the slot machines i'll just tell you i mean she was that was chocolate martinis too right she like chocolate martinis and slot machines that's where she would hang out with her friends like you know every other weekend or so and she would go to my bar at the in the restaurant and and like have a martini and people would walk over to her and be like you're bobby flay's mother can you sign his cookbook for me and she'd be like signing my cookbooks at the bar i mean my mother was my greatest cheerleader I mean, she was the best.

27:42Yeah. And that moment with her, you know, enjoying your success and just being part of your community must have been really gratifying. Very much so. Okay. A Philadelphia-style strip steak with provolone cheese sauce. I mean, bold move. You're, like, rethinking the Philly cheesesteak, but you're doing it as a strip steak, which I think is really original. I don't think I've seen that. Yeah. What made you take this on? I mean, listen, I'm a Philly cheesesteak lover, like most people. And so basically, again, I took my trips to Philadelphia as inspiration. And I was like, okay, I have a high-end steakhouse in Atlantic City, not too far from Philadelphia.

28:24We get a big Philadelphia crowd. If I created a steak that was like a high-end steak, an expensive, dry-aged, beautiful piece of prime beef, and gave them the flavors that they want, you know, that cheese sauce with provolone and maybe some mushrooms, maybe some onions, like they might be into it. It was so popular. And, you know, I would never, I could never make a cheesesteak as good as the guys in Philadelphia. So don't try. Take their inspiration and do something different. And that's what that is. On This is Taste, we asked guest or brother to certain taste. So to close this interview, here's a little rapid fire, fast and furious taste check.