696: Rich Torrisi Doesn't Do Vanilla

0:00This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. Resi is a digital platform that connects restaurants to restaurant lovers by elevating dining experiences, providing original industry content, and helping to fill some of the country's most exciting dining rooms. Because restaurants have always been more than just places to eat. The amazing world of restaurants is just a few taps away in the Resi app and at resi.com.

0:31New Yorkers are the hardest diners in the world. They have the most experience going to the most places around the country and the world. So they're the most discerning. And they're the least patient. So when you combine the most discerning and least patient, you know, that's a hard guest. This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbar.

0:59Rich Teresi is a prolific New York City chef and empire builder behind some of the most buzzed-about restaurants in the United States, including Parm, Sedell's, The Pool, Carbone, and his most personal venture, Teresi. I was such a fan of Rich's breakout restaurant, Teresi Italian Specialties, which opened at 250 Mulberry Street in 2009. What a restaurant. On this episode, Rich takes the Resi Questionnaire, and we find out so much about his point of view on restaurants, innovation, and hospitality as a whole. This is such a great conversation. I hope you enjoy this episode.

1:39Rich Teresi, welcome to This is Taste. How are you? Doing great, Matt. So before we get to the Resi Questionnaire, I just want to hear about Teresi, your namesake restaurant. I mean, it's an exciting time with Teresi. We've, you know, we've reinvested in the kitchen. When we took that space, which was the chef's club, we basically, you know, made everything work for us, just kind of forced it to work, you know, and band-aided a lot of scenarios. So it's kind of cool now to go back and like, you know, put in a beautiful kitchen that's perfectly designed for how we cook and what we need. That also looks beautiful in the room and gives just a whole nother level of theater, being our only open kitchen as well.

2:16yeah um so it's we put that in five days ago looks spectacular we worked really really hard we put a new lounge in towards the front of the room oh very nice and we worked really really hard to basically bring the bar room up to the level of the back room so to where there's not one single call it bad seat we've added like a rare a rare spirits list at the bar we read we read to the bar and added like hundreds of very rare spirits in a book that you can enjoy either at the table or like in this lounge. We now have a place where people can sit before the meal, after the meal, hang out a little bit where before, you know, we had those standing tables and we got rid of those and everyone thought we added more seats.

3:00We actually have less seats than we ever had. You know, what we do there is we pretty much do, you know, 180, 200 people every night, whether it's Monday or Saturday or whether it's January. You sold out. It's the same number every single night. Right. So our goal was like, you know, every month, every week, every day, how can we do these 200 people better than we did yesterday? Me, me getting this space in doing this is like, I feel like I finally, I'm finally in a spot where I can, I can focus on making this place better. Like I've always wanted to have a restaurant that I would just be able to to keep going you know and with my and the team that i have there and how we and how we develop and and and how we stay inspired and how we can evolve our food and say different say different things and make meaningful do meaningful things right so it's it's really it's really a blessing to have this space and it couldn't be it couldn't be a better space you know and and we got it and we got it at the beginning of covid we would have never you never get a space like that unless there's some type of calamity or emergency, right?

4:06And because we did it on a shoestring budget in the beginning of COVID when we weren't capitalized on these types of things, my thing is now is, all right, well, we did it. We proved it. We proved that it works on the highest level. Like now let's go back and do what we would have done if we were building a flagship restaurant in the Puck Building. Every little thing that we would have done if our budget was 3X, 4X, I'm going through slowly and going through and making those changes and just making it better So Rich are you ready to take the resi questionnaire? 100 % This is like a little this is your life I'm so happy it's you because there's a lot of elements to cover What is the favorite thing you've ever cooked?

4:49That's really hard for me to answer because for me cooking is at it's best a spontaneous mood yeah you know and it's how i feel in a moment being somewhere whether it's at a garden or a market or a fish market it's like how excited can i get about this one thing right now that's the way that i cook um you know if i was gonna say over the years like what do i come back to like i always love you know the simple act of roasting a chicken or now that i have a smoker We're outside like smoking, smoke roasting a chicken. Or I love cooking big, thick, dry Italian noodles like pacchetti, you know, or doing like a classic amacchiciana with a really thick pacchetti and serving it in a big pot, you know.

5:40But between those two things I come back to, it's a moody situation for me, cooking. Your favorite meal from childhood? childhood? Well, childhood for me was the meals I ate at home. I just ate these great Italian meals, these big, great Italian meals. Whether it was at my grandmother's house or different family members' house. My grandma made a lot of good things. I would say her chickpea soup and her escrow, which we're actually working on right now to bring this dish back. You are from grandma's Yeah, from the S-Girl and Chickpea Soup. We're working on this right now. And, you know, it's the classic.

6:22I mean, for her, it was really just like, for me, it was like her baked CD and her meat sauce on the table. Like, that meal that she would just make most often was just baked CD and meat sauce on the side. A kitchen tool or equipment you cannot live without? Simple wooden spoon. Interesting. What size? I love all sizes, but I like the medium-small size the best. like the one that can it's big enough for a rondo um but it's small enough for the smaller pots you know and the and when it's made out of the you know the right quality like high quality wood you know you can really it really is just an extension of your hand or you can feel the food in your hand which side is more important on a wooden spoon i don't know if there's a more important okay i mean the part that you're eating out of i guess good answer what is your favorite cookbook um i mean there's so many book books that have been you know influential for me i mean white heat is still one of my favorite all-time books you go you return to white heat marco i love loved i mean that book really spoke to me and just in terms of all the reasons why i would want to become a high-level professional chef or in that book you know the rawness and the purity and also his his attention to the guest and hospitality and he's one of the few chefs you know you know old school chefs from back then that really that really spoke about the business behind restaurant and hospitality which i which i feel something that i feel is totally very lost on the modern day.

8:07Did you ever interact with Marco Pierre White? Have you ever? I have once. I think I met him at an event very briefly. Yeah. Long time ago. When I was like pre-Teresi, pre-when I was just - Oh, right, before working. What is your drink of choice? Drink of choice? Tomato martini. Tell me about it. We just started making those at Teresi. Put it at the menu last month. We pickled cherry tomatoes. You know, we had these, you know, we were working with some of these pickled cherry tomatoes from the pickle guy uh yeah that we've been work we've been you know buying his pickles for for like two decades now so cool that you can collab with the pickle guy yeah well we were inspired by his cherry tomato we didn't collab with him it we're inspired by his chariot his cherry tomato and and so we pickled our own which they're great because you still have that pop and they have the texture super sour and we We took vodka and we cold infused it with actually dried green tomatoes to get more of that kind of a little bit underripe, that freshness and that feeling of acidity from the green one, green tomato.

9:17and we basically serve the chilled green tomato vodka touch a touch of vermouth super super super cold deep freezer cold and with just a few of these pickled cherry tomatoes and you eat the cherry tomato it's super sour and it's like so it's like refreshing yeah you drink a martini it's like you don't even it's like you drink three of these like you wouldn't even it doesn't read like super savory either it doesn't like hit you over the head no no definitely not i like that Definitely not. There's a touch of salt in there, like saline quality, but there's a lot of their fruit. You think about tomato juice and you're like, that's not going to work for a martini.

9:53It's smart. Yeah, I mean, because the juice, yeah, I mean, it's hard because a martini is a straight boost. Yeah, exactly. So it has to really come through on the infusion if it doesn't. Yeah, you're lost. Yeah. What is your favorite food movie? Food movie, you know, when I think of my favorite food movies, I think of Babette's Feast. I think of Eat, Drink, Man, Woman. I think Willy Wonka. I think that's a food movie. 100 % a food movie. Food movie. That's what comes to mind. Big one for you. What's your favorite pizza in New York right now? I got to go with the industry pizza guys. Nick and Massimo.

10:29Those are my guys. And I love how light and flavorful their pizza is. Their pizza is what we always, me and my chefs talk about, Teresa, what we always strive for. Cool. We always strive for the biggest, most brilliant, beautiful flavors while concurrently being light. And to me, that's what great cooking is. Have to have both. 100 % agree. Well said. Yeah, because you can hit people over the head with flavor. But if that texture and that heaviness offsets that flavor. Fatigue. Fatigue is a word. Quick. Exactly. Your palate gets fatigue quick. It's not interesting. That's very good. List four industry people, living or dead, who you would want to cook for at a dinner party.

11:22Julia Child, definitely. I always wanted to read her books and watch her show as a kid. She, I feel like I never met, but I miss the most. I just feel that. Yeah. I don't know why. I had the luxury of doing Bourdain's show a few times and cooking for him, but that never gets old because the conversation is so interesting. So I put him in there. I want to cook for one of these really old school French chefs from like… Toi Gros or going back further? Further. Further. You know, like I'd be so curious what these old masters would think of my food. Yeah, Scoffier, Cesar Ritz, those kind of things.

12:06Yeah, if you could just time travel back and serve them what I'm making right now. It's like, what would you think of this? What do you think a Scoffier would think about A Night at Teresi? I think it would be, you know, for them to put together the layers, it would be a bit confusing for them. Yes. Thinking about, because it's so interwoven into the neighborhood and the city and the building. And if you didn't live through that era or know that, it's kind of like, what, you know. But I also think that he would really like our most simple dishes that require no explanation. Yeah. Because they're pure.

12:46Because that's the way they cooked back then. I mean, it was a singular dish. It wasn't about the garnish. It wasn't about idea. it's about ingredient and a place and what they do with that place with that thing yeah you know this episode is brought to you by Aura Frames if you're one of those last minute shoppers you might know the feeling ideas are running low and the clock is ticking here's a fun idea Aura Frames Aura Frames is the solution with a gift that feels personal a little curated and sent with love and a gift that can be purchased in no time with a few clicks of the mouse Aura frames are great.

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14:14That's A-U-R-A frames dot com promo code TASTE. The deal is exclusive to listeners and frames sell out fast, So order yours now to get in time for the holidays. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. Hi there, it's Matt, co-host of the show. We are currently running a This Is Taste listener survey, and we'd love to hear from you. Do you have a guest request? A restaurant you wish we'd visit to talk about on three things? What about a lesser-known cookbook author who deserves a spot in our studio chair? You can let us know by clicking the link in our show notes to complete the survey.

14:51It will only take a couple minutes, I swear, and will help us continue to make the best show possible. That's the This Is Taste listener survey, link in our show notes. From February 20th to March 7th, dive into Canada's biggest culinary festival, Montreal en Lumière, an exclusive partnership with the McCord Stewart Museum and its exhibition, On the Menu Montreal, a restaurant story. The 2026 festival invites food lovers on a flavorful journey through time. Montreal's top restaurateurs will reimagine 65 years of the city's iconic astronomy, crafting inventive, nostalgia-inspired dishes with a modern twist.

15:33Prepare your palate. World-renowned chefs, including several Michelin-starred talents, will team up with over 80 of Montreal's finest local chefs to create unforgettable, one-of-a-kind menus. The full program is available at montrealonlumiere.com, presented by Lotto Quebec in collaboration with National Bank. What's been your greatest restaurant experience of your life so far? It's probably Etchabari. It's probably the way that we experience Etchabari. We always book the patio and we basically have a six-hour lunch. sit on the patio overlooking the mountain not inside not like the tasting menu thing just sit on the patio overlooking the mountain open up the best wines and you know just let chef cook for us those like to me that the jabari is like the it's kind of like an omakase experience it's almost like it's almost like the cooked version of sushi where like it's like ingredients are unbelievable and they're just all barely touched and they're so pure and they're so flavorful and they're so incredible and the chef never gets the chef never comes close to getting in the way of the ingredients like a sushi chef he's an ambassador of great ingredients not necessarily like look how creative this is it's more like look how amazingly tasty i'm so proud to serve you these ingredients in my super authentic environment right to me like that experience is so layered in the most beautiful authentic way what's most important is it's just the most delicious as well it's truly truly delicious and every level of the experience the ambiance the place the setting the cook the way it cooks is just so pure yeah effortless and beautiful and like to me that's the hardest touch with beef is he's touched with all his ingredients it's like it's it's like it's very japanese it's just very it's super minimal super sophisticated and and the environment's so humble you know and and he's so humble and that you don't see that you just don't particularly i mean you don't over here you don't see it a lot how often do you get to go there i mean is this like a i've probably been there more i've been to that restaurant more than i've been to any outside of like the sushi thing that i do because i'm just that's the thing that i do the most is go eat sushi um when i'm going out to eat it's probably at least 30 to 40 percent of the time I'm eating sushi.

18:02But shout out to Tadashi. Tadashi. My favorite sushi chef in New York City. Very cool. In the United States. That's, for me, that's what, I've probably been there over 10 times. Love that. Yeah. I've probably been there about a dozen times. That's incredible. In the past 15 years. Almost once a year. What is your greatest professional achievement? For me, playing off that thread of what I was just talking about, But I feel that it's the ability to, you know, with no ego, the ability to weave soul into fine dining, which is one of the most difficult things to do, I think. And I think I'm doing it particularly, this is a Therese thing.

18:51I obviously have a bunch of different places, but this is specific to Therese, I think. to weave soul into fine dining and to have those soulful aspects be indigenous and meaningful to to new york city which is a place i feel um isn't you know arguably the best food city in the world but in fine dining particular lacking has always been lacking um places that new york could really say is is an indigenous new york city place you know it's either japanese or it's french or it's like eclectic american which usually ends up being french yeah um but like you don't really see like this is new york city yeah between you jeff and mario you guys that's like your north star is creating these restaurants that are definitively new york even when not in new york how do you the three of you how do you talk about this because new york's changing too and i don't think your restaurants are necessarily pastiche or looking at the past in a comical hyperbolic way you're evolving.

19:53Tracy's a very modern restaurant. But you still are very much rooted in New York. How do you balance that? You know, I'd say it's not, you know, where we are today, it's not, it's not the same North Star for the company with the size we are today and the different things that we do today. But that is our foundational, you know, we're all New Yorkers and that's our foundational inspiration. And we all felt that way about fancy New York restaurants when we were just starting out in our 20s. We all felt that, felt this thing was missing. This thing like our town is missing in this realm. It's everything about all these other countries and chefs from all over.

20:42It's all about all these other things, but what happens here? and we just we always saw um a gigantic particular i mean the first or easy really just you know the way the city embraced that restaurant um from the second it opened it was very clear you know it was very it was very clear that that new yorkers got that instantly like this is something that we can call our own this is like what we do here and it's being done at a very high quality level like that so that that was just the feedback and the the momentum was so instant that we never really need to think about it it was just natural natural flow like that thought if you could go back in time which restaurant would you dine at i think i just go back to what i was saying before like these old school like really really old french guys i would I wouldn't want to be dining at a restaurant.

21:38I'd want to be at a table, the kings and queens table, with Antoine Caram cooking in 1700, whatever that time period was. Maybe it was earlier. I think it was 1700s. I'd want to be a part of one of these bacchanalian feasts and see, you know, we're having this feast of a lifetime. We're bringing in the Duke of Windsor, and we've captured beasts from here and the chef is going to create something over the top that he's never done before and we're bringing in all these royals, like those types of things where I feel like now a lot of these things are as boring as they could be. You go to these like giant event halls for when visiting delegations come in and you just get fed the steak and peppercorn sauce and a bronzino, you know, with a salad And like, it's not, you know, like it's not really a thing, but I feel like centuries ago, particularly in the food forward countries that are really like, like France, you know, even, you know, even Asia, like they make a huge deal out of like everyone coming in.

22:50Like we got to have, like you said, like a beast, like we got to bring out this beast and we're going to cut it up a certain way. And like, and I feel like they do all these over the top culinary things. That's what I want to experience. I'd like to go back in a time machine and experience something like that. Just be a guest at that table. I love this picture that you painted. I mean, back then, you know, there's no, there's nothing. There's no, there's no electricity. Yeah. So like as a visiting dignitary or an important person, you walk into a hall. Yeah. And you've never experienced this. Can you imagine Karem?

23:21How do you think Karem was as a boss? I read a good, I read a decent amount about him. Yeah. they were cooking everything somewhat on charcoal. Their kitchens, people think these kitchens are hot now. Those guys, they were cooking in front of charcoal just totally drenched in sweat at all times. The kitchen was way harder to work in. I can't, I mean like anyone that's great is on some certain level a perfectionist and when you add the greatness and the perfectionist and you add extreme environment, pace, speed heat fire knives sharp get a lot of intense crazy people yeah so I'm guessing that but back then you know it was obviously an important role in society to be the cook for the king well only I think you know could be only in France yeah the earliest restaurants we're talking about too like the first time these formalized menus were presented France is the first country where chefs became famous yeah or they had They had a standing in society that was respected.

24:27Everybody else was just a servant. Yeah, it was a peasant job. What is your wish for the restaurant industry? I feel like hospitality isn't taken seriously enough in our business. I think it's a lot of reason why some really smart, talented people don't maybe go as far as they should or think they should go. It's because, you know, what we do is hospitality. we're not you know there's a level of art and food of course it's a bit more of a craft but there's always there's definitely a level of artistry but but like we don't we don't need an atelier like a vanilla box just hang up paintings and stare at them like it's it's a it's a different thing we feed people like take care of people like like we serve them you know and i think that that's either not taken seriously enough or it's looked at as a means and into an end to do it excellent but not because you actually really want to take care of the person and i don't think enough people in the business myself included when i first started i wasn't one of the type of people that were really wanted to take care of people it i've turned i turned into hospitality person over the years of taking care of people but when i first started i really didn't want to take care of anybody um and i was more towards the group the group i'm like talking about right now because i feel like i have the right to talk about because i used to be one of them yeah you know but if you don't you know if you're not in the business for the right reasons like if you don't love to be in your restaurant you know like if you make don't don't you know these people make restaurants that they themselves don't want to live inside of or be in which to me is so i was talking about with you before which is to me so insane because you're usually in this business particularly new york only get one shot right to to prove yourself to get your name out there and to make a place that is more about getting your you know your food and respected on a higher level than anything else it's like the chances of that plate being a great restaurant is like not almost not even one percent because great restaurant is about great hospitality it's about great ambiance it's about it's it's great service it's taking care of people it's making great food it's making great food that people are going to love to eat you know so i i feel that a lot of chefs and restaurateurs, particularly in fine dining, those things are not, they don't think they can come together.

26:43They don't think you can be creative, serve the exact food that you want to serve, but also have it be things people really want to eat. And, and I think you can have it all. I think you can combine all those things and you can have a great ambience and you can serve food that people want to eat, but you don't have to compromise yourself and your creativity as well. I think it is possible to be done. So I just, I would just love the talents that are out there and the next generation the current generation to think more about that because i want to go to their restaurants and have great experiences you know i don't i don't want to go to out to new restaurants and not have good experience i want to have great experiences i want to be i want to be as excited as ever to go out and i think that's it's just the intention i i feel needs to be placed on the hospitality part of it and building this living room feeling that is your dream the operating room feeling versus the operating room it's a place that You would rather be nowhere else to see your guests, to take care of them, to cook the food that you want to cook.

27:43It should be a living, alive, kinetic place, not a place that you can't wait to leave and go to some other fun restaurant that you want to go to. You get that at Teresa. You get that in the Puck building. I mean, you enter the door. You've got a doorman. You've got a maitre d'. You've got a server. You've got a bartender. And they're touching your tables in many different ways. They're touching your lives, I'll say. 100%. That's our goal. That's what we're talking about. I recognize that. I recognize that. restaurants recognize that of course at carbone too which of course is the legendary service so we talk about it all the time not a week goes by we don't it's challenging though right rich i mean super challenging i mean new yorkers are the most new yorkers are the hardest diners in the world you know they've they they go the most places you know they've had the most experience going to the most places around the country in the world um so they're the most discerning and they're the least patient so when you combined the most discerning and least patient you know that's a really that's a hard guest you know yeah there's always a ticking clock yeah with a new york guest there's always it's always you know you're really running there but like you know our goal is to like our highest goal we have is written down is to make is is is to make one of your life moments to make one of your best life moments make a moment that you'll never forget yeah that is our that is our number one goal make moments you'll never forget when you come in and you might not know but like that's what we're working towards yeah and if we could do that like that's what we talk about in our pre meals and we get inspired by each other to do that for the guests what do you do well um i think i have a very i have a super analytical mind um that's highly active and And, you know, it's data-driven.

29:34It's picture-driven. It's, you know. And I think I'm a really good editor. I think I'm a really good synthesizer and editor. I think I can bring things together that might not seem to go together or an idea of a way to synthesize ideas to make them simpler and cleaner. And I think I'm good at taking things out that are not necessary. what do you wish you could do better control myself and the pace that I work at I'd love to have more control over myself you have a tendency to run hot to go fast run hot like tortoise in the hair run hot smash into a wall calm down get energy back run hot smash into a wall so I'd love I'd love and I've been working on it for years I'd love to not live that pattern for the rest of my life how have you been able to slow down not run into the wall I take myself out of New York City simple as that I have I can't spend too many weeks in a row in New York City and I believe I believe the best way to uh stay in New York and to evolve in New York it to live here and not have to leave you see so many people over the years that leave i think the only real way is to each year spend a little bit less time in the city and spend more time growing uh lifestyles that are maybe in a binary way on the other side of the equation and for me the one that i have the most of that i've spent a lot of time growing for about 10 years now is my montauk life and it's a it's a nature driven life it's a cooking you know it's about life on the outdoors For me, that's the, you know, life connected with nature.

31:28When I cook out there, I cook it, I enjoy peeling an onion slow. I just enjoy slow cooking. Like home cooking. Home cooking. This is for you and your friends. And the speed that I do it at is usually just so slow. I put the music on, I cook for family and friends, and I do everything slow, and I enjoy every bit of it. Peeling vegetables, I enjoy it. Whatever it is. and that kind of brings me back to the craft. I have enough of those elements. I come back to New York, and it refreshes me. If you could eat through a city for a day, where would you go? I mean, selfishly, I think we're in the best city to eat across.

32:10Correct answer, my friend. That would be my answer. It just is. The variety, the levels from casual to high end, the layers, the options, and the proximity in which they all are. I think New York's the best. Plus a subway connecting and all. You don't have to even get in a car. You don't have to get in a car. Easy city to move around. Yeah, you can get on a bike. You can walk. How about that? You can walk. You can walk. Which is the best way. That's a great answer. I feel Tokyo gets hit up a lot on that question, but I think New York is the answer. Tokyo's great for that. Tokyo's great too. The one thing you can't resist splurging on when you go out to dinner.

32:51The one, the things that I've probably, and I'm okay saying no to anything. Like I never feel bad or like, oh, I don't want to get the supplement or whatever. I never feel, have emotion towards yes or no. I just do what I want. But I mean, I've never said no to a sushi chef during Omokase who's like, guess what clam I have? Or guess where I got the seertin from? Or whatever he's selling me, I never even consider would I not get this? It's like, of course, give it to me. and that's why dining at teresi is so fun because you're always throwing that at your guests yeah well yeah yeah you have the chalkboard yeah we have the board and that's that that's it keeps it fresh for us too yeah you know to to fill that up it's exciting today's episode is brought to you by butcher box as a food writer i can be a little skeptical about subscription cooking boxes you hear about on podcasts there's big talk about cooking simplicity but you're usually left with disappointment after smashing that promo code.

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35:07That's butcherbox.com slash taste. Don't forget to use our link so they know we sent you. What do you value most in restaurants? I go back to hospitality. Yeah, yeah. Like how they treat guests. When I go in a restaurant, I look to feel like I can feel the training and I can feel what they're putting emphasis on and when they're talking to me or having me. And when it's pure and it's really about the guesting experience, but they're also doing something great, that's what I always hope. That's what I'm always so hopeful that I will encounter. Like a pure, authentic hospitality experience when the service matches up everything that you're doing.

35:55And then you get the good ambiance. That's what I'm always hopeful I'll encounter. It's your last meal on earth. What are you eating? Well, I'm either doing sushi experience with my favorite sushi chef. I'm doing the Echabari meal. Probably doing that because that's like, I'm telling you, these are like six-hour lunches. there's like there's so much wine so long so beautiful you sit there all day you know you have you know it's like three meals in one you talk people you love um you know but i i could also do like you know i could i could do like fried dumplings you know i could just do dumplings i could just go on like i could just do like a dumpling tour oh because i just love since i love dumplings so much i love and i love every single type yeah i could just eat are you bottomless pit with the dumplings you can 100 yeah i can eat i can eat so much bigger than my size i can eat i can eat in the sitting the equivalent of like what a 300 pound man eats no problem i have outsized appetite yeah it's good for you though it's good for a chef if you yeah it's you know running running around i'm always you know most of the work that i do physically is just to like keep myself in good enough shape so I can keep doing that.

37:09Yeah. Yeah. You can keep eating. I keep eating. You can keep going on these eating calls. And drinking too. Like, you know, like I love to drink. I love wine. I love the whole thing. That's why we're in this like, you know, this drives me. I don't understand. Like I just love, you know, some people in the business, they don't love going out to restaurants or even their own restaurants. I love being in my restaurant. I love going to other people's restaurants. It's like the part that's so awesome is like just the experience. Yeah. is awesome to go to great restaurants as if you don't want to do that.