719: Scott Conant Doesn't Just Play a Chef on TV

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1:07I had a moment when Rao's sold their sauce for$2.7 billion. And I kind of looked in the mirror and I was like, all right, Scott, you got to get your shit together. Like part of my language, but I really got to get it together. This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbar.

1:35Scott Kona is a James Beard award-winning chef, TV personality, and pasta sauce savant. Man, I still dream about the Scarpetta spaghetti. It was a lot of fun having Scott in the studio to talk about his time coming up in New York City restaurants and why he decided to launch a food company, Martone Street, and compete for attention on the highly competitive tomato sauce shelf. I hope you enjoy this conversation.

2:26But listen, I know you from New York City chefing. Yeah. That's like you. I feel like I've had a lot of lives. You have. You know, and Brett Friedman from Agency 21, if you know Brett. Yeah. He's a good friend and a great guy. And he always says to me, like, he's like, you know, you were a real chef before you went on TV. And I was like, I like to think I'm still a real chef, you know. I'm not sure if television sucked it out of me. I mean, I feel the same way as like, am I a real writer when I'm spending most of my time doing a podcast? It's like, it feels similar. It's like, I don't write as much now as I used to write.

3:01And do you feel the same way just doing so much TV? I don't. I feel like there's an evolution if you're lucky, you know? Yeah. I am riding the wave of my personal evolution constantly. Like I'm a big Dylan fan. Like I love Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan has this quote that I use all the time that he said to be in a constant state of becoming. And that really resonates with me. I love that line too. Because you're just always becoming the next version of yourself. And I'm forever the optimist in the sense where I think my best days are in front of me, not behind me. And I think the day that you lose that sense of optimism and you think your best days are behind you, that's the beginning of your demise.

3:45It's the beginning of your end. You gotta pack it up at that point. You got to be optimistic about the future and like looking at younger generations and being optimistic about the work. I mean, on that note, you're back in New York. You're not living here full time anymore. Are you what are you dining out right now in the city? I work too much, man. I rarely there's not a lot of places that are pulling me into to like get excited about and go to. I really want to go to Teresi. You've not been. One of my old chefs, I've not been yet. I know it's pathetic to say. but one of my old chefs, Freddy Vargas, just opened up the Faena Hotel and I'm dying to go eat his food.

4:20First of all, I love his food. He was with me for over 10 years. I love his touches and he's doing, you know, kind of a version of Ecuadorian food at this point. So I want to go there and see what he's up to. I like that. So where do you spend most of your time right now? I know you're filming a lot of TV and doing a lot of work around restaurants in multiple locations. Yeah, it's mostly restaurants I'm doing a lot of, you know, social content for Martone Street, spending a lot of time on Martone Street. We just opened up in the Bahamas at Bahamar, a restaurant called Loyola, which is kind of this swanky Italian joint that I'm super excited about.

4:56I feel like this is the kind of next version of me as far as restaurants go. And we opened up in, you know, kind of a burger sandwich spot up in Newburgh, New York. We relaunched the Americano in Atlanta, which has been really exciting. And, you know, that idea of a restaurant named the Americano is taken from me being a young cook and all these Italian guys just calling me, hey, Americano, like this, that, or the other thing. So I wanted to call a restaurant. That is an homage of sorts to me as that young cook. A decent cocktail, too. A great cocktail. It kind of serves many purposes. Let's go back to 2002.

5:37L 'Ampero. you know it just kind of just jumps onto the scene and it becomes like a restaurant of great significance right away take us back to that era early 2000s and you cooking um this this very personal food you know um it was a good time and it's not often you get to be the toast of the town in new york city and i and i like and i like to think that between link petto and scarpetta yeah that kind of happened twice and that was an amazing experience to be able to ride that wave and Limpato was special because as Ruth Reichel said she's like Scott this is just such an adult restaurant and I kind of love that you know I love that and I always remember that of the mood of that restaurant just being very adult.

6:23Like Tudor City right? That neighborhood yeah You know no one opens restaurants like you were like the only restaurant in the past 25 years to ever open there with significance. Yeah I think that's right probably I think you'd go back further. I think you go back further too. It's kind of a very interesting location. It was an interesting location. The rent was amazing. Yeah. Like I think we paid like$5 ,000 a month for that space and it was like 6 ,000 square feet. Damn. So, you know, the economics made a lot of sense. The location made less sense, but the location started to make a lot of sense when you looked at the economics of it.

7:00And I think that, you know, Vicente Wolf as designer of that space just absolutely crushed it. We won Best New Restaurant, Best New Restaurant Design, James Beard that year. And that was a really special moment. Take me to 2008. You know, you mentioned it before. Scarpetta opens in the meatpacking district. And honestly, to me, that is like your big restaurant. I mean, that was such a good restaurant. Thank you. You're welcome. It's true. And just simple pastas, but doing it in a way that we now see as commonplace between like Missy Robbins and Stefano Secchi and Rich Teresi. I think they all came after you.

7:38And really credit to you to kind of pioneering this. Thank you. Well, I appreciate that. Yeah, we were doing some fun stuff. You know, it was a tight kitchen and not a great kitchen. But, you know, we made it work. It was the team. Honestly, it had less to do with me and more to do with the team. You know, Jeff Toscarello was the opening GM. Jeff went on to, you know, Nomad in 11 Madison Park and eventually the CEO of Make It Nice. And now he has this company, LTH, that we just partnered with to do all our ops. I love the Jeff Tascarella mention, digging in the crates there. I remember his restaurants, when he went on his own, that solo.

8:16Tenpenny, yeah. Tenpenny was great. With Chris Cipollone. Chris Cipollone. Yeah, and Chris is such a fantastic chef as well. Chris worked with me at Faustina. Yes, he did. For a short-lived venture at the Cooper Square Hotel. Yeah. Like I said, I've had a lot of lives, man. You know, you go backwards and it's like, oh, my God, I forgot I did that for a little while. Scarpetta spaghetti. I mean, really one of the better dishes in New York in the past 25 years. I really appreciate that. I can't go anywhere without someone stopping me and mentioning a red onion, first of all, and second of all, the spaghetti.

8:52It's just those two things seem to be top of mind for people all the time. Yeah. That spaghetti was – I had a moment when Rao's sold their sauce for$2.7 billion. And I kind of looked in the mirror and I was like, all right, Scott, you got to get your shit together. Like part of my language. But I really got to get it together. I've always considered myself inherently entrepreneurial. And I think starting a CBG company wasn't necessarily something I'd ever considered, frankly. You know, it's not top of mind for a chef to do that. I mean, I love leaping into that question because I had the same one.

9:30It's like I know that there are a lot of pasta sauces now given that exit for Reo's. It's staggering,$2.2 billion. And for what? For something that you've been doing for 35 years. I mean, tell me about the ideation of Martone Street and the way you really want to break through in a very crowded category. It's a crowded category, but we've done it before with the simplicity of it. And also, I've learned anything about how to build a brand with Scarpetta. It's a really great example. I haven't been involved in Scarpetta in 11 years now, a little over 11 years. It's still attributed to me. People still stop me on the street and tell me how much they love the restaurant.

10:13I still get emails from people on a daily basis saying, oh, I ate at this restaurant. I really loved it. I haven't been involved in 11 years. But the efforting that we put in in the very beginning, I put in specifically to use me as the face and the voice and, you know, obviously the founder of that brand until I didn't need to anymore, until it stood on its own. And so that was kind of the North Star that as I'm looking at Martone Street and seeing what that is and what it means to me. So it's so special. Martone Street is where my grandparents built a home when they moved to this country from Italy.

10:52And so that, you know, kind of that home where we went to when we connected with one another through food at the table. I always say like we didn't have a lot, but that's how everyone expressed love was through food. What's in the sauce, man? And I mean, like, what's the flavor? What's the predominant? Because I think you've got like a company like Saw's. You've got a company like Rayo's. You've got, you even see meatball shops, pasta sauce around. Shout out to Daniel. So like, there's a lot going on. How does yours differ? There is a lot going on. There is. I think our key differentiator is the quality of tomatoes that we've identified.

11:29Yes. We have. I always liken it to when my grandparents would, or my aunts and uncles, whomever, were making, you know, I know you know Anthony Giglio, still to this day, he and Phil Balz make this passata, right? And I watch his videos every year. In the spirit of that, right, where you have fresh tomatoes that are peeled and seeded and then cooked and then pureed. So the separation of the peels and the seeds, and then it's pureed and it's put in a jar. We're not pureeing this. This is fresh packed tomatoes done with pressure and heat, right? Like that's the preservative. There's no citric acid, no sugar, no added sugars, no non-GMO, no seed oils.

12:11I mean, the list goes on and on. We're working on a kosher certification as well. You know, we really want to lean into the purity of what this is. There's no preservatives in this. And I think that's a major differentiator because we've identified tomatoes that have that beautifully fresh flavor. And I've learned a lot about the CPG world over the past four years that we've been working on this. And this idea that most of these sauces come from pastes from Italy and they can't necessarily discern whether or not there's citric acid inside that paste, even though it says there's not. Yeah. They still have cut some corners out over there in the motherland.

12:49Exactly. Exactly. Speculation. Yes, exactly. But, you know, everybody talks about how they're not producing enough olive oil for the amount that's exported. Yeah. Right. Like they talk about the wine the same way. They talk about Panmigiano Reggiano as well. about the challenges with that. So, you know, I just wanted to get to a place where we know exactly what we're getting. We don't have to worry about potential tariff issues. We're using California - So it's a domestic tomato is what I'm hearing. It's 100 % domestic. Like California? Southern California tomato. We're using tomato, olive oil from California as well.

13:23Yeah. And it is quality stuff. The only thing that we're using that's imported is for the Calabrian, the arrabbiata, the Calabrian chili and garlic. because first of all, it took us, our COO, Scott Martino, it took him three months to identify those chilies and they are absolutely spectacular. And what we've identified is this change of the sauce inside the jar that it just develops over time even further. And it's a really special. Yeah, bottle aging is interesting with spaghetti sauce, pasta sauce. I mean, the domestic product's great here. I don't think you need to like make any like excuses.

13:59I'm not hearing that, But like, I love Stanislaw, Central California. Obviously, Southern California has got great products, too. 100 percent. I'm actually really proud of it. I'm proud that we've identified an American ingredient to kind of meet the brief of the expectation of an Italian import, frankly. This episode is brought to you by ButcherBox. Look, we spend a lot of time on the show talking about where food comes from, who's raising it and how it's made. So when it comes to the meat I'm actually cooking at home, I care about the same things. That's why I've been using ButcherBox. I was just sent a two-pound chuck roast, and I made the most amazing pot roast.

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15:18Go to butcherbox.com slash taste. That's butcherbox.com slash taste, and use our link so they know we sent you. This episode is brought to you by Wayfair. I spend a lot of time thinking about what's on the plate that I sometimes forget about everything around it. The table setting, the chairs, the room you actually dine in. This spring though, I've been doing a slow refresh of my dining room and Wayfair is where I've been spending a lot of time. What I like about it is the filtering. You can get really specific. Style, price point, dimensions. I found a style of light fixture that I've been searching for forever in about 10 minutes.

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16:35Well, I, you know, I don't do anything I don't love to do, first of all. Like, that is rule number one. Yeah, yeah. That if it's something that's a struggle for me or if it's something that I'm not enjoying, and that could be people's presence as well. It's not limited to efforting. I don't do it. I don't do it. I think that that is a version of self-preservation, right? Sure. And also just if you want to live a dynamic life, you got to do the things that create that kind of energy. So, you know, doing television for the first time, I got a phone call. um and i got a so years ago i was up for a show that i had i had turned down and that show really kind of took off and so is it called top chef i'm i'm not going to name it but i'm just it could rhyme with top chef we're just going to say okay i i i um i don't want to i i also i don't want to name the show because i think it's important that i wouldn't kind of lessen the people who are involved in that show today.

17:37Absolutely agree. Right. So I would never. We love those people. I would 100%. Okay. That, out of respect for that, nobody needs to know. You appeared on the show a dozen times though. Nobody needs to know. Nobody needs to know. But I think the learning lesson that says I'm talking around this completely is. I love it. Is that the learning lesson for me was that I missed an opportunity. And when the Food Network called me to be a judge on Chopped, I thought, I'm not going to miss this opportunity today. And it turned out to be the right decision because, you know, it's been 17 years now we've been doing those shows.

18:13I know. It's crazy. You know, I've entrenched myself in that world probably more than I had with restaurants at that point. Like I kind of stepped away from that, like the Scarpettas, and started doing more television and doing other things. I have plenty of stuff going on. fortunately um and i kind of frankly i kind of miss a little bit of the restaurant world i miss i miss the face in the plate world you know what i mean yeah like i i kind of miss some of that you know working the pass wearing the whites meeting the customers work in the dining room work in the mornings early mornings being a coach you know being a coach to the team like you know let's talk about this dish how do we make it better how do we how do you know how you know I'm my own judge.

18:56You know what I mean? And I'm the judge for my team as well. So those skill sets and learning how to talk about food and learning how to lessen the impact of a dish that doesn't work is also a really important skill set as well. How many episodes have you done of Chopped? I don't know. Like - I don't know, a few hundred. A few hundred. I mean, that's a lot of television. And I've hosted, I think, three or four shows, four shows, I think, as well. So I've had a great run in television. It's not over. I was going to say it's not over. I mean, the Chopped experience, I have a friend who won Chopped once and Kieran and like it's pretty intense.

19:34And you guys really are judging like it's obvious it's not for TV. Like what's it what's it like like sitting at the table and like knowing that you're like the destiny of that person's life is like in your hands. I don't think about that. I think about the food in front of me. smart. There's nothing that if I start thinking about somebody's story about, I'm a compassionate person inherently. And I can't buy into that. Jeffrey Zakarian always says, God bless him. He says, I can't eat your story. And 100 % true. Let's focus on the food. This is the only thing that's going to get you to where you want to be.

20:09If we start taking, I want to say this the right way if we start taking the food out of context and we start integrating all these other stories then we're lessening the responsibility towards the food and it has to be about food and food only i does that make sense on a competition show when you're judging the cuisine yeah i mean it's nice to have narrative yeah narrative's great and it's nice to represent different cultures and and that's what casting is about you can't just have the same people competing but ultimately it should be about the food in a competition show. Our conditioning informs our present.

20:47And I think that's an important aspect to look at because that's how we're inspired, right? Inspired or motivated. And that's great. Do you have to pump yourself up to sit at the table? Like, cause it's like a lot of work when you're doing these shows. It is, it's a cakewalk in comparison to running kitchens on a daily basis. Mark Murphy always says like, We are so blessed because if it wasn't for that show, we'd be in kitchens every day of our lives running kitchens. And we're not. You know what I mean? So we'll take the win. Mark's not been on the show. I should talk to Mark. He's got good stories too.

21:22He's the best. Yeah. You guys, it's so interesting that like this crew has been together. Like Alex, Mark Murphy, you. It's unbelievable. I mean, and there hasn't been like another generation, weirdly. it's like this generation and still this generation doing TV. Yeah. You know, I got to tell you when Anne passed, I think that's when it really kind of hit me that, you know, there is a generation of us on that network that all came up together in the 90s and 2000s, right? Like Marcus and Anne and Jeffrey and Chris Santos and Mark Murphy and And Amanda and Alex and, you know, Manit came into the mix a little bit later, but Manit as well.

22:07And then we all work together all the time. Yeah. You know, and I think sometimes I had this conversation with one of the other, with one of them. The crew. It was like we need to celebrate one another constantly. Like it or not, we are 100 % tied together. You know what I mean? And for the rest of our careers, we will be the people that are tied together. So the idea that we're in competition with one another is ridiculous. We 100 % have to support and appreciate each other because we came up together. It's been years now. It's crazy. You look back at like an Eater page from 2006 and like the restaurants that were running, it was like Ann and you.

22:52Chris was doing Lori's side stuff. Yes, before anybody. It was just like these were the hottest chefs in 2003. And like you're still I just like have to say it again. It's remarkable that that I mean, it's clearly they when they identified you, you had skills in television, but you also had such great point of view around the food. I think the television aspect came a little bit later. Learning how to speak about food on television is a different skill set. And, you know, I think that I've always worked on that. I've always wanted to hone my vocabulary. I've always wanted to kind of, like, make sure that I get through the subjectivity and focus on being objective.

23:35and purposeful with my commenting in order to elevate the thought process of what the chef is doing. Right? It's an opportunity to educate more than anything else. Well, that's why I think people still tune in to Food Network shows and other network shows, competition or documentaries. You know, we just want to know more about cuisine and you have to have that sharp vocabulary now. Oh, you have to. Yeah. Yes. And there's a whole, you know, There's a whole new generation kind of coming up that have watched us over the years. And listen, I have kids where I'll walk to the table in one of my restaurants and children will start to point out what they liked or didn't like about a particular dish.

24:19And it's like, did I help create this? You sure did. I think I kind of did. I mean, we have guests here all the time who grew up on Chopped, like professionals, like cookbook authors, journalists. Like they grew up on it. There's something about the show. It's just you can put it on for like six hours while doing other things or just watching it, you know. Yeah. Yeah. That background, that's a nice – it's a nice thing to hear. Yeah. You know, I feel like I've been really fortunate in my career that I started cooking 1986. So it's going to be 40 years next year. It's wild to say. Yeah, it's crazy.

24:5640 years. 40 years. I don't know how that happened. Yeah. But, you know, when I think about the evolution of food and food culture in this country, I'm not going to say that I helped create it. I haven't helped create it, but I've been in it for the whole time. I've been a, you know, and so many of us have, you know what I mean? So many of that generation that you're talking about, we've all been in it, you know? We've all been a part of it to a certain extent. I don't think that we've been the driving force of some of it like a lot of other chefs have. When I first moved to New York City in 1990, the chefs that everybody was talking about were Daniel Ballou at Le Cirque and Le Bernardin at the time was Gilbert Lacose.

25:44And now it's still Eric. And Eric was there at the time. I mean, Jean-Georges at Lafayette. Like these are the chefs that – Jean-Louis Palenden. Jean-Louis in D.C. Yeah, in D.C. And Michel Richard in L.A. L.A., yeah. Those are the chefs that everybody was talking about. But if you think about those first few New York chefs, they're still the chefs that people are talking about, which is incredible. Right? It is. It is. It is. It's remarkable to think about Baloo and the way he has just kind of kept doing it. It hasn't stopped. And in fuzzy places. It's cool. It's great. I mean, you have restaurants.