Famed Restaurateur Patrick Terrail of Ma Maison

0:00 Carson, Leno, Fallon. Now it's Wine Talks with Paul K. Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul K. And we are here in studio and we have a very special guest that we're going to introduce in just a moment. Wine Talks is available, of course, on Spotify, Pandora, iHeartRadio, and wherever you hang out with your podcast. I'm just. I'm not sure where to start this, but I'm very honored to have one of the great restaurateurs of our time on the show. He's in Florida right now. The accolades are too much to mention. So I think what's going to happen during this conversation is that the. The accolades of what Patrick Terray has done to the cuisine in America will just come out in the stories. He was the procreate of the Mama's own in Los Angeles from 1973 to 1985 at the storied address of 8368 Melrose Avenue, and a cultural icon, a Hollywood icon. And I want to start this Mr. Ture with I got your book the Taste of Hollywood from.

1:10 Oh, please tell me. Patrick. Patrick. Okay. My grandfather is Mr. Terrail. Okay, I'll do that. Thank you. Do people say Terrell because of the American accent or do they say it the French way? Terai. No, they say Terrai, like in rye bread. Oh, there you go. Okay, got it. So I got online and I got your book the Taste of Hollywood, the Story of Maison, which is an incredible story. But I bought two copies. I bought one for our mutual friend Melvin Masters. He was unaware of the book and he wanted to read it, so I bought it for him and I kept one to read. But the one I received to me is incredible because it's got an inscription from you. So I'm not sure what bookstore I bought it from, but it says, you're quite an artist. By the way, you have some drawings here. Looks like a can and it says Victor and it says Ernie's and it says, from Maison to the greatest San Francisco host, a wonderful friend.

2:03 That was Victor and Ernie in San Francisco. Yes. And so that's funny. He died. Yeah, he died a few years ago, I guess. Yeah. So Victor Gotti. Yeah. And Ernie's being one of the great institutions of food in America. Not Right. It was in San Francisco. Yeah. And when I was wanted to get to is this is a very French, you know, maybe something from the days of Le Pavillon or Lutece. Ernie's was that style of restaurant. It was a pavilion of the West Coast. So generally it was just. That's the way it was. It was this type of service and the type of food and the traditional haute cuisine kind of thing. Right. You know my friend John Mariani, I'm sure you know him. Yes. The fruit critic for Eschwar magazine for many, many years.

2:55 And we were talking that today. Le Pavillon, Victor Ernes, La Maisonette in Cincinnati, all those restaurants, it's over. It's a new era. That haute cuisine that those represented. And I've had this great conversation with Patrick Q. Who was the Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Magazine food critic for many years studying that. But it seems like maison was part of the cutting edge change of cuisine in America. I don't know about that, but I think that Mommy Zone brought something to LA that LA did not have.

3:38 When I started the big restaurants in LA with the Italian restaurant on Valentino's. No, before that. Really? No, no, no, no, no. It was on Wilshire Boulevard and the name would come to me, but there was only two or three great restaurants in LA at the time. And we were the first restaurant that had a patio. Nobody would eat outside until we came in. And then the Bistro eventually got a patio, but our trick was to sit outside and that. That idea, which, through your book, we're talking about Provence, you're in the south of France. You know, a very typical way to dine. Had this conversation with Melvin Masters, since that's where he sort of started his career. And you're coming from this amazing storied family of restaurateurs.

4:46 I mean, Tour d'argent, you know, one of the greats, probably still one of the leading restaurants of the world. Did you think that this was something you were going to do when you started out as a young person? You were in a sort of, you say, a silver spoon life. You were thinking of being a naval architect. And you. Yeah, but I. I've got you a funny story about that. Yeah. I visited the Naval Academy before I went to college. Yes. And have you ever been to the Naval Academy or to West Point? I've not. They eat like this. Oh, okay. That's funny. And that's not for me. Was that the turning point for you? Like, I don't think I want to do this because I'm not going to eat that. No. Yeah, that was the turning point. Then I went an extra year to school in America to learn English, and my counselor said, you should go to the hotel school at Cornell.

5:57 And I got accepted, it seems. I wanted to ask that question because it sounds like to me, based on your book, that the teacher there at Riverdale School was quite a mentor for you. In other words, he recognized or she recognized that there's something else for Patrick Ture to do. And it's not going to be a naval architect, it's going to be going into the hospitality business. Was that a. Well, I wasn't very good at math. Are you? Well, that's a, that's a good start then for that. And I think that she, the counselor, made the right decision. And, and besides that, I got a partial scholarship. Wow. Now this family, you know, Cornell's not an easy school today. It's not, it wasn't an easy school to get into back then. And it's hospitality school is known, believe. It or not, in those days there was only 600 students total in the hotel school. Wow.

7:05 There's 150 per class for a four year program. And I think two out of ten got accepted. That was very outer. This is quite special. And because of what your accolades at high school or because the Ture family was in, you know, I, I, I. Did have that such bad grace, you know, don't put me down. I didn't know. I wasn't there. Obviously I had worked in the hotel restaurant industry when I was young boy. I worked with my family and obviously I know a lot about food. I grew up in it. So I guess I was qualified to go to hotel school for sure. And my being French didn't hurt. No. And that was your native language is French? That's right. And you came to America to, and you learned English through, through high school or through the means? I learned it through high school. I grew up in Greece. I grew up in Athens. Yeah. Okay, so let's, this is what was so fascinating about what you've done in your career and how you've moved around and the types of cuisine that you've been exposed to.

8:22 And the story of your family's history in the restaurant business is pretty amazing. So my daughter's a boulanger in New York. She's quite a good baker. She's trained in Paris. She went to Alain de Cass School of Pastry in Isanjo. Do you think for a young entrepreneur, chef or restaurateur, that this kind of experience is necessary and critical to even think about being in the food business? Well, you know, I have a true story about that. You know, the food business, whether it's the bakery business, the chef business, you have to learn like the piano. If you want to become a pianist, you have to learn how to play classical. That's interesting. Yeah. And you have to apprentice. And once you learn how to play classical music, then you can become a jazz player.

9:21 But you have to have good bases of knowledge and you can only learn those through school and apprenticeship and then you rely on your own. It's such a trying business. And, you know, looking through your book, the hours you spent, it's. It consumes your life. And I assume, and I'll tell you my little quick story. We took our daughter around when she was looking for a savory school to go to after she was trained in pastries in Paris and worked. She worked actually one of Landa Casa's bakeries. She came to America and she decided she wanted to get savory training as well. We went to different schools. It seemed to me when we went to this hear the speeches for the acceptance into the cooking school, it was almost an escape from college for many kids. Like, well, I'm going to go be a. I'm going to go be a TV chef and my career will start that way. And the understanding, I think, from most people that enter school like that is that this is going to take a lot of time and a lot of energy and you're going to start at the bottom and you're going to work 12 hour days just to get to a point where people respect what you're doing. Is that the case?

10:33 Yes, it is. You know, there's a wonderful book out called Dirt Dirt by Bill Buford. I'll check that out. And you can either get an audible or you can buy it. It's a writer who writes an unbelievable book about being a stagier in strength. Wow. And he's like 40 years old when he's doing this. It's unbelievable. Have your daughter read it and you should read it too. I will. So dirt. And it's. So he's a 40 year old that starts his stagier at that age. Yeah.

11:14 Wow. Yeah, it's very funny. It's very funny. He's a very, very good writer. We will get that. Because I just finished Chef's Drugs and Rock and Roll and this is where your name popped up, that I was interested in having this conversation because I had a conversation with Ken Frank. I've had Joaquim splash out on the show and I want to peel back this idea because I watch what my daughter's gone through and I watch her get up at three in the morning and go bake and prep for food, you know, clean the kitchen at Six o'clock at night and come home and. And it just takes passion to do this. And so that's the question for you is like this passion. You had to have it. Was it because you think that your family was in it? Tour d'argent, part of the family, the George. I think it's either inbred. Either you like it or you don't. And it's funny, you know, I didn't get married till I was 55. Yeah. And Ed McMahon was your best man, so. Yeah, but. And the reason I didn't get married, I was married to my restaurant. That's what it takes.

12:23 I went to a psychiatrist while I had the restaurant and I asked him, I said, you know, I grew up with beautiful women, I've had wonderful relationship, but I can't seem to tie the knot. And she said, don't pay me. Wow. I said, well, why not? She said, because the answer is when you divorce your restaurant, then you can get married. Wow. That's. That's pretty good advice. Is that what happened? That's what happened. You got married in 1990. What year did you get married? 19. Let's see, 20 years ago. So.

13:05 So in 2000. Yeah. Because the picture's in the book. Yeah. And I. And believe it or not, I have a 12 year old son. I noticed that on your Facebook page. He's living. He's sitting in the hot tub, he's eating. You know, you're having breakfast or whatever you're doing together. It seems like you're very close. All right, I'm very, very close. And right now I'm his teacher because he's homeschooled. Oh, my gosh. How is that? This is really hard. It's. My wife doesn't have the patience. Yes, I do. That's the answer. And it's like what, six hours on a zoom call with your teacher? Is that some. A day or five hours a day or something? He goes to class at 8:00 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon. It's all video. Wow.

13:56 And it's very, very, very difficult. That's very hard. That's very hard. It's very difficult for him. Yeah, for sure. Because kids need to get out and get interacted and exchange and get fresh air. I mean, just. But the teachers are very, very tough. And how does he, like, even focus? Even though I want to get back to Mama's Own, but how does he. I need to know this because I'm a grandpa now, so how do they, how do they stay focused Looking at a monitor with what? All the kids are on the same page, right? Well, he's in a thing called Georgia Cyber School. It's specifically designed for video. I see. And these teachers are unbelievable. They keep their attention, they call on them.

14:49 It's amazing what they do. I think the teachers are working much harder than they had to when they had a classroom. Yeah, much harder. Well, more power to you, Patrick. Maybe they have to be dressed and they have to say the pledge of Allegiance in the morning. They have to be on time. They're on video. So Leticia knows what they're doing. It's really amazing. Actually, he's learning more now that he was in private school last year. Wow, that's quite a testimony. And your patience and parenting is phenomenal because this is a really tough time for both kids and parents. And for you to do that is pretty amazing because I'm sure a lot of parents can't do it or just can't. Don't have the patience. And I have to exercise with him every day. And he makes me go on a three mile good boy bicycle ride. Excellent. Every day. That's excellent. Now I have to remind him I said, you know, I'm going to be 80 years old. He said, I don't care, you 50 right now. That's quite a relationship that you're building. And what a great. I was actually trying to figure this out this morning with my wife because my daughter's engaged and I don't think we're having a wedding in the first quarter. I don't think it's going to happen. I don't think California is going to loosen enough. So I, I wondered what's going to happen to, to the kids and my daughter

16:22 particularly with her wedding when in 20 years, 30, 40 years, they're talking about their days to their grandkids. Well, I got married during the COVID time or I was going to school during the COVID You know, whatever that, whatever history tells us about what Covid was, they'll be telling their kids about it. And I wonder what that's going to sound like. It shouldn't be. I tell you what, I hate to be 16, 17 and dating today. Yeah, forget it. You know, I want to go back to what you're talking about with the lifestyle of Maison, because I was looking at reading your book. I mean, you did things like you worked in Liberia, you were a steward on Pan Am, which is phenomenal.

17:03 Wasn't that the go to airline at that era, the 60s and 70s, those days? Yes, that's like, amazing, right? You trekked all over the world. You tasted foods from everything. Did you know. Did you know George Mardikian from Omar Cheyennes in New York, in San Francisco? Oh, he was an Armenian restaurant in San Francisco. Very famous, near Johnson. Okay. It was very similar trek across the world to. To learn about food and what to do. So I want to go back to what you said about learning the classics. In your piano metaphor, are you talking about the Escoffier style of cooking that we need to. As a chef, you should know those basic. Yeah, we need your five sauces. You need to know your five sauces. You need to know what a churn mushroom is a turn. How to peel a potato in eight strokes. You need how to die.

18:01 Shave it. There's some basics you have to know before you can start creating modern paintings. Picasso. Picasso was a very, very, very good classical artist. Before you start going crazy. Wow. Yeah, that's a really good point. There's a really great book out by a woman named Tilar Mazzio. She wrote about the Ritz on Plas Vendome during the war. I read it. Isn't that great book? Yeah. She talks about Picasso, that. That era. So when you. When you. When you. When you had this idea that Maison was going to be an outdoor restaurant, it was going to be French cuisine, was it going to be classical French or was it going to be the idea of sort of the Chez Panisse kind of thing where you're going to try and break? It wasn't. Okay, so now, now I've got it placed. Right. So was that what you wanted? You wanted in a scoffier style restaurant or were you thinking, don't know, we're going to do something? I had no idea. But what did you do? I didn't know where I was going.

19:08 I wanted an outdoor restaurant. I wanted to keep it simple. And then there was a restaurant in New York that I liked and I would try to emulate them. And I tried. And if you read in the beginning of the book, I got a terrible restaurant. After you first opened. Yeah. And I had the worst restaurant review ever written. Oh, no. About a restaurant in la. Ever. Wow. Not good. Then I said, I better go back to my roots. And my roots were French. So I went to France and I went looking for a chef.

19:51 On my trip, I went to the south of France to a restaurant that was becoming very famous, called Lo Aziz. And the chef was Louis Chi. Louis Che was really my mentor in food, and he was the mentor forges in New York, among others. And I met Roger Verge then and they were going a whole new direction of food. And the south of France and Los Angeles is the same weather, the same kind of season, warm weather. And they're the ones who inspired me to reclaim my misery.

20:39 And then I ran across Wolfgang and Wolfgang became my chef. And he came out of the south of France. He had worked in a restaurant called Beaumanier and Beaumanier is in south of France also. You know, when I first met Wolf, he didn't speak very good English, but he knew what good food was. And we were on a wonderful journey together. Him with the kitchen, me with the front of the house. And we were a perfect marriage for about 10 years. You know, that's interesting. I want to go back just briefly to Roger Verger and the beaucous and the chappelles of the world. I have a book in my kitchen, it's called the Great Chefs of France. Is written in 1977, talks about, you know, the book, right, Madame Po. Yeah, very well. And so what I did a couple of years ago is that I, I pulled the book out and I plotted all the restaurants and I was going to go to Rouen, we're going to go to Trogo, and we were going to go to see Monsieur Orsi in Lyon, and we're going to see Pablo Cruz. And what was interesting to me going through the book is that most of those restaurants in France, these, the Michelin Etoile, were open and they were either family run or they've been handed to the chef after them. And the cultural history of cuisine in France is so much different than America.

22:05 Do you see America? Is America behind in a timeline like French. What am I trying to say is the French cuisine and the French idea behind a chef, you know, with the MOF program and the history of food in France, is America behind that curve? Are we going to get to a point where restaurants are around for 40, 50, 60 years, or are we going to be that new world where we're just creating new things and trying new things and then restaurants come and go as they have. It's an interesting question. You would ask me that question in March of last year. I would say I would have a different answer. But with COVID today and what it doing to the restaurant business, I don't know, and I don't know if you read recently, but 21 in New York closing down forever. Yeah, really sad, really sad. Four Seasons closing down forever. Amazing. So I don't know, I don't know what's going on in la. My good. My best friend in LA is Bob Morris.

23:12 Rest Paradise Trove. And I tell you, right, he's not very happy. Well, no, it's a mess. I, I don't know. I don't know how Wolfgang is doing it. He's not very happy. No. Well, the LA county thing, you know, they challenged it. Mark Girgos, the famous, the famed criminal attorney, challenged the LA county shut lockdown and he won. But then days after, Governor Newsom decided to shut everything down. I have a cousin who owns a restaurant in Pasadena called Mi Piache and he was actually, when they moved outside. And this goes back to your point about the south of France and what you were trying to do in Maison when he moved outside, he actually, he was doing better in June and July than he was last year. June, July.

24:01 Yeah, yeah. And every seat was outside. And, and, and. But then they shut him down again. And then we shut him down again. So now he's spent. That's the problem. They spent thousands of dollars to put tents and heaters and lighting and music and then it's all shut down. I'm going to go back to, to Wolfgang. I met him recently. I did a champagne lunch with the, the Rothschild family. And then right after I went to a very famous port tasting. Don Schliff here in California, probably one of the great port collections of the world, held a port tasting. And we were talking about things from the 1850s and 1870s and. And your old partner was there. Wolfgang was there. I sat next to him. Now, I didn't want to act like the devotee. I Love your food, Mr. Puck. So I asked him the question about Kavkaz, the restaurant Kavkaz, which eventually became Spago. Did you know the Markarian family that at Kavka? No. You didn't? No. So his eyes lit up because this was the beginning of something for him, I guess after leaving Mama's Own to do that part of the California history is fascinating to me. Tell me what year you were in the south of France talking to the folks, trying to find a chef. 73.

25:22 73. And so it sounds like to me that that revelation for you was this is going to be now we're going to have to have a chef centric restaurant. We're not going to have appropriate tears focused restaurant. We're gonna, we're gonna bring the chef out onto the floor and, and teach Americans that this is what food is about. Is that what the revelation was that was going on for you? That since you. Oh, yeah, definitely. I, I, I, I, I think that you'd have to go back. I don't know how old you are, but. Well, at that time, there was a group of guys called Gui, Miu, Malk and Mihau. Yeah. And they're the ones who brought the chefs up front through the magazine. I see. And I took my cue from them. I think. One of the Milot brothers was one of the judges at the Judgment of Paris with Steven Spurrier in 1976.

26:27 They're no brothers. It was ongoing. Kiss. Yeah, he was. I'm sorry. He was the, the judge. And, and they had a vision. They did very well with their magazine. And I got to know Kish extremely well. I went to China with him. I brought him to la. And they, they tried and they succeeded. They're the ones who made beaucouse. They're the one who made all that whole school foisboro verse they discovered and made those chefs. And my uncle Lantarai was not very fond of them because she was a true restaurateur. He believed the chefs in the kitchen and he's in the dining room. And the chef should stay in the kitchen. As when Bakrush came out front in the dining room.

27:31 My uncle at the time was very pissed off. Was he a Tour d'argent then? Yeah. The only Tour d'arthur. How long did. What was that tenure for? For. I'm sorry, how long was that? That he was owner of Tour d'argent? And what, what years was that he. Died from which inherited the toilet. Wow. For his father. And then when he died 10 years ago, his son took it over. Andre. And he said to me, you can't do what you're doing. And I said to him, you have to. And then. I'm not going to go into details, but you need a new shaft. Called me and he said, how do I get in touch with the guys like Bercuse and Berger? I said, I'll call them. I knew them quite well.

28:26 And he didn't like them at the time. Eventually he made peace with the whole thing and he accepted it. But it took him a while to adapt. Tour d'argent just for the listeners, is across the river from Notre Dame. No. Yeah. And it's been open since 1582. And one of the great wine cellars probably in the world. Yeah. It. My great. My great. My grandfather took it over in 1902. Wow. Was it in the family prior to that or. No, no, My grandfather bought in 1902. Wow. My great grandfather at a restaurant called the Cafe au lait, which closed right before the First World War. Interesting. And they had. He had it during the French Revolution. Wow. You know, you said in the book, you talk about how the fork possibly showed up at Tour d'argent as one of the first places in the 1850s. And I was, I've. In the book the Great Chefs of France, it talks about Catherine de Medici coming to France with, you know, she married in the. I forgot which king. And you know, she's been credited with bringing the fork to France. And it jives completely with the timing of the Tour d'argent and the idea of the fork.

29:53 Well, the first restaurant, most people don't know there was no restaurants in France until after the French Revolution. Really. There were cafes. Just cafes. Well, the idea of service like that. The main reason all the chefs used to work in for the royals and the words restaurant comes from a guy who opened a restaurant after the French Revolution. Wow. And all that. It said come and get restored. That means restore your appetite. Interesting. And that's where the word restaurant came from. How interesting. So after the French Revolution, d'estro is. Not a French word. It's a Russian word. Wow. It means fast. And when the Russians were occupying France, when Napoleon.

31:01 The Russians, that's where the beast were word came from. So weren't the Russians as well sort of responsible for the idea of plated service in courses? Well, that was from the Tsar area also earlier. Yeah, that's from the song. Yeah, the shark family. Interesting. So I'll go back to the chef thing. So have you seen the movie? It's a comedy. It's a French comedy. Common Chef. It's a very cute movie. It's a kid that's trying to become a chef and he's trying to be the chef centric type restaurant. Wherever he works, he keeps getting fired because he keeps coming out of the kitchen, going into the clients and trying to create food or change, tell them what to eat as a neighbor. The movie Comb on Chef.

31:55 Is that a French movie? It's a French movie. Yeah, it's on. I don't know where I saw it. There's a. There's a website called film fry filmfra.com. it's all French movies with French subtitles. I can look it up. It's really cute. It's really cute. But the idea of a French centric restaurant coming to Los Angeles in the form of Mama's Own. Were there any chef centered restaurants before Wolfgang came into the Mame zone? Oh yeah, there was a thing called On vine street called Urban Tea Cafe, belong to Kit Marshall. And there was Scandia. Oh, Scandia, right. You know, big, big restaurant. It was a very famous, at the hotel downtown.

32:45 Windsor. The Windsor, the Rinser Yacht, another one. That was a big restaurant. Is that chef centric? Not many, but so, so then the. Question begs, because this is a tough question for any restaurateur. If anybody knows the answer to this question, you know, we'd all be somebody would be famous and rich forever. And that is the success of a restaurant has so much to do with the maitre d or the owner, the procruitaire, the chef, the food, you know, the ambiance, who knows why. But all of a sudden Maison becomes the place to go in Los Angeles, particularly for the Hollywood set.

33:27 And I'm wondering a couple things. One is, you think that could ever happen again, do you think there'd ever be a restaurant where, you know, the, I'm not going to say the elite but just the celebrity status that Mama Zone ever had? Now that's a good question. No, no, I, I, I, I'll answer that question very briefly. Hollywood at that time is a very small town. The Fly from Mtn Burbank from Paramount, Onelrose from Motor Rider. I'm sorry, MGM in Culver City. The drive was 15 minutes. Oh wow. Like today you couldn't do that. No, you can't do that. So that was very key. The restaurant had a very good location. So geographically Hollywood was small. That's right.

34:26 And it was the heyday and everybody used to know everybody. You could drive in front of the bistro or, or the Saint Germain, the rest of the hall, look at the parking lot and you know who was dining there, you know, the people's cars. Wow. Are you ready? So it was a very unique period. Was this, I mean it couldn't have been a pre thought idea that you were going to create a restaurant that was going to attract these people and become so famous. You just wanted good food. Good food, good service and a very protective omega.

35:11 Yes, very protective. It's funny you know, people ask me, do you have any pictures of the restaurant people dining in it? None, just the, just these promo shots of the book. But nobody's sitting at their table. Not Orson Welles over by, you know, on the way to the bathroom. Nothing. I don't have any of that. Never was shot, never was done. And I'm sorry. Well, but that was just what you wanted. You, you, you know, once they started coming, obviously if these people are coming, the Orson Welles and The Suzanne Plechettes are coming to the restaurant. You're going to want to protect their identity. And they're, they're going to ask you to be discreet. In the first place, I never took a picture. You never took a picture. And it's funny, you know Austin Welles, a good friend of mine, it looked like that. And when he died and I was in his house the night he died. Wow.

36:01 I said, what a jerk. I have nothing to remind you of him. Wow. Not even, not even a signed autograph. All this stuff, all this amazing history. You could have had at least something to show for it and. But you've got some good pictures. I was talking to one of the vendors. I taste wines on Tuesdays. I start at 9:30, I finished at 2:00. I taste, I don't know, 75 wines every Tuesday. And I have a myriad of vendors that come through here. And yesterday was an old timer. It was Mark Toll. In fact, I was looking through your credential. Your book here, the very first page, I just started reading it. I didn't, I hadn't read it. The acknowledgments. Larry Lipson. I knew Larry well. Oh yeah, Larry is a good friend by.

36:41 Back in the day we conversed many times about wine. But anyway, this one vendor, he says, really, you're gonna. I gotta listen to that podcast with Patrick because I remember going and walking to the bathroom and I could have sworn Orson Welles was sitting there. But I never found out if it was him. I go, yeah, that was probably him. Yeah, it was Shiv. We should buy the bathroom. Yeah, it's pretty amazing story. So once it looked like Mommy's Own was going to be happening, was part of the Hollywood crowd. Did you have to adjust your thought process on how this restaurant was going to go based on the clientele that was coming in or it was already part of the DNA? Well, yeah, I ran the restaurant. I didn't care. The plumber or Paul Newman, they were all important. That's excellent. Tell me about the wine culture. Mommy zone. You're Talking about this 60s and 70s, 1976 California wins. Beats the French at the Judgment of Paris. And you know, it still takes many years for the California wine scene to develop into a world class operations. But how important was the wine list at Maison and what type of clientele was taking advantage of?

37:58 I'm sure I'm assuming you had the Burgundies and the Bordeaux and probably some California wines, but was that an important. We were the first restaurant to have California. I Mean, a very strong presence with California wine. I think the first one was. Let's see, I remember the first time I served Callaway wine. Oh, Callaway, Yeah. Wow. Like, Callaway was a very, very special human being. Brilliant guy. And a lot of the wines that Shelly Czech made were very good. They were. Did you get your number said shelter? I did not. My father, you know, he. My father started this in the late 60s, early 70s, and he went to Napa many times. I don't think he crossed paths with Mr. Chelichev. Many others. Jim Bear was a neighbor from Chateau Montalena. I mean, Dave Stair from Dry Creek. I remember the first very well known vineyard of any credibility was Jordan. Correct. And we had. Jordan was really very good at the. Time when you had the French, I'm sure you had Burgundies, the high end Burgundies. Yeah.

39:15 I thought there's a picture of you handing Gene Kelly. Yeah. And so how important was that to the ticket? I mean, in today's environment and this. And we're going to be on an hour here, so I don't want to take too much more of your time and maybe we'll do it again. But today's culture, if I'm training, we've trained many restaurants on service. And, you know, the key is you can double a ticket by the alcohol service at a restaurant. I mean, it's very important. Part of the gross profit margins of a restaurant. Was it like that, by the way? I'm not a believer. Or not. You don't. Okay, that's what I want to ask you about back then, particularly. All right, let me ask you. A house. Like was a house wine rebuttal from France? Yes, in the house Bordeaux. It was 1999, the bottle. I made more money on the house wine than I would do on a Bordeaux.

40:13 Okay. So yeah, my philosophy is look about. Or feed the Austrian or whatever. If you added 25%, you would sell it. If you would add 50%, you'd have a hard time. They wouldn't move. So you better off doing volume than not selling them. Correct. So the margins were in the house and the pores. And we sold more housewives than anything. Else, but it was Bordeaux. So that's pretty. That's pretty good. Not too many house Bordeaux around a house. Champagne, which was. Was a champagne menu. It wasn't a champagne. It was a blonde Le Blanc Tremont menu southwest of France. And I was the first one to bring it in here. And we did a huge business with it. It was crement but it was method champagne. Wa. Probably. That's right. So, you know, it felt like, and tasted like champagne, but it was. Now there's a. These are the Italians and Chamo and they're are giving the champagne a run for their money. Oh, you know, there's two things. There's. Well, we can talk for hours on the wine industry right now because it's, it's as messed up as. As the restaurant business is.

41:41 In fact, I'm making incredible deals right now because the on premise stuff is gone. There's no restaurants buying anything. So getting first growth Bordeaux, I'm getting Grand Cru Burgundies in here because they can't sell them anywhere else because no one's buying. And I think that's going to be going on for a little while because even if the restaurant's open tomorrow in Los Angeles, it'll still take 60, 90, 120 days for them to get back up to purchasing power to take advantage of these things. So it's, it's kind of a mess as well. But I'm just. People are drinking a lot of. And a lot of rose going on. A lot of rose. Richard Angel. I mean, they're going like hotcakes. Well, you mentioned it and that's an important thing that you said because the world is smaller now in the world of wine. Every district in the world has a. You can get Burgundy rose, obviously. You can get Bordeaux rose, you can get Tuscan rose. Mr.

42:35 Sasha Lachine had a vision. Yes. With Whispering Angel. Yes. It's huge. In fact, I have a rose club now. I mean, a million balls a year. Yeah. Isn't that phenomenal? And his father would be very proud of him. Alexis Lachine. Alexis Lachine. Chateau Lacombe and others. Chateau Criol, chateaubrioil Chie. That's the Bordeaux house. He sold it. And then Sasha left, took the money and opened Chateau de Chault. Right. And now Gutierrez Free Ranger as well. As his high end version of the rose as well. Yeah. The point I was trying to make was that the regions of the world have all been producing now sparkling wines. They're all producing. You mentioned Andrew Chelyshev, Alexis Lachine. I'll tell you a quick cute story.

43:39 The woman who took Mr. Spurrier around in 1976 in Napa. Her name was Joanne Dupuis and she was a Napa resident since the 40s. And she found herself at Chateau Lacombe with Alexis Lachine on one side and Andrei Cheliceff on the other having l. When the. When they announced the winners of the Judgment of Paris, and Mr. Barrett was with her. And it was this amazing story because Mr. Barrett gets a phone call. He walks back into the lunch, and Lexis Lachine is there, and Andre Telechev. And he whispers to Andrei Chelicev, we just won. And he had the white Chardonnay. He had the Chardonnay beat that beat the Burgundies. And Andrei Chelicev says, don't tell anybody in the room. We're guests of the Lachines here. We will not discuss us winning the. The Judgment of Paris in front of them. So they didn't announce it, and they waited till they got on the bus that left. It's a very cute story about. And here the. The reason I brought it up is what an amazing amount of wine, celebrity and. And. And influence in one room. You have Andre Telecheff on one side of this young lady and Alexis Laina on the other. And. And they made it happen. So.

44:55 So. But the question really was, would the Plechettes of the world or the Orson Welles of the world or the Newmans or the Ed McMahon, would they sit down and say, okay, I'd like this for dinner or lunch and a glass of. Call something out a Grand Cru Burgundy or a glass of Lif. Well, at lunch, it was mostly glass of Haas wife, the Chardonnay. No. It's funny. I grew up when I was a wine steward at Statler. In my college year, people used to say, I want Chablis Boutique. You say? And they would name the wine by the label. As I grew older, all those names disappeared. Yes, they have.

45:43 And it became Amant. Chardonnay, a Pinot, you know, and all those labels, the Pre Frisade, Shabri, they all disappeared. Yep. And I don't remember. Free cliche was no longer in demand. I remember when Matus was the biggest drop of wine in 19. I would say 50, 62, 63. Oh, early on. That's early. Yeah, because we had it at my dad's farm, my dad's wine shop in Palos Verdes. He bought it in 69. We had tons of Matuse and Lancers. And.

46:30 Yeah, when you said Chablis, you know, Gala would bottle that stuff under the label Chablis, which was, you know, sort of internationally illegal, but. And they would have. The red wine was hearty Burgundy. Yeah. And the people thought that's what it was. I used to abide by the habituality. It was delicious. Right. But those. Don't deny. Don't deny Gallo, the Fact that they did make a very good Burgundy. They did, and they still do. They still make very good wines. You know what's interesting about those eras, that era is those wines were screw caps. Right. And, yeah, it took. That was. That was a negative connotation about the quality of wine. If it was a screw cap back in 1969, 72, whatever, it was not good. I mean, it was a cheap wine. And now, you know, screw caps are very well accepted in some countries. Last night.

47:26 Last night, screw cap, really? And I have not seen that all these wines. I mean, I see a lot of wine, but this Ruffino in a screw cap. Yeah. That's amazing. Well, it's a lot easier for us to open than. Than it was. Than. It is a cork, though. I had a customer complain that I broke her corkscrew because she tried to open a screw cap with her corkscrew, and it broke. The. It broke. You must have been blown. It's a bit of a problem. You know, I. I would like to do this again one day. We have so much to talk about. We kind of bounced around. But it's been such a pleasure having you. It's been an hour. I don't want to take any more of your time, but you have any time. School to do. But thank you so much for the time. Let me ask you a question. Sure.

48:12 When I had Mommy's Own, I did a lot of firsts. We were the first people to serve Perrier. We were the first people to serve Aviel, and we were the first people to serve still champagne. Are you familiar with still champagne? So still champagne, I mean, are you talking about, like, I've bought Pinot Noir from Domain Carneros. It's made by Marcel do, and it's a funny story, but it's bothered a bottle of champagne. Then I brought it in, and then the custom said, well, it has a regular core in a bottle of champagne, but has no bubbles. How confusing the customs. Said, well, we can't let that in. And why not? They said, well, it's the champagne bottle. It's still, and it's got a regular quart. So it's not champagne. I said, no, it's still wine. May Five Bird shall go. And you should find out. It used to sell very well, but now nobody has it in America. I'm going to find out. I think Moet is with Southern wines of spirits right now. But that's interesting. So it was like a 60, 40 Pinot Noir, Chardonnay kind of thing, or is it just A, you know, varietal as a chardonnay. It's a champagne grape, really. Huh.

49:43 Yeah. I have to find that I've never had it all these years, you know. Very good, very good. And so you poured that as what, for lunch? Paratif kind of thing? Or was it a. Just on the list? Yeah. Very expensive. Interesting. I remember when I started, we were the first person to bring Rose. Tavel was number one. Tavel. Yeah. Well, you're right. Ros has grown. No matter. Now you can't get it. Highly allocated. You can't get out. It's very hard to get. You have to, you know, you have to be on the list. Oh, you know. You know I became popular in Hollywood, don't you? No. People would come back from the festival in Cannes, and that's what they would serve everywhere. Ah. That's why Domain ot, I don't think I've had. I think I've been offered it one time in 30 years from the vendor. Yeah, it's very good stuff.

50:41 But I'm very close to the representative that handles Desclan. You know, the. That's Jim Rush. His game used to be a Southern rider spirit. Yes. You remember all these guys, huh? Well, you know, I used to be with hi Marker. Wow. That's an old time. I left a restaurant, I was vice president of Iron Walker. Oh, I didn't know that. After you left, you went. You went there. So were they with. Were they with the Bohemian group? They were Southern. Okay. Yeah. So you. Yeah, that's right. I didn't think about this, you being in Los Angeles, you know, all those guys that were work streets then. And it's a different. I mean, it's a totally. You know, back then, it was Patterson's. You only had fixed prices. Everything was the same. You know, you can only sell Jack Daniels for the same price as the other guy and when. And Bob Balza. Did you ever meet Bob? I didn't do him. My dad knew him. He spoke. My father started two chapters of Leslie Divine.

51:42 And. And I'm. I'm bringing that back. In fact, I wanted to talk to you about that, but I'll do it next time. I'm bringing it back. I'm trying to decide what Les Amie Devant is. You know, what is it? What is it going to be in the millennial generation? But back then, my father had Bob Bowser speak a couple of times to the group. M. Mandavi. Very, very good. Nathan Croman. Yeah, I remember Nathan very well. All those guys from that that era, Henry Wa was spoke to the group, pretty interesting time. And I'm so happy to have your opinion of that. And it's nice to speak to somebody that remembers those days because it's a different part of the wine world. It's a whole different world.

52:28 I think that the new generation doesn't appreciate the, let me put it this way, they appreciate life in a different way that we did that. And people like Balzer and Nathan Thoman, I don't think we'll survive then because the millennium, they don't bring the same amount of respect that the wine deserves. I agree with that. And that's kind of like why these conversations are happening on this podcast. And I think it's important. Let me. Since we, we're going to open a Pandora's box here.

53:12 But the wine culture right now is. It's a mess. And the reason it's a mess is the Internet and the Groupon culture, the coupon culture. And so I've said this a thousand times on this podcast, but what happens now? If you can imagine this, Patrick, they're bringing in, and I know this for a fact, it's not like, because I'm hearsay, I know guys that have lost contracts because they're charging ���2 a liter for juice coming from Europe in, in 20 liter tetra tax, you know, they bring it into New York and they bottle it on a bunch of different brands. And so what the millennials and much of the wine consuming public is seeing are these messaging. You get 15 bottles for $45, you get 15 bottles for $60. You can have $3 wines. And it's all as you would know, if you're going to pay ���1 a liter, it's just can't be any good. So the stories are being lost, your stories being told. Now it's being. But it's lost amongst these millennial generations.

54:15 The restaurant story, the plight of food. They should know where this stuff is coming from. They should know how it got here. They should know how the experience of a good Burgundy or a good Bordeaux is so different than the stuff that that's out on the streets right now. So I'm trying to, in my own way, well, decongest. Somebody once said to me, I used to teach, you know, at Cal Poly Pomoto. Really? Yeah. They have a wine, a food program. There, don't they, at Kellogg Center? Yes, the hospitality. And I had a class there and I would say to them, if you always drank Gallo, you never know what a good wine is. But once you Drink a very good wine, then you know the difference.

55:03 It's hard to go back, you know. So, you know, if. Why would you have good glassware? Get out cheap. You'll never know what bad mine is. But meanwhile, I had a very good story about Mr. Lachine. Yes. And I was in a restaurant with him, and we were in the bottle of wine. And you know how they bring the bottle, they make you taste the wine and they swirl it out. And he would take the wine and he would swirl it and nose it, and he would look at the wine. Stewart, he says it's definitely red. Coming from him. That's very funny.

55:45 Well, I agree with that. I mean, people over emphasize that stuff. You know, people say, can I have a white wine or a red wine or a rose wine with my fruit? My answer is, you should have wine, period. If you like it, then it's good. That's it. And that's the bottom line. Something that you like. But there is, you know, the comment you made earlier is a very important comment. There's. There's some value to a properly made wine. And whether you're a novice at wine tasting or you're aficionado and you study it, you can tell, and it makes you feel something different than a cheap wine might. What. Since you're. Since we're on the subject and you're willing to talk a little more, what is your opinion of. And the idea of now organic? Biodynamic had a conversation with a master of wine last week who started a program called Raw Raw, which are, you know, it's not a certification, but it's just a classification of wine. And the question is this. I talked to a lot of winemakers from all over the world, and many of them were harvesting and processing wines organically already. And the comment is, the listeners have heard this a thousand times. My kids are playing in that vineyard. They're getting their hands dirty. I don't want pesticides. And so the idea of organic wines really isn't that new, but it's being popularized. And that philosophy, it comes out of the earth. A potato. Yes. Comes out of the earth. It's

57:16 organic. Yeah, exactly. Grape comes out on the valley. It's organic. Yes. All right. Now, I was out in Bordeaux two years ago, and I went to a friend of mine, Alfred Tichron. Love the wine. And he stopped killing the earth with a tractor. And now he brought in horses to till the earth with the horse pulling the till. Yes. That's fascinating. And I said, why are you doing that? He Said because the tractor used to push the earth down while the feet of the horse turns the soil over. Very interesting. And he finds that's more organic. And then if you go, have you been in Bordeaux lately? Last time was 20:15. No, 16. Now they have all these big cement. Oh, the eggs. Eggs, yeah. Made of the earth of the vineyard.

58:29 Yes. You know that. Yes. They probably had that in California too, right? Yeah, the eggs coming around. But isn't that not unlike the caucus countries that have been making wine underground and they're in their earthen, their earth and amphora for centuries. Yeah, but all that stuff's coming back. Yes, I think it's. So they're all going back. Back to the old way as opposed to the new way. Well, so everything comes around. I agree with you. Wine should be natural anyway. But organic is organic is organic. When I see organic bananas for 69 cents, an unorganic banana. That's right, 38 cents. I fucking. I see the same thing here, Ralph. You should go to taste differently. Well, that's a good question. I ask that question to chefs all the time. I ask Joachim Michel and I get different answers. And here's the question. You and I go to the. Now Joaquim talks about. You know, he was, I forgot the restaurant in Nice that he's. That he learned his craft at. He said we would go down to the. To the shore and we would buy our fresh fish and shellfish, and then we'd go to the farmer's market and we'd buy our fresh organic foods. And so that's what we did.

59:50 This nouvelle cuisine idea has been around for a long time. And so I said, okay, let's go to the market together. I'm going to buy all conventional, you're going to buy all organic. We're going to cook everything, the same temperatures, the service the same way, and which one's going to taste better? And he said, it will always be organic. And I've get a different answer from different chefs. And I think it all has to do just like wine. And just like food, you know, it's the passion of the maker and the farmer that's going to create the better food. I tell the story before my daughter, the Boulanger in New York. She takes me to an organic wine shop in Brooklyn and she wants to buy a Sicilian Neo Diavola that's supposedly biodynamic.

1:00:33 I take it to the counter. It was $75. And this is only a few years ago. Like, I'm like, Lisa, I. I've got 30,000 bottles behind me here in my warehouse. Why don't you buy a $75 biodynamic Sicilian red? We took it back to the hotel. Is undrinkable. There's nothing wrong with it. I mean, there wasn't, it hadn't turned, it wasn't oxidized or just, just wasn't well made. And it led me to believe at that time, like, just because it's made organically or biodynamically doesn't make it better. And I still believe that the experience of a good glass of wine, like you said, should be the experience of a good glass of wine. It should taste good to you. Look, the people who've been making wine for hundreds of years, organic and not organic, they know how to make good wine. That's it. I agree, I, I agree. It's a, it's, go ahead. I guess I'm old fashioned. No, I don't think so. I think that the stories we want to tell, we want people to understand about wine and food. Now let me ask you this question. I don't want to take any more time, but I love this question. It's an important question. And that is the evolution of, and maybe the premise of Maison actually sort of underneath the premise of the restaurant. If you talk to Bordeaux winemakers and you talk to as you have all your life and Burgundy winemakers, the evolution of food in those districts. Tuscan food with Tuscan wines, Pimonte foods with Pimonte wines, Burgundy with Burgundy, et cetera. And when I told that

1:02:06 to Jacques la, and I had that story, talked to him on a podcast, I said, we don't have that in California. We don't even have indigenous wine grapes. Right. Zinfandel, which is our only hope to be indigenous wine grape is Croatian. So in California, we didn't get a chance to start with grapes of our own and foods of our own. And I sort of positioned it as a not a bad thing, but just sort of an unfortunate thing. And he's like, no, the beauty of California is it's the new world. You can take whatever you want, grow whatever you want, and prepare food around it any way you want. Was that what sort of the Mommy's own sort of premise was at that point? I, I agree. I, I, I, I think it's all in the taste of the buyer of the people who's eating the food. That's it. You know, we want to have a fide of soul with the red wine. That's your privilege. That's right. But it's interesting. That's the rape. My father in law, and he likes arty wine from the Southwest. I can't drink them, they have too much acid.

1:03:16 I'm a Bordeaux person. You're right, though. I mean, I say the old way, I'm a claret person. They're claret person. Right, Claret, Sebillian. So, so here's, here's a. It is an old word. It's a, you know, the English version of Bordeaux. Right, right. So when I go home now, and because of COVID I'm drinking, I'll admit I'm drinking better. I mean, this is a very common outfall. The wines I'm selling more of now. I don't think In January of 2019, I could have sold $50 cabernet from California, $100 bottle of Camus. I would never have been able to sell those to my clientele prior to Covid.

1:03:57 And now I can't keep them in stocks as people are drinking better because they're spending their money on this kind of thing. But what's happened to me is I know I'm going to have a glass of wine when I get home no matter what. So instead of saying, what are we having for dinner? And choosing a wine, I go home and say, what do I feel like drinking? And if it's a Rufino Chianti with a screw cap, that's what I feel like. And I'll eat whatever I'm eating. Or if it's a high end Burgundy, I feel like Burgundy. If I feel like my wife and I don't agree, we feel like drinking quite often. But that's okay. The other night I felt like a very rustic Pinot. And there's a new one from California I just brought home and I loved it and she couldn't stand it. But I just thought I was so ethereal. And so thing is that the way you feel about wine is like, what? What am I going to drink tonight? And then, oh, really? Last night I cooked dinner. I made ravioli with mushroom cheese sauce and we had a nice lucido donkey. Perfect. Thank you so much. It was such a great pleasure. My pleasure as well.