Navigating Restaurant Legacies with Nancy Silverton: The Evolution of Dining and Social Media

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I'm going to say the younger generation is food obsessed.

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I mean, you go out to eat and you kind of look

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around the room and I would say more than half of the

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room is actually barely eating, but they're

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posing with different plates for their Instagram. You know,

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nobody wants to be a food critic anymore. Everybody wants to be

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an Instagrammer. Sit back and grab a glass.

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It's Wine Talks with Paul Kaye.

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Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul Kaye, and we are at an away game

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today in beautiful— what do they call this? Southern— that's not Southern California, but

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what part of town is this? Well, we're in Southern California. Well, that's true, but

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we're also in Los Angeles. I just say Hollywood because

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everybody knows where that is, and we're close enough. Look, if you go up Highland

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and all of a sudden you're at Hollywood Boulevard, that's it. It may have a

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name, you know. Oh, I know, guess what? If you look out across

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the street, there's some sort of like a green sign. Now you got to

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crank your head. And it says Media District. Oh,

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that's right. I like that. Well, this is—

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I'm going to read this ChatGPT introduction of you. Sure.

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Let's hear it. Let's see if it's right. All right. Can I correct you if

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it's wrong? Please. I will. Okay. Nancy Silverton is

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a pioneering American chef, baker, and restaurateur known for reshaping the

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way Americans think about bread and Italian cuisine. She co-founded

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the La Brea Bakery in Los Angeles, sparking an artisan bread revolution,

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and co-founded the beloved restaurant Campanile. Whose

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influence extends through their Mozza, where we're at today,

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restaurant, and her James Beard Award. Celebrated for her commitment to

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quality and flavor, she's inspired generations of chefs, home

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cooks alike, leaving an indelible mark on American dining.

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That's pretty accurate. That's pretty good. Oh, yeah, that's pretty good.

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Well, actually, I'm going to tell you a story. The last time I was here,

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which we don't— we're on the west, east side of town, so we don't get

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down to the media district very often. But you were working the Buffalo

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Mozzarella Bar I went up, I didn't introduce myself, I just said, you know, you

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just inspired a young chef. This is many years ago. How old is

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Mozza? You know, it'll— well, pizzeria next door will be

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20 years. Wow. This year, however, the Osteria where we're

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sitting right now, and that's where the mozzarella bar is,

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is one year behind. So it's 19 this year.

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Wow. That's amazing. Did you expect that? Never. You just—

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but see, I still think when someone asks me how old I am, I'm thinking

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I'm 50, and then I realize, oh no, I'm not, I'm 70. You

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know, I always reverse the numbers in Sam Dick's Lexicon. Yeah. So no, I

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didn't think. But you— I went to the bar and you were working very hard.

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I said, you know, you inspired a young chef. And my daughter, who was with

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Jonathan Benno, she was the head baker of record when he earned his

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star at Benno. And then, you know, COVID came

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30 days later, closed the whole place. But she had, she

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had worked the line at Lincoln. Where is she now? We need people.

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Well, she'd love to come. She's in Paris. What's she doing?

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Texas. Oh, I like the pause. What's she doing

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there? She's raising 4 kids. Why in

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Paris, Texas? Well, her husband's an Anglican priest and

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he got a church. Wow. Yeah. So it's been quite a ride. Yes. But

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they just found out— and there is a bakery in Paris, Texas.

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It's called the Paris Bakery. It's very good. It's very French.

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And they just found out that she's a baker.

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So anyway, the story goes, she wanted to work the line. She

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did not tell Jonathan Benno that she was a baker by trade.

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And he found out, and he brought her to

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Benno. But he says, you're going to have to choose between

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savory and pastries and bakery. She goes, Nancy

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didn't. Oh, I love that story. So he

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looked at her like, oh, well, I guess you're right about that. So

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she was at Ysain-Jean. She was at the Landau-Castel School. She worked, baked

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in Paris. She came back, worked at Superba. She actually

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fixed some bread at Provisions, Daily

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Provisions in New York, and then had a kid.

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And then another and another and another. Anyway, that's not about her.

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Yeah, no. But it's about your influence in this industry. And one of my questions

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was— and I got all these questions, but I'm not probably going to get to

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them because we're going to have a nice conversation, which is this

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restaurant's here now 19 years old. How many

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patrons come in here and know of this renaissance of food in the

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'80s that you created along with a host of other chefs?

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Well, I have to say only the older

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generation, certainly, because, you know, and this

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reminds me of, this was last year sometime,

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sometimes let's say celebrities that

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don't want to risk paparazzi finding them at the front

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door will ask to come through the kitchen. And about a year ago,

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a gentleman walks through— sorry, the back kitchen, so they

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avoid that front door— and walked

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through, and everybody on the line said, "Who was that?"

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That was Mick Jagger, by the way. They had no idea who Mick Jagger

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was, right? That's crazy. So people definitely in the

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kitchen, if I asked every single one, Have you heard of— did you ever hear

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of Campanile, you know, which is the restaurant you're referring to? They never

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would say they did. Michael's? Uh-uh. Ken Frank?

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Absolutely not. Jonathan Waxman? No.

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Isn't that fascinating? Yeah. And doesn't it feel— does

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it feel rewarding, or does it feel, well, maybe you understand this business

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finally, that you're able to transcend that? I mean, that's where you've made

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your mark, along with all those chefs you just mentioned. And here you are, you've

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superseded that into a generation that doesn't even know that that happened.

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Yeah. And I don't— And I think, you know, today's social media

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helps that because I think today's generation of cooks

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is so caught up on Instagram,

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what's happening of the moment, and doesn't realize

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where food came from, right? That's a good point.

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And they don't, they don't realize the influence

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of sort of my generation. It is a generation where they

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can, well, we made, we're actually tonight,

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Because my kids live with me, one daughter and her husband

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and my 3 grandkids because of the fires in Alphadena. Didn't lose their house,

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just displaced for a while. Tonight's Nancy Silverton night.

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Which means what? She's using the Mark Peel Nancy

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Silverton book to create dinner. Did you know? I

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mean, has she used it before? No, she bought it for me for Christmas.

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It's such a simple book to use, and it has

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just a wonderful variety and

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offering of food that you can actually cook at home. You

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know, a lot of these chefy cookbooks, including my own,

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really require a sous

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chef, a commis, probably a

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dishwasher, and more

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bowls than you may have at home. Right? And we write these

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cookbooks 'cause people want recipes from your restaurants. And

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yet, Are they really doable at home? No. But the one you

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got, which is called Mark Peel, Nancy Silverton. Yes. Cooking at

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Home or At Home, I think. Yeah. I don't remember the title because it was

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the second book that I did and it came out in the '90s. So that

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was post— Oh, I think it was Cooking for Friends and Family, something like that.

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Yeah. But that was post-revolution. Let's go back to that second.

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I'm going to quote George Taylor from the Judgment of Paris

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show, event in Paris when the French lost to the American

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wine business. And what he said was, The revolution of

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wine in America, American wine in the world, would have happened, but

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maybe it would be 10 years delayed. And here you folks are, and

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I guess it's the late '70s, early '80s is when all this started.

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Do you think this would have happened? Do you think that this advancement of

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cuisine in America would have occurred just later if the scene

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hadn't arrived here? Yeah, eventually. Absolutely.

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But, you know, we were lucky enough to have enough

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and a scattering throughout the country of really talented

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young cooks that were able to— Where did they come from?

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Where did they come from? Well, a lot of them came from their

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hometowns, right? Cooking with their mom or something. Cooking with their mom,

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a lot of them. And then there was the ones, the sort of the

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lucky ones that got to travel. That would be the

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Jeremiah Tower and the Alice Waters, right?

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That— during college or after college were

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lucky enough to go to Europe and

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eat food that they weren't used to eating when they

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were growing up. And they realized, wow, there's

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something there, right? And they were,

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you know, the rest is history. But certainly regionally, there were a

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lot of people, I think, you know, coming out of New Orleans, like I'm

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thinking of like the Paul Prudhomme. Do you remember that name?

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That nobody would know. Certainly Commander's Palace

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and the Louis and a lot of that generation

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that actually I don't think were really appreciated

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until that American movement came

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about. Right. It's interesting, right? Because I was—

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Patrick Hugh of famed author, good friend. Yes.

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Runs the Strand House now at in

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Manhattan. His book about Le Pavillon, which is

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interesting. And I'm wondering why LA was his hotbed, because Joachim

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was also a good friend of mine. He came here from Nice.

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You were always here? I was born here. Oh, you were? Okay. And

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so I was born knowing about the Brown Derby

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and Chasen's and Scandia and those classic

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places. But we didn't have

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We didn't have the French influence like New York had

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as much, right? No, that's it. So it never really happened. And I was

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just, for some reason, I was on the web, it was on my phone

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probably, and I stumbled across the brochure

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for the 1939 World's Fair in New York where

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André Soulet came from, basically the star of the pavilion according to

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Patrick's book. And I'm thinking maybe New York was still

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that Frenchy influence, the way they serve food, the way they,

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you know, it was one seating basically for the whole night. And that did—

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that's— we transcended that. You, you guys bucked that

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sort of spongy traditionalism. I think that

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LA as a whole

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did. I, you know, I think I, I just remember when,

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um, somebody was kind of comparing the New York kind of

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restaurant vibe versus the Los Angeles restaurant vibe,

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say. And New York

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was much more about finance and the stock

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market and that kind of— and LA

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was much more about laid-back Hollywood. And so

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that could be one of the reasons is the

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lifestyle. We're the beachy people. Right. The

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weather's good. We can surf and ski in the same day.

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But this is intriguing to me. And it's happened in the wine world,

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the French come here to grow grapes in Oregon, they're in Napa, they're in,

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you know, all the Central Coast because the New World is the

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New World. You can do whatever you want. And

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I've always respected the idea that in Italy and in France, they protect

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their regions, they protect their food, their cheeses, they protect their dried meats, they

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protect their butter. And I'm jealous of that a little bit.

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But maybe that was the impetus for this movement that you could

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think outside the box a little bit. Right. There weren't those rules. And I,

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I'm with you. I really appreciate those guidelines.

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You know, the parameters that you have to work within

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to be recognized, whether you're making

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Parmesan. Yeah. Right. And you have to be in that region or

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balsamic vinegar. Do you think Americans

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Do you think now this generation understands? We talked about the fact that they probably

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don't understand the revolution, but do they understand the fine cuisine? The fact that,

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well, there's that video of you somewhere on the internet where you're rejecting a whole

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truck of vegetables. Yes.

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I think that that educate. Yes. I think that

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food, I think universally, you know, I spend

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time, for instance, in Singapore because I

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have a restaurant there and I've had restaurant there for a long time.

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Wow. That, and I've spent time in Hong Kong.

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Champ didn't find that. They know that's funny. And I've

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spent time in Hong Kong for various

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reasons and little time in Japan. But

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it seems like those countries in particular,

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the, I'm going to say the younger generation is food

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obsessed. I mean, you go out to eat and you kind of,

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look around the room and I would say more than half of

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the table is— sorry, more than half of the room

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is actually barely eating, but they're posing

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with different plates for their Instagram. You know,

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nobody wants to be a food critic anymore. Everybody wants to be

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an Instagrammer. And interestingly enough,

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that the importance of an

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influencer has surpassed

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the clout of a food critic because an

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influencer has a lot more followers. And these days it's

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all about the following. You want to write a book,

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say a cookbook, first thing your potential

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agent or publisher might say is, how many followers do you have? That's

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right. Not enough. You got to get those followers up. So I was

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lucky that I got into not only the restaurant business, business,

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but also the business of writing cookbooks way before

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that mattered. Because it's very difficult to get a cookbook these days.

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And you see that more and more of the ones that are coming

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out are ones that are coming out because they are,

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have an online presence or they have a TV show.

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So I don't know if we can call that a good thing or a bad

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thing. I mean, obviously the Elmer Dills. I'm going to say a bad thing. Okay.

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Because that would happen. The Elmer Dills and the Merle

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Schindlers of the world are no longer pertinent. I don't even know. Jonathan

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Gold passed away years ago, but he would have been because

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he was such a champion of

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restaurants that appeal to a

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much greater force. When we travel, and

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we just got back from The Paris, France, not— well, we were in Paris, Texas

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too, but we— I don't use any of those services,

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Yelp, Foursquare, because I don't know

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the people that are dining at those places understand what they're getting or if they

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care. Not that I'm an exquisite person. I'm with you on that. That's not the

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way to discover. So I use Michelin because at least it's a standardized

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judgment. Done by people that know food, right?

250
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I agree. But, but, and word of mouth, right? You call me, you

251
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respect my palate maybe. And so you ask me what are my, you know,

252
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last 3 great meals in Paris and I would tell you, but I agree.

253
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I don't, you know, I think those are the worst

254
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platforms to go on to, to figure out where you want to eat. Do you

255
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have a social network group here? A marketing promo sort of group

256
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of people that worry about Nancy's followers? Yeah, they do

257
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because In today's world,

258
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you need it. So people will always say, oh, I follow you on

259
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Instagram now. I don't have an Instagram account. I don't even have it on my

260
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phone. When people send me stuff from Instagram and

261
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they send me something and I always press to open it up, I can never

262
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press open. I can never open it up because I don't have that app.

263
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But yes, my quote

264
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unquote people take care of that world because you have to be

265
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a part of that world. For

266
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a business sake, not anything other than that. I'm going to

267
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dig into a little bit of digital marketing, which is what I did forever.

268
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I don't know if you know, I had the oldest wine club in America for

269
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35 years, blah, blah, blah. We did all this, whatever.

270
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But one of the original premises of social

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networking, which was really to be social, it wasn't about this stuff.

272
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This is newer. Was the fact that a publicly facing company

273
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that was on Facebook, let's say Mozza, Astoria Mozza,

274
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could publicly address the group. Let's say somebody gave it a bad

275
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rating. Right. And you could go on and let everybody see how you

276
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would handle that rating. Yeah. It was a huge factor for

277
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restaurants. But then it turned into where restaurateurs are chasing

278
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those 5 stars and doing things that might not

279
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be ethical, literally buying

280
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people to do it or to take something bad down. Right. And so you can't

281
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even trust that either. Yeah. You

282
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can't trust it. You don't know how it got there. Let's go back to the

283
00:17:52,780 --> 00:17:55,459
old days for a minute just because they must have been crazy. I worked in

284
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corporate America in the '80s. It was nuts. Here in

285
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Southern California? Yeah. When

286
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did you know that this revolution was occurring or you just were having a ton

287
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of fun? And if you read Chef's Drugs and Rock and Roll, I mean, you

288
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realize what the environment what that environment was like. But it's a, I mean, it's

289
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a hard environment anyway. Yeah. And I, you know,

290
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it is a hard environment. And it's funny, when I decided

291
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that this was my profession or

292
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would be my profession, I had just been working

293
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in my college dormitory kitchen for about, you know,

294
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just only a couple months. I had never cooked before. I went out to, I

295
00:18:35,960 --> 00:18:38,920
lived in Sonoma County. I went to Sonoma State. Wow. Okay. You're in wine country.

296
00:18:38,920 --> 00:18:42,330
Yes. I was right there in the wine country. And I gotta tell you, The

297
00:18:42,330 --> 00:18:45,610
wine country then, and I'm talking, I went to school in

298
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1974 and now, both in Sonoma County and Napa County,

299
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unrecognizable. No, totally. But

300
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working in a kitchen, and I didn't realize it,

301
00:18:58,530 --> 00:19:02,170
well, I didn't know it before I started to do it 'cause I hadn't

302
00:19:02,170 --> 00:19:05,730
cooked at home. It just checked all the boxes for me.

303
00:19:06,210 --> 00:19:09,890
Yeah. The two most important boxes that I didn't realize it would

304
00:19:09,890 --> 00:19:13,730
check. One was using my hands, using

305
00:19:13,810 --> 00:19:17,290
my hands in a way that felt very comfortable to me. My mother always said,

306
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I think you, you are going to be an artist the way you use your

307
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hands. And I was so self-conscious about my art.

308
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And when I thought about art, it was, can I draw a person?

309
00:19:28,770 --> 00:19:32,530
Right? And I couldn't draw people. And so therefore I wasn't an artist. We're on

310
00:19:32,530 --> 00:19:35,500
the same page. And she said, I'm just going to tell you, you are gonna

311
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end up doing something with my hands. And just

312
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holding the raw ingredients in my hands and working with

313
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them gave me so much pleasure. And

314
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then that would be the cooking part. But what I didn't understand

315
00:19:50,300 --> 00:19:54,100
was the hospitality part, that when I would bring out the food that

316
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I would make and I would set it down and people would come over, 'cause

317
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I was cooking in my dormitory kitchen, and talk about how

318
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much they loved what I made the day before. Wow. It really

319
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touched my soul. That's great. And I thought, "Haha,

320
00:20:08,360 --> 00:20:11,960
this is my profession." But the way I saw

321
00:20:12,120 --> 00:20:15,800
my role in this profession was I

322
00:20:15,800 --> 00:20:19,160
wanna be a cook. I didn't think I wanna be a chef.

323
00:20:19,400 --> 00:20:23,039
I never thought I wanna own a restaurant. I never thought I

324
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wanted to write cookbooks. That's where my

325
00:20:27,360 --> 00:20:30,760
fantasy stopped. I wanna cook, you know? And now

326
00:20:30,920 --> 00:20:34,680
you ask a young child, I mean, I was, okay, already, I don't know

327
00:20:34,680 --> 00:20:38,420
what, 19 or 18, you know, whatever, college, you know? Freshmen

328
00:20:38,420 --> 00:20:42,260
in colleges. But we all know in today's world with the

329
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TV Food Network and television shows and

330
00:20:45,740 --> 00:20:48,940
parents bringing their children on trips and

331
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exposing them to, you know, television chefs, there's so many 7-year-olds

332
00:20:53,499 --> 00:20:57,300
that I meet that want to be cooks, right? That I

333
00:20:57,300 --> 00:20:59,820
want to be a chef when I grow up kind of thing. So they know

334
00:20:59,820 --> 00:21:03,340
that at 7 or they think it at 7, but they're already

335
00:21:03,340 --> 00:21:06,900
thinking about their television show. Yes. Or

336
00:21:06,900 --> 00:21:10,660
they're thinking about the— how many varieties of

337
00:21:10,660 --> 00:21:14,500
tomato sauce they'll see on the shelf. You know, there's a lot more

338
00:21:14,980 --> 00:21:18,740
possibility in that world, but there's a lot more that they're exposed

339
00:21:18,740 --> 00:21:21,860
to. Mine was, I want to cook. And that's what I thought I would be,

340
00:21:21,940 --> 00:21:25,700
a cook for the rest of my life. Was there— I guess there

341
00:21:25,700 --> 00:21:29,220
was because of places like Le Pavillon, et cetera, that

342
00:21:29,380 --> 00:21:33,040
a chef-centric part of the business versus

343
00:21:33,440 --> 00:21:37,080
a cook. Did that really exist? Yeah, but I never— I don't know why. And

344
00:21:37,080 --> 00:21:40,880
it's funny because I also came from a household that

345
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was very not only supportive but encouraging

346
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to all of the females in

347
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the family. Right? I had very strong women as

348
00:21:52,160 --> 00:21:55,800
great-aunts and very

349
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powerful politically. And so it wasn't like I thought I could

350
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only be a cook because I'm a woman. And I'll never wear a

351
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white toque, which I still don't wear, or a button-down jacket. I

352
00:22:06,940 --> 00:22:10,700
didn't think that. I just thought that that— I just never

353
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saw me as a cook. Just like

354
00:22:14,420 --> 00:22:17,220
if I was in college and I thought I'm going to be a lawyer, I

355
00:22:17,220 --> 00:22:20,460
probably never would have seen myself as a judge, which is sometimes

356
00:22:20,860 --> 00:22:23,980
the next step for a lot of lawyers. But was that

357
00:22:24,460 --> 00:22:28,140
received well in your home? It was. And shockingly,

358
00:22:28,140 --> 00:22:30,620
because of the year,

359
00:22:32,200 --> 00:22:35,720
1974. Today, when

360
00:22:35,880 --> 00:22:39,640
that 7-year-old says they wanna be a cook, the parents are so excited.

361
00:22:39,640 --> 00:22:43,480
Like, come meet my 7-year-old, or will you sign the cookbook as his

362
00:22:43,480 --> 00:22:47,280
first cookbook or her first cookbook? Because she wants, or he

363
00:22:47,280 --> 00:22:50,840
wants to be a chef when they grow up, you know? And

364
00:22:53,480 --> 00:22:57,040
today's world again is different. And I was shocked because, you know, I dropped outta

365
00:22:57,160 --> 00:23:00,910
school in my senior year. Second semester of senior year, I

366
00:23:00,910 --> 00:23:04,150
said, I'm not doing this anymore. I know I want to cook.

367
00:23:04,790 --> 00:23:08,230
And my father was a lawyer and my mother was a television writer

368
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and short story writer. And so they had all

369
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of the,

370
00:23:16,310 --> 00:23:19,870
sort of all of the credibility and

371
00:23:19,870 --> 00:23:23,190
the, you would have thought that they would have said,

372
00:23:23,510 --> 00:23:27,190
you cannot do this. You need to finish school

373
00:23:27,190 --> 00:23:30,190
or you have to have some sort of a backup or you need a real

374
00:23:30,190 --> 00:23:33,930
job. Up and then cook on the side. And they didn't. My father

375
00:23:33,930 --> 00:23:37,530
just said, how about if you sign up for the

376
00:23:37,530 --> 00:23:40,370
Cordon Bleu? Then I didn't even know what the Cordon Bleu was.

377
00:23:41,250 --> 00:23:44,970
Well, it's not around here anymore, but— Well, there is. Well, no, it wasn't past—

378
00:23:45,210 --> 00:23:48,250
they did have a couple branches. No, but they changed the name. So I think

379
00:23:48,250 --> 00:23:51,810
you're correct. There isn't a Cordon Bleu. But I went to the one in London.

380
00:23:51,890 --> 00:23:55,490
At that time, there was London or Paris. Yeah, that's right. And I

381
00:23:55,490 --> 00:23:58,560
didn't speak French. And so I chose London.

382
00:23:59,590 --> 00:24:03,110
This is interesting because it seems like that industry—

383
00:24:03,350 --> 00:24:07,110
we took our daughter around. We took her to the CIA at Greystone, and

384
00:24:07,350 --> 00:24:11,070
she was looking for— now, we required her to finish college. She went to

385
00:24:11,070 --> 00:24:14,710
USC and finished that, and then she wanted to go cook. And when I was

386
00:24:14,710 --> 00:24:18,470
having the conversation with Jonathan Waxman on the show, and by that time we'd established

387
00:24:18,470 --> 00:24:22,270
his Jewish heritage and his family. And when I told him about

388
00:24:22,270 --> 00:24:25,270
her being a baker, he said— he paused and he goes, you must be very

389
00:24:25,270 --> 00:24:28,310
proud. And I said, you know, Armenian community

390
00:24:28,710 --> 00:24:31,670
families are much like Jewish families in that they're supposed to be a doctor and

391
00:24:31,670 --> 00:24:35,070
a lawyer and, you know, something professional. And I said, I never thought I would

392
00:24:35,070 --> 00:24:38,150
have reacted the way I did. But there's something about the

393
00:24:38,150 --> 00:24:41,430
creativity and the soulfulness of cooking.

394
00:24:41,910 --> 00:24:45,630
And for you, this tactile experience of cooking

395
00:24:45,630 --> 00:24:49,310
with your hands must have just really sunk home in your soul to do

396
00:24:49,310 --> 00:24:53,150
this. I mean, it's a hard road at that point. You don't make

397
00:24:53,150 --> 00:24:56,630
a lot of money, particularly as on the line. And it's no different today,

398
00:24:56,710 --> 00:25:00,420
right? Was it aspirations to

399
00:25:00,740 --> 00:25:04,580
own a restaurant at that point? No. Just to share your love of it?

400
00:25:04,900 --> 00:25:07,780
I think, you know, who knows what would've happened? I'll tell you.

401
00:25:09,300 --> 00:25:12,620
So I started working at Michael's in

402
00:25:12,620 --> 00:25:16,180
1979 when I got, had finished the Cordon Bleu,

403
00:25:17,460 --> 00:25:20,300
and I worked there for about a year and a half, close to 2 years.

404
00:25:20,300 --> 00:25:23,580
And then I went over to work

405
00:25:25,400 --> 00:25:29,250
work, help. I was hired as the pastry chef at Spago, the

406
00:25:29,250 --> 00:25:32,930
original Spago in 1982 when it opened. The one on Sunset?

407
00:25:33,090 --> 00:25:36,530
And I loved working for him. I loved working there.

408
00:25:36,690 --> 00:25:40,330
And I probably would

409
00:25:40,330 --> 00:25:43,530
still be there. Now I'm just saying that because I probably wouldn't, but I could

410
00:25:43,530 --> 00:25:46,490
have still been there to this day, right? I could have been one of those

411
00:25:46,490 --> 00:25:50,130
employees that said, I've been working here for 40 years. Because you certainly run

412
00:25:50,130 --> 00:25:53,970
into them at old school places, right? You walk into Langer's and a

413
00:25:53,970 --> 00:25:57,430
server there or a program like that. I've been there 40 years, or Cantor's, or,

414
00:25:57,430 --> 00:26:00,510
you know. But anyway, I was married at the time

415
00:26:01,150 --> 00:26:04,830
to the chef of Spago, Mark Peel, who I met over

416
00:26:04,830 --> 00:26:08,670
at Michael's. And after he and I were both

417
00:26:09,310 --> 00:26:12,110
sort of, we'll just say poached by a

418
00:26:12,190 --> 00:26:15,470
flamboyant restaurateur in New York,

419
00:26:15,710 --> 00:26:19,390
Warner LeRoy, to redo the menu

420
00:26:19,550 --> 00:26:23,290
at the infamous Maxwell's Plum. I

421
00:26:23,290 --> 00:26:27,090
wouldn't have gone, but again, my husband, who was under

422
00:26:27,490 --> 00:26:31,250
the, you know, kind of under the shadows of Wolfgang,

423
00:26:31,490 --> 00:26:34,050
thought that this was this great opportunity.

424
00:26:35,090 --> 00:26:38,890
Wow, that's a big deal. So we did, and I went

425
00:26:38,890 --> 00:26:42,730
for him, um, still never thinking about having a

426
00:26:42,730 --> 00:26:46,530
restaurant, having a very, uh, not a great

427
00:26:46,530 --> 00:26:50,250
experience at Maxwell's Plum. And so it's like, now what do we do after

428
00:26:50,250 --> 00:26:53,910
a year, you know? And that's when it seemed like the only

429
00:26:55,110 --> 00:26:58,710
thing at that time was to open our own restaurant. Wow.

430
00:26:59,190 --> 00:27:02,950
But I don't know. I definitely wouldn't have done it then. I didn't feel

431
00:27:02,950 --> 00:27:06,790
ready. Would I have one today had I still been married or not

432
00:27:06,790 --> 00:27:10,590
married to him? But possibly. Or I could

433
00:27:10,590 --> 00:27:13,910
be one of those employees that worked for Wolfgang Puck for 40 years.

434
00:27:14,390 --> 00:27:17,910
Michael, when he was on the show— no, when I went to see Ken Frank

435
00:27:17,910 --> 00:27:21,310
at in Napa. Yeah.

436
00:27:21,790 --> 00:27:25,630
Le Toucques. Yeah. Right. Which he had here, you know. Yes. The original

437
00:27:26,030 --> 00:27:29,830
Le Toucques. Oh, yeah. Wasn't like— Was on Sunset. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. He

438
00:27:29,830 --> 00:27:33,230
said something very funny. He goes, I don't think I ever saw Michael pick up

439
00:27:33,230 --> 00:27:37,072
a pan in the action. I thought, okay,

440
00:27:37,072 --> 00:27:39,950
that's hilarious. I won't bring that up when I talk to him. No. And there's

441
00:27:39,950 --> 00:27:43,550
another funny backstory is that I saw Chef Puck at a big

442
00:27:44,270 --> 00:27:48,100
event, and he came out and I went to sit with

443
00:27:48,100 --> 00:27:50,780
them. I said, you know, tell me about Kovkas. Yeah.

444
00:27:51,900 --> 00:27:55,020
And only because my ENT

445
00:27:55,260 --> 00:27:58,700
doctor is his grandson. Do you have a current ENT

446
00:27:58,940 --> 00:28:02,619
doctor? Yes. Someone here needs one. Oh, I'll give it to

447
00:28:02,619 --> 00:28:06,380
you. It's the owner of Kovkas's grandson.

448
00:28:06,380 --> 00:28:08,060
And where is he? USC.

449
00:28:10,700 --> 00:28:14,380
Markarian. Okay. So Mr. Puck lit up

450
00:28:14,780 --> 00:28:18,500
because this old history, this person that wanted it,

451
00:28:18,500 --> 00:28:22,300
he goes, you know, I was in the kitchen and Miriam, the wife, was telling

452
00:28:22,300 --> 00:28:25,660
me, chef, you got to get me out of here because my son, my husband

453
00:28:25,660 --> 00:28:28,260
sits in the front house and he just talks to people and I'm back here

454
00:28:28,260 --> 00:28:31,180
cooking. And that's when they bought Kafka's

455
00:28:32,060 --> 00:28:33,700
to open the first part. Yeah, I got to see Kafka because of going to

456
00:28:33,700 --> 00:28:37,500
work there right when he had taken it over. Yeah, it was really—

457
00:28:37,500 --> 00:28:40,381
It was like, wow. That was still something. I don't know what your vision is,

458
00:28:40,381 --> 00:28:44,020
but this place needs a little love. You know, you said something interesting because,

459
00:28:44,500 --> 00:28:48,020
well, you know, that's interesting. You're talking about Singapore and I'm going to go to

460
00:28:48,020 --> 00:28:51,300
Shanghai just for a minute. There was a huge Armenian enclave in Shanghai

461
00:28:51,780 --> 00:28:55,300
during those years, and Kafka came from Shanghai originally.

462
00:28:55,380 --> 00:28:58,459
And so I didn't even know it was him. I thought it was Russian. Well,

463
00:28:58,459 --> 00:29:02,180
they started in Russia, in Moscow. Okay. And, and

464
00:29:02,180 --> 00:29:05,700
because I had these conversations sitting in the exam room with

465
00:29:05,780 --> 00:29:09,460
Dr. Markarian, he said, you know, he had to jump. The

466
00:29:09,620 --> 00:29:13,340
Bolsheviks were coming. And he was so well known because

467
00:29:13,340 --> 00:29:16,580
of his restaurant that the oligarchs gave him a pass to leave,

468
00:29:17,220 --> 00:29:21,020
a full train car to go into Siberia. They say it's

469
00:29:21,020 --> 00:29:24,740
leaving with this time of day, stuff it with people or furniture or whatever you

470
00:29:24,740 --> 00:29:28,020
want and get out. And that's why he ended up in Shanghai. But the recipe

471
00:29:28,020 --> 00:29:31,660
for her famous leg of lamb, which is, of course, a very Armenian dish, had

472
00:29:31,660 --> 00:29:35,220
soy sauce in it. And that's why. Yes. That's interesting.

473
00:29:36,100 --> 00:29:39,950
Shanghai, right? Anyway. I want to touch on this to see if we

474
00:29:39,950 --> 00:29:43,790
can get your opinion. When you travel France and you go to, you know, Ferdinand

475
00:29:43,790 --> 00:29:47,270
Point and you go to the Troisgros brothers and you go to all these famous

476
00:29:47,350 --> 00:29:51,070
Michelin-starred restaurants, there seems to be a legacy of

477
00:29:51,070 --> 00:29:54,470
food and a legacy of family and a legacy. And they're still around

478
00:29:54,630 --> 00:29:58,270
30, 40, 50 years later with the thing. And we don't really have that in

479
00:29:58,270 --> 00:30:01,750
America. Do we have that kind of lineage

480
00:30:02,230 --> 00:30:05,580
with restauranting? That you know of?

481
00:30:06,100 --> 00:30:09,940
I'm trying to think off the top of my head, and I wanted to

482
00:30:09,940 --> 00:30:13,700
say that there were possibly a few in

483
00:30:16,500 --> 00:30:20,180
New York. Like, I don't know if there's anybody around from

484
00:30:20,260 --> 00:30:23,940
Le Grand Oui, you know. Yeah, I was trying to think,

485
00:30:26,500 --> 00:30:30,160
but certainly not here, right? Yeah, it's

486
00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:33,800
just different because I guess a lot of kids, you know,

487
00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:37,680
well, like for instance, Emeril Lagasse's son, I think

488
00:30:37,680 --> 00:30:41,000
he's definitely under 25. Really?

489
00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:46,120
And apparently he took over one of Emeril's restaurants and

490
00:30:46,120 --> 00:30:49,800
is getting just the highest praise. Wow,

491
00:30:49,800 --> 00:30:53,600
great. Yep. And Larry Forgione's son, these are people that

492
00:30:53,600 --> 00:30:56,840
kind of I grew up with in the restaurant world. They were a little bit

493
00:30:57,450 --> 00:31:01,210
before me a few years, but I would say that's kind of my

494
00:31:01,210 --> 00:31:04,890
generation. Larry Forgione's at least

495
00:31:05,130 --> 00:31:08,730
one son, super

496
00:31:08,730 --> 00:31:12,330
talented. Mark has a handful of restaurants in

497
00:31:12,330 --> 00:31:15,770
New York. He's gone on to work for his father.

498
00:31:15,770 --> 00:31:19,570
Charlie Palmer's sons are running the business. So

499
00:31:19,570 --> 00:31:23,370
there are— Charlie Trotter's son is going to restart.

500
00:31:23,610 --> 00:31:26,930
Yeah. But I bet you most at least in this

501
00:31:27,250 --> 00:31:31,050
country, don't want— they see their parents and they

502
00:31:31,050 --> 00:31:34,810
may have seen them as working too hard. It took

503
00:31:34,810 --> 00:31:38,570
too much, demanding, maybe not rewarding enough. But I

504
00:31:38,570 --> 00:31:42,370
don't know that many generations of restaurant owners

505
00:31:42,370 --> 00:31:45,810
whose kids have followed except for the ones that I just

506
00:31:45,810 --> 00:31:49,090
named. I wonder why that is. And like you said, in Europe,

507
00:31:49,650 --> 00:31:53,350
it's very traditional. Very traditional. This

508
00:31:53,870 --> 00:31:57,470
environment now, speaking of your lineage and the clientele

509
00:31:57,470 --> 00:32:01,030
here, I'm wondering if that '80s,

510
00:32:01,110 --> 00:32:04,750
the audience of the '80s was being exposed to this new idea

511
00:32:04,750 --> 00:32:08,069
of— and Chef Joachim will tell you, like, we used to do that in Nice

512
00:32:08,069 --> 00:32:10,790
anyway. We went down to the market and bought our vegetables and we bought our

513
00:32:10,790 --> 00:32:14,550
fresh oysters. It was no big deal. We come to America, that's a fresh

514
00:32:14,550 --> 00:32:18,230
thing, a new idea. But how is, how has the complexion of

515
00:32:18,350 --> 00:32:21,950
of the clientele change besides the fact that they look at their phones and they

516
00:32:22,190 --> 00:32:26,030
rate everything? But is it an appreciation for these kinds of food? Well, you know

517
00:32:26,030 --> 00:32:29,750
what? Definitely an appreciation, but

518
00:32:29,750 --> 00:32:33,590
also more educated, much worldly. I mean,

519
00:32:33,590 --> 00:32:37,390
I don't know how you were when you were growing up, but myself

520
00:32:37,390 --> 00:32:40,990
growing up in the '60s, I was born in mid-'50s, but say

521
00:32:40,990 --> 00:32:44,830
growing up in the '60s, families didn't travel the way that they

522
00:32:44,830 --> 00:32:48,550
travel now. Right. We went locally. Like a vacation for us was

523
00:32:48,550 --> 00:32:52,390
going to Palm Springs or Santa Barbara. We didn't go to Europe. No, that's

524
00:32:52,390 --> 00:32:55,850
true. My kids have been to Europe more times than I can count

525
00:32:55,850 --> 00:32:57,690
on 5 hands. Right.

526
00:32:59,450 --> 00:33:02,570
So I think there is that exposure that makes it

527
00:33:04,970 --> 00:33:08,770
very different. It's a— in

528
00:33:08,770 --> 00:33:12,410
Paul Friedman's book, The 10 Restaurants That Changed America,

529
00:33:13,850 --> 00:33:17,570
it's really interesting. He doesn't talk about McDonald's, that stuff. He talks about the Mandarin

530
00:33:17,570 --> 00:33:21,130
and he talks about— and I have a funny story about Pat Terry and

531
00:33:21,690 --> 00:33:24,870
Mama on its own. But because of the highways,

532
00:33:26,150 --> 00:33:29,790
it lost this regional character. Like, then you can get Texas

533
00:33:29,790 --> 00:33:33,510
chili in Manhattan, and you get Manhattan clam chowder in LA, and you can get,

534
00:33:33,510 --> 00:33:37,270
you know, Texas barbecue. And it goes

535
00:33:37,270 --> 00:33:40,710
back to the idea of this old, old country where those— you can still do

536
00:33:40,710 --> 00:33:44,390
that in France or Italy, but they're still pretty regional. Not so much.

537
00:33:44,390 --> 00:33:47,990
You go to those regions. I know in my region, which is

538
00:33:47,990 --> 00:33:51,710
Umbria, Every single restaurant pretty much has the same menu.

539
00:33:51,710 --> 00:33:55,070
Really? Yeah. Unless you go to those few

540
00:33:55,150 --> 00:33:58,190
cutting-edge restaurants where the chefs are really trying to

541
00:34:00,350 --> 00:34:03,390
reach a little bit further in sort of an international

542
00:34:04,270 --> 00:34:07,910
cuisine, you see the same menus. It's

543
00:34:07,910 --> 00:34:11,670
regional, you know, the same pasta shapes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. The same sauces,

544
00:34:11,670 --> 00:34:15,470
the same cuts, the same proteins, things like that.

545
00:34:15,710 --> 00:34:19,070
You know, you don't see, you see lake fish in my area 'cause we, I'm

546
00:34:19,070 --> 00:34:22,729
right next to Lake Trasimeno. But you don't see freshwater fish

547
00:34:22,729 --> 00:34:26,449
or, you know, really seafood. It's interesting because

548
00:34:26,449 --> 00:34:29,249
I was— I had Pat Trey on the show. Let's go. Let's go to Mommy's

549
00:34:29,249 --> 00:34:32,449
Own. You were there for a while, right? No, I never— I worked at Michael's

550
00:34:32,449 --> 00:34:36,169
and then went to Spago. Mark worked at Mommy's Own, and

551
00:34:36,169 --> 00:34:38,729
that's what he knew Wolfgang from.

552
00:34:40,249 --> 00:34:44,009
He's credited with— one of the things he's credited with— and we were

553
00:34:44,009 --> 00:34:47,689
just in Tour d'Argent, actually. I've heard that that's really come

554
00:34:47,689 --> 00:34:51,320
back, that it slept for a number of years. And it's

555
00:34:51,320 --> 00:34:54,880
really doing well. We were there in 1993 with my

556
00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:58,440
parents. So my dad was a French speaker. And so we went because he wanted

557
00:34:58,440 --> 00:35:01,440
to celebrate something. And I have a long story. I won't bore you with it

558
00:35:01,440 --> 00:35:04,760
now. But I decided to go back with my wife last time we were there.

559
00:35:04,760 --> 00:35:08,560
And we stayed. And it was really quite spectacular. The service, the

560
00:35:08,560 --> 00:35:11,960
hospitality concept was all there. The food, the wine, of course, was amazing.

561
00:35:12,040 --> 00:35:15,080
But they credit Pat Touré with bringing

562
00:35:15,800 --> 00:35:19,600
the back house to the front house. And bringing Wolfgang Puck

563
00:35:19,920 --> 00:35:23,640
out of the kitchen and onto the floor, which he still does daily,

564
00:35:23,640 --> 00:35:27,440
which you do. Is that accurate? That, that was sort

565
00:35:27,440 --> 00:35:31,120
of— Him? Yes. The idea of bringing— I didn't know,

566
00:35:32,240 --> 00:35:34,480
okay. You know, because it wasn't until

567
00:35:35,760 --> 00:35:39,040
Spago opened and

568
00:35:39,600 --> 00:35:43,400
Spago was one of the first, not the first, 'cause there was a couple

569
00:35:43,400 --> 00:35:46,880
in San Francisco restaurant that was built with an open kitchen. Mm-hmm.

570
00:35:46,880 --> 00:35:50,540
Where Wolfgang was on stage there and

571
00:35:50,540 --> 00:35:54,180
the customers could see who that cook was, you know, as opposed to being

572
00:35:54,180 --> 00:35:57,820
behind a closed door. And also,

573
00:35:58,140 --> 00:36:01,900
we, you know, we certainly can credit Wolfgang with

574
00:36:03,020 --> 00:36:06,740
becoming the first really celebrity chef. There were a lot of

575
00:36:06,740 --> 00:36:10,500
popular cooks out there, but as far as a celeb, what we think of

576
00:36:10,500 --> 00:36:13,980
as a celebrity chef, that was really Wolfgang. So was it

577
00:36:13,980 --> 00:36:16,540
Patrick? Maybe he provided did the,

578
00:36:18,380 --> 00:36:22,220
um, the groundwork for that. I didn't really know

579
00:36:22,460 --> 00:36:26,060
who Wolfgang was. I knew that when I

580
00:36:26,060 --> 00:36:29,420
returned to Los Angeles and I worked at Michael's, and I

581
00:36:30,220 --> 00:36:33,860
didn't really know Wolfgang, I don't think.

582
00:36:33,860 --> 00:36:37,100
I had heard of Mami Zone, and I went to eat there while I was

583
00:36:37,100 --> 00:36:40,140
working at Spago, but I'm not sure if I heard of,

584
00:36:41,580 --> 00:36:45,180
um— that's interesting. Mami's own, or if I heard of Wolfgang.

585
00:36:45,180 --> 00:36:48,860
Yeah, but Wolfgang may have come into the dining room, you know, shook

586
00:36:48,860 --> 00:36:52,260
hands and things like that. I would just take exception to that. Yeah, that was

587
00:36:52,970 --> 00:36:56,620
it. Yeah, because there was a restaurant in San

588
00:36:56,620 --> 00:37:00,460
Francisco called Omar Khayyam's, owned by a guy named George Mardikian, and he

589
00:37:00,460 --> 00:37:04,140
owned a big piece of property in the Napa Valley. Never grew grapes, but he

590
00:37:04,140 --> 00:37:07,620
grew vegetables for his restaurant, and he wouldn't let

591
00:37:07,860 --> 00:37:11,300
a patron leave— and they talk about the '40s and '50s— unless he had a

592
00:37:11,300 --> 00:37:13,870
chance to visit them on the way out the door. You're talking about

593
00:37:14,980 --> 00:37:18,820
200-seat restaurant. But that period though, was it

594
00:37:20,060 --> 00:37:23,660
just fun and games, or were you guys thinking, I'm going to make change the

595
00:37:23,660 --> 00:37:27,460
world? And then baking became part of your thing. I

596
00:37:27,460 --> 00:37:31,100
was thinking about this tactile feeling idea of— and I

597
00:37:31,100 --> 00:37:34,820
watched my daughter knead bread and how I can't do it. I

598
00:37:34,820 --> 00:37:38,300
just can't do it. My hands are like rocks. I cannot

599
00:37:38,300 --> 00:37:42,100
knead a baguette to save my life. And she just is

600
00:37:42,100 --> 00:37:45,700
so natural. Right. When did the baking part of it become—

601
00:37:46,660 --> 00:37:49,700
when you were a pastry chef at Spago, but

602
00:37:50,340 --> 00:37:53,740
when did the, the love of baking— really, it

603
00:37:53,740 --> 00:37:57,540
happened while I was at Michael's. It was the only opportunity

604
00:37:57,780 --> 00:38:01,220
to be in the kitchen. The only opening was in the pastry department.

605
00:38:01,700 --> 00:38:05,460
I was the second of two. Yeah, there was only two people in the department

606
00:38:05,460 --> 00:38:08,980
and then a plater at night. So there was really three people in the department,

607
00:38:09,220 --> 00:38:13,060
but that was the only opening. And so I looked at it as a way

608
00:38:13,980 --> 00:38:17,580
to get my foot in the door. And it ended up

609
00:38:17,900 --> 00:38:21,460
being something that I didn't leave for

610
00:38:21,460 --> 00:38:25,180
several years. Right. And not that I ever left it, but

611
00:38:26,780 --> 00:38:30,140
that became kind of my home in the kitchen

612
00:38:30,540 --> 00:38:34,020
was the pastry department. That

613
00:38:34,020 --> 00:38:37,860
wasn't what my favorite thing about cooking was. You know, when I went to cooking

614
00:38:37,860 --> 00:38:41,020
school at the Cordon Bleu, I, I, that was my least

615
00:38:41,340 --> 00:38:45,180
successful, really my least successful of the classes that I took.

616
00:38:45,500 --> 00:38:49,180
How interesting is that? And now I definitely

617
00:38:49,500 --> 00:38:53,221
was much more, my, you know, ambition was to be a

618
00:38:53,221 --> 00:38:55,500
savory, uh, a savory

619
00:38:57,340 --> 00:39:00,700
chef, not. So then when, when did La Brea come around? That came around

620
00:39:01,660 --> 00:39:04,860
long time after. La Brea Bakery opened in 1989.

621
00:39:05,540 --> 00:39:09,060
Spago opened it in 1982. I was at

622
00:39:09,060 --> 00:39:12,780
Michael's in 1979, so. Wow. Well, that seems like recent

623
00:39:12,780 --> 00:39:16,500
history, 1989, really. Sorry, 30 years ago.

624
00:39:16,740 --> 00:39:20,221
But did it, what's the

625
00:39:20,221 --> 00:39:23,860
inspiration for that? Because sourdough. Well, the inspiration

626
00:39:23,860 --> 00:39:27,140
was really to have good bread at my restaurant. Wolfgang

627
00:39:27,700 --> 00:39:31,460
taught me early on that the two most important courses of a

628
00:39:31,460 --> 00:39:35,230
restaurant want is the bread, the first course, which is,

629
00:39:35,230 --> 00:39:38,870
well, let's— when you sit down, it was traditionally then to put a

630
00:39:38,870 --> 00:39:42,550
basket of bread on the table. So the bread and the dessert, it

631
00:39:42,550 --> 00:39:46,270
what draws them in and what a customer remembers

632
00:39:46,270 --> 00:39:49,870
when they leave. And so I was like the bookend. I did it both, you

633
00:39:49,870 --> 00:39:53,710
know, bread and pastry. Do you think it would— did you

634
00:39:53,710 --> 00:39:57,150
ever think in your wildest dreams back then that they would start

635
00:39:57,150 --> 00:40:00,830
charging for that basket of bread? Right. No. And I wonder, and I think

636
00:40:00,830 --> 00:40:03,970
about that now because there was a lot of money that went into that that

637
00:40:03,970 --> 00:40:07,690
bread. And it was slowly, that's only been recently, you know, and I

638
00:40:07,690 --> 00:40:09,250
think it definitely,

639
00:40:10,930 --> 00:40:13,650
2020, it gave

640
00:40:14,050 --> 00:40:17,490
restaurants the opportunity that they've

641
00:40:17,570 --> 00:40:21,330
wanted for a long time, but just couldn't really face their customers

642
00:40:21,330 --> 00:40:25,010
to either eliminate that from the table

643
00:40:25,490 --> 00:40:28,530
or charge it with an upcharge of

644
00:40:29,090 --> 00:40:32,930
homemade cultured butter or something like that. Because it really was

645
00:40:32,930 --> 00:40:36,310
a money loser. And that's why for so long, people or

646
00:40:36,310 --> 00:40:40,110
restaurants could get around using bad

647
00:40:40,110 --> 00:40:43,870
bread. But the more restaurants that had a bread

648
00:40:43,870 --> 00:40:46,590
program and had better bread on the table

649
00:40:48,190 --> 00:40:51,310
kind of exposed all the customers that

650
00:40:52,110 --> 00:40:54,594
it's still that way. I mean, you used to be able to— Yeah, like you

651
00:40:54,594 --> 00:40:58,270
don't accept bad bread when you go to a restaurant and it's terrible bread. It's

652
00:40:58,270 --> 00:41:02,030
like, well, it's just as easy to buy, if you're not going to make it,

653
00:41:02,030 --> 00:41:05,540
buy bad bread as it is to buy good bread. The

654
00:41:05,540 --> 00:41:09,140
complexion of hospitality has changed considerably, I think, post-COVID. You know

655
00:41:09,140 --> 00:41:12,980
that already. The people just getting people here, probably though, you must have a very

656
00:41:12,980 --> 00:41:15,500
loyal staff because of the way you run your business. But

657
00:41:16,700 --> 00:41:20,179
would you even recommend to anybody to try and open a restaurant right now with

658
00:41:20,179 --> 00:41:23,300
the way the government rules are and the cost and the minimum wage and all

659
00:41:23,300 --> 00:41:26,380
that? I would. But I would say that, you know, I find that

660
00:41:27,180 --> 00:41:29,260
what I'm seeing country-wise countrywide

661
00:41:31,590 --> 00:41:34,550
is people opening more modest

662
00:41:35,270 --> 00:41:38,630
restaurants that are geared towards their neighborhood,

663
00:41:39,030 --> 00:41:42,670
not geared towards a destination. And those, if you look

664
00:41:42,670 --> 00:41:46,150
around LA and you talk, look at the restaurants that people are really

665
00:41:46,630 --> 00:41:50,390
talking about, I don't mean the very expensive tasting

666
00:41:50,390 --> 00:41:54,070
menus where people have on their bucket list to go try. I'm

667
00:41:54,070 --> 00:41:57,910
talking about the restaurants that are really being, you know,

668
00:41:57,910 --> 00:42:01,380
supported. They're the neighborhood restaurants that are

669
00:42:01,380 --> 00:42:05,060
modest with a— I shouldn't say an affordable

670
00:42:05,060 --> 00:42:08,620
price because it's not a quick-serve restaurant

671
00:42:08,620 --> 00:42:11,260
price. It's not cheap, but not

672
00:42:12,060 --> 00:42:15,500
doesn't break the bank kind of places. And those are the places that are really

673
00:42:15,580 --> 00:42:19,140
popular. You know, that's interesting because we live in East

674
00:42:19,140 --> 00:42:22,980
Pasadena, Arcadia, Sierra Madre. And that is the local Sierra Madre restaurants are

675
00:42:22,980 --> 00:42:26,820
the ones that we visit the most and frequent. And they're busy. They're

676
00:42:26,820 --> 00:42:30,140
busier. And we don't get in the car and drive very far.

677
00:42:30,920 --> 00:42:33,800
But it's just so hard to do business today anyway. I didn't sell my company.

678
00:42:33,880 --> 00:42:37,720
Any kind of business, you know, I mean, difficult. Uh, in what— we were

679
00:42:37,720 --> 00:42:41,520
in France with a big huge wine show, Wine Paris, and everybody's

680
00:42:41,520 --> 00:42:45,280
singing the blues in the wine trade. No, I know that. My

681
00:42:45,280 --> 00:42:48,960
nephew is in it. Is he? Yeah, he has a label

682
00:42:48,960 --> 00:42:52,720
called, um, Fingers Crossed. Oh yeah, I know it is. Do you know? Yeah, that's

683
00:42:52,720 --> 00:42:56,440
my, my, um, nephew Nick Crankle, and his father

684
00:42:57,300 --> 00:43:00,980
was my ex-brother-in-law is why Nick

685
00:43:00,980 --> 00:43:04,460
is my nephew. Manfred Crankle. You got to bring him on the show. Yeah.

686
00:43:04,460 --> 00:43:08,140
Manfred Crankle. You should bring Nick on the show. Yeah, I should. He would love

687
00:43:08,140 --> 00:43:11,540
it. He loves to talk about wine. Yeah. He grew up

688
00:43:12,580 --> 00:43:15,820
from a California winemaker. Yeah. Right. Very

689
00:43:15,820 --> 00:43:19,620
successful one. So what's his— I

690
00:43:19,620 --> 00:43:22,580
mean, I'll relate it to what's happening here, Mutsa, but

691
00:43:24,100 --> 00:43:27,620
He's seen it, he's seen a dip, he's seen— oh, he's nervous because

692
00:43:27,700 --> 00:43:31,460
people aren't drinking wine like they used to. It's cocktails. What do you

693
00:43:31,460 --> 00:43:35,260
have here? We're selling a lot less wine than we've sold before, I'll tell

694
00:43:35,260 --> 00:43:38,820
you, a lot less. People are— there's a lot of people that aren't drinking

695
00:43:38,820 --> 00:43:42,500
anymore, but then those that are are not committing to whole

696
00:43:42,500 --> 00:43:46,180
bottles. They— yeah. And they're— you have a

697
00:43:46,660 --> 00:43:50,500
liquor license here too? Yeah, here we do. We do not have a liquor license,

698
00:43:50,740 --> 00:43:54,460
so beer and wine only at Kispah. The next door and

699
00:43:54,620 --> 00:43:58,220
beer and wine only at the pizzeria. We're applying

700
00:43:58,220 --> 00:44:02,060
for a full liquor license at

701
00:44:02,060 --> 00:44:05,780
both only because— Good luck. Oh, yeah, I

702
00:44:05,780 --> 00:44:09,420
know it's hard, but only because there's such a

703
00:44:09,420 --> 00:44:13,180
draw and cocktail programs and people want to

704
00:44:13,180 --> 00:44:16,500
drink cocktails. Well, the pressures are a new

705
00:44:16,500 --> 00:44:19,500
prohibition movement, low sugar,

706
00:44:20,220 --> 00:44:23,660
low alcohol, no alcohol, ready to drink cocktails,

707
00:44:23,660 --> 00:44:26,120
cannabis. There's all kinds Gen Zs.

708
00:44:27,640 --> 00:44:30,320
Now, you said something, we have to wrap this up, we're already at the end

709
00:44:30,320 --> 00:44:33,880
of time here. But you just said something earlier I didn't jump on, I wanted

710
00:44:33,880 --> 00:44:37,440
to talk about just for a minute. I have 3 millennial daughters, one of them

711
00:44:37,440 --> 00:44:40,440
I've told you about. And that generation grew up

712
00:44:41,720 --> 00:44:45,400
much more, not depreciating, I saved for the Mustang

713
00:44:45,480 --> 00:44:49,280
or the hot rod, but this generation was much more used to spending $100

714
00:44:49,640 --> 00:44:52,920
on a sushi plate not saving for the car or the house

715
00:44:53,240 --> 00:44:57,040
because experiential dining, experiential everything is part of their

716
00:44:57,040 --> 00:45:00,840
culture. And the Gen Zs tend to be, I don't

717
00:45:00,840 --> 00:45:03,720
want to be like my parents. You know, that's kind of what their attitude is.

718
00:45:04,200 --> 00:45:07,480
What's the complexion here? Do you get a blending of these

719
00:45:07,480 --> 00:45:10,600
generations or? I think we do get a blending of the

720
00:45:10,920 --> 00:45:14,640
generations, but I still would say we don't, we do

721
00:45:14,640 --> 00:45:18,200
get a blending and I'm very happy about that. You don't walk into

722
00:45:18,520 --> 00:45:22,280
this restaurant and think this is an old folks home. Yes. Or you

723
00:45:22,580 --> 00:45:25,980
don't walk in walk in and think another hipster restaurant, right? So there really is

724
00:45:25,980 --> 00:45:29,620
a blending. But if I had, excuse me, to

725
00:45:29,620 --> 00:45:33,420
say overall, I think it

726
00:45:33,420 --> 00:45:37,060
is overall a more sophisticated

727
00:45:37,460 --> 00:45:41,100
crowd than just a hipster

728
00:45:41,100 --> 00:45:44,540
restaurant. How about that? Well, congratulations on this

729
00:45:44,540 --> 00:45:48,260
amazing success in 20 years because we know in the restaurateur business,

730
00:45:48,260 --> 00:45:50,900
this This is a long haul and it's a, that's

731
00:45:52,380 --> 00:45:56,140
legacy at this point. And maybe it was your reputation precedes you and

732
00:45:56,140 --> 00:45:59,780
that's what's happened, but it's probably because it's just really honest food. And I think

733
00:45:59,780 --> 00:46:03,260
it is honest food. Yeah. Because I have this pitch about honest wine.

734
00:46:03,340 --> 00:46:07,060
Yeah. And that will transcend the rest of the

735
00:46:07,060 --> 00:46:10,260
industry. You know that they just put wine in a pouch, like a sippy pouch

736
00:46:10,260 --> 00:46:13,660
for a kid? Like you open up and put applesauce in it. Like

737
00:46:14,460 --> 00:46:17,660
who wants to drink that? Doesn't make sense to me.

738
00:46:18,060 --> 00:46:21,690
But anyway. Anyway, such a pleasure having the show, and thank you for having arranged.

739
00:46:21,690 --> 00:46:24,850
And tell my buddy Mike, I will. I, you know, I'm gonna go look because

740
00:46:25,250 --> 00:46:29,050
he— I needed a couple bunches of watercress. Thank you.

741
00:46:29,050 --> 00:46:32,850
He might be here, so he'll kick me, not literally,

742
00:46:33,090 --> 00:46:34,290
okay, if he knows you're here. And I did