Startle

My family's Northern Italian, actually fifth-generation hotel business. My great-great-grandfather was actually knighted by the King of Italy. We had a hotel called the Royal Superga where the royal family would go hunting in Cuneo, in Piemonte, and this goes back to the House of Savoy. But we’ve always been in the hospitality industry. You are surrounded by royalty, but you’re still taking out the garbage. But you have the sense of humility with it, and luckily through the generations of my father, my grandfather, you’re around all this enough to be able to take from everything. And my father ran big hotel companies.

You become successful through being surrounded by the right types of people, keeping the humility in mind, keeping the servitude in mind, but I think there'€™s a difference between hospitality and servitude, and there'€™s a balance. And as long as you understand that balance, eventually most of the guests understand that. It’s become a very much a part of me as a person. I mean, I want to please the customers. I want to please my friends. I want to put my best foot forward, and here I can do it “on the clock, so to speak. Here, it'€™s my job to do it. So not only am I like that, not only here I'€™ve got to be a professional at it.

So itâ€'s a little extra step for me to really try to really go out there, but if I can'€™t do it, it'€™s not about me doing it. Iâ€'m not serving you. I'€™m not cooking your steak. I'€™m not bussing your table. I need to get them to get it—not just serve from the left, clear from the right. Thatâ€'s where we start, but it'€™s not interrupting. And all the little details and remembering and saying—one busser across the room tells the other busser, â€"Hey, that'€™s Mr. Jones. I think the guy likes the toasted bread."€ That difference takes two seconds, but if one busser can look across the room and tell the other guy, "€œThatâ€'s Mr. Jones and the toasted bread,"€ done. You could make a lot of mistakes, but you made up the long ways, the guy'€™s going to come back.

Well, actually my dishes change to a fault because I’m always trying to reinvent them, make them better. And people come to the restaurant for what they had last time, not the new interpretation of it, because their memory serves them that, “Hey, wait a minute, last time this wasn’t crispy.” And I want to go tell them, “Well, look, check this out. Now, we’re made it crispy.” And they’ll say, “Well, that’s not how I had it.” To the point where — if you say to ask a chef five questions, one of them always, “What’s your signature dish?” I don’t have one. And it’s very — and I just say, “Oh, just short rib.”

Why? Because that’s the one I would be known most for. I don’t want to be known for sticking a piece of meat in red wine and cooking it for five hours. I have so many other things I can show you, but ultimately, these are interpretations of things that I’ve learned that happen to be popular that people order a lot. So therefore, it’s my signature dish. I didn’t create any of it. I just interpreted it to be what I represent as the best representation of that particular thing.

“My signature dish is bouillabaisse? What, are you kidding me?” I mean, that’s kind of where I am. “Yeah, well, this is how I do it. How do you do it?” As true to the real thing as possible — that’s how I do it. I order the fish from France, it’s the bouillabaisse fish. I don’t use the old bass bones. Because I want it to taste like it does in Marseille. Why would I want it to taste like you’re in San Francisco? It’s bouillabaisse. I won’t call it bouillabaisse. I’ll call it San Francisco fish stew. So I mean, I have a respect for that tradition.

Well, I guess the difference between a Five-Star and a Two-Star mission restaurant and a trattoria for me, has more to do with the ego and the setting. Because ultimately, I’m going to cook with as much heart, I’m just going to use a different approach to it. I want the food to have just as much heart as the fine stuff. It’s just all the dance and the trappings have been changed. And if technically the food is sound, the quality of the ingredients is there, and the spirit of hospitality is there, any setting is good. The taco truck is good. It’s clean, they’re nice, it tastes good — I’ll pay.

So yeah, the ego part is, of course, you play to different audiences, and I’m sure that some people that might be looking for what I was known for, come here and eat a pizza — I just hope that it’s a good pizza. It’s not the creation. And some people say, “Oh, it’s the best pizza I ever had.” And I’m thinking, “It’s pretty much cheese, tomato and dough,” but there’s a little bit of heart and a little bit of thought and a little bit of research behind it that makes it that much better. And granted, people’s expectations — two-edge sword expectations — either kill you or give you a free pass. And I have to always keep that in mind.

I think the palates are absolutely different. I think the clientele is different. I think the clientele’s motives are different. The context of the dining experience is different, and their mentality is different.

So some people come for that experience. Most don’t. Most come for the whole package of, “We’re going out, we’re in Vegas, we’re going to have a couple cocktails, we’re going to eat, go to a show, go to a nightclub and gamble.” Not, “Let’s go out to dinner,” “Or go to dinner and a show.” Mentally, that’s, “Let’s get a quick bite.” Not, “Let’s sit at a table for three and a half hours.” It’s difficult, I mean, there’s so many elements to that question. What are you dressed like? What is your friend dressed like? You show up, eight of you, there’s six people well-dressed, two of them didn’t get the memo.

And you’re, “OK, where are we going now?” So there’s so many different elements of it. So absolutely, a big difference, yeah. And unfortunately, you have one table sitting next to the other: One of them is dressed to the nines. He’s trying to impress the girl. He’s in the finest restaurant, he’s having this six-course tasting menu, and next to them is the guy that’s just, “Let’s get a bite, and I can afford it, give me the expensive wine.” So I don’t want to say it’s a sense of respect for it, because ultimately, as long as the people are having a good time, and as long as it doesn’t bleed into somebody else’s good time, that’s what matters.

I think it does, but it’s a dying art. And I think it’s more of a social statement than a dining trend, unfortunately. It’s reserved for those few occasions or the business meeting. And it’s not a financial thing. I mean, if you gave somebody the same amount of money to go get a big fat steak or go to a five-course meal, I don’t know how many would take either. But I think it’s more of a social statement that people don’t want to sit there for that long anymore. There’s too much to do, unfortunately, but that’s my opinion. I may be very wrong, but I think the trend is those places are few and far between.

We’re starting to do more vegan options, because Mr. Wynn believes in it, and oddly enough, I was kind of going in that direction too. But personally, I think, especially the restaurant business, if you go for too many extremes, you risk losing out on a lot of opportunities with business. So I think it’s nice that we have just a small portion for those who are looking for that. And I think also, like other extremes, eventually the extremes die off. Look at the super-fine dining restaurants. I mean, you still have a lot of those extremes, but not many of them.

And then you have the macrobiotic guy, who’s like, “I’m not serving anything but this, this and this.” They’re in trouble too. So I think there’s a balance of, “We are trying to do this, but we’re going to give ourselves some latitude.” The vegan that won’t wear a leather belt, I respect that. I do it because it’s good for you, not because I have a social — but that’s my belief. I agree with a lot of things, and I don’t agree with a lot of things, but that’s my business and I won’t push it on somebody. But when it’s my responsibility to offer it as something that I do, I’m going to give you a little bit of it. So when you’re looking for that, there it is. And I’m going to try to be as flexible as possible.

I think after a lot of reflection, my passion is about being a people pleaser. I think it’s about giving that genuine sense of hospitality that has an earnestness to it. It’s genuine. I tell my wait staff, it’s like, “You know how you treat your customers? You act like it’s your first day. That’s how much you want to impress this person. You’re putting out all the stops. You’re kind, you’re courteous, you’re gracious. But you’re not subservient. You’re really putting your best foot forward.” And with that, it’s been the successful tie-in to the restaurants I’ve built.

I think it’s being able to have people understand on a really familiar level of saying, “Everybody knows how to behave on their first day. You don’t want to mess up.” And you want to end up going, “Wow that was nice.” And I think with that in mind, people can relate to it. And for somebody to leave with something really special that they can’t identify — was it the décor? Yeah, it was nice. Was it the food? Yeah, that was nice. Or the service? Yeah, that was — but there was something else. And it wasn’t just the thing that’s linking them all.

There’s that feeling. And to do that on a nightly basis with independent individuals, with personalities and ups and downs, and the guy’s got a flat tire, and the other one’s late, and you’re upset. And to be able to pull that together is an accomplishment, because it’s a work in progress. Successful restaurants — overnight successes, I don’t believe in it. I mean overnight successes, you got a good kitchen crew and the food tastes good, but to get a feeling, it takes a lot of working together and a lot of relationships.

Actually, what I do is I look — If I’m creating a recipe, for example, pasta is made with egg yolks, flour, olive oil, water, salt. Egg yolks have the same texture (same protein) as sea urchin. Use sea urchin instead of egg yolk. If it’s five egg yolks, you take 250 grams of sea urchin, and you use that as your binder for your pasta. You have sea urchin pasta. I may not have been the first guy to invent it, but that’s how my process works. Orange and fennel work together. Well, licorice and orange work together, why doesn’t fennel and orange? And occasionally, I’ll taste something and go, “No, that doesn’t work.”

But I have a sixth sense about what doesn’t work right off the bat. There’s this instant flash of, “That’s not right.” And occasionally I get the flash of, “That is right,” but I think I’m guided more by, “That’s not right. That doesn’t make sense.” So then I’ll reflect and say, “Well, this is how I’m going to go about it.” And there seems to be just that instant flash of yes and no, and then I’ll reflect on it. I wish I could just say, “Aha!” It’s not that easy for me. I have to say, “Oh, no, OK, how about this?” But it still works at the end of the day.

Well, my cuisine is dressed down. It’s a combination of regional Italian and regional French cooking. I would say the Italian aspect of it only because of the ingredients — the oils, the cheeses, the vinegars — and the style is much looser and more free and not as — not pretentious — not as disciplined as the French cooking. But I like the discipline and the precision of the French cooking. It’s I like the passion of the Italian, but I like a little bit of discipline in there too, where you know what, it’s passionate, but let’s see it three times the same way.

So it’s the control of that, and I think the way it’s developed and expanded, or certainly morphed, is I’ve allowed my chefs more of their influence into my cooking. Where sometimes I look at something that comes up in the window, and I look at it and I go, “What is that?” “Well, that’s the rabbit with the fava beans and the oven dried tomatoes, but Devin kind of did his thing to it.” And for me, as long as it tastes like the old school way that you eat in Liguria by the ocean, but it looks like that — because my chef’s Japanese, and he’s got a sensibility — that’s so much better than my interpretation of it.

He adds a completely new dimension, and he’s put a lot of thought into it. And so the cuisine has evolved into that. I say just keep within the vocabulary of the ingredients we use. Don’t start throwing the wasabi in there. Stay with the garlic and the olive oil. Let’s just make it — let’s give it that sensibility to give it a new personality of its own. And I want to be open to that.

Service is everything. Service is the key to success for me. I cannot tell you enough examples of horrible food, wonderful service versus wonderful food, horrible service. I mean, very simply, you have a wonderful meal, a guy kicks you in the head on the way out the door, you’re not going back. But if you had an OK meal and the guy was such a wonderful man, you’re going back. You just ask, “Don’t put the sauce on it this time,” or whatever.

I mean, that’s as simple as I can put it. It’s everything. It’s everything, because that $40 for that steak is not just a $40 steak, it’s what comes with it, and what comes with it is a little bit of generosity, gratitude, appreciation, and it’s, “Why should I give you a 20 percent tip if I’ve been insulted for the past without two hours? Why should I pay you?” Well, because you’re obligated to? No, you earn it. “I’ll give you a 30 percent tip.” It’s not about, “Do your job and put the fork where it’s supposed to be.” Make me feel good. Give me some hospitality.

Yeah, simplicity is just about elements treated with the utmost care and the least amount of them. And that was a process. I mean, if I look at my old menus and some of my old recipes, I have some recipes that I tell people, “Oh, it’s simple. It’s a lobster on the pasta with the sauce.” And then they say, “Can I have the recipe?” And it’s six pages long. It looks simple. There’s so much to it. You dry the orange peel, then you candy it, and then you put the vinegar in it, then you powder it, then you dehydrate, and then you crust the lobster, then you sear it and make sure the oil’s that temperature. Well, it’s just simple, it’s just seared lobster.

And I don’t say it like I’m trying to trick somebody. It’s supposed to taste simple, but how we got to the texture and the combination of flavors — it had some thought behind it. And why do you put a little bit of fish sauce in the red wine sauce for the venison? See my mind thinks like, “Well, the same way they used to stud the lamb saddles with anchovies.” I kind of try to think that way. There’s a salty element, the briny element that really accentuates the flavor of the meat, and there’s that kind of mustiness that goes along with the mustiness of game, and I didn’t event anything. I mean, I just think about things though.

And sometimes even I’ll blindly do something, and then it’ll come to me: “Ah, that’s why we do that. I wish they’d told me that. I would have gotten to this conclusion a lot quicker.”

That’s a long story that I can distill. Where I worked in Europe and where I worked before, that’s what you had, was biologique. It’s like, what is that? Everything is biologique. Everything’s organic. Everything comes from the farm. And I pounded my fist that for a long time that it just tastes better. I don’t care what they do with it. It just tastes better. And then you put in the element of the farmers, and as a matter of fact, when I was in Phoenix, I hooked up with a few farmers, and I mean, these people went from little half-acres in the back yard to like six-, seven-acre farms, to the point where the hotel I worked in, we bought from organic farmers for the whole hotel.

And that’s when I started to understand that it’s giving back to the community, it’s helping other people, it’s getting the process of — the thought process of getting back to basics. And again, this is in the ‘80s that maybe some chefs, Japanese, that kind of thing, were doing this. And whether I care for it to be a trend or not, sometimes I can poo poo it, saying, “Oh, well, you’re on the trend.” But no, it’s a good trend. And if you say you’re farm-to-table, be farm-to-table, but really be that way and cook that way.

In other words, if you’re going to serve carrots, then make sure they’re farm-to-table and have them be expressed in its most natural forum, which is farm-to-table — not farm to cryovac to pearls to gelatin and foam to table, just farm-to-table.

Fine dining as in “fancy,” I really doubt it. I think I’ve progressed. I’ve evolved out of that as a chef. I want to get down to basics, do basics well. And that’s what I was taught. And I like doing basics well. But now I have all of the history and the technique and the power and the thought behind how far we can go with that particular item that’s just distilled into that — “Here’s the whole story, and we’re back down into the pork chop.”

You go all the way around from the marinade to the seasoning to the grilling to the heat, the reduction. And I’m not at the level now yet where I can translate that because I’m getting that myself. I’m starting to get down to that distilled part myself, so it’s very difficult for me to translate that and to show somebody else that. So it’s an ongoing process.

I think right now it’s a tough one, because the sustainable fish has its ecologic impact, and then you can’t eat the wild stuff either because there’s none of that. And then you have the high — like in tuna you have the high iodine, which might be bad for this, this and this. I think we’ve completely shaken the bag a little too much here with all that stuff, that now we don’t even know what’s good for you anymore. We can tell you that, “Well, you should eat farm-raised. No, you shouldn’t, because it’s bad for that.” I mean, what happened? We overdid it, and now we’re backtracking and there’s no good answer. I mean, I would like to know.

“OK, I’m going to do only farm — I’m only good do grass-fed. Well, what about all the grass, shouldn’t we use that land for something else? Well, then the corn, well, there’s too much sugar, and they’re overfeeding.” I don’t even know anymore. I wish I had a more intelligent answer for you on that one. I think we’ve just completely shaken the bag so much that you don’t know if you’re — there’s always some adverse reaction. It’s never just the — I guess like several years ago, you get your fish from the fishing line, not from the day boats or the week boats that go out and take everything with it and throw back what they don’t need.

Yeah, badly prepared anything, anything without thought behind it. There are specific ingredients I’m not crazy about. It’s probably because I wasn’t ready for it. Something that I just don’t get — and I will eat just about anything — but there are such things I just don’t understand: the fermented soybeans, the natto, I don’t get it. As open as I can be, I don’t understand how that could be even palatable, much less a delicacy, but then again, I’ve eaten duck tongues and people roll — “What are you crazy?”

Well, they’re actually pretty good. They’re crispy and gelatinous and they taste like duck skin. They’re good. So it’s all relative. But no, just really poorly prepared, gloppy food, especially when you’re expecting something really nice and it’s, “Oh, my goodness, what happened there?”

I think a great chef can be many things. I mean, as far as technically, I think a great chef has a reverence for tradition, for history, and is able to interpret it in their way, respecting the tradition, where it came from, but giving it its own accent, which is not a copied accent, which is not a contrived accent or seeking to be different just for the sake of being different — or to be the guy who discovers something because he’s apt to discover. Somebody that just discovers things, that just makes trends happen. Not the second guy on the train — the first guy on the train.

These guys are the ones — and there are a few of them that are so passionate, I think they get lost in the shuffle because they’re so involved with their head down and doing their thing that a few other people that are a little wiser see it and become discovered for their incredible creations, where there’s just this artist somewhere that came up with this new way of cooking or new way of thinking about food. I like that. I like the basics. Having your feet well grounded in basics and fundamentals, yet your head is ready to open, and willing and able to go wherever you want with it. I think that’s the mark of an artist.

Another one was actually a sous chef at the Louis XV in Monte Carlo, where I really got an understanding of just a pure passion for the actual art of cooking. The chef, Alain Ducasse, was the luminary, but the guy behind the scenes was the passion incarnate. I mean, everything was so passionate, every detail was — he was in love with the food. Now, I wouldn’t go so far to say that I’m in love with the food, but to be able to see that there’s that level of expression is really remarkable.

And not the focused type where there’s nothing else. He was in love with anything fine. He just happened to focus it on food, and it was contagious. And even today, if I’m turning artichokes, I think back of how important these things were to this guy, and it was just one artichoke on one plate, 25 years ago. And so I like that. You can’t really point to what that something is that makes people — makes it — it’s like listening to a good piece of music and you get the chills. It’s that feeling that you wonder where it comes from.