Tom Colicchio on Top Chef, Craft, and What Makes a Great Chef

This is a vintage episode from 2006

Why This Episode Matters

• Tom Colicchio was already one of the most respected chefs in America, but this conversation catches him at a fascinating moment: building restaurants, debuting Top Chef, and defining what modern American dining could be.
• The episode gets at a bigger question than television: what makes a real chef leader, and why talent without professionalism is not enough in a kitchen.
• Tom explains the thinking behind Craft’s ingredient-first approach, which still feels relevant now that simple, product-driven cooking has become restaurant gospel.
• The conversation also draws a sharp contrast between hospitality that feels like home and culinary experimentation for its own sake, with Gramercy Tavern standing as the model of warmth, rigor, and ease.
• Long before restaurant culture calcified into brand language and chef celebrity machinery, this episode shows what thoughtful restaurant leadership sounded like in real time.

The Banter

Mark Pascal and Francis Schott open with one of their classic wide-ranging tangents: better pork, bad agribusiness, accidental TGI Fridays horror, and a spirited defense of foie gras that could only come from two restaurateurs with strong opinions and no interest in sanding them down.

The Conversation

Tom Colicchio joins the show on the day Craftsteak is opening in New York, and the discussion moves easily between Top Chef, restaurant culture, and the philosophy behind his restaurants. He talks about why Top Chef worked when other reality-food television did not, what makes someone worth following in a kitchen, and how mentoring differs from judging.

He also explains the original idea behind Craft: ingredient-focused cooking served in a way that encourages diners to build their own experience at the table. From there, the conversation turns to home cooking, hospitality, experimental cuisine, and why Gramercy Tavern succeeds by doing everything well and making it feel like home.

Timestamps

• 00:00 – Better pork, “enhanced” meat, and why flavor got bred out
• 04:15 – TGI Fridays finger-in-the-burger story and the foie gras ban
• 08:15 – Tom Colicchio joins the show; Why & how Top Chef worked and what made it different from other reality food TV
• 16:00 – What chef leadership should look like
• 19:45 – The philosophy behind Craft and ingredient-first cooking
• 23:30 – Tom and Mark had a common employer
• 28:00 – Why Gramercy Tavern feels like home and what great hospitality really is

Bio

Tom Colicchio is the chef, restaurateur, and co-founder of Craft and Craftsteak, and a founding force behind Gramercy Tavern. He is also the recipient of multiple James Beard Awards and is the head judge on Bravo’s Top Chef.

Info

• Tom Colicchio https://www.tomcolicchio.com/
• Gramercy Tavern, Craft, Craftsteak
• Top Chef

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Transcript

Mark 0:42

Hey, good morning, Mark. Morning, Francis. How are you this morning? I'm well. I'm always well. Well, well, well. Well, well, well. Weasel fell in the well.

Francis 0:49

Right. Um, so, so, uh, you were talking this morning about a product that, you brought to my attention in this article. Because you knew to get me angry, and that always adds a little, a little positive energy madder Francis

Mark 1:01

is, the more energy the show has. Okay, look, here's I poke the bear in the morning

Francis 1:05

sometimes. Here's how, here's, here's the deal. Pork. Pork is really good food. It's not the other white meat. It's red meat. And, uh, pork has been bred to be the other white meat. Pork, the fat has been bred out of pork. Sadly, the flavor has been bred out of pork. And the way to produce pork cheaply is to be really mean to the pigs. and have them live in disgusting agribusiness.

Mark 1:29

And I think we should stop doing that.

Francis 1:32

What they call containment farms. There's a move, and you can go to Heritage Foods USA, to find out where you can buy real pork, and, you know, forget the Save the Whales vibe that the show occasionally gets. If you want pork that tastes, I don't know, 3700 times better than the pork you find in your supermarket. And it's better for you. It just simply is. Oh, and it's also, right, and it's also better for you, better for the pig, better for the planet. But it also tastes like something. Now look, I grew up, my mom used to put the pork chop onto the broiler about 2 in the afternoon, we'd eat it at 6. Sorry. Um, put a can of sauerkraut on top of it. So I never realized how great pork could taste. and the pork that our grandparents ate was different than the pork we have today. That's true. Now let me read to you, uh, We're

Mark 2:08

about to

Francis 2:09

tell you how

Mark 2:09

different it

Francis 2:10

was. From Newhouse News Service, they've realized, they went on this low cholesterol thing, reduced the pork, The agribusiness one on this, reduce the fat in pork. And so they bred pigs that are easy to torture and keep in confinement barns and, uh, that have very little fat. And they become the other white meat. Problem is, they bred out the flavor.

Mark 2:27

That does hurt sales sometimes. So

Francis 2:28

now, we have a situation where your pork, when you get it in the market, will be labeled, probably, all natural pork. Uh, or enhanced pork. Anytime an idiot tells you something Anytime an idiot tells you something is enhanced. It's Better

Mark 2:42

than it was before.

Francis 2:43

I don't think so. Here's what enhanced pork is all about. All natural pork or all natural chicken or all natural turkey has to be fresh meat that's not been injected or marinated. Enhanced pork and poultry, as a matter of fact, has been injected with a solution of water or broth, sodium phosphate, and some breads also include other preservatives, flavorings, and antioxidants. They shoot it with salt water. So, you don't have to, Pay for the salt water? Uh, no, you gotta pay for the salt water. See, that's the ticket. If you have 7 percent salt water shoved into your, into your flavorless pork chop to give it a little bit of flavor,

Mark 3:18

then you pay 7 percent more for your pork chop. Right on. Okay. That's one of

Francis 3:21

the ways that

Mark 3:22

they keep the price

Francis 3:22

down. The pork, the pork industry has a long list of reasons for using additives, but one of its biggest is that pork has been bred to be much leaner than the meats our parents and grandparents enjoyed. Fat provides moisture and flavor to meat, and that means that really lean pork will be dry and tough, uh, even if it's slightly overcooked. Enhanced pork will still be moist if it's overcooked, just like it were natural. Right. Beautiful. And I love this. And it'll be

Mark 3:47

moist with the salt that you, in salt water that you injected into it.

Francis 3:51

Sounds like a good, so says the article, sounds like a good idea, unless you don't like paying for salt water. Um, and also, I mean, you know, pork is really good. Go to Heritage Foods USA. Yes, it's much more expensive. Yes, it's 20 times better. Eat pork less often. And, and, and people don't realize a

Mark 4:06

three ounce serving of pork could add as much as 400 milligrams of, of salt. Okay, that's a lot of salt from a shaker.

Francis 4:12

Right, and, and you don't realize that it's salt. Anyway, so, our friends at Heritage Foods, you can go and buy some real, always get all natural pork, but if you go to Heritage Breeds of Pork, pork that's raised locally on family farms, You're going to get a better product. We have a wild boar on the menu at stage left. So good. That knocks people off their chair. So good. And it's just, it's a natural And it's red.

Mark 4:31

It's red, okay? It looks like, it looks like a lamb chop, except it's bigger. Yeah. It's red.

Francis 4:37

Delicious.

Mark 4:37

Alright, I got,

Francis 4:38

I got, I got a little, uh, trashy news for us. Trashy news. TGI Fridays, uh, when the kitchen manager at the TGI Fridays in College Mall in Bloomington, Indiana, accidentally cut his finger, severing a small part of it on April 25th, fellow workers rushed to his aid, but somehow in that chaos, a piece of that severed digit Ended up in a hamburger that was served to a customer,

Mark 4:55

soon after the incident. Now, why'd you have to go there? Enhanced beef we're talking about now. Why'd you have to go there?

Francis 5:00

Yikes. The Associated Press reports the customer spotted the piece of human flesh immediately and did not consume it. Good! So, good morning everybody. Did you enjoy your Cheerios? Was that good? Are you guys ready to go now? Amy Freshwater, a spokesman for the popular chain, told the AP, We absolutely acknowledge the seriousness of this incident. Yes, ma'am. Involuntary cannibalism is a bad thing. You know what?

Mark 5:23

I'm going to go with, Voluntary cannibalism is also a bad thing.

Francis 5:27

Okay, okay. But if you make me do it and I don't want to. Uh, anyway, so, uh, the problem was Until he was in the hospital emergency room, the injured kitchen manager didn't realize that he lost a small part of his finger. Freshwater said the restaurant's been in contact with a customer who had called the police about the incident. He was informed that it was not a criminal matter. I guess as long as the Finger was not surreptitiously taken.

Mark 5:52

So you're saying if it had been in Jersey that maybe Right, right. It would have been If they weren't trying to teach the kitchen manager a lesson.

Francis 6:00

Then it would have been a matter for the police. Uh, foie gras ban.

Mark 6:03

We gotta talk about the foie gras ban in Chicago.

Francis 6:05

Foie gras ban. It's just one of those things. The city of Chicago has banned the sale or service of foie gras. Foie gras.

Mark 6:12

You know what's upsetting about this? I, and I know that Charles Foie gras is the

Francis 6:15

fattened liver of a duck. It's, it's been on, in Western European cuisine for a long time. And animal rights idiots who don't know anything about, and I, and I believe in animal rights. You've hear, you've heard us do shows on humane methods of animal husbandry. But, foie gras ducks lead a pretty good life.

Mark 6:32

We had Charlie Trotter on this show. Charlie Trotter's one of the leaders of the, uh, I don't want to serve foie gras on my menu. And that's, that captured the headlines. Okay, because he decided he didn't want to serve foie gras on his menu. But, Charlie Trotter's been on this show where he told you, our audience, that he does not support a foie gras ban. Okay, and we've told you a million times. Why would you have a foie gras ban when the chicken that, that large agribusinesses is serving you is treated much less humanely than the ducks for foie gras? You should outlaw chicken made at these factory farms. Long before you outlaw foie gras.

Francis 7:12

Absolutely. Long before. If I had to come back as either a foie gras duck or a McDonald's chicken, I'll come back as a foie gras duck. And listen, it sounds unnatural because you don't know anything about animals. Because you don't know anything about farming. To force, do they call it force feed a duck? Advocates call it hand feeding a duck. You know, it's pro choice, pro life. It's all, it's all charged language, right? So, the way That it works with a duck, though, is a duck naturally gorges itself before it goes on a long migration. Before migration. The

Mark 7:37

Egyptians learned this a long time ago.

Francis 7:39

And what they would do is they'd go and try and capture the ducks that were gorging themselves before they took off. What foie gras does is it takes these ducks and it treats them very humanely. To have great liver, which is a high end product, you've got to have a normal method of care for these ducks. And they're not abused. And you hand feed them. And yes, you can tamp down cornmeal down the throat, but they love it. Okay?

Mark 8:00

Right, they run to the person who's about to feed them. So she They blow a horn in the, at the farm, and the ducks run to the person who's going to feed them.

Francis 8:06

So, so, the foie gras ban is a feel good, do nothing measure by a bunch of toadies who don't know anything about animals, And that's just crazy. Tom Colicchio from New York will be joining us in just a moment. You're listening to The Restaurant Guys, Our guest today is Tom Colicchio, he is the co owner of Owner, founder, and executive chef of one of our favorite restaurants in New York City, Gramercy Tavern, as well as the Kraft Restaurants, Kraft, Kraft Bar, Witchcraft, and Kraft Steak. He's the recipient of five, count them, five James Beard Awards, his cookbooks are Think Like a Chef and Kraft Cooking, and he's the head chef and judge on Bravo's reality TV cooking show, The Only One That We Like. Top Chef Hey Tom, welcome to the show.

Speaker 11 8:41

How you doing?

Mark 8:42

We're, we're doing very well. You know, Tom When we opened our second restaurant, we, uh, spent about two weeks running reruns on this show. You're opening a restaurant tonight, Kraft Steak in New York City. What are you doing talking to us? Uh What, are you nuts?

Tom 9:01

Um, you know, I'm, I'm, I had a late night there last night with just, you know, family and friends, and we really, uh, sort of, the wheels kind of came off, so I was there pretty late last night, and, uh, I'm going to head over to the restaurant in about an hour or so. All right.

Francis 9:13

Great compliment to us that you came on the show. Thanks. Uh, can we talk about your show on TV, Top Chef? Sure, of course. Um, that

Speaker 11 9:22

is the The only thing I can't talk about is who won. I know, yeah,

Francis 9:25

we're not gonna We're fans, though. And I'll tell you, I don't own a TV, to be honest with you. I'm not a big fan of TV, and we hate most reality cooking shows, but I go over to Mark's house to watch yours. You won Now this is Do you think You've watched the other reality cooking shows, I'm assuming. Yours seems much more No, I haven't. Oh, you haven't?

Speaker 11 9:42

No, I haven't. Oh, they're terrible. You know, it's funny because I get interviewed and people say, What other reality shows do you watch? And I don't. I got it. I'm not much of a TV guy, and when I do watch it, it's usually HBO.

Francis 9:53

Yeah, yeah, I'm a movie guy myself. But we actually, Gordon Ramsay had a show. I don't know if you know about that one.

Tom 9:59

Oh, kitchen, yeah. I saw it for about two minutes and watched him rip somebody apart.

Mark 10:05

I wanted to go punch him. We did not, I'll tell you, I'm surprised and I think that your show is really, really good. And Francis and I have not said good things about the other restaurant reality shows. television shows, although again, I've never seen an episode of Survivor. I don't watch very much reality TV, but I did watch Rocco in the restaurant. A couple of our former employees were employees there, and uh, so our curiosity was peaked. But, uh, I'll tell you, the way the producers, put that together, we felt that they really made Rocco not look very good, uh, in that show. We thought they were unfair to him. We thought they were unfair to him. And I, and, was that a concern for you that, that people would put it together and make you not look good? You know,

Speaker 11 10:48

it, it, it was a concern and it's very funny, Rocco's a, a good friend of mine and, and I, I kinda, um, promised him that I, I wouldn't compare. You know what he did on his show to what we're doing different shows, but you brought it up and and you know I think it I think it was unfair And and I was concerned and in fact, that was my major concern With any reality show is that you're gonna be made to look foolish. Well, I got a Uh, a pretty good sense from the producers that they had no desire to make me look foolish at all. In fact, quite the opposite. They wanted to make sure that I was the authoritative, voice. Yeah, you're pretty studly.

Francis 11:26

You're pretty studly. I saw you bawling out that Irish guy. It was pretty good. I liked that.

Speaker 11 11:31

He was just a little out of line there. No, he was a lot out of line. Everybody was on your side.

Francis 11:35

they really set you up as an authority figure on the show, and I think, Tom, one of the things that, that makes the show work. It's not only other culinary professionals on the show, not only are there real prizes on the show. But you sort of do occupy the position of mentor chef like an executive chef would in a restaurant group,

Speaker 11 11:50

right? You know, it's um, you know, unfortunately, I'm in that dual role that I play There's only there's a limit to what I can I can do as far as mentor. I'm allowed to ask questions, but I can't Tell them to do specific things. they take my advice, then I'd sort of be biased towards them when I judge. But there's a lot of off camera stuff, and I'm just asking questions and trying to get them to sort of look at what they're doing a different way. But, you know, it's hard, because that is my role in my restaurants, to give advice and to jump in. And so, you know, a lot of times I'm sitting there going, God, just do this. I can't, I can't say it.

Francis 12:31

Do you ever find that it works? Because I saw when we were talking about, again, in the first episode, the first guy eliminated was an Irish fella who was a little testy and didn't really have the, I don't know, a clear idea of of the authority lines in the kitchen. And he sort of blew up at Hubert Keller Um, and asked all sorts of inappropriate questions and was getting out of line. And what I saw was a different side of being the chef where you in your kitchen normally would have said, Get out of my kitchen, you! And you showed a lot of restraint because, you know, it was on the show. How did you react to that guy?

Speaker 11 13:00

Well, you know, it was really out of left field. I think a lot of people assume that reality TV is just set up.

Tom 13:08

This

Speaker 11 13:08

happened, this just completely happened out of left field. Um, at the end of the evening, we were just kind of going over, you know, we're going to see you tomorrow or whatever, and C. Bear just said, you know, everybody enjoyed their time in the kitchen. And we just Well, I didn't spend any time in your kitchen. You threw me out after one minute. Well, you know, he stuck his finger in the sauce, and then put it back into his mouth and stuck his finger back in the sauce. which is, you know, I think is not sanitary. And, you know, it's the kind of thing that happened 20 years ago in kitchens.

Speaker 12 13:35

Right, right. And

Speaker 11 13:36

I think that, you know, we're all trying to clean up our industry and do things right, and especially nowadays, people are concerned with all kinds of, You know, diseases and things out there. And so, um, he got called on it and he just said, this is what I do. And this is how I do it. And just really kind of ripped into Jeff and, and I, I've known him there for years and he was really taken aback and just kind of Was flustered for a second, and I think partly he was in front of the camera, so he didn't really know how to respond to it.

Speaker 12 14:04

And

Speaker 11 14:04

I had a, you know, at a certain point I had to jump in and say something. Um, but, you know, I couldn't film, couldn't film all of that.

Speaker 12 14:10

What

Speaker 11 14:11

happened is right after that, the camera's cut. And, you know, of course, kind of got heated there, so makeup, you know, a person came over to dabbing makeup on my forehead. And he said something like, why don't you get a wig for his head too? I was like, dude,

Speaker 12 14:24

I

Speaker 11 14:24

don't even know you. Ha,

Speaker 12 14:25

ha,

Speaker 11 14:25

ha, ha. First time I met the guy was during that, that episode. He was like, come on! You know, a good thing, we got a sense, it's funny because there were some questions as to whether or not he was the worst up there. And there were two others that were pretty bad. But I think the way we judged this, he had 20 years experience. The other two who were up there, one of them was a student.

Speaker 12 14:48

And the other

Speaker 11 14:48

one was a healthy food cook who was really

Speaker 12 14:51

good.

Speaker 11 14:51

You know, these two were really putting their heart and soul into it, and this other guy with 20 years experience just really didn't care. And to me, I'd rather take the person who, who cares, and who maybe has less experience, and, and then, somebody who really just doesn't want to be there. So it was a, it was a pretty easy decision, I think. And we were given the latitude to make that kind of decision.

Mark 15:10

I, I'm going to tell you when I decided that I was going to like the show. And it was when you voted him off. Because I said, A, this guy's a jerk, and you're voting him off, and he deserves to be voted off. But, B, probably for, as far as the show goes, it probably would have been, entertaining television to have him stay on the show and continue to be this obnoxious jerk that he was.

Speaker 11 15:31

Sure. And I think that's, that's true. That's kind of, uh, things that I asked the production team before we started was, you know, what kind of integrity are we going to have here? And is this something that you're going to tell us how to judge this or tell us who's going to win? He said, absolutely not.

Tom 15:43

they consulted with us. They wanted to know before we told them, they just wanted to make sure for legal reasons that it was the right decision. Cause there's some legal. Issues every time we make a decision.

Francis 15:53

Right?

Speaker 11 15:54

And, uh, but no, they kind of gave us a free hand to make those decisions.

Francis 15:56

You know, the other thing about that is that I think is very interesting. You know, you talk about how our industries changed and it was sort of, I think, well documented in, in ways that people in the business don't realize. You read Kitchen, red Kitchen Confidential. You know, there was a time when not only his unsanitary practice was, was acceptable in kitchens, but where. Just being a jerk, as long as you could cook good food, was acceptable. And even if his food was pretty good, he's not a top chef. Who's going to follow him? Who's going to work for him? You know, that's an important part of being a chef, don't you find?

Speaker 11 16:24

Well, I think so, yeah. Well, A lot of people's ideas about a kitchen is there's one guy back there, maybe with a dishwasher, doing everything. And that's not the case. We have a team of people. At Gravity, on any given night, there are 20 people in the kitchen.

Speaker 12 16:34

Right.

Speaker 11 16:35

And so unless you want to do everything yourself and have a 10 seat restaurant, you need to get people to sort of buy into your idea and your vision and work with you. And I don't think you can accomplish that anymore by being, by browbeating people over the head.

Speaker 12 16:49

Right. I

Speaker 11 16:49

think you have to teach, you have to set, you know, the proper example and, you know, it's I always promised myself, because I, you know, 25 years ago coming up in kitchens, I got kicked around a little bit. And I always promised myself that when I got in my kitchen, this wouldn't happen. I would really sort of take care of people. And it's served me well over the last, you know, 15 years since I've owned, you know, restaurants.

Francis 17:12

Well, now, you're a pretty highly regarded chef, not just by us, but by the James Beard Foundation and the rest of the world. Now What's different about this show, I think, and what I'm curious to see how you feel, is that in your kitchen, everyone is aspiring to be a kitchen professional, and everybody comes with some experience in it being a full time job in the restaurant side of things. You're in a situation where, You didn't get to interview these people and say okay, you're, you're not a likely candidate, you're not a likely candidate. You got a 23 year old student who has no restaurant experience, you've got people who have hotel experience. What's it like to, to have those different, vastly different skill sets working on food? What do you look for? I mean, is it possible for the 23 year old student with no restaurant line experience to, to, to do well in this kind of environment?

Speaker 11 17:58

I don't think she could have won, I don't, I don't think, you know, and there are students that were, that were maybe better who could have competed and probably sort of hung in there a little longer. but what the producers wanted to do was sort of show, um, The public that there's more to cooking than just a restaurant. You know, there are people in the catering business, there are private chefs, there are institutional chefs, there's, uh, and there's chefs that need to be institutionalized. Um, but there's, there's all different, there's all different sort of facets of what we do, and I think they wanted to show that.

Mark 18:29

It seemed to me when, even when the show started that there were three or four candidates, and it seems like those seem to be the people towards, that are, that have made it towards the end of the show, who were Stronger than the other people. Did you feel that same way?

Tom 18:43

I did, and what was interesting is in the first challenge, when they had to present their signature dish, um, it was completely random. Um, as to who presented first and it just happened that the first six were really weak

Speaker 12 18:57

And

Tom 18:57

the second six were pretty strong and after the first the first six we thought actually we were you know The judges we just looked at each other. Oh my god. This is what it's going to be like we're we're in for a long you know Four weeks of filming and um, but luckily the second six were much stronger. I think that And I can't get too much away, but, you know, there, there are some circumstances that kind of push people who maybe weren't the best serve a little further along because of, uh, some of the team challenges.

Francis 19:23

Our guest today is Tom Colicchio. He's co owner and founder of Gramercy Tavern and the Craft Restaurants. And we're going to talk more with him in just a moment when we come back. And I want to talk about craft restaurants because that's a very unique concept. And that's another great restaurant that you're running. We'll be back in just a moment. Our guest is Tom Colicchio, uh, head chef and judge on the reality cooking series Top Chef. Um, but he also has Gramercy Tavern in New York and the Kraft Restaurants, and you're opening Kraft Steak tonight. I remember when Kraft first opened, and I went there a number of times early on. That, that's a very unique place. I'm going to talk about the concept of restaurants. Can we talk about that at all? Sure, of course. What drove you to open Crafts? And what was the guiding principle when you opened it? And how was it initially received?

Tom 20:01

Sure, I'll try to give you the quick story. Well, six and a half minutes is what we did. You know, Gramercy Cavern is right around the corner. And I had the opportunity to open a restaurant, the second restaurant, and I couldn't do the food I was doing at Gramercy. And so what I did is I looked at what I had been doing at Gramercy for The eight years that it had been open and realized that every year I would take my repertoire of dishes and every year just remove things. And I think what happened is I got older, I was more confident, and I didn't have to rely on the bells and whistles. And so, when it came time to do a new restaurant and a new menu, I thought, well, what would happen 15 years from now? How would the food look? And I thought that it would be just completely clean. And absolutely naked, where it would only be about the particular protein or vegetable or mushroom that I was interested in cooking, as opposed to creating a dish from five ingredients, say. that whole idea of cooking being a craft, not so much an art, and obviously it can be elevated to an art form, but I was more interested in the craft of cooking. and that's why I decided to do that, and that's how the name came about.

Francis 21:09

so when it originally came out, it was just, everything was very sparse and you could sort of put your own meal together. Now you tempered that a little bit.

Speaker 11 21:14

Well, you know, it's interesting. That was never the case. When you put your own meal together, I think a lot of people thought that they were going to order a piece of fish and order some vegetables and it was all going to come together on one plate.

Speaker 13 21:25

Mm hmm.

Speaker 11 21:26

And that was never the case. Everything was served, um, on the table, sort of family style.

Speaker 13 21:30

Mm hmm.

Speaker 11 21:31

And what was interesting, I never thought it was that unique because we had that paradigm in a steakhouse.

Speaker 12 21:36

Right.

Tom 21:37

In Chinese restaurants for instance, where things were served at the table but it was funny when I would talk to journalists about that, it would come out that I was opening a Chinese restaurant. I was opening a, you know, a And yeah, it was bizarre. And what was really interesting is, you know, Kraft opened And two years later, Kraft Steak opened in Las Vegas. Now, you'd think that, you know, these sophisticated New Yorkers would completely get it, and these, people in Las Vegas who were flying in from God knows where, were just completely nut nugged. They completely got it in Las Vegas. Because it was a steakhouse, and so it just showed me that it was really about packaging this, um, but, you know, we, we got better and we sort of understood, you know, the, the value the customers was having in New York. And, um, We figured out ways around it and figured out ways to make it work. And we also, the menu, when we first opened, was somewhat complicated the way it was laid out. And we realized that we need to change that. And so, um, it's still the same restaurant. We really haven't, haven't changed anything except that we packaged it slightly differently.

Francis 22:36

I have to say, I went there earlier, and I still go there occasionally, and I really do enjoy it, but I do like that you streamline the menu down a little bit, but you have an amazing wine list there, and with all of those individual ingredients, you can go and, you know, may have yourself a little food adventure of your own choosing. Yeah.

Tom 22:51

Well, you know what, I think, you know, in a way, um, it's very difficult to pair wine and restaurants these days, because you always have to worry about the mango, salsa, relish, chutney, that someone's sneaking on a lamb, and you're thinking you're gonna get, you know, this great roast lamb with herbs and, and, you know, Great California Cabernet or something, and all of a sudden it's this acid bomb kind of sneaking in there. Right,

Mark 23:08

cilantro, mango. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Tom 23:11

And I'm nothing against that stuff, I love it, but, you know, I'd rather have it with a Corona. Right. Um, I think it's a great environment to really enjoy wine and pair wine with food.

Mark 23:20

That's awesome. Tom, I was reading through your bio last week, and I, as I'm, as I'm reading through it, I couldn't help but laugh, because in the late 80s, you and I seem to have got our, our restaurant beginning at the same restaurant. Which one? Uh, well, I was at Evelyn's in, Somerville.

Speaker 12 23:36

Oh my god! You were at Evelyn's? I was at

Tom 23:40

Evelyn's seafood restaurant. Oh! I graduated high school in the 80s, so probably in 1978 because I started in the front of the house.

Speaker 12 23:49

Uh huh. As

Speaker 11 23:50

soon as I graduated high school, um, I took, uh, you know, the summer off and,

Francis 23:53

Can I tell you that we, Evelyn's, we owe Evelyn's, which is now out of business, a great debt of gratitude because, and I didn't work there, I would just occasionally visit Mark at the bar there, and we learned how not to do everything.

Speaker 11 24:05

I had a guy who worked there, his name was Slim, and Slim was probably in his 60s, and it's an old black gentleman from down south, who really could cook. However, they wouldn't let him. But he would do, he would, he would kind of take that recipe book and kind of push it aside and he would do things that were really great. And so I actually learned a lot from him. There was nobody

Mark 24:25

like that at Mark's. Exactly, I learned a lot of everything that you should do to stop your restaurant from dying is what I learned at Mark's. There was an

Francis 24:33

old guy who used to bartend right before Mark as well and Mark used to have to melt the ice every time before he'd go in. Because the guy believed in recycling ice that was used for mixed drinks. So he'd like make a martini in a shaker and then And then pour the martini out and then put the used ice, the ginned up ice back in and use it again? Into the ice machine. Pure tips of the ice machine? Well, he

Speaker 11 24:51

was just making flavored ice cubes. You know, the only problem was, he really was. Because there was a lady

Francis 24:55

who used to drink stingers in the morning. Everything had a certain minty twing to it in the afternoon. It was kind of lovely.

Tom 25:02

You know, but it was a lot easier back then, wasn't it? Yeah, it sure was. You know,

Francis 25:06

your concept with craft, though, I think is very interesting. And when people talk about, because we get emails from all over the world, and people ask all kinds of crazy things, but when they talk about green markets, we're very about seasonal, local, sustainable agriculture, small producers. And when people cook at home, I really, rather than the whole big orchestrated dinner at home, I think that that's a great way for people to cook at home, even for parties. If you can go to the green market and find something that's seasonal, find one or two things and just cook them. Right. You know what I mean? And, I mean, do you think that's good advice for people to follow at home? You know, it is, and I talk a lot about that in my book, uh, Think Like a Chef. Um, that, you know, Don't get, don't sort of be bound up by recipes and you have to go, you know, take your recipe and go to the market and oh my god, you can't find, you know, one particular ingredient, so what do you do? Learn how to cook a few things and keep it simple. another reason I, you know, I decided to do what I did at Kraft was that in New York, very few people are cooking at home. They're

Speaker 12 25:58

either going to take

Speaker 11 25:59

out or go into a restaurant. And the idea of passing food around the table was missing.

Speaker 12 26:03

Nice.

Speaker 11 26:04

I mean, when I have a dinner party, I never plate food at home. Everything is just put on the table. Sure.

Francis 26:08

And here's more advice for people out there. I not only, I mean, sometimes I'll plate a course, but usually it's not. It's family style. If there are a bunch of wines in all but the rarest of occasions, I'll open every wine and let people go. You know, I don't do it in order, you know. Yes, exactly. Go grab, you know, that's the whole thing of drinking at home. Hey, listen, I want to touch on the topic and then we can finish it after the break, but What if restaurants and home cooking is going toward this one and beautiful ingredient thing? How does that compare with, what's going on with people who are really embracing technology? Like, uh, you know, Ferran Adria or David Birch Flavorspray or Wiley Dufresne's cooking with menthol crystals. How does that relate?

Speaker 11 26:44

You know, I think, uh, uh,

Francis 26:46

Because I don't like it.

Speaker 11 26:47

See, I don't dislike it. Uh, and I took that very carefully, um, because I think there's a place for it.

Speaker 12 26:54

Yes. I think

Speaker 11 26:55

what Ferran does is wonderful. I think what Wiley does is wonderful. There's a place for it. And I think that you have to go into the restaurants with, with your eyes wide open and, and sort of understand that you're, you're going into an experimental place. You know, it's, it's, it's, you know, the difference between going to see, you know, a rock show and then sitting down and listen to John McLaughlin play jazz,

Speaker 13 27:16

you know, you,

Speaker 11 27:16

you know, going in what you're going to get,

Speaker 12 27:18

right? And

Speaker 11 27:19

I think it's important. I think it'd be very foolish for a home cook to start doing that.

Francis 27:23

I, I, I agree. And I, and to go and do it as a one-off thing to do it once in a blue moon, I really do like it and I enjoy it as an experiment. But, but it's not the way I want to eat all that. I don't, I hope it's not the future of food that's, I don't think it is. Alright. When we come back, when we talk more with Tom Collicchio, You're listening to The Restaurant Guys, Tom, um, I want to talk about Gramercy Tavern, because it's sort of at the, for me, at the opposite end of the spectrum of, you know, experimental, you know, high design food. Gramercy Tavern forever has been like home to, to me. I mean, I have friends who come in from Europe, or winemaker friends who come in from all over the world, and we punctuate. Every visit with the, on the way to the plane, we stop and have dinner at your place, and you've been responsible for more, many missed flights.

Mark 28:26

No matter, no matter who it is who asks me about what my top five restaurants are in, in Manhattan, no matter what kind of experience they're looking for, Gramercy's always on that list when I'm recommending restaurants to people.

Francis 28:36

What's your mission at Gramercy, man?

Tom 28:37

Uh, the mission, you know, Danny, Danny Meyer, my partner there, he and I, when we got together, to, Discuss whether or not we were going to work together. We really spent a lot of time not talking so much about food or service. We really, um, spent the time talking about what was missing from restaurants as we saw it. And we had a very similar starting point as far as what, you know, our taste level. And we actually, took a week and traveled through Italy and came back and, you know, decided that we were going to work together. And I think that Uh, you know, the mission there was to do everything as correct as possible, but to do it in a casual, you know, relaxed environment. I guess we accomplished that. I mean, it's been 12 years now, and it's busier than ever. And you're right, it feels like home. And that's kind of what we wanted to do.

Francis 29:23

it's the kind of place I like. I've been to private wine tastings in your private room. I've been there on dates and had a great time. I sat at your bar, and I took my 82 year old dad there for lunch two weeks ago. You know, and it's, it's, it's perfect. You really hit the hospitality mark on the head. Anyway, I want to thank you for taking the time to join us on the restaurant guys, especially as you're opening a restaurant tonight. Craft Steak opens tonight to the public?

Speaker 11 29:46

It's open tonight. Wow. We're opening in around five hours.

Francis 29:50

You're nuts. You know what, maybe Mark and I will stop by there tonight for dinner. You never know.

Speaker 11 29:54

I'll be there all night.

Francis 29:55

you will and you won't have time to talk to us.

Speaker 11 29:57

Well, you know, actually tonight what we do, um, quickly is, you know, we kind of opened Three nights to go to family and friends. We have 75 the next night, 90 the next, last night, 160 tonight. We're only going to do about 90 covers. So we'll, we'll cap it off because I feel that the 90 people who do come in opening night, they should get a great experience, not some crazy out, you know, wacky thing that happens when. When chefs open restaurants.

Mark 30:19

When restaurants

Francis 30:20

open. You don't completely

Speaker 11 30:22

understand.

Francis 30:22

You want to keep all the wacky in the restaurant reality show, not actually in your real restaurant.

Speaker 11 30:26

Exactly, even the cash register is open, it needs to be right. Yeah. Last night we kind of pushed it and, it was wild. And you're

Mark 30:33

supposed to push it during Friends and Family, that's part of the deal.

Francis 30:35

it's funny. Friends and family is when you invite your friends and family and you don't charge them or you charge them very little. And I, we did that recently. We opened a restaurant recently in New Brunswick. And my family, the first time they came to friends and family, I walked up to my cousins and the waiter walked over and said, Hi, welcome to Catherine Lombardi. You'll be having the spaghetti? And you'll be having the Hi, may I tell you what your order is?

Speaker 13 30:55

That's a good concept though,

Francis 30:56

huh? Oh, it's great. Because we wanted to, we wanted to order off the menu broadly, so we tested every station. So, you were getting I

Speaker 11 31:03

know exactly what you're talking about. Sure.

Francis 31:04

And what we said to people is that, and if you don't like what you're having, you can switch it with your friend. Trading is a lot. Someone will trade. Hey man, good luck tonight with everything. Thanks

Tom 31:12

a lot guys. That's great, thanks very much. Take care.

Francis 31:14

Tom Colicchio from the Gramercy Tavern. Craft, craft steak. He's got two cookbooks and his, show on the Bravo Network. head Chef is still going and we want, we're gonna tune in. Top Chef. Top Chef. What did I say?

Mark 31:23

You said Head chef,

Francis 31:24

whatever. He's the head chef at Top Chef and we're gonna, we, we tune in every week. It's the only show that I watch that that's like that. Mm-Hmm. Anyway, uh, you can link to all that on our, our website, restaurant guys radio.com. Hope you've enjoyed the hour listening to the Restaurant Guys,