00:00Do you remember the first time we met?
00:02I don't remember.
00:03I don't remember either.
00:04No.
00:04But we should remember.
00:06When did you come to Washington, D.C.?
00:081993.
00:10Oh, that was late.
00:11Jean-Louis Paladin was there, the great French chef, no longer with us, at the Watergate.
00:16My mentor.
00:17And you were with him.
00:18One of my mentors.
00:19You were with him in the Watergate.
00:20Yes.
00:21What year was that?
00:221989.
00:23So we were there.
00:24Our spirits were following each other.
00:26Okay, so we know each other for almost 30 years.
00:29Yes.
00:30But we became very, very, very, very, very close.
00:33Anthony Bourdain was very important in bringing us together.
00:36For us, yes.
00:37We were a trio.
00:39Yeah, but before we were a trio, you were a duo.
00:42I met Anthony on my own.
00:44Obviously, you met Anthony on your own.
00:46Yeah.
00:47Yeah.
00:48But Tony had even more to do.
00:50You and I were coming even stronger in so many ways.
00:54For us in the friendship, yes, I remember the moment because we went through it together.
00:58We spoke a lot about it.
01:00You were already opening a restaurant in Washington.
01:04You were thinking about opening a restaurant in Philly.
01:07Yes.
01:07You had offers to open other restaurants.
01:10And one day, I remember that moment that you were calling me to tell me, I'm not doing more restaurants.
01:15And I'm closing the one side.
01:18And I'm closing, do you want it?
01:19And I'm like, really?
01:22And you went to concentrate in your Bernardin and me, I kept opening.
01:28Yes.
01:29And opening more restaurants.
01:31And this was kind of fascinating as friends and chefs that we…
01:35For sure.
01:36My life is simple.
01:38I have a family.
01:39I have one restaurant in New York, one in Cayman Island.
01:42Your life is a bit more complicated.
01:45I don't…
01:45You have what?
01:4640 restaurants?
01:47Do you know how many restaurants do you have or not?
01:50More or less, yeah.
01:51How many do you have?
01:5240-something, yeah.
01:53Do you still go to the kitchen?
01:54I am.
01:55With 40 restaurants?
01:57Well, more…
01:58Or more or less.
01:59More or less, but…
01:59What happened is, you know, when I go to my kitchen and I feel like I'm a foreigner,
02:03like I don't belong.
02:05No.
02:05No way.
02:06Let me tell you why.
02:07I have restaurants, they've been open, I open them, many of them, I open them.
02:11And I have people there, they've been working with me for almost 33 years.
02:14For a long time, yeah.
02:15And sometimes you go to the kitchen, even if it's…
02:18It's not my kitchen, it's their kitchen too, it's our kitchen.
02:23Ah, that's the big difference with me.
02:24And they made it their own.
02:26It's their kitchen.
02:28Ah…
02:28And I go there…
02:29I feel different.
02:30And these people I don't recognize.
02:31But they are the ones making it happen.
02:33And without them…
02:34Of course.
02:35Because it's a lot of restaurants, it's a lot of people, people come and go.
02:39But that's the beautiful kitchen, right?
02:41Yeah.
02:41A kitchen at the end of the day, a restaurant.
02:44It's this whole bunch of people that they can be anywhere but they decide to be part of that.
02:47To be with you.
02:48Or with me.
02:49To be with you.
02:50Yeah.
02:50And we need to be very thankful of that moment, right?
02:52No, of course.
02:53But for me it's very different.
02:54I know the name of every cook, every employee from the dishwasher to the waiter.
02:59So that gives me tremendous confidence and comfort and support.
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