MALE SPEAKER: Good
afternoon, everyone.
Welcome to another outstanding
Talks at Google Speech.
We are thrilled and honored to
have Chef Daniel Boulud here
today from New York.
From his time at Le
Cirque to his current work
with the Bocuse d'Or team,
and his entire portfolio
of restaurants,
Daniel has really
been advancing French cuisine
and also incorporating
American tastes and
ingredients into the mix.
And so he's here
today speaking to us
about his new book called
"Daniel: My French Cuisine."
And it chronicles about
75 of his favorite dishes,
some from the restaurants,
some from France itself.
And so he'll be talking to
us about that in more detail
today.
And we do have a microphone
at the end for questions.
So please join me in
welcoming Daniel to Google.
Thanks.
DANIEL BOULUD:
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
I got the mic.
Good afternoon, everybody.
So how many of you
are good cooks?
Pas mal.
Good chefs?
There are a few.
But, no, thank you.
I had a wonderful
lunch here, by the way.
And it seems like you are
the luckiest people on earth.
Not only you are in California
but you have amazing chef also.
I tasted your
pumpkin soup in one
and then I finished my lunch
with-- which cafeteria was it?
Which restaurant?
Hangout, yeah.
Exactly.
So, fantastic.
Well cooking, it's,
of course, something
you learn early, often.
I learned it at 14,
but I knew that I
wanted to be a cook when
I was about 10 to 12.
I was born and
raised on the farm,
and today every chef
dreams to be farmer chef.
It's farm to table.
It's directly garden to
table as close as possible.
And we have seen
models of that growing
and I think it's fantastic.
I don't have my
farm yet, but I do
remember the one I
had in France where
we grew everything, all
kinds of vegetables.
We also had livestock.
Cows, and goats-- 40 goats--
and making goat cheese.
Pigs, and rabbit, and
turkey, and geese,
and squab, and
chicken, and duck.
And every week we would
go to the farmer's market
and bring all the harvest
we had that particular week.
And it's true, certainly,
about how humble
and how important it is
about life, ingredient.
And when you're a
chef I think it's
the most important
thing you hang on
and the most important
thing you fight for.
And, certainly, the
most important things,
we need almost a trust
to have access to.
Growing up on the farm,
when I wanted to be a cook,
my parents and
some friends helped
me to get in one of the
best restaurants in Lyon.
So I started in Lyon at
14, and 2 star restaurant.
Fantastic.
And Lyon is kind of the
mecca of chefs in France.
I right away knew
that I was entering
a very, very special club,
a very spatial society,
a real community of people
who share the same passion
and have the same ambition.
But yet, it was at the
local level of Lyon,
except for one man,
Paul Bocuse, who
was the chef who was
starting to travel the world
and taking the cuisine of
Lyon to Rio de Janeiro,
to Tokyo, to
California at Mondavi.
Robert Mondavi was
the first one who
brought French
chefs to California
and were make them cook
and do demonstrations
there in Napa Valley.
So now in the early '70s, really
French cuisine is changing.
And I'm this young
chef, so I decided
to work for some of the
best chefs in France.
For me it was very
important to choose someone
who had the same
fundamentals as the one
I started to work with and also
someone who had three Michelin
stars, because I felt that I had
a start at a two Michelin star
and I wanted to know more
about the three Michelin star
restaurant.
But I felt strong with
the two star background
because I learned a
lot during that time.
And so I went and I did
my tour de France, what
we call the tour de France,
where you have to-- I
wanted to work in the south,
so I went to Provence,
and I went to Moulin
de Mougins in Cannes.
It just had three
stars that year.
It was very exhilarating.
I mean the energy, the talent
who is gathering around you
because, of course, he
received so many resumes
that he can be a
little selective.
And then after I moved to
the southwest of France
to Michel Guerard, I moved
to Burgundy in the Rhone,
in Burgundy region
with Georges Blanc.
And then I left France.
I went to Denmark.
And in '80 I came
to America because I
wanted to be like them.
I wanted to travel.
They seem to have the good
time when they travel.
And they also seem
to bring ideas.
And all the traveling those
chefs in the '70s were doing
were really also-- not
only they were bringing
their food and their
culture to a country,
but they were also
bringing ideas.
And I always love--
I wouldn't have
been a chef if I didn't want to
travel and be able to discover
where else can we cook and
what else there is out there.
And so came to Washington, DC.
I did two years in
DC as a private chef
in a residence
for an ambassador.
And that was kind of a very
cushy job, not too fascinating.
But I had a chance to really
go to the market every day
there in DC, having
small suppliers.
Because I was not cooking
for a large amount of people
I was depending on
small suppliers.
And that was already
the beginning
of having local farmers
there and local suppliers.
And there was a great
chef there also,
Jean-Louis Palladin, who had
a restaurant at the Watergate,
in the basement
of the Watergate.
And he had any other
ingredient I couldn't find,
he had it there.
So he was great.
Then after DC I
felt like New York
has to be my stop before
I go back to France.
And I made a stop in
New York and never left.
And so from that
I had the chance
to work in a great restaurant
called Le Cirque when
the restaurant was in
transition of being famous
for maybe more its clientele
dining there than the food,
and being famous-- because it
was famous-- but for its owner
Sirio Maccioni, an
Italian restaurateur.
Incredible professional.
But in the kitchen there was a
big gap of direction and focus.
And so I worked there six years.
And that helped
me prove the world
that I could maybe
raise enough money
to open my own restaurant.
And 20 years ago
I opened Daniel.
And so this book is-- but
it's about the evolution
and the growth of the last
20 years as well for me.
And I think we see
also the evolution
at the gross in America.
When I arrived in
New York and I was
my own executive
sous-chef-- executive
sous-chef job-- Thomas
Keller was my chef de partie
in the poisson.
Alfred Portale was
chef garde manger,
which is from Gotham Bar
and Grill in New York.
Billy Yosses, the pastry
chef of the White House
was my garde manger as well.
And we had all kinds of
rock stars of the moment.
We were just young cooks.
And that was before Thomas
went to France and all that.
And they were like-- every
day we were witnessing
talent coming in,
talent growing in.
And I went to the Plaza in the
after, and even at Le Cirque
I have so many
alumni, whereas today
are very influential chefs
all over the country.
But those alumni have already
produced a new generation
of chefs, and we
see them coming now.
And I think that's the exciting
part, is then, of course,
they learn with
great chefs like me
and they understand
tradition, and they
try to create an
evolution with that
and try to be really
relevant to their time.
And I think, for me, that's
what I've tried to always do,
but yet I'm still very French.
I am being in
America for 30 years,
you can't take the
French out of me still.
And it's OK.
When it comes to
cooking, it's acceptable.
For other things, I don't
know if it's all acceptable,
especially with the
politician we have right now.
But it's about ambition.
And I think chefs, it
takes a lot of ambition
to become a great chef.
But it takes a
lot of discipline,
it takes a lot of hard work,
it takes a lot of sacrifice.
It takes lot of
motivation as well.
And I think we can all
share our own story
about how to become a chef.
I actually I wrote a book
called "Letter to a Young Chef"
and it's about what it
took for me as a young chef
to become who I am, but
also what it will take
you, the young chef,
to eventually succeed,
even if we're in
a different time.
I think it's a
timeless lesson, I
think, for what I wrote there.
And it's still a lot
of use by students
at cooking schools for
being inspired, being
driven, and staying
on the course,
and-- having chosen
that profession--
to make a difference in
the future with themselves
and with their teams.
So the book.
And one word also
is to, of course,
for every one I worked
and for everything I
expect from my staff, is to
always exceed expectations.
And I think that's
something where,
at a certain level
of perfection you
have to have everyone
exceed expectations.
And that's the only way
those young chefs will
grow to become the leaders,
the ones who can definitely
prove that.
So the book is about Daniel
today, the restaurant.
It's not the whole story
about the last 20 years.
I wrote seven other
books and they
were all telling
different story,
but also sometimes geared
more for home cooking,
being more comfortable
with the idea of that.
And this one was
more about capturing
what the restaurant
represents today.
Many people know
Daniel the restaurant?
Yes, you have been there?
Mhmm.
So I think it's one of
those restaurants-- it's
a grand restaurant.
And there is not too many
in America left like that.
And I feel that it's a landmark
in New York now after 20 years.
It's not the landmark,
but it will be one day.
But at least the restaurant
has sort of an era of the past
and a feel of the present.
And I think that's a little bit
also what I do in my cooking.
It's about tradition and
it's about evolution as well.
So I don't know.
Do you have couple of
pictures we can do?
Yeah, let's do a little
video introduction.
But otherwise is there
any other subjects
you would like me
to approach for you
while I am here,
before the video?
Yes, tell me.
AUDIENCE: There was an
article a couple months ago
in "Vanity Fair"
that was talking
about the generation of
chefs that you mentioned
and the idea of tasting menus
versus a la carte ordering
options, and how a lot of it
was the tasting menus just sort
of give the chef ultimate
authority, make things easier,
predict how much food you're
going to need to order,
different ingredients,
and so forth.
But then they were sort
of saying that also it
kind of lost sight of
the patron as being
like the ultimate boss in
terms of what they want to eat.
So I was just kind of
curious your thoughts
on how that works
and do you think
one's better than the other?
Your philosophy.
DANIEL BOULUD: I
think no, no, no.
The tasting menu
and post tasting
menu work very well if you
have 20, 30, 50 seats, maybe.
And your goal is to try to
not worry about any clientele
locally, any
clientele nationally,
you just want to
really show them
the restaurant cooks this
way and no other way.
I think it's nice.
For me, this is not what I do.
I like to create a menu
where there is choice.
I can do 10, 12, 14 course
after with the menu,
but I like to offer
options to the customer
and I like the customer to
decide based on their budget,
based on their ambition, and
based on how much they want
to spend-- or want
to eat, pardon--
what they would like to have.
But we customize all the
time things for customers.
But it's true.
And I went the other night
to Saison, and I sit down
and I had no idea what
I was going to eat.
And 18 courses later,
it was very pleasant.
So I don't blame this formula.
And maybe one day I'll open
a little 25 seat restaurant
and I'll do only one menu.
That's the dream for
a chef, actually,
because you can really
focus on few dishes only.
But for me, I think
it takes the soul
of being in a restaurant
because I think
you go to a restaurant
for an experience,
but also for experiencing
as many possibilities
as the chef has.
And sometimes when
you do tasting,
the food cannot get the same
flavor and depth than when you
cook a little bite size than
when you're making a real
preparation which is
in a larger scale.
And so I don't know.
We'll see where the future
goes with the tasting menu.
They'll always be there
because it has been before
and it will continue.
But I don't think they will
become the central point
because it'll become too
competitive among them
and then it's expensive.
It's very expensive.
So if it's to go once in
your lifetime, I don't know.
I want you to come
back once a month.
AUDIENCE: Thanks
again for coming.
I think this is the highlight
of my year at Google
in terms of people
that we've hosted.
DANIEL BOULUD: And
we have scratch
and sniff so when you see
the dish-- it's a new app.
AUDIENCE: It's related
to the question
I'm going to ask actually.
Since you're at
Google I felt like I
had to ask a technology
related question.
I just wanted to get
your general opinions
about so-called
modernist cuisine
as Nathan Myhrvold
would call it.
Just your reflections.
DANIEL BOULUD:
Nathan gave it a name
and I think it was
the perfect name.
And I think I have the 55
pound, maybe 60 pound book,
of five, six volumes of
the "Modernist Cuisine".
And I am in admiration
for what he did
and the compilation he created
about explaining really
deeply the
transformation of food
and how you can also adapt
something classically made
and make it in a
whole different way,
and yet get even
a better result.
And I think this is fantastic.
It don't always apply to
the restaurant business
on a every day basis, but we
do have a lot of equipment
in our kitchen will help
us and help us practice
certain elements of
discovery in a way.
Since Ferran Adria in
Spain who was certainly
the leader in this
cuisine, modernist cuisine,
I think Nathan had
the budget to be able,
than a chef can afford.
That's a thing
also, is then, chef
has his limitations on
what he can produce.
This is what Nathan produced.
And I think it's going to
become a reference for today.
And it's not taking
anything away
from the references
of the past as well.
I think it's just reestablishing
some solid reference for today.
But do you make a
better cook when
you ask him to put
the meat in the bag
and to cook it at a certain
temperature for four hours?
Or do you make a better
cook when you give him
a pot, and some butter and oil,
and to roast something by hand?
Know what I mean?
I think the cook of
the future, they're
going to have to go back to the
real cooking in order to do,
because otherwise it's terrible
when the restaurant uses
too much of sous-vide,
too much of technique,
will take away the
cook because now we
under the control of electronic
control of temperatures,
electronic time.
I mean everything is
computerized in a way,
and the food is basically
engineered to be perfect.
And that takes away the
art of being a great chef.
That's the only thing.
So anyway, let's go through
the book a little bit here.
So this is a snail,
California snail actually,
and spring garlic soup.
It's a sample.
It's sort of a vichyssoise
of garlic with snail.
And a little bit of tempura
of snail with purple potato.
And then this is a
veloute also of watercress
with a little crayfish
tembale, with a little bit
of chicken liver inside.
And there is the cockscomb
fritter on top as well.
So that's very French in a way--
the crawfish, the cockscomb,
the chicken liver--
is very Lyonnaise,
from where I come from.
And with the watercress as
a warm veloute as a soup.
This is a cod
poached in olive oil,
and slow poached in
olive oil, cured before,
lightly cured,
and then flake it,
flake it and served on crushed
beans with almond foam.
This is local Santa
Barbara abalone.
And we have a cauliflower
concasse on the bottom.
And we have the abalone
and it's got a little bit
sort of a grenoblaise garnish
with the eggs and the chive,
and we have the
caviar with that.
And so it's a also made
with a sake buerre blanc.
OK, let's show a little video.
We entertain you
in different ways.
This way.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
-OK, we have to go.
-Everyone stop.
-OK.
Now I think it's ready.
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
DANIEL BOULUD: Voila.
So that was the making
a little bit of-- I
mean that was the life
at Daniel, the dining
room, the front, the back.
And you can slide, just
go through the slides.
I'm not connecting.
But then the book I did
was about restaurant Daniel
trying to record the time now.
But it was also to bring what
tradition of French cuisine
means to me.
And so I created a section in
the book called iconic session.
And I don't know if many
of you know Bill Buford,
but if you have read "Eat",
you know what it means.
And if you have also
read, "Among the Thugs",
he wrote that
maybe 10 years ago.
And when he was
living in London he
decided to live with
the hooligans for a year
in order to understand--
in order to make the book.
And so that was the title.
And he remains alive out of it.
He was very lucky despite
risking his life every day.
And so after that he
was, I think, in New York
and he met Mario Batali
sometime late night in a bar.
And then he asked
if he could come
and be an apprentice at Babbo.
He did that and then he
felt I got to go to Italy
and cook with the
Italians because it's
nice to be in New York,
but I'm going to Italy.
So he moved there for a
year and cooked and met
some amazing people
to cook with there.
And then after, four
years ago he told me
I want to move to France.
I think everybody
talks about the French,
everybody thinks they know
what they are talking about,
but no one really has
spent time to research
what's going on with the French.
So he has spent four years
in France, four years
in Lyon, my home town.
And he has been
working on a book.
He's two years
behind, but that's OK.
And the book is going
to come out next year.
It should be, the title
is not maybe official,
but right now it's "Dirt".
And so from the "Heat"
he had "Dirt" now.
And dirt for the terroir,
of course, what dirt
can bring as incredible
source of supply
but also the dirt
among the chefs in Lyon
and French cuisine,
and all that.
So it should be an
interesting book.
And so I asked Bill to come
to New York and cook with me,
and cook dishes who, for me,
represented French cuisine,
through the history
of my cooking.
Like this dish we
were doing in Lyon.
It was a sole souffle,
a much smaller.
And I wanted to do
a turbot souffle.
So you take basically
a 10 pound turbot
and you have to find
a turbotiere, which
is this lozenge-shaped pot
which is only made for turbot,
to cook a turbot.
And it costs a fortune
and you can only
cook turbot inside
of it, you can
cook anything you want but it's
definitely more efficient when
you cook a turbot.
And this is stuffed
with-- can you go back?
I'm sorry.
So this turbot is stuffed
with lobster, and tomatoes,
and basil, and the farce is made
with some lobster and turbot
filet, as well, and cream.
And then decorated with
the tomato, the zucchini,
and olives, and braised.
And the sauce is made with a
lobster head and a classic sort
of American sauce but
with a bit more tomato.
And so this was
a turbot souffle.
So with Bill, I told
him, I say you're not
going to be next to
me with your pad.
You're going to be cooking
next to me your own turbot.
So we both made our own turbot.
And the importance
also is that I was not
going to give the
recipe to anyone.
I would just going
to want Bill's words
about the making
of those dishes.
And so sometime
he writes and then
he goes into a
research direction.
And it's incredible as a writer.
I think everybody feels so
captivated by how he writes
about food and how he's
taken by eye's mind
take him in many directions.
This is a jambon au foin, which
is a baked ham poached in hay
and then baked in hay
again in this casserole
with a lot of hay around.
And then the other
one is the shoulder
which is smoked in hay with all
the vegetables cooking together
with the shoulder.
And then we smoke it inside
with a smoke gun and then
close it, keep adding
smoke into the hay,
add smoke into the preparation.
And the hay we use
is the same one
as the mountain
police of New York.
Horses.
We have the same
farm, so it's good.
And then we serve it like that.
So this was the rustic
French cuisine as well,
the one I grew up in Lyon with.
Go ahead.
So this is a tete
de veau en tortue.
This is a classic dish
what was interpreted
from a recipe from
Careme in the 1800s.
And this is basically in
the center is the head.
So if you look closely
there's the nostril
somewhere around here.
There's two nostril
of the head and all.
So the head has been cooked
for quite a long time.
Then after it gets
open and it gets clean,
and we put back inside the sweet
bread, the brain, the tongue,
the cheeks, the jaw, and
take the fat away, and remold
and then un-mold the head.
We bake it, we cook it
because I make a little farce.
I cook it again and
then un-mold it.
And then I take
the cooking liquid
and I create a green
shell but it's all
made of herbs and
cooking liquid.
Then there is a
pyramid of crayfish,
what goes on top, cooked
into a little farce of veal.
And then we have
canard with truffle,
we have a little slow
poached eggs with truffle,
then there is mushroom
with cockscomb.
Then in the front there is some
tongue and brain, fried brain.
And then the crayfish, and
then the sauce is very spicy.
It's made with veal
bones and is very spicy.
And it goes very well with it.
So tete de veau en tortue.
I made some when I was young
but I never made this one.
And that's why I wanted
Bill to feel like,
woah, I'm getting my ass
kicked here with this.
And so he really felt that way.
Go ahead.
And so this one,
it's a chartreuse.
So chartreuse in France
is you take a mold,
or you take a moule
a chartreuse actually
is a mold of this
shape, like that.
And we do different
things with it.
We call it also moule
a Charlotte as well.
A chartreuse is
for the game birds.
A chartreuse is basically a
whole bird baked in cabbage.
You take a pheasant
or partridge and you
have pieces of
lard on the bottom,
and you can put some
potatoes, and then
you have the braised
cabbage, and then
you put the whole
pheasant which has
been pre-roasted and
flambe with cognac.
And then you cover
it with cabbage
and then you bake it in
the oven like that too.
So the game birds
release all its flavor.
And so here I wanted
to make a chartreuse
like you have never seen.
So first we have a
young chef, Chad,
who has worked on
the book there.
And he's becoming mathematician
at Columbia, but he was a chef.
He went back to Columbia
to be a mathematician.
So I made him calculate
all the carrot, turnips,
and yellow carrot,
and orange carrot too.
I have the perfect
field of the mold.
And then after we line
it up with cabbage
leaves, and then we fill it
up with the braised cabbage.
And then this is a
slice of woodcock.
Woodcock, add those birds'
heads on top of that.
And so we add first a
cabbage molded with the lard,
with the bacon, and this is
filled with crushed potato,
with foie gras fat,
and then slice of foie
gras, and dove--
little bird dove.
So those are all
wild birds in a way.
And then inside is partridge,
woodcock, and pheasant.
Three types of birds.
And then we take the innards
of the partridge, pheasant,
and decasse and we make a
little stuffed cabbage on top.
And so that's a little sauvage,
but I have wonderful hunters
in New York, friends hunters.
And so they bring
me birds to New York
to play with that
when I want to.
And this is duck a la presse.
So this gentlemen here
has been my best customer
since I opened the restaurant.
For 20 years, every week,
he eats in the restaurant.
And now he's a retired lawyer.
And so now he works in
the kitchen as well.
During the morning he comes
and spends time with the chef
and then he go home, he
change and come for dinner.
And there's a whole story about
the duck press in the book
and how this duck press
was put back to life.
And with the recipe as well,
will belong to somebody
in the '30s in America who
was a lawyer from Cleveland,
who was going to the
21 Club all the time
and took a duck press
home and started
to make all kinds of
recipes for his friend
because he was also a hunter.
And so I revived the recipe
and revived the duck press
50 years later.
And we have created
a canard au sang
which is a classic
French recipe as well.
So after the session
of iconic-- which
there is more in the book, many
more, and very interesting text
will really touch
every chef-- then
we have also the home section.
I live right above Daniel
and so that's convenient
because I'm always at work
and I am easily at home.
So I wanted to do home
recipe who was also
approachable to people
who buy this book
but feel that all the other
recipes, it's a little bit
overwhelming.
And so this, I chose
different region of France
for that because I felt the
book is my French cuisine
and often when I cook at home
I think of regional France.
So this is about Alsace,
Normandy, Provence,
and Lyon, my hometown.
So picture as a little mix.
And Catherine, my wife,
is there-- thank you.
She is my partner in
the kitchen upstairs.
So that's the more
approachable Daniel in a way.
But very expensive.
If you want to eat in my home it
will cost you more than double.
Actually I opened my home for
dinner but only for charity.
I'm the co-president
of Citymeals-On-Wheels.
And for Citymeals I sell dinner
at home for usually eight
people, and it sells
for $30-$40,000.
So it's always a good use
of my kitchen that day,
for a good purpose.
But any questions about
French cuisine, anyone?
Yes?
AUDIENCE: I have to say I'm very
interested in French cuisine
and equally interested
in French wine.
I have a trouble though when
I go to a fancy restaurant
I might only bring one bottle
but have a multi-course meal
with many different flavors.
Sometimes you can order
the tasting menu's wine
but they're not usually as high
quality as the restaurant food.
What would you suggest
to do in this dilemma?
DANIEL BOULUD: Ah,
well in that case
you tell them to
skip the pairing
and order yourself
a nice bottle.
And usually if you
have four people
it's easy to have a bottle
of white, bottle of red.
If you have two people it's
maybe a little too much.
Yeah, exactly.
So, to me, I like to try a
very fresh, light pinot noir.
I mean even American, French,
even it could be Italian also.
There is some light nebbiolo.
But I note at
Daniel, for example,
we purposely choose very
good wine with a pairing
because, I mean, if we
make all this effort
making wonderful food and
all that and not giving it
the level of quality to
the wine, no, absolutely.
So put pressure on the chef and
say I don't think your pairing
is good today.
But there is a new system now.
I don't know if you have seen.
It's something you
put on the bottles.
Yeah, it's fantastic.
Because now we can open vintage
wine without altering the wine
and keep it over a week.
And so now they can
offer a glass of wine.
So you can have a glass of
white and a glass of red
of very high-- higher
quality, rather-- than
have three white and three red.
It's better to have one glass.
And follow the path
of the menu with that.
We are doing it at DB
Bistro right now as a test,
but at Daniel we
usually open and sell.
But sometimes in a bistro
where all the average wine
is between $7 a glass
to maybe $14, when
you want to sell a
glass at $35 or $50,
then the risk of selling
the whole bottle that night
is more challenging.
AUDIENCE: Yes, my
question is how do you
get your inspiration?
Is it your family?
You say that you wanted to
be a chef when you were 12.
So what is it your
grandmother, your mother,
who taught you how to cook?
Is it your wife now?
Is it your friends?
Your friends who are cooks too?
And clients?
How do you get all those ideas?
DANIEL BOULUD: It's Google.
No, actually traveling
is, of course,
a big source of inspiration.
And then when I think
about French cuisine
and I want to try to continue
to explore French cuisine,
then I think of home.
Of course when I think
at home, for example,
when we make a salad
dressing, I teach Catherine
how to make my grandmother's
salad dressing where you crush,
you take a clove of
garlic, you put salt on it,
you crush it with a fork nicely
until you get a little paste.
Then you add up a
spoon of mustard,
and you add a spoon
of vinegar to that.
And then you pour gently
the olive oil over
and stir the whole thing.
And then toss some nice
crisp salad inside this.
And serve that with a
little fresh fromage
blanc and some hot
and spring potatoes,
freshly roasted potatoes.
I think it's delicious.
That's my grandmother's cooking.
I remember we always
made soup also at home.
Soups are something
every night--
it don't matter what
it was-- we made soup.
But then we have
stuff at home too.
For example, we used to kill
the chicken on Thursday.
Yeah, on Thursday
we used to kill
the chicken for
the farmer's market
and we would keep the
blood of the chicken.
And on Friday we
would make an omelette
with the blood of the
chicken, like a blood
pudding of chicken blood.
And slice that like an
omelette, flat omelette.
But it was very nutritious.
When you are a kid,
you need some iron,
eat some chicken blood.
But besides that
there is, of course,
today traveling
and the young chefs
traveling with me-- the team.
The team I have, I think
that's where I get the most
inspiration because they come
from all over the world, some
of them, and they
all bring something.
We sometimes sit down with
them, we discuss ideas.
I sit down with my
chefs and we always
talk about what else can
we do new, different.
And I have a good
team of chefs and we
have a great way of
communicating among each other.
And I think it's
at the end we want
to make sure that
the food feels right.
And the food, it's interesting,
it tastes like food,
and it really-- for me,
sometimes creativity
is not always what
I'm thinking first.
It's more the
composition of the dish.
I think of the protein.
I think of what I want to marry
that protein with, if it's
a fish filet, I want a
particular texture, thickness,
or feel, and how
I want to cook it.
And then from that now
how I want to season it,
and what kind of acidity
I want to bring around it,
and what kind of contrast
and texture, and all that.
So it's kind of a
gradual buildup.
And we discuss that with chefs.
And some of the dishes make
it, sometime in the long run,
and some dishes disappear and
we go over it and work them out
again.
Yeah.
AUDIENCE: Hi, chef.
My question is-- I
really loved hearing
the history of how
you grew up with food,
and grew up on a farm, and
your time as a line chef
and then moving up.
I'm really curious to hear
about how you sort of moved
from being an individual
chef, being a sous chef,
and so on, to eventually
opening a restaurant,
and now, obviously, you
have many restaurants.
How have you been able to do
that successfully to scale,
to many different restaurants?
And what have you learned
from that process?
DANIEL BOULUD: I
know I think what
I've learned is to
choose your partner well.
I was very lucky
when I was looking
to raise money to open
my first restaurant.
I was almost 3/4 there.
I mean I had maybe $1.5 million
and I needed $2.5 million.
So I sit down with a
gentleman and he told me,
say, you know, I'd rather be the
one with you than one of them.
And we'll do much
better business
together if we are
just the two of us.
I think that was maybe
the best day in my life
because then I
found a partner who
was the CEO of a very large
company in America before
and he was retiring.
20 years ago he was retiring.
Now he is 81.
And he didn't know what he was
going to do in his retirement,
and he felt I'm not
risking too much money.
So I'll help that
little boy there
with his first restaurant.
And then from that
he, of course,
guided me through the business.
He counted on me to
take care of everything
and he counted on me to
build my team to do it,
but he was always a good
guiding line for business.
And I think trust is
the most important thing
in this business
because when a business
where you could be tempted
to steal from your partner,
you could be tempted to
steal from your business,
and so it's the most important
thing, I think, trust.
And that's why, I
think, 20 years later
we're still very good partners.
He's not too young anymore,
but I think the team
after the team I have
built over the year,
the CFO today is
with me 20 years.
The COO is with me 16 years, but
he was already a cook with me
25 years ago.
And then in between he went
to Cornell hotel school
and he did hotel management
and different things.
And then he came back with
me as director of operations
and now he's CEO.
And then director of operations
has been with me for 16 years.
The chef de cuisine
at Daniel, 17 years.
The executive chef, 17 years.
Jean Francois.
Eddy, 11 years.
And I have a maitre d' who is in
the book also with his family.
And now I have the second
generation, his son, also
as a maitre d'.
And the two of them,
father and son.
And you work with me
for 30 years almost.
But beside that the
average age at Daniel,
and the average age in the
group is about, I would say, 25,
26 years old because there's
a lot of young people.
AUDIENCE: I just want to tell
you, first of all, Daniel
has not only been the
best dining experience,
the food is phenomenal,
best I've had in the world,
but also the dining experience
itself is very, very special.
But I wanted to ask
you, as much as I'd
like to eat Daniel cuisine
every day at the level
that you have it,
what do you eat
on a regular basis
for a casual day?
DANIEL BOULUD: Today?
I had that wonderful vegetable.
I had a salad,
wonderful vegetables.
The pan roasted fish
with fennel and raisin,
a little bit of turkey.
It was very healthy,
the lunch today.
And at lunch usually I have a
salad or a soup and one course.
I don't eat bread
so much anymore.
I try to be careful
because that's often
the hardest thing to shed away.
And I try to eat healthy.
I drink a little bit of wine.
I try to control what I do.
And now Catherine wants
to be a nutritionist.
She wants to pass a
master in nutrition.
So very soon she'll tell
me what to eat every day.
But I am very concerned
about nutrition.
And I'm very aware
that the food I make
is always with the
consciousness of healthiness,
except the iconic dishes
where you get transported
into another time,
another world.
And so you don't look
at that that way.
But the food we do
at Daniel is always
with healthy components
of preparation.
And even if we poach
the fish in butter,
it does not mean we're
going to serve it in butter.
So the butter enrich
the cuisson of the fish,
but still don't really
effect the quantity
of butter going
in the dish also.
AUDIENCE: With so many different
restaurants now all over
around the world, and your name
is on, I guess, all of them,
right?
So how do you still
manage to spend time
in some of the restaurants
and keep your influence there?
And do you find
that there is chefs
that tend to stay more in
the kitchen versus chefs
that expand?
How do you look at that?
DANIEL BOULUD: Well
we do a Google Hangout
with all the guys.
For example, I just came
back from Singapore.
I did a tour.
Hong Kong, Beijing, Singapore.
I have a restaurant in
Beijing and Singapore.
So I go there.
I taste new things there.
We do also special events
and we meet some media
and have a pow-wow
with the team.
But I have a
corporate management.
And the corporate
management-- so either right
now, our COO in Asia.
But then after
that following will
be a director of
operations who might go,
then maybe my corporate
chef, and I'm going back
in spring, I think,
or after spring.
And so I go about
twice a year there.
But every week we
have a conference call
via video, and video call.
And we have the team
there sitting down--
sommelier, manager, chef,
sous chef, pastry chef, maitre
d'hotel, and the key
people, management.
And we have also
the key management
of the corporate
group in New York.
And for one hour
they have a meeting
recapping on what they have
done that week in everything
in food, in wine, clients,
promotion, training, and all
that.
And then they get also some
new information from that,
from the headquarter.
But also we designed
a program where
we have all the menus, all
the recipes, into one program.
And every chef can
have access to that.
And so Singapore can inspire
himself from London chef.
And the chef from
London can look at what
the one in New York [INAUDIBLE]
what kind of new dish he did.
So it stays within
the DNA of Daniel.
And they have the freedom
to be able to also come up
with ideas themselves.
That's more or less
the way it works.
But now it's almost 1,400 people
so it's not as much as Google.
I think it's different.
I think the Bay Area-- I
mean you go from, of course,
north of Napa from Yountville
and even Sonoma to all the way
down to south of LA.
I think there is an amazing,
amazing collection of chefs.
And different styles, some
of them, different ambition.
Of course, I mean
in New York we have,
I think, our own style
of restaurants as well.
Here, I love
restaurants like Saison.
Last time I went to Benu.
I went to a state
bird provision.
It was fantastic.
I love his cooking also.
Great, great food.
Tastes well.
Fresh.
Great seasoning.
Not too esoteric.
I mean it really
tastes what it is.
And I think the talent
here is incredible.
It's incredible but it's a
little bit more free spirited
than maybe in New York where you
have French, you have Italian.
But the Italian restaurant I
went to, SPQR, last night--
it was fantastic also.
Great, great meal.
And, of course, I know Queens
also, the restaurant Queens,
for a long time.
And then there is La Folie.
There is Piperade,
the French chef.
Hubert Keller.
I love those restaurants.
But I'm not coming to see
the French because-- I
may have a drink
with them, but I
wanted to see what
the other chefs.
So I would like to go
to Koi and Manresa.
I missed it because
of the weekend.
And Menresa, as well,
who is really fantastic.
But there is a lot happening.
And what I'm looking forward
is to see the next generation
who are working now
with those young chefs
and what they're going
to do themselves next.
But there's definitely
a concern and a return
to tradition sometimes.
Like I see, for
example, at Saison.
It's doing a very
creative cooking
but they still have
this wood fire.
You need the fire
to cook as well,
to smoke, to flavor,
to cook, and I
think it's fantastic
to combine the two.
Thank you very much for
spending time with me here.
