How I Built This with Guy Raz - Celebrity Chef: José Andrés

Episode Date: November 14, 2016

As a kid, José Andrés tended fires for his father's backyard paella cookouts. Later, he trained with the best Spanish chefs, and began building a restaurant empire that would transform the way many Americans dine out. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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restaurant? Walking and I arrived very late. They were very upset with me. It took me like almost two hours to make it there. NPR, it's how I built this, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raz, and on today's show, how Jose Andres went from tending the fire at his father's cookouts to building a restaurant empire and eventually changing the way Americans eat out. So over the past 10 or 15 years, you might have noticed a trend at restaurants all across the U.S. where you get there and the waiter says, okay, here's how it works. Everybody orders one or two or three plates and you all share it family style and you get some octopus or some shrimp floating in olive oil and some lamb or whatever

and everybody eats it. Well, the person who might be most responsible for that trend is the Spanish celebrity chef, Jose Andres. He basically started the small plates movement in the U.S. And his company, Think Food Group, now has 25 restaurants, across the country in places like L.A., Miami, Vegas, and here in Washington, D.C. Anyway, Jose grew up in Barcelona, and even when he was a kid, he was fascinated with food. My father probably is the one that helped me to understand the meaning of being a cook. My father would always cook on Sundays for families, for friends, and he will make a big paella,

that traditional Spanish rice, and he will never let me cook. he will always put me in charge of making the fire. He will send me to the forest to pick up the wood. One day I got upset, Daddy, I want to cook. And he said, no, I need you in charge of the fire. It's very important. I got so upset with him, he sent me away. When the paella was finished and he fed everybody,

he got me on the side and told me, my son, I thought that you understood. I gave you the most important task. Cooking itself, it's easy. If somebody is controlling the fire, you want to be a great cook, be in charge of the fire, then you will be able to cook whatever you want in life. That was the big lesson. So you're a kid, and you decide this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to become a chef.

I was not very good at school. I had a very difficult time concentrating. And I went to cooking school. I never graduated. They gave me the diploma last year. almost 30 years later and I fell cooking, English

and accounting. You failed cooking, English, and accounting. Not a very good future. Great, yes. A good recipe for success. Yeah, that was amazing. And then I will always be working. For me, it was not working. For me, I was like a little kid in a kitchen. For me, it was like, if I was a little wizard

and I was, you know, in this castle, in this tower where the witch or the master wizard was there trying to teach me. I was that kind of a guy. I will spend every minute I could and I had three in any kitchen that there was in need of help. Where was this? This was in Barcelona at the time. And so wherever there was a kitchen, you would go and work. I will be there. So I was working in very high-end restaurants for lunch.

I was doing katerings for thousands of people at dinner, but always doing something. During summers, I was very lucky because I feel I always had somebody looking after me, thinking about what I should do next or taking care of me in trying to learn. So what was this man called Jose Butch? For some reason, I became like his child. He was a chef? He was an amazing chef, one of the best chefs in the special. He ran a restaurant called Reno, the restaurant of the aristocrats of Barcelona.

And he was the one always guiding me where to be. But then one summer, he sent me to Rosas, a tiny village of fishermen two hours north of Barcelona, very near France. And I went to work with a man called Ramon Klossas, a crazy man, a crazy chef that he will give you guidance by throwing. you a hat pen towards your head. That was the way of learning and the way of teaching. But I'm telling you that this town was very important for me because there is where I met Ferran Adria. And Faran Adria was the legendary chef at El Buii, which is, I guess, the place that sort of introduced molecular gastronomy. Yes. So how did you meet him? Did he just like walk into your restaurant? Yeah. He sat at the bar. He ordered gambas salajillo.

And he was already famous at that point or no, no, no. He was a 23-year-old kid. I was a kid, but he was a kid too. But already he had an aura around him of the guy that was pushing the envelope. The guy that live in this kind of little house up in the mountain where the restaurant was and where sometimes nobody show up, no one guest, no one customer. But he had an aura around him. And right there, right then is the moment that kind of I seal with him the deal of I'm going to your restaurant next year, to the restaurant that somehow almost over the last 30 years has set the bar of cooking and what's the future of gastronomy.

I mean, so you have this encounter, a chance encounter with Farron Adria and you basically figure out a way to work with a guy. And not just that, but the restaurant that becomes. the most important restaurant in the world. Yes. Wow. I mean, that is, that is luck. The way, but the way I see that was, I think lack only happens when you are actively moving and searching for what is next.

I think when you are at home saying, man, things are not happening to me. Sure. What are you doing at home? Go and walk. I don't care where. Start moving. Look for the horizon. I was looking for my horizon.

So what was it like to work at? at El Bully. In that restaurant, we began kind of rebelling to anything was coming from France. From France. Yeah. Not in a bad way. It was only like Ferran was very clear.

Like we cannot keep looking for inspiration going to France. We need to start looking inspiration within ourselves. And I feel I was in the beginning of the explosion. I was in the moment that something amazing was created. A new universe was being created.

I was there right when the explosion happened. Yeah. And it's something you don't realize until a few years later. What was it like to be in that kitchen in those early days? Was it just crazy? Was Ferran nice, kind? Was he tough? Was it – what was the atmosphere there?

Well, Ferran was all of the buff because things were happening in very quick moments. One moment, I remember I had a gelatin of almond milk. everybody knows that the gelatin is good when it's cold. If it's hot, it melts. I had a pot of hot oil. Ferran came towards the gelatin of almond, and he began looking at the oil. And I could see that he was thinking about dropping the almond milk into the hot oil.

All of the cooks in the kitchen, we were five at the time, we were quickly looking at each other. He's going to do it, he's going to do it. Why he's going to do it? This is going to be bad. Everybody knows if you put a hot gelatin in hot oil. It's going to melt and it's going to explode. Well, in that moment, the almond milk going into the hot oil exploded.

Twelve years later, he created the liquid croquetta that you will put in your mouth, will be like a traditional croquetta, the flavor of chicken, and will explode in your mouth. But that was the message of who Ferran Adria was. The message was, don't be afraid of trying and don't take things for granted. You have to experience and discover things in your own. If you follow the teachings before you, you are only following what somebody else has done before you. You need not only to read and learn the theory, you need to discover on your own. That's the moment of true learning.

So you're at El Bui, you're into the early 90s, and you move to the U.S. How did that happen? How did you end up coming to the U.S.? Well, in between working at El Bougi, I was in the military service. I had to do the military service. It's compulsory in Spain, right? You had to now, no, but in the old days, yes. Well, happens that I got my military service. They sent me to Cadiz in the south of Spain.

I had a great service in the Navy. I had my own apartment, cooking for the admiral, dancing flamenco and drinking Sherry and living the life of a young sailor. So I finished my military service and I was like, I guess I am without a job. I have no place to go back to. Then I call and make one phone call, one of my teachers. He tells me, it's a restaurant opening in New York, Jose. And they need somebody in three days.

Wow. I'm like, okay, three days, all right? I'm ready. What did you think of New York? Was it overwhelming to you? What did you think of it when you got there? Well, the arrival was very amazing because it looked like very strange place. This New York that you see in movies like was Gotham where the smoke is coming in a very cold night from every street.

So I had like 50 bucks in my pocket. I was going to 50th Street between Lexington and 3rd. And the driver dropped me in 193 between 8th and 3rd. So how did you get to the restaurant? Walking and walk in. I arrived very late. They were very upset with me.

It took me like I was two hours to make it there. Wow. What was the restaurant? The restaurant was called Paradise Barcelona. That was a chain. This was right before the Olympic Games of 1992 Barcelona. And every Spanish company and especially Catalan company, they all wanted to be in America.

And they wanted to be in New York. So you're working on this restaurant, and, I mean, did you like it? Is it interesting? No. So I arrived there very quickly. I realized that that's not the place. I was aiming for coming from El Bougi. So I told them I was leaving.

I get a phone call from Chicago, the great Richard Melman, one of the legendary restorators of America with hundreds of restaurants. I met him and he tells me, Jose, I don't know what you will do in life. But whatever you do, throw the anchor and belong. Learn to belong. In that moment, I received this phone call from Washington, D.C. I have these opportunities. I come to Washington, D.C. I met my partner. You mean these are your new partners?

Yes. And what do they want you to do? They were dreaming to open a seat. Spanish restaurant and I landed with the aim of opening Haleo around January 1993. Okay, now Jose, we should pause here and mention, because we're in D.C. And I've been here a long time. This is like 1993, 94. Like at that time, people did not really know what Spanish food was.

It wasn't common food in America. So how did you, like, how did you know that you could actually create a market? for that. Tappas are a way of life more than a type of food. Tappas in Spain, in Seville, you go with your friends in a bar, you don't sit, you are always standing up and you have one beer, one two snacks, and you move to the next one. Obviously, I cannot come to America and try to impose a way of life. What Haleo did that was very different from the Spanish cooking that was happening before, especially restaurants in Florida, in New York, with big Spanish populations. What we did was that we had a very long menu and where we were really telling people that sharing was the way forward.

When we come back in just a moment, Jose Andres with some advice about sharing plates, sharing a business, and sharing the title of chef. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR. It's How I Built This from NPR. Guy Raz. So it's the early 1990s and Jose Andres has opened a new tapas restaurant in Washington, D.C., his very first, and it's doing well. Except some of his diners don't really want to share their food. And I always gave this answer, which is very true. It's like, I do believe that forks and knives that were invented and created, not for eating, but they were invented to protect the plate from anybody take away your plate from you. Yeah. As we became more civilized, we began using forks and knives really to eat instead of protecting our territory.

But I always tell people that tapas versus no tapas is only 20 inches. Yeah. If you want to do tapas, you put the plate in the middle of the table, and people know that that's the signal to share. If you don't want to do tapas, people, move your plate 20 inches towards you, raise your fork, raise your knife, and everybody will know that you don't want to share. That was my simple solution to make sure that even those people not liking the sharing and will be comfortable in a place like a living. And at this point, you are still, I guess, in your early 20s.

So how did you handle being the head chef? When I opened, I learned that I was ill-prepared to be the head chef. Think about it. I'm barely, I'm 23. I work in very high in restaurants where we don't do necessarily volume. and we aim for quality and precision. Yeah. And all of the sudden, I'm coming to open this tapas, Spanish restaurant,

when I really never manage a very big kitchen. Again, very young, but with a lot of hours of experience in different environments, different restaurants, different people, all those things kind of without me realizing. My time in New York, prepare me. for very much believing that anything was possible. Everything can be possible. I mean, it's amazing because that restaurant, Haleo, is so associated with you, right?

And this concept of, like, small plates. But it was these partners who had the vision of creating it, and now you have 25 restaurants, and somehow you guys are all still together, right? Yeah, well, everything has advanced and changed a lot over the years. But, like, you're still with the same people. You didn't, like, fall apart

and, like, have ego-fighting. and kill each other. No, no, no. We had fights. We had exchange abuse, exchange of opinions. I imagine for them, I was a very young kid when I came, and much of what I have, I own it to them. And this is the message I sent to many,

not only chefs and restaurant people, but any business people. It is good that you are able to very early on in your life, to surround yourself with people you want to be with for many years ahead. not only for family, not only for friendship, but also for business. And if you can mix the three,

it's even more wonderful. This is a very powerful tool. And that's why I always tell people, don't think that the loan, you can do more. Together, you can conquer the world. I mean, given that you're running a major company now

with hundreds of employees, do you get to log as many hours or spend as much time in the kitchen or in the creative side of really building up interesting menus, or do you kind of have to let go a little bit and let other people come up with that stuff? I spend a lot of my, what I will call brain time, thinking and creating. I cook at all hours in my free time and in my non-free time. Cooking is why I really enjoy. I see myself very much like orchestra director. He doesn't.

play any instrument, but he's able to produce beautiful music. But you know one thing, I'm very lucky that they have chefs, sous chefs, GMs, managers, O'Malleyors, that many of them, they are as talented, if no more talented, that I am. And what I have that always worked very well is in my thin food group, we have what we call the Think Food Tank. That's my creative arm. And for me, creating that arm of 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 individuals that the only thing they do is thinking, creating, and maintaining quality is a very powerful research and development tool. And I use it a lot. My team travels with me a lot. We always go to far away countries.

We are always getting inspired because if you want to get inspired, you have to be on the move. When you put together this very big menu at Haleo and you created this. sort of small plates system there. Was there also any consideration of how the economics of that would work? Because presumably you would be selling more plates of food, right? So presumably it could help. Did it help the restaurant meet its bottom line and beyond? Yeah.

At the end, it's a business like any other. I can tell you, you were harder when you have to put out 3,000 small plates in one service. than 1,000 big plates. It's more work. So sometimes, believe me, I'm like, I'm tired of small plates. I'm going to be sending the super big ones. Just a giant steak and potatoes. But at the end, it's like any other business.

Listen, at the end, even it's people that will tell me, Jose, I don't want small plates, but then they go to a sushi restaurant. What is a sushi restaurant? It's one small piece at the time. It's people that complain about the small plates, and they go to Greek restaurants. they give you small balls of humus, of satsiki, of Baba Ganoosh. At the end, it's very funny that today, when we have people complaining about certain things,

they're doing those things. They need to be thinking what's on their plate. Because today, the way we eat is an amazing form of democracy. Because by what you eat, you are boring about the things you think should be not only on your plate, but in the plates of many others. So we all need to start thinking that you can vote with your plate. A plate is an amazing form of democracy. If you are a young chef or a young businessman or woman trying to get into the food industry today,

what advice would you give to a 22-year-old Jose Andres today? Well, the biggest advice is I wish I finish high school. I wish I finished university. I have a 17-year-old daughter, Carlotta, and we're going through the process and kind of seems she's a green. We're going into, she's going to do business because you can be anything you want and you will always work for yourself. I don't care if you want to be painting in the middle of the streets of Washington, D.C. I don't care if you want to be singing with a rose in Fifth Avenue. I don't care what's the crazy business you want to be part of.

Make sure that you have the business background. Business is something I wish I learned when I was 15th. I had 30 years of the school of life. Now I think I'm going to be putting these next 30 years in putting into practice everything I learned over the last 30. You have like 25 restaurants. You've been on TV. You've got cookbooks. You're like a major celebrity chef, right?

Yeah. But when you were a teenager in Spain, just like learning to cook, did you imagine you could ever get to this point? I don't think I ever train more than making sure that the next plate I put forward in front of somebody is the best it can be. Quite frankly, I always say I don't open restaurants. I tell stories. Sometimes I wish that I only had one restaurant and only one, and I will be there every day and every hour, but I know that I will be so bored. So I created a company around me that will fulfill my personal needs. But to this day, I still consider myself that I am only as good as the last plate I serve.

even if you do radio, you do the radio show once, you hope it's good, you fix it, but the radio show is going to be there forever and ever, for anybody to listen to it. But food is very ephemeral. You get one chance. It disappears. Yeah. So this is how hard my profession is. You only have one chance to make it.

Jose Andres is a chef and the co-founder of Think Food Group. By the way, you should try his gazpacho. It's pretty easy to make. Just get some fresh tomato. cucumber, green pepper, a little sherry vinegar, olive oil, and garlic. Throw it all into a blender. And that's it. Delicious.

Hey, thanks for listening to the show this week. If you want to find out more or listen to previous episodes, you can go to how I built this. NPR.org. And if you have a chance, please subscribe to our show through iTunes and let other people know about it. You can also write us directly at hibt at npr.org or tweet us that's at How I Built This. Our show is produced this week by Rumteen Arablewe. who also composed the music. Thanks also to Neva Grant, Sanaz Meshkampur, and Jeff Rogers.

I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This from NPR. You still with us? Okay, great, because we are now at the part of the show where we talk about your stories, and this one came to us from Dennis Darnell. You know, when I used to get home, you'd come in the house, and there'd be that one fly flying around. You'd have no idea how it got in there,

but it's flying around, it's bugging you. I think we can all relate to that problem. Anyway, one summer day, in San Diego where Dennis lives. He and his wife, Joy Lynn, were sitting in the kitchen and they were watching a fly buzz all around. We sat there and watched it trying to get into the garbage can. And one of us said, why don't we drill a hole in the lid and let it in?

But put a trap on the underside of the lid. And that is how the garbage can fly trap was born. Flies, of course, love garbage. So Dennis designed this trap where you drill a hole in the lid of your garbage can and then you pop in this little plastic doorway for the fly. But there's also a second part, which is the cartridge, which is lined with fly paper. And so while the fly thinks it's going down into the garbage can, it actually walks into the disposable cartridge and becomes stuck.

And once the cartridge gets full with like, you know, 100 flies, you don't have to look at them or touch anything sticky or gross instead. You just push the button on the lid and the cartridge falls into the garbage can. Dennis and Joy Lynn have filed three patents for this flytrap, and they sold them on their website and at Ace Hardware stores in San Diego. And just last week, we reached out to Ace Hardware headquarters as well as Home Depot. For now, though, they're keeping their day jobs and enjoying the fact that their kitchen is pretty much fly-free. Hey, if you want to tell us about the company or idea that you are building, go to build.npr.org. That's build.npr.npr.org.

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