12 Questions For Gabriel Kreuther
Thursday, May 18, 2006
![He lost the 2006 James Beard medal to Dan Barber, but that just give Gabriel Kreuther more cult status. The Modern restaurant chef certainly has enough accolades: he was one of the Food and Wine’s 10 Best Chefs in 2003, and New York Magazine’s Rising Star chef. In real life, Kreuther is unassuming and affable with the kind of quiet demeanor that bespoke the purist sensibility of his food. I caught up with Gabriel at Modern one sunny afternoon.
YY: New York Magazine called you “the next Jean George” and Food and Wine described your food as “elegant and slightly subversive” How do you feel about that?
GK: That’s just what some people write, when you read something nice, it makes you feel flattered and when it’s something bad, you try not to pay too much attention to it and keep on doing what you are doing.
YY: Does that mean that you don’t let the critics affect the way you cook?
GK: It’s just someone’s opinion. You have to be objective about it, and see if it’s valid, Sometimes they are right and sometimes it’s a personal preference, then you just have to keep focused and keep on going.
YY.The common impression of Alsatian food is that it’s very rustic and very earthy, and very different from what your food is about. How do you reconcile the two?
GK: The traditional Alsatian food is very heavy and it’s for the farmers. It’s very different from what people like here. I’ve been here for 10 years and people here are eating lighter and lighter each year. But, we always go back to our childhood memories, so I modify it to my client’s taste.
YY: Do you think people are eating lighter and lighter? There are days when all I want is that lobster in 20 pounds of butter.
GK: Well, for a special occasion… yes… people may go over their limits. It’s perhaps something cultural too. In Europe, people eat out once in a while so eating out becomes a special occasion. In New York you have businessmen who eat out four or five times a week and they cannot eat like that all the time.
YY: Speaking of cultural things, do you agree that there is no such thing as a Michelin three star restaurant in New York?
GK: The real Michelin restaurants in Europe is something like a museum. To create that here is very expensive. First, you need a large space, then you need the staff. To have a restaurant like that is very expensive, and no one here will throw money at a restaurant just to have a museum around. It’s expensive for the customers too. You can go out here and have a good meal for around $120. In Europe, it would be $200 to $300. It’s also difficult (for these places) to make money. In Europe, these people are crying because they are not making any money.
you can’t really have fun in those places. I think, It’s okay to go to a restaurant and if the waiter brings you a squab or a pheasant; to pick it up with your hands and put it in your mouth. It’s a whole sensory experience. You don’t want to feel conscious because there are 20 waiters watching you.
Sometimes, it can be better, like you get to keep the table all night if you like.
[I reminded him that most New Yorkers don’t want to eat all night]
That’s why you need good servers who can sense things. They know if you come in and you are pre-theater, or they know you want to stick around and enjoy your meal. In a way it’s good here in New York, you can eat in an hour and still get really good food. I think the way we eat will change still. but, Europe is beginning to catch up too. For the longest time, they do things that way because that was how things are done.
YY: Since you’ve been here for 10 years, does being in New York change the way you cook?
GK: You always have to adopt to what you have. Over the past ten years, The quality of the produce has been getting better and better because the people here have started to support the local farmers. It’s also great to cook in this city because there are so many different cultures in one place and everyone has something interesting to offer.
YY: How do you go about creating a menu item?
GK: A dish goes through many variations before we put it on the menu. Sometimes you think about an ingredient, and it stays with you for a while until you find something to do with it. You might make it a few different ways until you are happy with it. I usually give it to a few regular customers who I trust and ask them what they think. It’s always good to get objective opinions. Sometimes, their feedback is based on personal preferences and you have to work with that. You want the kind of person that can say this is good, but it’s not my thing. Obviously, you are not going to give mushrooms to a person who doesn’t like mushrooms.
YY: What do you think of that whole molecular gastronomy or scientific cuisine?
GK: whenever there is a movement, people jump on it, then there is a push back-sort of like what happened with nouvelle cuisine when people first learned about it. I think there is a lot of good that came out of these new techniques that make food better, but I also think that some people take it too far that it loses its soul. It’s the kind of food that people eat and experience and then may be they will want to eat it three months later. It’s not the kind of food you can eat everyday. May be, if it came from those who created it in the first place, it would be very good because it came from the heart and not like a lot of people that just imitate a movement. But, I’m glad that it’s out there.
YY: I heard a rumour that you like pastrami sandwich.
GK: I have a pastrami sandwich about three or four times a year. When you work in a restaurant and you can eat all the lobster and foie gras that you want all day, every day, that becomes not so special anymore. You start to want something different. Something simpler.
YY: What’s it like cooking for Lufthansa?
GK: They have this program that features a chef for two months in their business and first class service. They send five people over, and you teach them everything they need to know to replicate the menu. Then they go back and make the food. Two months later, they fly you over and make a presentation, and you make some adjustments. They try it again and another two months later, they fly you over again, and make the final presentation. I had what they served and I think the results are quite good.
YY: That must be interesting designing a menu with the limitations of an aircraft.
GK: Obviously, there are somethings you can’t serve like sashimi or raw tuna, you can’t get the ingredients anyway, but something like pot roast can be made quite nicely. It’s like cooking for a party, you have to think about the food you can serve, You just don’t make tempura for a party.
YY: How does your food from Atelier compare to Modern?
GK: There is more freedom here than at Atelier because when you work in a hotel, you always have to cater to the hotel. Here, there is more freedom to do what I want. I am lucky because I have a team of people who wants to be here. I want them to learn and to have fun. It’s hard to work in a restaurant 12-14 hours without wanting top be there and to have some fun.
YY: They must enjoy learning from you.
GK: The way I teach my cooks is to encourage them to ask why. People are taught 100 ways to do something. If you explain why they need to do it this way, they understand it and make it their habit.
YY: Gordon Ramsay may disagree.
GK: I heard he’s coming to New York. But, if he behaves the way he does on TV, he’ll spend all his time in court. May be, he’s really not that way, and it is just to get people to watch him. I don’t believe training cooks that way. People do that 100 years ago and it’s not the way it’s done now.
YY: What are your inspirations and challenges?
GK: The one thing about my job is that every day is a different day. It’s not like the sculpture from Picasso that once you do it, it’s done. Everyday is a new day and everyday is a different challenge. What has happened in the past, is done and you cannot look back. You can only look forward and that is what’s exciting.
We walked out into the dining room at Modern. “It’s late afternoon, and people are still eating,” Kreuther observed serenely. “It’s nice right?”
Modern
9 west 53rd Street
212-333-1220
Watch out for upcoming pod cast with Gabriel Kreuther at www.offthebroiler.com](6B9F2ED0-4649-4D42-9C9A-F7AF6E353C31_files/shapeimage_1.png)
