The great mystery to me is how restaurant critics think they can get away with doing their job without anybody noticing who they are.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I always tell people that they are really the critics. If people come three times a week to your restaurant they are the ones who find something they really love.
Especially in the food business, critics take very seriously how much power they have. They can shut a restaurant down.
You have to think of a restaurant as a series of impressions. But what makes my job so great is there's no one answer that's right for every restaurant.
I don't run restaurants that are out of control. We are about establishing phenomenal footholdings with talent.
I hate to say 'chain restaurant,' but we're sort of a corporation now. How do we defy that concept, where people assume each restaurant can't be good?
People complain that chefs aren't at their restaurants anymore, but I don't think that's the case at all. You see them on TV and you assume they're not working but they are.
A great restaurant doesn't distinguish itself by how few mistakes it makes but by how well they handle those mistakes.
The restaurant business is something that you have to treat like a baby. You have to constantly be there. You can't trust it to anybody else, because no one's going to love it like you do.
I don't care what a lot of anonymous strangers think about restaurants.
No one knows restaurants like a New Yorker - they're incredibly discerning and restaurant savvy.