The End of King Chef

For too many years chefs have ruled the roost in restaurants across the world. They were and some still are kings of the kitchen. However thanks to the different movements as well as the pandemic it's all changing. Will they be seen as they were fifty and sixty years ago? Probably.

Tejal Rao wrote about this interesting subject and facet of the culinary world in today's New York Times Food section. Celebrity chefs have been around for the past forty years, starting with Wolfgang Puck. Before that chefs were
 nothing more than work horses in the kitchen, not receiving any recognition. The profession was seen as unglamorous. They weren't a brand or a visionary. One or two may have been exceptions to the rules but those were few and far between. The Seventies kicked off the shift. It was Chef Puck who really started this movement. He had a reputation for innovation as he went from head chef at the famed Ma Maison to his own, Spago. Other chefs followed in the bad boy manner. One of the first was Marco Pierre White,a British known for his rock star good looks and an enfant terrible. In his book White Heat, published in 1990 he wrote about putting cooks inside trash cans to punish them along with other forms of intimidation.Anthony Bourdain was famous for bringing the plight of undocumented workers but also was impossibly demanding to his staff too.

Then there is the famed chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten who locked his long time dishwasher "Sam" in the restaurant's freezer and pummeled him. The reason? "Sam" took a forty-five minute break while there was a critic in the house. Chef Vongerichten was stuck doing his dishwashing. Mario Batali, the chef who wound up on several cooking shows and in a business partnership with Joe Bastianich, son of the famed chef Lydia Bastianich is also guilty of bad boy behavior , He famously sexually harassed several women, thanks to his name and power. The tide is changing thanks to the pandemic exposing the fragility and inequality of the business. Thanks to the #MeToo movement as well as Black Live Matters, women and people of color are being recognized and heard. The white male hierarchy is crumbling. Workers are unionizing at such popular places as Voodoo Doughnuts and San Francisco's Tartine. Chefs are starting to see their workers as teams. At Somni in Beverly Hills , the chef Aitor Zabala printed a menu that credited everyone. The pastry chef, Ivonne Cerdas received as much recognition as the porters Josue Rodriguez and Mario Alarcon. This may be the wave of the future.

The restaurant hierarchy will be abolished soon enough, Chefs won't be the king of the culinary castle. They'll be part of a hardworking team , responsible for running a well oiled eatery.

The Last Great Restauranteur Drew Nieporent.

Drew Nieporent is one of the one of the last great restauranteurs. His kind is not seen that often anymore , sort of being a culinary dinosaur of sorts. Yet he was and still is a strong presence on the Manhattan restaurant scene for four decades. As long as there's a trendy eatery to oversee, he's there.

He was the subject of a fascinating interview and article in yesterday's New York Times Food section written by Alan Richman .Drew Nieporent is an interesting throwback to the Sixties when larger than life hosts/owners greeted and seated customers. Mind you, this is the era before celebrity chefs like Bobby Flay and Mario Batale ruled the roost.  The era brought such stars as Sirio Maccioni  of Le Cirque, Joe Baum,of both the Twelve Caesars and The Four Seasons and Georges Lang of the famed Cafe Des Artistes. They shone more than than their cooks did , as . Nieporent does now with his own. His father is to thank for this love. The elder Neiporent worked for the New York State Liquor Authority where there were endless invitations to eat free from restaurant  owners looking for easy ways to maneuver through bureaucratic channels. As a child, Nieporent dined at the fancy San Marino where his mother properly taught to twirl spaghetti on a spoon and ate egg  rolls and sweet and sour pork at China Song., right next to the Ed Sullivan Theater. He ate there the night the Beatles first appeared on Ed Sullivan's show.

It was inevitable that . Nieporent went into the hospitality industry, graduating from Cornell School of Hotel Administration and worked on the cruise ships, Vistafjord and Sagafjord during his summer vacations.His first jobs were at the prestigious Le Perigord, Le Regence, La Grenouille and La Reserve. He also worked as assistant restaurant director at  the famed Maxwell's Plum, owned by one of the greatest restauranteurs, Warner Leroy.   Later he would hire the now famous David Bouley, who was then a little known chef from San Francisco. He was also responsible for bringing eateries to the then industrial wasteland, Tribeca. This was back in 1983 when no one really ventured south of Broadway. He'd have to  find customers who called saying they were lost on their way to the restaurant, scared to even venture into the dark deserted streets. .He Is credited with inventing the 
inexpensive prix fixe dinner for $16.00 at Montrachet. He is also partners with Robert Di Niro and is currently a partner in five (! ) restaurants right now (he's owned over forty for forty years)that include the trendy Nobu and Tribeca Grill.

Drew Nieporent is ne of the last of his  breed, yet he is as influential now as he was back forty years ago. He is responsible for what Manhattan eats and the food trends that touch our lives. He is the heartbeat behind the city's dining scene