The Chef Who Conquered New York: Serving Up Paul Liebrandt Storyville

This programme contains some strong language.

One, two, look at me. One more like that.

Just looking at it, that's great. Fixing his ears too, that's great.

This is bound to attract the investors.

I want to open a serious restaurant

and they see photographs like this, no way.

The guy's a nutcase.

I'm not a nutcase, I'm just an artist.

Paul Liebrandt is such an innovator

and he's on the cutting edge of a lot of things that people want to do

but they're a little bit afraid of trying them, I think.

It's true of almost all the food he makes that if you simply describe it

with a straight face it sounds like a put-on,

but if you're in the restaurant and you're eating it

and thinking about it and you're actually seeing

the relationship between the flavours, it's often inspired food.

You don't know if it's good or bad because you've never had

anything like it before so you can't really establish a rating.

You know if you like it or if you don't like it

but you don't know if it's a good interpretation or bad,

it's the first time it's been done.

It takes one person to put it out there. Somebody's got to go first.

Yeah, I ate his food. I have no comment.

One of the great joke dishes for people who wanted

to make fun of Paul Liebrandt was his signature amuse bouche

which was a little ball of wasabi apple sorbet

with some Maldon salt sprinkled over it

and then a waiter would come with a dainty little precious teapot thing

and he would pour olive oil over the sorbet.

Now, it sounds precious and ridiculous

but almost everybody who ate that little morsel

thought it was the best thing they'd ever tasted.

I usually take the common sense view that if it tastes good,

it's worth pursuing and try to figure out why this is good

and what the chef is up to.

Hello!

My name is Paul Liebrandt.

I'm a chef, that's my occupation. I cook.

This is a powder of Fisherman's Friend.

It just cleans the whole mouth out.

It's a little extra thing, it's just nice to cleanse it out

so it gives some time in between courses as well.

See, plate's clean.

Always a good thing.

Two of the pumpkin sorbet.

I'm at Papillon just as a sort of fill-in place,

just in between finding the right set-up.

A chef that doesn't cook is a very miserable chef.

I don't want to go down that path.

Right now in New York after September 11th,

restaurants are closing every day but as the months go on,

people will start to come out again and the opportunities,

because people will get fed up with the whole comfort food.

That's what everybody's doing right now.

Not so creative, simpler food.

In times of crisis, people want stuff they can relate to.

They don't want artistic stuff.

Yeah.

The most important thing is I can still cook the food I want

so when it does come time, touch wood, to have that set up,

whether it be in six months or a year,

people know who you are still. They haven't forgotten about you.

You build a clientele of the people who are going to come in

and eat the food.

I don't know why a place like that

would hire someone like Paul Liebrandt

but there he was, totally out of context.

Smash the crumble all over the top there like that.

-What are you doing?

-Sorry, I'm sorry.

This is actually the blood from the duck.

A damn good flavour.

I'm touched, I'm touched. Thank you.

Thank you.

It's the Relais & Chateaux Guide.

The most prestigious guide in the world.

I could be in the guide like that, what do you think? Like that.

One day. Jean-Georges.

Definitely not for me.

He's doing something with food

that you really didn't see get done before.

There's a few chefs, I know of a few others around the planet

who are kind of on the same...

Deconstructive, like Duchamp did to art,

what happened to music with atonality and serial music.

It went from these octaves to 12 tones -

well, that didn't happen in food at all.

Paul's kind of doing something that's on the edge.

You're one of these guys that's taking what had been this traditional

dogmatic, recipe driven stuff and reconstructing it.

Taking it apart and putting it back together again.

This is new for food. Where did you get this idea?

-Where did this come from?

-The guys I trained with back in Europe.

Talk about that because your resume's impressive as hell.

I worked with some very good people back in Europe

like three-star Michelin restaurants, but very traditional.

Very classical, obviously a very high standard

but the same, the same.

Most places were doing the same stuff.

I worked with a gentleman called Pierre Gagnaire in Paris

and this was the guy that really broke the mould for me

and got me thinking on a different way.

What I try to do is you have your base,

your traditional dish, or whatever.

Your flavour combinations that you know work and twist them.

Tweak them. Take something out,

put something that you wouldn't normally associate in.

Doesn't taste so bad, does it?

So what made you think of clam and pig cheek?

Well, something like pig cheeks, brazed piece of meat,

obviously as you can see, I wanted something very astringent

to go with it to cut that brazed heaviness of it.

I used to do pig cheek and caviar which was really, really nice.

Caviar's a bit expensive and we're on a budget here so I thought,

what can I use which has got a nice astringent flavour? Clams.

They're pretty cheap.

This is the pumpkin curry sauce.

It's very simple.

It's very, very simple, simple, simple.

When you have flavour combinations that are not your everyday idea

of how you perceive it should be, that throws people off.

This is a jelly of pink grapefruit.

Over the top. Thank you very much.

My place is here in the kitchen with the guys.

You'd be surprised how many big chefs

are never in their kitchen, ever.

They come in, they whatever and that's it.

Believe me, I know, I've worked for a few.

They don't actually... Not even in there, let alone cook.

They're just not here, you know?

At Papillon, I gave him two stars which is really

the upper limit that a dump like that can hope for.

There's some inspired cooking going on there, just strange stuff.

Paul knew, coming on here, that he was probably going

to go to two stars without a doubt, because of the room.

For us to get to stars was absolutely amazing

when you look at the reviews that Grimes has given out

since that, like the Ritz-Carlton has gotten two stars.

How long? Hey, Joel!

Garniture, s'il vous plait.

Come on, Lee, where are you? Let's go.

'I was born in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.

'I was raised in London, England. I didn't really have a family life.

'I have no brothers or sisters,'

no other family living in England.

It was very lonely childhood, that's the truth. Very lonely.

My mum and dad divorced when I was very young,

I went to boarding school from seven, where the food can best

be described as, if you could imagine yourself

in Siberia in a Gulag.

It's when they still had the cane.

-Come on, Chris, put some effort into it, please.

-It's a small ladle.

"Oh, it's a small ladle." Blame the ladle, Chris, that's it.

A good carpenter does what?

Blames everyone else but himself.

'There was no food culture for me. I had no food culture

'in my family, no-one's ever cooked professionally for living.'

I didn't grow up podding peas at my mother's feet, no. Not at all.

This, we're braising the fish in oil.

It's wrapped very tightly, and it's what the French call sous-vide.

It's like, absolutely... There's no oil touching the fish,

but this is 51 degrees centigrade right now.

You can feel, it's absolutely soft as hell.

And if we just let it sit, and we cook them very, very slowly,

braise them, and the idea is that it keeps it one texture

throughout the whole fish, it doesn't dry out.

And you put your fork into it and it just melts.

Absolutely tender.

Unwrap the fish, please.

'My father wanted me to go into the military, but I like to cook.

'What can I say?

'Some people just have a natural affinity with something,

'they enjoy something more than other things, you know?

'I never wanted a regular nine-to-five kind of, you know, sit in an office,

'or work a record store, or some shit like that.

'I never wanted that.

'I like the buzz, I like the excitement of the kitchen.

'And I worked at L'Escargot restaurant in London,

'and I looked at the food, and I'm like,'

"That's what I want to do."

I remember buying Marco Pierre White's White Heat

when I was still at school, and looking at the food,

and the beauty of those plates and the pictures that were captured

which still holds up today, it's just like,

"That is what I want to be."

'I guess you could have said, when it comes to cooking,

'I went into the culinary equivalent of the Special Forces.'

With the poularde, Tom.

'Kitchens are run military precision,

'and to get the standards it's the only way to do it.'

Make sure when you come down, you come down on it dead straight.

Make sure this is evenly dispersed, yeah?

Dip it in, just glaze it, and cut that in half. OK?

Right.

And Friday night is not a good night. Not a good night at all.

It's going to be very busy,

you're not going to see the true stuff, and it's more...

People order the more safe things.

So... Exactly.

You want to be here in the week when the foodies come in, and we get

to play around with some good stuff, you'll see what the real stuff is.

That's nice. Avid fans, calling me up.

She's like, "Phenomenal. Are you single?"

I'm like, "Sorry, I'm married to my kitchen."

15 people.

That's pretty bad.

But it is Tuesday, so...

Well, I came in at an unfortunate time, economically.

We got rave reviews for the food, but unfortunately it's become

so hard in summer,

and not economically viable to keep doing what we're doing.

We decided to run this as a neighbourhood-friendly

restaurant, whereby anyone walking in the street can now

look at the menu, sit down and see something they can have.

'Not everybody's going to go out and spend 48,

'or usually about 70 a head on food every day of the week.

'And, at the same time,

'we didn't have a bar menu that was capable of suiting the bar people.

'If they wanted a plate of fries, we couldn't give it them,'

cos the chefs weren't into cooking fries, they were

doing such high-end, high-quality food.

Understandable, in my opinion, hence the executive decision.

As hamburgers go, that's a pretty fucking good hamburger.

It's quarter past seven.

I'm going to do a French fry tasting forum.

We're going to line up seven different types of French fry,

with different salts and peppers,

and they can decide which one they like the best.

Touche.

The French fry tasting.

-Do you think a lot of people appreciate gastronomic food?

-No.

Not really. You need the style of restaurant for it, you know?

And, you know, this restaurant

for what they want to do right now,

it suits it, but for me, obviously, it's tough, you know?

With all the hard work I've put in here,

to see it all just being thrown away.

Still, it's not my restaurant, you know?

It's not my decision, so I accept it.

And now we enter the land of the French fry.

I never get lucky, ever.

That's my problem. I'm too nice.

I'm a nice guy. I get to the friend zone, and not the end zone.

We don't get everything in life.

'In this business, it's very hard to have a relationship.

'It's very hard to meet people,

'because it does take up a lot of hours.

'I'm on my own here.

'No family, not really any friends, because I work so much.'

I think, for me socially, it's difficult to kind of...

Not talking,

but sort of that initial talking to someone that you like,

or whatever, you think may be possible girlfriend material, whatever.

You're talking, but then once you get that initial sort of

"What's your name? Where do you live?" That kind of thing, you kind of like...

It's not that I'm a boring person, or anything, it's just that maybe...

I don't know.

I get shy, or I'm sort of like, "Errr..."

Errr...

So, best of luck, Paul.

Merci. Thank you very much.

THEY LAUGH

'It's my last night at Papillon.

'Time to move on to bigger and better things.

'Now it's time to get back into serious cooking

'at a real restaurant,'

cos you can't stay doing this sort of thing for ever.

You know?

It's making your brain go to jelly, it really is.

It was what we expected, really. We didn't expect him to stay here.

There's not much he can show us doing, you know,

burger and chips and things.

This is exciting, isn't it?

What I like to think of myself as is a culinary mercenary,

on hire to the highest bidder.

And there's no cabs.

And also bueno, yeah?

You need to loosen it, it's too thick, OK?

-What the fuck is in this?

-Pralines, lemons, peppers.

A little more lemon juice. More lemon juice.

-A little drop of soya in there, yeah?

-Right.

-Yeah?

Since Papillon, life has been...

Up and down, difficult, you know?

New York City, as we know,

has been going through a very unique time in its history,

our post-9/11 economy etc.

I opened up my own business for consulting.

Other things as well.

I was consulting for a marshmallow company,

doing gourmet marshmallows, which was fun, actually.

So a lot of stuff like that.

But it does...

That's not what I want to do.

'I've been looking for the right thing.

'I've been looking for the right position, and I've had

'many offers, but this felt like the best one for me,

'for what I need, so.'

That's what I'm doing now, in December of '05,

is getting back on track to what I wanted to do.

And I hope, I really hope that I can.

I've been brought on board here to be the chef director

of this restaurant, called Gilt,

it's the old Le Cirque 2000 space,

which was a very famous restaurant in the New York Palace Hotel.

It's a challenge, I'll say that,

dealing with hotel people and non-restaurateurs.

It's a whole 'nother can of worms I've never opened up before

but we're opening up now.

So OK, lunch menu, let's give them one madeleine,

one of these guys, porcini marshmallow,

we'll give them a little oyster, one oyster, with a lemon foam.

A whole block of cream cheese.

I'm sorry, I think it tastes like cream cheese.

I'm not knocking it, I'm just saying for me,

-it tastes like Philadelphia.

-It's not there yet.

-I know it's not.

This is a great opportunity, a great stage.

My guys are pulling 18 hours a day, I'm pulling 20 hours a day,

we're doing about seven days a week for the past month and a half.

I'm going to make sure we get it this time round.

Is the butter ready?

Is the salt on the butter?

-Butter is coming.

-OK, let's get everybody on the line.

First tables are in.

How are we doing this evening?

'When I come up with the idea it's not solely the cooking of the food,

'plop it on the plate, it tastes really good -

'the taste comes to do with the cerebral part of it,

'I'm thinking of, what story am I telling here?

'What emotion am I trying to stimulate?

'I try to bring out the emotions of wonderment and discovery,

'it's not just a beautifully cooked piece of fish.

'Lots of people can cook a nice piece of fish -

'what else am I doing with this?

'And I don't mean obscuring it where you don't know it's a piece of fish,

'but the emotion with the side dish over here,

'and the texture of something that we put on the plate here,

'and maybe the shades of the colours on the plate,

'whatever it is, the whole package,

'it's the whole sensory experience of eating the food.'

This is the uni. Take that.

And then walk away with this. OK, ready?

Is this all going together?

In my opinion, Gilt was light years from where he had been before.

It was more, um,

more based in traditional technique,

in traditional flavours, but still with wonderful surprises

and new flavour compositions, and the execution became even better.

It was a cuisine now that was really expressing a personality,

not so much - I don't want to say a rebellion,

but it was expressing his personality and his mature points of view.

The portions are a little larger than we would normally do,

but that's because it's for our beloved GM.

They said to me this was my restaurant, I can do what I want.

Since me coming here, everything has been, "We want it like this",

and it's walking around feeling like your balls are on a chopping block,

you never know when they're going to come and say, "That tasting menu thing, we don't want it."

And "We want this" - that's basically what it is.

So you either say yes and you do it or you leave.

And there really isn't any other serious options

on the table right now.

I've waited so long for something like this,

just to have it turn out like this,

I've got to figure that there's, you know...

There's someone up there, having a laugh, basically.

Playing a joke. I mean, it's just...

There are people who want to invest in shares, want them to open restaurants,

who are not necessarily in the restaurant business.

It's difficult to have somebody be your partner

who doesn't understand the industry.

You're building a craft -

you're building a business, but it's also a brand and a craft

and an art that's being worked on,

if I'd had an investor that looked at the bottom line all the time,

the Fat Duck would have lasted... it would have lasted a year.

He'd have either be the pulled the plug or what would have happened is,

"You can't serve that, people aren't eating that, how many of those have we sold this month?

"You can't buy that, what's the point of that? Ridiculous. Too many staff."

"But I need this bloke!" "I don't care, too many staff."

It would have absolutely strangled the restaurant.

The Times has a four star system which is really a little bit

more than four stars because there is zero stars,

and there are actually gradations of zero stars. To start down there,

you can give a restaurant no stars,

with the one-word descriptor "poor", "fair" or "satisfactory".

Then one star has always been defined as "good",

two stars "very good",

three stars "excellent", and four stars "extraordinary".

-Melon.

-Melon sous-vide and then olive consomme.

Green olive?

Mm. Nice.

'It was at that time probably the most ambitious restaurant in the city.'

Four stars would have been a home run.

I think three stars would have been the least they expected.

For me, the difference between three and four stars or between two and three stars for that matter

is the measure of enthusiasm you feel for the restaurant,

the intensity of the joy of being there,

and how much you'd like to come back. All refracted through price.

I mean, if I was having the time of my life at a restaurant

and it was costing me 5,000 just for me, I'd probably have to be

experiencing sexual ecstasy at the same time for 45 minutes on end

for me to understand why I was paying 5,000 for that.

But within the bounds of reasonable, understandable prices,

you're really just rating

the scope of the accomplishment of the restaurant

and the intensity of the pleasure you feel.

There were dishes in which it seemed that the number of

layers, for lack of a better word, the number of ingredients,

was always a little bit too high, was always a bit tilted

in the direction of, "Let me show you just how much I can pull off,

"let me show you just how much I can fold, origami-like, into this dish."

You know, there's steak houses, there's bistros

that get two stars, for doing nothing, for slinging hash.

Grimes was completely different to Bruni.

Grimes liked this, he liked the elegance,

he liked that French style, he liked

the formality of getting dressed to go to dinner and have an experience.

Bruni - you read in his reviews, he likes neighbourhood,

smaller, um, very down-scale,

nothing too formal, that's what he likes.

OK. Chicken.

That big enough? There you go.

Can we talk in about half-an-hour, please?

Thanks very much. Bye-bye.

-Sorry about that.

-Who was that?

That's for a photo-shoot for BizBash.

They're doing an article about something or other.

Look, this is the dichotomy of my life.

Vogue magazine does three-page spreads on me

and all the rest of it, and yet I am unemployed.

I'm still pretty young, but still, you know, at this age,

I should be a little more stable right now.

All right, let's just do the first one, the tonic elderflower pearl.

Or amoeba. Or however you like to call it.

This is a process called spherification, which is in the presence of sodium and calcium ions,

when they combine, you form a skin so you can encapsulate liquid.

Using this technique, you get a pearl of encapsulated vodka tonic.

Oh my God.

-Mm.

-That's so cool.

-Is that good?

It's like doing a shot, but it's so refreshing,

it's not just sit down and have a drink and eat something,

it's not life-changing

but it's something which maybe will make you smile or stick in your mind.

Can you pass this along, please?

'What is inspiring me right now?

'The thought that I might be able to actually one day

'get back in a kitchen and cook.

'That's the inspirational thought that I have right now.'

The hope and dream

that my career has not completely gone down the toilet -

as it seems to sort of every two years, really.

'We are in Tribeca at a space for my next restaurant.

'The central space is formerly a restaurant called Montrachet,

'which is a very well known in New York City.'

My potential partner is Drew, Nieporent who's the owner of Nobu.

'We went out, we've had dinner, we've chatted numerous times

'and slowly but surely we're building the business relationship.'

Check with me in two months. I'm going to make sure you're here on opening night.

'My name is Drew Nieporent. I grew up here in New York City'

and got into the restaurant business because my father

was an attorney with the state liquor authority in New York City

and he used to take us out to some of the most glorious restaurants.

I was caught up in the theatre of food

and knew it was something I wanted to do from a very early age.

My whole drive and ambition was one day to open my own restroom.

So, Montrachet opened with a young chef, David Bouley,

and seven weeks after we opened we got...three stars.

Between 1990 and 2007, we've opened 26 other restaurants.

So, Montrachet began the ascension my career.

We must have gotten three stars. Everything is ranked three stars.

We must open this after we get three stars.

'The reason I want to reopen this restaurant,'

the reason I want to work with Paul Liebrandt,

comes from the basic instincts that I've had from the beginning,

which were, if I'm going to distinguish myself,

if I'm going to do a better job than everybody else,

then I have to be associated with the best people.

What got me interested in Paul? Well, over a period of time,

people that I trust sort of talked to me about Paul. And this last group

was very...convinced that it may be something we should do.

So... But it's more up to him than it is to me, I think. What do you think?

-He's younger. I'm old.

-50-50. We'll call it that.

'I think he's paid his dues.

'I think he's probably been humbled and has a greater level of humility,'

and I'm a great believer in redemption.

America is a redemptive country.

We first of all build people up to rip them down to build them up again.

So, I'm egotistical enough to believe

that I can put him on the right path of redemption.

But to confirm that at this absolute moment would again be premature.

The inspiration of the design is

sort of the urban house and you're coming into somebody's living room.

It has a kind of classic French style to it,

but it's reinterpreted in very clean, modern soft lines

in a not at all fussy way.

Show me the drawing that you like the most.

-The one that, if we said we loved that one...

-It's the last one, right?

Show me that one and then say...

If I heard you say, "Let's go with that one," I would be the happiest.

Well, the one that's most elegant design-wise

has to be many, many less seats, so you're not going to like it.

We can do anything if we want to do this as a not-for-profit!

PAUL LAUGHS

'This restaurant is different because at least Drew's done restaurants,

'many restaurants, varying degrees. Fine dining, low dining, whatever,

'but at least there's a common thread of,

'"OK, I understand the dynamics of how a restaurant runs,"'

as opposed to, "I eat in restaurants, I have some money, oh, I think I should go do one."

'Paul and I met at Gilt and started dating shortly after.

'When he started this project, he asked if I would be interested in working with him

'in terms of front of the house.

'It's been about two years now

'and we just signed a lease on two years more,

'so I guess we're stuck with each other.'

Would you like a cocktail?

'He's Paul. He's just the way he is.

'He gets up in the morning, drinks his tea and starts writing menus'

and shoots ideas at me

and sometimes I'm paying attention and sometimes I'm not.

If I don't make 'em, who's going to make 'em?

I'm going to make sure my girlfriend is happy. Isn't that right, sweetie?

Mm-hmm.

This is not really how you would make it in the restaurant,

this is very sloppy.

I apologise for my technique, it's not what it should be.

'She has a phenomenal palate.'

Really, really, really good palate for food and for wine. You do.

You do. Trust me.

-I mean, I like to think I have a pretty decent palate.

-Really?

-What?

-Your palate's decent?

-You don't think it is?

-I think it is.

You know, the whole age-old thing of working together

and...you know, we live together,

but, you know, it's really nice to have that person

that understand you and believes in you,

and you have that mutual respect.

I don't think we'd see each other if we lived anywhere else.

No, we wouldn't. We'd see each other for about 20 minutes.

And we have a little baby. Come up here, my baby...

Spencer here has made me want to be a better person. I swear to God.

Look at him. Look how innocent and sweet he is.

Look at him!

How could anybody not want to be

a better person with the little one here?

Yes!

All right. I'm going to meet you...

'Well, today was kind of important

'because, uh...we decided to go public.'

We're either going to be sitting here in 30 days with a big smile on our face

saying we're ready to go, or making some excuse.

-"Message 12.

-Hi, I'd like to make a reservation for Saturday."

For Saturday?! SHE LAUGHS

I'm sorry - that was awesome.

So, they're telling me this kitchen will be ready in 10 days.

I don't think so.

I'm not so sure.

10 days? I'm not so sure.

'I'm nervous. And the nerves are good

'because that shows that, you know,

'you're taking it seriously.

'I'm not complacent with any of this, it's nerve-wracking.

'I see this coming together now

'and I'm like, "Shit, I got to get a staff together."

'I know I already have started to get the staff,

'but, you know, it's still like...

'I've done it before but every time it's nerve-wracking.'

I think when people come in for the first time once its lit fully

are going to be, "Wow."

That's beautiful. It's very sharp.

We're at Mai House, one of Drew's restaurants.

This is our test kitchen right here. This one burner and we have one plug.

So it's kind of hard for us to do a lot of stuff here.

But we're getting small stuff done here.

We're going to go through a lot of little things in the beginning

until we figure out exactly what we're looking for.

It's nice.

Oh!

Oh, my God!

OK, we don't do that. Man, that is vile.

That's fucking garbage. What are you guys thinking?

'He's got a lot riding on this.

'So he's very difficult to deal with sometimes.

'He's very demanding on what he wants, but it's to be expected.'

-No.

-You don't like it?

-No.

-You want to look at something else?

-Yes.

'We've been working three weeks now

'and it's a constant adjustment on everything.'

We don't have a set recipe, and that's it.

'We look, we learn, we work at it till we get something that we like.'

Better. Taste it.

Clean broccoli. Yeah? OK?

It's nice. I would hold back the sesame.

I've got it on my tongue. Bit too much.

'I'm happy with them. They're doing a great job. They're picking everything up nicely. They're young,

'they're energetic, they're hungry to learn and that's great.

'And now it's just going over the same thing again and again

'and again and again until they can do it with their eyes closed.

'That means once we get in here, hopefully at the end of this week, beginning of next week,

'it's like, OK, make 50 portions of this thing, execute.

'And they've done it and they know exactly how to do it.

'So then it's just a question of just bringing it all together

'and just the aesthetic of plating it and working with that.'

Keep it kind of tight, OK?

-Square plate, for sure.

-I think so. What do you think? Yeah?

-Maybe cut these a bit longer like that.

-Lines?

Round's fine. It denotes what it is - it's fine.

-Is this the same size we did before?

-It was smaller.

No, I thought the one we made before was a tiny bit bigger than this.

What are these right now?

'He likes everything perfect and very neat.

'He seems very down to Earth so far.'

We'll see what happens when we get in there!

These are my notebooks.

You know, this is a typical notebook here.

These are lots of scribbled notes as we're in the kitchen

and then we go and refine them and we put them down.

We do little diagrams.

This is just different dishes.

This is, like, really quick ideas, like shorthand.

Then I'll do more detailed stuff and then we'll then take those ideas

and then start to work with them in the kitchen.

Here's a good example. This is a book that I just got on vegetables.

Look at the colours on that photo. That's just vegetables.

For example, I open it right here.

That's the guy who I worked with in Paris, Pierre Gagnaire.

Look at this dish. Look at the colours. That's beautiful.

That says summer to me, it's vibrant. If I'm thinking springtime,

I'm thinking, there you go - vegetables. They colour the plate themselves naturally.

Scallops? Fried scallops?

Would you fucking calm down, young man?

I told you I'm going to sort you out. Don't worry.

We're getting lights in here. I can't do everything right now.

OK, but this is...nice.

Fucking hell, that looks nice. Look at that.

Look at the colour, Rob.

Rob, look at that, man. That's fucking beautiful.

It's like Kobe beef.

Look at this - fucking cold, mooshy...

It's cold, it's mooshy, it's dry, it's not glazed.

It looks like shit on the fucking plate. Out of my fucking way.

Out of my way. I'll do this myself.

How can you honestly pass that up to me?

Rob, I'm...I'm freaking out right now.

It looked so fucking good on Saturday

and now it looks like dogshit on the fucking plate.

Come here. Both of you. Come the fuck here.

You send me two fucking pieces out like that again,

I'll put your both heads through that fucking wall, OK?

That's embarrassing, that's not the standard that I want.

Especially when we did it nine times on Saturday.

I am only as good as the weakest person in my kitchen

and right now...yeah?

Embarrassing. Do it again.

Now.

'Paul is very intense.'

He gets really energised. He may not be mad at you,

but he's very passionate and there's a lot of force behind it.

We're pretty used to it. Chefs get mad, they yell, they scream.

I mean, he doesn't throw stuff, he doesn't hit you, so that's good.

Cos there are chefs who do that.

Come on! Let me see you care.

Let me see the passion, yeah?

And, for God's sake, smile!

You totally get used to being yelled at.

You look forward to it, actually.

Yeah, this doesn't do it for me.

'It's hot in the kitchen, it's physical. Mentally taxing.

'You've got one chance every night to get it right

'for the customers which are paying and expecting perfection.

'It's like putting on a stage performance.'

Underneath, my dear. Underneath, yeah?

Like this. Always hold it underneath.

'I think 90% of people

'that were to actually come and work in a kitchen at this level

'would be horrified at how much work it is

'and how many little minute details there are

'just to get ready to open the door every single night.'

It's done. 63.

-Don't you want an hour?

-No!

'You don't open the door and you've just got a wealth of super-talented

'super-dedicated people that will just kill themselves for you.

'You don't find that.

'When we work in the kitchen, we're working 18 hours a day.

'Six/seven days a week. And it's a huge sacrifice.

'These guys aren't making a lot of money.

'So you've got to be really dedicated, you've got to be really...

'give up whatever else you're doing and dedicate yourself

'to working here for two years, three years, whatever it is,

'and just really commit yourself.

'It's very hard to find people that will do that.

'Very hard.'

Gentle. Don't fucking freak out or get nervous.

You know how to do this. You know how to do it, OK. Lovely.

'You don't have time to do anything else besides work.'

You can't call your bank, you can't get mail.

I mean, my work-life's going really, really well,

but the rest of my life isn't doing so well.

So, it's sort of a toss-up. But I'm coping with it.

Where's my egg?

Egg, Johnny. Can we finish this, please?

Egg, Johnny. Egg, egg, egg, egg, egg, egg, egg,

egg, egg, egg, egg, egg, egg, egg, egg, egg.

Should I take these two?

So, just to confirm, we're doing a beef, sweetbreads,

-bass...

-Carpaccio scallop.

-Carpaccio scallop, OK.

Arnie, that is fucking retardedly good.

Can you grab my camera, please? That's beautiful, Arnie.

It's so freakin' simple, but it's so Zen.

Have any of you guys got a really small spoon?

The whole thing looks green.

Everybody's face looks green and when you put a rare piece of beef

or a medium piece of beef, people are going to look at it, they're not going to really know.

They want to see clearly.

It should be a nice subtle light that actually accentuates the food.

Now you've got grates over the top of the goddamn food.

This looks like fucking goddamn Bouducon where you don't need to see the food, yeah?

It's a nightclub. Look at this.

If I sit back, I've got a shadow here as well. No good.

-I'm not difficult.

-Oh, my God! So difficult.

Fuck off. I'm not difficult. I'm not difficult!

-I'm passionate and I know what I want in life.

-Difficult!

I only want the best. I'm easy-going.

-I want the best of everything, that's all.

-OK, come on, let's go.

That's old-school. He's the only guy that does it by hand

with real gold leaf like that, apparently.

This looks really good in here. I've got to say.

It looks three stars to me. We'll see. I'd like to get three stars.

It'll be, like, a little coup de grace for me

that, Gilt, we didn't get it, with all that money and stuff,

and then with this hopefully we do get it,

based on the food and the service.

I'm trying to keep it very minimalist, very Zen, very... You know?

Uncomplicated, recognisable,

you can see everything that's on the plate and understand it.

Uni creme, radish, Marcona almond...

Violet Hill egg confit...

Huckleberry black olive, fondant potato...

Squab, chestnut cream...

I think the menu's too foodie.

Ie, you have to be a foodie to pick something on this menu.

OK, how can I make it not quite as foodie?

Everybody slides it on the plate, rustic...

I wonder what Frank Bruni will make of it.

This will go over his head again.

I just... You know, he likes spaghetti and meatballs

and I'm just not that kind of a chef. Never have been, never will be.

Doesn't mean it's bad. It's just I'm not that kind of a guy.

What are you going to do?

That's the practice? That's beautiful, Arnie.

That's beautiful. But how long did it take you to plate that?

Do another one right now.

-A little more random.

-Yeah.

The fish is there.

I think it needs to come down a little more.

These should all be facing the same direction.

He's into everything going...

Now we've got to move that cucumber out of there.

Hey, that's nice. That's nice, yeah?

That's nice.

It's on its way.

The dishes they're doing this evening are the scallop dish.

These are diver scallops from Maine,

which are very gently cooked a la plancha.

They have these baby little winter radishes with them

which are raw and crunchy.

-What are we eating?

-This is a gougere with Mornay sauce and green olive genoise.

Fantastic. Thank you.

Wow.

Hey, young man. Those aren't fucking cooked, yeah?

-Hey. Are you OK today?

-Uh, yeah.

-What's the matter?

Why? What were you doing last night?

You look like shit today. If I'm honest.

Ladies come and go, yeah? But the career is constant.

Get yourself a good, steady girlfriend again.

Set your head right, yeah?

Stop playing the field, yeah? It's a mug's game.

You're going to go home every night empty-handed.

I felt it today. It was not fun.

Well, I'm sick, A, and I'm exhausted, B,

but all in all it could be worse.

Be disciplined with yourself every day.

For you, not for me, but for you.

Every service for yourself - "I want to be better.

"I want to be quicker, I want to be more precise.

"I want taste, taste, taste. More."

And then you don't even try anymore. It just becomes that way.

And that's when you start to become really good at what you do, yeah?

The sooner the reviews are in,

they're over with, then we can actually settle down and cook.

Let's just do what we do - we are who we are.

We're cooking great food and we're going to get three stars here, OK?

You'd better believe that. OK?

All right. Go home.

'There's a hell of a lot of history here, which is good,

'but we're going to make some of our own. OK?

'Openings, as you all know, are the most important time of any restaurant.'

Now it's up to everybody here to really come in

and focus as a team every day

and push ourselves to really do something here

which can really take on the big boys, yeah?

So, let's see it.

Hey, guys. Take one deep breath because this will be the last gasp of air you have

-for the next three weeks.

-Three weeks?

Can I get that in writing!?

'Tonight, we're opening to the public. And guess what?

'It doesn't matter what we think, it matters what they think.'

All right, everybody, come on. Liebrandt!

'You either have to click, it has to become instantaneously a favourite,

'otherwise you're going to be lost in the shuffle.'

-Can you not lean against the Giraudon, please?

-I apologise.

Like you're holding yourself up. Very unelegant.

Hands behind the back, alert. OK? Thank you.

Rob, can you give me that beef first, then give me a sweetbreads?

Hands behind backs.

-Wow.

-Thank you very much.

-We wish you good luck.

-Cheers.

-Thank you very much for coming in.

-Good luck.

-I really appreciate it. Thank you.

Not bad for opening night, right? Nothing came back.

Nobody got yelled at tonight. That's good.

I think it'll be good.

PHONE RINGS

Corton. Can I help you?

Corton?

How many were in the party tonight?

-I could you on the wait list?

-"Yes, please."

-Don't take it unless you're gonna be here at 5:30.

Eat first and then go to the movies.

-He wants to keep taking...

-For tomorrow?!

-Yes. I think you should say something.

-Sure.

I'll tell you what, we're gonna take 'em, OK?

Definitely spirits are high and the food and everything is coming out a lot better.

You see everybody smiling a little more.

We all went out that night and celebrated.

-It was nice.

-HE LAUGHS

OK. Gorgeous. Gorgeous!

I have never, ever, ever had a restaurant,

except maybe...maybe Nobu,

that has uniformly gotten this much critical acclaim all at once.

But what's missing? The New York Times.

The paper of record, which reaches the most vast audience

and the most important audience.

Whether we appreciate that or not, that's in fact the case.

We're excited, now we're just ready for Bruni.

Let me grab the phone.

This is where Cagnaire sat, right here.

27. Him and his wife. It's like this.

I watched him right there. He's like this.

-HE LAUGHS

-Like this.

It was awesome!

He ran back to the kitchen twice to go say hello

-and then, at the end of the meal, I came out and he's like...

-HE GASPS

Comes out, grabs a seat. "Sit! Sit! Sit!"

I sat down and we chatted for an hour.

And, you know, he didn't remember that I had worked for him.

HE LAUGHS

You know, he recognised the face but he didn't...

He was a little... He was like... I'm like, "You changed my life."

Those words. "You changed my life.

"Because of you, because of the mentality and what you showed me."

It was just like, "Thank you."

So it was good.

Thank you.

He never, ever uses the same name twice,

but, for instance, if it's Steven Allen,

you might get a reservation Allen Steven.

So he does flip it once in a while.

The phone numbers tend to be wrong numbers a lot.

So even that's a little bit of a flag.

Good evening. Corton. Can you hold one moment, please?

We have one suspicious reservation, Timothy Berr.

Tim Berr. You know, Drew pointed it out. I didn't notice.

-SHE LAUGHS

-Drew's a little more... Bruni aware than I am.

Look, here's the reason why it's better to know when they come,

although in most cases it'll be a surprise.

What you don't wanna do is one day wake up, pick up the New York Times and read your obituary.

-Now, listen. McWhirter. Did McWhirter call you again today?

-No.

OK. That's... Where did it go?

That's the one to keep an eye on, you know?

-OK, where's McWhirter?

-Right there.

-OK.

-Can we phone where it doesn't show our phone number?

-Yes.

Dial that number.

DIAL TONE

-BEEP "I'm sorry...

-It's him.

"..the number you have reached,

area code, 212..."

-OK, this guy is very clever. Very clever.

-That's him.

Well, we don't know, but... let's hope.

Finally the reservation was made two days before...

and, er...

Yeah, when he came in we were made aware of it very quickly!

-SHE LAUGHS

-Yeah, it was a surprise.

He didn't get up and clap his hands,

but some sign of enjoyment would have been good.

He's a difficult person to read. He's very insular.

He doesn't say please or thank you, he won't look you in the eye.

He's very dismissive.

Here's the thing that concerns me more than anything.

It's not the type of dining experience that he seeks or likes.

He came in last week, the day before Thanksgiving.

Thinks that the chef won't be here, thinks maybe he's taken the night off.

-Or whatever.

-Doesn't know that I'm British.

He planted a towel on the floor of the bathroom to see if we check our bathrooms.

So he'll drop it at the beginning of the meal

and at the end of the meal he'll go back and see if it's been done.

So we got that.

We picked it up. But then he left a paperclip

on the actual sink, which is really tricky,

and we got that too.

Just like, "What is he doing?!"

It was like, "I think he's checking for gum!"

"You sure?" I'm like, "Look at them, they're both underneath the skirt."

TAPPING

Ohh. This is so exhausting. I don't know about you, I find this...

I'm going to be happy when it's all over with.

If we get two stars, I'm going to move to Skokie, Illinois, and become a haberdasher.

That's the second dream.

What's the other dish he wanted?

No, it says, "One of two dishes, of which is the risotto,

"and the other dish for which I'd like a detailed description is the caramel brioche."

There's 13 food questions here, which is a lot.

That's a lot.

-He loves it.

-No.

He does! You didn't see him in the dinning room.

He was having such a great time.

I've never seen... The only time I've seen that excitement

was when I waited on him at Eleven Madison Park,

where he was as effusive as he was on the second time he came.

Stop kidding yourself.

-Stopping being Mr Dark Man.

-Stop kidding yourself.

SHE MIMICS HIM

He's telling himself he's getting two stars, why?

I know why, you know why.

He may not know why, but it's just to guard against the disappointment

when he sees the paper and it is a two-star review.

We're nearly there, which is great.

It's really good.

Oops!

We're waiting for the big bad review.

Big good review, hopefully.

I'm going to go now. There might not be a later.

Anxieties and sensitivities are a little high

and this article, basically, determines our future, in a sense.

The review is out!

I haven't read it, there are no stars attached to it,

so we're all reading it for the first time.

Here's the headline. "Imagination, say hello to discipline."

"About a third of the way into a recent meal at the refined, quietly elegant

"new Tribeca restaurant Corton,

"something wholly surprising and altogether wonderful happened,

"I forgot about my food."

"I don't exactly mean forgot, I was aware of what I was eating,

"juicy, sweet scallops with a sea urchin cream that showed a different side of the sea,

"the richest, most tender, most flavourful fillet I've had in recent memory.

"But to appreciate these dishes fully,

"I didn't need to conduct a mental inventory of the disparate ingredients,

"I could just let them wash over me.

"And that surprised me because they were the work of Paul Liebrandt!"

THEY LAUGH

You know what? This is as good as it gets.

APPLAUSE

LAUGHTER

Your turn to address the crowd here.

Well...

THEY LAUGH

We don't know just yet, but if it is indeed what it sounds like,

very well done to everybody here.

But...let's see.

Three stars, definitely.

Order! Six amuses.

Two scallop, one garden, one soup, one foie, one scallop.

Three squab, two lobster and a lamb, away.

Onion bouche, please.

CHEERING

That's so cool.

I just want to say to everybody, well done. Extremely well done.

Seriously, a lot of hard work went into this, and it's culminated

with a great review that we knew we all deserved and worked hard for.

The work is going to get harder, but that's a good thing.

We are moving in such a positive direction,

more than any other restaurant I've been a part of.

I applaud you all.

APPLAUSE

It was my feeling, at Corton -

and maybe empirically it's not true,

maybe it's just the way the food

came across - it was my feeling

that Paul had taken some steps

towards simplifying his cuisine.

'I felt like the food at Corton, while still very fanciful,

'and extremely sophisticated in the best way,

'I felt it was directly appealing,'

in a way that the food at Gilt wasn't.

Pretty good shot, yeah? I'm in the New York Times, bitches.

PHONE RINGS

'Drew, my golly, you must be jumping through the roof!'

Let me tell you, it's kind of deja vu all over again.

Now we have been legitimised by everybody in the city,

I want Michelin stars here next year.

I want two stars minimum, here. First year.

There's no reason we can't get it.

It'll be nice to see him relax

a little bit more, if that's possible.

Well, the food's just going to get harder.

I'm excited. It'll be fun.

PAUL:

Yes.

That was a 3.99998.

That was a glowing... you were just below the fourth star.

He said that, he literally said that.

We're worth more than three stars.

And our customers know we're worth more than three.

So, I will not be happy

until I achieve what I came to this country to achieve.

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