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Top Shelf Chef

At a time when elBulli had the world buzzing about molecular
gastronomy, future Top Chef judge Tom Colicchio rose to culinary fame
emphasizing simplicity and farm-to-table techniques at his award-wi

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TOP CHEF — Season:12 — Pictured: Tom Colicchio — (Photo by: Tommy Garcia/Bravo/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images)

[dropcap class=”kp-dropcap”]A[/dropcap]t a time when elBulli had the world buzzing about molecular gastronomy, future Top Chef judge Tom Colicchio rose to culinary fame emphasizing simplicity and farm-to-table techniques at his award-winning Gramercy Tavern and Craft restaurants. After refusing the producers three times, the New Jersey native finally accepted the Top Chef role and brought his hard-nosed approach to the kitchen competition. Colicchio has since expanded his profile with the online Hooked Up and the forthcoming Brand New Restaurant, and his restaurant empire has expanded to include standouts like Colicchio & Sons, Topping Rose House, Riverpark and the ’wichcraft sandwich shops. This month, Top Chef returns to Bravo as aspiring chefs battle it out in Boston with guest appearances by Emmy Rossum (Shameless), George Wendt (Cheers), Patriots’ tight end Rob Gronkowski and reigning James Beard Award winners Barbara Lynch and Jamie Bissonette. Speaking with CULTURE, Colicchio dished on serving duck hearts, flipping burgers at a pool, seeing Led Zeppelin at Madison Square Garden and his favorite prison library cookbook.

 

When it comes to judging the cuisine, how does innovation rank against execution?

The food can be as innovative as you want, but if you cannot execute it, what is the point? I always look at a few things first, and a lot of it is apparent the second you see the dish and take the first bite. Is it seasoned correctly, and is it cooked properly? I ask, “What temperature do you want to cook this at?” If they say medium rare, I’ll say it’s medium, so they kind of blew it. If someone says, “I cook my duck breast medium because I think it has better texture than when it is rare”—which I would tend to agree with—I would say okay and see how they cooked it. A lot of this stuff never makes the cut because the producers don’t think it is that interesting, but it is a lot of discussion about intention. Then it comes down to whether something is cooked properly, braised properly, seared properly and how they handle the ingredients. These things happen very quickly, and obviously flavor is the most important thing. Innovation, unless the challenge is specifically about innovation, doesn’t really come into play. If there are two dishes, and all the boxes are checked—they are all seasoned and executed properly—then we might go to which is the more innovative.

 

You have a new show, Best New Restaurant, debuting next year. Tell us a little bit about it.

It is about the entire restaurant operation, including food service and hospitality. [We wanted] to find restaurants that are not on the radar with chefs doing interesting things. There are restaurants of all different stripes, and we evaluate the restaurant based on what they are trying to accomplish, but there is a head-to-head aspect of the competition. It is derived from Gordon’s [Ramsay] show in the U.K., and so far it has been a blast. We are trying to provide a real view into what it looks like behind the scenes at a restaurant as opposed to a straight cooking competition.

 

NEW YORK, NY – APRIL 14: Chef Tom Colicchio is photographed for Los Angeles Times on April 14, 2011 in New York City. (Photo by Jennifer S. Altman/Contour by Getty Images)

You are known for being one of the few TV chefs who still works in his kitchens. How is your time usually spent?

There are chefs in each of the restaurants, and I spend time with the chefs, and I spend time in the restaurants, but there is no rhyme or reason to it. My schedule is not one day here, one day there. If we are working on a new menu at Colicchio & Sons, I might spend more time there in that given week. If a restaurant is opening, you can guarantee that I am there every single day for two or three months. I did that when we opened Colicchio & Sons and Topping Rose [House]. We are about trying to create something new and different, so when Topping Rose opened up, we wanted to focus more on produce and vegetables as opposed to proteins. I explained that to the team, but once we started doing family and friends the first night, we really start to see it come about. It is a lot of work that I do in my head before we actually open, and then I am there for a while to see it through. I’ll gradually let the chefs create as long as they are staying within a particular box. On a normal day, I’m in my office, and from my office, I’ll probably end up downstairs in Craft. My house is near Colicchio & Sons, so I’ll usually work my way over there. I probably spend less time at Craftbar because the guy running that restaurant has been with me the longest and gets it, and quite frankly, I spend most of my time there eating.

  

You went to France as a young chef, worked under Michel Bras and had your first [Michelin] three-star dining experience. What were some unique aspects of the French kitchens that you incorporated into your style and brought back to New York?

Michel Bras was a runner, and he would go out jogging in the morning and come back with stuff that he picked in the wild. There was such an emphasis on produce versus protein, and it made such an impression on me. When I came back, I remember thinking, “I wish I could find stuff like borage” and some of the other things he was using, and I would go to the farmer’s market, and it was all there. There wasn’t a lot of it—there was a little bit—but if you talk to some of the farmers, they are willing to start growing stuff for you. The experience completely flipped it for me where I wasn’t focused so much on protein anymore. It was now more about produce. That is something that I definitely brought back.

 

In interviews, you often discuss the farm bill, GMO labeling, your wife’s documentary [A Place at the Table], food stamps and other food-related issues more than you promote Top Chef or your restaurants. What drives the activism?

Politics have always been a passion of mine, and once we made [A Place at the Table], I had more of a platform. You realize that you can use your celebrity to talk about things that are important, or you can just dance on a table at a bar somewhere. This is how I choose to spend my time, and it is something I most likely got from my father. He was a corrections officer and head of his union, and he was very much involved in local politics in New Jersey.  [My wife and I] started out to make a film about hunger in America, and we had no idea where it would take us. Four years later, it was clear that so many of these issues are dealt with in political theater. These are all food issues: hunger, GMO labeling, the overuse of antibiotics in our food system, creating a more equitable food system, food deserts. I am a co-founder and board member of Food Policy Action, and I am proud of what we are doing.  My wife and I are currently working on a campaign to end hunger that will probably launch in January in conjunction with A Place at the Table. We did not plan on being activists, but once you start, I think we have an obligation to see it through.

 

Do you have a stance on states voting to legalize medical cannabis? 

I think we are wasting too many dollars incarcerating people over minor drug charges that are costing us millions of dollars and a ton in wasted potential. You take a kid and put him in jail for 30 years because he was caught three times with marijuana, and what are we doing? We are creating criminals. I am definitely in favor—not even medical, I am just in favor of legalizing marijuana. If you look at what happened in Portugal where they legalized everything, the drug use went way down. I also think, if you look at the money we spent on the “War on Drugs” and where it got us, it is not very effective. We should treat drug addiction as a medical issue. I don’t see the point of [drug criminalization] anymore, especially marijuana. It is crazy.

 

Led Zeppelin at Madison Square Garden in ’77—What did that experience mean to you?

I was just having this conversation the other day! We were sitting around the pool talking about music, and the conversation goes to the first concert. Zeppelin ’77 trumps them all. Unless it was The Beatles in Shea Stadium or [Jimi] Hendrix at Monterey [Pop Festival] maybe, Zeppelin trumps them all. I was a huge Zeppelin fan, and I remember, it was an auction. You actually had to apply for tickets. I got three tickets, and it was incredible.  I remember the first three: Zeppelin in the Garden, the Pretenders at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, New Jersey, followed by Hot Tuna at the Capitol Theatre. That is a good first three.

 

Is it true you got your start as a short-order cook at a swimming pool in Jersey?

That is absolutely true. I think the statues of limitations are way passed so I can say this. I was 13- or 14-years-old, worked in a pair of cutoffs and flip-flips and got paid $275 a week under the table. To a 14-year-old, that was a lot of money back then. The guy hired me to scoop ice cream and work the cash register, and within a week, I was doing all the food. I absolutely loved it on so many different levels. It was immediate gratification. I’d make a grilled cheese sandwich, and someone would come back to the window and say, “That was really good.” I knew before that I loved food, but that just cemented it for me. I knew this is what I wanted to do. My second job was at a fast food restaurant. When it opened up a block from my house, there were probably a 100 kids in line for applications, and I knew I was getting the job. I guarantee I was the only 15-year-old who had experience, and I did get the job.

 

You often cite [Jacques Pepin’s book] La Technique as an early influence. Did your copy really come from a prison library?

Yes, that is true. I remember my dad came home one day with a bunch of books, and he was not the kind of guy that would go to the bookstore and buy cookbooks for me. I read through the introduction, and the last sentence said, “Don’t treat this as a book, treat it as an apprenticeship.” I took it to heart, and I learned so much from that book. Jacques knows the story, and I’ve had the honor to cook with him and get to know him over the years.

 

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