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Laurent
Tourondel unquestionably has conquered New York with his
BLT franchise---BLT Steak, BLT Fish, and BLT Prime---a clever
concept of bistro-style dining that leaves control of their
plate’s content to the diners. He honed his skills
in celebrated kitchens around the world, working among others
for Claude Troisgros and Joël Robuchon, and developed
a following while at Cello, from 1999 to 2002. Tourondel
is a man constantly in motion, and the Main Course chatted
with him as he was on a barbecue research trip in the South.
Why did you become a chef?
My parents were cooking a lot,
as were my grandparents. We lived in the country in the center
of France, close to
Vichy, and we had a beautiful garden, fresh vegetables
all year long. My grandparents were cooking for lunch and
dinner every day. When you grow up around that it makes
you want to cook more.
Are there other career paths you
wish you had explored?
I’m getting more and more involved
in the design of the restaurants I do, and developing concepts.
I like the
design aspect of the restaurant world. But I don’t
think I’d quit cooking for that!
Is there a moment in
your career that you consider pivotal in deciding of the
direction you took?
When Cello closed, I had the option of
doing fine dining again or going more bistro-style. It was
one of my great
decisions to do that. I decided to go to a more easy style
of cooking than what I was doing before. I can’t say
right now that I’ll do that forever, but I like what
I do right now, and maybe one day I’ll go back to fine
dining. But I think in all of my heart, a comeback of that
kind of food is what people need. I don’t feel that
people want to spend necessarily a huge amount of money on
a meal anymore. They will on occasion, but not like they
used to before. And it’s not just a matter of money,
but to be in a more comfortable atmosphere, more casual.
Our clientele is very relaxed in the atmosphere we provide.
Did
you always intend, upon opening BLT Steak, that two other
restaurants would follow so quickly?
No, it came from the
success of BLT Steak. I hadn’t
anticipated opening another one. The concepts of the other
two just came up. I was specializing in fish, and of course
BLT Fish and BLT Steak are the opposite of each other. But
instead of doing a fancy fish restaurant, I wanted to do
something more relaxed, with more simple food.
Did you ever
consider leaving the profession?
After Cello, I needed a break.
The best break I could take was traveling around the world,
and that’s what I
did for a while, learning different styles of cuisines.
I would encourage everyone to do that actually; it’s
a great experience. I went to Asia, Europe, South America.
I focused those trips not only on the food but on the lifestyle
of the people.
Has any of these regions influenced your
cooking?
I am influenced a lot by South America, for meats.
I took in a lot from Asia, but haven’t done anything
with Asian food yet. I’m not sure I’m good at it
[laughs].
Did you ever put dishes on the menu that you thought
would be hits but turned out to be flops?
No. Before I put new
dishes on the menu I put it on specials and ask people what
they think, if they like it. But anyway,
after cooking for 25 years, you know what food combinations
are going to work and what’s not going to work.
Do you
encourage your sous-chefs come up with dishes?
Absolutely.
In every restaurant we have a food tasting day every week.
We try dishes before they go on specials.
How did you decide
to work with the backers you have? And how can a young chef
find backers?
My backer is Jimmy Haber; we met through Jennifer
Baum, my public relations agent. He was working with her and
I was
working with her at Cello, and she introduced us. He had
a restaurant that wasn’t successful on 57th Street,
and he approached me. I wrote a business proposal, showed
it to him, he asked me to put a few more numbers together,
and we went into business. He was great because he has experience
in the restaurant business, it’s not like he just started.
He has the whole financial aspect already set up, he’s
a professional, he knows where he’s going. It’s
very important to have someone who understands what goes
on in a restaurant. Not necessarily in the restaurant because
that’s why I’m part of it, but someone who’s
going to trust you on a daily basis, and who knows what’s
going on with numbers. Starting with someone who doesn’t
know the restaurant business can be a little bit tricky.
I think if I had to start from scratch, in New York, before
starting my own business I would start by working in good
restaurants. I mean, it makes sense do that anyway [laughs].
You have to learn from the good ones, to understand what’s
going on. When it’s time for you to open your own restaurant
you know it, but you have to have a certain kind of experience
before you do that.
How do you decide to open more than one
restaurant, and is it the only way to grow?
It depends on
what you want to achieve, if you want to focus on one restaurant
and be in the restaurant all day, or if
you want to manage.
What motivates you?
Going from restaurant to restaurant is very
motivating, having a follow-up clientele. Good press is also
motivating, and
so is working on new projects.
Are you working on new projects
right now?
Yes, two, in New York and not in New York. But I
can’t
talk about them yet.
Are you still challenged by what you
do?
Very much. It’s a challenge every day. Not only the
cooking aspect but the managing aspect. Having a functional
restaurant every day is a challenge. I challenge myself by
doing all that every day. I’m on a trip to research
barbecue right now, it’s something that I don’t
know and I’m challenging myself to know more about
it. Each time I take a trip it’s a research. I travel
a lot, I just came back from Brazil and Thailand. Every time
I always take a few days to explore the kind of cuisine there
is wherever I go. And I’m fascinated by American cuisine.
What
fascinates you about it?
The different styles of cooking that
are present in the United States, from north to south. Right
now I’m in Memphis,
tomorrow in South Carolina, yesterday it was Kansas City.
There’s a progression in the style of cooking, and
I like that.
What are your favorite restaurants in New York?
Balthazar, Na-Trang,
a great Vietnamese in Chinatown, Sushi Seki. I go out a lot,
two three times a week, to do some research, to come up with
new dishes.
I think everyone should do that.
What advice do you have for culinary school
students?
Have perseverance. Keep focusing on hard work. Think
a lot before becoming a chef, think of how hard it is. People’s
idea of being a chef is sometimes a dream, but not necessarily
a reality. If I had to give an advice, it’d be to
try [working in] a couple of restaurants before going to
be a chef 100 percent, to see how they feel. But going
to school is really a great thing, because you can really
learn the basis of what you need to start cooking. I would
encourage people to make the most of courses they take.
Especially if you are studying cooking, learn about bread,
about pastry. I did that myself. I am a chef but I learned
about pastry, and in most of my restaurants I make the
dessert menu.
Did you go to cooking school?
I went to a small cooking school
in France. I did an apprenticeship and went to school.
Was New
York the first place you came to in the United States?
I came
to work in New York when I was 20, 20 years ago. I did that
for a year, then went back to France, but came
back because I loved it.
What has kept you here?
What is good in New York is really the
challenge you have to compare yourself to talented chefs and
other big shots.
To me it’s one of the food capitals of the world.
I traveled a lot, I worked in London, Moscow, Paris, but
New York is really where it’s happening. It’s
100 percent because of the mix of cultures, the mix of
cuisines. The amount of different products you can get
in New York is incredible, so the evolution of food is
huge. There aren’t all these ingredients in Paris,
and people are not open like the clientele here. It’s
more difficult to try other styles of cooking.
Why should
someone choose to dine at one of the BLT restaurants over
other high-end restaurants?
I think you shouldn’t
compare me to high-end restaurants. I’m not a high-end
restaurant, I’m really a bistro.
Here is exactly what’s happening: people will eat at
high-end restaurants every two weeks and will come to me
to have a normal meal twice a week. The reason why is that
I am not forcing people to eat a composed plate. I am actually
offering food you also can eat at home, and you can make
your own decision about what you are going to eat. If you
want steak with green beans and French fries one day, the
next day you’re going to have the same steak with creamed
spinach and steamed broccoli if you want to. Or you can have
fish the same way, or grilled, or sautéed, or pan
seared, or poached. It’s really whatever you want to
eat. That’s what I’m offering to people, rather
than sophisticated and high-end restaurants where you have
to eat whatever is on the menu. You can feel that people
come back because they can eat whatever they want.
Is that
why you have such a large repeat business?
It’s one
of the reasons. Also because of the comfort level. We really
make sure with the front of the house to
treat our regular customers so that they feel at home when
they come back to eat.
Speaking of home, do you have any advice
for home cooks on how they can improve their cooking?
Read
a lot---do like me. All my research is based on reading, 90
percent. I read mostly magazines, home cook magazines.
There is no single magazine where I say to myself ‘well
this is a bad magazine and I can’t find anything.’ I’m
the biggest fan of magazines.
What, or who, is your strongest
influence?
I don’t have one in particular, I have a
lot. Reading magazines, traveling, my family has a lot of
influence. A
lot of things. |
