What are your favorite St. Louis restaurants, not counting your own? Gerard Craft's four restaurants are on my top list anywhere in the country. What he's accomplished is absolutely amazing. Four distinctively different restaurants, and they're all excellent in my eyes. I highly recommend them all the time. Sidney Street -- what Kevin Nashan is doing down there, it's incredible food. I'm excited about Josh Galliano, who's reopening [at the Libertine]. I don't care what he does -- he could just open a fried-chicken restaurant.
Which St. Louis chef most impresses you? What Gerard has accomplished. One restaurant is hard enough. So for him to do four distinctively different, and they're all excellent? Yeah, he's my hero. He really is, because that's something I don't think I could do or attempt to do. You can one have great restaurant. He's got four of them. He's my superhero.
What's your favorite city for food and restaurants? My favorite city in all of America is Vegas. Here's why. Not so much for the gambling part. There's the biggest concentration of chefs nationwide and even worldwide that have put their name on [restaurants]. It's like you go to Vegas, and you only go two days, you feel like you've accomplished so much because everything's so close by. The food in Vegas incredible.
Any particular restaurant in Vegas stand out? There's one restaurant we love a lot called Raku. They don't do sushi. They're grill masters. They import all the charcoal from Japan. Classic Japanese cooking.
The most essential ingredient in your kitchen? It would probably be garlic. All of our stir-fries and our sauces -- it all starts with garlic. Garlic and fish sauce.
An ingredient you'll never allow in your kitchen? I don't refuse to use anything because I love food. Food's evolved so much. That's what makes these [chefs] so amazing. It's just like fighting. If you watch MMA now, the guys that do mixed martial arts, it's evolved so much. There's nothing they don't know. Same with chefs. Everything they do has some kind of something infused from somewhere else, whether it's from parts of Asia or an African spice. They're so knowledeable about their food. [In the past], people were like, "Ugh, fish sauce." Now, everybody's using it, no matter how stinky it is. The stinkier, the better. [laughs]
Favorite cookbook? I don't really have a favorite. I started off with some East Meets West-type cookbooks from Ming Tsai, stuff like that. Being a big Italian fan, Mario Batali's books, Michael Chiarello's books. I try to stay away form books where I can't cook the food. Like, I have Thomas Keller's book, but I don't know if I can cook any of his food.
