Le Bernardin Chef Says More People Going Out

fiftieth anniversary. Libernadan, one of the rare New York City restaurants to be awarded the maximum three Michelin stars for excellent and cuzine cuisine. If there is like a benchmark and award, he has certainly won it. He's also vice chairman of the board of City Harvest. He joins this via zoom in New York City. Eric, thank you so much, Thank you for coming on Bloomberg again. How are you. I'm doing great. Thank you for adding me to do congratulations.

Um uh, We're not quite sure where to start, um, but let's start. For first of all, because you were kind enough in the midst of the deep depths of the pandemic to come on and talk with us about the industry. Um, tell us where we are today and how much we've come back, how much we have to go. So the industry came back very quickly. Um, people right after the pandemic uh decided that they wanted to splurt and a great experience and live life and be happy.

And therefore restaurants and the hospitality in general are benefiting from that shift of thinking. And despite the fact that last year we we started the year with the omni chron and it was a bit of fear attached to that, restaurant did extremely well in general in New York City and all over the US. And no signs of stopping. No, I don't see the stops of stopping. The big difference in between last year and this year is that more people are going out, but spending is a bit less

than two thousand twenty two. Where are you seeing that? Well, the spending is at least le bernard and the spending is less in the wine consumption or in the in the cocktails. People have the tendency to be saving a bit more. There Um, we have a prefixed menu or testing menu, so people cannot um eat something less expensive because again it's it's already decided. But for the one consumption, for sure, we see a huge difference. And when I talk to my friends in the industry, they observe exactly

the same phenomenon. So I wondered, too, how much ERIC is because of still the inflationary and price pressures. How that is playing into kind of your dynamic. So we have seen a lot of inflation in two thousand twenty two. We still see some inflation right as we speak right now. Uh,

it's difficult to to really quantify the effect. But we had to raise our prices by twenty percent in the period of time of eighteen months and right now, depending on the weather and depending of many components, the price of many products and produces varies. And I know during the pandemic from the New York Times Rave review, which will get to But you had seven people working with you in the kitchen. Is that is that correct? So

I imagine you've got a lot more now. But talk to me about what that transition kind of back to quote unquote normal has looked like for you, and how have labor labor costs changed for you. So it was very difficult to reopen the restaurants because a lot of people that we're working in our industry went back to other states that were open to business, like Florida, for instance, or young students that are usually learning in in the kitchen of fine dining restaurants went back to their families

and never came back to New York. So when we reopened the restaurant, the manager and management was here. They were employees that work at Lebernard and for a long time, and we were short in staff. But we reopened, as you remember, at capacity in New York City, and then it increased to fifty and then we closed again, and then we reopened finally at percent today from seven people in in the kitchen that we had, we have sixty cooks. We should be about seventy five cooks or chefs, and

we are a little bit short. The salaries are in general much better than what they were have pre COVID, because again it's a shortage of labor, labor in the kitchen and in the dining room as well. Uh and therefore it has a huge impact on the budget of the of the restaurants and um some of the inflation is passed to the consumer, and some of it is

absorbed by the owners of restaurants. And I know that you differ from Noma and Copenhagen, which is a restaurant that does not they have unpaid interns, and I know that you pay everyone on your staff. Uh, talk to me about where you're able to increase costs the most easily for customers in order to maintain the profits that you need to run the business. Well, Um, the prefix that was pre COVID was twenty percent less than than today we had. We had to raise the price of

the food. People didn't really mind and understood. The lunch price has also increased drastically because we were very inexpensive for lunch. But to get people understand again that the price of goods has changed, and um, we do not have people questioning our the price of our menus. Um, the price of the wine is basically the same and people have a lot of choice. We have about thousand bottles uh different wines at Lebanon there and people can

choose inexpensive fare or or exceptional price. Of course, Hey, you know, Eric, we had Danielle Blue on back in December, and you know I do recall you I want to go back to what you said about workers and some of them leaving and they went to Florida, and that was one of the things he said. I think labor

was a really tough issue for him as well. And just this whole idea that workers who were in the industry have left, they haven't come back, and they found jobs elsewhere, um, And so that that continues to be a real chronic problem. It is a big problem, especially for fine dining restaurants because usually we again have a lot of students who come from culinary schools or people who are starting their career and they want to go into find dining because it's where they learn the basics

and give them huge opportunities in their future. Those young people make a big sacrifice to live in New York City. Usually they have roommates, um, they live not necessarily in Manhattan, and when COVID happened, they left and and they didn't come back to New York because the lifestyle is too expensive,

and they find those other jobs in other places. Do you ever think about or do you and you and the industry at home, you know, think about It's something that's come up with FED speakers it's come up with certainly politicians, this whole idea of immigration and opening up the borders more a little bit, and just got about thirty seconds, and then we'll come back and continue the conversation.

We we will love that. Of course, we would love to have more immigrants, legal immigrants coming and helping us in the kitchens because they stay with us for a long time. All Right, we're going to continue the conversation. Delighted to have with us, Eric repair of course of Le Bernadine, as we said, celebrating its fiftieth anniversary and just again earned a four star rating from the New York Times. Uh, the review is pretty incredible, and we're gonna talk about it with Eric in just a moment.

So let me read you something. A great restaurant can be a sort of cultural preserve, a place where rare skills are passed on from one pair of hands to the next. Even formal restaurants services built on careful study of human behavior. If it's done right. A restaurant like Liberta Dan is run by people who know things that others haven't learned yet. This is part of what ran through my head too when I tasted those scallops and

their cream sauce, and thought they kept it alive. Now this is, of course a New York Times review that gave Labernardin four stars again and I believe it's the fifth consecutive time that they have gotten this with us. Of course, as you know, is Eric Repair, executive chef co owner of Labernardin with us on the phone here were actually via zoom in New York City. Eric, to hear that and to get this distinction again, how does

it feel? Well? It feels good because the New York Time is an institution and pitt Welles is a tough food critic to have four staff since the opening of Legnard and which is since uh, it's exceptional. We are the only restaurant in New York to have that that record. And we celebrated for a few days the review. And now we are back to work and uh trying to create an amazing experience for the clients that come to leban are there. We um, we are living the passion,

We are living the dream. I'm glad to hear that you celebrated at least a little bit, though you you deserve that and much more. I have to wonder there's been a lot of bad press lately for these incredible restaurants. Right it feels like, I don't know if you've seen the movie The Menu. There's TV shows about being a Michelin chef and just how challenging it is. What do you think maybe is getting misunderstood about what hard work you do and the the challenge and beauty of these

Michelin star restaurants. Well, fine dining restaurants are are meant to create exceptional experiences for for the clients, and people who work in those restaurants are very passionate and love the hospitality industry. Of course, in the kitchen is about craftsmanship, artistry in the dining room is about loving to interact with clients. And we have a team of somebody year that have a lot of expertise with the wines and they have passion for discovering and testing grid wines and

sharing their passion for the clients. So this is what fine dining restaurants are meant for now. It's some restaurants that have good practices like Lebernard and where every employee is paid um with UH fair prices, fair salaries, where we pay also the overtimes and we have benefits for our employees and where we tweet all the employees with tremendous respect. And you have some other restaurants that are getting a bit of uh but press lately because they

don't have the same standards as Lebanard. Yeah, it speaks to culture, right, we talked about it's got to be from the bottom up, the top down. Um, I want to ask you something, how does this process work? In other words, do you know and Pete Wells is going to come in? Does he walk in? And are you all surprised? Walkers there? We've all seen it in movies, you know, when the critic comes into a restaurant. How

does it actually work? So Pete Wells, Um, it's pretty well recognized in New York because it's the food critique of the New York time for many many years. I think it's there for twelve or fourteen years. But you never know when he's going to show up. But what it does is send some friends first ah and and they have a fake name, and you see them where wherever you decide to to see his friends. Usually they're not necessarily the most well dressed people in the dinning room,

and they're not necessarily well known by the by the team. Uh. So sometimes they end up um in in in the back of the restaurant and not in the front. But then he shows up, and then they choose at the very last minute whatever they want to experience from the menu, and they have interaction with the staff and with so

many years again for the wines. So when Pete Whales arrives and he's with his friends and decided to eat many dishes, it's basically too late because if your fish is not fresh, your thoughts are not good, it's nothing you can do. It's too late. You can't reado everything, do you. Carol mentioned some of these movies, and one of them they say that the cretic comes and drops a fork on the ground to see how the staff reacts. And that's to tell that it's a it's a critic

in the restaurant. Is any of that true? I have seen that with few critics. Yes, yes, it's it's uh.

Sometimes they drop the napkin on purpose or furk or something like that, or they make a mistake and uh or sometimes like those a day, for instance, um pitt Wells wanted to have the desserts and when we were about to serve the desserts, they decided to have cheese at the same time, so we had to coordinate bringing the cheese cart, cutting the cheese and serving it at the same time as the desserts that were coming the pastry. So that's the way they do to to basically test

the quality of the service. All right, Eric, just got about thirty seconds. What are you having for dinner tonight? Tonight for dinner, I'm gonna test the sauce. I'm gonna test the food without double dipping, and that will be dinner because I eat only once a day for lunch. All right. That's so interesting, all of it, and um, just such a joy to spend this time with you.

And congratulations because the distinction, as we said, getting that four star rating from the New York Times again is just and subsequently getting it for several years here, uh, is just really remarkable. Um, Eric, thank you so much. Be well. Eric repair executive chef co owner of Lebrona Dan as we mentioned, celebrating its fiftieth anniversary. I believe the first time he got a four star rating was

back when he was twenty nine years old. But again, getting it for the fifth consecutive time, So really remarkable, right, huge accomplishment and story you know, so good, such a good chat. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week, Carol Master, Madison Mills. This is Bloomberg Radio.