"Summer Series: From The Beach With Michael Symon”

bringing you our Summer Series from the Beach. Each Friday, will be publishing short and intimate conversations that I've had with some of the top talent in the food world. And even beyond. The conversations you'll here for the next six weeks were recorded pool side at the w Hotel and South Beach as my friends and I enjoyed great cigars and magnums of rose as we discussed our past,

present and future. Without further delay, please enjoy Summer Series from the Beach with my dear, dear friend, Chef Michael Simon. How do you do it all? First of all, let's talk about your organization, because everyone's fascinated by that. What is I mean? We all say, it's a random bunch of misfits that we all come together and when we do right, we create. Oh yeah, it's the people rest business in the land of misfit toys, you know. And and I think that's the one thing that you have

to accept right away. I've been cooking. I've owned restaurants for twenty five years with my wife Liz and our business partner Doug. Same business point you've had the whole time. And one of the things I learned early on was one of the keys I think in life, not just in the restaurant business, but is at some point your career you get the confidence to surround yourself with people that know what you don't and then you need to listen to those people you know, as hard as it

is to do. It's hard because I think when you're younger, you think you know everything, and then you know, as you age, you realize maybe I didn't know as much as I thought I did. Um. But I think the key to being to have some kind of success in life in general is is really to put people around you that know what you don't know, and then listen to what they have to say when they're advising you. On the things that you don't know, and you have a great team behind you to do that well. We

have great people and we have longevity. Like our corporate chef Derek, who's here this weekend with me, has been with me seventeen years. My culinary director Katie has been with me fifteen years. Frankie Ritz who you know who now ran runs Angeline, has been with Liz and I

for twenty seven years, you know. So we have a lot of fifteen to fifteen year plus employees that has allowed us to grow and give them more responsibility as we've grown, which really, I think in the for our restaurant side of things, has that's been that's been our secret sauce? When did you know? When did that switch

go off for you? Fifteen years ago, twenty years ago when you knew that, you know, the New York market was something you wanted to be in and that you saw a market not only that could have been in the food world, but now mostly in the television world. Because you really have done both very well and for a long time. You have There's not many chefs that have as many establishments and have as many TV successes as you have. What was that time was it when

you came to New York with ches? I mean, I think there were like success and failures a little bit like anything else, and that aha moment kind of always happens. Gosh, Jeffrey, I really don't know. I don't know if I've had a full high yet in my life. I mean, I think we've like we opened a restaurant, we opened Lola twenty almost twenty four years ago. We didn't open our second restaurantuntil ten years later, you know, and now since

then we've opened fifteen more. But you know, we waited ten years to get the number two, and then we grew and then like my life changed, My life changed started to change a lot. When you know, I was in Cleveland and having some success in Cleveland as a chef, and then in Food and Wine named me one of their best new Chefs, which no one from Ohio had

ever won that prior to that. So all of a sudden, then I'm on a national stage with you know, chefs from other cities, and I go to the Aspen Food and Wine and that something, you know, sort of that was the ten year anniversary, so they put the chefs on the cover. Back then it was the first time chefs had ever been on the cover. And all of a sudden, you know, having lunch with Drew and with Thomas Keller and Charlie Palmer and all, you know, all these chefs that you looked up to when you were

younger and Danielle and that was a special moment. And then shortly after that, I started becoming a guest on Food Network shows. And then the first show I hosted on Food Network was a show called The Melting Pot, and that was I believe in ninety eight, maybe late in the early ninety nine, and I you know, I've been doing things on an offince Food Network ever since. And I never looked to be on TV. I just

ended up on TV. And I think that's maybe the difference on you had successful restaurants, and he always fell to you you didn't like, you know. And I still think of myself as a chef, like people go, I'm a chef, you know, So I always think of myself as a chef before anything else. And then I mean, the chew happened like it was hilarious, Like Gore Nelly had called me up one day, were two days away from opening up a restaurant, and you know, he said, h hey, I want you to read for the show

I'm doing for ABC. I said, what. He goes, it's called a chew It's gonna be a daytime talk show. ABC is green lit it, but they want us to get different hosts. I go, when do you need me in New York? He said tomorrow. I said, we're sending tomorrow. I'm eating up a restaurant in the day. He goes, I'm gonna send he had a plane. He goes, I'm gonna send you a plane. You're gonna get in the plane, you're gonna come here, you're gonna read, and I'll have

you back by dinner. Wow, that's fairytale. Yeah. Crazy, And then fift episodes later just incredible. Yeah, really really wild. So your daily routine performance is something to me that's fascinating. We talk about working hard, it's not just about working hard, it's about out performing someone. As we know a lot of hard workers. We could not get where we are

without people that work really hard. Nope. But there's a different strata of performance that happens five years, ten years, fifteen years, twenty five years, in your case, thirty years, thirty five years in a case of Alpha Portal you know everything and and John George, it's just kind of remarkable. How do you start your day when you wake up and I'm responsible for X y Z, I gotta get better, but your mind, Like I wake up every morning, I usually I'm up at thirty, which I mean a lot

of us are at my double Espresso right there, double. Yeah. So what I always do in the morning, even before like I read the news, is I make my list for the day. And I do it old school. I don't do it on a phone or a computer. And I always look from the list to day before to see if there's anything I didn't get done. So I kind of make my I make my list here's what today entails. And I just started, like even if there's only four things on it, you make a list. Make

a list. But that's one of those things that creates a performance test for you. Don't have to worry about it because you've written it down, so you've imprinted it in your head. It's on a piece of paper. I like to do a list and I have it on my calendar, so I have a backup, because I don't trust backup. I don't trust the calendar, the iPad. I don't trust it. It's getting older. We could lose the list. The list exactly. So do you exercise every day? What do you do? I know you do yoga. I don't

do as much yoga as I used to. Unfortunately, I do meditate every day every day. So you know, I usually make my list that I'm meditate, what type, what type of menute? I just do like deep breathing meditation. Simple, simple, very like what I learned how to do in yoga. I just I always do that. Um I lift like two days a week. I stretched one or two days a week. And you know, I keep it pretty simple

like that. You've been working on. You worked on a book that was incredible best seller New York Times bestseller, Congratulations. It talked about your your lifelong battle with the rheumatory authoritis and lupus. And now you sort of really took your diet and wrestled it to the ground basically without you moderated it a lot, but you wrestled it to

the ground. And I noticed I was watching your your reset show you did on Instagram, and it was day I think he did ten days, ten days, uh, and that was fascinating because it was a very engaging information medical but it was also really delicious food. It was like, Wow, this doesn't seem like it's a stretch or you're not like you're not missing anything. No, we want to come. I mean if I got diagnosed with r A and external lupus when I was like twenty, and I think, like,

so you've been just eating and drinking the entire life. Correct, And I think what happens with when you're young, you just grunk through can a little more. You're like, this hurts, who cares? Let's go? This hurts? Who cares? Let's go? And then as you get a little older, you get a little acre And I mean we're chefs. So at the end of the day, I'm like, I know that there's probably things I could do with adjusting my diet and it will affect the way I feel. I mean,

that's just kind of common sense. And unfortunately, I think what's happened with food now is eliminating certain things from your diet has become trendy not healthy. Correct. You know, like people are like, I'm gluten free, why are you, Celia? No,

I'm just gluten free, man. I can't gluten, you know, and then that's so they go on this gluten free kick, and then they go to the grocery store and they buy a bunch of process food that says it's gluten free, but then they're really just eating a bunch of process ship and they're not going to feel better than a

lot of rice. That's actually was the worse thing louting. Yeah, then we went through the whole like fat free Atkins, like we could name as when you are a chef of a restaurant, you can name every fat diet doesn't last for about five years and customers make you insane. You know, for five years we didn't sell a single carb in the restaurant, and now it's carbs of back. Yeah, you know, like it just so goes for this thing.

So I'm like, let's do this in a way where I just I'm not going to write a cookbook if the food is not good, if I can't make food that's gonna make me feel better than taste. Right, Quite honestly, I'd rather feel like ship because I'm not going to go through my life eating not tasty food. But you you're Sicilian and Greek, so if you just went back to your roots. Isn't that half well for me? So the way that the reset works is you pretty much

eliminate everything for ten days everything ten days? What is everything? You're basically a vegan for ten days vegan to figure out what you can add back. And then after the ten days are up, as a carnivore, after the ten days are up, you're angry, but you feel very good, like your body feels good, but you're pissed because you want to steak. Like that's how pretty wauch how I kind of was feeling every day, Like I'm thinking to myself, Man, my wife is a vegetarian and she's been vegan, and

she doesn't seem anger. She must be angry inside. I'm not sure, but like, and so after the ten days is up, for two days, you start adding back one trigger at a time, Like how did you know what triggers they were? Sugar? For the elimination, you eliminated meat, all meat, no fish, nothing, all meat. You eliminated all meat. You eliminated sugar, dairy, alcohol, and wheat and wheat for ten days, I mean ten days. You could do anything for ten days, um, well, not at our age, not anything,

but you could do most things attended. So when you say trigger, what's a trigger for you? Minor dairy and sugar? So you found that out. I found it out because when you said you didn't know, no, I didn't know because I was eating everything, So how was I supposed to? So you loved cheese, love cheese. You've ben eating cheese since I've known you. I mean, you're cheese cheese and I love ice cream, by the way, like my favorite thing eating the world. So you don't eat cheese and

ice cream anymore, very rarely. But what I explained in the book and how I feel is like, look, my livelihood is food, and I am going to enjoy life. And I think of it kind of like you think of drinks. We know that if we have two bourbons, were good, If we have five bourbons, we're gonna feel

a little hungover the next day. So as long as you know what your triggers are, so like, there's gonna be days where I'm gonna eat ice cream, but I know now the next day I'm gonna not feel great because of what I ate, and then you just eliminate it again, you know. So it's just about knowing what kind of gets you off kilter. You went from eating everything to like moderating sugar, dairy and anything else. That's it.

That's it. So you can have wheat, but what but I also I I don't eat wheat that's been bleached or bromated to you very particular. I'm very particular. So when you look at the Greek and Sicilian diet, it's pretty much moderation, fish, omega, trees, poultry, a little lamb when you can get it, because lamb is expensive, but not da but all the hard cheese is too, don't hurt you as much. And all the dairy, though is grazed. Cows and sheep that eat they don't eat ship and

you you don't process anything. There's no process in it. So it's really you've gone way backwards. Hunt to go back and say, okay, you know what, if I just ate like my grandmother ate, I would probably be half that perfect, but way ahead of the way ahead of the game's kind of remarkable. It is kind of remarkable percent, you know. And then like my grandfather who's from eastern Europe, you know, I watched how he's he's from the Carpathian

Mountains and he made party, made his own wine. Yeah, and he's but he'll eat a ton of meat and none of that stuff affects him. So I do think there probably is a connection between your heritage and what has to be there has to be. But you know right now that you're gonna, like once in a while go off huc off the track. Yeah, hundred percent. My son oled a dolt on ice cream shop. I mean there's gonna be days I sugar and dairy. Yeah, it's a great donut chat. When you're bringing that to like

New York City, I can talk to him. I don't know, you know, that's his world out mine. But I'm happy for So you just recently signed to be You're on Kiki and Michael and uh Sarah, I'm Straight Morning. I'm Good Morning America's new resident shop. Yes, so that's exciting. It's exciting for me. So, yeah, you're down the street from I do. I do g M A sometimes, I do Sarah's straight hand sometimes. But yeah, it's fun. I'm gonna actually start doing a weekly food thing for g

M A and Serence straight and so it's a good time. No, it's great. And although everyone now is if they don't have a robust food element and entertaining and drinks element. It's just it's one of the biggest parts of the show. It used to be get one minute here too many a talk about Yeah. Now it's a full segment, sement and a half. Well they have you know, they go back to back. Rachel Ray is one of Thank god,

she what she's done is amazing. Rachel is like eighteen minutes of like talking about food and preparation and problem. I mean the you was an hour we talked about food for an entire show. It's just so fascinating. What's happened. What's on the horizon for you? As far as restaurants, what about the Burgers show? You gonna like blow that out, not do it anymore of them work? You know? Why is that we're in a pretty comfortable place right now.

I think that the world changes a little bit. Like we opened our first burger place ten years ago, you know, and as you know better than anybody, beef prices have doubled in tenure. You can't double. Burger prices can't alastic. I mean in the Midwest, I can't say, yeah, the Hamburgers sixteen dollars, so the burger prices have doubled and labor is tripled. Yeah, and the burgers that one can't do it. Yeah, it's not. I don't think it's a good growth model, so to speak. What is next for

you is to sign I'm not sure, you know. We just opened two restaurants in Las Vegas at the Palms, which I'm enjoying very much. We did a Mabel's there, which is our barbecue concept, and then we did a little It's very you would love it. It's a very table side. It's a thirty five set Martini brow back restaurant. Yeah, that's small, shaved prime rib. I'd love it as small. A small restaurant, by the way, makes it very little

money money. It's a lot of fun and you can control everything and it's sort of like you do it when you can. Yeah. Mark Vtory just opened up a fourteen seat restaurant. He's my idol fourteen seats where in Philly. He writes a menu every day at Chalkboard Menu. He puts on one salad, seven pastas in a dessert, first come, first serve. Menu changes every day. They open it five by four o'clock. There's fifty people in line, which is

pretty much half the night service. And you know they sit at the bar, they cook them pasta and they go, wow, I mean that's just that, that's a passion play. Oh man, it's a dream. That's well, he's amazing. You're amazing. Thank you for coming on, man, thank you. Cheers, cheers. Pay t