The Passion of Flynn McGarry

She filled his bedroom with everything he demanded, Japanese grills, a soux vied, and knives for every occasion. Flynn's obsession started at ten, after his parents had divorced. Things were lonely and weird at home. Meg says that's when Flynn started cooking for her. Before long, she was doing dishes after Flynn's restaurant nights in their home in the valley. He was profiled in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and throughout it all. Filmmaker Mega captured the highs and

lows on home video. That's one reason director Cameron Yates thought he could turn Flynn's story into his new documentary, Chef Flynn. It's the story of a complicated relationship between a mother and her son who just happens to be a culinary prodigy. He would practice his chopping and so it's like, yeah, he was practicing his chopping because he was interested in it, but also, you know, he was a little kid who didn't really understand why his dad

wasn't around. I'm using non alcoholic light line. How come because you're gloth? Flynn McGarry and director Cameron Yates joined me for a live event at guild Hall in East Hampton, New York, as part of the Hampton's International Film Festival's Summer doc series. We're very, very grateful this evening that we have both the director of the film and the subject of the film. Obviously a part of this whole thing.

A big part of it is your age as an interesting moment when you're in the kitchen with some guys. I'm would imagine a lot of people your age would be like, you know, if somebody says I'm Joe, yeah, and instead you say I believe we've met. Do you feel that you've been aware of things on a level

that's beyond your years most of your life. Well, I think an interesting thing is I spent most of from when I was twelve on not surrounded by people my own age by going to school, but I was surrounded by people in their late twenties and thirties, And so I think the thing that I gained from that was learning. I mean, if you think about it, like if I was in middle school, I would just be surrounded by

a bunch of dumb thirteen year olds. We'd all just be dumb together until eventually we all learned all the same stuff. I mean, it was like I was the dumb thirteen year old, but I was surrounded by a bunch of people who have had all this life experience, and those were my years. You just weren't interested in

the things that they were interested in. Yeah, and but but what I mean is like I think spending that time only with people who are fully formed adults and are fully matured people is going to obviously make you like speed that process a lot more. Because I couldn't be a thirteen year old around all these people. I wouldn't be able to keep up. But but but but a lot of thirteen year olds arguably that you'd put a young kid or whatever word you want to as a child in a room full of adults and he

might shut down and be staring. He wouldn't respond the way you did. Like, do you think that you're just different? You're big part of it. What was your personality? You really are much more adult identified and you want to be an adults? You would you enjoyed it? Yeah? I mean, I mean there's a point where I very actively knew that I was different and I didn't want to be around a bunch of people in my own age because

I had nothing in common with them. I had none of the same interests, really, And it was the thing where then I found this group of people that were had the same interest and I felt more comfortable talking with a group of thirty year olds than talking with a group of people my own age. How did you begin this process? Did you read about him in the paper? You heard about him? And how did you make this connection?

My father actually handed me the New Yorker piece The Prodigy Talk of the Town, and I was immediately fascinated, and I kind of him out of the blue. I met up with Flynn and his mother, Meg, and his sister Paris as well, and I their dynamic was incredible. Like I was like, I have to make a film about you, um, please let me And they said no. Did you know what you were signing on too? I mean, what was that like for you? Was there a point where you really got sick of being followed and filmed

and the subject of the film. Well, I mean the interesting thing when Cameron came along with so, I mean it was the time where I was very hesitant to let anyone film anything. Um, we got to know each other before even started filming. Um. But it was also an interesting thing of growing up with two parents who always had a camera that you were used to being filmed. Well, the interesting thing was I was sick of being filmed by my parents. Your mom was like Ken Burns a

camera taking a really long documentary. I was a really huge kid. It was the thing where it was like the fact of someone else coming along who I trusted but was not my I mean, I was thirteen years old. I clearly did not want my mom filming, and so it was actually sort of refreshing to have someone else filming with a very new perspective and like not I mean because I was so used to cameras that the cameras weren't the thing. It was more about who was

filming it than the physical thing that was there. Answer one question me, this is an odd question. Those sketches that you made on that little yellow legal path we're it almost looked like a New Yorker cartoon, you know, because everything pretty much to me looked pretty much the same. It was like a blob of little squiggly lines, and you were like broccoli, every different squiggle you knew what

it was. Yeah. I stopped doing that after a certain point where I realized I wasn't the most visually talented artists when drawing things. I thought we need to get like Alan touring in here, like break the code or something. You know, it was there. I think that came from honestly. At that time, I was researching a bunch of chefs and I saw a lot of chefs were like drawing dishes, and I was like, oh, that's a good way to like see how to plate something, and then very quickly

realized that that was not how I worked. And I would draw it out on a plate and be a bunch of blobs, and then I'd be like those blobs don't look right. There was a period in my life with my mother who had six children and no money. She'd take a nap at like four o'clock in the afternoon for like an hour, and I come home and like, the chicken was like burning in the oven. So I learned how to cook a little bit out of necessity.

And your mother kind of intimated that as well, that she was, you know, post divorce, unhappy, preoccupied, a lot of takeout, and you stepped in to feel some kind of a vacuum. Was that the biggest part of it, or was there also prior to that. Did you always have a fascination with food preparation. I think that was definitely the impetus to it. I mean, I see that my mom doesn't want to do this, I'm gonna try

it out. I didn't want to take out every single night, and then I just immediately had a super kind of intense connection to it. And there wasn't like a day that I was like, I'm going to make this and then I knew I wanted to do it. It was very kind of I wasn't really thinking about it when it was happening. We've always watched the Food Network because my parents didn't want to watch kids shows and we

couldn't watch like adult shows. So that the happy medium, which I feel like is the thing with most families, is food television that's funny. So it was always sort of around that's really funny, Bugs, Bunny, American horror Story, and waste. And so that was I guess the only sort of exposure I had to it, um, because I was there wasn't some two one space odist the moment where you are like the gorilla with the bone sapiens

with in your hand. It was very just kind of like I never thought too much about it, and I just sort of wanted to try it out. And I mean that's sort of the way that I've done most things. What was food to you prior to you making you know, very elegant, kind of high end dishes, Like what did you like to eat? I mean I was never a picky eater. Um, as much as I've always kind of

talked down mom's food. She would always go to a nice market and get like healthy things, and I was like focused on like playing soccer, and I didn't ever really think about it as kids. I didn't care and then I think, I mean, it was sort of I needed that thing of my mom pulling back, but my sister didn't care. My sister was fine continuing to eat

the same food. I reached a point where I was like, I want something different, and that was I think that's where it comes into not just a thing from food inherently. I just was the kind of person that wanted to see where it could go. I mean, we would have a rose chicken once a week, and I was like, there's something else we could do with this. I'm sure, Well, if you en, you're damn right, there's something we take it out of the flame. First of all, I say,

my mom has never caught a chicken on fire. It was the funniest thing. Is like, the way that my entire family has always been with food is I always described them as they're scared cooks. I remember the fear my entire family would have when opening the bag of chicken, because no one wanted to touch a raw chicken. And then one day whatever, my mom was kind of preoccupied and it was like, okay, you take care of it, and I was ten. I could not care less. I

was like inside the chicken, like holding it. Yeah, I don't care if you saw somebody's skull open, You're I enjoyed the sort of part to that. I had always seen this sort of hesitation to adding more salt, to doing anything like that was like fully kind of like cooking passionately. I mean, neither of my parents were like chefs, so it was cooking to feed your kids and to make sure that everything was fine. But there's no like effort.

One more question that it came to me. Wine. It's a big part of a cuisine, and what was it like for you being a minor? What's it been like for you all that time where that was kind of cut out of your cuisine? Are you making up for lost time now you're drinking your ass off down there? And the lower side it was well, So when we were doing at the house, it was just it was illegal enough to be serving people food that we were like, you guys can bring your own wine. We're not going

to people about their own wine. Um. I was thinking enough to be surrounded by people who were really talented in the wine world. And like anytime I was doing pop ups, I had this one friend, Max Going. He was the one who helped in the New York thing. Uh, and he would do all of the wind parents, at

least inners of mine. And I think that actually helped me, from a very young age understand needing people with other skills, because when you're very ambitious kid who's just like I want to do all these things, the fact that you couldn't serve wine or because they go hand in hand, do you think it made you a better cook? I think it made me be able to rely on people and and understand that, like there's maybe one in a

hundred restaurants where the chef actually chooses your wine. You have a wine director, you have someone who spends their life dedicated to that, the way you spend your life dedicated to food. Um. And so I think I learned that very early on. And then I mean, after I've finished school, I I moved to Europe to go work in restaurants, and that was why I actually learned a little bit more about wine and learned kind of how

it pairs the food. But I had already been surrounded by these people who are talking about wine, who are sending me wineless, who are sending me pairings with these dishes that I had already had this huge frame of reference. But I knew where the grapes were from. I knew all the regions. I knew what paired with what, not from actually drinking it, but from having people who study, but from studying essentially like reading a book on wine forever, but not actually wine. Yeah you do what? What kind

of one you drink? Night? Scenes? Please come on? United States of America. Uh, we'll talk about that now. When you make a film, and obviously you go into a cutting room, you spend how much time with him? This was? This was shot over the course of what period of time? Six six years? No? Yeah, absolutely. My mentor is Albert Mazel's and Great Gardens is one of my favorite films of all time. So not only untraditional family dynamics are I'm attracted to, but I'm there for the long term.

Like the longitudinal documentary six years. You're in and out, in and out over exactly exactly, and editing was going on, and you go into the inning room with how many hours of footage you have to cut this down from? I mean, I would say anywhere probably like two hours of footage, but that includes all of his mother's footage, which to me was a huge attraction of the project as well, knowing that there was this treasure trove of archival footage that she shot, you know, for havewe any

countless years as well? It is it safe to say

you couldn't have done this without your mom? Confidently? I mean, I don't think you really understand how much sacrifice goes into what I was doing when you're in it, because I mean if I had any normal child or normal parents who were worked normal jobs and did not understand the sort of creative drive and this sort of unrelenting feeling, and if there wasn't any tread like kind of tragic thing that happened, I think none of this would have happened,

because great things can have happened. When my family was pushed and there was like pressure, and there was all these things, and I think my mom totally could have said no a thousand times. We probably would have been way better off financially. But she understood that in the long term, supporting her child for what I wanted to do,

regardless of the even would have worked out. Like the amount of times that like before that I had like wanted to be a rock star for a minute, and I like she bought me a guitar, and then like two weeks later, I was like, I'm done with this, and then like I'm a calendar. Well, no, that was funny. It's like I sold the guitar as I sold all my like soccer to do this. And I think especially the point at which she saw that this was a real thing that I was into, then it was became

sort of more than that. And I mean even for like it was, I think in the time you don't realize it, but it was definitely like I don't think many teenagers spend that much time with their mother. Everything was so crazy, and it was nice to have someone there who's your family and kind of is like grounding

for that. But then it was also great of like then when I at fifteen wanted to move out and go work on my own, it was like she was kind of like, Okay, I like spent enough time with you in these a couple of years that I'm like, okay, kind of letting go more so now. So it was like it was a very intense thing and then kind of now our relationship is completely different than that. And I mean, yes, simply answered, I could not have done

any of this without her. But I think it's also been a very interesting relationship between the two of us as far as a lot of things that were so untraditional and so frowned upon, like don't work with your family, and certain things like I think are the only reasons

that I've gotten to this point today. But I wonder if in the future you had a thirteen or fourteen year old son or daughter and they told you that they wanted to bypass a lot of the traditional pathways that young people walk on in this country and skip school, and what happened. They wanted to go and you know, pick some high stakes game. They want to go sit at a desk at Goldman Sacks and trade and they're thirteen years old. They're just a prodigy. They're just this

kind of crazy numbers person. And what would you tell them? What would they be missing? Well, I think I think now, I think the way that our culture is sort of moving is that I'm sure there are significantly more thirteen year olds who are asking that their parents because you have so many ways you can get knowledge that it

gives this sort of false sense of knowing everything. And if I had this kid that was like, I want to go do this I think it would truly come from the reasons that they would want to go do it, because the reasons that I wanted to leave school and the reasons that I wanted to go cook, we're literally for no. It was never about like, I want to be a chef. It was never but I want to be successful. It was I want to try to master this craft, and the only way that I can do

this is to go work in restaurants full time. And it wasn't a thing of like I want to drop out of school to be a celebrity chef, to be treated different than anyone else. It was I want to stop going to school full time to be treated like the lowest level of a cook. This is all I want to do, then yeah, but if for any other reason, like I think that's where the motives are really interesting now, is like, yeah, no one wants to go to school.

No one's ever wanted to go to school. There's a very specific kind of person who loves going to school. Many creative people do not want to go to school because you think, oh, if I have my interest in art, in music, whatever, you have this false sense or whatever sense that you know something that everyone else doesn't know, and it's sort of that's where the motives of why

you want to learn more are always really interesting. Of like I that, for some reason probably thought I had some false sense of I know this that no one else knows. But at that point at which I wanted to stop having a traditional way of growing up, all I wanted to do was learn. And I think that's where my parents saw that the way that I could learn the most was not from a traditional way of

going to school, but from actually learning from a craft. Um. As far as things that are being missed out on, I mean, I've had lots of people be like slow down,

like enjoy your childhood to all of these things. The amount of pushback that comes from doing something that is extremely different than what you're the normal path is comes from so much hesitation from every single person you talked to, whether it's your family, whether there's an interviewer, there's anything that from the point that I was thirteen years old, I've been getting asked at least once a week, do

you think you're missing out on anything? No? I noticed I was going the other way by when you're standing there when you say it was we talked backstage and you say you're fifteen years old, and you say I think I'm gonna have a brain aneurysm. You under a lot of pressure. Need hands, Come on? Is there okay? But I needed to go calm down somewhere before before I have a brand annis. This is the worst experience

I've ever had in my entirelor. Sorry, sucking hell. I'm talking to chef Flynn McGarry and the director of The Duck commentary about him, Cameron Yates sometimes at this point, and here's the thing. I suggest another similar episode you may want to dig into. This may sound far fetched, but Flynn McGarry's early certainty about his path in life reminded me of magician Penn Galette's early certainty about God. When I got to Junior High, I read the Bible

and then came in with some questions. And I don't like the idea of their being a love greater than the love I have from my family and friends. And I do believe that humans are good on their own without this, and I don't think anything happens after we die. Penn informed his parents, left youth group, and he's been one of the country's most prominent atheists. For more than thirty years. Enjoy the rest of that interview about God and magic that here's the thing, dot Org, I'm out

like Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing. Flynn McGarry is demanding both in and out of the kitchen. He has strong opinions about what diners should be looking for as well. I definitely feel like a thing to separate is restaurants you go to every day and restaurants that you're going to for an experience, and like, I don't eat it tasting many restaurants when I'm not working

the same four places. I don't have any time. I want to eat something that I know is gonna be good, and then I want to go home if I do go to something that like I ate it. No. By the other day, I was in Copenhagen, and you need to go into it understanding that you're not going to dinner. Separate that you're going to think of that you're going to see a play thinking of like you're going to

see a movie. You're going to see a very specific person's like expression of their of their art form, and like I I will say, like I mean, sure, every day we have people who want everything they're being served. It's a service industry. I totally understand that there's a certain level of like you need to give people what

they want. But on the other hand, I think not giving restaurants in that caliber, especially when they're really small and really trying to do something different, not treating them like it's a really personal thing where yeah, one night might be a little off and one night they might not serve exactly what you want. But to be able to separate that from they're not doing that to serve you, They're doing that to showcase a very specific idea and

a very specific art form. I think it makes people complain a lot less, like enjoy things a lot more.

If you went into something just being like, I'm gonna go to this place to see what this person has created, what environment they've created, what, yeah, atmosphere they've created, what space they've created, what food they've created, what every single detail that they've put out countless hours in creating and enjoy it because I mean, hopefully it tastes good, and like enjoy it for that, but also to be able to enjoy it as a theater. Theater do you do

you do you play music? In your restaurant, em gem, what's the volume of the music. I want to say this because I am from that world, the people where if my wife will tell you, nothing makes me go insane more then if they have you know, the who playing at you know some crazy band that I love, by the way, But but that loud music in the restaurant. One of my favorite restaurants is you're gonna laugh, and literally it's only about sound. Foods. Okay, the food is

what you expect. But I literally crave going to Panco Titian because they play very quiet music, all right, and you can sit there and think and read the New Yorker and have a cup of coffee and do your email in the back of you just here. Well. Yeah, but the thing is like that is a very specific thing. I after a long time realized if we played really quiet music, the people in the restaurant would have a terrible time. I play the music that I want to

listen to. It sort of just changes depending on you impose that on your diners because they're eating the food I want to eat. They're sitting Yeah, and you play it loud. We don't play it loud. We play it loud enough that you you don't necessarily hear all the lyrics, you don't hear anything but music. To me, it sets the pace of the room when you walk into a place and it's playing. If you walked in and we

were just playing like classical music, you'd be like. It's like like if you walk into per Se and they're playing classical music, you know exactly what that restaurant's going

to be. If you walk in and you hear a really weird like David Bowie deep cut song from the eight like, it gives you an instant sense of like, this is gonna be something different, and it is a marker for Also, like I now know within someone's meal when there's gonna be lulls in convert station because people are eating a bigger course and you know that they're gonna all be eating, so no one's gonna be talking

at that time. And there's nothing worse than a dead silent restaurant when everyone's talking, when everyone's eating at the exact same time, chewing us to chew. But so we literally we time the music so when there's a course that everyone's chewing, your listening, and when there's when it's the beginning, you put things that are a lot more not abrasive, but a lot more kind of like songs that are gonna make you a little bit more like, Oh,

they're going to set the mood for the night. They're going to be able to like take you out of your element a little bit. Because people come to restaurants like like ours and restaurant like this, but such like pent up, like they're scared. People come in. They're scared to talk to me, they're scared to do anything. So when you're playing things that are fun and things that are enjoyable, and you're treating it with a very kind of when I got you on the phone, finally, I

was scared. I was scared to death for like three months. I mean yeah, And if I might be your favorite customer because I talk while i'm chewing. So if you came, we would not need we'd probably turn the music down and beat you. Last. Yeah, I'm a different customer. I'm gonna keep on talking. Now. How did he change? This is an obvious question. What did you witness among the things? Just so, how did he do other than just him maturing age? Was how did he change in the six years? Well,

one thing. Does everyone know that he has a restaurant. He has a restaurant in the city from the Lower Side. Gem ye that I mean, yeah, I don't know what your crapp because you can't get a seat there. Forget it. I'm gonna go about I mean, I have to say that was when I first met him at twelve or thirteen, he was like, I'm I want to open a restaurant

in New York. And I think by the time I'm eighteen nineteen, and sure enough, you know, after five years of filming, you know, he opened up his first restaurant this fall. I mean this this past March. Um, And yeah, I mean for me, yeah, I mean he's grown up. I mean I've I've seen him grown up and and I feel like, you know, uh, you know, brothers in a way like we we become very good friends. And the same thing with Meg Flynn's mom as well. Um.

But it's been an incredible experience to witness it. And I feel like this is just sort of the first stage of his life. And that who's the person in the piece that you quote you're reading from who calls your doogie houser who wrote that, Yeah, it's it's a critic film. I want to know what critic? What an asshole? They call you? Doogie Houser. I hated that um before. I thought that was so rude that one always got followed up with people being like do you even know

who Doogie Houser is? And you should be like, no, I don't. Before we go to the questions, I wanted to just describe, you know. I was once asked by Maureen Dowd. She said, do you want to come with me to a sitting with Frank Bruty when Frank was the restaurant critic for The Times. When Frank is reviewing a restaurant, and she explained to me the protocols you go with Frank. Frank has to go to the restaurant and eat everything on the menu at the restaurant served

lunch and dinner. He has to eat both lunch and dinner. There he goes UH sometimes for UH sittings. He brings a quartet of people. Everyone has to eat what Frank tells you to eat, so that Frank and sample everything. You're there to kind of enjoy Brunese experience. When he walks in the door, he focuses on the service first, because eventually they catch onto the fact that it's him, and the whole tone of the whole thing changes. Um. I mean, it was a fascinating experience to watch Frank

uh do his thing. We went to Del Posto when it was first opening up. Does The Times still have as much power in the restaurant world as the as they used to have? And what's it like for you when Wells came to review the restaurant. Is that's something that you're deeply concerned about it You just sit there and go, I got a job to do do. I'm gonna do the best I can, and you've got a good review. Yeah, yeah, it was. It was a review. Yes, it was a

good review. Um, it was a very interesting situation. It was a weird thing where he gave us a lot of time. He had reviewed friends of mine's restaurants that had opened months after ours before ours, and so it was a weird thing where I was like, Okay, he's actually giving us time to like figure it out and and to answer to New York Times still has The day that review came out, we got a significant amount of reservations. It still has extreme power in the restaurant industry.

I had random people I've never even met come up to me. John George came utween the Farmers Market was like, it's the best review ever went and what like it. I still think everyone reads it, especially in New York, and it has that kind of power to legitimize a restaurant. And I think that was the thing that I necessarily didn't think about when he was coming. Mostly what I was thinking when he was coming was how clean the bathroom was and how quickly his things were getting cleared

and everything was going on. And obviously once he's there, there's nothing you to do. You're gonna serve the food that you're gonna serve everyone else and have to have that sort of confidence with it. But the thing that I actually personally really liked about the review was he said exactly what we are, which is, yes, you've read about me for seven years whatever, but this is a new restaurant that has room to grow, that is super

ambitious but hasn't figured all out yet. And like it gave this sort of feeling to even the entire restored community. Like I've had chefs talk to me in a very different way after that came out about like he gave everyone a reason to root for this restaurant. Not because it's like, oh, funk these guys, because they just immediately opened and were perfect, but because the New York Times

saw that You're very aspirational, but it's real. It's not like I'm a little wonder kid that was surrounded by all the money, had the most expensive everything to do everything perfectly. He saw that we wanted to go in a very different route from that and go a very small kind of kind of reset the clock on all of the East I mean, there's a lot of factors to it. I had known the people who had the space before, so it came in a very natural way.

The timing of it was very natural. Um. But also, I mean, I've been living in New York for almost four years now, and I lived in Brooklyn. When Iver has moved there, I lived in the West Village. I never really truly felt a sort of sense of community and like neighborhood until I moved to the Lower East Side. And I think it's sort of epitomizes exactly what we wanted from a restaurant of like, there are some very nice things down there. There's still a little bit of

grit to it. It still has like this sort of yearning for old New York that like my when my mom lived in New York would tell me stories about New York and the eighties and all these things that are the reason when you're a kid and you're hearing all these crazy stories about what the city was like that you want to move there. And then you move there and it's just like there's a Dwayne Read on every corner. And then it's well, not not in New

York that's been overrun by speculative real estate. Yeah, but I mean, and I think the Lower Side is not, like it's not immune to that whatsoever. Our street is very interesting in the business forsythe and it doesn't feel there's like we're the most gentrified thing on our entire street. There's a barbershopod one would think that, but because we're so small, we haven't had any impact on what everyone else does on the street. And we haven't. We don't

try to step on anyone's toes. The barbershop like watches out for us, like it feels so inherently well, it feels like community in the way that like the stories I would hear of old New York where you'd have a fine dining restaurant like a bunch of homeless people outside. Like it was this like connection of like every walk of life in one little area and everyone was respectful to each other and understood, like you have your place, we have our place. We're not going to mess with

each other. We're just gonna say hi every morning. And like that's the weird thing is like, yeah, the guys on the street, they don't know, they don't really care what we're serving. But it's like we don't mess with them. If they're smoking weed off from the Russian we don't tell them the leave. We're just like you can go

do your thing. We're gonna do our thing. And like we have this sense of community that feels so foreign to New York City now when this film, this film is coming out where we're gonna be opening the Film Forum and uh yes we're going streaming, you're on, you're in theaters, theaters. And then it always helps when you're leading. Man is a good looking guy. I've walked around everybody say or you got to see this. This guy's like James Dean, Have I told you I've been blowing you up?

All over New York Man. Not that you need it, You've already had all kinds of press. But when you're cutting the film, did you find that it was that made it easier that you're protagonist to somebody who was kind of look like you could start in a movie. Sure, I mean our editor hand with the Elephant Boy, it might have been a little different store. I mean, um er a handabuck. I have to give it all credit too. She was an amazing editor. And yes, I think we

have some mics around you. Let's take a couple of quickly and we have any questions, Pass the mic down and go I have a question. Um So in the film, at one point, your mom says, I'm a writer. I feel like I constructed this story. I made this narrative. Because I'm a writer. There is an element of me that I feel like I wrote this and it's really weird, and I don't know why I can't seem to get over that feeling of like the guiding of this story, like Okay, let's do a super club and then let's

go here and let's do there. That there's some sort of element of like storytelling in it for me, and so it fed some part of me and we didn't see in the film. I think a response and so how maybe a few years after that happened, how do you respond to your mother feeling like she created the narrative of your life? Um, my mother is a very interesting way with words. Uh, And I think that knowing her, I mean, I think there's something to be said about like she every step of the way was there and

every step of the way was supporting it. And I think that was sort of what she meant by that was not that she was forcing it, but that we were very sort of aligned to the classic thing is like the kid and the parent are having very different ideas of where the kids should go. And my mom and I always sort of had the same feeling on things, like we were doing like together in a lot of ways of Like, I mean, I don't think my mom or like she didn't want a normal kid. She wanted

a kid that was going to do something interesting. So I think it wrote together. It seems like your mom wanted the kids she could film all the time too, So maybe who else? Um? I noticed that not only are your dishes obviously delicious, but visually they are so beautiful it looks like a painting. And I know you said that you no longer do any of the drawings, but when you assemble your dishes, it is a work of art. And what inspires that kind of production for you,

it's very random. I can't tell you the last time I've thought of a dish from how it should look it. I mean, I think there's evolution and my cooking that went from trying to curate every single element of it, of drawing it and trying to figure out where it was going to go, to the point of saying, like

leaving things natural to an extent. And I think that definitely came from just like being more confident in my cooking that I could make something that was beautiful because it was just done very well, not forced to be beautiful, like it wasn't it's not plated, it's just it's like assembled how it feels right. And I think that came with a confidence in being able to cook everything very well.

There is a time where I was making sure everything was arranged in very interesting ways, and I realized that if you just cook something really well, it will inherently look beautiful. And maybe it's incredibly simple. And I mean I'm sure there's a much deeper explanation of where the influences come of color, compositions and all these kinds of things. But that's the X factor I enjoy of, Like I don't know where I'm going when I start plating something,

and sometimes it doesn't work out. Sometimes I played it five times to until I get it to the right place. But I let the things I've made dictate where they go. What's your guilty pleasure? Like your home? You're freaked out having a shitty day. It's Floom McGarry eating fried peanut butter and banana sam, which is what are you doing? Man? What's your freak out food? Oreo mcflurry. We're all gonna eat one tomorrow. Trust me, we're all gonna be like

Man Flynn. He knows everything. Man, you're gonna do. I'm not kidding. You're gonna do a guy like him, his age and you've been following him. It's like eight up. You're like app ted, you're gonna do a sequel on him. We're doing. We're doing like a radio piece actually about the opening the restaurant, because as you see the opening the restaurant is not in the film so we're updating that through him. Very cool. We got time for one more. Anybody else right down here in the front was your mom?

I ever wondered why are you hanging out with twenty year old? Because I grew up in the strict world I could never do that. I mean, there's a definite point where my mom was like, why are these adult men hanging out with my small child? Ah? And then

I would wonder that as a mother. It was a true concern of hers as a mother, but she meant them, and I think, like, it's always a funny thing, Like all of my friends world would always like love my mom because they're like she like would go up to them like well, like actually asked them like why are you hanging Why are you getting along with thirteen year old?

Like none of that makes sense? And I think it was sort of especially to her when she saw that these people who were chefs and hand careers were like, no, we actually like talking to him, we like hanging out with him. I think it was when she could kind of step back a lot too and knew that, like, I was in good hands over here. Um, I'm gonna ask specifically about the night where you said you might

have had an aneurysm. Did the volatility spill over into the directorial relationship on that evening or other evenings where there was there ever severe animosity between the two of you. Absolutely not. I mean that that Flynn on that night, specifically the night where everything went wrong, he was not

focused on the cameras at all. I mean in general, when we were filming in the kitchen that we blended into the background, and luckily that kitchen was a larger one so it was easy to hide because but to me it was horrifying to be there as that was happening. The only thing we ever, you know, he got to know the mic the mute button on the microphone, so occasionally the case that we'd lose his audio and be like, Flynn, turn it back. I should have muted the button on

the microphone. Thank you Flynn for sharing that with me. I really very early on of hit the mute button on the microphone. Yeah, I would forget that cameras were there and everything. And then I was still self aware enough that like in the back of my head always I was like, there is a mute button here, and I no one needs to know I did this one last question. So for people who are they cook their home and they my wife makes the best I've ever had in my life. And what's a mistake you see

people make in the kitchen? Never add enough salt. They never add enough salt. Really, there's like, deep down, I feel like everyone with salt was like bad for you. That the reason I always tell people, the reason restaurants take you because you're fucking nineteen years old, That's what I mean. You got to hit the right balance of salt. Well. No, I mean the reason food taste better than restaurants, I

tell everyone is because you add significantly more salt. You had more butter to everything, and you had more acidity to everything. Honey, did you hear what he said? Honey? It's the butter and salt, butter and red wine on everything. Yeah. That that is my only true afraid to flavor their food. If you put salt, brown butter, and lemon on any food, it will taste delicious. Wasn't that what the prices didn't listen? Please?

This ever? Hair for Flynn McGarry. Cameron lates. Flynn McGarry's new restaurant is called Gem, where the tasting menu can be had for on prepaid. Please, and that's if you can get a table. Cameron Yates is movie about McGarry is called a Chef Flynn and will be in theaters this November. I'm at like Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing, The Sun Come