You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair. When I started the River Cafe with Rose Gray in nineteen eighty seven, I was told over and over how cutthroat it would be. Danny Meyer convinced me otherwise. Opening Union Square Cafe and Gramercy Tavern in New York more than thirty years ago, he proved values matter. One could not only treat staff with respect they deserve, but make customers happy, happier, as we always say, when they leave
than when they arrived. What surprised us all was that for his next act, Danny launched Shakeshack in two thousand and one, a hot dog stand in Madison Park. The rest, as they say, is history. Today, when I have a question about fair policies for the people who work with us, or how to think about expanding or contracting the River Cafe, or whether it be possible to do exchanges with our best chefs, I called Danny.
My heart just melted right back at you. In so many ways. I turned to you as my touchdown for taste.
There we are, and we're on well eighteenth floor. The most incredible view to be in New York is to be high. People love Soho and they love Greenwich Village. I want to get hot. I was going to say, I want to get high when I come to New York. But for me being high as the great luxury. We're here surrounded, of course, no surprise by food. Amazing doughnuts, would you calls?
Yes, from Daily Provisions.
From Daily Provisions. And we have ice cream from Danny Meyer's daughter, Hayley, and she makes great food, great ice cream, and she cooked in the River Cafe. She came and worked with us, so she's part of the family. Now, do you want to tell us about the ice cream?
Yeah, let's actually you know what I want to do. I want to tell you about the crullers because this ice cream is going to temper for al times, okay, and we can we can open them and help that process go. But the crullers are pretty much the signature item at a restaurant called Daily Provisions, which we opened about six years ago right next door to Unions to the brand new Union Square Cafe. When we had to move it after thirty years, we have this extra little space.
We didn't know what to do with it, and we said, let's give a gift to the neighborhood. And what did the neighborhood need? We said, a better cup of coffee, a really good bacon, egg and cheese sandwich, a really good donut, and a good roast chicken for dinner. And that's daily Provisions. And the Cruller is the only donut
we serve. And Ruthie, if you don't think that's one of the top three donuts you've ever had, I just want I won't keep talking on this podcast, so I want you to cut yourself some of that.
So tell me about clers, because tell me about donuts. It's not my great knowledge donuts.
Doughnuts are often cakey. This, as you will taste on one bite, is not cakey at all. In fact, it's quite aggy. And what I love about the cinnamon crawler, we only make three different kinds. We make, a maple croller, a cinnamon croller is it's crunchy on the outside and it's almost your take a bite because it's better if you try it than if I describe it. Here we go, So croller.
As I said, I'm not the nash and the cultural heritage thing.
Come on, show me what you got.
Mlichio's first from anybody on this podcast has actually given me something to eat. I really appreciate it.
This is delicious good. It's almost like God.
Is a contrast between the outside thee.
Yeah, it's very aching.
This is divine not to tweet, you know, just more that's a good thing. I don't live next to It Provisions.
So that is a croller and that is a good Onelturo. All crawlers are donuts, but not all doughnuts are crawl.
These are until you tell me how you make them? Do you know?
I do. But that's the only thing we got calling for us. So when you tell me how you make your state secret, I got it. Like everything at the River Cafe, anything away this is They're just they're just so good. Have a sip of your coffee with it, please, Okay, this is not all right?
So those are crawlers.
And then Hallie after she learned how to make ice cream at the River Cafe and also in Rome.
I think she learned in Rome, and then she came.
To she opened right down the street from Daily Provisions, and she is doing such a great job. That was exactly three years ago. They just had their third birthday.
It's kind of seasonal to ice cream one in the summer, and.
Yeah, she's got six that are always on and then she changes one every single day. Now, there's there's a few here that we're going to try, and we have to because you gave her a lot. I want information. I'm going to start off with Aud's dream.
Okay, there's still not Is that what it's called.
It's named that for her mom, Audrey, because this is Audrey's favorite flavor combination, which is vanilla and peanut butter.
So swelled through it.
Swirled through it. I think I better try somewhere we're at it. I'll get in trouble. I'll get in trouble with two ladies in my life.
M m, it's delicious. Id you have to try this? Well? That sounds what's good? You know it's really good? Is vanilla ice cream? Part? Well? When she was growing up, was ice cream her favorite dessert.
I think she has probably had ice cream every day of her life for the last twenty five years.
So as a child, she was.
Five years old, yep.
Wow.
She worked in an ice cream store when she was at Yale and New Haven and she just yep, way before she opened a place. Every single one of her Instagram posts was eating ice cream in someone else's place, which is pretty cool. Now that everybody travels, everybody has access to obviously the Internet, so they can see pictures, read recipes here we're you know, hear how people feel about the food, et cetera. I think the curiosity of chefs to kind of cross pollinate is fascinating. The key, though,
is the gimmicky stuff has my entire career. It never lasts. It's kind of like music. There's eight notes in the octave no matter what you try, plus you know the sharps and flats, and yet there's a myriad number of songs that can be written. And I think the same thing is true in our industry is there's really nothing that new under the sun. Now. What I love about Ruthie and the River Cafe, and this is something that
I really believe in deeply. It's not so much about invention as it is cooking food I know, but cooked better than I knew it could be. There is an enormous amount of skill involved with that, and I wish more chefs understood that in excellence lies creativity. It's not just coming up with something I.
Always say we don't do ideas. You know, No, did you ever have an you know? But sometimes people say I have an idea for something, you have to listen to it. But generally it's a progress of what we did. You know, we did a paran almond tarde. It's strawberry season. We'll put strawberries, or we'll put you know what Haley is doing with her ice creams. It's a process. It's your work every day.
Yeah, that's what made me fall in love with barbecue. For example, when we did blue Smoke, it's what a great pitmaster does. They don't reinvent it. They say, you see that angry piece of meat called brisket. I'm going to figure out something to do with that over the next twelve hours. It's going to blow your mind, just because of meat selection, dry rub temperature, what kind of wood did I smoke it with, how did I hold
it afterwards? All that stuff is really really hard, and there's a huge difference between your favorite brisket and your least favorite brisket. But it's not about can I drizzle balsamic vinegar on it? And I would say that from
a food standpoint. The reason you are my favorite chef in the world I will tell that to everyone, not just your many listeners here is that you have the confidence to make sure that what's on the plate is essential to that plate, and if it's not essential, it's not on that plate, and you find a way to make it taste amazing.
Do you know how when you edit something, and when you wrote your book, or when we try to do something, you go through and you take out a word. I was saying to them today that friend of mine who is a screenwright, told me, don't use the word that. You can always take that out of a sentence and it still works, which is interesting. And I said that, you know, when we plate, we do the menu, because you know, we write the menu for two meals and
then we write it. And I was doing to a chef on the phone because I was late and we were talking about her menu, and I said, go through it and just take one thing off. Almost everything you've done, just take one whether it's a parsi, whether it's a sal severity, whether it's the you know, the panchatta, just take one thing off. And I'm not talking about the kind of cooking that when you know the cuisine massaur or that, but it's just thinking, isn't it about.
Does that really need to be there? Yeah, there's a writer's expression which actually applies to the kitchen, applies to almost everything, which is learn how to murder your darlings, which is a kind of have you heard this well?
I heard Mark Twain once said, if you see the adjective, shoot it.
But we all, whenever we write something or cook something, we assume that that first clever idea we had is essential to it. In general, generally it's not, but it's generally the thing we're most in love with that needs to be the thing that comes off.
Did you know The River Cafe has a shop. It's full of our favorite foods and designs. We have cookbooks, linen napkins, kitchen ware, tote bags with our signatures, glasses from Venice, chocolates from Turin. You can find us right next door to the River Cafe in London or online at Shopthrivercafe dot co dot uk. Of all the books we have, and I see some of them on your desk, it was interesting to me that you chose for a
recipe pure al Romana and a recipe from Rome. One of my favorites, and one of that is in season very soon. So would you like to read the recipe?
I would love to tell.
People how to make it and tell me why you chose it.
Well, first of all, I love Rome. That is my I don't know, it's just my sole place. I always associate puntarell with Rome. You don't really get it too often here in New York. When I've had it at the River Cafe, it's better than when I have it in Rome, which is hard because we have an expression hot dogs always taste better at the ballpark. You would think puntarelli only tastes better in Rome. But at the River Cafe, you just you know exactly what to do
with it. It's a type of chickory that is not typically found in the United States. It's not the easiest thing to handle, and you know exactly what to do with it. It's about the temperature. It's about the balance of the anchovy. So may I read the recipe?
Please read the recipe, and if you feel free to add or take away or comment on anything you like.
Okay, So we're going to have two heads of puntarelli five salted anchovies, and I bet you have a point of view on where I should get those anchovies, two tablespoons of red wine vinegar, one garlic clove, two dried chilies, one teaspoon of black pepper, four tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, and one lemon. So To prepare the puntarelli, fill a bowl with ice cold water, adding as many ice cubes as you can fit in there. Pull the hollow buds from the puntarelli heads. Using a small knife,
slice the buds very thin the lengthwise. Place them in the water to crisp until they curl up. This will take about an hour. Rinse and fill at the anchovies. Cut them into one half inch pieces and place in a small bowl. Cover them with the vinegar and stir to let the anchovy dissolve. Peel and chop the garlic very finely and add to the anchovies with the crumbled chilies and pepper. Add the olive oil. Spin dry the punterairelli as for a salad, Place in a bowl and
serve over the anchovy sauce. Serve with lemon. Yum yum.
It's interesting because it feels like a very easy recipe to make, and it is, and it's one, but when we're explaining it to the chefs making it for the first time, the balance of anchovies, the balance of olive oil, no salt, because the salt it's so salty. With the anchovies, the christminast. I think for myself it is the ideal way to start a meal.
I love it so much, and it just works.
It works. You know.
When I was growing up, we used to go to restaurants and you'd be met with the relish trade, which was the celery carrots and lindsey pitted black olives on a bed of crushed ice. But there was something about that really cold, crispy Sorry that made a taste, But this is not really that different.
No' right. Maybe every culture has their crispy krispy vegetable. Tell me about growing up, then let's talk about We were talking about restaurants. But when you said the words when I was a kid, So, what was it like growing up in the Meyer.
Household in Saint Louis, Missouri. Yeah, well we didn't. You know, we had a lot of cooking going on at home.
My dad was in the travel business and he was the first American agent for an organization called Related Compagna, which would later become Relay in chateau, and so we had French people living in our home, in your home, in our home, who would work in his office by and then at nighttime they were around the table and French was spoken every night lots of times, so the kids wouldn't understand what they were talking about, which encourage
us to learn French. There was always a bottle of baugeolis on the table, and so I, without knowing it, I was getting a little bit of an education.
Who did the cooking.
My dad cooked a lot, my mom did as well. He and I cooked together. He taught me how to cook. His favorite dish was ratatoui and we had a dog by that name, ra Tatui when I was seven years old. So I grew up, you know, with the smells and sounds and fun of cooking, and so it was just kind of part of my upbringing. I got to go to France pretty early in my life, and then later Italy, and then I was a tour guide working for my dad.
He started selling group tours. And when my sister, who's older than I am, turned twenty, she got to pick a city, so she picked Copenhagen. When I was twenty, I picked the wrong. My brother picked Paris, and interestingly, we all three had a kind of love affair with the place we picked. I would go back to Rome to study political science, and and that was supposed to lead me into being a lawyer, but thank goodness, I would have been the world's worst lawyer. Thank goodness. I
converted quickly, and I said, why not? Why not? You know, so embrace My real passion was.
So growing up you had you had a lot of French food, and you were you what was it from that region because France Association.
No, it's not just that we had French food. I grew up appreciating French food, but I really you know, growing up in Saint Louis, we didn't have French restaurants per se. We had great burgers. So I had smash burgers, which would one day lead to shakeshack, and frozen custard, which would len one day lead to shakeshack. We had. Here's what Saint Louis actually did have. Yeah, use have an amazing immigrant population. It began with lots and lots
of Germans. And that's how you get restaurants that I used to go to called Schneidhorse and Anheuser Busch, the beer company was there, et cetera. Lots and lots of sausage makers, lots of beer companies, So there was that going forward. There was also something and it still remains called the Hill, the Italian Hills. So lots of Italians came to Saint Louis and they had their South from the South primarily, and they had their own style of cooking that came to Saint Louis. To this day, they
all have almost the exact same menus. So their carbonara has cream in it, which you would never do. Toasted ravioli with Marina and.
I wonder where that came toasted that is in chreat go figure. I don't know, Ruthy, but did you like it as a kid, of course I did.
Yeah.
I mean.
People you know in London like marmite or whatever that stuff is called.
I wanted to do a photography project when I came to London. I was doing art school of giving Americans more mte and taking a photograph of the face after they ate.
I promised toasted ralli Oli would only put a smile on your face. It's really good.
Yeah, okay, so we're okay on from toasted. So you grew up in this culture of your mother's cooking, your father's cooking.
And getting to cook. But what I really liked more than anything was going to restaurants. I just loved it. There was one restaurant that is still around called Chris's. It's a German place, Kreis Apostrophe Chris's, and they gave me an idea that I used when I opened Union Square Cafe at the age of twenty seven, which was to have a nightly special that you could depend on every night of the week. So you knew if you went in there on Monday nights, yeah, that was chicken
and Dumplings night. You knew if you went in on Tuesday night was sour Brought to Night, which I didn't really care about too much, but they had a different special every night.
We did that.
When I opened Union Square Cafe because I love the idea that you could create an habitual regular. But they also did which I loved from the age of six on. They remembered my favorite table. Yeah, I'm the guy. Well, there's probably every kid who liked to have the table underneath the cuckoo clock, but it meant the world to me that they remember that.
That's what we talk about, you know, with restaurants, is that we were talking about this morning, that you'll go back to a restaurant if they didn't cook the sea pass to perfection, but you won't go back if there's a waiter that makes you feel bad about yourself.
And then furthermore, taking it back to the positive side, you'll always go back where you feel most loved. Yeah, and remember, I remember the late James Beard was constantly accosted in airports, restaurants everywhere because everyone recognized the bald head with the bow tie. And obviously the question everybody asked James Beard was what's your favorit restaurant? Especially in an airport? Where should I? And he said, my favorite restaurant is the same as yours. Yeah, it's the one
that loves me the most. That's hard to argue with that.
I would say. You know that you never know with the table what they've gone through when they come in. You know, they may have had they have gotten lost, they might have been fired that day, they may be celebrating something, and most you know, most often or maybe we should think about, is they may have saved up to come to the river cafe.
That's a really good point.
Really saved up to come and so how are we going to make them feel that everything was, you know, here for them? And I think that's it's really something I learned from you. I think we've all learned that from you. Is how to be happy, making people happy, you know, simple as that.
Well, the last thing I want to say about Saint Louis is that was the biggest lesson I learned because Saint Louis was long on hospitality. It wasn't necessarily the food. But then what I got to do, probably because of the the privilege of growing up with a lot of travel because my dad's company was a travel business, I got the flavor of really good food in Italy and in France. But I also was able to pair that with the kind of hospitality that I always got in
Saint Louis. And when I moved to New York at the age of twenty one, there wasn't a lot of hospitality around here. It was basically, you're lucky to be eating here, and if you don't feel that way, we've got a really nice table by the bathroom for you. There was a lot of that kind of mentality left over from the Studio fifty four eras the Red Velvet Rope.
What year is well?
I moved here? My first night here was the night John Lennon was assassinated in December of nineteen eighty and I got my first apartment in nineteen eighty one. It was not necessarily a nice city back then, so it was kind of a slam dunk when I opened Union Square a cafe to say, well, whoever wrote the rule that good food's gonna taste worse because you're nice to people?
Yeah, if you like listening to Ruthie's Table for would you please make sure to rate and review the podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, O, wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. Going back then to leaving Saint Louis and what was food like after that? We suddenly you're on your own and what am I going to eat? Or can I afford a restaurant? What was that world like when you left?
I couldn't stop discovering things everywhere. So when I was in college at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, Sunday night could be the local burger king because that's what I had enough money to do. But I also would go to their little Italy and find the best we call them grinders. Every town has a different name for submarines or poe boys. In Hartford they're called grinders. And I'd go find the best pizza in the city. It was
all inexpensive stuff, go find the best espresso. I could find. Couldn't understand why the espresso there would be served with a lemon peel and the cappuccino would be served with cinnamon, which is not what I had seen. But again, because of my dad's travel business, until I was twenty one, I could fly anywhere that pan Am flew for forty four dollars round trip forty four dollars. So every time we had a three day weekend, I got myself down to Kennedy Airport and I went. I would almost always
go to run. I went to Venice once in the middle of winter, which is the loneliest place on earth. I did go to London and I really enjoyed it.
Okay, but you hadn't started. Yeah, this was still pre.
This was still pre in Square Cafe. But I was educating myself and I would eat anywhere by myself, you know, I'd go to Popeyes Fried Chicken any anywhere where I could, or I'd go to diners in Long Island. I would just get in my car and go see what was was.
Do you have friends who shared that passion or.
Not as much as I did. You know, I would drive people crazy because I couldn't like New York is one of the greatest walking cities in the world, and I couldn't pass a menu on the outside of a building without studying it. And I would do that in every town in Italy, every town in France. When I went to London by myself for those two weeks, I had this book. I think American Express published the book, and it was their reviews of you know, one hundred restaurants.
And I didn't have much of a budget, so I saved up for the ones I could get into. There was one restaurant that I went to and they wouldn't take me as a solo diner, so I made a reservation for two and I walked dan and I kept looking at my watch, where's my friend? Where's my friend? And I finally ordered a decent bottle of wine for myself so they wouldn't kick me out. You know, no solo diners going to order a single bottle of wine. But you know, I was learning about hospitality too, because
they weren't very very nice at that point. But you know, I just I just love discovery. I think discovery is one of the great things in life when and by the way, as you get older, you can still discover things you've never tried before. But when it comes to food, it's like.
Can I ask you a question. When you were traveling and exploring all these places, were you conscious of a difference between a restauranteur and the chef or were you seeing it then a chef's eze or.
That's such a good question. I think I probably was. There were many many restaurants at that time where you didn't have any idea who the chef was. Know, you obviously had some trail blazers in London everywhere when it came to chefs, and I was very very inspired and
motivated by that. As a matter of fact, when I first broke the news to my parents that I was not going to become a lawyer as everyone had expected, but so I was going to go into this business, I said, I want to be a chef because I had seen people like Alice Waters and Joyce Goldstein and Jeremiah Tower and Wolfgang Puck and Paul Prudhom you know, I can mark guy named Mark Miller and the Miller Yeah, yeah, great memory. And all these people had liberal arts educations.
So I wasn't going to let my parents down, but I was afraid to tell them I wanted to be a restaurateur. And so it got to the point where my dad said, well, then you're going to really need to you better get some cooking in and he set up two stages for me in Bordeaux at places that had been part of laying chateau. And the first one I went to was called La Reserve in Paysack.
Reserve. Where where was that reserve? Restaurants called Aurey Cat.
Yeah, so this one was in the Bordeaux village called Paysack pe s S A C. And the day I got there as a stagier, they had just lost their second star, and so everyone in the restaurant was completely demoralized. As a matter of fact, on day two, four of their cooks left because God forbid, they did not want to have a one star Micheline restaurant on their on their resume. So what that meant is I got a
big promotion meeting. I got to open the oysters and pull the feathers from birds and chop the shallots and all that kind of fun stuff. But I also got to cook family meal for them, and that was that was a big deal. Well, the very first day that I got to cook family meal, I'll never forget. I made my grandmother's spare ribs with her barbecue sauce Cote
de port, Cote de port, and they loved it. And then I made a pasta for them, and I forget what the pasta was, but I could not believe my eyes that all these mishline level cooks, you know what, they dressed my pasta with ketchup. They just started pouring ketchup all over the noodles. I've never seen that in my life, but I guess they considered that to be a good.
Pass your Did you feel more Italian than French and more French than Italian or was it?
Well, during that time I had also spent I probably spent half my time in Italy. I was in Rome, Bologna, Milan, Sardinia, and I think I probably always felt like both. I think that, you know, the original Union Square Cafe menu. We had pasta dishes, we had confe de Canard.
Union Square just changed the way we thought about restaurants. It did. It was a I remember going with Richard. It must have been what year did.
You open, nineteen eighty five.
Yeah, it must It was certainly before the River Cafe. And we used to make some journeys to New York and I remember, you know, there's certain things. You remember where you were when that song played, or where you are when you had that I remember where we were, where we sat, the whole square. How did that happen? How did you Well?
I wanted to open a restaurant that, if only it existed, would be my favorite restaurant in the world. And as I was saying earlier, it was truly an amalgam of my favorite places to eat in the world. They were always I had no interest in being an exalted kind of restaurant, but I wanted to be a place that you would feel equally comfortable wearing jeans or wearing a coat and tie, if that's what you felt like.
It's called Union Square Cafe.
Union Square Cafe.
And that's what we did with the River cafe. People always said, why did you put the word cafe, you know, which is not a cafe. But you didn't. We didn't. I think probably just wanted to step away from that.
And let people know that everyone's welcome for every kind of occasion of something. Doesn't that you can eat at the bar from the day we opened. We had good wines by the glass from the day we opened. But I actually had the But Jesus scared out of me because early on, as I was planning this thing, my uncle introduced me to the guy that was the food and beverage director at the Harvard Club. He said, you need to talk to this guy because he knows everything
about restaurants. So the guy starts grilling me what kind of restaurant are you going to open? And I said, I don't know. I'm going to have a little French stuff, a little Italian stuff, a little California kind of stuff. And he said, I'm going to tell you right now it's not going to work. And I said, what do you mean? And he said, when people decide where they want to eat in New York, they say French, Italian, Chinese, German. No one says, let's go out and eat eclectic. It's
not going to work. And I fortunately did not let that stop me. I just wanted to have food that I loved. And to this day, you know, I've already been in touch with two of our chefs today, three of our chefs. Actually, I just that's one of my favorite parts of my job is talking about food.
So from from Union Square, the next you expect you did another one, you did. I'm not going to have just one restaurant. I'm going to do another restaurant.
You ten years after the Square cafe.
That was ten years later.
Yep, because I said, I'm never opening a second restaurant like someone else. I know.
I'm I remember once calling you, as I kept saying, for advice, and I said, should I do river cafe cafes? And we could do Somebody wants me to do one here and and he said, really, don't think about more than one. You did say that to me. You said, just think one and then grow. You know, don't think did you think.
Did I say, don't think about a river cafe cafe or don't think many river many?
That's what I'm saying. When you started Shakeshack, when you did, you didn't think it would be a global thing that I know.
We wanted to open something to help Madison Square Park. In fact, we did open a second Shakeshack for five years. Can you believe that it just was never ever. The part of the plan was that we wanted to have a place that, if it worked, would attract people day and night to keep the park safe because people make people using a park keep park safe. And then furthermore that a percentage of every sale would go right back into the park. That's all we wanted to do, and
it worked. It worked so well that we said we'd better do a second one because the biggest complaint we're getting is the lines are day and long.
They're still long. I have to say, there's one around the corner from in Victoria from where.
I live Victoria, Nova.
Yeah, and in the line so long, Well.
People need to get the app. That's kind of like when you see people waiting in line to pay their tolls, why didn't you just get easy Pass.
It's not that it's one thing.
You both got amazing restaurants and you've got just one restaurant, and you can create that and create that. It's being the best food and the best service together how did you do that when you're running out dozens of them? It must be very different skills.
Yeah, I think the common skill set is if you can actually really really advance the workplace culture and the hospitality culture for all of your stakeholders, that's common to all of them. As a matter of fact, I care as deeply about the guest experience in the workplace experience at Shakeshack as I do at the Modern or Gramercy Tavern or Manhattan. The skill set that goes with that
is completely different. So for example, if you're going to get a job at the Modern, which has two Michieline stars, We're going to look deeply into your work resume. Do you have the wine knowledge or do you have the culinary knowledge? At Shakeshack. I don't think one person in the history of Shakeshack has ever been asked, can I please see your credentials for how well you make milkshakes
or burgers. I think we hire one hundred percent for emotional skills, in hospitality skills, and then believe that we can teach and train people. So that's the thing that every day I get up if I have one job, it's truly you know, fueling the culture how we do things.
And that culture, I think, is what you do, what we try to do with the people who actually work and go to work every day. And I think if we want to go to work, they'll want to go to work. I think if my view is that we want somebody to want to come to.
Work, absolutely, And I think, what of the many, many things that you've done brilliantly, is you've created two communities that have fallen in love with each other, the people who work there and the people who dine there, and then collectively. I see it every time I.
Go, We we do, we try.
Excuse me, I feel it every time.
I want you to come more. When do you come again?
I don't think I ever go to London and don't see you. So don't give me that. I don't go to London all the time.
The guilt, guilt, guilt. So food can which it is if it's love, it's sharing, it's staving off hunger, it's thinking about what you want to eat with excitement and getting to know culture. It's also comfort. And so I suppose my last question to you, Danny Meyer, my friend nice speed dial, is what would be your comfort food?
Fried chicken? Fried chicken, really good fried chicken.
Okay, And what do you do? How do you make that? Well?
I actually don't make it that often because it makes a bloody mess and there's so much good fried chicken that you can get out there. But when I do make it, it's very, very very simple. It's very simple. So the key thing is obviously getting a good chicken. The next key thing is what are you frying it in? And you're going to laugh, but I use Crisco.
Yeah, Crisco, Mozola oil, Crisco. Yeah, they're pure, aren't they? It's pure? Is it pure? Is Crisco? I know it? Sola is pure?
Large isrand.
Mother used to use Motzola oil because it was pure. This is loud, This is lard.
And you get a reasonably shallow frying pan with the top on it. And meanwhile, with the chicken, you've just seasoned it salt and pepper. That is it, salt and pepper, lots and lots of black pepper. And then you dredge it in flour that's also been seasoned with salt and pepper. That's it, And then you cook it one side down over sort of medium high heat, right, and then as soon, and you've got to be somewhat patient. You can't turn
it too quickly or it'll stick to the bottom. But if you just make sure that the bottom has cooked pretty well, turn it over, lower the heat, the put the top on, the lid on and so it steam finishes the whole thing and it should come out pretty crispy and just absolutely delicious and you feel yep, And I spend the rest of the time cleaning up the kitchen after that, not much comfort.
Well, thank you, Danny, It's great to see you. I'll see you in line.
I love that you came here to do this and I love this podcast.
Now it's honor to have you and delicious food. I'm so happy.
All right, Brawlers forever.
And Hallie is ice cream. Thank you, Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table for in partnership with Montclair.
Ruthie's Table four is produced by Atamei Studios for iHeartRadio. It's hosted by Ruthie Rogers and it's produced by William Lensky. This episode was edited by Julia Johnson and mixed by Nigel Appleton. Our executive producers are Faye Stewart and zad Rogers.
Our production manager is Caitlin Paramore and our production coordinator is Bella Selini.
Thank you to everyone at The River Cafe for your help in making this episode.