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Podcast Summary

The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan

Episode: Michelin Star Chef: Curtis Duffy | The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan
Date: November 5, 2025
Host: Billy Corgan
Guest: Curtis Duffy

Episode Overview

This episode features a deep and candid conversation between Billy Corgan and Curtis Duffy, one of America’s legendary Michelin-starred chefs. Set in Corgan’s teahouse in Highland Park, Illinois, the talk traverses Duffy’s journey from a difficult childhood and personal tragedy to the creative, demanding, and meticulous world of fine dining. Together, they explore the relationship between trauma and artistry, the evolving landscape of haute cuisine, the pressures of the Michelin system, and the philosophy and mechanics behind Duffy’s devotion to craft and excellence.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Duffy’s Early Life, Trauma, and the Pursuit of Artistry

Duffy reveals his shame and secrecy about his family's tragedy, only recently feeling able to talk about it (00:00, 18:22).
Quote: “I was shameful of my story. I didn't tell hardly anybody through my 30 years of that. I didn't tell anybody. I mean, it was very secretive. I was ashamed of it.” (Curtis Duffy, 00:00 & 18:22)
Childhood in Colorado: “My happiest moments were in Colorado Springs, and for me, like, those were the happiest moments of my life.” (Curtis Duffy, 03:04)
Family moved to Ohio after economic hardship; immediately felt a loss of stability and happiness (07:06).
At age 19, Duffy’s father killed his stepmother (who raised him as his mother), a trauma he describes as “a shadow on the wall... always there” (05:56).
How the tragedy impacted his drive and artistry: “I always struggle with the idea of, had it not happened, would I be where I am today? ...Everything that happens in life is usually for a reason, and it does go on to shape who you are today.” (Curtis Duffy, 00:23, 19:24 & 20:09)

2. Entry Into the Culinary World

Began washing dishes at 14 in Ohio for $15 a day, with little initial passion for food (08:03, 09:01).
Developed skills and discipline by finding small challenges in early kitchen work (08:38).
Duffy’s original disinterest in food; family was surprised at his career choice (09:01).

3. Processing Trauma and Its Role in Creativity

Reflects on living with tragedy: “Almost every day of my life, yeah.” (Curtis Duffy, 13:17)
Finds acceptance and healing in storytelling and openness, especially through his book "Fireproof" and the documentary "For Grace" (15:20, 16:08, 17:36).
Parenting and communicating family legacy to his children in an open, honest manner (16:07).

4. Creative Drive and the Focus of Art

Obsessively pursued culinary excellence as a form of coping and focus: “I didn’t want to go home because home meant I had to face reality... Let's start creating things. That's where my creative process started was with no one around.” (Curtis Duffy, 20:58 & 21:21)
Duffy considers the relentless discipline of haute cuisine a necessary outlet: “You owe it to yourself to be great at something.” (Curtis Duffy, 41:00, 43:41)

5. From Charlie Trotter’s to Leading His Own Kitchens

Worked at Charlie Trotter’s as a formative experience, immersing himself in both back and front of house roles to “know everything about it” (21:51, 26:33).
“For me, it was like the discipline level that was in that kitchen. The, the talent of each cook, the precision, the quality of ingredients.” (Curtis Duffy, 22:56)
Became obsessed with excellence and modeled his kitchens on inspirational leaders.
Values assembling talented, motivated teams and the importance of mutual trust and respect (23:56, 34:23).

6. Evolution of Fine Dining and the Tasting Menu

Describes the move from à la carte dining to “tasting menu” formats (27:29).
Notes the molecular gastronomy movement of the early 2000s with Grant Achatz and others, expanding the possibilities of creativity (29:18, 29:44).

7. Relationships and Sourcing in Fine Dining

Importance of relationships with farmers and trusted purveyors (31:00, 32:03): "It's always been very important about the relationships, relationships with the people and the connection I have with the farmers." (Curtis Duffy, 31:10)
Describes the complexity of sourcing ingredients for multi-component courses – relationships and consistency are crucial.

8. Team Building and Leadership

Hiring, testing, and building resilient, cohesive teams happens through “stages” (trial weeks), emphasizing passion, communication, and ability to withstand the kitchen grind (33:19).
“We kind of feel that way with someone who's coming to the kitchen. The first day, great. Second day, great... By day five, it's Saturday night, it's 2:30 in the morning. They got another hour worth of work. How passionate are they about it now?” (Curtis Duffy, 34:23)

9. Philosophy, Art, and What Diners Miss

On what he wants diners to understand: “I think because I've made it my life, I've made it who I am... You have to. You owe it to yourself to be great at something.” (Curtis Duffy, 43:28 & 43:41)
The beauty of simplicity and the drive to elevate even ordinary food into something sublime (45:02).
He’s motivated by pride, ownership, and the need to create “a representation of who you are” (46:13).

10. The Experience of Fine Dining and Tasting Menus

The tasting menu as a fully curated experience: “You walk into the restaurant, you don’t have any choices to make that night other than do you want to drink or you don’t want to drink. And sparkling or still? ...you’re kind of in our hands. And that's the beauty of it.” (Curtis Duffy, 48:44)

11. The Chef as ‘Rockstar’ and Food Media

On TV chefs and the “rockstar” chef phenomenon (49:08): Duffy is skeptical of the glamorization and prefers humility and focus on the craft (49:23).
“The TV personality is not really the chef. ...I'm a chef chef.” (Curtis Duffy, 51:32)

12. The Pressure and Process of Michelin Stars

Discusses the stress and mystery of Michelin star reviews (53:05–56:48).
The Michelin Guide sends anonymous inspectors; stars are earned and re-evaluated annually.
“You have to be on every night, every table.” (Curtis Duffy, 56:42)
Losing a star can hurt business and morale.

13. Gourmands, Foodies, and Changing Audiences

Explains the global “gourmand” phenomenon: food fans who travel the world to dine at the best restaurants (57:25–58:45).
After winning the third star, the customer base shifted to international travelers and serious foodies, which raises standards and keeps the team sharp.

14. Pandemic, Rev Burger, and High-End vs. Democratic Food

During the pandemic, Duffy launched Rev Burger to keep his team together and pivot to accessible, high-quality fast food (61:45–64:19).
“The middle is always the most vulnerable because you don’t really need to go out and have a nice meal.” (Curtis Duffy, 65:29)

15. Future of Food

Foresees focus on elevating casual dining and fast food, especially for quality, healthy, and possibly vegan options (65:00–66:29).
Duffy observes that while “molecular gastronomy” was a fad, most guests now seek “real food” over tricks (67:18–68:09).
New kitchen tech (like the Spenol) offers exciting possibilities for ingredient manipulation, but true novelty remains rare (69:08–69:29).

Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

On trauma and artistry:
“I always struggle with the idea of, had it not happened, would I be where I am today? ...Everything that happens in life is usually for a reason, and it does go on to shape who you are today.” (Curtis Duffy, 00:23, 19:24, 20:09)
On creative focus:
“I kind of just took what happened and shifted it and full bore focused into my art.” (Curtis Duffy, 20:45)
On building a kitchen team:
“You got like an A team in there with you. … If you were insecure, you’d be the king and everybody else would kind of sit down. … I’m always impressed by the level of talent that you. Every time I’ve been to your kitchen, it’s like you got like an A team in there with you.” (Billy Corgan, 23:41–23:56)
On fine dining’s core experience:
“The restaurant is built on an experience. … The tasting menu format … is an experience at the end of the day. … Not having to make any decisions. And that’s what the tasting menu does … you’re kind of in our hands.” (Curtis Duffy, 47:23–48:55)
On chef “rockstar” culture:
“The TV personality is not really the chef. … I’m not a TV personality chef. I’m a chef chef.” (Curtis Duffy, 51:32)
On Michelin pressure:
“It is, it’s, it is like you have to be on every night, every table.” (Curtis Duffy, 56:42)
On food's future:
“It’s elevating the casual dining, elevating the fast food portion of it … that’s something I think is a heavy focus in … the US.” (Curtis Duffy, 65:00–65:58)

Important Timestamps

Curtis on family tragedy/shame: 00:00, 18:22
Happy childhood in Colorado: 03:04
Kitchen beginnings: 08:03–09:01
Describing the day of the tragedy: 13:17
Parenting through trauma: 16:07
Art as healing and focus: 20:09–21:21
Charlie Trotter inspiration: 22:56
Team philosophy: 23:41–24:23, 34:23
Fine dining experience/tasting menu: 27:29, 48:44
Chef as rockstar/media: 49:08, 51:32
Michelin process and stress: 53:05–56:48
Pandemic and Rev Burger: 61:45–64:19
Future/evolving food culture: 65:00–66:29
Food technology: 69:08–69:29

Tone and Conclusion

The conversation is warm, honest, and sometimes raw, reflecting both men's Midwestern roots and mutual respect for artistry born from adversity. Corgan guides the discussion with humility and candor, while Duffy matches him with clear-eyed observations about his own journey.

Whether you’re a food lover, a creative, or simply interested in stories of resilience, this episode highlights the relentless pursuit of excellence, the cathartic power of art, and the enduring quest to elevate both simple and luxurious experiences for all.

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Transcript601 lines

[00:01]
Curtis Duffy
You know, I was shameful of my story. I didn't tell hardly anybody through my 30 years of that. I didn't tell anybody. I mean, it was very secretive. I was ashamed of it.
[00:10]
Interviewer
Yeah. I mean, am I wrong in thinking you must have replayed that day in your head, like, a thousand times?
[00:17]
Curtis Duffy
Almost every day of my life?
[00:19]
Interviewer
Because you're an artist in my eyes. How does it not affect your artistry?
[00:23]
Curtis Duffy
I always struggle with the idea of, had it not happened, would I be where I am today? And I can't say that I would be. I don't know if I would be. I think everything that happens in life is usually for a reason, and it does go on to shape who you are today.
[00:42]
Interviewer
Okay, welcome. Thank you very much for being here. This special edition, we're in my teahouse in Highland Park, Illinois, to talk all things Curtis.
[00:52]
Curtis Duffy
Excited to be here. Thank you.
[00:53]
Interviewer
Thank you. And this is kind of a weird preamble, but I think it's sort of necessary because normally when I look at somebody's life, and one of the reasons I started the show is I love talking about people who are great at what they do, and I just want to sort of explore that, you know, and in the case of food, I mean, I'm totally a punter. I don't understand the world at all. My wife is a foodie, and, you know, my wife. But. But for me, it's all kind of goes above my head. You know, the classic somebody comes to the table, you know, the mushrooms are sourced from here, and I'm just like. I don't know.
[01:26]
Curtis Duffy
You're lost.
[01:27]
Interviewer
Yeah. But, you know, you have this, you know, this kind of unspeakable tragedy in the early part of your life that on the surface level doesn't have any direct correlation to your. To your work, your life's work. But of course, it must have some connectivity. And we have similar childhoods. Sure. And in my life, I mean, my childhood became such a part of my work, and it was part of what attracted people to me because I was being so open about things that most people didn't talk about. And of course, you've written this book, Fireproof, which is out, and of course you talk about it in there, but I found myself struggling in preparing to talk to you. It's like, how. How do you put these two pieces together? So the reason I sort of started there is not that I don't want to talk about those things, but I'm very interested in your creative life. And yet over here in the corner but you have been transparent about it. Is this terrible tragedy. Sure. So at least maybe by saying that, it gives some context for why I'm asking what I'm asking. So I'm curious. You're a Midwestern person. Ohio, Absolutely. And you seem to bounce between Colorado and Ohio. What was your. I guess, what was your cultural life like when you were young? Do you. I mean, what. What world do you remember growing up.
[02:58]
Curtis Duffy
In, do you know? I guess for me, like, my happiest moments were in Colorado.
[03:04]
Interviewer
Okay.
[03:04]
Curtis Duffy
I spent my first 13 years in Colorado Springs, and for me, like, those were the happiest moments of my life.
[03:12]
Interviewer
We had.
[03:12]
Curtis Duffy
We were surrounded by family all the time. I think my father was in a really good place there mentally. My mother as well. I mean, there was certain moments.
[03:23]
Interviewer
Sure. But was it. Was it the. Was it the. I don't know, you know, for us in Chicago, like, you know, Colorado sounds like, you know, mountains in nature, you know, but you probably know you grew up in, like, a normal suburb. But I'm saying, was it. Was it the outdoor life? Was it Colorado back then wasn't as populous. You grew up, you know, you're born in mid 75, right? 75.
[03:43]
Curtis Duffy
I was born in 75, yeah.
[03:44]
Interviewer
So. So the world you grew up in was like, you know, the Reagan 80s. Sure. You know, America, by and large, was considered a safe place, and the neighborhoods were safe.
[03:52]
Curtis Duffy
At least my neighborhood. I mean, we had friends. We were out till 10, 11 o' clock at night playing hide and seek.
[03:59]
Interviewer
And so you're thinking of that. Is it. Is it just that kind of romantic notion of what America was like back then? Yeah, just.
[04:05]
Curtis Duffy
It's kind of what you wish you had for your children today. Because we. We fear just letting them out the front door in this day. And back then, I mean, we ran the neighborhood. We ran, walked to and from school. My parents were always working, so.
[04:19]
Interviewer
So what around you was attractive? Was it music? Was it art? Was it somebody, you know, that made great food? Like what first registered in your mind as culture?
[04:33]
Curtis Duffy
I think friends. More. More than anything. Just being. Being able to stay over at somebody's house and play video games. Well, we didn't have video games at my house, but, you know, on the weekends I can play video games with somewhere else and we could run the neighborhood. We could ride bicycles and do things like that. That was my upbringing. And for me, that was. That was life. That's what it was. It was skiing in the wintertime because the mountains, of course, are right there. And then summertime was riding bicycles and just having a blast.
[05:05]
Interviewer
And I know you love music, so what's your musical reflection of that time?
[05:11]
Curtis Duffy
My dad playing Hysterio. Big reel to reel system.
[05:15]
Interviewer
Okay.
[05:15]
Curtis Duffy
Pioneer San Sui speakers.
[05:19]
Interviewer
You love music then because you only went there if you love music. Right.
[05:22]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah. And.
[05:22]
Interviewer
And what would he have been listening to in the house?
[05:24]
Curtis Duffy
Ccr, Quiet Riot, AC dc.
[05:28]
Interviewer
So like a classic.
[05:29]
Curtis Duffy
Classic. Yeah, from Alabama actually.
[05:31]
Interviewer
Okay, great. Great band.
[05:32]
Curtis Duffy
Oak Ridge Boys if we're going a little country, some Johnny Cash.
[05:36]
Interviewer
Yeah, sure. So and to sort of just talk about the elephant in the room, the unspeakable tragedy is you're 8, 19. And we don't have to go too deep into it, but it sort of bears reflection. It's like to me it's like in thinking about it and I don't know what it's like to go through that, but it's like a shadow on the wall. It's always there.
[05:57]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah.
[05:57]
Interviewer
And of course by you being public about it, it becomes part of your life story. Your father kills your stepmother, but she was the woman that raised you. Correct. So in your mind it's your mother.
[06:09]
Curtis Duffy
That is my mother.
[06:10]
Interviewer
It's really not those. There's no distinction there.
[06:12]
Curtis Duffy
Correct.
[06:12]
Interviewer
Technically not your birth mother. Right. And so was your life before that? Like I. I hear you sort of like let's call it classic middle class life. Was your life before that? Would you classify this as happy? But there were sort of things that were on. Or was it a situation that worsened over time?
[06:35]
Curtis Duffy
I think once we moved to Ohio that would have put me around the age of 13, sixth grade when we moved to Ohio. That's I think when I started noticing it more.
[06:46]
Interviewer
Was it, was it there and then you started noticing it or, or did something change?
[06:50]
Curtis Duffy
Well, it changed in a way. The lifestyle changed drastically. Like I said, like Colorado. We seemed to. It was a five bedroom house, a decent yard. I didn't feel like we struggled for many of anything actually. And maybe that's just my naivety being so young.
[07:06]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[07:07]
Curtis Duffy
As a child. But when I got to the age of 13 and we moved to Ohio is when I felt like this is. We're not in Kansas anymore.
[07:17]
Interviewer
Was there an economic decision behind moving?
[07:19]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, my father, my grandfather owned a tire retread shop called I think it was a big O tires and they retreaded tires and my father ran the business. Well my grandfather retired and shut the business down so left my father with now searching for a job so decided to move back. Well and maybe Move to Ohio, where my uncle was his brother. And so there was a closer family knit there.
[07:48]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[07:48]
Curtis Duffy
So that's the reason why we moved.
[07:50]
Interviewer
So. And how you're 13, you're conscious of this, the shift in the family. Yeah, Fortunes. Maybe.
[07:56]
Curtis Duffy
Immediately. Immediately. It was like, overnight, like one moment to the next.
[08:01]
Interviewer
Did you start working in kitchens around 14? Is that accurate?
[08:04]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, about 14 years old.
[08:05]
Interviewer
And this is country club. Right.
[08:07]
Curtis Duffy
This. Well, at this time, at 14 years old, I was still in the small little town, and I could only wash dishes. You know, I could only walk there. So I spent, you know, my evenings washing dishes in a small diner for 15 a day.
[08:21]
Interviewer
Were you immediately attracted to the atmosphere of a kitchen?
[08:25]
Curtis Duffy
Not immediately. When the owner, who happened to be the chef owner of the diner, he allowed me to start cooking. He allowed me to start peeling potatoes and things like that.
[08:38]
Interviewer
That's cool, right?
[08:39]
Curtis Duffy
And yeah, as a young guy, you're like, anything to do from. Get away from doing dishes, I'll do whatever you want me to do. And so that stuff became very fun for me, and I started making small challenges with myself, like peeling the cooked potato, trying to hold the skin in its entirety without disrupting it and all these.
[08:59]
Interviewer
Had you had an interest in food before that?
[09:01]
Curtis Duffy
Never.
[09:02]
Interviewer
I mean, that's funny. Yeah.
[09:03]
Curtis Duffy
And it is. Because later. Later down the road, when. When I tell my family that I want to be a chef, when I realized that this is what I want to do, they all kind of looked at me like, are you crazy? Because I would sit at the dinner table like this for hours and hours and hours, like. And wouldn't eat the meal. And there was two. Two ways of either finish what you have on the plate.
[09:24]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[09:24]
Curtis Duffy
Or go to bed hungry.
[09:25]
Interviewer
Was it. You didn't like what was being okay?
[09:27]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, I didn't like. I didn't like food that was.
[09:29]
Interviewer
Just.
[09:30]
Curtis Duffy
Wasn't interested in it.
[09:31]
Interviewer
Do you see it? Was it. Was it a consequence maybe, of that you were born with a sophisticated palate? No. Is that.
[09:37]
Curtis Duffy
I'd like to think that I would probably err on the side.
[09:40]
Interviewer
When I look back, I feel like I was a music snob at very young. Whatever gift I had for music voiced itself very early on. A snobbery about music.
[09:49]
Curtis Duffy
Oh, maybe I've now never looked at it that way. I've always looked at it as, like, maybe my mom wasn't the best cook.
[09:54]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[09:55]
Curtis Duffy
And rightfully so.
[09:56]
Interviewer
She. But you must have a. I mean, maybe. I'm guessing, but I mean, to do what you do, you Must have a pretty sophisticated palette.
[10:02]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, I think so.
[10:03]
Interviewer
Like a sensitivity.
[10:04]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah. So.
[10:09]
Interviewer
You'Re working in kitchens, but at that point, do you have any sense that there's a, there's a professional life? You're just like a normal kid. You're, you're making some money and.
[10:17]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, making money. At that point I knew, like, I wanted to, I wanted more than what we had. I wanted more like this was not my lifestyle. This was not where I wanted to be in, in 10 years. And, and I'm 14. I'm like. So I'm taking that $15 a day and just saving it. Saving it, saving it, saving it. Because at some point I want to, you know, buy a motorcycle to deliver the newspapers quicker because I also had a paper route. You know, eventually buy a car, because that's going to get me further away.
[10:50]
Interviewer
Especially in a cold weather state. Yeah, no car. No, no, no, exactly. No game.
[10:55]
Curtis Duffy
So that's, that's where I was at. And, you know, I never really thought that this was what I was going to do.
[11:01]
Interviewer
Was there any foreshadowing in the family dynamic, say between, you know, this kind of. Because this, this tragedy happened when you were 19, because you must have at times reflected back and said, were there signs? Did I see things? Or, or when, when, when your, when your father did kill your mother, was it. Did it seem to come out of nowhere?
[11:22]
Curtis Duffy
It, it didn't come out of nowhere. The irony of it, like, in hindsight, with most, most things, that stereo system, if we back up to that stereo system, that was like his love the. I mean, it was a beautiful system.
[11:35]
Interviewer
And.
[11:37]
Curtis Duffy
We had to clean it on Saturday, but to clean it, we weren't allowed to touch it. So clean it, but don't touch it in a, in a weird way of joking about it, like, don't screw it up.
[11:48]
Interviewer
Okay? Right.
[11:48]
Curtis Duffy
Don't screw it up. Don't push the buttons. Everything's set to where they're supposed to be at.
[11:51]
Interviewer
Okay.
[11:53]
Curtis Duffy
He gave me that system. And the irony of it is, um, it was right towards the very end of his life, he started giving things away and he helped me move it into my first, my first apartment. And it was just like, for me, like, I was like, very excited. Yeah, I get to jam this amazing system out for the first time.
[12:15]
Interviewer
It's certainly my, not my area expertise, but there, there is some sense that when people are thinking about taking their own life, they start giving stuff away.
[12:23]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah. That is one of the signs. Not knowing that then.
[12:27]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[12:27]
Curtis Duffy
I certainly look back at he Gave me a lot of stuff towards the end. And that was his pride and joy.
[12:32]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[12:32]
Curtis Duffy
To just give it away.
[12:33]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[12:34]
Curtis Duffy
He's like, I don't need it anymore.
[12:36]
Interviewer
What do you. So. And you can go. Like I said, I'm not trying to jump around the story, because, like I said, it. It's. To me, in looking at your life, it cast this sort of shadow. And. And that's not to put the shadow on you. It's just like, how does it not.
[12:51]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah.
[12:52]
Interviewer
You know, the circumstance. You get called, there's a hostage situation, the cops pick you up. You don't really, totally know what's going on. Right. They take you to a house down the road, and this whole scene plays out. I mean, am I wrong in thinking you must have replayed that day in your head like, a thousand times?
[13:17]
Curtis Duffy
Almost every day of my life, yeah.
[13:19]
Interviewer
Is it. Do you look back and think, I could have done this, I should have done that? It's such an extreme circumstance. I think that's why I even struggle for what the right question is.
[13:28]
Curtis Duffy
You know, the struggle is, could I have done something? And the answer is, no, I couldn't have. But it took a long time to come to those terms because I do know, like, he was asking to speak with me, but in those situations, he also had to give something up to get what he needed or what he wanted, what he was requesting to have a conversation with me or to even get a pack of cigarettes from them. There was like, you got to give something else up. And he had nothing else to give up other than to give my mother to them. So there was no negotiating at all. It was just really a standoff. So, yeah, I outplay that in my brain a lot. Almost probably every day I would. I would think.
[14:16]
Interviewer
And then after this happens, I mean, sometimes I think about when people go through an extreme circumstance. I always try to think, like, what happens the next day when you wake up and that, you know. Yeah, it's not a dream. Right. It's like, this is a reality and now I have to sort through. You have siblings, you have relatives, you have. Now, this is your story too.
[14:38]
Curtis Duffy
Right.
[14:39]
Interviewer
I mean, here we are, you know.
[14:41]
Curtis Duffy
30 years later, and we're talking about it. We're talking about it.
[14:44]
Interviewer
It's. It's part of your life.
[14:45]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah. Yeah. It is a weird wake up the next day moment, because in an instant, it's gone. Everything that you knew before the first 18, 19 years of my life, just gone.
[14:55]
Interviewer
Like, does it make you question the happy times?
[14:59]
Curtis Duffy
I think it Makes me try to embrace the happy times more and. And be thankful for those moments. Because the darker times always outshadow the happier times. I have to dig deep to find those happy moments. And the harder ones come up so easily.
[15:16]
Interviewer
Yeah. And were you able to eventually make peace with it all or not?
[15:21]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah. Well, I think part of writing this book was the main reason why I wanted to write the book with Jeremy, because I knew I needed to deal with it. Although I've dealt with a lot of. I spent 30 years of. Of trying to figure out all the emotions that I had towards my father being okay with what he did and, you know, and then trying to justify and smooth everything out so I can live a normal life.
[15:48]
Interviewer
Sure.
[15:49]
Curtis Duffy
And not be.
[15:49]
Interviewer
And then be a parent yourself.
[15:51]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah. And how not to bring those things into my. My life. My children.
[15:56]
Interviewer
It. How old are your kids?
[16:00]
Curtis Duffy
19 and 16.
[16:01]
Interviewer
I knew they were.
[16:02]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah.
[16:03]
Interviewer
How do you, at some point sit them down and say, by the way, this is part of our family.
[16:07]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah.
[16:08]
Interviewer
Story.
[16:09]
Curtis Duffy
I had to wait until they were old enough to. I felt they could understand it. And also happened to release a documentary of my life called For Grace. And I didn't want my children to either somehow find it on Netflix or one of their classmates see it and go, hey, your dad. And.
[16:29]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[16:30]
Curtis Duffy
So I had to.
[16:31]
Interviewer
They had to hear it from you.
[16:32]
Curtis Duffy
I had to hear. I wanted them to hear it from me. It was very important. So we sat down and I. I tried to make the environment as comfortable as possible.
[16:39]
Interviewer
We.
[16:39]
Curtis Duffy
We just pillows on the bed and just made it just. Just a loving environment and just kind of walk down the path of what it was.
[16:46]
Interviewer
What was their reaction?
[16:50]
Curtis Duffy
You know, I think, you know, they. They were crying, and we were all crying, and. And we were trying to. You know, I was trying to make it as happy as possible. I was trying not to cry because I didn't want them to feel. I was trying to tell them that I was okay with what. With what had happened.
[17:04]
Interviewer
Sure.
[17:04]
Curtis Duffy
And that they needed to be okay with it. But it was important for them to understand, you know, where their grandfather and their grandmother are and, you know. Yeah. They're not present in their life.
[17:15]
Interviewer
Yeah. So. And thank you for being open to talk about that, you know.
[17:21]
Curtis Duffy
Absolutely.
[17:22]
Interviewer
Yeah. Was it. Was it hard in writing the book to. To go into detail? You know, it's one thing to sort of talk about in a context like this, but, like, to actually sort of spell it out because it is a story like any other.
[17:37]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah. Well, with Jeremy, you know, because we are such great friends. It made it the process.
[17:42]
Interviewer
Jeremy's the ghost. Jeremy ghostwriter. Is he.
[17:44]
Curtis Duffy
Listen, he's the actual writer. I should be labeled as the ghostwriter because I didn't actually write. Was hours and hours of conversation like this.
[17:51]
Interviewer
But it's in your voice.
[17:52]
Curtis Duffy
It's in my voice?
[17:53]
Interviewer
Yeah. Yeah.
[17:54]
Curtis Duffy
And, you know, having such a good friend be able to tell your story made me be able to tell my story with ease, with comfort, with the ability to. To be really like an open book and with no judgment, zero judgment from his side. And I was always worried about, you know, I was shameful of my story. I didn't tell hardly anybody through my 30 years of that. I didn't tell anybody. I mean, it was very secretive. I was ashamed of it.
[18:23]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[18:23]
Curtis Duffy
And I had to. Until Grace came out. I just kind of buried it.
[18:28]
Interviewer
Yeah. And what's weird about something like that? Weird's not the right word, but unfortunate is. I can't remember what the exact circumstance was, but it was one of the first times that I met you in life, and somebody said they basically sort of, oh, you should know this thing about him. So before I even knew you as a person.
[18:48]
Curtis Duffy
Oh, sure.
[18:49]
Interviewer
It becomes this, like, thing. You know, curiosity is not the right word, but it's like. It's like, oh, and by the way.
[18:56]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah.
[18:56]
Interviewer
You know, and. And. And I think as humans, you know, if you. If you have any heart, you. You feel empathy, but then you don't really know what to do with that.
[19:03]
Curtis Duffy
Absolutely right.
[19:04]
Interviewer
And that's why I said, in preparing to talk to you in this context, it's like, how do we. How do I. How do we. How do we sort of put it in context? Because really, what I'm interested in is your. Is your great gift with food, you know, but it. It. I can't. Because you're an artist, in my eyes, how does it not affect your artistry?
[19:25]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, well, I honestly, you know, I struggled with that for a long time.
[19:30]
Interviewer
And can you. Can you slow that down a little bit and explain how that works?
[19:33]
Curtis Duffy
So I had a great conversation with the New York Times, Kim Severson, and she interviewed me a few weeks ago, and she gave me the. To the answer that I was looking for for 30 years as to, you know, this tragedy in my life. I always struggle with the idea of, had it not happened, would I be where I am today? And I can't say that I would be. I don't know if I would be. I think everything that happens in life is usually For a reason. And it does go on to shape who you are today.
[20:10]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[20:11]
Curtis Duffy
And if my parents were still alive, I don't know if I'd be living in Chicago. I don't know if I'd have the drive that I have. I don't know if.
[20:19]
Interviewer
You know, if.
[20:20]
Curtis Duffy
I'd be so successful. And she said, you know, that was their last gift to you. And I never thought of it that way. And it was something that I was looking for. I was looking for the reason. So I think all that energy, I kind of just took what happened and shifted it and full bore focused into my art.
[20:45]
Interviewer
So it's like a, like a, like a singular, A singular focus. Is that, is that an accurate way to. Was it, was it the way of. It's like I got all this stuff I've got to sort through if I can just focus on one thing and.
[20:59]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, yeah. Because I, I didn't want to be alone and I didn't want to go home at night. And I was working and I was already. I already knew I wanted to be a chef.
[21:10]
Interviewer
What better place than a busy kitchen, Right?
[21:12]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, exactly. So when everybody went home, I didn't want to go home because going home meant I had to face reality.
[21:21]
Interviewer
Wow, that's heavy.
[21:22]
Curtis Duffy
That's hard. So why not just stay and do what I love to do? So let's start creating things. That's. That's where my creative process started was with no one around.
[21:32]
Interviewer
So walk me through this point of, okay, it's the next day, I gotta go on with my life here. And, you know, you're still a very young person. And then how do we end up at Charlie Trotter's, you know, four or five years later? And, you know, in this community of Chicago, Charlie Trotter is like, he's the God.
[21:52]
Curtis Duffy
Food God. Yeah. That was me making the decision to continue with college and continuing what I started. I've always been a man of my word and I was going to do what I set out to do and I was going to finish what I want. Once I. Once I started, I was going to finish it.
[22:09]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[22:09]
Curtis Duffy
So I had another year or so left of college and my focus just became all food, all everything, everything about food.
[22:18]
Interviewer
Like an obsessive, obsessive.
[22:20]
Curtis Duffy
And then, you know, of course, this is right around the time when the Internet was out, starting to come out. And then every single day I would obsessively look up Charlie Trotter to see, like, new menu ideas, new menu changes. And my friend at the time Are.
[22:33]
Interviewer
You here that you're here in.
[22:35]
Curtis Duffy
No, I'm still in Ohio at this point.
[22:36]
Interviewer
Oh, and you're still in Ohio. Wow.
[22:38]
Curtis Duffy
Finishing college at this point. Yeah. I had already spent two weeks at his restaurant, and I knew exact. I knew this is where I wanted to be.
[22:47]
Interviewer
What was it about what, what he was doing, that, that registered in your mind as, like, a form of the future? Does that make sense, the way I'm asking?
[22:57]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, it was for me, it was like the discipline level that was in that kitchen. The, the talent of each cook, the, the precision, the quality of ingredients.
[23:09]
Interviewer
Just if you don't mind, because I've been in your kitchen a few times, I'm always impressed. Maybe it's the rock star problem, but as someone who's been in the music business, I tend to look at people's worlds not so much with who they are, but who's around them. And I'm always impressed that you surround yourself with incredible talent. So I always see that as a compliment to you, because if you were insecure, you'd be the king and everybody else would kind of sit down. And I'm sure you've seen those kitchens.
[23:41]
Curtis Duffy
Absolutely. Yeah. I've been in those kitchens before.
[23:45]
Interviewer
Okay.
[23:45]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah.
[23:45]
Interviewer
Again, I don't know about that world. I, I, I'm, it's only an observation.
[23:49]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah.
[23:49]
Interviewer
But I'm always impressed by the level of talent that you. Every time I've been to your kitchen, it's like you, you got like an A team in there with you.
[23:57]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah. It's important.
[23:57]
Interviewer
And you can feel that. Again, not my world, but I can feel that pride of ownership in your kitchen.
[24:03]
Curtis Duffy
Sure.
[24:04]
Interviewer
So whatever you're bringing, they feel that. Yeah. And they trust you to take them there because everybody's on their own journey, Right?
[24:11]
Curtis Duffy
Absolutely. Yeah, you're right.
[24:12]
Interviewer
So anyways, but, but I'm saying it's cool. Cause I've seen it on the other side. That was your inspiration. I've witnessed it.
[24:18]
Curtis Duffy
That's great. That's amazing to hear. Thank you.
[24:21]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[24:21]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah.
[24:22]
Interviewer
So I don't know if there's a question there, but.
[24:24]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, no, no, I don't think there was.
[24:26]
Interviewer
But so anyway, so, but how do we. How do you end up working with Charlie Trotter? That, that whole. So again, in this town, it's like, that's, that's up until kind of, let's call it, your generation brought in this other way of looking at restauranting.
[24:42]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah.
[24:43]
Interviewer
The restaurateurs and, you know, you know, the Melmans are obviously the, you Know, huge. Yeah, huge here. And. And have a ton of influence in this community. And we do love our food, as, you know, here in Chicago. People always say, why do you think Chicago is such a food town? I guess we got nothing to do for seven months. We're stuck inside. All we got to do is eat and watch football. That's it. That's it. So how do you kind of work your way into that world?
[25:09]
Curtis Duffy
So when I was in Ohio, still in college, my. My good friend, who also was a chef at the time, Regan Coivisto. Regan, said, you know, you're obsessed with this guy. Why don't you go work for him? And I'm like, I don't. I don't even know how to get to the guy. Yeah, they.
[25:27]
Interviewer
They.
[25:27]
Curtis Duffy
You know, I've. And there's got to be.
[25:28]
Interviewer
There's gotta be, like. I don't know, there's gotta be programs and things by which people would go to.
[25:33]
Curtis Duffy
Right.
[25:33]
Interviewer
Apprentice or whatever.
[25:34]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah.
[25:35]
Interviewer
And you're in Ohio, and I'm in Ohio.
[25:37]
Curtis Duffy
So he's like, you have a phone number? I said, yeah. I got off their website, he calls him. And I was just like, oh, my God, what the hell just happened? He called him, and he got the right person on the phone and said, here's what you have to do. You have to come and spend a week at the restaurant. Work for free. They call it a stage. And, you know, that gives us an opportunity to see who you are, how you fit in with the team, and see if this is where you want to work. So it's kind of a double way of interviewing my interview, their interview as well. And I went there. I ended up spending two weeks there. I was in total love with it. Came back to Columbus, finished school, and the moment I graduated, I moved to Chicago.
[26:20]
Interviewer
That's a cool story.
[26:21]
Curtis Duffy
It's like, I had to be here. So I spent the next three and a half years there. A little over three years there.
[26:26]
Interviewer
Yeah, but did you have a sense then that, okay, this is what I want to do? I mean, you must have, right? You're. You're obsessed now.
[26:33]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, You're.
[26:34]
Interviewer
You're.
[26:34]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, I. I wanted every. I wanted to know everything about that restaurant. I spent a year and a half in the front of the house. I spent really, the other time in the kitchen. I wanted to know everything. I spent time answering the phones, taking reservations. I wanted to know everything. If this restaurant is one of the best restaurants in the country, if not the world, I want to. That's what I Want. I want to know everything about it. So I inserted myself in all these positions. I. That's was so important. It was so, so important.
[27:03]
Interviewer
So this isn't my naivete. What. What do you guys call, you know, like, people ask me coming to Chicago, where should I go eat.
[27:13]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah.
[27:14]
Interviewer
And I always recommend that they come see you. And. But I never know what to call it. And, you know, so if it's one punter talking to another punter, it's like they do the 20 course.
[27:26]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah. Tasty. Yeah.
[27:28]
Interviewer
But what do you guys call it?
[27:30]
Curtis Duffy
I mean, we are a tasting menu. I mean, I always say, like in.
[27:34]
Interviewer
The early days of alternative music, no one knew what to call it.
[27:37]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, right.
[27:38]
Interviewer
We call it.
[27:38]
Curtis Duffy
I mean, there's some people call it a digga station menu.
[27:40]
Interviewer
Okay.
[27:41]
Curtis Duffy
A restaurant. It's a tasting menu, restaurant format, whatever you want to call it. We just say, you know, we're. We are a tasting menu format restaurant. We don't do a la carte. Basically, you. You sit down and you, you. We give you the experience and you don't have any other alternatives.
[27:57]
Interviewer
Yeah. Was there. Was there a lot of historical antecedent for that? Because it seemed around the time you rose and some of your original partners kind of rose in the international. Not just the Chicago restaurant scene, but in the international scene. And I started hearing about it right. From all the fancy people here that like to spend money. But point is, is. Is it. It suddenly it seemed like kind of appear out of nowhere.
[28:20]
Curtis Duffy
Charlie. Charlie introduced it. So Charlie opened his restaurant in 87. And I say he introduced it. He entered. I think he introduced it to the Midwest. There was a couple restaurants in the west coast that were doing it, and of course in the east as well, in New York. But Charlie introduced it. He opened with an a la carte menu, and then he started shifting it to going, okay, you pick one, two, and three courses. And then it became a tasty menu only. But then it evolved into like three or four different menus. So you had what they called the grand menu at the time. Then they had the vegetable menu.
[28:52]
Interviewer
Sure.
[28:53]
Curtis Duffy
Then they had the kitchen table menu. And then you could riff off of all those and kind of just do your own thing.
[28:59]
Interviewer
But your crew seemed to bring in this other thing. And I'm struggling for the right words because I'm not a foodie per se, but it was a more radical way out. You know, the classic thing somebody would say, and I'm not saying that you coming out of your. One of your restaurants, it would be like I had the bubble gum sushi.
[29:19]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, the more like avant garde style, like molecular.
[29:22]
Interviewer
It became a talking thing in the community.
[29:25]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, the molecular movement around 2000, 2003.
[29:29]
Interviewer
Okay, so that's, that's kind of in that time frame.
[29:32]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, that was. I had just left Charlie's at the later end of 2003, and I moved to a restaurant called Trio in Evanston. That's where I met Grant Atkins.
[29:45]
Interviewer
I ate there back in the day.
[29:46]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah. So Grant Achatz was the chef there and he was recently from the French Laundry, and he was very much into the molecular movement that was coming out of Spain at the time. And the Ferran Adria brothers were the leading force in that whole movement of molecular gastronomy.
[30:03]
Interviewer
What was your first reaction to that kind of movement? Like, what was your first kind of intuitive take on it?
[30:08]
Curtis Duffy
It was super interesting. I mean, it's something we had never seen before. And it opened up so many possibilities of creativeness and very thought provoking dishes.
[30:21]
Interviewer
This is totally like, again, a naivete question. But like, when you're sourcing like this mushroom from this place, like, how do you, like, how do you find that information? Like, is it like, is there like talk among chefs? Like, oh, there's this new place that we're getting mushrooms. Yeah. Like, what's the, what's the back channel version of how you figure that out? Are, are people from food distribution companies coming to you and saying, check this out, because they know you're kind of going to lead the market. Right.
[30:54]
Curtis Duffy
So it's a little bit of both, actually. It's, it's chef talk. It's purveyors or farmers coming to the restaurant.
[31:00]
Interviewer
But sorry, when you said chef talk, it's like, because, you know, when rock people talk, it's just a bunch of talk with some information.
[31:06]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, exactly. It's the same thing. It's the same thing. It's like me talking to my buddy.
[31:10]
Interviewer
I saw a bunch of chefs talking.
[31:12]
Curtis Duffy
So, yeah, I just saw vision. Majority of it is. And then there's like, oh, yeah, by the way, this guy sells me amazing quail. So it starts that way. But it also, for me, like, it's always been very important about the relationships, relationships with the people and the connection I have with the farmers.
[31:29]
Interviewer
Is it a trust thing that you build up over time?
[31:31]
Curtis Duffy
It is like, you know, they're not.
[31:32]
Interviewer
Going to give you something that's inferior.
[31:35]
Curtis Duffy
Right.
[31:36]
Interviewer
Because if you're online and you're building these intense menu menus with, I mean, in a tasting menu, I mean how many moving parts do you have in that menu?
[31:43]
Curtis Duffy
I mean you have 15 courses. Each one of those courses have anywhere from five to 10 different ingredients.
[31:49]
Interviewer
So that makes sense to me. So if you, if you're relying on this person for your mushrooms. Yeah. They can't mess with you because. No, you can't be caught out.
[31:57]
Curtis Duffy
Not at all.
[31:58]
Interviewer
And you, how people with your restaurant, how people book out like six months, three months out.
[32:04]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, three months out. But yeah, you're right, it is the connection. So the farmer, it is having that relationship, that deep relationship. I mean I have, I was with Farmer Lee. I've been buying from him since 94 and these are great relationships because he's always going to give me the best product. But then when he has, the neighbor has rhubarb in height of the season, he's saying we have rhubarb. This lady down the street has the most amazing rhubarb. How many pounds do you want? You know, so it's, it spiderwebs out over time through all these different people and you just start connecting the dots and, and not every year that we buy from the same farmers and foragers, you know, we, we spread, we spread it out. We have, so we have 200 plus contacts of.
[32:51]
Interviewer
That's what I'm saying.
[32:51]
Curtis Duffy
It's people we get food from. Yeah, it's intense but it's, it starts with the relationship. So, so important.
[32:58]
Interviewer
I know it's not this simple, but when I, when I've been in your kitchen, usually at, at the end of a, a great meal and you've got all that activity and all those people, how do you even begin to build those teams? Is it same thing? It's just, is it word of mouth people you trust? He came or she came from this school. Like how do you begin, how do you begin to build those teams?
[33:20]
Curtis Duffy
At peak, sometimes they can come through that avenue, but most of the time it is people arriving at the back door or sending their resume. Although we don't really look at the resumes that much. It starts with that moment of having them staged at the restaurant. Spend a week, week or a few days with their.
[33:36]
Interviewer
Sensitive to that. Because that was you.
[33:37]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah. And it's so important because it is a great way to interview somebody because if you think of like, you know, I'm trying to relate this to you touring like the first night, the first week is great and you're like full of energy but by week two, week three, you're like slowly going downhill and then by the end, like, you're kind of just over it. We kind of feel that way with someone who's coming to the kitchen. The first day, great. Second day, great. Third day, the hours are starting to hit them. The fourth day, the hours are really starting to hit them. By day five, it's Saturday night, it's 2:30 in the morning. They got another hour worth of work. How do they. How passionate are they about it now?
[34:23]
Interviewer
You know, you're really making the right point for me, because sometimes people will focus on a musician's proficiency on their instrument, which obviously is a huge part of the job, of course. But just as much as that conversation on the plane, having a meal and catering, it's that dynamic of the relationship that, like, I know you're gonna give me your best.
[34:48]
Curtis Duffy
Right.
[34:48]
Interviewer
And if you have an off day, I don't suddenly have to start thinking, oh, where are we going? I just know you're just having an off day or you're having a bad day or there might be something going on at home. You really have to trust that in the aggregate, that person's consistently going to try to show up.
[35:02]
Curtis Duffy
Absolutely.
[35:02]
Interviewer
And give you their best. So that makes a lot of sense to me.
[35:05]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, yeah. So part of that is also making sure that they can gel with the team. You know, can they communicate with others? Are there they're not just like this single person that can't work with others.
[35:15]
Interviewer
When you jumped in your with both feet into this world and, you know, working with Grant, obviously, and then doing your own thing, did you have a sense that your particular crowd was ushering in this kind of radical take? Was there any rebellion in it or was it was just like, this is where the market's going and this is what's exciting. Was there a sense of a greater thing happening?
[35:44]
Curtis Duffy
Well, I always lead back to the community. What I think we just spoke about Chicago, you know, seven months out of the year, we're forced to be kind of indoors. We have such a great food community in the city that they allow the chefs to kind of do what they want to do. So if you have a voice, and I call it my culinary voice, like I have something to say through my.
[36:10]
Interviewer
Food.
[36:13]
Curtis Duffy
They allow me to do it, just as they allow you to do your music through your voice and your interpretation of what you think is great.
[36:21]
Interviewer
I don't know if it's a working class thing or a Midwest thing, but I think the reason so many people end up being successful in New York or LA that come out of Chicago, I think it has a lot to do with that sort of working class ethos, which is like, if you're going to commit, I'll kind of follow you. Yeah, I don't know what that is. Yeah, something and I almost have to think more about.
[36:41]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah.
[36:42]
Interviewer
And so that makes sense to me when you say that.
[36:44]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, they do trust you and they do allow you to kind of do and be creative. And I don't because I, I often say, like, I don't know if Grant would be successful with Alinea. I don't know if I would be successful with Ever and Grace. If I put it in New York or put it in la. I don't know if the cities would react the same, the clientele would act the same.
[37:04]
Interviewer
Honestly.
[37:04]
Curtis Duffy
Certainly here we're sitting. Absolutely.
[37:06]
Interviewer
Sit in my, my cafe and I get asked all the time, oh, you should put one of these in New York. And I'm like, I don't think it would work in New York. It's too insidery.
[37:15]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah. Right.
[37:16]
Interviewer
We basically build our own culture and if you like it, great. And if you don't, okay, well, go down the street. Yeah, it's, it's, I don't know what that is. I mean, us as Midwestern would almost have to sort of think it through.
[37:29]
Curtis Duffy
A little bit more.
[37:29]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[37:29]
Curtis Duffy
We'd have to get somebody else's opinion from outside psychologists.
[37:32]
Interviewer
We'll put a, have somebody else analyze both. Well, you both had trauma in your life. That's why you went to the arts. Yeah. So as you're building up these, these, you know, these incredible, intense menus, is it still for you kind of a 247 obsessive thing? Because that's what it feels like to me whenever, you know, I come see you. Do you do what you do?
[37:59]
Curtis Duffy
Because there's so much detail, you know, I, I'm lucky.
[38:03]
Interviewer
It's got to be a full time job. Right.
[38:05]
Curtis Duffy
It's, it's, it is, but it's not.
[38:07]
Interviewer
Right.
[38:07]
Curtis Duffy
I, I, I have, I'm sorry, I keep, I always go back to music because that's my second love in, in life. I think of it as like writing, being able to write a record four times a year.
[38:17]
Interviewer
Okay.
[38:17]
Curtis Duffy
And each season is a new record.
[38:20]
Interviewer
So it's a build up.
[38:20]
Curtis Duffy
So it is a build up. It is a kind of, for me, it's like a place in time where I'm at in my life, where I'm at, where we are seasonally in the menu. So if we're thinking of, you know, we're coming into the fall season now things certainly get a lot darker and heavier because it gets cloudy and there's less sunshine in the city.
[38:42]
Interviewer
And yes, I'm nodding my head.
[38:43]
Curtis Duffy
We go into this. Yeah, we go into this suppression mode of like, wintertime's coming upon us. And we know what. It's all.
[38:49]
Interviewer
We just know we have here comes the stew.
[38:52]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah. Here we have to get deeper and darker flavors. So we started shifting that way.
[38:57]
Interviewer
But.
[38:57]
Curtis Duffy
And that reflects everything on the menu.
[38:59]
Interviewer
Okay, but is it. Sorry, interrupt you, but is it. Is it. Is the. Explain to me why it's a. Why is it not six times a year or, you know, is there. Is there a. Is it. Is it a host of factors, Economic? I can only do so much. I have to kind of.
[39:16]
Curtis Duffy
We do it four times a year specifically to stay within the season.
[39:20]
Interviewer
Okay.
[39:21]
Curtis Duffy
Realistically, I think of seasonal. Seasonality, 52 weeks out of the year because things go so fast.
[39:27]
Interviewer
I see. Yeah.
[39:28]
Curtis Duffy
If we, if we have to play in the boundaries of what the seasonal is, we stay in that three month window and. Okay, here's our three month window. The next three months.
[39:38]
Interviewer
And if you prepare a menu for fall and do you still leave yourself room to tweak it as you. As you go?
[39:47]
Curtis Duffy
Oh, yeah.
[39:48]
Interviewer
Every day.
[39:48]
Curtis Duffy
Every day.
[39:49]
Interviewer
So is it. Is it your own sense of it? Is it customer feedback? How do you. How do you know? Like, I got it, but not quite. And I need to.
[39:57]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah. I'm glad you asked that because I don't rely on any feedback from the guests. And I say this with the most gingerly approach. I don't really care. I don't take it or leave it. There's a million restaurants out there, and I. And I only say that because. And it doesn't come from an ego standpoint either. It comes from a place of my confidence level and the food that I cook and knowing the behind story of what goes into making each dish, the time that it takes to make each dish before it makes it way to the menu.
[40:31]
Interviewer
Yeah. Okay.
[40:32]
Curtis Duffy
Sometimes we'll go down the whole path of creating a whole dish that will never see the menu at all just because it's not good enough. At least we don't think it is.
[40:41]
Interviewer
When we say we.
[40:43]
Curtis Duffy
My chef de cuisine, sous chef, like, the key people that I kind of depend on to help curate the menu and help.
[40:50]
Interviewer
Okay.
[40:50]
Curtis Duffy
Taste and, you know, it's not just all about my perspective. It's got to be their input as well, because they're cooking it every night. I'm not there every single Night I saw this.
[41:00]
Interviewer
I think it was a clip I was watching of you. But you said you owe it to yourself to be great at something. Where. How did you arrive at that? Like, is it, you know, Like.
[41:12]
Curtis Duffy
I.
[41:12]
Interviewer
Think it's important we ask successful people, like, how did you get. How did you arrive at that as a thing? Like, it sounds easy, right? Like be great at something. But. But yeah, but you're, you're a living testament. Like.
[41:23]
Curtis Duffy
Well, I think it's.
[41:25]
Interviewer
Let me say one other thing. Sorry. What's interesting to me about what you do is, is it is a higher wire rack and there's no, like, there's no off day.
[41:34]
Curtis Duffy
There is no off day.
[41:36]
Interviewer
Okay. Right. You know what I mean by that?
[41:37]
Curtis Duffy
I do know.
[41:37]
Interviewer
Like, I can have a bad gig and I'll be probably all right.
[41:40]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah.
[41:41]
Interviewer
But in your world, there is no.
[41:43]
Curtis Duffy
Five nights a week.
[41:47]
Interviewer
We'Re gone.
[41:47]
Curtis Duffy
You know, 60 guests a night at 60 people that are going to judge and have an opinion and about the food and they all do.
[41:54]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[41:54]
Curtis Duffy
And they all do. I kind of lost my train of thought, but with that.
[42:00]
Interviewer
No, it's just, it's, it's, it's the grind of the gig. Like you were saying about when people come in, like, they gotta really want that grind.
[42:09]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah.
[42:10]
Interviewer
They do long hours. Like, what's a normal day for you on a work day?
[42:15]
Curtis Duffy
I mean, my day's a little different than what their day would be. Their day would be noon to noon, noon to midnight. 1am My day starts earlier because I'm just that guy. I get up early, but I don't. I'm not at the restaurant till one in the morning. That's. I'm there till I feel the last.
[42:35]
Interviewer
But even, but even, like for your, I mean, a 12, 13 hour grind, that's a day.
[42:40]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, that's a, that's consistently, that's. If, if anything, less than that, I feel like it's, I didn't do any work.
[42:46]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[42:47]
Curtis Duffy
And sometimes it's just catching up on emails. It's not necessarily like in the kitchen grinding.
[42:54]
Interviewer
What would you. For someone like me that doesn't really understand food culture, like, what would you want people to understand about what is. Like when you have that kitchen, like you said, you got 60 guests. Like the kitchen's flying. You got things gotta be timed. Everything's like, I mean, it's like clock in there.
[43:13]
Curtis Duffy
Clockwork. Yeah.
[43:14]
Interviewer
What would you want people to understand about that? I guess maybe the better question would be what is so important to you about that level of commitment to food that you want them to understand, not just like, oh, it tastes good. That's the obvious.
[43:28]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, I. I think because I've made it my life, I've made it who I am. And I think maybe that comes back to what I lost my train of thought on a few minutes ago, which was you have to. You owe to yourself to be great at something.
[43:42]
Interviewer
Okay.
[43:42]
Curtis Duffy
And, you know, nobody woke me up every morning and said, get up. Go do this. You gotta be great at something. Like, it just became this feeling, this energy within my brain of just like, nobody's gonna ever push you to go and do something. If you're not practicing guitar every day. You're. You're losing.
[44:06]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[44:06]
Curtis Duffy
Muscle memory. You're losing dexterity. You're losing everything if you're not picking it up, if you're not practicing that.
[44:14]
Interviewer
But what do you want?
[44:14]
Curtis Duffy
But no one's pushing you to do that.
[44:15]
Interviewer
Yeah, but what do you want people to understand? Like, for me, it's a curiosity because I'm not a gourmand. You know what I mean? I'm. I. I mean, I'm just as happy to eat a good sandwich from. Yeah, sure, my cafe.
[44:27]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah. And I am too.
[44:29]
Interviewer
Right. And I know that about you. So I'm saying, what do you want? People. Sometimes I think it's. And maybe this is a middle class Midwestern question. You know, it's like when I was a kid, we used to go to the art institute, and you'd have somebody stand there and try to tell you why a painting was important.
[44:43]
Curtis Duffy
Oh, yeah.
[44:44]
Interviewer
And you're 10 years old and go, I don't like the painting. Right. Yeah.
[44:47]
Curtis Duffy
It doesn't resonate with me.
[44:48]
Interviewer
Right. What is it that you want people to understand about that level of sophistication, that level of dedication to food? What is it about that you're so attracted to that you've made it your life's work to convert that to people?
[45:02]
Curtis Duffy
Well, I love the beauty of simplicity. I love the beauty of a sandwich. But I also know, like, we can take that sandwich and elevate it in a hundred different ways tomorrow, today.
[45:14]
Interviewer
So it's like, it's. Is it looking for the most sublime experience? It's a form of joy? Is it all of the above? Yeah.
[45:22]
Curtis Duffy
Allowing the creativity, the artistry of what you chose to do to kind of shine through, and I guess it's also giving. Showing somebody that you can do it. I guess maybe that's what it is. I don't know.
[45:34]
Interviewer
Okay.
[45:35]
Curtis Duffy
I never thought about it that way.
[45:36]
Interviewer
Sorry. I'm here to ask you the tough question.
[45:39]
Curtis Duffy
That's good.
[45:39]
Interviewer
I like that. No, because it's. It's because I find sometimes I, I, you know, I'm laboring away in a studio over stuff that I just know people don't care about.
[45:48]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah.
[45:48]
Interviewer
But it's important to me.
[45:50]
Curtis Duffy
But I think it's those subtle things that make your stuff so great that no one else catches. And you catch it, and that's. But at the end of the day.
[45:59]
Interviewer
You have to be. Here's a better ways. What does that do for you? Is it a sense of pride? Ownership?
[46:03]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah.
[46:03]
Interviewer
100.
[46:04]
Curtis Duffy
I know.
[46:05]
Interviewer
It's like signing a painting at the end. Like, this is my freaking painting. Like, this is what I do.
[46:10]
Curtis Duffy
Right. I mean, that's.
[46:11]
Interviewer
If you don't get it, that's cool. But this is my painting.
[46:13]
Curtis Duffy
That's who I am. At the end of the day when I say we ought to be great at something. Like, that's a representation of who you are. Your music is a representation of who you are. My. My food and cuisine is a reputation of who I am every single day. And I want to be proud of it. I want to be. I want somebody else to be proud of it as well. And I want them to be excited about it.
[46:36]
Interviewer
Yeah. I hate when people do this to me. So I'm apologizing in advance. The setup on the question is always. Some people say, right. So. Because in explaining at times, like I said, sometimes people will ask me, I've come to Chicago. I want to have a great. And I'll send them to you. And. But I try to try to explain it, you know, like, you know, they get 25 courses, you know, whatever. And. And for people who don't get it.
[47:07]
Curtis Duffy
They kind of go, I. I know.
[47:09]
Interviewer
So how. Not that you need to refute that kind of misunderstanding or criticism, but what would you want them to understand that they. Maybe they wouldn't. What are they missing if they don't. If it doesn't resonate with them the first time? What are they missing?
[47:23]
Curtis Duffy
I think they're missing. You know, the restaurant is built on an experience. And, you know, the tasting menu format has been around for so many years that it's ironic that we still have to tell people, educate people on what it is. And when you say, oh, you're going to get 15, 20 courses, but they're only going to be this big and you're going to. Everybody immediately thinks that they're going to leave Hungary and there's yeah.
[47:48]
Interviewer
Somebody I was talking to the other day, we were talking about this style of menu, and they were making a joke about how they went to a hot dog stand afterwards.
[47:56]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, that's the running joke. I'll gonna get a piece of pizza on the way home. And I get it. There are a lot of restaurants out there that serve you 10 of these small little bites, and then you're like, okay, the perception of value is way out. Out the door. And you leave angry and you leave stopping somewhere else to get something to eat. But it is an experience at the end of the day. That's what we want you to. To enjoy. Not only. It doesn't necessarily have to be something you're celebrating. It doesn't have to be a birthday or anniversary. You know, a lot of people just want to have those moments of having somebody take care of them. Yeah. Not having to make any decisions. And that's what the tasting menu does for somebody, where you walk into the restaurant, you don't have any choices to make that night other than do you want to drink or you don't want to drink.
[48:45]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[48:45]
Curtis Duffy
And sparkling or still? Do you want coffee at the end of your meal or you want tea? Those are really the only. The other thing else is you're kind of in our hands. And that's what. That's the beauty of it.
[48:56]
Interviewer
So I'm not sure when this all started, and I'm sure there's always been a culture of the chef as rock star, but certainly in the last 20 to 30 years, it's turned into a gig.
[49:09]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, it is.
[49:11]
Interviewer
You watched it as somebody from outside the system who came into the system, and now you've been sort of anointed into that. What's your sort of take on the general idea of the chef as rock star thing?
[49:21]
Curtis Duffy
I mean, I don't. I don't.
[49:23]
Interviewer
I don't.
[49:24]
Curtis Duffy
We're definitely not. We don't live the rock star lifestyle. We certainly don't make the money that the rock stars make.
[49:29]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[49:32]
Curtis Duffy
You know, there I. With the Food Network, when it blew everything up, I think it educated a lot of people that was not in the food business, and they started glamorizing the chef because they could make all this great stuff.
[49:46]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[49:47]
Curtis Duffy
You know, so, yeah, I was on both sides of it. I've been on both sides where it's was never a thing. While Julia Child was this.
[49:54]
Interviewer
That was it for somebody I watched.
[49:55]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah. Somebody I watched.
[49:56]
Interviewer
Remember Sarah at Live used to do the sketch? Yeah. Stan Aykroyd May.
[50:00]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah. Exactly. So, you know, we had a handful of them, but there wasn't. Not like it is today.
[50:06]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[50:06]
Curtis Duffy
Now it's like every channel, every.
[50:08]
Interviewer
Everywhere you look, do you roll your eyes at some of it? I'm not asking you to be critical of anybody, but you sort of go, oh, gosh, this is a bit much.
[50:14]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, a lot of it is. I'm not the biggest fan of, like, the. The game show. The ones that kind of turn it into realities series.
[50:26]
Interviewer
Yeah. Of.
[50:27]
Curtis Duffy
Because it's not. It's not what we do every day. You know, I know there's a level of commitment to the TV and they have to be entertained. And so I get that side of it, too, so I'm less critical about that. But for me, like, I've always taken my craft incredibly serious. And, you know, you. You see the guys that are winning these competitions, and then all of a sudden, like, they're put on this level of. Of somebody who spent 30 years in the business grinding to get where I am to somebody who's just an overnight success. And.
[51:00]
Interviewer
Okay.
[51:01]
Curtis Duffy
So they miss everything in between. So I'm not. I know my fundamentals and my foundations are so much more honed. And.
[51:10]
Interviewer
Yeah. I think that's maybe part of where it gets a little lost in translation to people when you try to say you should try this. Because most people have never tried, like, that level of tasting menu. Yeah. And I think that's part of it is the trendiness of some of that stuff, I think gets confused in their minds.
[51:27]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah.
[51:28]
Interviewer
Yeah, you're right. It's like, it's hard to separate. This is the serious version. Yeah.
[51:32]
Curtis Duffy
Because it's like the TV personality is not really the chef. Like, I'm not a TV personality chef. I'm a chef chef.
[51:40]
Interviewer
Have people tried to kind of bring you. I know you've done some television stuff, but I mean, given your place in the culture now, if people try to kind of franchise you. Yeah. Or made you offers to kind of become that type of person.
[51:53]
Curtis Duffy
We've been down that road, and I've done a couple of ones that I felt were the more tasteful ones. I'm just not going to go out and do whatever somebody offers me. I want to make sure it lines with the brand and aligns with everything that I've worked towards to get where I am.
[52:09]
Interviewer
Is there. Is there. Is that just strictly a. I gotta keep my quality control and this is my brand. And.
[52:15]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah.
[52:16]
Interviewer
Yeah. That money is attractive, but it's. This is where my bread's butter.
[52:19]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah. Because at the end of the day, it's euphemism. Yeah, it is about the brand. Because I think at the. Once you start diminishing the brand and it. And you start.
[52:28]
Interviewer
Can. Can you define your brand at this point?
[52:30]
Curtis Duffy
I mean, it's. I think it's ultra luxury, high end, ultra refined. Yeah, yeah. And it's, you know, something, you know, I put myself out there. If I'm going to connect with other people, I want it on. I feel. What I feel is the same level of luxuriousness that somebody would pay for a piece of jewelry or, you know.
[52:50]
Interviewer
So for the punters in the room like myself, walk me through the Michelin star process, because the one thing I do know, and I know you a bit personally, and I've met other people along the way, this is the big stress in the business. Is that. Is that fair to say?
[53:06]
Curtis Duffy
It is. Yeah. Yeah, it is.
[53:07]
Interviewer
I remember talking to somebody about how they'd lost a star or something.
[53:11]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah.
[53:11]
Interviewer
And they felt it was unfair.
[53:14]
Curtis Duffy
It is, because.
[53:14]
Interviewer
And how it hurt business. And so just for just somebody watching home that is interested in what we're talking about, but doesn't have that sort of knowledge, explain the Michelin star sort of process from somebody who actually lives it.
[53:26]
Curtis Duffy
So the process, they shop your restaurant the entire year, depending, I guess, from what I understand, depending on the level of where you at, where you're at, your where restaurant is currently at. And if you're on the verge of achieving more, they'll shop your restaurant more. And, you know, when I started out in the restaurant world, Michelin was not in the U.S. you know, they've been in the U.S. less than 20 years. And as a young cook, you looked at to Europe to the three Michelin stars, like that was the pinnacle chef was somebody who obtained three Michelin stars. Because there was.
[54:05]
Interviewer
Wasn't there some legend in like the south of France or something like this? I. I feel like I'm probably.
[54:10]
Curtis Duffy
There are. There are a few.
[54:11]
Interviewer
It was somebody that was like three stars in some small town or is that. I'm just probably making it up.
[54:16]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, they're. I mean, they are everywhere there. They could be just one in a random town that has like 40 people in it.
[54:23]
Interviewer
And I've heard those stories too.
[54:24]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah. And it becomes that destination place.
[54:28]
Interviewer
Right.
[54:28]
Curtis Duffy
It becomes like, that's the whole idea where the Michelin came from. It's like, go to this place because.
[54:32]
Interviewer
You as a restaurateur, do you have to apply to get them to look at you For a Michelin star or.
[54:37]
Curtis Duffy
They just open the doors, do they.
[54:39]
Interviewer
Is it. Do you know that people are coming in or is that sort of a mystery process?
[54:43]
Curtis Duffy
It is a mystery. That's their greatest thing that they say is like we shop anonymously. It could be. Could be in a two top. It could be a single diner, could be buried in a six top. A Michelin inspector. It could be the whole table is a Michelin inspectors. You just don't know.
[54:59]
Interviewer
And does that cause anybody any kind of like detective feel in the back, you know?
[55:03]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah. And that's why the restaurants do some of the. What our restaurant do, does the homework on every guest and name that are in the reservations that night. Because we're trying to search out any weirdness. We call them spiders. We, we try to search out anybody that has a fake name. You can't find anything on social from them. And it's something that we just pay closer attention to. They could be absolutely nobody. And they usually are. But it's. They've done a good job of hiding their identity. And that's curious to us because.
[55:35]
Interviewer
Interesting.
[55:35]
Curtis Duffy
You know, that's what they're notorious for is like hiding their identity. All the food critics, they always incognito.
[55:41]
Interviewer
Ah.
[55:43]
Curtis Duffy
So yeah. Gaining those stars is something you have to work towards and you have to work towards them every single year. So they're not there for you to keep.
[55:51]
Interviewer
That's the thing. Sorry to interrupt you, but that's the thing that sort of fascinated me is like once you get say one Michelin star, you don't get to keep that. No, that's like. Is it a year to year process?
[56:00]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah. Every year they, they come back and.
[56:03]
Interviewer
Shop where it's like the stars are announced. But.
[56:06]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, yeah.
[56:06]
Interviewer
Oh my God. That's gotta be a stressful.
[56:08]
Curtis Duffy
It is stressful because you're like, you know, it's usually in November for us in Chicago and leading up to Chicago, you know, they're shopping before when they were just printing the book before. Now it's all digital. Before there was kind of like you got a sense of like, all right, well, they gotta get it in print. They gotta print the books. They gotta ship all the books. So they're probably done shopping us now. We had that window of opportunity. Like we gotta be on our game.
[56:35]
Interviewer
Yeah, I get you.
[56:36]
Curtis Duffy
Because now we can kind of relax a little bit. You know, you're not shopping. We just receive the awards.
[56:41]
Interviewer
But so fascinating.
[56:42]
Curtis Duffy
It is, it's. It is like you have to be on every night, every table.
[56:45]
Interviewer
We don't know, that's what I mean about the. You can't have a night off.
[56:49]
Curtis Duffy
It's hard to. Yeah.
[56:50]
Interviewer
That level of expectation.
[56:52]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah. It's the consistency that they're looking for. They want to know, like, they had a phenomenal meal tonight. If they come back in three weeks or even tomorrow night, is it going to be the same experience or we were. We just like hitting everything tonight, you know?
[57:08]
Interviewer
Yeah. Because it's like a gig, right?
[57:10]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah.
[57:10]
Interviewer
With all those moving pieces. There's just nights where it just doesn't work. Just one of those things. I'm asking this semi jokingly, but what's your feel on. On gourmands? And I would define gourmands of people who are like super foodies.
[57:25]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah.
[57:26]
Interviewer
Like my wife's a foodie snob and you guys talk that language. Right. Where that is, you know. Yeah. But like the gourmand is sort of a different thing. It is. I. I have one friend who's a gourmand and they will literally get on a plane, fly to another country, get on a train to go to some village in God knows where to eat at a Michelin star restaurant. That is mind boggling.
[57:49]
Curtis Duffy
It is.
[57:49]
Interviewer
It is. When.
[57:50]
Curtis Duffy
When we got our third star, it changed the entire dynamic of our dining room. It was all of a sudden, it.
[57:57]
Interviewer
Was.
[58:00]
Curtis Duffy
Everybody else but Chicagoans really. And they. Most of them did not speak English and they were coming in for one or two nights, hitting one or two restaurants and disappearing again.
[58:12]
Interviewer
Wow.
[58:12]
Curtis Duffy
And it was like that for years. And just the gourmands, it's those people that just travel. They want to see the newest three star restaurant. They want to see.
[58:23]
Interviewer
Are they a more demanding restaurant customer or. Or, or the. Or. Or in any ways. They're. They're your greatest audience. How do you.
[58:31]
Curtis Duffy
I think they're a little bit of both. I think the. The ones that are demanding are also some of our greatest clientele because it keeps us. Pushes us.
[58:40]
Interviewer
Okay.
[58:41]
Curtis Duffy
Continues to make sure we're.
[58:42]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[58:43]
Curtis Duffy
On top of things.
[58:44]
Interviewer
We call them super fans.
[58:45]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah.
[58:46]
Interviewer
They're the ones that know the B side and.
[58:48]
Curtis Duffy
Exactly.
[58:49]
Interviewer
Played this song once and.
[58:51]
Curtis Duffy
Right.
[58:51]
Interviewer
2009. Right.
[58:54]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah. The same ones.
[58:55]
Interviewer
Okay. This just popped in my head. You've got to have people that find you on the street and they want to tell you how to book your menu. There's got to be that guy or girl. Am I imagining that.
[59:07]
Curtis Duffy
How to book the menu or like.
[59:08]
Interviewer
Like, hey, you know, ate at your restaurant.
[59:11]
Curtis Duffy
Yes.
[59:12]
Interviewer
And you really should. Yes. There's gotta be that person.
[59:15]
Curtis Duffy
There's always somebody. There's always some even, even on a nightly basis. There's somebody that has like zero filters and, and it just comes out and you're just going, okay. It's the weirdest thing. I know you've experienced it too. It's the weirdest feeling. Like, I'm sorry, but I spent 30 some years cooking food and you're telling.
[59:38]
Interviewer
Me like I had an experience the other day where somebody. I can't remember what it was. It was like they started, oh, I was outside a train station somewhere in, in Europe and I met a fan on the street and they, they said, oh, I'm coming to your show tonight. And I. And they said, can we take a picture? I took a picture. So as we're taking a picture, the guy goes, hey, are you going to play these songs tonight? Wow. And I go, you know, as long as we're standing here, do you want to write out the set list?
[60:10]
Curtis Duffy
Right?
[60:10]
Interviewer
Exactly.
[60:11]
Curtis Duffy
You want to just write it for me? So bizarre. It is so bizarre. Yeah.
[60:17]
Interviewer
Okay, last little bit. And by your own admission, you know what you're doing is, is, is this upper, upper tier of, of food and, and service. And, and I think it's worth saying as somebody's eating at your restaurants many times it's not just the food. The services, exemplary staff is fantastic and everyone's always so great. It's a, it's a wonderful experience not just to dine, but to also be treated so well and looked after. I know you have, you know, during the pandemic you opened your hamburger spot. But like, what's your thought on does the super high level food community have any duty to serve the masses? Does it make sense?
[61:01]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, I think the interest. I can only speak for myself. I think the interest starts with I love being able to cook at that level and I know it certainly hits a certain clientele and it limits our restaurant. Right. But we're fortunate enough to be serving 60 people a night and doing what we do. But I also have this other interest that, yeah, I want something less demanding. So that gives me the opportunity to open places like Rev Burger or after that is.
[61:38]
Interviewer
Sorry. Cause. Cause for people would know. Talk a little bit about the burger joint you opened during the pandemic. Cause I think that's a great story.
[61:45]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah. We were in a place where most businesses were. We had just opened ever. I mean we were. Well, pandemic hit and we were in mid construction still. So we had to figure out a way that how Are we going to get these doors open? Nobody knew what was going on. Kept chugging along as if, you know, this was going to go away quickly. Of course, it didn't.
[62:08]
Interviewer
Two weeks to flatten the curve.
[62:10]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, exactly. So then we were fortunate enough to open the doors, and we got, I think, three. Three months underneath our belt. And then the city came back and shut us back down. The entire city down.
[62:23]
Interviewer
We had the same experience here.
[62:25]
Curtis Duffy
So now we're. We're sitting with, you know, 15 people and employees that now were, by the way, responsible for.
[62:33]
Interviewer
Tell me if I'm wrong. You got. You got this. A team around you. If you let them back out in the market, they're going to go find.
[62:39]
Curtis Duffy
Another job and they're gone.
[62:40]
Interviewer
They're not going to go sit at home.
[62:41]
Curtis Duffy
You're right. You're right. So how do we. How do we pay these guys? Because, yeah, we had a great amount of people we didn't want to lose. Like, we're just starting.
[62:52]
Interviewer
I'm recalling one conversation we had once, but it. What really struck me about it was how much you cared to make sure that your employees stayed working.
[63:00]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah.
[63:00]
Interviewer
That was part of your inspiration. It wasn't just like, what am I going to do? You're like, I owe it to these people to kind of keep us together.
[63:06]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, that's. That's a heavy burden to sit on your shoulders when you, you know, because a lot of them have. They have family and children and. Yeah, they have to provide for themselves. And we just now open, and we're only three months old, and now we're closed. What do we do? So we pivoted really quickly with this burger plate concept called Rev Burger, and we started serving them out of the restaurant because at the time, that's all we had. So night after night, then it took off. Then it took off.
[63:32]
Interviewer
It was.
[63:32]
Curtis Duffy
It was phenomenal. I mean, we were selling. Selling out of burgers every single night.
[63:36]
Interviewer
It was. And the idea was the greatest burger you've ever had. Right. So I'm a vegan, so I'm. Yeah, I'm jealous of all this.
[63:41]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah. I mean, it was. For me, it was like I didn't want. Everybody kind of expected a fancy chef burger. And, like, no, there's no way you're making it. I'm not doing that. Like, I just want, like, a great, simple burger. That's it.
[63:53]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[63:53]
Curtis Duffy
And I don't even eat burgers that much.
[63:55]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[63:55]
Curtis Duffy
It's like rarity that I will have a burger, but I felt like if you Google very quickly, like the highest food quantity, people eat hamburgers and pizza.
[64:07]
Interviewer
Wow.
[64:08]
Curtis Duffy
This is just, it's like a no brainer. Like, let's do it. So, so we did the burger place and then we finally got to a place where we moved that across the street into a kind of building where we kind of.
[64:18]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[64:19]
Curtis Duffy
Did a standalone.
[64:20]
Interviewer
And I think it's just such a cool thing.
[64:21]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah.
[64:22]
Interviewer
Okay, last question. If, if the early 2000s ushered in, at least in American food culture, this idea of the tasting menu and, and you know, the rise of the chef rockstar, what is the future of food at that level? You have, you must have another vision in there. Or, or, or, or is this top speed and yes, you can change the food, but like this is, it doesn't make, is, is there, is there a, is there a different thing that can be had?
[64:52]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, there is.
[64:53]
Interviewer
And are we 3D food? I mean, like, what is the, like what is, what is the, what is the chef chat shit talk in the back, you know?
[65:00]
Curtis Duffy
Well, I, I think it's elevating the casual dining, elevating the fast food portion of it. Because I think what we see trending is always when we hit the lows of lows countrywide, worldwide, is that the ones that survive are the upper echelon because there's always money to be spent there. And then the fast food chains, they're always going to win because it's the.
[65:27]
Interviewer
Middle is the middle is the middle.
[65:29]
Curtis Duffy
Is always the most vulnerable because you don't really need to go out and have a nice meal.
[65:35]
Interviewer
Well. And there's always going to be another Italian joiner. Exactly.
[65:37]
Curtis Duffy
So those are the ones that suffer. So everybody is pushing for this fast casual concept where I certainly would, as.
[65:45]
Interviewer
A vegan, I would certainly would love to see a higher end vegan fast food, if that's any.
[65:51]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, I mean we do a version.
[65:52]
Interviewer
Of that here at my cafe, but where it's not a chain, you know.
[65:55]
Curtis Duffy
Right.
[65:56]
Interviewer
And I think something that's franchisable.
[65:58]
Curtis Duffy
Exactly right. And that's something I think is a heavy focus in worldwide. Well, maybe not worldwide, but at least in, in the US it certainly seems.
[66:06]
Interviewer
Doable that if you wanted to make a high quality like you like with your hamburgers, if you were able to work it out where the quality level was consistent, I, I certainly for middle America with how much, how many people we have that are eating poorly, if you could up the grade of what they're eating.
[66:23]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah.
[66:23]
Interviewer
And, and you know, the digestive part of it all, where everybody would benefit and have a better experience.
[66:29]
Curtis Duffy
Right.
[66:30]
Interviewer
Because for many people, and because we grew up in that world, working class families, I mean, they just don't have.
[66:35]
Curtis Duffy
The time sometimes, you know, the time or the. Or the finances. I mean, that's why I think a lot of them lean towards the fast food. Because you can feed your whole family for 20 bucks, but if you try to go to the grocery store, you're going to get three things.
[66:51]
Interviewer
Yeah. @ least.
[66:51]
Curtis Duffy
Now it's like if you try to get anything healthy for a family for $20, you're not. You're not even.
[66:56]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[66:57]
Curtis Duffy
A loaf of bread and.
[66:59]
Interviewer
But there's no.
[67:00]
Curtis Duffy
Not much more.
[67:01]
Interviewer
I'm. I'm sorry, I'm just sticking on it for a second. Is. There's no. I don't know, is there like. It's like when you go to, like, Disney World and they do, like, futuristic food. Like, is there any futuristic food that we should know about? Not like, not like dipping dots, you know? I mean, like. Yeah, there's got to be.
[67:18]
Curtis Duffy
I don't know. I think there's always, like.
[67:20]
Interviewer
I saw subtlety. I saw this clip where you were. You were shaving tuna.
[67:27]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah.
[67:27]
Interviewer
And then freezing it, putting it in, like, curly cues. Is there some new technology that we should know about?
[67:37]
Curtis Duffy
No, we, you know, we. We explored that in the early 2000s with the molecular side of it.
[67:41]
Interviewer
Right.
[67:41]
Curtis Duffy
That, and I think people got tired of that so quickly. Like, give me just real food. Like, I don't want your smoking mirrors. And. And you're giving me something that's orange and you're calling it orange, but it tastes like a Granny Smith.
[67:56]
Interviewer
I've had a few. I've had a few of those. Yeah.
[67:57]
Curtis Duffy
You know, they're trying to trick your brain to eating beets.
[68:00]
Interviewer
It's fun, but it's. It's my opinion is someone who eats those types of places. Sometimes it's fun, but it's like a. One time.
[68:08]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, you're doing it one time and you're done.
[68:09]
Interviewer
That's it. Like an amusement park ride. It's like.
[68:13]
Curtis Duffy
Right.
[68:13]
Interviewer
Well, that was fun.
[68:14]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah. I don't need to go on the velociraptor six times in a row.
[68:18]
Interviewer
Yeah. Yeah.
[68:19]
Curtis Duffy
Just not happening.
[68:20]
Interviewer
Okay, well, I need to do my. I need to do my research. There's gotta be something.
[68:24]
Curtis Duffy
I don't know if there is anything. I'm not sure.
[68:25]
Interviewer
Well, you would know. That's kind of why I'm asking you.
[68:27]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, I think it's a lot of the chefs are.
[68:29]
Interviewer
Do People. Do people show up at your door and sort of pitch you on new technology? They.
[68:35]
Curtis Duffy
They pitch their ingredients on stuff that they're doing with technology.
[68:39]
Interviewer
But does a guy show up with, like, a machine and, like, this is the.
[68:42]
Curtis Duffy
No, I haven't had any of that in a long time. It's been a long time. There are new stuff that's out there that, you know before. Like, what do you call those machines that spin super quick?
[68:55]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[68:55]
Curtis Duffy
In a doctor's office.
[68:58]
Interviewer
Like, they spin blood or whatever.
[68:59]
Curtis Duffy
Yeah, exactly. So. So five years ago, that. That wasn't available to a cook.
[69:04]
Interviewer
Okay.
[69:05]
Curtis Duffy
Or to a restaurant, but now they call it a spenol.
[69:08]
Interviewer
Okay.
[69:09]
Curtis Duffy
And I guess it's been longer than five years, but it's a machine that you can take a puree that's just called strawberry puree, and you put it in there, and then it just spins at RPM rate, and it extracts. So you can get a beautifully clear strawberry juice, water, whatever you want to call it. And then the pulp is. Is also incredibly intense.
[69:29]
Interviewer
Yeah.
[69:30]
Curtis Duffy
But it's all red.
[69:31]
Interviewer
And that sounds kind of cool.
[69:32]
Curtis Duffy
It's fun. I mean, there's a lot of applications that you can go down the different paths with it, from the cocktail world to the food world and achieve a lot of different things. Like, you know, distillation is another one that people are messing with a lot now.
[69:46]
Interviewer
What's distillation?
[69:47]
Curtis Duffy
Where. I mean, you could literally take water and dirt and put it under vacuum, and as you heat it up, it starts to vaporize, and then it goes through. Same way they make alcohol. They distill it, and it drips down this clear water that tastes like dirt. That's a bad example. But any food you want in there, you could do all the hot peppers. Right. You could do the habaneros and all that stuff. And it'll get the flavor without all the spice and the. Oh, I guess so you can really get incredible flavor through things like that that are really, really, really concentrated that then the chef can add or to a drink or just little bits, things like that.
[70:26]
Interviewer
Those are.
[70:26]
Curtis Duffy
I mean, those are always fun to introduce into the menu.
[70:29]
Interviewer
All right, Well, I think we end on it. Tastes like dirt. We talked to all this highfalutin stuff. Thank you, Kurt.
[70:36]
Curtis Duffy
Thank you. Pleasure. Thank you.