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(luminous music note)
Jonathan: Reinvention is everything, especially for a potter.
Like, so many potters are just trapped in their garrets in Vermont,
making the same mug over and over and over again,
and never shaving anything
or trimming a hair on their body, anywhere.
So, as a potter, I've learned early on
you have to reinvent all the time.
(pop music)
One of my favorite examples of reinvention
is one of my favorite restaurants, Cafe Boulud.
It's here on the upper east side, near my Madison Avenue store,
and it's an iconic restaurant, I eat there all the time.
What I loved about it, is they take classic French food and reinvent it.
They take the classics and make them feel fresh.
I've eaten at Cafe Boulud a million times,
but I've never met the chef, Gavin,
and I'm so excited, because today,
I'm going to go over and meet him.
Gavin: Hey, hey, hey.
Jonathan: How are you?
Gavin: Good, how are you?
Jonathan: It's such a pleasure to meet you.
Gavin: Likewise. Thanks for being here.
Jonathan: Dude, thank you for having me.
I am, like, obsessed. I'm a fan.
I've rocked your restaurants all over, Palm Beach, New York;
and I am so excited to be at the epicenter,
the nucleus of where it all happens.
Gavin: What's interesting to me is how closer our lives are together,
as far as design is concerned, and all of that,
because you live off of all of those inspirations, and so do I.
Jonathan: Totes.
Gavin: I just get to feed people.
Gavin: And get them really drunk. (laughs)
Jonathan: When you do it,
one of the things I love about what you do
is that I love that it's like classic French cuisine,
something totally familiar, but you put your own spin on it.
That's sort of how I roll in my of [ov].
Gavin: I grew up in Minnesota,
so in my world, the way that I was raised
and the way that I grew up, it's nothing like this.
I was 15 years old when I started
to cook professionally in a real kitchen.
I was more excited to go to work
and do Friday and Saturday night service
than I was to go to the party.
When I'm here at this restaurant,
it's so funny to see how cooking there
and then being able to come here and cook similar food here.
Yeah, but we've transformed it, we've changed it,
we've been inspired through different people,
we've inspired through different times, through ingredients,
and then the food is completely different, which is exciting.
Jonathan: All right, I'm probably the wrong person
to be here talking about food,
because I'm boring; I eat like 10 things.
It's a roast chicken, it's a sweet potato, it's an apple pie.
Like, it's simple. I never believe it when
I go to some restaurant and they're doing like hoof to tail,
and the waiter comes over and they're always like,
"Hey, so today we have a tripe, it's really great.
"It's gonna be served with fresh radishes,"
and I'm like, "Really? Are you going home at night
"and being like, 'Tough day at the office,
"'I need some tripe.'" No. Nobody wants tripe.
Disguss.
Gavin: What I love about this restaurant
is that it doesn't always to be French.
We're allowed to be American, because I'm American.
So, I decided to do fried chicken,
which is the exact opposite of what you expect at this restaurant.
The best part was walking in the dining room at night,
and half of the dining room is filled
with people eating fried chicken
and drinking thousands of dollars of wine.
The way that they would smile, you could feel
like you had hit a childhood moment for them;
and I think being able to reinterpret something like that,
and just, in your mind, it's so simple to do something like that.
Jonathan: Yes. If I had became a billionaire,
I would imprison you as like a chef.
Gavin: That's it, right?
You'd have to pay me a lot of money.
(intriguing music)
Let be bring you back to my studio.
Jonathan: All right, let's check it out.
Gavin: Okay, so we do some dishes that are riffs on the classics.
We do some dishes that are brand new.
I know you're a fan of chicken paillard.
We're going to do a riff on that today as well.
But we just want to walk through a little bit of the steps
and have you see how we get inspired
through food, design, and through fashion,
because in our life, just like in yours,
colors and textures are so important and so apparent.
All right, so this is a dish, it's a really classic,
old school, Cafe Boulud dish.'
We have [palmana]. It's shaved potatoes, very thin,
and we cook them in duck fat.
Spinach [soubrique], which is basically quiche, without too much egg.
Then we have the classic beef, braised beef short rib.
Jonathan: Oh, my God.
Gavin: Look at that.
This is [agrenulche], it's caramelized onions,
with vinegar, red wine, salt, pepper.
Jonathan: Incredible.
All right, now I'm dying to know what goes here.
Gavin: All right, so then we have a piece of beef that we roasted.
This is a [bavette].
Jonathan: All right, can I get real here?
Gavin: Yeah.
Jonathan: How do you design this?
Gavin: Well, the first thing is
is like aesthetically, how's the guest going to see it, right?
In many ways, it's such a classic riff on something,
that I almost think it's like a very sophisticated TV dinner.
Like, I have separated everything for you.
Jonathan: Which I love the separation
I like the minimalism. It's so chic.
Gavin: I think sometimes [lesses] want plates like this.
Jonathan: Totes. Gorgeous.
So, you're going to teach me a paillard.
Gavin: So, it's a classic. You love it.
You eat it every day?
Jonathan: I'm like super habity.
So, it's like the chicken paillard with arugula salad,
and Parmesan, so I'm like light and lively during the day,
and then at night, basically I just like-
Gavin: Destroy everything.
Jonathan: Like just eat until I would just die.
Gavin: Yeah, good. I love it.
So, for this chicken paillard, we're going to butterfly it.
Jonathan: Oh, is the key to a paillard?
Gavin: That's the key to the pounding,
the beginning step of the paillard.
Jonathan: You're not grossed out by touching chicken?
Gavin: Not at all.
Jonathan: Really? Yeah, totally.
Jonathan: I don't know, chicken? Like (grossed out sound).
Gavin: You eat it every day, you can't be grossed out by it.
Jonathan: Yeah, I don't want to touch it, though.
Gavin: So, a little bit of oil.
Now pound it.
(pounding) No, you gotta get in there, though. You gotta be pissed.
Jonathan: I'm (bleep) irate. This would get out all my rage.
(pounding) And what does [paillarding] do?
Gavin: Tenderizes it.
Jonathan: Do you ever paillard your employees?
Gavin: (laughing) No.
Jonathan: Tempted?
Gavin: No. Well, tempted and doing it are 2 different things.
All right, so that's the paillard.
Jonathan: Yum!
He's going to start to grill.
All right, so we're going to mix up
your regular arugula and Parmesan action.
Jonathan: All right, good.
Gavin: These are pretty insane.
That's fried stuffing.
Jonathan: I can't.
Gavin: You have to.
Jonathan: I can't!
Gavin: You have no choice.
Jonathan: I hate you.
Gavin: (laughing)
Jonathan: I love you.
Jonathan: It's incredible. Oh, my God.
Before you do anything to it,
I want to understand what you're going to do to it.
Gavin: Think of it like this.
Right now, if you walk through Central Park,
you see part grass, part orange leaves, part all of it, right?
It's fall, so it's all over the place.
In my mind, that's basically all you can do to this,
is you can just build off of it because it's flat;
and then somehow, in all of that,
I've got to give it saltiness, sweetness, and acidity, right?
Otherwise, what the hell's the point?
Let's just go for it.
Jonathan: All right, let me see what you do.
Gavin: Okay.
Jonathan: I'm intrigued.
I'm getting a polka dot effect. I love a polka dot.
Gavin: Now we built a little bit of the design.
Acorn squash. Let's see if we can cut a little bit.
Maybe we can stand some up.
Jonathan: I think it's your only height element, you'd better get higher.
Gavin: And then the kale.
Jonathan: It's very futuristic.
Like, I'm getting like a-
Gavin: Kind of a 'Meet the Jetsons' feel?
Jonathan: Yeah.
Gavin: Yeah, I like that.
Fried stuffing, which is great texture.
Fried sage.
So, this is just a little bit of reduced chicken [unintelligible].
Jonathan: Yum!
All right, literally, this is going on your menu.
Like every woman in New York City
is going to eat this every day for lunch. I promise you.
Gavin: Let's taste it. Tell me what you think.
If it gets your seal of approval,
it has a 90% chance of going on the menu.
Jonathan: And what might it be called?
Gavin: Well, this is the chicken paillard designed by Jonathan Adler.
Jonathan: Bonjour.
Gavin: Bon appetit.
Jonathan: Oh, God, this is so delicious.
Gavin: Delish, right? Kill it.
Now you can get away from the Aruba and the [park].
Jonathan: And I love you.
Jonathan: That is the best chicken paillard
Gavin: Thank you.
Jonathan: That really, seriously,
like I know we're on camera,
but that is like next level.
This is ending up on the menu, right?
Gavin: This is ending up on the menu for you.
Jonathan: No, but like I'm serious. Like, this is going-
Gavin: Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah.
Jonathan: No, I don't believe you.
Gavin: Try me.
Gavin: It's on.
Jonathan: This has been eye-opening,
and delightful, delicious, and fattening.
Gavin: Thank you.
Gavin: We'll see you, man.
Thanks for the inspiration.
Jonathan: Thank you.
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