ZAGAT.com talks to Jeffrey Chodorow about his restaurant empire, his new projects and, of course, his beef with The New York Times
You may remember Jeffrey Chodorow as Rocco DiSpirito's antagonist on NBC's The Restaurant, or as the man who took out a $40,000 full-page ad in The New York Times this past February, lambasting restaurant critics for carrying insufficient dining credentials after less-than-stellar reviews of his NYC steakhouse, Kobe Club.
Either way, Jeffrey Chodorow is also one of the most prolific restaurateurs in the country. As head of China Grill Management, he controls more than 25 restaurants, from London's new Suka to long-running hits like Asia de Cuba and the company's namesake, China Grill.
A lifelong foodie with no formal restaurant experience, Chodorow, a financier, opened NYC's China Grill in 1987, thinking it would be fun. It apparently was, since he soon made the jump from hobbyist to full-fledged restaurateur. We recently caught up with Chodorow by phone to discuss his work, his beef with critics and his new restaurant, Borough Food and Drink (12 E. 22nd St.; 212-260-0103), which opens in NYC this week.
ZS: How did you come up with the concept for Borough Food and Drink, which you're opening with Zak Pelaccio as consulting chef?
JC: When I was talking with Zak about what we wanted to do, I said to him, 'There's such phenomenal things made by small producers in New York City. What if we collected them all in one place where you could buy those ingredients? And what if we used those ingredients in dishes we made for the restaurant?' And Zak's really into the quality of the source of the product, so it just seemed like a really cool idea. We spent days and days and days going to the hinterlands – as close as Manhattan and as far away as Staten Island – to sample things.
ZS: How much research goes into a restaurant concept?
JC: A lot. For Kobe Club, we did research on Kobe beef, on the differences between American, Australian and Japanese Wagyu beef, [on] sourcing. When we opened Ono, we went to Japan several times to try things. Borough is a very big research job because, again, it's product-driven. Asia de Cuba took a year of trying food every day, three or four dishes a day, to get that menu correct.
ZS: You just opened Suka in London with Zak. After Borough Food and Drink, will there be more restaurants with him?
JC: Yes, I'm doing a couple other projects with Zak. All I can say is that it's going to be more toward an Asian bent. [Editor's Note: The duo reportedly has plans to open Kopi Tiam, a "Malaysian coffeehouse" concept on NYC's Upper West Side.]
ZS: What draws you to him?
JC: He's a very intelligent, genuine, hard-working guy who has tremendous respect for the business. Even though he's achieved a lot of success for a young kid, you would never know it when you talked to him. When my corporate chef, who has a lot of experience, said “That won't work for the following reasons,” [Zak] said to me, “You know, I can learn a lot from this guy.” That's not my experience, generally, with so-called celebrity chefs. He wants to be a team player.
ZS: It was reported last year that you would be opening a gastropub named Spotted ***.
JC: I was never doing that. I was at a cocktail party in the Hamptons and I was kidding around with somebody and someone overheard me saying it. It was a joke.
ZS: How do you determine if a restaurant concept is viable?
JC: I will you tell you that I thought [NYC's now shuttered] Caviar and Banana was – maybe a bad name, I'll concede – actually a great restaurant. But critics didn't like it. They got there so early that I think that did have an impact, and there [were] some negative connotations associated with the space with Rocco's situation. You could do the greatest concept in the world, and think you've got everything right, and for reasons which you don't even understand, it may not work. This is a very fickle business.
ZS: Do you have any plans for expanding beyond cities where you are now?
JC: I'm looking at Shanghai. I have several international places that I'm interested in, which sounds a little crazy because people say to me, 'Oh, you won't open a restaurant in Philadelphia, but you'll go to Shanghai?' I said, 'Well, yeah.' I went to school in Philadelphia, and I have a farm outside Philadelphia, and to go back to Philadelphia to open a restaurant wouldn't interest me that much. But Shanghai would be exciting.
ZS: In February, you famously criticized Frank Bruni in a full-page ad in The New York Times. Have you felt any impact from that?
JC: Every critic in London who wrote something about Suka started out with three paragraphs on me taking the ad out, and you know, some people loved it, some people thought it was stupid, some people thought I lost my mind, it was a rant. What I was really trying to do was point out that we're not getting a PhD in food science and gastronomy doing these things. These [critics] are people who are really proficient in other areas and who, because they write well, are put into this position. I would be satisfied if The New York Times would simply say at the top of the page, 'Here's the review by our restaurant critic. Before coming to this, he did the following, and has no substantial food background.'
Really, there were only two points. One was, let's just be honest about your credentials. And number two is, just understand that when you criticize a restaurant, it really hurts the people who work at the restaurant.
ZS: Have you learned anything from restaurant critics?
JC: Oh yeah, I learn things all the time. We read everything and we go back and we look at things that they say. Even if they don't say it in a constructive way, there [are] constructive things you can take from it.
ZS: What's next on your plate?
JC: Summer vacation. And my 25th wedding anniversary.