INTERVIEW CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

JL: Who else in the restaurant industry do you look to for guidance, inspiration or advice?

JA: It’s very difficult to say. Chefs are not like architects. It’s very unusual for an architect to speak nicely of another alive architect. They all recommend an architect that is dead. Chefs, we always like each other and have a lot of respect for each other in general. Everybody knows my relationship with Ferran Adrià. It’s been a very humbling experience. He’s great about sharing information. That’s a trait more chefs should be learning from. Overall, we share, but Ferran has been the ultimate sharer. If he was a scientist in a pharmaceutical company, there probably wouldn’t be any sickness today in the world. That’s a big lesson for the pharmaceutical industry. I understand it’s a business and they need to make a living and money for shareholders, but if Ferran was a scientist in the pharmaceutical industry, by now, AIDs pills would be free, and every other single invention in the medical world would be available to the masses. That’s who Ferran is.

Beyond that, it’s many, for one reason or another. I’ve been very lucky to get good feedback, and I’m always giving feedback, the last many years. I try to set up a Feedback Day. You want to ask me a question? Come on Monday. A lot of people come. Then, I’ve always been asking a lot of people. We all share. Eric Ripert, Mario Batali, Tom Colicchio, [Michael] Chiarello, up in San Francisco. Michael Mina has always been very open. Daniel Boulud, [David] Bouley, Thomas Keller, we always ask and receive questions in business. Cooking, maybe less. We can always learn cooking techniques from each other, or by eating. It’s the business we talk about. “How do you do that, to be free and successful?” This is one we’re always sharing, those stories. The ones that do this well normally do very well in the business.

JL: What would you want to be known for as a chef? When people say the name José Andrés, what would you want them to think?

JA: Right now, I am in too many worlds, from the high end to the low end…I’m opening a restaurant in Haiti. At the same time, I don’t want to be known by that. I want to make sure we become agents of change in all the issues we face on earth today, and not tackle every one, but show we have credibility on certain issues. We should be talking more, like Tom Colicchio taking the lead on GMOs, or Michel Nischan taking the lead on the farm bill and getting food stamps in the farmers markets [through Wholesome Wave]. People are not aware of this victory, but he got a few million dollars over the next 10 years.

I want to be known as a good family man, a good husband, a good friend, a great chef, creative, but at the same time, I like to be a historian. I want to make sure my communities are doing better through whatever contribution we can do through the restaurants. The list is endless. I’m 45 and still more tired every day, but 45 is still a young age to be a chef, so I think the best of me is still to come.

I want to concentrate more and more on Minibar, SAAM and é, which are three amazing restaurants. I don’t know if they or better or worse than others. I know they are very unique and very special. If I was in town with Michelin – L.A. had Michelin, but not since I opened – that restaurant would be deserving of Michelin stars. This restaurant could one day be on the Top 50. I still like the job my team does. It’s as good as many other restaurants in the Top 50. The Top 50, Top 100 or Top 500 is all relative in life. I will dedicate myself more and more to those restaurants.

Right now, I’m very lucky. I have restaurants that are $500 a person, or can do sandwiches for $8 in the streets. That diversity that I have, I don’t know how many other chefs have that freedom of expression, and I have that freedom of expression. In January I’m going fast casual with Beefsteak, my vegetable restaurant. I’m trying to make a restaurant even more for the masses. I’ll fail, or I will not. I’m going to try. What I want to be known for is a guy who did his job well and tried to feed everybody. To feed the children in Haiti gives me as much pleasure as to feed the rich and famous in my top restaurants. It’s the same effort, different objectives, but to feel the love for food.