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Are you planning Juicy Lucy expansion?

The idea is to do a bunch of these. We’re in an economy right now where I think people want to eat good food in a quick gourmet atmosphere. Get in and out, not blow the bank, and know that you’re eating healthy, locally grown stuff, put it in their neighborhood. Wherever I take this concept. We’re looking at Colorado, we’re looking at New York, we’re looking at different areas, take this concept and put it in different areas.

What about other neighborhoods in L.A. too?

Yeah, we’re looking at other neighborhoods in L.A. The next one in L.A. would probably be more of a gastropub, more of a wall of beer. I don’t know about this conveyer belt, but more of this sit down type of feel. More to offer.

You’d still call it Juicy Lucy?

Yeah, I’d keep the name the same, more of a sit down counter atmosphere or Father’s Office type feel.

Are you still interested in doing a pizzeria?

Yeah, we’re still doing that. We’ve had several locations fall through in Santa Monica, but we’ve got another location in Santa Monica we’re really stoked on. The concept’s pretty cool. It’s two pizza ovens, Double O, that’s the name of them, all blacked out. It’s two ovens, a marble counter, and maybe a few induction burners and that’s it. The idea is everything comes out of the ovens. A few pizzas. Everything’s from the market. I’ll throw a whole loup de mer, whole pigs. Whatever I can possibly cook in an oven, one’s for pizza, one’s for pots full of mussels, clams, octopus, whatever’s in season. Simplicity in pizza on that one. Biga is the working name right now, it means starter. It’s the heart and the soul. That’s the goal: simple. Pizza, burgers, I’m having fun. I’m working on a fried chicken concept too. Nobody’s really touched that concept yet. Chipotle replaced Taco Bell. I’m hoping to replace McDonald’s, and then KFC, no one’s touched that yet.

Could you see doing another restaurant where you’re in the kitchen every night?

Yeah, that would be a goal, but not right now. I want to do a few of these little things, have fun, and I feel like I want to get back into fine dining. That’s my background and I miss that cooking. Savory wasn’t really there and would never really go there, and I knew that going out there, but I want to get back into that.

Would you be open to doing another restaurant in Malibu?

It all depends on the rent and landlord. The community’s great out there. I love Malibu. I live out there. It’s a great community, I met a lot of great people out there. I just think you’ve got to be on the water, for some weird reason. I have this concept – imagine a box and there are 20 seats and that’s it – there’s a marble counter where the chef plates and behind them is a cook’s line of chefs. It’s two seatings, 40 people a night, and in the middle of the box would be a master sommelier, maybe two of them, and people come in and book it and we do two seatings a night. It’s like $275 a person. Ideally, how cool would it be to invite chefs in and have cameras and have like Ferran [Adria] and Thomas Keller and Grant Achatz every other day and create this live – just 40 people a night – whatever city it is, and it just pushes the culinary movement forward. And you can have it live on TV. That would be my ideal fine dining restaurant. One night I’ll cook, and the next night it will be a guest chef, and they’ll bring their master sommelier, and they’ll bring their wine…it’s two seatings per night and one menu, one price, that’s it. It’s like a charity donation. The idea is to push the culinary movement even further. After El Bulli closed, fine dining, I don’t know where it’s at.

So you’re not comfortable with fine dining on the decline?

The progression of avant garde after El Bulli, everyone’s still doing it, but where’s that next Ferran? Where’s that next movement? There are a lot of great chefs out there and I’m excited to see what’s next. A vehicle like that would help keep this movement going, because the kids nowadays, you can only imagine in my profession, it’s fun to see people excel to that next level, creativity, passion, wine, beers.

How do you prioritize with all these different concepts floating out there?

I don’t really. If you have an idea, you have to tell the world, because more ideas will come to you. If you hold it all in, you become stale. You lose ideas. I’m just applying the next level. The fast food era, I think we’re all exhausted with, and it’s time for us to eat local, take care of our environment, take care of our temple. If you invest a little bit more money in a burger now, as opposed to McDonald’s, you’ll pay for it now instead of when you’re 60 or 70 with high cholesterol. Take care of yourself now and you won’t see a doctor as much.

So Eat, Drink, Be Local will resonate no matter what concept you do?

Yeah. Keep it local. Keep it fresh. That’s what I believe in. Like at Savory, I tried to utilize everything in that community, as much as I could. Oxnard. A lot of the fish came off Point Dume. That was the beauty of it. I kind of applied that philosophy here. We’re downtown, but we have access to so much. Farmers markets are great in Santa Monica. Santa Ynez, Paso Prime, they’re great out there. Salmon’s hard to get local, but there is California King salmon. It isn’t in season now, but when that happens, I’ll get some.

What does a burger have to be if it ends up on your chef board?

Simple yet playful. Just level of ingredients is the key to it. Execution. And simple. You’ve got to stick to the code. There’s only so much you can put on a burger before it becomes not a burger. I’m not going to be putting chili on there. Two or three things should be enough, with the bun and the meat.