Flynn McGarry isn't like most 15-year-olds
He madeheadlineslast month when theNew YorkTimesMagazine profiled him and put McGarry on the cover of its annual food issue. He happens to work professionally as a chef, but that's not the first thing you notice when talking to him. McGarry has a level of composure and poise that people twice his age don't possess. And, for someone who could easily be debilitated by his own delusion and the yes-men around him, he's incredibly self-aware. Between all that and the perfectly coiffed hair, you immediately understand why people are fascinated with McGarry and trip over themselves to give him opportunities.
我会见了早餐McGarry总部tel yesterday. He ordered soft-scrambled eggs with smoked salmon ("These are not soft-scrambled") and a latte. Over the course of about an hour, we talked about everything from the fallout after theTimesprofile to McGarry's dream restaurant to high school prom (he's been to one).
Let's start with the recentTimesMagazine profile. Controversy that ensued after it was released aside, how has the story itself changed things for you?
I just get awkward pictures taken of me all the time. There are lots of secret photos. I went to go eat ramen with someone and someone posted a selfie with the back of my head. That's pretty much the only change.
After the article came out, there was ahuge level of discussion. Everyone had something to say. You remained pretty quiet and handled it well. What's it like to see opinions on you by people who a) don't know you and/or b) never had your food before?
There were a few that ticked me off a little bit but a lot of them are just fishing for me to respond. There's an actual twitter account that I'm sure you've seen that messes with Ari [Taymor, chef-owner of LA's Alma] too —@flynnovermyheador something. It's the best twitter account ever.
Do you know runs it?
No. It got a little scary when the account tweeted a picture with Ari's name spelled out in dead fish. His first tweet at me was "you are a disgrace to this industry." He just started tweeting me the most random things. He took a photo of a thing of huckleberries and then put the magazine next to it—likeHuckleberry Flynn. He puts so much time into this, it's actually flattering.
People who go so far out of there way to write an article of how I'm "ruining the world" are a little frustrating.
It seemed like there was a group of people upset that theTimeschose to feature you on the cover of their food issue.
I like how they get mad atmefor that. That wasnotmy decision. They told me a day before it came out: You're going to be on the cover. I was like, "Ok!"
How did the conversation about the article start? Was it something you pitched? Did they come to you?
The photography team Pedan + Monk had shot me before. Their agent was pitching to theTimesand they noticed a portrait of me and were like, "Who's this?" From there, they reached out and said they wanted to do a food piece on me. I was doing a dinner at my house in two days and so I said, "Okay, either come to this dinner or you have to wait two months before we do another one." They sent some writer out. She wasn't a food writer, she'd done, like, film reviews and stuff like that. So she came in with very little knowledge on food and had a lot of questions—which was fine. She was more focused of the mindset of all this.
My thinking was, "TheNew YorkTimesis going to do a profile on me, that's pretty crazy." I thought it'd at most be a one-page thing.
At what point did you realize it was going to be larger?
When the writer told me that it needed to be six pages, I sort of did a double-take. She was there a lot and did a bunch of interviews with other people and ate. At this point I was thought: This is going to be really huge. I was somewhat freaking out because you only really get one profile in theTimesand this was it for me. You don't profile someone twice. Maybe I'll be fortunate enough to get a restaurant review someday, hopefully. I think I really realized it was something big.
I didn't read it for two days after it came out, because I was working atFifty Sevenconstantly.
Is thatreallytrue?
It's actually 100 percent true. I was there from 6 a.m. until 3 a.m. for that entire week. We were obviously not in a great place because we were opening. It was more important for me to get this food out than read an article. My mom told me, "It's fine, you're cool." But then, when I was working at Fifty Seven, and people were like, I just saw you in theTimes,I knew this was going to become a thing. My agency was freaking out and emailing me telling me I had to go on TV shows.
Why?
There was all this press around me and it's easier to sell a show if there's a lot of focus on someone right then. You go to a network and say, "He was just on the cover of theNew YorkTimesmagazine."
Were you surprised by the reaction to the article?
I was surprised by the minimal amount of negativity, I thought it was going to be 100 times worse.
Non-industry people are fascinated by you. It seems like the only negativity comes from our industry which seems counterintuitive because we should all be supporting each other.
My take? This industry is weirdly stuck in the 1800s. The acceptance of women in the kitchens is still incredibly low. Why? The whole way you work in a kitchen and the concept of how you become a great chef has literally never changed.
Traditionally, how do you become a great chef?
你的工作令人难以置信的在其他的时间chefs. Get treated like shit for many many years before you can do anything for yourself.
That's kind of changing.
People are doing it differently, but people aren't really accepting it. Everyone else says, "I'm gonna follow the path." I'm going a different way. I was just saying to someone that every time I meet a chef or a cook they seem to think they know exactly what I should do with my life. Great advice, but do you think that great chefs in the world listened to anyone or they went in their own directions? If you don't, to a certain degree, how can you set yourself apart? You just become like everyone else.
Do you think you have anything to learn from those people? Is there any truth in what people have to say?
I will take someone's advice if I want to be in the place that they are. If I want to do something completely different than that person, then why would I follow in their footsteps? When Daniel Humm says I should do something I will seriously take that advice because I want to be in a position like his. He has told me that when he was opening his own restaurant, he didn't really listen to anyone. He just kind of did his own food.
What people are always trying to tell me is you can be a genius creating dishes, but that means nothing when it comes to motivating a kitchen. That, in order to motivate a kitchen, someone has to go through everything they go through. But do you really have to? Some of the chefs that tell me I should take a certain path so I'll have sympathy for my cooks? I still see them scream at their cooks. That I don't really get.
There are leaders and followers. To be a leader you don't have to do the worst things for 10 years of your life. I know people who have done that and are telling me to do that and they are very angry people.
Maybe there's a level of jealousy because of the opportunities you've been afforded?
I'm getting opportunities because I'm going out there and saying, "This is what I'm doing," and people are somewhat accepting of it.
And, to a certain degree, because you're a novelty.
Yes, I accept that. In the future I don't want to be a novelty. Right now there's no way I'm not going to be a novelty. I might as well ride that along and get something out of it rather than have this edge or novelty and not do anything with it.
Another thing—people have this idea that I'm only able to do this because I come from money, which is something that has become very misconstrued by the media. I don't come from a very wealthy family. I live in Hollywood, my parents work in Hollywood, but they're not producers. It took three years to build my bedroom kitchen piece by piece. You know, for Christmas one year, I got a vacuum sealer.
Someone told me the other day, "You need to give up all of this and go peel potatoes for a kitchen for two years." How is that going to help me? I can become a great potato peeler but am I going to become a great chef?
I think people look at you think there's no way he can be a great chef because of age and experience.
I'm not saying I'm a great chef right now. If I was saying that I would go open my own restaurant. I know that I need time to mature.
Why do some restaurants have good food and others don't? I don't think that comes from working in kitchens. You don't learn how to make an innovative, creative, game-changing dish by working on the line. That's entirely internal. You learn to execute it on the line.
There are cooks and there are chefs. The best cooks I've ever seen just execute and do it perfectly without thinking anything about it. They are like machines. Every chef's dream is to have cooks that are machines. But a machine can't create a dish that's emotional, that resonates with people.
A quote you gave at some point about opening the restaurant by the time you're 19 is often referenced in the press. Are you wary about publicly setting a window of time like that, that it might seem a little calculated?
How do you determine you're ready? You're never ready. That's why I set a goal, because, by 19, I will have been cooking for nine years and in restaurants for eight. On the path I'm going down now, that's just the goal—a restaurant by 19.
You're never going to be the best cook in your kitchen. You need to understand that and these people are helping you. You can't be the best everything. At some point, you have to just screw it and say, "I'm going to do this."
Let's switch gears and talk about your pop-up seriesEureka. You did two dinners earlier this week in New York. What do you think people are looking for when they come to your dinners?
I think there is a mix of people who are coming to hate it and people who are coming out of genuine interest. I take it all seriously because people are paying a shit ton of money for this—they need to be treated perfectly. The people who come in wanting to hate it, I pay special attention to them to make sure it's one of the best meals they have ever eaten and change their opinion. I don't want someone to come in unhappy and leave unhappy. We might pour a little extra wine for them or a little extra caviar. I had someone last night tweet at me, "This better be good." I made a note on the reservation. This person needs to be taken care of—I need to know if I need to go talk to them and when I should bring them into the kitchen.
It's an individual experience. People coming in with an open mind are going to eat slower and enjoy themselves more. The people who are going to hate it are not going to have a fun time so it's our job to make sure they have a fun time. Same people with high expectations, they are going to come and ask if this is going to be worth that kind of money? Hopefully yes.
You charged $150 per head for the dinner, which is what some of the best restaurants in they city charge for dinner. What do you say to people who made remarks about the price?
What people don't understand about pop-ups is, yes, you can spend that much for a meal at Jean Georges or Per Se. The reason we charge just as much is because it's a huge expense to bring a pop-up from LA to NY. We make absolutely no money. For the one here, we lost money. Why? Because you need to make everything perfect. It doesn't matter if you make money, you need to make sure every guest leaves happy. So whether that means if we don't have enough of something and you have to overnight it from LA for $250, that's what we have to do.
Do you think you're always going to be looked at through a special lens because you came into things this way?
Right now, it's fine. In the future I don't want to be the teen chef. I think about this a lot—It's like what am I going to do in the future that's SO remarkable that people forget about that? It's what drives me, needing to do something that it gets past that gimmick of the teen chef thing. Like I actually proved myself and it becomes a thing.
Is that not just you operating a restaurant that doesn't close in two years?
No. I don.t think people are going to think that's enough. I want it all. I just say that so I strive to get it all.
Quickly walk me through what projects you have in progress that you can talk about.
I'm still doing the pop-ups and I'm going to do them once a month at Fifty Seven in LA. I'm working on a travel show where I get to go the best restaurants in the world. The documentary, that will be coming to a close pretty soon.
Is it being filmed? Has it been being filmed?
It's almost done being filmed. It's been filming for about a year.
How do you think that plays into you not wanting to be perceived as a teen chef later on? Why would you document a period of your life that you don't want to always be known for? It's almost like a 20 year old writing a memoir.
有这么多的文档的这一刻,我错过了ght as well just use this up for what it is. Get recognition out there. That's an edge that I'm starting to get—meeting investors and meeting all these people from various opportunities that, even if they don't pan out now, will help me in my future career. Opening a restaurant is really expensive and I don't want a ton of investors. How can I use this stuff to help me in the future with a serious career?
Here what I wonder: If, at some point, you'll come to the conclusion that opening a restaurant isn't worth it. Why go through it if this part of your career is successful? You're handsome and have a good personality you could just be on TV and do books.
Since day one that has always been the goal. There's never been a day in any of this that I even question the decision that one day I want my own restaurant. "Oh what if I just do TV?" That's never been asomething I've thought in my head. It's engrained in me. This is what I want to do. I'm so stuck on that, no amount of money or fame could actually change that idea.
Would you give everything else up if you could have that restaurant?
我说过,我将一千倍。我告诉所有my agents and everyone, I have this amount of time to do this stuff and then I'm done. I have this time frame where I can't legally work in a restaurant full-time in LA. This is the time to do this and after that time I'm done. I'm going to go do my restaurant and they all know that's the deal.
At that point, you'll be in your late teens, early 20s. Do people still care about you? Do you think there's a window on these opportunities?
I can't wait until I'm 28 to open a restaurant because nobody will care anymore. I was just on a panel for The Milken Institute called "Why Wait?" People are always asking why my generation so obsessed with doing these things now. Why wait?
