The Zentrepreneur

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When I sat down with Suarez for lunch at 66, it was several hours after the Times had rendered its verdict: two stars. Most restaurateurs would be joyful, but Suarez was disappointed, although not deflated. He is used to higher culinary SAT scores. He mused about whether or not his superstar chef is being held to a higher standard. The Times' reviewer, William Grimes, praised Vongerichten's "infallible" career, noting that he and Suarez have an "uncanny knack for developing an appealing, innovative culinary idea, packaging it attractively, and putting it in the right spot...a complex, lucrative equation." Grimes found the design of 66 "flawless" but the food "hit and miss," although he did say that "make the right choices and you'll have the meal of your life."

The idea of tricking out traditional Chinese food with a modern, Vongerichtenian torque--dumplings filled with foie gras, or pea shoots and tofu--sprang out of a trip Suarez and Vongerichten made to Shanghai for a restaurant project. They ate street food and let opportunity and ideas wash over them, wide-angle style.

As for the architecture--a key Suarez ingredient--the "flawless design" is the work of Richard Meier, the fabled architect of the Getty Museum. For Suarez, Meier invented a space that's so cool it's frosted: frosted glass, muted resin tabletops, a whispery visual quiet that manages to both calm and alert. And yes, it does feel Zen-like and calming--although at night the music and the din aren't exactly meditative. Other than a gash of red banners over the communal table--and the flitter of phosphorescing fish in the tanks that separate the dining room from the kitchen--it is a color-free zone. You'd never know it's just a dumpling's throw from optically nutty Chinatown, where restaurant design is often an insurance agent's calendar stuck next to instructions for performing the Heimlich maneuver.

The story of 66 also reveals that as much of a businessman as Suarez is, he's not just a flageolet-counter. He struggles to balance the dramatic flair his restaurants require with bottom-line obsession. "This is more exact than running a normal business," Suarez says, "so you need to make people accountable. Maybe you don't need as many sous chefs, people may have to work a little harder." At the same time, he reflects, "I wish it had cost me less, but that's the way it goes. Once I have a project going on, I don't say to Richard and Jean-Georges, 'Hey, guys, you can't have it." As an example, he could have saved $48,000 by using a less expensive frosted-glass wall behind the communal table, but "I'm not going to stop now. You hope you're going to do enough volume to recoup." According to Suarez, it usually takes three years--sometimes as much as five--for one of his restaurants to make real money.

Suarez and Vongerichten present better food to more people than anyone else ever has.

Over lunch, which included the lemon sesame chicken that sent Grimes into a tailspin of disappointment--"a letdown...sweet, glutinous"--Suarez sketched out his organization. Supporting his far-flung restaurants requires a staff of 1,500 people--the majority of them being kitchen and dining room staff, the rest including operation managers, a food and beverage department, and an HR department. Each restaurant's bottom line is assessed separately and daily. Restaurants work on very slim food margins (booze is a different story), so profitability can fly out the exhaust vent should costs spin out of control. Suarez says that Vongerichten has gradually arrived at a fuller understanding of this and has become a better businessman; he has innovated to keep costs from spiraling out of control while still using the best ingredients and letting his imagination dance. But the way Suarez has educated Vongerichten about culinary arithmetic is very Zentrepreneurial: Let the student come learn when he's ready. "It's great that Jean-Georges has made the bottom line part of his mindset," Suarez says. "I don't think the creative guy should come back and make the business guy fix all the problems."

Many businesses--from publishing to fashion to architecture to filmmaking--require the integration of a creative sensibility with business reality. Suarez has done it without apparent compromise, and his relaxed business style is largely responsible. He and Vongerichten are kindred spirits, despite their different roles. "I think they constantly work at their relationship to make sure they stay together," says Daniel Boulud, another celebrated chef and the proprietor of Restaurant Daniel. Suarez is the business partner chefs dream of, not least because he has made it possible for Vongerichten to avoid a fate that befalls so many chefs, a repetitive life in a single kitchen. "A great chef needs to diversify, to have the opportunity to explore other ideas," says Boulud, "and Phil is providing Jean-Georges with that. We all admire what Jean-Georges is doing."

As for Vongerichten, he allows that Suarez, by assuming the business responsibilities, frees him to be Jean-Georges: "He frees my mind to do what I want. He is my spiritual father, you know he's there for you when you need him."

Suarez is also bringing in other talented chefs, providing them with the infrastructure they desperately need. The Spice Market, Suarez and Vongerichten's upcoming restaurant in New York City's meatpacking district, will involve Gray Kunz, who was the chef at Lespinasse, a four-star restaurant in the St. Regis Hotel that closed several years ago. Kunz and Vongerichten know each other from their days together at the Mandarin Hotel in Hong Kong. Bringing Kunz into the mix makes perfect sense; it's the restaurant equivalent of the independent film model. (William Grimes likened it to Miramax.) And they recently opened a restaurant with Wylie Dufresne, a young chef who once worked for Vongerichten at Jo Jo (the first collaboration between Suarez and Vongerichten, from 1991). That spot, on the Lower East Side, is cunningly called wd-50.

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