What were your favorite foods growing up?
Candy, candy and candy.

When did you decide you wanted to be a chef?
When I was 23 and didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. I decided that cooking was the one thing I ever enjoyed and so I may as well become a chef.

Where and when did your career in food begin?
I graduated from the Natural Gourmet's Chef's Training Program and thought I was ready to take on the world. Then I did my first internship at Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill
and realized that I had NO idea how to work in a professional kitchen.

If you didn't become a chef, what would you be?
Rich.

Who/what has shaped your cooking the most over the years?
My sous chef, Jesus.

How would you describe your cuisine?
Vegetable cooking - I try to bring out the essential flavors of vegetables.

What influences your cooking style and particularly the menu at your restaurant?
I hate to sound redundant, but vegetables. I find that I spend all my time thinking about vegetables and how to bring out their flavors, which is harder than you'd imagine. I get
randomly obsessed with a certain vegetable and then it takes over my brain until I can come up with a dish for it. This can take two months, which is one reason why it takes me forever to get a new dish on the menu.

What are your favorite culinary weapons in the kitchen?
I've got a veritable arsenal on hand: dehydrators, VitaMixes, mandolins, meat slicers, rasps....I need them all!

What is your favorite secret ingredient?
If I told you then it wouldn't be a secret.

What is the one rule or value you try to instill in all of your staff?
Every person has to be able to do every job, no matter how small. The executive chef has to plunge the toilet when necessary, I have to be able to work the line and do prep, the prep chef has to do dishes when dishes need to be done.

What qualities do you look for when hiring cooks for your restaurant?
Slavish loyalty and unquestioning obedience.

What was the most challenging meal you had to make? Why?
The meal I made on Iron Chef. Because if it wasn't any good I'd be humiliated.

What was your worst restaurant disaster?
When I spilled boiling soup down my pants and had to pull them off in the middle of service.

What is your least favorite food?
Coconut water.

What is your beverage of choice?
Beer.

What are some recent dining and culinary trends you have been observing?
Everyone's starting to get on the vegetable train with all their Meatless Mondays and so on and such like.

When you are not eating at your own restaurant, where are you eating?
Anywhere I don't have to cook.

Which foreign country inspires your style most?
Canada.

What was the most spectacular meal you have ever had?
I'm still waiting to have it. Which is nice.

What is your best cooking tip for a home enthusiast?
Learn how to sharpen your knives.

What do you eat when you are home?
Cereal out of the box.