What were your favorite foods growing up?
Grandparents' pizza. Dreamsicles. Lemon Meringue Pie. Apple Pie. Chocolate Chip Cookies. Raw Cookie Batter. Root Beer Floats. Grilled Cheese Sandwich with Tomato Soup. Did anyone ever mention that sugar is brain food?

When did you decide you wanted to be a chef?
When I was 17.

Where and when did your career in food begin?
I think around 7 years old…I wanted to make a sandwich that would floor everyone in the house. I am still trying to make that sandwich.

If you didn't become a chef, what would you be?
I am not really sure…maybe a carpenter or a photographer…I can't really imagine doing something that is not linked to food. A baker would be interesting.

Who/what has shaped your cooking the most over the years?
I think that the time that I worked under any given chef I have always learned something invaluable from each and every one of them. My time in Spain was especially rewarding and reinforced my affinity for food that is "close to the earth".

How would you describe your cuisine?
"Personal." I generally like to cook things that I like to eat…there is quite a bit of Mediterranean influence. I have very little skill in preparing Indian food.

What influences your cooking style and particularly the menu at your restaurant?
Client preferences, execution feasibility under the worst possible circumstances, skill depth of the staff, quality of certain primary products, seasonality, sometimes technique driven, tradition…

What are your favorite culinary weapons in the kitchen?
The Tomahawk Cruise Missile. I really like the one that has the camera mounted on it. Oh, of course!! And the adamantium claws.

What is your favorite secret ingredient?
Salt

What is the one rule or value you try to instill in all of your staff?
Cook like you mean it: INTEGRITY.

What qualities to you look for when hiring cooks for your restaurant? Passion for cooking, researching/reading good resources, choosing the right influential chefs, what drives them, what deflates them, how they handle stress, how serious they are about responsibility, their work ethic -- or lack of it.

If I'm trying to watch my weight and I'm eating at your restaurant, what should I order to eat?
Vegetarian or Vegan Tasting Menu.

What was the most challenging meal you had to make? Why?
Cooking for Ferran Adria and Juli Soler. I mean, what can you cook for these guys that would leave an impression on them?

What was your worst restaurant disaster?
Working with people that don't [care] about what they do…a close second would be a power outage and trying to cook on butane stoves.

What is your least favorite food?
Any food that is poorly prepared and has no emotion behind it, like oil-soaked soggy French fries. YUCK!!!

What is your beverage of choice?
Espresso with ice and a cigarette.

What are some recent dining and culinary trends you have been observing?
Technique driven…too often at the expense of taste. I seem to remember one of my old chefs calling this "masturbation."

When you are not eating at your own restaurant, where are you eating? Costco… pizza with our twin boys. The saying that "company has a lot to do with how good a meal is" carries quite a bit of weight. The pie is not all that bad and the price is reasonable.

Which foreign country inspires your style most?
Spain: Catalunya and Euskadi more precisely. Put your index and middle finger under each eye and drag them down your face; good food can make you cry.

What was the most spectacular meal you have ever had?
Grilled bread, fresh sea urchin, grilled morcilla, extra virgin olive oil… on the beach.

What is your best cooking tip for a home enthusiast?
Cook using all of your senses, don't over complicate things, and don't believe everything you see on T.V.

What do you eat when you are home?
That depends on what fancies me at any given moment. I am big on Pan con Tomate y Aceite Oliva. I am also a bit of a closet Snickers binger…