What were your favorite foods growing up?
I have many, but primarily the locally grown/harvested product of West Coast Canada. Geoduck, Dungeness Crab, Wild Salmon, Rock Fish (a relative of black cod), Okanagan Nectarines. My parents loved to eat and cook, and that love was passed down.

What is your least favorite food?
Probably the same as many, calves liver and kidneys. The texture and the filtering function of both sort of turn my stomach.

What is your beverage of choice?
Depends on the context of consumption.

What was the most spectacular meal you have ever had?
I've had many, but the 10-course tasting meal at Jean Louis at the Watergate is one that sticks out.

What do you eat when you are home?
Everything. I do a fair amount of entertaining at home.

What is your best cooking tip for a home enthusiast?
Take your time, enjoy yourself. Understand the process. Doing it in "30 minutes or less" is good for a couple of human endeavors at best. Cooking is not one of them.

When did you decide you wanted to be a chef?
Around 14-15. I just had such an interest in food and cuisine, French in particular. Canada is bilingual, French and English. When I graduated, I wanted to train in the classic tradition of the French brigade system (think Hell's Kitchen show) to see if I would sink or swim.

If you didn't become a chef, what would you be?
What I would like to do and what I would be able to do are two separate determiners. Cooking was the only thing in which the two easily came together. That being said, travel guide author or gear tester for a men's interest magazine. I love highly technical and engineered gear and paraphernalia.

What is more important for a chef; technique or ingredients?
They are different sides from the same coin. Absence of one will detract from the best example of the other. Why invest the time and technique if the product quality is not there?

Who/what has shaped your cooking the most over the years?
Actual product integrity and simplicty of expression.

Which foreign country inspires your style most?
Spain at the moment, primarily because I spent time there this year.

What are your favorite culinary weapons in the kitchen?
My large collection of antique and modern razor sharp cooking knives. Damascaus, Carbon, Stainless, French, German and Japanese in nature. I love Rationale Combi ovens for the precision and capacity they afford. Desco pasta cookers, Vita-mix blenders and Hallde prep machines.

What are the signature dishes at Tavern on the Green?
Blue Crab Soup, Slow Roast Ribeye of Beef, and Seared Hand Collected Scallops from Maine.

If I'm trying to watch my weight and I'm eating at Tavern on the Green, what am I ordering to eat?
Presuming absence of allergies or other dietary restrictions, I would eat the raw seafood platter or poached shellfish in a fennel saffron broth.

Where are you eating when you are not at your own restaurant?
Everywhere.

What are some recent dining and culinary trends you have been observing?
Proliferation of very decent fast casual concepts. Small, extremely focused shops that cater to a specific niche, Burger only, etc.

What was the most challenging meal you had to make? Why?
Catering, you are usually working with a challenging heat source and physical space and you are completely out of your natural element. A particularly hard meal that comes to mind was when I was part of a group of NYC cooks/chefs that did an event for Julia Child. We were executing an Eric Ripert recipe 3000 miles away in a foreign kitchen for 500 foodies. We pulled it off though.

What was your worst restaurant disaster?
In context to what you deal with on a daily basis in NYC regarding deliveries, schedules and product availability, which is quite a lot, I would say full-blown power outages are very challenging. You are in the dark literally and figuratively.

What is the one rule or value you try to instill in all of your staff?
Discipline and organization in all endeavors.