Summer Camp for Food Folk

I think of The Ojai Food and Wine Festival as summer camp for food people. Chefs - more than a hundred of them - come from all over the country to spend a few days in a breathtakingly beautiful corner of the world. No wonder nobody wants to leave.

There are talks, tastings, wine events, cooking classes… I’m so happy to be a part of it that I’d gladly do anything they ask. (Last year I had the onerous task of interviewing Phil Rosenthal.) Still, when I saw that my assignment this year was a talk with Will Guidara, I groaned. I hadn’t read his book, Unreasonable Hospitality, The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect and I had no desire to do so.

Will, of course, was the inspiration for the best episode of The Bear, “Forks” in season two when Richie learned that restaurants are as much about feeding people’s souls as their stomachs. But much as I loved that episode, Will’s book is all about leadership and motivation, and I have no interest in business, don’t want to learn about management and have always loathed self-help books.

But you can’t interview an author without reading their book, so I dutifully bought a copy - and devoured it in a single sitting.

The book is ostensibly about running a restaurant, but what it is actually about is the generosity of paying attention to people. In the end it’s mostly about kindness. The book chronicles how Will’s ideas transformed his restaurant, Eleven Madison Park, but it’s so much more than that. I find myself thinking about the book all the time, and I’m very excited that I’m going to have a chance to sit down and talk with Will. If you’re planning to be in Ojai please join us.

It seems fitting that I’ll also be introducing Gramercy Tavern’s Saturday lunch. The restaurant’s owner, Danny Meyer was one of Will’s mentors, and this is the restaurant where he pioneered a truly American idea of hospitality. I was startled to read the review I wrote when Gramercy Tavern opened in 1994 and see that I said, “It is service that sets Gramercy Tavern apart from other new American restaurants….” After reading Will’s book that sounded very familiar.

This is how I ended the review: “At the moment, eating at Gramercy Tavern is a bit ...