Inside the Kitchen: Seven Questions with David Barzelay

Roast chicken with gravy. When I was growing up, my family would rotate who got to choose the chicken preparation each week. My brother always wanted fried. My father always wanted barbecued. And I always picked roasted chicken with gravy. It was my favorite thing my mom made, and it was one of the first things I really got into cooking myself. It’s still something I make often. For me, it’s all about the gravy.

Growing up, we would gather around the table for a big homemade breakfast every weekend morning. Saturdays were usually biscuits, hash browns (Southern-style, mine are the best), and sausage (usually Jimmy Dean). There was a ritual to it that really stuck with me. We’d all start hovering in the kitchen, helping out a bit, nabbing samples as things started to get done.

My family carries on that tradition now, maybe with a bit less consistency. But it’s always a grounding and special time.

My kids’ favorite breakfast is actually pancakes, which was our Sunday go-to in my house growing up. I also make ‘special pancakes’ for our kids, which is a recipe from my wife’s family for what amounts to crêpes that we fill with jam. Delicious!

Those kinds of food traditions, the ones that get passed down and reinterpreted, that you had growing up and now you make them for a new set of loved ones, provide grounding and a throughline to life’s various threads.

To me, fine dining means that you’ve tried to consider every detail. It doesn’t mean every detail has to be elaborate or luxurious, but it does mean that nothing is too insignificant to be worth caring about. What matters is the commitment to attention to detail and the constant effort to make every part of the experience as good as it can be.

In reality, you’re never fully achieving the level you want. You’re always falling short of the ideal in some way. But what makes it fine dining is that you keep striving, relentlessly.

In my career as a chef I have been so fortunate to receive accolades and realize success beyond what I even allowed myself to dream before I entered this career. There aren’t many specific awards or achievements that I’m still pining for.

At this point, it’s more about how to keep the excitement going: for me, for my teams, and for our guests.

I had a restaurant bucket list fifteen years ago. Places that I dreamed of dining, in locations I aspired to visit. Places that had given me inspiration, or influenced how I thought about cuisine. I went to some of them, and I enjoyed some of them.

Over time, I’ve looked more and more toward home for inspiration, and there is so much excitement right around here that we never seem to have enough time to check out! I want to see my city at its best, being vibrant, doing interesting things. I’m still trying to get to Four Kings, Sun Moon Studio, Dalida, Noodle in a Haystack, not to mention newer ones like La Cigale and Dingles.

Whether I’m at home or at work I believe very strongly in the importance of great ingredients. I try to avoid shortcuts in preparing them, to the extent time and labor models allow.

Fried rice is my most frequent quick and easy comfort food. It’s something I can always make, and it’s endlessly adaptable depending on what’s around. That, or chilaquiles, something simple, satisfying, and deeply comforting.