Jonathan Waxman Bobby Flay’s Mentor, Danny & Coops Cheesesteaks, 5 Ingredient Guacamole

Bobby on the Beat

Bobby Flay welcomes his longtime mentor Jonathan Waxman to reflect on their early days in the restaurant industry, tracing how Waxman's guidance fundamentally shaped

Key takeaways

• Jonathan Waxman hired a 19-year-old Bobby Flay at Bud's after Flay asked Gail Arnold for a job, despite having no prior fine dining experience.
• Flay credits Joe Allen with paying his $6,400 culinary school tuition and teaching him the unique rhythm of theater-district restaurant hours.

Main topics

• Mentorship and early culinary careers
• Evolution of New California & Southwestern cuisine

Notable quotes

"I think that if you work in a restaurant, like, it teaches you about life."

Conclusion

The episode offers a nostalgic yet insightful look into the foundation

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:01) It wasn't until I left school and I started working in a restaurant and working with my hands that, you know, my life came alive. I take Speaker 1 (0:10) those things that I learn and see and experience and I make them part of my life's work. And Speaker 4 (0:15) I also think that if you work in a restaurant, like, it teaches you about life. You saw this man who worked. round the clock. And he still does. Speaker 1 (0:23) I mean, he's such a great role model. He leads with kindness. He leads with work ethic. Speaker 3 (0:28) Bobby, we were talking one day. He's like, you keep doing that and you keep being your authentic self, you're going to win. This is what he said. So 100 % what I did and I ended up winning. First Speaker 2 (0:36) of all, I love Bobby Flay very much. I've loved him on the Today Show. I love him here and now. Speaker 4 (0:40) Bobby Flay, everybody. Check out Bobby's triple threat. Bobby, you're not filming Speaker 1 (0:45) a show with him. You're like becoming friends with him. Speaker 4 (0:47) Food business and the restaurant business has been great to me. It's been such an important part of my life. Speaker 2 (0:51) I'm in a really good place right this second for lots of reasons. It Speaker 4 (0:54) gives me that momentum to keep striving to be better, to learn, and to look for the next adventure. But I feel like I'm now directing my own life. Bobby Clay has been a great mentor for me. Ladies and Speaker 3 (1:07) gentlemen, Bobby Speaker 1 (1:08) Clay! Speaker 4 (1:15) Bobby on the beat. Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Bobby on the beat. My co-host is going to be my mentor, Jonathan Waxman, a legend in the food world. Jonathan has done so many things on both coasts, both the West Coast and the East Coast. We'll talk about that. Talk about my experience working. with Jonathan, I always say that Jonathan was the first person to teach me about good food. We'll talk about his influence on my career. There's been a lot of chatter about cheese steaks lately. Obviously, Philadelphia is the home of the Philly cheese steak. You know, for a very, very long time, there was, you know, Pat's and Gino's. They were right across the street from each other in Philly. And now there's been a whole lot of... new places open one of the places is a place called angelo's which is getting a lot of attention in philadelphia and they people talk about the bread there as being an important part of it which you know like any sandwich the bread is really key of course and he teamed up with bradley cooper and opened a cheesesteak place called danny coops in new york city so you know Speaker 3 (2:17) philadelphia Speaker 4 (2:18) transplant in new york there's only one thing to do we got to send jimmy b bobby on the beat Speaker 2 (2:23) Jimmy V, America's Food Critic. We're outside of the viral sensation, Danny and Coop's. It is home of the New York City cheesesteak. You no longer need to get on the turnpike, drive south, and head to Philadelphia. It's right here in our backyard. I've been here twice already. It's excellent. The business model is even better than the food, possibly. They do one thing, the cheesesteak. There's no options. You go to Philly, you need to go with, whiz, with, without. The option here is how many do you want, and do you want it with sweet peppers or hot peppers on the side? Every single sandwich is the same. A really good cheesesteak has to have great meat, onion, cheese. The bread needs to be perfect. I don't like a lot of extra crap on it. Keep it basic. Quality meat, some sauteed onions, and some cheese. I think they use the Cooper Sharp here. Bradley Cooper owns part of this with Danny, who's family. has Angelo's, I believe, in Philadelphia, another great cheesesteak and pizza place. Let's try it out and make sure that my memory serves me correctly. Place is crazy, call the cops. We're inside waiting in line. Notice, no menus. Three hot pepper on the side, one sweet and one non. You guys get the bread from Philly or you make it here? No, Speaker 1 (3:38) we make it Speaker 2 (3:38) ourselves. You bake it here. Have you guys been here before? Speaker 1 (3:41) This Speaker 3 (3:41) is my Speaker 1 (3:41) first Speaker 3 (3:41) time. He just Speaker 1 (3:42) told me, but I've been working here for like four years. Speaker 2 (3:46) Hey, you're up. Batter up. Oh, it's serious. Yeah, you're going to be happy with it. Hot. Sweet. Speaker 2 (3:56) Cheese steak. Look at that thing. It is perfect combination of cheese, onion, and prime rib. That's it. Very simple. But I'm sure it's gonna be excellent. Look at this thing. Wow. I'm going in. They scoop the bread out a little bit up top, and it still falls out. They pack these things. It is unbelievable. Right amount of onion, cheese to beef ratio. The bread is the key. It's nice and crispy. It holds the sandwich. I'm going back in. This is craveable. You might wake up in the middle of the night and wish you had one. It's worth the wait. It's worth the wait if you were standing outside in 20 degree weather. Only thing I can say is you don't have to go to Philadelphia to get a really good cheesesteak. And this is as good as you could possibly ever, ever have it. Thank you very much. Danny and Coop's best cheesesteak, period. Bobby on the beat. Speaker 4 (4:47) You can tell that Jimmy really liked it. I've been there a couple times. It's really good. They have one item. It's cheesesteak. Hot peppers or sweet peppers. That's basically it. Makes everybody's life a lot easier. So if you know that you want to have a cheesesteak and you're in New York City, it's definitely the place to go. Let's get to the main event. Let's welcome Jonathan Waxman. But before I do that, make sure you hit like and subscribe. Okay, let's go to Jonathan. Speaker 3 (5:07) All right, Jonathan, what's up? Hey, Bobby. Speaker 4 (5:10) I'm so glad you're here. I'm happy to be here. Speaker 3 (5:12) You Speaker 4 (5:12) know, I always say you're the first person to teach me about what good food is and was. You're not gonna remember this. I was the chef of this restaurant called Brighton Grill. I Speaker 3 (5:20) totally remember everything about it. You do? Totally remember every little detail. For some reason, I guess as I get older, I remember, I forget short-term stuff, but I do remember things that happened a long time ago. Not everything. It's all, it's segmented. But I remember the owner of the... Brighton Grill. Stephanie Guest. Stephanie Guest. Speaker 4 (5:39) Right. Speaker 3 (5:39) I didn't really know who she was, but I heard that she was. Speaker 4 (5:41) She had the guest name, which was. She Speaker 1 (5:43) had Speaker 4 (5:43) the guest name. Yeah. But Speaker 3 (5:44) she was really nice, and she kept bugging me to come to the restaurant. So one day, I said, screw it. It was like a Monday night, like about 9 o'clock. How Speaker 4 (5:54) the f*** Speaker 3 (5:54) do you remember this? So I went down there, and honestly, I don't remember who I went with. Cheers, by the way. Speaker 4 (6:00) I made you a margarita. Speaker 3 (6:01) Thank you. Speaker 4 (6:02) I want to tell you what, I made you a margarita and I made you some guacamole. Before you jump into that story, let me show you how I made it. Bobby on the beat. All right, here it is, my five ingredient guacamole. And as a bonus, you get a margarita too. First things first, we're going to get some ripe avocados. These are from California. Nice and ripe. Make sure that they're ripe. And just a note, you won't see a tomato anywhere near this recipe. So if you add tomatoes to your guacamole, this one's not for you. Okay, first everything into the mocha jete first, and then we're gonna mix it just once. So the avocados that I just diced up in the shell, now we're gonna dice some red onions, very, very finely diced. If you can't find red, white is fine, but I like the red ones. They look prettier. And then I'm gonna also dice up some chilies. These are jalapenos or serrano chilies. I like serranos better, but if you can't find those, jalapenos are fine. Of course, you need a whole bunch of fresh cilantro, coarsely chopped. Not everybody's a cilantro lover, but for guacamole, it's a must. And then I'm going to roll the lime just to make sure that all that juice comes out. A little salt, a little pepper. And now we're just going to mix it one time, okay? Because we want it to stay nice and chunky. So just crush it with the back of a fork. Leave it a little chunky. I put a little avocado oil on top because we're making guacamole. Why not avocados? And now for the margarita. Silver tequila, some Cointreau, some lime juice. Just three ingredients. Nothing else. No simple syrup or anything. And what I like to do is actually take some of the zest of the lime and put it in there as well. Shake it up with some ice cubes and a shaker. Put a little salt on the rim if that's what you're into. Shake it up and then pour the delicious margarita over that ice. Make sure you have tons of ice. You can see the little lime zest specks in there. It just gives it a little extra flavor. And there it is. All you need, guacamole and a margarita. And get some chips too. Speaker 4 (7:54) Bobby on the beat. I'm gonna tell you why so yeah, but I want to hear the story I made you guacamole because in any restaurant that I worked in with you you always used to make me make you guacamole so that you could eat it But Speaker 3 (8:05) it's it's a defining dish isn't it Isn't it? Don't Speaker 4 (8:09) you think? I completely agree. And I have very strict and hard rules about it. I probably learned how to make guacamole working at Bud's. Speaker 3 (8:15) Maybe. Yeah, maybe. One of the Speaker 4 (8:16) first times I learned how to make it like in the real way. Speaker 3 (8:19) But had you ever had it as a kid? I had it, but it was terrible. It was always terrible, right? Yeah, I always had it as a kid. It was pretty awful. But anyway, so I went over there. I think I sat down with Stephanie and her boyfriend, I think. She goes, do you want to see my chef? I said, yeah, sure, why not? And she took me into the kitchen. It was late. It was late. And there's this skinny guy with a t-shirt on and a chef coat. And it was you. I was Speaker 4 (8:47) sitting on a pickle bucket upside down. You know, those big five-gallon pickle bucket buckets? Upside down in the corner, literally... like out of breath. And Speaker 3 (8:56) you weighed about 110 pounds. Yeah,