[The Knowledge Project Ep. #115] Danny Meyer: Hospitality and Humanity

Shane: Danny, can you briefly tell us how it is that you came to be what you call a restaurant generalist?

Danny: I came to be a restaurant generalist really as a reaction to almost backing into being a specific thing called an executive chef. I love cooking. When I decided to get into the restaurant business, it was a time back in the 1980s where it wasn’t nearly the acceptable entrepreneurial career choice that it is today. And there was something in my mind that said my parents are going to totally reject the idea of me being a restaurant entrepreneur because that’s a sketchy job. But they might accept if I say I’m going to be a chef because we had started to see some celebrity chefs: Paul Prudhomme, Wolfgang Puck. I remember Jeremiah Tower from the west coast. We were reading about how Alice Waters was shaping east. I said there’s a bunch of people who I could aspire to be like.