From his dedication to charitable organizations such as City Harvest and the Jean-Louis Palladin Foundation, of which he is president, to his fidelity to Le Bernardin, where he has been for 14 years, Eric Ripert perfectly exemplifies how giving back and staying humble are two essential traits of a great chef. Ripert was born in Antibes but spent his childhood in Andorra, before attending cooking school back in his native France. He then worked at the prestigious La Tour d’Argent and Joël Robuchon’s Jamin in Paris, before moving to Washington DC in 1989 and working for Jean-Louis Palladin. Two years later, he moved to New York and became chef at Le Bernardin, after a brief stint with David Bouley. He has retained over the years exacting standards for creative dishes featuring only ingredients of the highest quality, which have garnered awards such as Outstanding Restaurant and Outstanding Chef from the James Beard Foundation, and the honor of being the longest standing four-star restaurant in New York.

How has your clientele changed since you've been at Le Bernardin? And how does that impact your cooking?
We have a very upscale, exclusive clientele. And that was the same as 15 years ago. We have a power lunch. That was the same 15 years ago as well. At night, we used to have a clientele which was very obviously an exclusive clientele, and in 1986, most people were 40, 45 years old. Today they are 60. So what happened and what we are really working on is to have a nice transition, to be able to renew our clientele, not overnight, because you don't overnight renew your clientele, but we put lots of effort in targeting a younger audience. Not to become a lounge, but [attract] a younger, sophisticated audience. We have worked a lot in creating harmony between the old clientele and the new clientele. We have, I like to think, succeeded in that. Today it's a much more romantic destination for people to come as well. We have a lot of couples coming just to have an intimate dinner and things like that. For that reason we are softening a lot the look of the dining room.

How does the arrival on the New York dining scene of restaurants like Per Se affect you?
They affect us in a very positive way. You know, it's very funny because when Daniel opened, everybody was asking me the same question. Then Alain Ducasse opened. Right? Everybody was asking me the same question. And then Per Se opened, and again the same question is coming back. My answer is, you can progress only through competition. If we were the only ones, we would be old already. We would not be progressing, we would not be dynamic. Having tougher competition each time makes us better because it stimulates us, it motivates us to be better and better. And we want to fight in a friendly way, of course, that competition. At the same time, what you have to understand is that the clientele of Le Bernardin, although I wish it would come only to us every day of their life, our clientele is a very sophisticated clientele. Those people eat at Le Bernardin today, and tomorrow they eat at Daniel, and the day after they are going to go eat at Jean Georges, and maybe going to stay one night home, and then going to go a benefit, and then they're going to come back to Le Bernardin. It's a rotation, and it has been like that all the time. We share the same clientele. So Per Se is one addition to the scene, to the rotation. But at the same time it's positive, it is attracting more people to New York. More gourmets, more people come here thinking it's a gourmet destination. To answer even more precisely your question, I will say that this year is the biggest year in revenue ever for Le Bernardin. Even better than 2000.

While you're unquestionably one of America’s top chefs, you haven't overextended yourself, you don't have a TV show, dishware, multiple restaurants, etc. Even your consulting is pretty discrete. Why is that?
I'm very passionate about whatever I do. I don't do things just to do things. Or I don't do things just for the money. I let a lot of opportunities pass by. I like to take my time. I like to be passionate. When I feel that I need a line of pots and pans or when I’ll be totally into designing a line of pot and pans, it will be on the market. I'm very secure about myself and about what I do, and just like I said, no rush. The reward is that when you're very passionate, whatever you do is like a gift. When you try to develop your business, if you don't have that much passion it's more painful than anything else. So, that's the reason. And I'm still young.

That’s another very impressive thing about your career, how young you started. So what advice do you have for culinary students?
It's a very tough business, it's physical, it's stressful, it's not an amazing moneymaker, when you think about it, compared to other industries, which can be much more rewarding in terms of money. So you really have to test yourself on the task. You really have to go in the kitchen, or go in the dining room, and be there and see how beautiful it is and how hectic it can be. Then you really have to be honest with yourself and say can I do that for 20 years of my life? Can I do that for even 10 years of my life? Is it going to make me happy and, and is it part of my goal because it's very demanding, it's like a spiral, you go into it and it absorbs you completely. So you have to really understand where you're going and then be honest with yourself. Say, hey, you know what? This is such a passion for me. It's so rewarding for me. All that really doesn't matter, and I think I can do it for 20 years. Or more. It's really the biggest advice you can give to someone because then, of course, you can say, go work with a big restaurant, with a very fancy restaurant, go work in a small kitchen. But this is details. You have to look at the big picture first, and then make the commitment. And then the next step is how to do it. I don't know if you want me to answer that but how to succeed is very difficult to answer because my way of seeing success is maybe not your way of seeing success. Success is very relative.

Do you get to cook a lot still?
Not as much as ten years ago, for sure not. I'm more the creative mind, the mentor of the team. I'm bringing the energy. I'm bringing my vision. But I bring my experience also as a cook and technically, but no I am not cooking that much, at least at the restaurant. At home I cook, on the weekend.

How does a chef become a teacher, which is such an important component of the profession?
You become a teacher when you understand yourself. When you understand the process of cooking for yourself. Until then you cannot become a teacher. Someone who doesn't explain clearly to me what he's trying to teach me, I know he hasn't assimilated for himself. When you have assimilated it for yourself, and you are very confident with the process of cooking, for example, you can explain it in a very clear, very simple way. It's right for our industry, for cooking, but also for religion, philosophy. I'll make an analogy which has nothing to do with cooking. I study Buddhism on the side, for myself, as a complementary aspect of my culture. I read books, and sometimes they are overly complicated and I don't get it. And then I read other books, like the Dalai Lama, and suddenly everything is clear water. That man, in his own way of thinking on religion, is very confident and he has really understood and digested his philosophy of life. He can translate that in a very simplistic way that anyone can understand. Cooking's the same thing. It's why you can become a good teacher only if you have succeeded in understanding the process.

You are involved in City Harvest and the Jean-Louis Palladin Foundation. Why is that important for you?
Because I believe in it. Although I don’t believe that every morning when I wake up, I know that I'm an extremely lucky man, and I know that some people live in misery and some people live with hunger. Some people, and I don’t want to generalize but myself, sometimes, I have the tendency to forget, and say, oh my God, today, I have those problems to resolve and then I'm, like, what am I talking about? I have a great health, a great life, an exciting life, I live my passion, so, ultimately when you feel like that, you want to help the people who are not that lucky. That’s why I joined City Harvest and of course, it depends on what you can do and what you can give, but I give a reasonable amount of myself to the charity or the cause that I believe in. City Harvest, for me, is a way of giving back. The Palladin Foundation is the same. Because in my industry I've been so lucky, I want to give it back. And Jean-Louis Palladin was my mentor, so he's a man I knew fairly well. There’s a lot of things that we can do to help young cooks, young people who are interested in cooking, especially in today's world where I see a lot of kids living in big cities, especially in America, being totally disconnected from the source, disconnected from nature. So then really it's abstract, it's leeks coming at your door in a box. You need to know more than that. You need to understand the process of cultivating leeks, it's a way of being connected with earth, it's a way of understanding better what you can do ultimately with the product. The Palladin Foundation is dedicated to send young talent to farmer, growers, fishermen, hunters, for those young people to be connected and to have a broader vision.

Do you feel that this connection is more prevalent in France, and that's why there are so many great French chefs, because they have that connection?
Because of the French culture itself, and our reverence for food, I feel that we are definitely more connected. France is also a smaller country. Our society in France is very dedicated to vacations, so you have so much vacation you have to go somewhere, you don’t stay in your apartment and even if you live in Paris, which is a very big city, you go somewhere and you see nature. Here a lot of people don’t travel that much, don’t have that opportunity and are disconnected. So French people are very lucky that way.

You seem to have a special interest in Asian and Japanese foods and flavors, why is that?
Not more than curiosity in Mediterranean culture, or in South American culture. But I think it shows more because it's unexpected for Le Bernardin, for example, to have soy sauce. You will expect much more maybe olive oil or butter on the menu. So I think people have the tendency to say, he's very Japanese-oriented or he's very Chinese-oriented or very Asian, but at the same time, if you look in the menu the percentage I think is very small. But I still have passion for it, obviously, because I'm curious and because of the environment. Living in New York offers a lot of things. And one of the things is that you're in contact with a lot of different ethnic groups. When you're a little curious, you find things and you get inspired and New York is a great inspiration for me. My traveling as well, everything is an experience, really. When you are very aware of the surrounding and very aware of what's going on around you, you're definitely being influenced by a lot of things. It’s a matter of passion and it's a matter of staying humble as much as you can. Because that keeps your eyes open and keeps your ears open.

What are some of the more unique seafood and beverage pairings that you offer here?
Unique seafood and beverage pairings… I don’t think it's that unique, I think there’s a lot of people thinking the same. But it's definitely not unique to us. It's good, because it means people interact. We interact, we get things over there, they get things here, so it's pretty good the fact that we are not unique. The search for us is harmony in cooking but also in between beverages and the cooking and the dish and the food. We always ultimately look for harmony, harmony between flavors. It’s a total harmony that the beverage becomes part of the dish, wine becomes part of the experience.

So a tasting menu with wine pairings, or just having the sommelier pair wines with one’s meal, is really part of the Bernardin experience?
Yes, it's total harmony item per item like, first course with its own wine, but it's also total harmony for the entire experience itself. We built something, it's a progression. When I say we built, it doesn't mean only that flavor is increased and the wine increases with it, it means it could be a roller coaster too. I can take you on a ride and say, okay, you're climbing, climbing something, you're going down, down, down and then climbing again and that, but at the end we're looking for a total harmony.

If you go to a restaurant and you have an appetizer an entrée and dessert, can you have the correct experience, what you would have with a full tasting menu, where you have a longer time to build the harmony?
It depends. It depends on your mood, if you’re entertaining or if you want to be home when you're tired and sick. So some days the right answer will be the tasting menu with a wine pairing, some other days will be just two dishes and your dessert and wine and some days maybe not even wine. You have a feeling. You have to always take life as a time to think and let things happen and follow your instincts. And that guides you. Your instincts guide you in everything, especially in cooking. The instinct is as important as the technique. If you're a great technician but you don’t have the instinct, your food is just boring. I don’t know if it's true or not, but for me it is true, I let my instincts guide me in everything.

You don’t serve Chilean Sea Bass. Which of all the current seafood issues concerns you the most?
Well, everything matters obviously. Overfishing matters because it's destroying the population, pollution matters because it's destroying everything. We have to be tough sometimes. I remember, it was not really a boycott but it was very similar to it, with swordfish. And it's very difficult to go, okay, so the news was, swordfish is disappearing, so how do you know? Well, fishermen catch less and the animals are smaller. And we investigate and we find that the stock of swordfish is really endangered. So me, as a chef in New York, hey, let's boycott. Well, go to Maine and talk to the families who live off of the swordfish, and say, you know what, how many kids do you have? Eight kids? Well I'm sorry guys, but starting tomorrow, Daddy doesn't have a job anymore. So we have to find ways which are not extreme, but we have to act very fast and we have to have a lot of discipline if we want to make sure that not in 500 years, in 20 years, in 30 years, we haven't destroyed the living things in our planet and especially in our ocean.

Is it still important for culinary students and young chefs to go to France to stage? Is France still relevant?
Yes, of course. French culture has a veneration for food. The art de la table is a big part of the French culture. So when it's big part of your culture you become an expert at it and you can make it. So it's always good to go see what's going on with people who are dedicating most of their effort for the food, for good food. You dedicate efforts for organic products, you dedicate it for great wild products, whatever you can do to improve the quality of the food. At the same time you improve your own health---you eat well, you have better health. So yes, I think if cooks want to go to France, then they should definitely be encouraged to go to France. Now, if cooks feel that they should go to Japan then they should definitely go to Japan. And if they don’t go to France it's not such a big deal. But I think they have to go somewhere else where the culture is very pro-food, and eating and drinking and enjoying it. Because the American culture didn’t prioritize that for a long time. It's probably that they are too busy, it's the country first. I mean, in France it's easy to, here is a young nation, so they must build the country and now they're showing a tremendous passion in America, for cooking, for eating, for drinking, for wines, it's a real revolution here.

What are some of the projects you're working on?
Pursuing consultant things, maybe another book coming out in a few years, a couple of other things, but really my main focus remains and will, no matter what, and that is a 100 percent sure prediction, my main focus will remain Le Bernardin. Because I like it, I have fun, I have a lot of rewards, including financial rewards. Okay maybe I should give you a little scoop: maybe developing products to feed children in young age. I have a child that is one year old, and I really want my child to eat well. When I see what children eat, what sometimes goes in those pots, I'm not impressed. I think there’s a lot of room for improvement.
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