Photo credit: The New York Times
David Chang doesn’t have a fancy kitchen or gorgeous, Martha Stewart-designed living areas. For him, home is where the paperwork, the mattress, and the fridge for keeping all the free food he gets from festivals… is. (Please forgive us for that sentence.)
Part of it has to do with the grueling nature of the industry, he told the Wall Street Journal: “For most cooks, ‘home’ is really a bar. ‘Home’ is hanging out with your culinary friends. ‘Home’ is a movie theater where you’re watching a movie. ‘Home’ is just anywhere that is not at work.”
But the other part of it is simply the travails of being an internationally renowned chef, opening restaurants around the world:
People don’t understand that when you work in a restaurant, you literally live there. Even today, I basically live in hotels. This year, we opened four places in Toronto. In the last year, I spent about three months in Toronto. Over the last 14 months, I spent five months total in Australia. I live in the Star casino there, where we have the restaurant. I’ve gone long stretches where I haven’t left the grounds. You work, you eat, you get a drink, you go to bed. Everything you need is in a little bubble. Some people working with me have said, “I can’t take this anymore. I gotta get out of here.” I tell them, “Dude, this is what my life has been like for nine years.”
And for any opportunistic real estate agents in New York City: Chang’s currently looking for a new apartment, preferably with a lot of light and 20 minutes’ walking distance to his restaurants. Email tips at thebraiser dot com to send us our 2% referral fee; you’re welcome.
[WSJ via GrubStreet]
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