What were your favorite foods growing up?
Fresh garden vegetables and wild game. My father had a great garden and was an avid hunter.

What is your least favorite food?
I just can't enjoy English peas for some reason!

What is your beverage of choice?
Root beer

What do you eat when you are home?
I do a pretty large amount of Asian food.

What is your best cooking tip for a home enthusiast?
Keep it simple and ingredient driven

What was the most spectacular meal you have ever had?
Hard to pin down, but it was either a beef binge in Kobe, Japan or a family cookout on a small island in southwest Florida.

When did you decide you wanted to be a chef?
Age 17

If you didn't become a chef, what would you be?
I would love to have a job that would involve growing something. I would still work with food!

Who/what has shaped your cooking the most over the years?
My family. Everything revolves around food. The biggest celebrations and greatest moments all took place at meal time.

What is more important for a chef- technique or ingredients?
Ingredients make the dish

What influences your cooking style?
The seasons

Which foreign country inspires your style most?
I try to live by the artisanal values of France and Italy. Buy locally, eat locally.

What are your favorite culinary weapons in the kitchen?
I've used a ton of fancy gadgets, but I do love an exquisitely sharp knife. I am rather fond of C-Vap ovens though.

When you are not eating at your own restaurant….you are eating at?
Wherever I possibly can! That's all I do with my time off. I'm a sap for ethnic food.

What are some recent dining and culinary trends you have been observing?
Buy locally and eat locally.

If I'm trying to watch my weight and I'm eating at your restaurant, what am I ordering to eat?
The grilled branzino

What was the most challenging meal you had to make? Why?
Cooking for my Japanese family in Kochi, Japan. Let's just say that their culture and society aren't designed with my style of cooking in mind.

What was your worst restaurant disaster?
In recent memory, I was bit by a black widow spider the day before I started a two week, 15 hour a day work bender! It felt like my brain was boiling.

What is the one rule or value you try to instill in all of your staff?
Make it nice or make it twice.