Interviews

[Andy Lynes]

Leslie, just finished the book and enjoyed it greatly, made me want to hop on a plane and go to the restaurant.

I was wondering how many days approximately did you spend out of your year in the restaurant, and also did you get to actually sit down and interview anyone or was it all done real time during the normal business of the day?

[Leslie Brenner]

Andy, thank you for your kind words! It's hard to say how many days I spent at the restaurant. Usually I'd go once or twice a week, and I actually visited the restaurant over the course of a year and a half. Before the action of the book starts in January, 2000, I had been visiting the restaurant for some time in order to write my proposal for the book.

I did sit down and do quite a few formal interviews--with various cooks and sous-chefs, the sommelier, the CFO, the business consultant, Daniel's wife Micky, the director of operations, restaurant director, bartenders, assistant maitre d's, captains, reservations manager, etc., as well as Daniel Boulud, with whom I sat down a number of times in a formal interview setting.