Chef Dan Kluger reflects on his hospitality training under Danny Meyer's Union Square Hospitality Group and how it shaped his culinary philosophy.
Opinion
Kluger: Modern cooks lack fundamental kitchen skills like properly peeling potatoes
“There's something missing today about a cook that doesn't know how to peel a potato properly. They don't know how to run a dishwasher.”
Insight
Kluger: Rising operating costs force restaurants to use non-financial customer accommodations
“We're at a point where the industry is in a position of, you know, raising costs and all these different things that are affecting us that the accommodations still need to happen, but they need to happen on a sort of non-financial side, you know?”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Kluger: The restaurant industry faces an unprecedented surge in last-minute cancellations
“We're seeing more than ever I think a huge shift in, you know, tables just not showing up, canceling five minutes before, people showing up late, and then wondering why they can't be sat.”
Insight
Kluger: Critics unfairly judge an entire restaurant menu on five blind items
“It would be like going to take your SATs, and your score is only based on five questions that you don't know about. Like, you take a test with, I don't know, 200 questions in it, and only five of them mattered, but you don't know which five they are.”
Insight
Kluger: Modern chefs increasingly seek involvement across the entire dining experience
“I think as you know, when you go back to attrition, I think as you watch, there's less and less of those around. I think more and more people are saying, I do want to be part of the whole package, and I want to find up a partner, a front of the house, or a fro…”
Insight
Kluger: Dynamic dishes balance sweet, sour, spicy, salty, and crunchy elements
“We like to use a lot of sweet, sour, spicy, salty, crunchy, like all these things that create these peaks and valleys as you eat, you know, one bite is one thing, one bite's another.”