One of America's superstar chefs, Rick Bayless is credited with educating the American palate beyond pre-packaged tacos and microwave burritos and introducing the nuances of authentic Mexican cuisine. His long list of laurels includes being named best new chef of 1988 by Food & Wine,chef of the year in 1995 by both the James Beard Foundation and the International Association of Culinary Professionals; authoring four cookbooks; producing a groundbreaking TV series -- "Mexico -- One Plate at a Time" -- on public television and developing his Frontera Foods line of retail sauces and rubs. All of this, of course, is while running his sibling Chicago restaurants, Frontera Grill and Topolobampo,
In a spare moment between developing another TV series, a fifth cookbook, and two new lines of Frontera Foods, Bayless sat down to discuss his prolific career.
Q: When you and [wife] Deann wrote the first cookbook, Authentic Mexican, after traveling some 35,000 miles through Mexico researching the recipes, did you forsee everything it would lead to -- opening Frontera Grill in 1987, a second restaurant, three more cookbooks, two television series and a food manufacturing company?
A: Well, I never was a person who plans that far in advance. But the goal of that the first book was to bring an awareness of the best Mexican food to the American public. There was a lot of frustration when I was writing it because I thought that readers might never taste real Mexican food -- Mexican food in the U.S. wasn't good. I kept thinking all the way through that I would have to open a restaurant to serve this food. When I started to plan the restaurant I really wanted to open Topolobampo first, but that would have been suicide because people wouldn't have understood the food. So I started at mid-level with Frontera. But when the cookbook was established and Frontera was established then I could take that next step.
Retail Line
Q: How did Frontera Foods come about?
A: I had never thought much about prepared foods. Books, cooking classes, TV and restaurants are all considered craftsmanship. But jars that you buy in grocery stores are a commodity. But when a regular customer came in and proposed this process, I began to talk to him. It took a full year to come to an agreement. And I finally decided because Mexican food was poorly represented in supermarkets. And I believed that if we could offer really high quality prepared foods, we could open people's eyes. I'm glad we did now. And the prepared salsas on the shelves are becoming a lot more like mine.
Q: What part of your business is most financially rewarding -- restaurants, food business, cookbooks, TV?
A: I'm the type of business person who is not looking for a real quick payback. At the present time Frontera Grill and Topolobampo are the most profitable. We spent 14 years really investing almost every penny in those two restaurants. And they are still a challenge. But if the salsa business continues to grow then it will be the most financially rewarding because it can grow much bigger than the restaurants.
Q: What was the hardest for you to learn -- restaurant, training, hiring/firing, cookbook writing, TV persona, food manufacturing?
A: The hardest thing -- especially when you have a busy restaurant -- was how to balance development of your staff with cooking food. I want to cook the best but you have to develop a good staff. Deann and I did everything the first few years. So doing the craft that I love and balancing that with development of people and making them well trained and sharing the passion and vision -- that was the hardest. And you can only grow as fast and as far as they people that work with you, because you can't do it all yourself.
Q: Speaking of development of well-trained people, several of your people have left to open Mexican restaurants. How does that make you feel?
A: I am so happy when they do that! They help us realize the goal of bringing real Mexican food to Americans. When our staff leaves and opens restaurants that just makes us do better. I took several of my key staff to Mexico to a little summit to figure out what will we do next year to take us to the next level. We are not trying to catch up but to raise the bar for everybody. You've got to keep being a surprise.
Cost Controls
Q: How do you manage food cost?
A: We shoot for an overall food cost; we're very conscious of it and work carefully and very hard to buy from all local and mostly organic farmers. But we involve everyone in the process. All managers, front and kitchen, have a bonus based on whether they go over, under or hit that target food cost. And we take it to another level and involve the cooks. They get a bonus depending on how well they use their time -- labor cost -- and how wisely they handle the food. If they burn something they realize that comes out of their bonus. So food cost and bonuses depend on how well everyone manages -- costs against overall volume.
Q: What about training the restaurant staff -- who does it, how, what overall philosophy?
A: Because we have a big staff now we involve everyone in doing the training. We do a lot of hands-on with the kitchen staff, more so than with the servers. And one of the hardest things to monitor in the restaurant business is the front of the house. Every week we have a big front of the house meeting. And every day, for 15 or 20 minutes, a different staff member leads a meeting. It can be the bookkeeper, a cook who buys from local farmers and brings one of the farmers in for a tasting of one of the restaurant dishes that depends on the farmer's incredible ingredients. This helps keep everyone on the same page. It's an open forum where we all can talk. Primarily the front of the house tastes wines and tequillas. And in the back of the house a lot of sous chefs train the line in their own special areas.
Close to Home
Q: Will you ever open another restaurant? How about a franchise?
A: (Laughing) I'm not interested in that. But maybe someday another kind of restaurant very different than what we are doing now. I won't rule that out. But I have no interest in having a Frontera in Las Vegas or Naperville [IL]. I really love what I am doing now, love the craft and the restaurant world. And once you open another restaurant, you have to run it.
Q: In your profession, whom do you admire and why?
A: Alice Waters. There are a lot of great chefs and many of them are activists -- they stand for all the right things. But I think she's the best cook and philosopher and I admire her ability to never let technique get in the way of the ingredients. I have a hard time relating to chefs who think of food as an art form. To me food is the glue of culture.
Q: What are you planning next?
A: I have a strong need to grow and I need a different project all the time. So right now we're planning another TV series, this one will be 13 parts and focus on the chiles in Mexico. Then I'm writing a cookbook with my daughter Lanie -- the working title is "My Specialties by Lanie Bayless." She's nine years old and we chose exactly the right kind of equipment for someone her age to work with -- an old-fashioned potato masher, the right size serrated knife that's not too sharp. And Frontera Foods will probably be introducing an line of organic salsas next year, and also another much higher line of sauces, such a moles. But my major focus will still be the restaurants and their staffs.
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