For the past 30 years, celebrity chef Bobby Flay has been a familiar face on TVs across the country (and eventually the world). He made his Food Network debut in 1994 and hosted his first show, Grillin’ & Chillin’, starting in 1996.
When he first showed up on TV, he was already an established chef, but these shows introduced him to a much wider audience that was instantly charmed by his laid-back attitude, his cooking confidence, and his love for big, bold flavors.
Over the years, Flay has starred in many shows, including fan favorites like Boy Meets Grill, Beat Bobby Flay and Iron Chef, where fans watched him battle in Kitchen Stadium for 17 years. But TV was just part of his career. The entire time he was gracing our TV screens, he was also opening and running restaurants—Mesa Grill, BOLO, Bar Americain, Gato and more. Oh, and he also wrote 17 cookbooks.
And now it’s time for his 18th book, and it’s a departure from the previous ones, which leaned into his casual, comfortable attitude toward cooking. This book, Bobby Flay: Chapter One, takes a look back on how Bobby Flay became Bobby Flay, starting with his unlikely start in restaurant kitchens, through the TV shows and restaurants that made him famous. Along the way, he sprinkles in personal essays and lots and lots of recipes—recipes that reflect Flay the person and Flay the chef.
Parade recently sat down with Flay to discuss his new book, his culinary career so far, his passion for chiles, his thoughts on how Sunny Anderson is constantly trolling him (in the best way) and more.
Related: How to Make Banana Bread Taste 10x Better, According to Bobby Flay
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Clarkson Potter/Johnny Miller
Parade: Let’s start at the beginning. You touch on this in the book’s intro, but I’d love to talk a little bit more about what it was that food and restaurant work taught you that school couldn’t.
Bobby Flay: Well, I probably had or have some learning disability. We weren’t testing kids back then, but when I was going to school, I had absolutely no interest in opening a textbook and learning from it, and I don’t think it was because I was incapable. I just wasn’t interested. And I think I wasn’t interested because I don’t think I was able to hold onto the information after I read it, so I stopped doing homework and I stopped working in school.
It wasn’t until I left school and started working in a restaurant and working with my hands that my life came alive. I needed vocational education. I needed the hand and brain connection—learning through life as opposed to learning through books.
That’s what I still do today. My greatest inspiration is always from things that I see, which could be going to a restaurant in New York City or going on a trip to Italy—or all of the above.
Related: Bobby Flay’s Red Velvet Hot Chocolate is a Divine Dessert Mash-Up You Can’t Beat
Johnny Miller
Speaking of inspiration, in your food, we see nods to the Southwest and Spain and Louisiana, Peru, Italy—all over the place. But you’re a New Yorker. What’s your favorite quintessential New York food?
It’s the New York steakhouse. Sometimes you just want that beautiful steak with creamed spinach and crusty potatoes and a great martini, and some shrimp cocktail—and a big, giant ice cream sundae. The New York City steakhouse meal is something I crave over and over.
Explain how you express your “New Yorker-ness” in your cooking.
Bold, big flavors. The one thing I think I know how to do is feed New Yorkers. This is a very general statement, but I feel like New Yorkers are very courageous. And I think they’re open to big flavors. They don’t want bland food. They want their taste buds to sing. They want excitement. And I think that my food does that.
I like to utilize ingredients that are spicy and sweet and sour—craveable sensations as opposed to something that’s kind of just one note. I like dishes where the textures and the flavors switch gears in the middle of the same dish.
Related: How to Make the Best-Ever Soft Scrambled Eggs, According to Bobby Flay
Johnny Miller
On the bold flavor front, you’re known for your love of chiles. Do you have advice for home cooks who want to use more chiles?
Sure. I think that on the green side or the fresh side of chiles, everybody knows what a jalapeño is and what it tastes like and a sense for its spice level. It’s got a great pepper background flavor. It’s got a little bit of heat to it, but it’s not going to blow your mouth out. And you can kind of move up from there, but I think that’s a very good place to start.
Canned chipotles are also a good place to start on the red side or the dried side—they’re smoky and a little fiery. They come packed in an adobo sauce that has vinegar in it so they have a pickled, smoky, fiery flavor.
And when you can puree a whole can of chipotles and put it in soups, sauces, etc., it can really just wake up anything that needs a little oomph.
Reading through the book, it seems like a bit of a departure to me. Why did you think this was the right time for this book?
I would say it’s my first coffee table book. It’s a very important book to me.
This is a book that I’ve always wanted to write my entire career, and I think it’s important. I’ve done a lot of things in my life, in terms of cuisines and restaurants, etc., and I thought it was time to pay homage to what I’ve done up to this point.
That’s why I called it Chapter One, because it really is like the first half of my career. And I picked 100 recipes that are incredibly important to me. I just wanted to update them for today’s cook and I wanted to write some essays to put the recipes in context.
A couple of people have asked me if it’s part memoir. It’s really not part memoir. It’s more about giving the food, the recipes, and these gorgeous photos some texture through the words and the essays.
How do you hope people use this book?
I hope that they leave it on their kitchen table or their coffee table. I hope it becomes part of their decor in a way. I hope it’s something that they can read on a Sunday afternoon. And of course, more than anything, I want them to cook from it.
Related: Bobby Flay Causes Heated Debate After Revealing How He Likes His Steak Cooked
Johnny Miller
If people wanted to start with a recipe without going all out, what would you suggest?
This food isn’t overly clever, so to speak, so there’s no molecular gastronomy here. You don’t have to go out and find ingredients you’ve never heard of before. If you want to serve a family-style dish, any of the paellas in this book are fantastic.
I mean, they’re beautiful, but they’re ingredients that everybody knows, and they just lend a different approach to things. You can still just serve it family style. It’d be perfect.
When I was looking through the book, I thought there were so many components, like a chili butter or a vinaigrette, that cooks could use to turn ordinary dinners up a notch. Did you have favorite things like that in the book?
Yes, exactly. We do this glaze with gochujang on the porterhouse. You could use that on a full-flavored fish or pork chops or vegetables. And the chili butter is a triple chili butter that you could absolutely use on lots of basic proteins and vegetables as well.
Related: You’ll Want Seconds and Thirds of Bobby Flay’s Chicken & Tortellini Soup with Sage Pesto
Johnny Miller
In the book, there’s quite a bit of talk about Iron Chef, Beat Bobby Flay, etc., which made me realize you’ve always put yourself into competitive situations. What do you love about that dynamic?
I’ve always been a competitive person at heart. I was an athlete when I was younger—the one thing I was good at in school was sports. And cooking has become, in some ways, my sport of choice.
When you think about it, on Beat Bobby Flay or Iron Chef, there’s a competitor, there’s a challenge, there’s a clock, there’s a finish line and there’s judging. And it’s all the things that we get in athletic competition.
And you’re running back and forth.
Right, it’s also very physical. It’s emotional and physical, for sure. And there’s a winner and there’s a loser. And I don’t mind being either one of them. I love being able to give a stage to some chefs who maybe wouldn’t get the chance to be on a national stage and show what they got.
And it seems like you can take some good-natured razzing.
Oh, yeah. For sure. Absolutely.
One prime example is Sunny Anderson.
There’s no one like Sunny. She keeps me humble and she keeps me laughing.
Following her on social media and watching the two of you is very entertaining. You can see it’s all with love. But she’s quite adept.
She’s amazing.
In the book you mention that most chefs complain about brunch, but I know that you’re pro-brunch. What is it about brunch that you like?
I actually like the meal, as a chef and a customer. I love creative egg dishes. I love the idea that it’s during the day and usually on the weekends, so it’s nice and relaxing and it usually comes with a cocktail. To me, that sounds like a great way to spend an afternoon.
There’s a lot of chefs. I was watching Matty Matheson and he was going on and on about why brunch is such a bad concept. He was doing a whole thing about it. I’m sure part of it is his shtick, but I just completely disagree. And I think it also creates a great opportunity because a lot of chefs don’t take brunch seriously, so that means you can own the meal period.
What do you like to make for brunch if you’re cooking?
I love poached egg dishes or fried egg dishes or some version of an eggs Benedict. It could be a classic one or using some kind of seafood, like lobster or crab.
I also love waffles. I make a lot of waffles in my house with toasted cornmeal and brown butter as the base. And depending on what food is hanging around my house, I can make some kind of sweet chutney to go with it. And then I always make a flavored maple syrup or some other kind of syrup to go with it as well.
If I have a big brunch, that’s kind of my meal for the day and I’m good.
Changing gears, in the stacked tomato salad recipe, you said that Garrotxa [a semi-firm Spanish goat cheese] was one of your top three personal favorite cheeses. What are the other two?
Oh, my favorite cheeses. OK. I like Garrotxa. I like Cabrales blue cheese, which is another Spanish cheese. I keep thinking of Spain, but you know, I like a great 30-month Parmigiano-Reggiano. I mean, it’s the king of cheeses for a reason. You can never stop eating Parmigiano. I always have it in my house and I just break off pieces of it and just snack on it all the time. It’s so good.
Speaking of your favorite things, you’re known for your love of crispy rice and get teased about it sometimes. My question is—crispy rice: crutch or clutch?
Definitely clutch. I mean I’m a contrast/texture person when it comes to cooking. Obviously flavor is important, but texture is just as important.
And the great thing about crispy rice is I kind of overcook the rice a tiny bit, so it’s nice and fluffy, then I let it chill. When I cook, the edges on the outside get crispy, but the inside is fluffy. To me, that contrast is the key. I think for any kind of long-grain rice, the crispy rice is always going to be better than the not-crispy.
Related: Bobby Flay’s Most Basic (and Delicious) Burger Recipe
Johnny Miller
OK. You’ve convinced me. Last question: The final recipe in the book is a crostata, the only dessert in the book. You say the recipe hints at what chapter two might be. Are you going to reveal any of that, or do we have to wait and see?
I’m not going to really reveal it. I’ll just give you some good hints—it’s going to be about another country that’s important to me. And if you read the last little bit, it becomes pretty obvious.
Let’s put it this way. I didn’t put anything in this book about Italy, because Italy is an incredibly important place to me. I go there as much as I can in my time off, but I have a lot more work to do. And, you know, there have been plenty of Americans who love Italy and write books about it. I’m just not ready to do that quite yet. But I think that there’s a good chance that would be the second chapter.
Related: Bobby Flay’s Crispy Coconut-Scallion Rice Recipe (With Leftover Rice Hack)
