Open Flames,
Vibrant Flavors Bobby Flay shares the influences, passion, and memories that fuel his barbecue addiction By Tara Q. Thomas
“Think about it: If you’re next door to someone who’s grilling, you don’t even have to know what’s on the
flay photo by Quentin Bacon; mesa Grill photo courtesy of mesa grill
grill. Just the smell alone is going to make you hungry.” —Bobby Flay
Bobby Flay has built an empire on the power of that scent, the combined power of smoke fanned by fat, of sugars caramelizing and spices roasting over the heat of an open flame. With six highend restaurants, a string of burger joints 14-strong, six television shows (three on grilling), and 12 cookbooks—including his latest, Barbecue Addiction (Clarkson-Potter, NY; 2012)—he’s made Forbes’s list of the top-earning chefs in the United States. That it all worked out this way is a surprise even to his mom, he told me, calling from Miami, where he’d just clinched first prize in the South Beach Wine & Food Festival Burger Bash. “She called me up a couple days ago and said, ‘How come you didn’t have me on Worst Cooks of America?’” he says, referring to a new Food Network show featuring, in his words, “really, really bad cooks.” “She’s not really a bad cook,” he says of his mom. “It’s just that her repertory was very, very basic—pork chops with apple sauce, lamb with mint jelly. And of course she wasn’t making the condiments; she was just opening jars.” He doesn’t begrudge her for culinary unimaginativeness, though. “She was feeding us. It just wasn’t gourmet; it was sustenance.” That he ended up a cook was a surprise even to him. “I was a high-school dropout; my father made me work in a restaurant he was a partner in,” Flay remembers. “It took me about six months to wake up; then cooking was the first thing I ever really got interested in.” The hook, in fact, wasn’t the adrenaline thrill of manning a hot grill (the hottest, fastest station in a restaurant kitchen), but the world it opened up to him. “I wanted more flavor,” he says. “When you’re eating what’s at arm’s reach, your world is whatever’s in the kitchen cabinet.” Cooking professionally gave him access to a far broader pantry than he knew existed. “My wife is from Texas,” he says. “She grew up with chile peppers on her table every day. Me, I’d never seen them before.” You could say that his goal in life since then has been to collect influences from around the world, with an emphasis on the bright, sweet, spicy notes common to warm climes. Mango, citrus, chiles, and spices show up liberally in dishes from his flagship Mesa Grill on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan to his burger joints (that winning burger at South Beach? A green chile burger). summer 2013 real food 61