It's very hard when you eat out every day for a living, and a new restaurant comes along and you haven't got that same vigour that you had 10 years ago. ↗
My mom, who's been in the restaurant business for 40 years, is the number-one influence in my life. But I look up to a lot of people in the industry. Tops on my list is Mario Batali. My mom and Mario taught me the same lesson: Food is love. ↗