Hospitality Design Legend Adam Tihany on Innovation, Struggles & Success

Glenn: Anthony, how are you doing today? Good.

 

Anthony: Unfortunately shot a lot more traffic than normal.

 

Glenn: Yeah. Well, it’s a good thing we’re recording this episode, so we’re not late today for once. Which is which is a relief. I hope you’re having a great great start to the year. Getting back into the commuting, going back and forth to New England a lot.

 

Anthony: Yeah. So I’m missing our intro for our show, though.

 

Glenn: I know it’s because we I’m not going to run the old one anymore, and I haven’t created a new one, because you know what?

 

Anthony: I think we should, like, talk about it. Should we talk about it?

 

Glenn: Do you want to act it out?

 

Anthony: Did you just make a decision? We’re not doing it. I don’t agree with it.

 

Glenn: Yeah.

 

Anthony: Listen, I think you’re wrong, and I’m going to announce it here that you’re 100% wrong because people want to see your hair.

 

Glenn: Do they? Really?

 

Anthony: Do you deal with people?

 

Glenn: People are stopping me in airports, and they’re like, Glenn, please go back to showing us you’re out of control. Hair from the Covid days. Yeah, I know.

 

Anthony: Yeah.

 

Glenn: All right, so I hope we didn’t just screw up our opportunity because. Anthony today. Today we have got a really super special hotel. I’m talking about a world class designer who’s set the stage for some of the best dining experiences that I’ve had in my life over there. And, no, we’re not talking about my mom. That’s it. Anthony. I’m getting out of here.

 

Anthony: We’ll talk about Glenn’s mom. Yeah. Alright.

 

Glenn: Let’s welcome the incredible Adam Tardy to our show. Hello, sir. Welcome. What an honor it is to have you join us today. How’s it going.

 

Adam: Glenn? You didn’t warn me that this was a comedy show.

 

Glenn: Fortunately, the word errors is silent in his statement.

 

Anthony: Okay. Yeah. What are you guys talking about? As I was getting on. What is your background?

 

Adam: Oh, it’s a actually, it’s a corridor of a space I designed on, on on a very large cruise ship. And it’s de facto the only museum at sea. It’s a museum of Italian design and excellence on board of the Costa Smeralda ship, which I was the creative director for. So you know, these arches are actually a long corridor. And you walk through the arches and on the right and the left, the museum develops. So it’s a kind of a Kubrick ish experience.

 

Glenn: Yeah. It’s so it’s really cool. I just want to let all the viewers know if you’re listening to the audio feed this image, as well as other images we’re going to be talking about today are in the show notes. If you just click on that and then go ahead.

 

Anthony: No, it’s just it’s absolutely phenomenal and futuristic. I was going to say I thought you designed the first restaurant on Mars.

 

Adam: I did, but Elon Musk didn’t like the food.

 

Glenn: Oh, how could you not like astronaut ice cream? Come on, Elon, what is wrong with you?

 

Adam: I wanted to pick a background that’s a bit more architectural. This is obvious because we tried with the producer here to pick something, but you always cover the main table or the bar or this here. You just cover a person that’s in the corridor. Watch.

 

Speaker4: Yeah. Yeah, I would just.

 

Glenn: I’d love to know. How did you get started? What was the first moment that you said, this is my life. I need to create atmospheres and things for people to enjoy. That’s why.

 

Adam: I’m sorry. Go ahead.

 

Speaker4: And.

 

Anthony: No, you go. I said that’s my question. I usually ask that question.

 

Adam: Okay. Go ahead.

 

Speaker4: Ask the question. Yeah.

 

Adam: So I’m gonna it’s a long story, but I want to be I’m going to tell it very briefly and fast because half an hour will be gone.

 

Speaker4: Yeah.

 

Adam: I studied design and architecture in Milan, Italy. I, I’m originally originally originally was born in Transylvania, which is known in the world that it sounds sexy is in the United States because every place else he says oh, Romania.

 

Speaker4: Right.

 

Adam: I grew up in Israel, and after my military service, I went to study in Milan, Italy, and I got to Milan in 1968. Maybe tell you a little bit about my age. And there was the universities were in upheaval because of the red summer in France And, you know, nobody was teaching anything, so I. An apprentice job at a design office. Architecture office. And that’s how I learned the profession. And at the time, Italy being, you know, poor and underdeveloped. There was no work in architecture.

 

Speaker4: Right.

 

Adam: Architects did whatever they could do. And started designing furniture and accessories and packaging and lighting. And this is how the contemporary Italian design was born. And I was there at that period, and I learned to do all these kind of things moving forward. Five years later, I arrived in the United States. I worked at a big firm before that, did some office interiors. Somehow I put together three pennies and I opened my office.

 

Glenn: All right, so let me. I gotta ask you a question, because I believe you also spent some time growing up in Israel. Right. So I’m like. So it seems to me that you’ve been informed by a lot of different global cultures. So when you came to New York, how did that help inform your design direction and and what was authentic to you as a designer?

 

Adam: Well, I, I came to New York as an import. The company that that hired me came to Italy.

 

Speaker4: To.

 

Adam: An Italian designer because they thought, you know, Italian designer was the thing to do. Right. And and instead of bringing in Italian products, they wanted to bring the designer. So my arrival here was very purposeful. I was supposed to you know, practice Italian design, which I did. But when I went on my own I was in a sort of a conundrum because people ask me, what do you do? What kind of thing you do? Because you can say, I do I do Italian design. Doesn’t mean anything.

 

Speaker4: Right?

 

Adam: Oh, are you an interior designer? Are you an architect? Are you a, you know, furniture designer? I said no, no, I’m all of the above. You know, for me, design. You give me the problem, I give you a solution. This is what I do. Long story short, I was starving for three years because nobody will give me work. I just refused to pigeonhole myself.

 

Glenn: Good for.

 

Speaker4: You. So that’s a.

 

Glenn: Good thing to do.

 

Speaker4: You know.

 

Adam: I luckily I had $40,000 saved that kept me through for four years. Almost. One day one night. One morning, actually, at 4:00 in the in the place that we all met at 4:00, which was called studio 64, if you remember. Are you too young for this stuff?

 

Speaker4: I was too young.

 

Glenn: To be there, but I was old enough to know. To know what was happening there.

 

Adam: I’m sitting next to this guy and in some kind of, you know, in the fog of the of the morning. I he says to me in this really thick French accent, he says are you a designer? I say, we. He says, you want to do a restaurant? I said.

 

Speaker4: What?

 

Adam: He said, the restaurant. Restaurant?

 

Speaker4: Okay.

 

Adam: I said, I’ll do anything. Are you kidding me? You just. I’m starving or whatever. And it turns out it was 1980. 1980. I had the license to open the legendary Parisian brasserie La Coupole in New York City. And he hired me to design this place. It was the first legitimate grand cafe in New York City. 225 seats, which nobody heard of. And I was given free rein, literally free rein, because the guy was busy at studio 54 and doing all kinds of things that you don’t want to talk about.

 

Glenn: Listen, I understand a very Puritan environment there.

 

Speaker4: So the guy.

 

Adam: Gave me free rein and I designed architecture, interiors, the lighting, the furniture, the menus, the outfits for the way I went to Paris to find the chandelier guy.

 

Speaker4: What a great opportunity. Sadly.

 

Adam: In this macrocosm of restaurants, I found my calling. So I went out and bought a sign that said a restaurant designer and this is how profession was born. I was the first person in this country to call themselves a restaurant designer out of desperation because I said, you know, maybe that’s the only way I can be Italian, you know?

 

Speaker4: Yeah, right.

 

Adam: So here we go.

 

Anthony: So let’s back it up a little bit, okay? Because, you know, I really like talking about the struggle of how you became who you are, because that’s like when you’re looking at the fork in the road, right? It’s you do left. And you know, in business you do right and you’re in business, right. So I want to talk about in 1970s, having 40 grand in the bank was like having $2 billion in the bank. Number one and number and number two. What was happening in your business that talk about something that happened in your business before you hit? You got that contract that you almost closed your business was rent due, was the landlord chasing you? And also the third point of that, and Glenn will remind us all three points because I’ll forget. How did you write the first contract? Not knowing how to write a contract for your first business? For your first client?

 

Adam: Okay.

 

Speaker4: So when I.

 

Adam: Opened my office, meaning I left the left the company that I was working for and and, you know, dipped into the unknown.

 

Adam: I had a little room on 61st Street and off Lexington Avenue with a insane assistant secretary woman who was off the walls and myself, and she had a cat. And what I started doing was anything I could put my hand on that would pay for the rent and will keep us afloat. And predominantly was residential work. Was helping friends with an apartment, was designing a little loft or then some small retail stuff, you know. Mind you I truly was piped into the Italian community in New York at the time. And that was also the.

 

Speaker4: Time.

 

Glenn: A different Italian community than Anthony was plugged into at a at a time. At the time.

 

Adam: No bread source community are talking about. So I designed the first showroom for a fashion designer called Gianni Versace, for example. And when these people were just opening business and I’m being fluent in Italian and they thought that I understand American culture, I was kind of the bridge in between. So. So from these little bits and pieces, I did a little, you know, furniture store. I did a little showroom, I did apartments, I, I clubbed it together enough stuff that you know, kept me afloat. But again, I, I, I at the time, I wasn’t sure that’s my identity. I didn’t want to be just an interior designer or, you know, an architect that does. Interior designer. I wanted to do something that made me happy physically and emotionally. And what I did not know at the time is that hospitality business was in my blood, right? I had no idea. I mean, I think the first restaurant I’ve ever been to in my life, I was 17 years old.

 

Glenn: Wow.

 

Adam: And it was a Chinese restaurant in Jerusalem. That would be enough to destroy you, dissuade you from doing anything in the restaurant business for you?

 

Speaker4: Well.

 

Adam: Tom had no idea that I was like, you know, he was turning me on this business that I actually liked to make people happy for some reason. So

 

Speaker4: It feels good.

 

Adam: You know? Yeah. I struggled, like every person at the beginning of their life, you know, working and doing all kinds of odd jobs and, you know, babysitting at night and doing whatever I could to keep. But but you know, the calling really came with this whole thing. And I remember the day this place opened. La Coupole opened in the February in 81, in a major snowstorm in New York City. It was like a foot and a half of snow, and there were lines of people trying to get in, and Andy Warhol couldn’t get in.

 

Speaker4: What?

 

Adam: And the next day it was in the post, and the place became the hottest place in New York City instantly. So again, it all.

 

Glenn: Made page six back then, right.

 

Speaker4: That the.

 

Adam: Restaurant did not.

 

Speaker4: Me.

 

Glenn: Yeah, but I’d say that’s all you needed to be absolutely successful. Fortunately, you didn’t make it. There was a lot of people who did for all the wrong.

 

Anthony: Sure. You were on 61st and Lexington. Do you remember a restaurant called sign of the dove.

 

Adam: Of course. But next door to my office was a place called Gino, if you remember. But it’s from Italian to the next, you know. You know, there was the area, you know. So, of course I remember. Sign of the.

 

Speaker4: Dog.

 

Anthony: So sign of the dove. I was thinking maybe you designed the sign of the dove. Contrapunto Arizona 26. I worked for that gentleman. Doctor Santo. I don’t know if you remember, doctor. He was a very famous restaurateur that was putting himself through medical school and then decided to go into the restaurant business. I ran a company for him called happiness, which means behold the bread. He had a bread company. You remember the bread company?

 

Adam: I remember the happiness. I didn’t know it was you.

 

Anthony: It was a bread company that I ran that now was owned by Campbell Soup. And our first and our second retail store was the old Tommy Hilfiger store on 65th and Lexington.

 

Speaker4: Okay, so.

 

Anthony: 8030. Lexington. Go ahead.

 

Speaker4: I’m sorry. What?

 

Adam: What year was.

 

Speaker4: That?

 

Anthony: Oh. Let’s see, I was

 

Adam: Now I’m interviewing.

 

Speaker4: You.

 

Glenn: He prefers.

 

Speaker4: That. It was 30 years ago.

 

Anthony: 32 years ago.

 

Speaker4: Mid 80s. Yeah.

 

Adam: Okay, so you remember across.

 

Speaker4: The.

 

Anthony: Mid 90s.

 

Adam: 90s?

 

Speaker4: Yeah.

 

Adam: You’re there. All of you guys are young chicken here?

 

Anthony: 60 years old.

 

Adam: I didn’t.

 

Speaker4: Ask.

 

Adam: You know, the real answer is you don’t look it.

 

Speaker4: Yeah, it’s not.

 

Adam: That I can see you from here, but that’s.

 

Speaker4: Okay. Yeah.

 

Glenn: I’m. I’m only 23, so I’m not looking at that.

 

Anthony: That is because John of the dove was a restaurant. That was an architectural news. It was it was.

 

Speaker4: A it’s.

 

Anthony: A and he was the first restaurateur. And I don’t do this. I’ve never heard of this before. But he used to have a restaurant where you would eat your meal, and then you would get up and you would go to another room for your dessert.

 

Speaker4: Yes. Do you remember?

 

Adam: He was a very interesting person, very gentle. And I liked him a lot. I worked with him later on in the 90s on on a project that never happened on Park Avenue South.

 

Adam: But we had a lot of respect for which I was very famous at the time.

 

Speaker4: You know.

 

Anthony: He was a very nice man. Very. I, I talk about him from time to time because I came out of the hotel business for just a little bit of time to run his company, and he had two brown bags, one in left hand, one in the right hand. And he said to me, I came into his office right across from Bloomingdale’s on 60th and Third Avenue, right. And said which bag I go? Which bag? Why? He goes, which bag? And I pointed to one of the bags and he opens it up and it’s the payroll. He goes, pay the payroll this week. I was like, oh, that’s a good decision. And the other had accounts payable that we didn’t pay it that week. That’s how like desperate we were for cash. And that’s the my.

 

Adam: I thought the other bag.

 

Speaker4: Had the bagel.

 

Anthony: Oh, no.

 

Speaker4: No. Sorry. You get the bagels. You go do the payroll. Right? Yeah.

 

Glenn: You want a schmear? Goes a long way.

 

Speaker4: Yeah.

 

Anthony: But what was interesting about that story is that got me to understand how you run a business. Like, you really have to be able to make enough money to your point, to pay that assistant in their cat. Right. You have to make sure you keep the lights on. And that was. I was still young.

 

Speaker4: I was.

 

Adam: So poor, I didn’t even have a bag to put the money.

 

Speaker4: In.

 

Adam: Steal the money? Before I.

 

Speaker4: Knew.

 

Anthony: The mother would say I didn’t have a pot to piss in in the window to throw it at them.

 

Speaker4: Yeah. This is.

 

Glenn: This is so great that you’re sharing this with us because you become.

 

Speaker4: Such a choice. I know, I mean, you could.

 

Glenn: Accidentally sign off any time, but you know, you become such an icon to so many people in our industry. It’s great to see that you started off way at the bottom and had those struggles that we all have to deal with in our life. How how long until you actually start to feel comfortable with where you were and felt your career was going in? You had a couple of bucks in your pocket so you wouldn’t have to worry about payroll.

 

Speaker4: Three weeks. Yeah. Yeah.

 

Adam: Well, I have to tell you this. This coupon thing was an explosion. It was a baroque phase in the right time. The first grand cafe was the beginning of the food revolution in New York City. So I started getting phone calls. Oh, you do a restaurant that. Do this, do this, do that, and from there it propelled on and on. And, you know, starting in New York and then going nationally and going internationally. I mean, and then from there, natural progression hotels and cruise ships. And, you know, at this.

 

Speaker4: Point there.

 

Anthony: You don’t have to name names. But what was the first time as you were growing, you hired somebody that you were like, okay, that person is allowing me to grow. That person is a rock star. That person is a little me.

 

Speaker4: I.

 

Adam: Would say, actually maybe the third year of being in business, I hired this young French gentleman who was immensely talented. And together, we we were we were a good, an interesting couple. We bantered off back.

 

Speaker4: And forth.

 

Adam: Back and forth in making each one more creative than the next. He he he. His passion was really a residential work. I mean, he loved doing apartments and houses and stuff, and eventually we we parted ways. But you know, I’ve been in business for over 45 years and in these 45 years, and I had a lot of people coming through my doors, a lot of them are pretty well known designers these days and stuff. The truth is, I think I can count on two hands. The people that actually made a difference.

 

Speaker4: Wow.

 

Adam: That were singular talents that were talented to the point that you know, they needed didn’t need any stimulus to to to create. I mean, my biggest lament of today. Of the business is that a person has an I account and a Pinterest account, and they think they’re designers.

 

Speaker4: Yeah, they’re.

 

Adam: Basically editing and rehashing other people’s work. But the true talent is the person you take. You put it in an empty room with a sheet of paper and a pencil and say, come up with an idea without anything. No telephone, no internet, no stimulus. No. And I can tell you in these 45 years I maybe have encountered 6 or 7 of them.

 

Glenn: Wow.

 

Anthony: You know, but in 45 years, 6 or 7, I can say a thing in my business, I’ve met probably 6 or 7 people that I think are incredibly talented and inspired me, and I would love to work with every one of them. So listen, that natural talent doesn’t come, you know, doesn’t come easily. It’s not only having a natural talent, it’s finding your natural talent before you go on to do something else. Meaning there’s probably a lot of very successful designers that are accountants because they didn’t have a spark. They didn’t weren’t inspired. Their parents didn’t tell them that you should go on and be a designer. You shouldn’t be an architect, right?

 

Speaker4: But, you know, Anthony.

 

Adam: There’s so many aspects to what we do with designers and so many sources of influence and stimulus. And, you know, people ask me the typical question, oh, what inspired you? And my answer is what? Not everything inspired me. Whether it’s music, art you know, history movies.

 

Anthony: Tell me then. So I’ll ask you a question. Same question in a different way. Tell me something. When you were walking through an airport or a street where he’s like, I’m going to use that and I’m going to build something around that idea, or that whatever you saw in the street or in a in an airport. Is there anything like that that happens?

 

Adam: Absolutely. It’s a street airport. You know, I, I’m extremely fortunate in in living part of the year in one of the most beautiful places on the, on the planet, which is a city called Paris.

 

Glenn: I would have swore you were going to say here in Smithtown.

 

Adam: No matter what you’re looking at, it inspired you in one way or the other. You know, the design comes with so many directions and so many I. And most of the times it’s sort of different. Maybe there is spark, which you don’t even realize until you start, you know, working on a project and suddenly it comes to your mind. Oh my God. You know, wouldn’t it be great to put, like.

 

Speaker4: A.

 

Adam: Wine tower in a restaurant where people fly up and down, you know?

 

Glenn: You know well that thank you for mentioning.

 

Speaker4: That we get gets a lot.

 

Glenn: Of slide.

 

Speaker4: Okay. Watch this. Yeah.

 

Adam: Fall in Las Vegas.

 

Speaker4: Yeah.

 

Adam: Here. Was that I toured the space with the owner.

 

Speaker4: And was.

 

Glenn: This. This was prior to Mandalay Bay opening in the.

 

Speaker4: Was.

 

Adam: An under construction Mandalay.

 

Adam: They had this big box, this giant concrete box, 50 by 50 by 50. And the entrance is where you see that bridge right away.

 

Speaker4: So what.

 

Glenn: You don’t know? You’re, you’re up at Mandalay Bay and you go down there.

 

Adam: You’re right in the mid-level. And there’s a bridge in the middle if you see it in the picture. So I’m standing there with the owner, and he’s he says, I said, what the hell’s going on? This is amazing. He said, unbelievable space. What are you putting in here? And he says, oh, I have this incredible staircase that I bought with swans and things, and it’s going down and there’s a pool, and you go in the back and the restaurant is in the back. I said, wait, wait wait wait.

 

Speaker4: Why?

 

Adam: Why do you want to kill the space with the big staircase and swans.

 

Speaker4: On it there?

 

Adam: What else would you do? I said, I don’t know. You know, give me some time to think. He said, okay, you have until tomorrow morning at 9:00.

 

Speaker4: That’s the time, you know.

 

Adam: I’m having dinner with him later. And he says, you know, I have $15,000 or 15,000 bottles of wine that I can’t drink anymore, and I’d like to sell it in the restaurant, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I’m racking my brain what? What to do? How to put, like, 15,000 bottles of wine in this room, which is, you know, has to be cooled and accessed, so on and so forth. And I can’t for the life of me come up with anything. So it’s like 3:00 in the morning and, you know, I can’t sleep. I turn on the television and boom.

 

Speaker4: Tom cruise.

 

Adam: Floating. He did an impossible one in these cables. And I said, oh my God, what if we put the wines in the middle and have these angels fly up and down to get the bottles? So you’re asking about influence and ideas. So I 9:00 in the morning, I’m sitting in front of this guy. He has this giant telephone and he’s looking at me and he says, what do you got, honey? Yeah, I and I’m starting to describe this thing. And as I describe it, his hand is moving towards the phone. You know, I’m saying. All right, here’s some security. And here it picks up the phone and he says, Sally, cancel the damn stair and hangs it up.

 

Speaker4: And this.

 

Adam: Project.

 

Speaker4: Yeah.

 

Glenn: He said, can we do a yes. And here and this became so iconic.

 

Speaker4: For.

 

Glenn: The Restaurant and Mandalay Bay. When it debuted in 1999, it kind of it really became a big part of welcoming that particular resort on the level of the others that have been there. This was a huge moment in Las Vegas history.

 

Anthony: So a couple of things when you were laughing Glenn, I couldn’t hear him. He said, what inspired him for that at 3:00 in the morning? So what was it that you were watching on the television that inspired you?

 

Adam: Mission impossible with Tom cruise hanging? You know what? You can’t hear? What’s the matter with you?

 

Speaker4: I’m laughing.

 

Anthony: He heard you, and I couldn’t hear you because I.

 

Speaker4: Couldn’t hear you. Sorry. Yeah.

 

Adam: No kidding. In this case, you know, dressed in white, it was like coming down in a vault or something or whatever. It was.

 

Anthony: Fantastic.

 

Glenn: Wow. Yeah, it was part of the crime because there were a lot of lasers and stuff like that that he couldn’t go through.

 

Speaker4: Well, exactly.

 

Adam: I mean, I put bottles of wine instead of lasers.

 

Glenn: Yeah. Have you been inspired to do any designs based on Get Smart? Yeah. The 1960s TV series, maybe.

 

Adam: The shoe and the.

 

Speaker4: Phone? Yeah. Yeah.

 

Anthony: I like the cone of Silence. Where was the. What was the last restaurant that you walked into, or hotel that you walked into? That you had no part in the design, that you were like, wow, they did it right.

 

Adam: Quite a bit, actually. I mean, I you know to me, it’s not just the design. I, I am a foodie. And as you guys may know, I owned restaurants for 27 years, so I’m, you know, a restaurateur as well. So it’s it’s about the holistic experience and the design work. When the food works, when the service works by itself. Listen, I spent the winter in Miami. There are so many magnificent restaurants here in terms of design. And I mean, there. It’s like it’s truly designed on adrenaline here. But you walk in and you have a disappointing meal, the design melts away, it disappears suddenly, you leave and you had a bad experience. You’re never going to come back. I mean, sometimes you you walk in and design is not particularly impressive, but everything else is. And as you eat and as you become more and more involved with the hospitality, suddenly the room becomes beautiful.

 

Speaker4: Right?

 

Adam: You know so you know, just restaurant to me, restaurants are not something to look at. It’s something to experience. You know, it’s not like art or or or anything else. I mean, I can’t walk into a place and say, oh yeah, here are thousands of places that are magnificent. But do they work? Do they really work? Do they really enhance the experience or not?

 

Glenn: And I think you’re getting to the point of design should be there, but it shouldn’t overwhelm the entire experience. It should kind of sink into being an element of the experience.

 

Speaker4: Oh, it’s.

 

Adam: The three pillars. As you know, of successful restaurants are food service and design. You know, and at different times of the life of a restaurant, these three things assume different, you know importance. I mean, if you don’t know anything about the restaurant, you don’t know about the food, you don’t know about the service, but you walk in and the place looks nice. The place looks very nice and pleasant. You say, I’ll give it a shot, you know. I mean, you know, how bad can it be? Now, if the food is great, then the service is great. You come back. You had a wonderful experience. But the design at that point, at that moment is the number one calling.

 

Speaker4: Card, right?

 

Adam: Because if you walk into a place and you don’t know anything about it and it looks terrible, you won’t even stop by and say, I’m leaving. Now again, what looks great for me can be terrible for somebody else.

 

Speaker4: So the restaurant.

 

Anthony: That’s been named best in the world. And I’ve been there a couple of times, and the food is good. The service is impeccable, but I don’t understand. It feels very cold and barren. And I don’t think about going there because the food is good and the service is good and my dog is barking, but I. I just couldn’t get over the design. It’s too bad it’s too barren.

 

Adam: But that’s the listen I worked with, as you know, a lot of very great chefs. And the first question that I asked them, when we sit down on a business meeting and say, okay, you want to hire you, want you to do my restaurant, I say, tell me, explain to me what you want. If I had the magic wand and give you a key to any restaurant in the world, what would it be? If they say I would like to be at La Tour d’Argent, then I will tell him you find another designer. Because I’m not interested in designing somebody else’s restaurant. When they tell me, I don’t know. That’s when I start getting interested in the project, because together we’re going to explore the unknown. What what is your brand of hospitality? What do you want people to feel after they leave your restaurant? After a great meal? What do you want to cook in the restaurant? Cook something for me, and I will close my eyes and imagine myself at the door of an establishment that serves that type of food. And that’s the dialogue that I like to have with my clients. When we talk about restaurant. It’s not I want to be like Carbone and say, if you want to be like Carbone, hire the guy that designed Carbone. Don’t come to me.

 

Glenn: Oh, by the way, also a great restaurant, which we ate at in Las Vegas.

 

Speaker4: And.

 

Adam: Very good.

 

Speaker4: I’m just.

 

Glenn: I will say one of the introductions. One of the introductions I had to as a as a younger person in my 30s to really amazing food and design that created the experience was per se at the the former Time Warner Center, right at Columbus Circle. So that really changed everything. I think you’re in the middle of redoing that place right now.

 

Speaker4: We redid.

 

Adam: It.

 

Speaker4: Already.

 

Glenn: It’s already. It’s already open.

 

Speaker4: See, I yeah.

 

Glenn: I’m going to have to go check that out. So what was it like when you helped create a place that’s world class, and then go ahead and have to reinvent it and reintroduce it?

 

Adam: The pain in the neck?

 

Speaker4: Yeah.

 

Adam: Very, very difficult. So I’m going to go back 32 years before, 32 years ago, I was teaching restaurant design at the School of Visual Arts in New York. We lost Anthony.

 

Glenn: Oh, he’ll be back, I’m sure. I don’t know what happened. He met his dog. If you go on, though.

 

Adam: 32 years ago, I was designing teaching restaurant design at the School of Visual Arts in New York. And you know, full class of students. And one of the students stuck out to me. He wasn’t like, the age of the rest of the students in the back taking notes, all kinds of stuff. So I stopped him after the class, and I said, excuse me what do you.

 

Speaker4: Do?

 

Adam: He says, oh, I am a chef. I said, really? I said, yeah, and what are you doing here? He said, well, you know, I one day I’m going to build you know, my own restaurant, and I want to know everything about it. I don’t want to make mistakes. It’s going to be the biggest expense of my life. And I said, really? Well, that’s admirable. And I gave him my hand, and I said, I’m Adam Tejani. He says, I’m Thomas Keller.

 

Speaker4: Wow.

 

Adam: That’s how we met. And, you know, years later, he calls me and he says, you know, I’m in California. I have something for you. You want to come and work with me? So we’ve been working in for years and years together. The per se brief was very interesting because we wanted to bring the French Laundry to New York.

 

Speaker4: Yeah.

 

Adam: With, with in an urban setting in a very complex. This the urban setting here. The Time Warner building could not have been more different than a beautiful.

 

Glenn: Right. And this is this building itself with a very modern steel glass.

 

Speaker4: It’s and.

 

Glenn: The huge high ceilings in the lobby because they also had a shrapnel complex. Go on. Sorry.

 

Adam: The French Laundry is a beautiful country house in Yountville, Napa Valley. You know, it’s like it couldn’t be any more different. So he said, what’s what’s important for me is, is the ethos of the restaurant and the timelessness. He says, I want to build this to last. I want a restaurant that will last for 30, 40 years, which is obviously the dream of every restaurateur and every diner for that matter. Because if you’re creating such a, you know, lasting legacy for him. You’re creating it for yourself as well?

 

Speaker4: Yeah.

 

Adam: Design standpoint. So very complicated process. Thomas is extremely detail oriented, as you sure you know.

 

Speaker4: Well, you.

 

Glenn: Have to be to get to his level.

 

Speaker4: And.

 

Adam: Involved with everything, which is super important. You know, an educated customer is everything. But here, it’s not just the customer. It’s a friend. It’s It’s a it’s a responsibility. I mean, I, I pride myself to design portraits of my clients. You know, I’m in portrait artist or, like, a custom tailor.

 

Speaker4: Wow.

 

Adam: What I do is create something that will make them look good and feel good. Because if they do, they will be much easier for them to operate the place.

 

Speaker4: So yeah.

 

Glenn: I was looking at a picture of the Thomas Keller on Grill on a Seabourn ship. Sorry.

 

Speaker4: Yes.

 

Adam: Well, this is kind of more of a, you know, like a a steakhouse that he loves this this design, you know, it’s very like somewhere between a cruise ship and and a luxury train.

 

Glenn: I will say, yes, it really, it really feels steakhouse y, old school travel, but very modern at the same chic.

 

Adam: It’s very, you know, a completely surprising when the ship they were walking and this was a very dark black Asian restaurant, everything was black and dark and so on and so forth. I mean, like, anyway he’s he likes this romanticism of the 50s and 60. You know, his whole concept of you know, the tack room which we have one in Miami here. We had one in the at the Hudson Yards. There’s also this kind of pseudo deco 50 ish design when, you know, with steak. Diana. And and and you know Caesar salad made at the table. So, you know, you have to listen to what they want to do, how they want to serve table side is that it all affects the design.

 

Speaker4: Right?

 

Adam: Cooking is is is a evolves around the the end game is where the the chef wants to take this place to and not the other way around. Or it’s not like the tail wagging the dog, it’s the other way around. So.

 

Speaker4: Right.

 

Adam: It’s a yeah.

 

Glenn: You still need.

 

Speaker4: It.

 

Adam: Yeah. And I think the fact.

 

Speaker4: That.

 

Adam: He was a restaurateur for a considerable amount of time Inflicting on myself the punishment of owning a restaurant. As you.

 

Speaker4: Know.

 

Adam: It makes it very easy to these chefs to to relate to me. They they don’t have to explain to me what the service station. They don’t have to explain to me what what it takes. What the what the the connection between front and back of the house. What our performance. I mean, I I’ve done it myself for years. So we are, we are, we are.

 

Speaker4: Past.

 

Adam: The technicalities and we go straight into the concept.

 

Speaker4: Yeah.

 

Anthony: So I’ve been fortunate enough to eat it per se early on. And we took me through a tour of the kitchen and I’ve always been amazed of as I remember, the kitchen was bigger than I anticipated.

 

Adam: It was bigger than anybody anticipated.

 

Speaker4: Just so.

 

Glenn: Everybody knows. In New York, kitchens are like the size of your desk table.

 

Adam: 60% of the space.

 

Speaker4: Wow.

 

Anthony: Are you sure? My memory was correct. That’s what I remember.

 

Speaker4: 60%.

 

Anthony: What? So tell me why.

 

Adam: I’m gonna give you an example that maybe will explain why in a roundabout way. At per se, they serve let’s say 120 meals a day. Okay.

 

Speaker4: Yep.

 

Adam: 120. That’s one and a half. That’s two times C two. Two times turnover.

 

Speaker4: Right.

 

Adam: Do you know how many plates they use for the 120 meals?

 

Glenn: Oh 700.

 

Adam: No 4200.

 

Speaker4: 4200.

 

Adam: Now, do I have to tell you why you need a big kitchen?

 

Speaker4: Wow.

 

Adam: Understand from this metaphor here, You know why.

 

Anthony: And you’re not exaggerating. You’re saying Seattle?

 

Speaker4: Yeah.

 

Adam: I mean, the the intensity of the presentation. I don’t know if you if you remember, you get a plate that has five plates, one on top of each other. Then you have six plates on the side with the side, the ramekins where they pour things into it. And then the bread, the butter. Then by the time they finished, you know, you said, oh my God. Who’s washing these dishes?

 

Speaker4: Right.

 

Adam: And the glasses of wine. I mean, come on. I mean, you know.

 

Anthony: It’s funny you said that because one, I’ve been wanting to ask that question to somebody since the day I left that restaurant.

 

Speaker4: So you keep me, me.

 

Adam: At.

 

Speaker4: United.

 

Anthony: If I stay alive long enough, I get to ask all my questions.

 

Glenn: One life goal unlocked.

 

Adam: And I’m I’m.

 

Speaker4: You know.

 

Anthony: The number two. The one thing I remember talking about dishes and I talk about it from time to time is the dishwasher. His outfit was chef whites, and he. There wasn’t a stain on his outfit. And he was.

 

Speaker4: The.

 

Adam: He’s the dishwashing supervisor.

 

Anthony: Okay.

 

Adam: I know all the glasses of the real stuff. You can’t wash them in the washing machine. It’s all.

 

Speaker4: Washed.

 

Glenn: My hand.

 

Speaker4: Yeah. Yeah.

 

Adam: This is just the washing. But the cooking is also, you know, pretty much you know, it’s it’s Well, plus, you know, to be fair the the size of the kitchen. The kitchen actually produced all the baked goods for Bouchon Bakery, which was on the third floor. So. And plus, there’s a separate kitchen for private parties, and. Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera. And a beautiful pastry department. You know, if you remember chocolate roll and all that. So they make everything on premise. And you know, people complain about prices. I my suggestion to Thomas was start the experience in the kitchen. Take them through the kitchen to see how what on earth it takes to make something like this. Nobody will complain about anything, right?

 

Speaker4: I mean, I.

 

Adam: Resent paying $80 for a plate of eggplant parmesan at Carbone. I mean, I think that is a rip off. But to pay $150 for Thomas Keller you know

 

Speaker4: Right.

 

Adam: Herbs and onions.

 

Speaker4: Yeah.

 

Glenn: Everything’s sauces.

 

Adam: Oh my God. I mean, bargain basement price. Seriously?

 

Speaker4: Wow.

 

Anthony: Yeah. And it’s funny that when they brought me through the kitchen I didn’t care about the price. There was something about going through that kitchen that made me feel like I understand. Like I understand. You know, first of all, I know I’m in New York. I’m at the Time Warner building. And listen, if you’re going to per se and you know what it is, you know what they say about per se. If you ask how much you pay, you shouldn’t be going right here.

 

Adam: Listen. And on the flip side of the coin, I just had dinner a couple of days ago here in Miami in an absolutely extraordinary, extraordinary sushi restaurant. I mean, just beyond. I mean, it was like you’ve been. You’re eating in Tokyo in a private dining room. Spectacular. A place called Shingo. Unbelievable. And it was $600 a person and nothing is cooked. There’s a guy there slicing fish.

 

Speaker4: Right.

 

Adam: In front of you and put it on a little mound of rice.

 

Speaker4: Listen, What am I paying for?

 

Adam: He says the airplane to fly the fishing from Tokyo. What do you mean?

 

Speaker4: You know.

 

Adam: It’s all relative. You know, because if you You eat this fish and it’s like I’ve never had anything like this in my life, you know? How much is that worth?

 

Speaker4: Right. Yeah.

 

Glenn: Experience driven economy. That makes a lot of sense. Anthony. Sorry.

 

Anthony: At some point when people and I and Glenn heard me say this, you know, when I ran, I ran a cabaret at the Oak Room at the Algonquin called the Oak Room. And it was failing when I took over. And I told everybody around me, I said, like the people coming to this room that pay $500 at 9:00 at night to hear a cabaret singer sing their American songbook. They’re not looking for the greatest of anything. What they’re looking for is something they haven’t felt before. These people bought it. They sold it. They invented it. Right. You give them a them a feeling. Now, for someone like you that walks into a place like that and can afford to spend $600. You’re looking to be completely absorbed because truly, you bought it, sold it, invented it. So if they’re impressing you, they’re at a level that most people can’t get to.

 

Speaker4: Of course.

 

Adam: But, you know, listen, I was sitting in front of chef, luckily, and I was watching Giacometti making sculpture.

 

Adam: For two hours.

 

Glenn: That’s amazing. Right?

 

Adam: I said, if you want another 600, I’ll pay for it. It was unbelievable. I, you know, I so put it all together and the room was like, you know, super minimalist. I mean, you know, Anthony, come down, you guys, to Miami. I’ll invite you to this place.

 

Speaker4: Awesome.

 

Adam: You’re just. And it really blew me away All right.

 

Glenn: Let me go check Delta real quick. All right.

 

Adam: 250 bucks from New York. I’m going to give you a $600 dinner.

 

Speaker4: Come on. Yeah.

 

Glenn: Totally. Totally worth it. All right, so I’ve had the honor of doing some keynotes for our friend John over at the Global Hospitality Talk. And you got the outstanding achievement award from them. Pretty Pretty amazing. What was that experience like for you?

 

Speaker4: You know.

 

Adam: Make you feel old a little bit when you start getting these awards that I wrap up your career.

 

Speaker4: Your life, you know.

 

Adam: Like, it’s not the lifetime, but it’s getting there. Yeah. I’ve had my lifetime is not finished. I don’t know, I Chen was very generous and lovely and very sweet and, you know, getting recognized with the peers in the room.

 

Speaker4: And so.

 

Adam: Forth.

 

Speaker4: It’s that’s always.

 

Adam: Very nice. And truth is, I’m pretty good at what I’m doing, so I might as well.

 

Anthony: Are you still working on projects or are you really retiring?

 

Speaker4: I am.

 

Adam: I kind of retired. Retired. Retired. I sold my business to my partner, and I’m on the third. Let’s put it this way. The third phase of my life.

 

Glenn: This is a perfect Segway. You’re at the give back part, and you’re down there f I you right now. You could hear doctor producer Suzanne, who’s doing the show, but also cackling through his microphone, which I really appreciate because at least someone is enjoying my stuff today. So what are you doing with with those great folks down there?

 

Adam: Well Suzanne and I are putting together this this new concept.

 

Speaker4: Which.

 

Adam: We are. You know, it’s sort of a little bit of an uphill battle. But we are we are pushing through it. It’s a it’s a graduate program in hospitality design. It’s two faculties collaborating together for the first time, hand in hand.

 

Speaker4: So.

 

Adam: The Faculty of Hospitality Management, where we are at the moment here at Chapman School and the Carter, the School of Architecture and Design which is in the other campus. So the idea here is this the management, the hospitality management students are working on programming restaurants, for example. We Suzanne and I came up with seven types of restaurants. They have to write the proforma, come up with the with the concept to describe the concept. And then and then they sort of higher. The architecture students to execute.

 

Glenn: Cool.

 

Adam: So de facto becoming the client?

 

Speaker4: Yeah.

 

Adam: So it is a studio classes. It’s extremely practical. And my goal, our goal is that if you graduate from this program, it’s like de facto you worked for two years in an actual restaurant design office.

 

Glenn: I do want to warn everyone, he said. Studio classes. It’s not studio 54 classes. You don’t get to

 

Adam: Get classes.

 

Speaker4: Yeah.

 

Adam: No, no. But here it.

 

Speaker4: Worked as.

 

Adam: Classes. Meaning you have to actually do project.

 

Glenn: That’s pretty amazing. And that is great because, as you said, it’ll give you all of that experience that it will get you ahead in this day and age. You need every little bit that you can in order to be better than that person next to you.

 

Adam: Exactly. And so we’re gonna we’re starting with Restaurants hopefully move on to hotels and maybe end up with cruise ships. Again, it’s a matter of complexity and how many students you get because it’s actually pretty. You need a larger and larger groups to do such a huge project. I mean, the last cruise ship that I was a creative director for had 40 restaurants, bars, nightclubs for zero. So, you know, you need an army of students to do something like that. But the hope is that this will take traction. I mean, we were having a conversation early on and I said, you know, but by far, hospitality design is the sexiest segment of the profession. There’s no question about it.

 

Speaker4: Yeah.

 

Adam: Hospitality gets so much publicity and so and everybody wants to talk about it. And now design. We are in the century of design. You know everybody wants design. I mean, since the guys just think about the fact that 20 years ago we didn’t have an iPhone.

 

Glenn: Right?

 

Adam: Would you believe.

 

Speaker4: That?

 

Glenn: Oh, it seems like we’ve always had.

 

Speaker4: Oh, we could.

 

Adam: Have an iPhone. And I said one of the better designed piece of hardware that you can find. So once you get used to holding and touching your iPhone, suddenly you say, well, you know what? Why is my toothbrush not so nice? Why is my comb have to be this and that? And it goes all the time. So it’s it’s a very privileged and good time to promote design and to teach design. And I’m very fortunate that I can afford to do it.

 

Speaker4: Amazing.

 

Adam: They ain’t paying anything.

 

Speaker4: Yeah.

 

Glenn: Well, it’s a university. Yeah, I was an adjunct professor at a university in New York and

 

Speaker4: You know, went back.

 

Adam: To 1980.

 

Speaker4: Now, you know, that’s.

 

Glenn: That’s a that’s there any final any final thoughts there.

 

Anthony: That would be on the show with you?

 

Adam: I would like to you know I, you know I love your comedy show. It’s great. It’s like this Saturday Morning Live.

 

Speaker4: You can you have to.

 

Glenn: Have a hangover.

 

Speaker4: In order to appreciate.

 

Adam: Do you? Actually, I’m getting to know you a little bit, which is cool, you know, and and I, I my invitation is here. Shingo.

 

Speaker4: Yeah.

 

Adam: He’s come to Miami. We go eat some sushi.

 

Glenn: All right, let’s do it. Mr. Tony, thank you so much for being here. And thanks to all of you folks out there for being here today. Of course, you’re going to want to relisten to this one. So make sure you download our show wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to rewatch us all, show the House at No Vacancy News.com and our respective social media sites. So thanks everyone for being here. And remember, you’ve got one life, so blaze on and.

 

Anthony: Be kind to yourself.

 

Glenn: See you next time.