Wylie Dufresne Thinks Good Cooks Should Ask Why

Last week on MUNCHIES: The Podcast, we spoke with none other than chef Wylie Dufresne, the Lebron James of modern cooking and the now shuttered legendary WD~50, the spot that made New Yorkers think.

Our editor-in-chief Helen Hollyman sat down in the studio with the chef to discuss life after WD~50, Alder, and the art of creativity.

You can get MUNCHIES: The Podcast on iTunes, listen on Soundcloud, and don't forget to subscribe. You can also get the entire archive of episodes—plus transcripts and more—right here on MUNCHIES.

Here's the transcript of our conversation in MUNCHIES: The Podcast with Wylie Dufresne, edited to the main interview. For the full discussion, you'll have to listen to the audio above.

So there's no question about it: you are definitely considered the Lebron James of the American molecular gastronomy movement. Where do you think molecular gastronomy is heading? You know? I think that term, for me, is not a term I like; it wasn't a good choice. If it is Friday night and you want to go out to dinner and you're like, "Do you want to go have Thai? Do you want to go have French, or do you want to go have molecular gastronomy?" There is no chance, that doesn't sound delicious—at all. Right? Are you feeling some molecular gastronomy tonight, honey?

But really, it has been a misunderstood movement. I think at its core, it has been about a group of chefs around the world that are deeply interested in understanding what happens when we prepare food—any food. Not just wildly modern food, but classic food. What happens when you roast a chicken? What happens when you poach an egg or make mashed potatoes? Understanding those processes in an effort to make better decisions. There will never be a right or a wrong way to poach an egg, but there will be a more less-informed way to poach an egg.

Because if you understand the variables involved in poaching an egg—which are time and temperature—then you can change those variables to get different results. But there is not a right or a wrong way. You just might want to make a hard-boiled egg because you really love hard-boiled eggs, or because you own a bistro that serves hard-boiled eggs. Or you just might want to do some weird, slow-cooked, three-hour, four-hour, or 17-hour egg that, when you pop it open, it's like Jell-O: wiggly, weird, wacky, and wonderful.

And I think that the problem was that people just associated with molecular gastronomy were the sort of weird and fancy things. So if we can agree that at its core, it is about knowledge and understanding, and learning, then I say that it is as safe as a kitten because the enthusiasm for knowledge, learning, and education is never going to go away.

In the past, you've mentioned that cooking is a lot like sports, and if you weren't cooking, you would have been an amazing athlete? No, that is not what I said. I would have liked to be an amazing athlete, but if I weren't cooking, I would definitely not be an amazing athlete. I don't possess any of these natural abilities that would allow me to do that.

You are right, I did a terrible paraphrase there. But I do see a tremendous amount of parallels and life lessons in cooking. All of the things that I love about playing sports, some of the simpler things all the way to the more deeper things that I wasn't even aware of when I was as a kid—I have found in the kitchen. That is part of what has allowed me to enjoy cooking so much. The fact that I found the kitchen makes sense, in a way.

So thinking about team sports and cooking in the kitchen, for you, what are the components that draw parallels? Sports are very redemptive. You have an opportunity to fix a mistake over and over again. If you strike out, you'll go up again. If you missed a lap, you'll take 20 more. When you do things wrong, you have a chance to right that wrong; cooking is like that. Because you are doing the same thing over and over again, if you overcook that steak or you messed up that salad, or whatever you did wrong, you're going to have to do it again. You can't get stuck, you can't get bogged down. You've got to go on.

That opportunity for redemption was something that I didn't notice until later on. At first, you are kind of just getting your bearings.

Not to put you on the spot, but if you could select one dish from WD~50 that you created that you feel is a good way to illustrate how you think, which one would you choose? Did you ever have the "everything bagel" ice cream?

Yes, it was incredible. See, you're smiling, which is all I want you to do. If you can smile at that dish, then that means that dish was a success, for the most part. Unless you're smiling because you actually broke up with your boyfriend at the table over that dish or something like that.

But it's a good example of the process and when the process can be wonderfully successful, it's a very satisfying story. It started off as an amuse-bouche, which is a little treat that you get in tasting menus, the little teaser to get you excited of what's to come. We changed them all the time at WD~50. There was a girl at that station at the time, Samantha Henderson, and she had an idea that she wanted to do an "everything bagel" ice cream.

She made a little quenelle of the ice cream—you know—rounded scoop of it on the bowl. Then she asked, "Where do I go from here? What do I do with this?" And so we began to pass that around the room and ask, "What do you have with a bagel?" Because now you had this "everything bagel" ice cream that was absolutely delicious. We had been messing around with taking salmon and cooking it for a really long time until it began to look like that kind of pink, hairy insulation, fiberglass.

But then that's not a great opener at a restaurant. But we had been working with that, so we had smoked salmon and a bagel, but then somebody else said: "You've got to have cream cheese and red onions with smoked salmon and a bagel." So we pickled some baby pearl onions and we had been messing around with taking things that aren't supposed to be crispy and made them crispy. In this case, cream cheese. We spread it very thinly and dried it overnight until we could break it, until it could snap.

And then Alex Stupak, who was the pastry chef at the time, said, "Why don't we put the ice cream in tiny molds so it looks like a bagel?" And I thought, Well, that's great! So we put the ice cream in the mold of a bagel. And then Alex, as is often the case, called my bluff. He said, "if you buy me a paint sprayer, we can airbrush it and make it look like a toasted bagel." I think he wanted an airbrush and he was just trying to lead the horse to water. So I told him "you're on."

He bought one and we messed around with different food colorings to airbrush the bagel and to find out how to make it look like a toasted bagel. And then lastly, we figured out that when it came out of the freezer, right before we served it to you, to roll it in sesame seeds and poppy seeds and put it on the plate.

To make a long story short, three or four different people put out ideas on the table. But it just started with this girl, Samantha, who was in charge of doing that at the time. How that dish grew, and grew, and grew into one of the most talked-about, most successful dishes we've ever made was super tasty and a lot of fun. And for me, the most exciting part of that story, in a way, is that she went on to eventually become the chef of the restaurant. She was someone who walked in off the street. In another way, that ties into the process and how people can really learn and grow and achieve things.

But this dish is a great example of how it could become such a great dish by a lot of people working on it rather than just one person trying to get it somewhere.

Wow, that sounds like the most fun work environment. It was a wonderful place to work. I certainly really miss it. It's just a hole in the ground right now, which is the most depressing part of it all. They haven't even filled it yet. I wish they would just get on with it.

So tell me about how you felt during the last week that WD~50 was open? I was trying to enjoy every moment of it and also trying not to let the emotions of the moment get to me. I was trying to have fun and make sure that everyone else was having fun. I knew that there was going to be a lot of crying so I wanted to make sure that there was lots of laughing and joking around. We were also super busy. We had a crazy last month and changed the menu a couple of times in the last two weeks so we made it very hard for ourselves.

My thinking at the time was that everybody that is doing this probably thinks I'm crazy and everyone is working like maniacs. But someday, they are going to look back on this and say, "that was so much fun," because we were just going balls out. It was nuts and crazy. I've had the chance to reflect on this. We have a lot of good memories in the 12 and a half years that we were there but there also a lot of good memories and laughs in those last couple of weeks. There was a lot of yucking it up along the way, which is all that I really wanted. We brought some people back that have worked there in the past.

And then, about two weeks later, a lot of the equipment was auctioned off? Correct, did you buy anything?

I didn't, do you wish I bought anything? Sure, for your sake, I wish you bought something.

What was it like to watch all these random people buying all of these things that you have been using for years? I couldn't do it. I was there for a little bit to understand the process because I didn't know how it was going to go and I was curious. But once it began, I couldn't stay. I watched one of my cooks bid against another person for a couple of pots that we used to use everyday. I heard another person say, "That's crazy, she's nuts to pay that money for those pots, they are used." My cook said, "I have to buy these, they are the pots that I learned how to cook on." It became too much for me.

Another person came up to me and said, "Hi, I'm a cook and I just came here to buy something. I don't know what, but I wanted to buy something." You started to see how the restaurant had impacted people and what it meant for them, even people that didn't work there. I didn't want to watch these vultures pick over our things. It was like watching someone pick over your body while you are not dead yet.

There were people there with beautiful sentiments because they wanted to buy something because it meant something but the room was filled with other people who were just looking for bargains. I did come back the next day and I watched these goons, this was equipment that we cared for and loved with all of our hearts, and I watched these goons just tear it out and destroy it in the process. Somebody bought a freezer that was not even six months old and definitely still under warranty— it looked perfect. And I watched these goons carry it up the stairs, and as they got to the top, they said, "we can't turn the stairs with the freezer."

I had all of my guys that worked for me there, and I had my guy say "Look, I'll help you get it up. This is how we got it in, if it went in, it comes out." They said, "no, no, no, we need to smash this stairwell in order to get it out." So we said, "fine, we're leaving. So go ahead." So then I had to watch these people take a sledgehammer to the stairwell because they didn't have enough common sense to figure it out, or let someone who had already figured it out, get this freezer out. Then these gorillas just smashed it and it was heartbreaking.

That was over and over and over again. I can show you a picture on my phone of the guy who was in charge of all the equipment, and he is just staring, jaw-dropped. He worked there for 12 years and all he did was make sure that all the equipment was always in pristine condition. That was a low point—the auction and the subsequent two days thereafter. Watching people tear it apart, it was as if all of the efforts were for not. I mean, they are not; they left a deep imprint on a lot of people.

And now, there's an apartment building going into that space? Yeah, it's going to be condos. You should get on the list.

What if I was like, "I'm moving in there actually and I'm really excited about it." Great! We're done!

Shifting gears, slightly, thinking about certain techniques that are employed within chain restaurants like Applebee's, I wonder if you ever look at any of the equipment or a process that they are doing and think "oh, that's great." Yeah, I'm fascinated by food processing. I mean, candy is really cool. Do you ever notice how is candy made? Look at an M&M, for example. You know, my daughter just had her birthday party last week and my wife bought a zillion tiny M&Ms that said "Happy Birthday" on them. How the hell do they print an entire message on an M&M? That is neat. Cereal is incredible, like shredded wheat. Have you ever picked up a piece of shredded wheat and stared at it? It's like a carpet and is woven. How the hell do they do that? If we can make arugula or sweet potato-flavored shredded wheat that didn't have a bunch of junk in it, that could be amazing.

So if you could give a piece of advice to new cooks about how to be a creative thinker as a cook, what would you say? Well, if you don't want to be a creative thinker, I don't want to force you to be a creative thinker. But you should ask Why, why, why?