Six Years Without Chef Floyd and Chef Kunz

In March of 2020, the culinary world lost two of the greatest chefs of our time. Chef Gray Kunz passed away from a stroke on March 5th. He was 65. Three weeks later, on March 25th, Chef Floyd Cardoz was taken by COVID. He was 59. 

Q1 is always a little tough for me.  My father’s birthday is January 25th, and he passed away February 27th, of 1998 at age 48.  Add on to that, In February of 2024, we lost Chef David Bouley (worked for him right after chef Floyd) to a heart attack, he was only 70.  And Stephanie Jackson, one of the kindest, hardest working, and talented hospitality professionals I have ever met, passed away 2 days before her 40th birthday, in February of 2023.  I use the last week to March to reflect on all of this, and remember to be grateful for the people we have in our lives, and that life is far too fragile to not make every day count and let the people you care about know what they mean to you. 

Today, I’d like to talk about chef Floyd and Chef Kunz.  To share some memories and hopefully spark more from those who knew them too.  

Floyd Cardoz and the Reinvention of Indian Cuisine

Floyd Cardoz changed what Indian food could be in America. Before Tabla, the idea of Indian flavors in a fine dining context was almost nonexistent. Floyd didn't just open that door, he kicked it down. There are restaurants I don't believe would exist today without him. Places like Semma and Adda in my opinion, owe much of the path they have to what Floyd proved was possible.

But I don't think enough people know that Floyd was one of the greatest technicians to ever run a kitchen. He was a phenomenal cook. Tabla was not only a great restaurant for the guest (and Bread Bar was ridiculously delicious), but anyone who ever cooked for Floyd knows it was like being a kid in a candy store. You got to experience every technique you can think of, and Floyd was exceptional at all of them.

A Cook's Paradise

Aging and curing Rouen ducks, drying them with fans before service. Sprouting our own beans. Some of the best terrines and torchons I've ever had. An endless number of sauces that on any given week included roasted blue crab bodies, gastriques, tarkas, roasted and then pickled garlic... and the list goes on. The greatest braised oxtail I've ever had. Whole baby lamb, goat, pig, marinated with yogurt and spices, sometimes wrapped completely in banana leaves.

Rarely do you ever see a restaurant with that much versatility of technique and ingredients, especially at the highest quality. And what made it even more incredible was that these techniques, the ones you'd find at the greatest French restaurants in the world, were leveraged with spices and ingredients most of us had never seen before Tabla. Lucknow fennel. Asafoetida. Aamchar.  Things that opened up completely new avenues of cooking for us.  

The Cook's Cook

Floyd was soft spoken. He had flaws like we all do, but he really cared, and the food always mattered most. He was a cook's cook.  When he stepped on the line, it was obvious that he was one of those cooks that crushed every busy service flawlessly.  You can tell if a cook can cook within the first 5 minutes of stepping on the line, and chef Floyd was the epitome of how that manifests.

I always felt like I had disappointed him when I decided to open a fast casual spot with my buddy Brandon Gillis. He shared that disappointment with me when I decided to open a Bark Hot Dogs, instead of continuing to pursue fine dining. I was honestly not 100% about it either so it hurt more when I heard it from him. I knew Bark was a great project, but I also knew that fine dining was in my heart, and I knew that Floyd knew that too... so it stung even more when he told me how he felt. As we stayed in contact through the years I think he came to appreciate it more, but we never really got to talk about it.

I was grateful to be able to talk about that with his wife, Barkha. I've been really grateful to get to know her more over the years. She is an incredible woman, a real force, and deeply kind and caring. Which tells you even more about who Floyd was.

Any chef reading this who worked for Floyd knows what I mean. Chef, you left us way too soon, But you are still here impacting this industry and everyone who ever had the pleasure and honor of working for you.

Gray Kunz and the Pursuit of Excellence

Floyd actually worked for Chef Kunz at Lespinasse before opening Tabla. And so it makes sense to write about them together, even though it's hard.

Gray Kunz earned four stars from the New York Times at Lespinasse and became one of the most influential chefs in American fine dining. Born in Singapore, classically trained in Switzerland under Freddy Girardet, he brought something to New York that nobody had seen before: rigorous French technique fused with Southeast Asian flavors. Calamansi, lemongrass, kaffir lime, harissa... in a four-star dining room. He was decades ahead of what the industry would eventually embrace.

He trained Andrew Carmellini, Rocco DiSpirito, Corey Lee, Floyd Cardoz. The tree that grew from Kunz's kitchen is enormous.

Excellence as a Way of Life

Chef Kunz, to me, is the representation of excellence. That's the word that always comes to mind first. He had a very unique sense of creativity and thought process that was far more left brain than right brain, but somehow what he did felt almost scientific in retrospect, and of course made total sense once you tasted the food.

His approach to creativity didn't start with technique the way Floyd's often did. Where Floyd was driven by how technique could inject Indian flavors into what the American palate would understand, Kunz started with new paradigms of flavor combinations, with a complete disregard for what was commonplace or typical for any given cuisine. He thought in terms of the elements of what we taste. (He literally wrote a book about this too.).  It is so interesting how creativity manifests itself.  I think about someone like chef Wylie, who starts with a question, from a place of curiosity.  Everyone is different.  It’s pretty amazing how that translates into so many different concepts.  

I vividly remember how dishes would start for chef Kunz. He'd say, "Josh, let's use peas and chamomile." That was it. Peas were in season, and chamomile provided the floral element to the dish. You knew then where the acidity would come in, maybe some heat. That's how things played out in his kitchen.

Nothing Was Safe from the Standard

Kunz set a precedent right away for everyone about what excellence meant. And it carried through to literally every single piece of the restaurant. Nothing was safe from this standard. The way we cleaned the kitchen, using a Zamboni every night on the floors. The plateware, thoughtfully curated for each dish... the brass sizzle tray and Himalayan salt block for seared langoustines, the salt block acting like a sizzling fajita of sorts. Every piece of the dish, the presentation, what was on the table, how we dressed, what the guest saw, what the chef saw, how we stored knives and six-pans. Every little thing mattered and everything had to be excellent.

You could see at times how this was at odds with his intention when he opened Cafe Gray at the Time Warner Center, which was meant to be a brasserie. Casual was just not possible for him, no matter what. This of course played out in our costs too. You don't want to know what our food and labor cost was, but let's just say a restaurant in the $10M+ revenue range should have lasted a lot longer.

A Burned CD and how chef Kunz helped inspire a part of meez

A lot of what meez is today would not be possible without my time with Kunz. I remember cooking an event with him in Montreal during the Festival en Lumiere, where we took over another restaurant and worked with their team. Of course everything had to be perfect. We were preparing his famous truffle soup along with blanquette de veau, among other dishes on the menu.

We had very little time to work with their team, so in the months before the event, I recorded how to make each dish and mailed them a CD of the recordings along with the recipes. Yep. A CD. This was 2005.

That was a huge inspiration for making sure that every recipe in meez, every step of every recipe, includes video and photos. The idea that a cook in another kitchen should be able to learn how to make a dish from someone who's never standing next to them. That started with a burned CD and a stack of recipes mailed to Montreal.  And it happened because excellence was table stakes, and there was no question that we had to do it.  

The Spoon and the Legacy

A lot of people know Gray Kunz because of the spoon he created, and yes, it is most definitely one of the greatest tools ever invented for the kitchen. But he will be remembered far more for his dedication to excellence and for giving every chef the confidence to cross boundaries and think differently.

The way I will always remember Chef Kunz is as this genuine representation of excellence in everything he did and the way he viewed the world. It had a profound impact on me, and I will always be grateful for his mentorship and friendship.

Still Here

Every year around this time I go back and look at my old text messages. 

I can see the conversations between Floyd and me in those weeks after Kunz passed... planning the funeral, processing the loss, talking about what Chef meant to both of us. Only a couple weeks before Floyd himself was gone.

The last thing I ever heard from Chef Kunz was a text on New Year's Day 2020, a couple of months before he passed:

I called Kevin my brother that lives in Switzerland on Jan 1st, he took the call and said 'I am still standing' and hung up on me, I was driving and had to pull over, laughing so hard! Good old Irish genes!! Have a great millennium! Chef

That was him. Warm, funny, larger than life.

Six years later, I still can't clean rice without thinking of Floyd. Every time I slowly toast spices, every time I break down a whole animal, every confit... he's right there. And every time I pick up a Kunz spoon, every time I push for one more level of detail on something that most people wouldn't notice, that's Chef Kunz.

If you worked for either of these chefs, you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you didn't, I hope this gives you a small window into who they were and what they gave to all of us.

Miss you both.

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