The Splendid Table

American Public Radio

Jimi Yui: “…what we really do is listen really, really hard -- intuit is a good word. 

We really have to get into their head and understand the nuances of what they're actually trying to articulate.

Lucky for me, we always start out with chefs saying, ‘You have to come to the restaurant, sit down, eat my food. Then next hang around the kitchen, watch service for as long and as many services as you can muster.’

It's very, very important because, in eating their food, they're actually trying to show you what their soul is about, what their product is about, what their art is about. It's really, really important.

The second part of it is the execution. Watching the cooks in a kitchen -- I like to think of it as very much a dance that occurs with a chef being a conductor in front of an orchestra. Watching the movement is really, really important because you need to understand what kind of motion is necessary to produce the art that they're trying to produce.”

Listen to the episode here