Chef Eric Ripert on the Importance of Restaurants

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: And, of course, it is not just tourism that’s taking a big hit. Restaurants are going out of business all over, too. In March, Eric Ripert, co-founder and the executive chef of the three- Michelin-Starred New York restaurant Le Bernardin, laid off his entire team. Since then, he’s been helping City Harvest. It’s a nonprofit organization that’s feeding those in most need. And he tells our Michel Martin that, while the future is uncertain, he is optimistic that his restaurant will serve dinners again.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHEL MARTIN: Chef Eric Ripert, thank you so much for speaking with us.

ERIC RIPERT, EXECUTIVE CHEF, LE BERNARDIN: Thank you for having me. My pleasure.

MARTIN: Well, really difficult times here, and you were one of the first restaurants in New York to close, even before there was an order. Can you just walk us through what those couple of days were like for you? What is it that finally made you decide to close?

RIPERT: Yes. It was a process, obviously. And I was watching the news, and every day we had a lot of new information about the virus, the impact on the community. And I was starting to be very worried about our clients, our employees, the purveyors. And I thought that it was becoming a very dangerous environment. And, therefore, on March 12, I met with the entire staff, and I said, tomorrow, we take a decision if we are staying open or not, but I feel that, despite all the hygiene that we have and all the efforts we are making, it is not right. It’s dangerous. The following day, on the March 13, I called the entire staff and told them that we were closing the restaurant.

MARTIN: We have heard these stories from people all over the country, really all over the world, but very few of us have actually had to call 137 people together knowing that this is their livelihood and tell them to go home. And if you could just describe what that was like for you.

RIPERT: Sure. Well, it was extremely emotional. Most of those employees worked with us for many, many years, some of them since 1986, when Le Bernardin opened. As you can imagine, we create relationships, friendships. And we are a very big family. And when I had — it was actually 150 employees surrounding me in a big room. And I was speaking to them. And, actually, I still have the chills about it. And they were all looking at me. I felt terrible. I felt terrible about them, about the fact that we were closing, they would not have a job. I felt terrible about potentially them getting sick and so on. I didn’t know, but I was very affected by delivering this bad news to them. And, at the end, they came to me, and they — many of them hugged me, which they shouldn’t have done, actually, when you think about it. But they came and they said, we’re going to be fine. Make sure that you are OK. They, basically, were supporting me in this difficult decision. And it felt good a little bit for a few seconds, but, really, really, I was thinking of them. And the rest of the night, we were serving clients. And I couldn’t help thinking about closing the doors and having people unemployed.

MARTIN: And I saw that you were raising money for them, that you had a campaign, like a GoFundMe campaign for them. How did that go?

RIPERT: So, we did have a GoFundMe campaign. And we raised more than $226,000. They actually — as we speak, this week, we are cutting the checks and they’re going to receive about $1,200 each, more or less, which is already something that we are very happy about. And we’re trying to find some solutions to have some more help for them for the summertime.

MARTIN: I want to ask you about an issue that’s been very much in the news, which is that it seems that a number of the large restaurant chains received large sums from the release act that was passed by the Congress and signed by the president. Did you get any of that, any of that money under the CARES Act?

RIPERT: Yes, we did apply, and we did get some money. And I believe we going to have to give back that money to the government.

MARTIN: You’re going to have to give it back, or you’re choosing to give it back?

RIPERT: We are still waiting to take a decision. And I will tell you why we believe we will have to give it back. It is because that money is a loan. And to have this loan forgiven, you will have to rehire 75 percent of your employees by June 30. We had 180 employees. We are not even open. It doesn’t look like we are going to open in May. We may not even open in June. If we open in June or in May, we will need only 40 employees. And, therefore, this loan doesn’t apply to my restaurant, but to 99.99 percent of all the restaurants in America. We cannot rehire entirely our teams by June 30 and spend 75 percent of that money just on payroll, especially in big cities like New York, where we have to spend a lot of money on the rent. We have to spend a lot of money on many other aspects of the restaurant. So, this loan that looks pretty good for restaurants, when you think about it, is absolutely not practical and not well-thought at all. And whoever has the money, keep in the bank for now just in case, but my friend restauranteurs and myself know very well that it’s not made for us.

MARTIN: Who does it work for? National chains, or who does it work for?

RIPERT: Well, it definitely doesn’t work for a lot of independent restaurants, most of the independent restaurants. National chains, depending on what they are doing, if you have takeout, it is the nature of your business or, for instance, McDonald’s, if you can go with your car and pick up your burgers and the fries — and I don’t want to necessarily focus on that brand, but I’m using them as an example — for them, it’s the same amount of employee as before, basically. They can rehire 75 percent of their work force. But the little guys and the restaurants like us, again, like I mentioned previously, we cannot do that. So it’s not well-designed. Also, it’s something else that we haven’t addressed, but all the restaurants, most of the restaurants in America have business interruption insurance. Those insurances are not giving one penny to any of the restaurants that paid for years and years and years their insurance.

MARTIN: And why not? Why are they not giving out any of these payouts? It would seem like this is what it’s designed for.

RIPERT: It’s all — exactly. What is it designed for, right? So we are asking the government — and I have some friend chefs who even had a call with the White House and said, this is not right. We are paying business interruption insurance, and now it’s always a little line here and there that prevents the insurance to pay the restaurant when they need it. And we are waiting for — to see what’s going to happen. We — when I say we, many, many, many restauranteurs have come together and are even doing lawsuits against the insurances, but nothing is happening.

MARTIN: You’re saying that the mechanisms that already exist to address these issues aren’t being used. Well, who do you hold responsible for that?

RIPERT: I don’t know who’s responsible for that. What I know is that the insurances have decided not to pay.

MARTIN: Chef, can I just pivot to you for a minute? I mean, you have been in this field since you were 15 years old. You went to culinary school, if I — do I have this right, when you were 15 years old. This has been — this isn’t really a job for you.

RIPERT: It’s a lifestyle.

MARTIN: Yes. And have you — I don’t know if you have even had the idea that there might not be the work that you dedicated your life to doing. I mean, you were in New York during 9/11. You have seen other crises before. This is different. It is not happening in just one place in one time. This is everywhere. So, have you thought that perhaps the work that you have dedicated your life to might change fundamentally?

RIPERT: I’m thinking that it’s going to be very uncertain, until we find a medication or a vaccine. And it looks like it will take time. It’s going to take maybe a year or maybe a bit more than that. For one year, we’re going to be struggling and we are going to have to be creative. We are going to reopen our business at one point, for sure. And we will have, unfortunately, to run probably with a smaller team than what we had when we closed. And we’re going to have to be very flexible, with some limitations that we may have, for the well-being of everyone. And we will obviously follow those directions. I’m talking about social distancing, wearing masks and gloves and so on and cleaning up all the time. So, that will be the very immediate future, in a sense. But I know that, in a year from now, in two years from now, after probably or so the financial recession, potential depression, we will see life coming back to a certain normality.

MARTIN: There are some people who might be listening to our conversation that say, well, restaurants are a luxury. People should eat at home. What do you say to that? Why do you think restaurants matter?

RIPERT: Well, restaurants matter because it’s millions and millions of people working in our industry. Our industry also brings billions of revenues, contributes tremendously to the industry. We are supporting the farmers and the fishermen, and we are supporting many people down the line, right? We are all interconnected. And restaurants are part of the life of cities as well, in the country, same thing. It is not just going to nourish yourself, but it is about a lifestyle, about being able to socialize, about the life of the cities or the centers where we live or the community where we live. Restaurants are a big part of that. And when restaurants are closed, everybody’s suffering from that, like I said before, from the little farmer to the big company who delivers to everyone in the neighborhood, or to the landlords, to — everybody’s feeling the impact of not having the restaurants open. We are part of the life of the people a lot.

MARTIN: Before we let you go, how are you doing?

RIPERT: Well, I’m doing pretty fine, considering. I feel myself very lucky. My family didn’t get sick. I didn’t get sick. I have food on the table every day. This is — it is remarkable when I look at how much suffering it is out there, just that, by itself, makes me feel very privileged.

MARTIN: You’re being a bit modest because, I happen to know that you have also been personally helping to distribute food, volunteering at a group called City Harvest, which takes, as I understand it, food that hasn’t been — still good food that hasn’t been utilized by the restaurants helps to redistribute it to people who need it. I know you have been personally — you and your wife, I understand, have been personally volunteering with them.

RIPERT: City Harvest is important, because City Harvest is the biggest food organization in the world and the oldest, and is dedicated to feed many New Yorkers. Right now, as you can imagine, we are more than three million people who are in need of food. City Harvest has delivered millions of pounds, and this year, will deliver probably 68 million pounds of food to people in need through mobile markets in all the boroughs, and delivering to the food pantries. And this is important as well. So I’m helping City Harvest as much as I can. I also try to inspire people to cook at home with the limited resource that they have, finding ingredients that are not necessarily expensive or exotic, something that is found anywhere. And I’m making those small videos on my Instagram and Twitter on social media to inspire, but mostly to help people to do something at home to nourish their family.

MARTIN: What’s been the favorite thing you have cooked so far in one of your videos?

RIPERT: Well, as soon as you touch pasta, that’s it. And I made pasta with tomato sauce not too long ago, and it was a frenzy on social media about that pasta. But I teach people how to cut a roasted chicken, because a lot of people don’t really know how to do it properly. And it’s very simple and basic. So I did that a couple of days ago. I tried to have balance in between vegetables and meat protein and so on. So this is what I try to do on my social media platform.

MARTIN: I don’t want to gloss past the fact, chef, that has not been an easy couple of years for you. Your lost your very dear friend Anthony Bourdain just a couple of years ago. And this is, you know, suffering upon suffering. Can you help us understand how are you seeing your way through this? Like, what’s your North Star? What’s keeping you going and feeling that there will be light at the end of this?

RIPERT: My faith and my will and the understanding that I have — the little understanding that I have about life, that nothing is permanent, everything is impermanent. And, therefore, you go through life with some good times and some very challenging times. And you mentioned Anthony Bourdain. And, as you can imagine, it was extremely emotional for me to lose my friend. I have seen many bad things in my life, and I have experienced a lot of good time. And, again, I know that nothing lasts forever. And during this time in this life, I think by having compassion and trying to help people makes you stronger. It gives you a strength that you may not have if you are more centric about yourself and feel bad about yourself. So, in this difficult time right now what — and in all time, actually, what I really, really strive for is to think about others and try to make a difference, try to have an impact, obviously, positive difference and positive impact. And that makes me go through all the obstacles that I encounter in life.

MARTIN: Chef Eric Ripert, thank you so much for speaking with us. And I do hope we will speak again in better times. hand good luck.

RIPERT: Thank you very much. We will have some better times, I promise. Thank you.