No.

I'm just a guy who loves to cook. The idea of the "Chef" implies that he is the leader of a brigade. I don't want a whole brigade, I want to be the one in the kitchen actually cooking the food. Too many so-called "Chefs" these days almost never set foot in their own restaurants.

I will also add that I do love to create, but I disagree with creation for its own sake. Some chefs feel like they have to change or alter the form of their indgredients in order to justify their existence. I believe our job is to get out of nature's way and present each ingredient in a pure form with as few alterations and adornments as possible.

Yes.

I cook whatever I want, hopefully also something that you want.

For me it's less important what I'm cooking and more important how I'm cooking it. I'm a big believer in the old ways, taking a bit longer to make things better. The flavors you taste here will echo the places I've lived throughout my life: Calgary, Las Vegas, Chengdu, Bangkok, Paris, and now, Nice.

Fire is cool

Seriously, fire is beautiful, bewitching, enticing and entrancing.

But more than that, humans have been cooking with wood-fire for ages, and one of the great advances of civilisation was ovens that could retain heat. Everything I cook is based on the idea of using every part of the arc of my oven's heat.

During service the oven is super hot and acts like a broiler that sizzles and chars carrots and fennel in seconds. After service the temperature goes down and I can roast and braise my pork and beef overnight. The next morning there is enough retained heat in my oven to create a perfect environment for smoking the ribs, pork belly, chicken wings and prime rib. Even our desserts are cooked in the wood-fired oven.

One dish at a time.

My wife, Aiqing, has a little speech that she repeats to every new customer, it goes a little bit like this:

Everything that you will be served, including dessert, will be cooked fresh to order in the wood-fired oven. All of the vegetables will be cut when you order, to avoid oxidization and ensure maximum freshness, and then roasted fresh in the wood-fired oven. The meats have already been smoked for six hours, but they will be brought to serving temperature slowly in the mouth of the oven. This means that we are not fast. We also serve every dish one at a time, so it's important that you order enough of each dish for the whole table and it's also important that everyone share.

It's also helpful to be aware that each dish that you order will be just that item on the plate. If you order Cauliflower then it's cauliflower on the plate. I don't add random wilted salad greens, miscellaneous vegetables, or cheap empty carbs just to make the plate look more full. Each item gets to be the star of their own plate.

Finally it's also worth knowing in advance that since every dish is prepared fresh, cooked to order, and served one at a time, you should think of each dish as a separate course in your own tasting menu. While you eat your Cauliflower, I'll be cutting and charring your Eggplant, and while you enjoy your Eggplant, I'll be freshly pressing your tortillas and searing the meat for your Wood-Fired Tacos. It's quite normal for there to be about ten minutes between dishes served, so depending on what you order a full service here can be one to two hours. But we don't try to turn tables, your table is yours for the night.

Good Question

For several reasons.

I care passionately about my customers eating my dishes at peak freshness and optimal temperature.

I genuinely believe eating in a restaurant should be a social experience, and people are much more social when they are sharing food.

I am an individual human being with only two hands. The brigade model and the Henry Ford / MacDonald's assembly line model of cooking can definitely produce more food and serve more customers in a shorter amount of time. But when they do that they start to treat food as a commodity, instead of what it really is: the source of life, and the expression of love.

Is this a part time gig?

I can see why you might think that. I am aware that when you look at Google and it say "Open from 7-9pm" you might think that we only work 2 hours a day.

Obviously that's not true, I work all day to prep the food, but you can only come and eat it in the evening. That's just how it works.

However, you might have also noticed that if you hit our reservation button you can book at 6pm, a full hour before we actually open. How is that possible?

The answer is we have realized that a lot of our customers don't want to have dinner at traditional Mediterannean hours, they prefer to eat earlier. We can accomodate that as long as you book at least a day in advance, then we'll light the fire a bit earlier and we'll be ready to cook for you at 6pm.

11 months

Almost. But by the time you read this it will have been.

Admittedly decoration took a bit longer than expected, the war in the Middle East delayed the shipping of our custom made bar by four months. I had to learn how to rock-climb so I could build a chimney in a 213 year old conduit between our building and the next. Even getting our fridges delivered into Old Nice was an unexpected nightmare.

But the response since we've opened has been incredible. We've met so many great people who share our passion for food and fire. We're slow, but we're getting faster. Luckily our customers have been very patient.