Q & A with Jordan Kahn, Part 2: The Nature of Criticism and Why Red Medicine Kicked Out the LA Times

By Andrew Froug Thu., Jul. 7 2011 at 8:00 AM

A. Froug

Chef Jordan Kahn in the Red Medicine kitchen

At the end of the first part of our interview with Jordan Kahn of Red Medicine, he was explaining that Vietnamese cuisine fits his culinary philosophy because he isn't interested in making "a big, sweet fucking rich bomb. A big ass molten chocolate cake or a giant bowl of pudding. " Check back later for the recipe from Red Medicine. Your version won't look quite as good, but if it makes you feel better, neither will ours.

In the second part of our interview, Kahn discusses food criticism in the social media age and explains what exactly happened when his restaurant booted out then-anonymous LA Times restaurant reviewer S. Irene Virbila and posted her photo online. He also tells us that he'd like to meet Virbila sometime. Did we just move one step closer to reconciliation?

Squid Ink: You spend all this time on these dishes, when you have someone like S. Irene Virbila who maybe doesn't appreciate your thinking, is that where that whole event came from? Can you give us your side of how that all happened?

Jordan Kahn: I don't necessarily want to get into because it was not meant to be a stunt for publicity or anything. I want people to come here and know that we work really, really hard to make every guest that comes to our door really happy. It's not driven by ego. It's not driven by money for me. I want the restaurant to make money so that I can pay our cooks and we can pay our vendors. I have no interest in being rich. Ever. The food world is tricky these days: the internet, Twitter, Facebook and all these things. Everybody's a critic and says things without realizing what it does to other people.

I get this a lot, "Any artist who puts his stuff up is gonna be subject to criticism." And it's entirely true, but the main difference is that the artist paints for himself and hopes other people appreciate it and understand it. A chef cooks for you. And hopes you like it. So when you hate it, it destroys us a lot more inside.

And when someone says really harsh and cruel things, they don't understand the chain of how it affects people. It doesn't just affect the chef. It affects his cooks. It affects their families. It affects their families.

You know, when Irene wrote her review of XIV, she said really, really terrible things about me, and I remember, I was at home and it was the first day off I had taken off since we had opened. It was like five months in. I read it, and I looked at my girlfriend at the time, and I said, "How am I supposed to face my cooks tomorrow and tell them that everything's gonna be okay and what they do is important?" They should be proud of what they make.

People thrive on negative criticism and they enjoy writing negative things. "Oh, this movie was shit." Or the best are commenters on Eater. They're the fucking best. [Kahn holds up the water glass he's drinking from] Someone just writes "Oh Jordan made this glass himself. We're gonna show it." [He makes typing motions.] "This looks like shit. I hate everything about him. Fuck you."

Where does this come from? People are entitled to do that, but when someone has a voice in such a public manner, it's really mean, you know? I didn't want to put my guys through that. I didn't want to put myself through that. I don't know how I would have reacted.

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Red Medicine

8400 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, CA

Category: Restaurant

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Andrew Froug, food criticism, Jordan Kahn, LA TImes, Red Medicine, S. Irene Virbila, Yelp

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Zeke

Red Medicine is great, maybe the best restaurant to open in L.A. this year, but XIV was fucking awful, especially the desserts. You take the hit, and you move on. Fussiness is not a virtue.

Bill Esparza

Jordan Kahn=Special Snowflake Syndrome.That's brilliant.

Jordan Kahn lacks wordly experience, and it shows in his cooking and delicate personality .Maybe Jordan should see the world, and learn how life really is outside the kitchen,perhaps then he might not be so worried about a few negative comments and would stop taking himself so seriously. I would suggest starting with Vietnam.

Dude, we all work hard, some even harder than chefs, and cooks, and we all receive criticism.If your still proud of your work after an unfavorable remark, make no adjustments,stick to your guns.

And that video of the croissant deconstruction?It's about the most uninteresting thing I could imagine. Jordan Kahn is my new favorite comedian.

I hear that Jordan also criticizes other chefs around town.Didn't they also mean to cook it that way? Grow some skin.

Ascattergood

You guys are hilarious. Regardless of how we all come down on this subject, I do think we need a new category on this blog: Special Snowflake Syndrome. Okay with you, Dave?

Amy

Dave Lieberman

Go for it!

Irene Virbila's original review of XIV. http://articles.latimes.com/20... for reference. She criticizes the execution and flavor of two desserts and says Kahn (the pastry chef) is "trying too hard to top what came before." That's it. That's all. She does not say "terrible things" about him.

The dread of criticism is the death of genius. William Gilmore Simms

Gfron1

He gets it just right. I've never met a chef or cook or server in the fine food world that wakes up in the morning and says, "I can't wait to serve shit tonight." And yet, the critical world feels obliged to bash a restaurant ignoring the concept of taste. If you don't like it that doesn't mean its bad! If you want a restaurant geared to please everyone then go to Applebees. If you want something unique and special then go to a place like Red Medicine and know that you may not find everything to your personal tastes.

Hatebeast

KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN

Dave Lieberman

I've been trying to distill my disdain for the attitude represented in the answers here into something concise, and the only thing I can come up with is the trite phrase, "Special Snowflake Syndrome".

First of all, the assumptions about what Virbila would have thought are ridiculous; Kahn has clearly spent a long time playing that scenario out in his head and refining it until he imagines the set of her thoughts that makes him look best. Second, his black-and-white view of taste is bizarre; if someone finds a dessert precious or overwrought, they must therefore just want a "big bowl of fucking pudding with a giant spoon so I can force it into my mouth faster, and that's what dessert is supposed to be." Really? There's no possibility of shades of meaning between those two extremes?

I'm trying to figure out how exactly Kahn wants criticism against his restaurant to be worded. Not that anyone has the least interest in complying with it, but it'd be interesting to find out what kind of intimation that he does not, in fact, run a perfect kitchen would least bruise his fragile sensibilities.

Food criticism was in existence long before Red Medicine and will be in existence long after Red Medicine. If Kahn can't learn to take criticism—whether from professional critics or from Yelpers—he is in for a completely unnecessary emotional roller-coaster ride, and his goal of pleasing all people ("When people think of Red Medicine, that shouldn't come up. I hope they say, 'It's a really good restaurant that has great food, and the people that work there and the people behind it really believe in what they do.'") is laudable but impossible.

Gooblygah

"The dish was perfect as it was"

Right, because this one chef is perfect. He's not striving for perfection (ie., perhaps Keller or Trotter), he just is. And no one's allowed to think otherwise because the chef's an insecure megalomaniac?

Note: no F bomb usage, no food criticism, no line cook was fired in the making.