Celebrity chefs share the one food they would never order in a restaurant

Celebrity chefs are known for wowing fans with the meals they cook at their famous restaurants and the recipes they share on their many television shows. But what do chefs like Bizarre Foods order for dinner when they host Andrew Zimmern or Dominique Crenn, the only female chef in the United States to receive three Michelin stars, when they go out to eat with friends?

At the Cayman Cookout, an annual food festival held at The Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman, celebrity chefs rubbed shoulders with ticket holders curious to learn more about their favorite culinary personalities. Four days of intimate waterfront cooking demonstrations, barefoot barbecues and dancing at the lobby bar broke down barriers and opened up candid conversations.

While attending Cayman Cookout, I chatted with celebrity chefs like Top Chef icon Tom Colicchio and restaurateur Daniel Boulud and asked them what they never order at restaurants because they are too partial to what they make at home. Their simple answers show that anyone can make a great meal in their own kitchen, without fancy ingredients or labor-intensive recipes. And, to make cooking celebrity chef favorites at home even easier, the masters themselves are willing to talk about how they’ve perfected dishes over the years, such as perfectly fried eggs or mouth-watering paella.

Anthony Baggio

Despite being a renowned pastry chef, Antonio Bachour’s answer was not sweet. The Puerto Rican chef shared that he never orders eggs.

“I like to make eggs,” Bachour says, adding that his favorite is a “very simple” scrambled egg with clarified butter, ham, tomatoes and onions, served with a slice of toast. The trick, Bachour says, is to beat the eggs in a separate dish and not add water or cream to make them fluffy, as many hacks suggest.

“The problem with scrambled eggs is that they often burn,” he explains, “and when I order them, they’re not yellow, they’re brown.” Bachour says this is usually because restaurants reuse pans and the eggs take on the black color of a previously burned batch.

“You want them fresh, so they’re soft and not overcooked because you lose the flavor,” he says.

Andrew Zimmer

“Caesar salad is one of the very best combinations,” Andrew Zimmer said. “But I would tell a lot of young chefs that you can open a restaurant that doesn’t have Caesar salad on the menu.”

The chef, restaurateur and TV personality says it all comes down to freshness, starting with the dressing, which, he stresses, “should be customized.”

“It shouldn’t be made twice a week with dip sticks and commercial oils,” he says, adding that at home, he uses a large wooden salad bowl that he doesn’t wash – only washes – and has had forever. He adds the egg yolks directly to the bowl, mashes some anchovies with a fork, adds lemon juice and then adds olive oil. “You don’t want to emulsify these things together because the olive oil gets bitter,” he says.

Next, he adds lettuce (he strays from the classic long-leaf lettuce, opting for a baby head of gem lettuce because it has better flavor and texture) to throw the salad and adds cheese on top. zimmern clarifies that he has nothing against long-leaf lettuce and suggests that if you’re going to use long-leaf lettuce, choose long-leaf lettuce hearts and use larger, crisper ribs.

Dominic Crean

“My mom roasts chicken with baked apples, so I’m always careful when I go to restaurants,” he says of Dominic Crenn, chef at Atelier Crenn, a three-Michelin-star restaurant in San Francisco, Calif. Crenn says roasting chicken takes time, although some recipes may suggest it.

“I don’t just put a chicken in my roasting pan and go out and walk the dog,” she says. “It’s a process-you have to watch it, you have to like it, and it totally depends on the timing of the flavors.”

Tom Colicchio

Co-founder and former executive chef of Gramercy Tavern in New York, Tom Colicchio also chooses his dishes based on nostalgia. “Sunday gravy is something I would never order,” he says of the traditional Italian-American recipe for meatballs with spaghetti in a hearty tomato sauce. “When I was growing up, we ate meatballs and macaroni …… every Sunday for our dinners.”

Colicchio says there’s nothing special about his Sunday gravy; it’s a simple dish his mother made and “something he just felt like eating at home.”

José Andrés

Even a chef as versatile as José Andrés sometimes takes it back to basics. “No one knows how to make an omelette,” he says.

The founder of World Central Kitchen jokes that the secret to success with fried eggs is “I’ll do it,” but he gives some practical tips. “Talk to the oil,” he says, meaning listen to the oil and make sure it’s heated before adding the eggs. Then, “add salt around the edges of the egg whites that are in contact with the yolk. This is where coagulation is harder to occur, and salt allows coagulation to occur quickly.”

Adrienne Chittam

“A house salad usually has the least amount of love than anything else on the menu,” says Adrienne Chittam, Top Chef runner-up and author of Sunday Best: Cooking Every Day in the Spirit of the Weekend. That’s why she only makes basic salads at home. To start, Cheatham suggests roughly chopping the lettuce and tossing it with the dressing.

“Most people don’t dress salads, but every salad needs a little salt before adding the dressing,” she stresses. Be sure to add the dressing just before serving and use half-cooked or raw, flavorful vegetables. “Raw radishes [are] yes,” she explains, “but don’t give me raw, coarse carrots; that just disrupts the eating experience.”

Eric Ripert

French chef and Cayman Cookout host, Eric Ripert, points to paella as a dish he likes to make at home. “At home in the summer,” he adds, because the typical Valencian recipe of rice, saffron, chicken and mixed seafood cooked in a shallow pan and served, “it looks simple, but it requires a lot of attention.”

Ripert also notes that you wouldn’t make paella for just one person or for as little as two people. “It’s really a dish that brings people together,” he says. “It’s very interactive and has some festive atmosphere.” Le Bernadin’s chef suggests that in addition to atmosphere, paella requires quality ingredients from the basics, such as olive oil, to rice, protein and vegetables. He notes that the quality of the pan and fire is also “essential.

Daniel Brode

“Soup,” says the French chef Daniel Brode. “I like to make soup.”

The restaurateur says the best soups are a combination of vegetables and textures. Boulud mentions spinach, fresh herbs, grains, meat or seafood, crab, shrimp or lobster as examples of the ingredients he would add. “I don’t have a recipe, I don’t know where I’m going,” he says.

Boulud also shares his love of moqueca soup. The Brazilian fish stew – made with coconut milk, chilies, fish or shrimp and served over rice – puts all of his favorite ingredients in the soup. You have to add dendê oil (a bright orange-red oil made from the fruit of the dendezeiro tree),” he suggests. …… Make the soup with some kind of je ne sais quoi.”

“I make it for my Brazilian friend,” Boulud adds, “and he says it’s better than what his wife makes.”