Pon de ReFlay

Q&A: Bobby Flay

by Drew Lazor

Noah Kalina

All of a sudden, there are three Iron Chefs holding it down in Philly — our very own Jose Garces, with six restaurants; Masaharu Morimoto, with his eponymous Stephen Starr landmark; and now Bobby Flay, who opened his fifth Bobby's Burger Palace (BBP) location in the Radian (3925 Walnut St.) on Tuesday. We caught up with the celeb chef earlier this week; for more, see Meal Ticket and Feeding Frenzy.

How do you describe the BBP concept?

To me, this is a very American concept. The burgers are flavored [based on] different regions of America, almost sort of obvious places in America. And to me it's a way of bringing what great ingredients this country has and putting them on a burger. [Check out the full menu.]

What about Philly appealed to you? 

I love Philadelphia. I come here a lot, and it’s pretty close to New York — proximity is important to us. We only have a handful of these, so we want to be able to get to them as often as possible. Philly’s our first real city, actually — all the rest of them are in suburbs. I love Philadelphia, it’s a really good food town. The people in Philadelphia have always been really warm to me ... the chefs here have always been very supportive, so it’s a place that I really like. The people here are really gutsy. They tell you what they want, and that’s a good thing.

Did Morimoto or Garces advocate for you to come here?

I asked them a couple questions. [They both] just said, "Look, Philly's a great food town. Just do your thing and people will get into it."

You're offering a Philadelphia burger with Cheez Whiz on it. What's your personal experience with Whiz?

I only [eat] it when I come here. When I order a cheesesteak, I always get Whiz. You can’t come to Philly and have a Philly Burger and not offer Whiz.

Have you tried other Philly burgers? There are lot of signature burgers here in the city.

I haven’t, and I’ve done that purposely. There’s lots of great burgers out there. The one thing I don’t want to be is influenced by anyone else’s stuff. There are particular things about the burgers that we do here that are important to me, and I think that they are successful in getting people to crave them. That’s really important. As a chef, I think about a lot of things — flavor, texture. I think about how it works as a sandwich, since for me it’s a quintessential sandwich. I only want to be our burger.

What style of burger can be found at Bobby's Burger Palace?

They’re 6 ounces, and we don’t season them with anything other than lots of kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper to create a crust. ... To me, it becomes about the ingredients. They’re incredibly fresh, what we put on top of them.

What is this "crunchified" thing we keep hearing about?

[It's] very simply thin, crisp potato chips on any burger for free. And that’s my thing as a cook, I want people to have a contrast of texture. ... The reason I got the idea was because I would get, like, a cheeseburger with extra American cheese, and the cheese would be sort of dripping down and would drip onto my potato chips, and those were the ones that I would eat first. So I said, "Fuck it, why not just put them on a burger?"

Do you have a personal favorite off your menu?

I get the L.A. Burger [avocado relish, watercress, cheddar and tomato] crunchified pretty often. If I was going to order myself, I'd probably get an L.A. Burger crunchified, a side of fries and a pistachio shake.

Get any flak from New York for opening up your first urban Burger Palace in Philly?

My wife [actress Stephanie March] and my friends and my family are driving me crazy because they love these burgers and love going here, but there’s not one in New York. So I may actually succumb to the pressure at some point soon to open one in New York. But I wanted to try the concept outside of New York. ... If I do something in New York, the microscope goes on it … I just wanted to open a fun burger place. And that's been what we’ve been doing so far. We love it.

(drew.lazor@citypaper.net)