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Even as a chef's apprentice, you demonstrated culinary excellence and were the recipient of awards quite early on, do you think your talent is inherent? "No," he laughs. "I don't know, but I like the competitive side of business, but I don't do it for the sake of winning awards. It's not like swimming," he laughs, "you've gotta make a living out of this business. Awards are important, but that does not mean… I have friends who sometimes earn a lot of awards, but do they keep their business relevant? Not always easy." How do you stay relevant? "We'll open One Vanderbuilt, that keeps you relevant. I think what keeps you relevant in our business is the youth coming into the business, and how much we are motivated teaching and growing talent in the business. We have 850 employees in New York, and of that, I will say that 70% are people 30 years old. So it's good, that keeps you relevant. I'm a French chef, and I'm not going to cook Chinese tomorrow for the sake of trying to stay relevant because Chinese is fashionable today. But you definitely get inspired by, not the globalization of food, but definitely by the ethnicity of cuisine and you get inspired the way every country borrows inspiration from others." The week of our interview, Daniel received the news that his restaurants were ranked highly on Zagat. "Before the internet, before the World's 50, before many other things, there was the Zagat guide; I think they're celebrating their 40-year anniversary this year." He enlightens me with a little history about its creator, Tim Zagat. "Zagat guide is back; we are very excited. We have the most popular restaurant. We have four [restaurants] in the Top 20 out of 50. We have 4 in the Top 25. I think we have DANIEL #4 or 5. And then we have Café Boulud #10. We have Bar Boulud #24, 25? Boulud Sud #15 in New York. To me, Zagat is the quintessential New Yorker guide… We're very very proud of that." While it's a great honor to be recognized by a respected critic, like Zagat, it's even more validating when you're recognized by the people. Daniel tells me that Tripadvisor listed DANIEL as #1 for Best Restaurants (Fine Dining) in the U.S. "For what it's worth, at least we can say it wasn't politically set up." He lets out a laugh. "So that's what I think I take more pride in, knowing it's something we didn't politically work hard at trying to get. After 26 years in business and more than 30 years in New York, how do you stay relevant? By still hitting the marks," he says with a big grin. "That's what's important, Voilà!" ML Keep up with Daniel on Instagram and Twitter: @DanielBoulud; Facebook: @ChefDanielBoulud; and https://www.danielboulud.com/. "It's not about trying to stack up the achievement or the rewards, it's more about how much we enjoy this business and if you're doing it, it better be fun and make people happy with it."