He has three stars from Michelin, four stars from the New York Times, and several restaurants, but one thing Westend Bistro’s Eric Ripert hasn’t done is cook for the president. The “Top Chef” judge, who was Carol Joynt’s lunch guest at Q&A Cafe at the Ritz-Carlton Georgetown on Thursday afternoon, revealed that it’s not that he hasn’t had the chance to cook for POTUS, but rather the right opportunity hasn’t arisen.
“They offered me the position to be the chef for the president, but that salary was so low,” he laughed.
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Ripert told Joynt that he would love to cook for the Obamas sometime, and if he were to have the first family over for dinner he would make a meal that everyone would enjoy.
“I would make paella so everybody could participate. We would have our children and could sit down and eat and celebrate,” he explained.
Much like first lady Michelle Obama, Ripert is committed to making sure Americans have healthy food on their tables. The James Beard award-winning chef has poured more than $5 million into renovating and reinventing his restaurant, Le Bernardin in New York City, and is turning it into a 21st century enterprise by making it totally sustainable.
“The way we are doing the restaurant is going to change the dynamic of the service even more. We want to be able to deliver to the client an experience that is sublime.” he said.