Chef Profile: Michael Schwartz
Michael Schwartz & friend.
The Chef: With Michael Schwartz of Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink, in Miami, the accolades just keep on pouring in. First, he was honored with the James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef: South in 2010, followed up by the publication of his cookbook Michael’s Genuine Food: Down to Earth Cooking for People Who Love to Eat. He’s also in high demand on the food festival circuit. Surprisingly, he doesn’t travel with his knives, preferring instead to borrow those belonging to other chefs. “As long as it’s sharp,” he says, “I can work with it all day.”
The Toolbox: “I have two beautiful Japanese foam-padded briefcases with cutouts for my knives,” he says, though he uses it more for storage than for portability.
The Tools: Other chefs scoff and tease, but Schwartz loves his Joyce Chen cooking scissors. “I used to make jewelry, and while they work well for cutting sheets of silver, they’re also great kitchen shears; in fact, they’re a little more delicate and precise.” He also keeps a sharkskin grater on hand — “for that rare occasion when we get fresh wasabi in” — and pointy fine chopsticks for finishing and plating. “I try not to put so much into my tools because they disappear,” he adds…speaking of which…
The Tool That Grew Legs: A big-handled carbon duck knife. “Everyone used it,” he lamented. “It held lots of memories for me of being humiliated and growing early in my career.” The blade was only four or five inches long, it was very pointy, and the handle was more suitable for a chef’s knife, but oh, how he loved it.
A Tool That Inspires Him: “Every time I open my knife kit, I’m inspired,” he says. “Whenever I see my salmon knife, I’m inspired to do something new with salmon.”
His You’re Kidding, Right? Tool: “I use blue painters tape to label everything,” he says. “I go through a couple of rolls of tape a day, but it has to be a certain brand, only 3M. Professional label systems suck because they don’t peel off easily.” In fact, to expand his empire in the future, Schwartz wants to introduce a product line of labels for chefs that look exactly like a torn piece of painters tape.
His Holy Grail Tool: “I want to have space in the kitchen for a bandsaw,” he says. “We get grass-fed beef from a ranch outside Sarasota, and we have a cleaver, hacksaw and a Cryovac machine, but my holy grail is to have the space for these so they don’t have to be moved around and so we can add a bandsaw to the mix.”
Final Words: “Sometimes, people worry more about their tools than their food,” he says. “You can spend 30 minutes sharpening your knives, but if your station and work is in the weeds, what good does it do?”
