World Renowned Chef Daniel Boulud On Cooking With Time

Photo Credit: Donnelly Marks

Photography: Donnelly Marks

Grooming: Jo Franco

Shot on location at Restaurant DANIEL

For every great chef, the art of cuisine and the art of watchmaking go hand in hand. Time is of the essence to every action that takes place inside the kitchen—especially one as complex and revered as 2-Michelin-starred Chef Daniel Boulud’s eponymous Restaurant DANIEL, residing in New York’s Upper East Side.

Here, every second counts to win over the palettes of diners and critics alike who have frequented the iconic destination for 25 years, as perfection is key in every Daniel Boulud kitchen. Serving as a focal point of the storied kitchen—which has been photographed in magazines and appeared on hit TV shows for decades—is a prominent Hublot kitchen clock, which was gifted to him by the great Jean-Claude Biver, the previous CEO of the luxury Swiss watch brand. But on any given day or night of the week, you can also find Chef Boulud working and overseeing his flawless kitchen with a gleaming timepiece on his wrist, which rotates often depending on his mood.

If you’re familiar with the chef, there are a few things you know about him: 1. He is a perfectionist; 2. He is an artist; and 3. He has a deep appreciation for the finer things in life. That may be the rarest ingredients in a kitchen, a beautiful vintage wine, a collectible piece of artwork, a covetable sports car or what we’d like to focus on today—a beautiful timepiece.

Photo Credit: Donnelly Marks

“My passion for collecting watches started when I was about 12 years old,” he shares with us as we sit admiring his growing collection in his office—also known as the famed Skybox at DANIEL, which overlooks the kitchen. “For my communion as a little Catholic boy, I got my first gold watch—it was a really stylish watch back then. And after, I had a Pierre Cardin watch because the brand was so avant-garde in design and so futuristic at the time—I loved it. [Cardin] had this amazing watch with a beautiful metal frame around it that was very sleek. This was when I was 16. That was my first real watch.”

Since then, his watch collection has grown in size and value, consisting of ultra-luxurious brands including Rolex, Hublot, Audemars Piguet, Panerai and more.

Photo Credit: Donnelly Marks

“I currently have about 25 watches in my collection. Within those pieces, some of them are very sentimental, and some of them are gifts through friendships and real personal connections. Some are because I travel and love to have a watch with two time zones on it, like this one,” he says, pointing to the Panerai resting on the table in front of him. He picks it up and admires it with a grin on his face.

“This is an amazing Panerai. I can put two time zones on it and wind it for a week, so that’s very useful when I travel. That’s the perfect travel watch. When I’m in the kitchen, I’m conscious of what I wear because it has to be wearable while I cook—light and easy to move around with. That’s why this Hublot is perfect,” he shares as he admires the Hublot timepiece on his wrist.

“It has everything I need on it, and you can read the time easily,” he explains. “I also love the shape and color—it’s white against my jacket, which looks nice together.”

Photo Credit: Donnelly Marks

“When I am moving around, I look for a watch that I don’t necessarily feel on my wrist. Like this Rolex Daytona [points to a watch on the table],” Boulud notes. “I never feel this one, and I’m never conscious of it while I’m working. Rolexes are always easy to wear, durable, resistant—unbreakable, almost. Sometimes in the kitchen, you are in hot zones, cold zones, steam or underwater. When you’re in these environments, you need something that doesn’t bother you and that you don’t need to remove.”

He also values the concept of collecting timepieces to pass onto the next generation, already thinking about his own mini-me.

“My son looks at my watch all the time and says, ‘When am I going to have one?’” he laughs. “So that will take him a while, but I plan on passing these down to him. He knows that.”

Boulud continues to take us through some of the highlights of his collection, as he touches each one and looks at it with a smile on his face, remembering the fond moments that are associated with each watch.

Photo Credit: Donnelly Marks

“This Audemars Piguet is also one of my favorites,” he says. “It has an unassuming face, yet it is actually quite complex and beautiful. It’s blue and brown, which is typically a more rare color combination. Usually, the colors are straightforward. This is another watch that is resistant in the kitchen. It’s a chef’s watch for sure.

“And this Batman Rolex is amazing. It’s the latest one I’ve purchased, and I love it very much. It’s hard to get right now. I probably could have sold it 10 times already. Everybody is asking me for it. It’s not even that expensive of a watch in relative terms, it’s just very hard to get. And this one is a classic, also,” he shares as he picks up a white-faced Rolex Daytona.

“I think it’s from the late ’70s or early ’80s,” he says. “This was a sentimental gift to me from the parents of a good friend of mine who passed away. They wanted me to have something to remind me of him. So whenever I look down, I think of him, which is special.” 

Chef Boulud loves the beauty and complexity of watches and appreciates the details and intricacies that go into watchmaking. For him, it is the same way he sees his ingredients in the kitchen that go into making a masterful dish. As we’re shooting him, he pairs certain watches in his collection with dishes that he feels represent them—the Hublot with the Duo of Hamachi Tartare with Hawaiian Hearts of Palm, Yuzu, Koshu, Confit Shiitake, Wasabi Plankton Coulis and Ossetra Caviar; the Rolex Batman with the Braised Kona Abalone in Puff Pastry, Wild Monterey Bay Foraged Seaweed, Crushed Fingerling Potatoes and sauce “Maître d’Hôtel”; and for dessert, his Panerai with the Roasted Bartlett Pears, Gingerbread Biscuit and Chestnut Honey Ice Cream.

Photo Credit: Donnelly Marks

“Time is everything for a chef,” he explains as he runs through the steps of creating the dishes. “But the customer depends on time, too. First, when we prepare and cook the food, we need precision, and timing is everything. When the customer walks in, the time becomes very important, as well. We have to make sure that we can deliver an experience that is properly timed, and the customer never feels like we are actually looking at a clock. For every course, every move, every step—we are constantly looking at a clock and making sure we pace that properly. So in a way, we would be lost without time, for sure.”

The complexities of watchmaking and cuisine are intertwined, especially in the kitchen at DANIEL.

“Cooking is very complex,” Boulud notes. “Cuisine can be very time-consuming in preparation, and there are a lot of layers of taste and texture. Even within the most simple dish, there are a lot of hours of work behind it. I think watchmaking requires incredible patience for creating enough pieces in such a concentrated space.

Photo Credit: Donnelly Marks

“For example, I will serve pastries, and I feel that making these is very reminiscent of watchmaking, where we both can create this little jewel,” he continues. “We make Petit fours here, which require a lot of small components, and we use tweezers, so you have to be very careful where you place the ingredients and you layer the texture, color and taste. I think watchmaking is about also layering mechanisms that are so complex.”

Complexity is key for Boulud. After all, where would he be without these fine little intricacies that allow him to stand out against other chefs in the world as one of the very best? Taking a page out of Boulud’s book, the closest answer we have to achieving this perfection is patience, skill, attention to detail and of course, time.

Photo Credit: Donnelly Marks