Shaun's turns two
Richard Blais
How long have you known Shaun? Oh for years. For as long as I’ve been in Atlanta. I’ve been here for seven or eight years. I can’t really keep track any more. At least seven years. Possibly eight.
This weekend you’re going to be at the Taste of Atlanta. I am. How do you know all of this stuff?
At Metromix, food is kind of our thing. So what made it important to be a part of this? I’m honored that he asked me to be involved with it. He’s my favorite designer chef. This place really is like the spirit of a chef. You hear the word chef-driven but it’s kind of hard to have it chef-driven when it’s inside a larger corporation or a company and like this is chef-driven. This is Shaun’s house. It’s got this sort of family vibe to it. You come out to support a chef-driven concept that’s been open for two years now. It means a lot so I was just glad he asked me to be a part of it.
Now you’re working on a burger concept. I have Flip opening up in a few weeks, over in West Midtown. It will be open [around] the third week of November or first week of December.
Were you happy to be able to represent what is happening in Atlanta on Top Chef? I’ll be real candid with you. What sucks about the rest of the country, most of them really don’t know what we have going on here. They don’t really respect the Atlanta culinary scene. We’re inside of the bubble so we see it. We see these great restaurants. It’s a happening place but the rest of the country really doesn’t so like for me to go on that show, especially like meeting the other cast members and they’re from New York and San Francisco and all of these giant culinary cities. Most of them were like ‘oh we don’t have to worry about Atlanta. Oh there’s nothing going on in Atlanta.’ We’re never going to be New York. We’re never going to be San Francisco. But we’re not that far away from being right there, in that sort of league.
