Everyone calls him "the Justin Bieber of food" because at only 11 years old he opened his first restaurant in his living room. Flynn McGarry has since carved out a huge slice of success, and today he is not losing sight of his goal.
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With a career that began when he was only 11 years old, Flynn McGarry is a true prodigy of signature cuisine beyond borders. Described by Vogue as the "Justin Bieber of food," Flynn began cooking at the age of just 10: "My parents were getting divorced and no one was making food, so I thought it would be fun to try it. Then, little by little, I fell in love with cooking," he says.
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Little Flynn then began reading cookbooks and dedicated books, among them was The French Laundry Cookbook by Thomas Keller (his Bible),as well as watching video tutorials on Youtube. With the support of his parents (consider that his father had built him a micro-kitchen workshop in his bedroom) McGarry began cooking regularly until he devised his first food club in his living room at age 11. "Being in the kitchen is the only way I knew how to grow up. I had a childhood that lasted 10 years and that was enough. I never thought that I lost the carefreeness of childhood because of work; on the contrary, I had a lot of fun during those years."
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Flynn never attended any culinary school but, nevertheless, once he finished high school at the age of 16 (from which he had withdrawn anyway, resorting to private education to devote himself to cooking) he moved to New York City, where he attended an internship at Eleven Madison Park and then opened Eureka, his pop-up restaurant, in the West Village. At Eureka, Flynn offers a 14-course tasting menu for $160, exactly like the one he made a couple of years earlier in his Los Angeles home.
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"I don't deny that there are a lot of barriers in this industry, but I ignored them: even though I knew it was difficult, I created my own space. I love to focus on research, read a lot and take advantage of everything the Web has to offer. Age influences, but it doesn´t make a difference: I have worked with great chefs, trying to extract the best from each of them," he says.
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After experiences at restaurants such as Eleven Madison Park, Geranium and the Maaemo, in 2018 McGarry opened Gem, his restaurant at 116 Forsyth Street in Manhattan, where 12 diners can enjoy a 12 to 15 course tasting menu for $200 in a 2-hour time frame. In 2021, during the pandemic months when most of the Big Apple's restaurant businesses were closed, Flynn used the time to fuel his pronounced creativity, and today he says, "I'm always at the restaurant when it opens and when it closes, doing events and traveling for inspiration. The best thing is being able to be creative with a menu or a single dish. I want people to feel at home when they visit, but at the same time I want them to try something different. The worst thing is that in New York it is a constant challenge: the problem is finding the balance in the city. I am always thinking about what will be next. I have crazy ideas that come to me on the street as I walk and I try to put them side by side with the techniques I have learned." His golden rule? "When you talk about sustainable cooking, you think about respectful products, but it's also important to treat employees well and find free time for yourself."
@AARON BENGOCHEA PHOTOGRAPHY
Source: amp.elmundo.es
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