从坏孩子到好老板：大厨张大卫变形记

    雄心勃勃的多伦多项目在如火如荼地展开，而张大卫却变得更加宽容和稳重。他的朋友和同事都说他在不断改变，实际上，张大卫自己的言行也表明，他正在从一个“坏男孩”蜕变成一位优秀的老板。这或许也是因为他别无选择。张大卫在他的烹饪书中写道，大厨马尔科•卡诺拉曾嘲笑他是“光杆司令”。如今，要想掌控多伦多项目的进展，还得保证遍布各地的餐饮帝国延续发展的势头，他必须更多依赖自己的团队。

    事实上，张大卫也表示，如今最让他兴奋的，除了美食，便是人事工作。他说：“如果我的厨师、经理或者副厨师长非常糟糕，以前，我可能会直接炒他们的鱿鱼，或者朝他们大发脾气。但现在，我意识到，如果我是正确的，我就应该能与他们进行沟通，直到他们理解。我们能不能把他们变成宝贵的资产？这些都与我以前的做法截然不同，以前，我肯定会大发雷霆。现在，我不能再这么做，因为我没有那么多精力。”精力不够的说法实在可疑，不过他的同事们也说，他们确实发现他的禅功大有进步。托西说：“大卫比以前平静了许多。他在处理某些事情的时候，更加现实。”

    托西和张大卫的其他同事还说，他正在逐步承担起领导者的责任。托西称：“大卫在当老板与保持自我和拥有愿景之间，实现了很好的平衡，但他也知道该在什么时候激励员工，说：‘不要再让我进行指导；别把我当你们的老板看待。’他现在变得非常擅长读懂人心。”《福桃》杂志的因格称张大卫是“一名极具天赋的领导者”，他“在培养他的同事。”而福桃餐厅的员工也开始接受张大卫的部分理念：例如，你可以不断做加法，却无法做减法。这是烹饪中的一条经典法则——一旦在菜中加入了某种配料，就没法取出来。这条法则同样适用于一家日益公司化、永远无法恢复到最初状态的企业。

    发展问题是让张大卫焦虑的主要原因。他说：“我正在逐步学会如何在不降低品质的前提下，在更大规模上进行多元化经营。当然，任何一家连锁餐厅都会有这样的期望，但我们不想将此作为我们的目标。虽然我不喜欢‘连锁餐厅’的说法，但我们在很大程度上已经是一家公司了。许多人会认为，连锁餐厅的每家餐厅都不会很好，我们怎么做才能扭转这种观点？”这确实是一个值得思索的问题，因为福桃正在向更多新的领域挺进，比如可能推出的厨房设备。此外，运营餐厅的道德良知也让他备受煎熬，因为他不知道该如何让福桃更加可持续和更加环保，但又不能华而不实。他说：“让我困扰的是，如何将有机食品和可持续性作为销售更多产品的主要方式。”

    这些问题让他困扰不已。托西说：“大卫和我们都有一些神经质，我们总在考虑：‘这个已经卖完了吗？’‘我想把它卖光吗？这又意味着什么？我们是不是想开500家面吧？我们是不是想让福桃猪肉包成为家喻户晓的品牌？’”

    目前，为了缓解自己的恐惧情绪，张大卫竭力地斟酌各种机会，比如一家餐厅、一个菜单项目、一名新员工，或者他在福桃实验室里试验的开心果味噌。虽然承担着巨大压力，但张大卫依然斗志昂扬。他说：“能让那些从不关心美食的人开始关注美食，这个过程让我非常着迷。”

    译者：刘进龙/汪皓

    Along with the ambitious Toronto project has come a softer, mellower Chang. His friends and associates say he's changed, and indeed, Chang's own reflections suggest that he's becoming less of a bad boy and more of a boss. It could be because he doesn't have a choice. To get a handle on the Toronto scene and ensure the continued success of his far-flung empire, Chang—who recounts in his cookbook how chef Marco Canora teasingly called him an "army of one"—now has to rely much more on his team.

    In fact, Chang says that what most excites him right now, apart from food, is staffing. "If I have a really bad cook or a bad manager or bad sous-chef, I previously would have fired them or lost my temper," he says. "But now I realize that if I'm so right, then I should be able to communicate it so clearly that they get it. Can we make them an asset? It completely breaks how I used to do it, which was to explode in temper. I can't do that anymore. I don't have the energy." The claim of low energy is dubious at best, but colleagues say they have noticed his new level of Zen. "Dave is a little calmer. He's more realistic in the way he deals with certain things," says Tosi.

    Tosi and others who work with him also say he is coming into his own as a leader. "Dave has this great balance of being a boss and having an ego and a vision, but also knowing when to push someone and say, 'Stop asking me for guidance; stop treating me as your boss,' " she says. "He's become really good at reading people." Ying, of Lucky Peach, calls Chang "a savvy leader" who "cultivates the people he works with." And the Momofuku staff has started to adopt some Chang-isms: One of them is that while you can always add, you can't take away. It's a classic mantra in cooking—once an ingredient goes in you can't take it out—but here it applies to an enterprise that is growing more and more corporate, and can never go back to the way it was.

    The question of growth is a great source of anxiety for Chang. "I'm grasping with how you do something on a large scale with multiple operations and not have quality decrease," he says. "That's certainly the expectation of a chain restaurant, but that's not necessarily our goal. And I hate to say 'chain restaurant,' but we're sort of a corporation now. How do we defy that concept, where people assume each restaurant can't be good?" It's a fair question now that Momofuku is sprouting new limbs, like a potential line of kitchen equipment. He also agonizes over the moral conscience of running a restaurant, wondering how to make Momofuku sustainable and eco-friendly, but not in a showy manner. "What bothers me," he says, "is using organic and using sustainability as a way to basically sell more stuff."

    These issues eat away at him. "The neurotic nature is always making Dave, and all of us, wonder, 'Is this selling out?' " says Tosi. " 'Do I want to sell out, and what does that even mean? Do we want 500 Noodle Bars? Do we want the pork bun to be a household name?' "

    For now, Chang is mitigating his fears by painstakingly weighing every opportunity, whether it's a restaurant, a menu item, a new hire, or the pistachio miso he is experimenting with in the Momofuku lab. "It's fascinating to me, people that don't care about food," he says, still crazily ambitious. "I want them to care."