Continuing with our series of conversations with Bay Area James Beard Award nominees, today we have Coi chef/owner Daniel Patterson on the line.
Up for a Best Chef: Pacific award, Patterson is one of this city’s newer heavy-hitters. After opening just three years ago, Coi quickly gained a reputation as one of the best restaurants in town. One of only three restaurants in town to earn two Michelin stars (along with Aqua and Michael Mina), Coi holds four stars from the San Francisco Chronicle. We caught up with the soft-spoken Patterson to grill him about the awards ceremony, his competition, and his trip to New York.
Where are you most excited to eat when you are in New York?
You know, I really haven’t put the amount of thought into this as I probably should have, since I’ve just been so busy at the restaurant. But David from Manresa made a reservation at Corton, so I’m really excited to eat there [with him].
I’m going to go to Le Bernardin, it’s been about 10 years since I’ve been there so I’m looking forward to that.
And I’m going to try to get to Eleven Madison Park, at least for lunch, so I can try a few things.
Have you been to the Beard Awards before? What do you think of the experience?
I was there in 2001, which was the last time I was nominated (along with then-business-partner Elisabeth Ramsey for Best New Restaurant). And, um, it’s very big. It’s a lot of people. And uh, vast rooms filled with swarming herds of humanity are not generally my favorite places to be, so it’s a little bit daunting for me, but I’m very excited to see some colleagues from here and some people from New York that I don’t get to see very often.
Who do you think is your biggest competition in your Beard category? Why?
Ok, let me say this up front: I don’t think cooking should be a competition. So I’m going to show up, and what happens happens. It’s of course an honor to be even nominated, but I invest zero emotional energy in thinking about who wins or doesn’t win.
If you win, how are you going to celebrate?
The same was as if I don’t win: I’m going to spend time with my wife and friends and that is the most exciting thing of all. I work almost all the time, and I don’t get enough of a chance to really socialize very much and to see my wife, so I’d have to say that’s right at the top of my list of reasons I’m excited about it.
How will having a Beard award affect your restaurant and your career?
The best thing about it, to me, is that my staff gets excited. Cooking is a collaborative process, and I think to the extent we’ve been very fortunate in getting a lot of wonderful press, and when something like this happens, I don’t see it as just me, I see it as something the restaurant shares in, so if I were to win, I would be most excited about sharing it with my staff.
