My Life in Meals: Chris Black

"Pizza is just such a democratic food. I don't need it to be blistered a certain way or the dough to take five hours."

Illustration by Clara Arnold

Chris Black is the co-host of the podcast How Long Gone, the founder of Done to Death Projects, and a style columnist at New York Mag's the Strategist. His writing has appeared in GQ, Vanity Fair, Air Mail, and other publications. He lives in New York City and Los Angeles.

My mom and dad don't cook. That wasn't a big thing in our household. So the first meals that I think about were probably in high school when I had my own agency to go to places that I wanted to go with my friends.

I was vegan in high school. I grew up in Atlanta and I was involved in punk and hardcore. Hardcore and veganism were uniquely tied together and animal rights were a big part of that and that's what all my friends were into and I got sucked into it. It's something I really cared about. Still, back then in the ‘90s, it was very difficult to be vegan; it was like you're eating french fries.

There was a place that we would go to before shows called Tortillas. It was a burrito place on Ponce de Leon. Rice, potatoes, hummus, guacamole – that was my first exposure to those things. There was also a vegetarian Chinese restaurant called Harmony with a funny crowd of ‘90s vegans. Lot of Rastas, guys with hand tattoos – the mix was crazy. It was the first time I'd ever really found restaurants as a place to congregate and hang out with your friends.

Atlanta's a great food city. Staple House is amazing. Kimball House is amazing. There's all these great restaurants there and I like to go to them, but you just want to go to the stuff that you grew up with, because it makes you feel good. 

I don't have a stove in my apartment. I eat out for every meal. I don't cook. It's not for me. I have too many friends that are professionals that are good at it. I don't need to start at 41. 

It's hard to go to restaurants now in New York. It's like you have to know somebody to go to a restaurant. You know what I mean? It's turned into that. Luckily, my wife and I are able to go to kind of our neighborhood spots. Balthazar. Lovely Day. Odeon.

Balthazar feels like a restaurant for tourists. I like it, but it feels different. The Odeon feels like it's for us. It's reasonable to get a table there. And I think also when Condé Nast moved in it became the canteen a little bit. I mean, obviously I romanticize that stuff more than most people – the glory days of expense account lunches and publishing. But I think that still exists a little bit at Odeon. There's celebrities and it's glamorous, but it's like a restaurant for New Yorkers.

I'm notoriously anti-tasting menu. It's too long. I don't understand four hours. I think it comes down to not drinking. If you're not doing the wine pairing, it's like, all right, what are we doing, guys? It's hour three, I don't need to be here.

Recently, however, I went to Le Bernardin with Andy Baraghani and it was such a great experience. Eric Ripert came to the table. It was just exactly what you wanted it to be, and I realized that at Le Bern it's more of an experience. I don't have some advanced incredible palate. For me, the spirit and the experience and the service and the way it felt, the way everything about it was just so dialed…that meal kind of changed my mind about tasting menus and what they can be.

We went to Chez Panisse for the first time last year. The thing that I took away from it the most, beyond the food, was the fact that we never saw a screen the entire time. All of the iPads and shit are hidden. Everything is written down. I think that's so rare nowadays. We don't go to places that aren't an iPad swiveled around for you to give a 30 percent tip. We're on our phones all day. We're on our computers all day. You're seeing a screen on the plane, at the hotel, everywhere. I think to go to a restaurant of that caliber and almost not realize what's happening until you leave and then you're like, I didn't see a screen the whole time. That made the experience different.

There's a smell that health food stores have. Like that pre Whole Foods smell. Like the local health food store that had a hot bar. I was in Alaska once doing a shoot and we went to this health food store and just one sniff and I was 15 again.

I'm a pescatarian now. I eat fish. I need the protein. I'm a big person who works out all the time. I go to Sant Ambroeus for lunch a lot. I get a salad with salmon. Or I go to Gemma for a salad with salmon. That's a common lunch for me.

There's this place in Toronto called Buca in Yorkville. It’s connected to the Four Seasons. It has this table side raw Branzino Crudo thing. It levitated me.

The gift of How Long Gone is that we get to go to the best places because Jason's [Stewart, his co-host — ed.] such a food person – he’s my shaman. He’s so knowledgeable. Whether it's Andrew Edmunds or Rita's in London, or we went to noma in Copenhagen. I think it's part of understanding a city. I think going to restaurants is a tent pole of discovery.

London’s a tough food town for me. I’m not a St. John guy. But Rochelle Canteen is amazing. I’m a big Langan’s guy. I love those restaurants.

The Ralph Lauren restaurant in Chicago has the greatest lunch scene in the world. It's just like rich Gold Coast white hair, $30 cocktails. It's the best. I go there every time I go to Chicago. Polo Bar is great, but I like the room a little better in Chicago. It’s more light, you know what I mean? Polo Bar is fun, but it feels a little bit Disney, in a good way. It's like going into a Double RL store where you're like, ‘is this a prop house?’ I mean everything is so done, and that's a compliment.

Pizza is just such a democratic food. I don't need it to be blistered a certain way or the dough to take five hours. I remember going to that restaurant Bestia years ago in LA and I ordered a pizza. They serve me the pizza and they try to tell me how to eat it and I'm like, ‘go fuck yourself, dude. I'm not eating the middle out. Like go to hell.’ An Upside slice is gonna satiate me just as much as whatever someone says the best in Tokyo is – it's still gonna make me happy.

There's restaurant in LA called Sal's. It's from Provincetown. They open in LA during the winter. It has maybe the best table bread I've ever had in my life.

A thing that got popular in restaurants is playing modern hip hop. Like, I don't want to hear Kanye West while I'm eating pasta, you know what I mean? I just don't want to hear that. 

If it's not a restaurant I know, then I want to hear about it from someone. I mean, I follow Eater and Grub Street and I read all that shit, but a personal recommendation still goes really far. We went to Australia for shows and they threw a dinner for us at this place called 10 Williams St. in Sydney and it was amazing. It was just a really special restaurant. And I think that that's also something that we're lucky to experience is that people want to take us to places, people want to help us go somewhere.