Expertise: Chef/Owner of the legendary restaurant The Quilted Giraffe. Now a consultant for owners of trophy real estate. Side specialty in jewelry design and dresses made out of unusual materials. Interior design projects featured in Metropolitan Home and The New York Times.

Location: New York

Interests: Design, architecture, auction finds, beautiful things, beautiful women.

Background: College pre-med student who went to law school on a whim. Thinking I was a hippie, I moved to a small college town near Woodstock and specialized in getting students off on the basis of illegal search and seizure grounds. Opened a restaurant for “fun” and started cooking when I thought I could do better than the chef. The Quilted Giraffe became a NYTimes four star restaurant and pioneered many of the concepts that are current trends in the industry.

Favorite meal: The last one I cooked at my restaurant. Having done that almost every night nonstop for 18 years, one can understand why.

Recent purchase: Most of the contents of the art studio of a talented yet not very well known artists.

Hidden talent: Wield a mean can of spray paint with which I do large scale portraits.

Book/Film recommendation: Modernist Cuisine by Nathan Myhrvold’s opus on cooking.

Restaurant recommendation: The restaurant I promised never to talk about, they don’t want more customers, it's somewhere down a long dark alley in Kyoto.

If I had $20, I’d...: Give it to an overweight kid on the street as a reward for trying to go a whole week without fast food French fries.

Transformative travel experience: Europe on $5/day when you could actually get by and have a nice mean on that amount which i did on my honeymoon.

Favorite neighborhood: Near by Chelsea Market and Eataly.

Dream holiday: Two months doing something spiritual in the Far East. Attempted twice but something always came up to keep me from going.

If I could solve one problem, it would be: Traffic jams. I believe that wave theory presents the answer and solution to solving traffic light and expressway slowdowns.

I wish people cared more about: Being honest.

Recent aha! moment: When I figured out why I am attracted to a certain type of woman.

The world would be a better place if: The rule of law was universally observed.