Mr. Worldwide
DANNY GANEM • Daniel’s Steakhouse
WORK • Thursday Routine
DANNY GANEM • culinary director • Daniel’s Steakhouse
Neighborhood you work in: Coral Gables & Ft. Lauderdale
Neighborhood you live in: Kendall
It’s Thursday morning. What’s the scene at your workplace?
Our cooks are receiving at 7a. And then, right away, we start looking at all the ingredients. We get the prime rib going, so we can make this beautiful melt-in–your-mouth preparation. After that, the guys will start putting all the pots on the stove, and then we start making the stocks, sauces, all the dressings, and start setting up those stations. In the front of the house, we’re polishing, cleaning the entire restaurant, and then putting it all together. So at 1130a before we open up for lunch, everything’s ready to go.
What’s on the agenda for today?
I wake up around 530a and start looking through my emails. As soon as I get breakfast ready, I’m making sure that Ft. Lauderdale and Coral Gables are ready to go. When I’m in the car, that’s my time to talk to all the vendors and start nagging on pricing, making sure what they have is in season. We start talking with the farmers to see what they’re gonna have in the near future. Then when I get to the restaurant, I’m talking to my team. There are many cooks that have been working with me for 12 years, eight years, six years. It’s a family approach.
Any restaurant plans today, tonight, this weekend?
I live in Kendall, so one of my favorite restaurants is a small Japanese restaurant called Fujiya. It’s run by a father and daughter and whenever you go there, you feel at home. All my fish purveyors sell to him, so I know what they’re getting. I live around Finka, so that’s another great restaurant. And Vice City Pizza. My out of towners, I take ‘em to Sanguich.
How about a little leisure or culture?
I like art a lot. Being a chef, plating your recipes is art, so when I go around the neighborhood and see different artists putting up artwork, I’m influenced. I try to see the galleries in Wynwood and the Design District. I also like the museums, like the Rubell Museum and Superblue.
Any weekend getaways?
I look into airline tickets and I go to New York, Washington DC, or Chicago, which is like a three-hour trip. There’s some that arrive at like 10 o’clock at night, on Saturday night, and I’m there Saturday night, Sunday, Monday, then I come back really early on Tuesday, back at work. It’s super cheap, you can do it for like $198.
What was your last great vacation?
We just came back from France. I try to go to Paris at least every other year because they’re so ahead of the dining game. I love to study that, you know? Yes, it’s my job, but at the same time that’s the craziness of loving my job, that the line between work and play gets blurred. It was my first time going to Lyon and to Marseilles. In Marseilles, it was seafood, seafood, seafood, three-star, two-star restaurants and more seafood. And my youngest son, he was — breakfast, lunch, and dinner — asking for ice cream and gelato.