Chef Art Smith is an executive chef and a co-owner of restaurants in Chicago, Orlando, Atlanta, and our nation’s capital, Washington, D.C. He chatted about his latest endeavors, which include owning a rugby team.
He has served as a chef for two Florida governors Bob Graham and Jeb Bush, and was Oprah Winfrey’s personal chef until 2007. He is a two-time James Beard Foundation Award winner.
Daily motivations
On his daily motivations, he said, “There is nothing more unattractive than lack of movement. So, you just keep going, and you keep staying fresh.”
“I have a major restaurant at Walt Disney World, and I can just be happy with that, and not do anything else, but I am still intrigued by other things even in my 60s,” he noted.
Key to longevity in culinary
Regarding the key to longevity to being a chef and culinary artist, he said with a sweet laugh, “Never stop; always keep it fresh.”
Latest venture: Owning a rugby team
“I bought a professional rugby team, and I am the only chef in America and perhaps the world with ownership of a professional sports team,” he said. “My specialty is chicken; I created something called ‘Sporty Bird,’ so we do sporty chickens.”
“We have Art Bird and we did really well with that,” he added.
Chef Art Smith reveals his future plans
On his future plans, Chef Art shared, “I do a lot of traveling, and a lot of that relates to my work. I do diplomatic work and for the past several years, I’ve been working in Lisbon with the U.S. Ambassador of Portugal there.”
“This February, I will be going to Amman, Jordan, to teach with Habibi International; I was introduced to them by President Bush’s family. The people are Syrian refugees or Iraqi refugees,” he noted.
“In May, I will be doing a global rugby event, and I am cooking for 600 international rugby players, so we are doing a ‘Sporty Bird’ pop-up for that,” he said.
“Then, I am doing a World Cup of Skiing with ‘Snow Bird.’ By doing different events like these, they keep me staying fresh,” he added.
Chef Art Smith recalls being Oprah’s personal chef
On working as Oprah Winfrey’s personal chef, he said, “I worked as Oprah’s personal chef for 10 years. Prior to Oprah, I cooked for two governors and a lot of other famous people before her. It’s all part of being a private chef… everyone has to eat. That’s just how it is.”
“Oprah is very well-regarded, and she happens to have a lot of very famous friends, and her friends are very interesting,” he said. “The highlight for me was cooking for Nelson Mandela; I did that a few times.”
“When people ask me how I cook for all these famous people, the answer is simple, I tell them, ‘They know I won’t poison them’,” he said with a sweet laugh.
Working with Joe Germanotta and Lady Gaga
Chef Art also enjoyed working with his friend, Joe Germanotta, the father of Lady Gaga, who owns Joanne Trattoria in the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
On working with Joe Germanotta, Chef Art said, “Lady Gaga and I had met backstage at a concert.”
“At the time, I had just appeared on a big national television show called ‘Top Chef Masters’ on Bravo,” he said.
“Lady Gaga ran out of her dressing room and said, ‘I can’t believe that Top Chef Master Art Smith cooked for me’ and I told her ‘I can’t believe Lady Gaga knows who I am.’ So, we became friends that way, and she introduced me to her parents, Joe and Cynthia Germanotta, and that’s how we met. That is how it all started,” he elaborated.
“I’ve known her for 14 years, and that was around the time that her family restaurant Joanne Trattoria was born,” he said. “I had done ‘A Very Gaga Thanksgiving’ years ago at her school, and we’ve done a lot of really great things. I’ve done a bunch of birthday cakes for Lady Gaga, and she is an amazing young woman.”
Chef Art also praised Joe Germanotta for his talents in his own right, and for being able to hold his own as a businessman, philanthropist, restaurateur, and entrepreneur.
Advice for young and aspiring chefs and cooks
For young and emerging chefs and cooks, he said, “Make sure you have an Instagram, and make sure you have a TikTok too. Instagram is the new Rolodex; you really cannot have a business without it. You really cannot have a business without it; you can’t.”
“When I go and eat at restaurants, I make it a point to tell people when I enjoy their food. I comment about it, and I put my reactions out. It’s very important to stay extremely current on social media, and to be out there,” he acknowledged.
The digital age
On being a chef in the digital age, he remarked, “For an older chef, it’s tough. I wasn’t raised in the digital age. I remember when I used to count my fingers, and then, a calculator showed up.”
Chef Art continued, “My mother was an accountant, and she had adding machines and a regular typewriter. In high school and college, I had electric typewriters and things of that nature. We didn’t have anything digital. I remember the first computers even though we didn’t have computers in high school when I was a kid.”
“I remember the first cell phone… I got my first cell phone with Oprah and that was a blackberry,” he admitted.
“Then, I got a PC and I wrote my first book ‘Back to the Table’ on that computer, and it became a bestseller, and I won a James Beard Foundation Award,” he added.
Common Threads teaching program for kids to learn how to cook
Chef Art Smith created Common Threads two decades ago, a program to educate children on cultural diversity, nutrition, and physical well-being through cooking and the arts.
“This year, we are celebrating 20 years with our children’s cooking program, which is in nine states. We teach 400,000 to 500,000 kids a year,” he said.
By teaching low-income children to cook wholesome and affordable meals, Common Threads can help prevent childhood obesity and reverse the trend of generations of non-cookers, while celebrating the cultural differences and the things people all over the world have in common.
The mission of Common Threads is to educate children on the importance of nutrition and physical well-being, and to foster an appreciation of cultural diversity through cooking.
Common Threads helps bridge cultural boundaries and strengthen the global family by teaching children about their similarities and differences in the comfort of the kitchen.
Stage of his life
On the title of the current chapter of his life, he said with a sweet laugh, “Evergreen.”
“When we film things for television, they would tell us to do it in an ‘evergreen’ fashion, where it can be used over and over again,” he said.
“It is very important that what we do is evergreen, and that we stay current for all seasons, and evergreen,” he added.
Chef Hector Guerrero
Chef Art praised his chef Hector Guerrero for being his right-hand man. Guerrero’s professional career in cooking began in 2006, when they teamed up after Guerrero was his electrician at the time, ironically enough.
Back then, he was making a cake for a celebrity, and it slipped. That was when Guerrero offered to fix the cake, and the rest is history. “Hector fixed the cake, and I looked at him and asked him ‘Why are you an electrician? you should be a chef,’ and that’s Hector,” he revealed.
Together, they embarked on a series of pop-up events at Chef Art’s house, showcasing their culinary prowess and creativity.
This collaboration began a dynamic partnership, with Hector becoming Chef Art’s right-hand man. “So, Hector has been with me for 20 years, and thanks to him, that celebrity had a beautiful birthday cake,” he said.
“Hector goes with me all over the world. We did Expo Milan, Expo Dubai, and Expo Shanghai together,” he added.
Success
Regarding his definition of the word success, Chef Art shared, “Success is knowing that we make people happy, and they continue to come back. It is easy to make money but making people happy is not as easy.”
“For me, I like what I do and I want to do more,” he concluded.
To learn more about Chef Art Smith, check out his official website, and follow him on Instagram.
