Robert Irvine Talks Grilling Tips And The Future Of His Fresh Kitchen Restaurant Chain - Exclusive Interview

You're hosting three very different events at the Nassau Wine & Food Festival: A wine dinner on March 15th, the Jerk Jam with Wyclef Jean and JJ Johnson on March 16th, and a boot camp on March 17th. What can guests expect?

The wine dinner is really interesting because I'm really going all out. I worked in Jamaica for a year, [and] I worked across the Caribbean on a cruise line. So the menu [will be] very unique. That's number one. We're also going to be interacting with the guests. I'm not going to tell you how, but there's going to be a lot of "don't sit near the front" kind of thing, because I'm going to pick on you. I don't like a boring wine dinner. I want it to be interactive across the board, and we're known for that across the world. So that's going to be interesting.

And what's really interesting for me when we do the Jerk Jam with Wyclef Jean, so I did the Oscars with Wyclef, oh my God, many, many years ago for Children United Nations and with a bunch of chefs in Hollywood, which was the Triangle, which was the Vanity Fair, InStyle, and Children United Nations dinner. And Wyclef was one of the rappers at the show. So I don't know if he'll remember that, but I'm excited to reunite with him.

Absolutely. What's going to make this festival really unique?

Look, one thing about food and wine festivals, I want to make sure each one is in its own right and we never repeat the same thing twice, and that's one of my roles. So the dinners, food-wise, entertainment-wise, each is unique in its own way. But I mean, if you look at the lineup of chefs there — Duff Goldman, Alex Guarnaschelli, José Andrés, Martha Stewart, Nobu, Alon Shaya, Michael White, and Andrew Zimmern. I mean, forget me, that's the who's who of the food world, truly. I think it's going to be a very unique experience for sure. And by the way, hello, it's in The Bahamas.

What about the boot camp?

Well, I'm known for boot camps, literally. So we're going to have some fun there. You can get drunk the night before, but on that morning if you're going to work out, it's going to be a great workout on the beach. So it's going to be fun.

Speaking of an inexpensive cut like a flank steak, for someone who's grilling at home, what are some tips to help elevate it?

Number one, you need to put your meat or your fish or your chicken or your seafood out so it stays at room temperature for at least an hour before. There's nothing worse than putting something cold onto a hot grill because it steams and doesn't sear, just like a hot pan. So number one, it has to be out getting to room temperature for a minimum of an hour.

You have to warm the grill up, clean the grill with a brush, and then wipe it down with a rag. Why? Because whatever you cooked on it before, even though you heated it up, it's not burnt off. You'll still have the burnt flavor of whatever you cooked the time before. So make sure the grill is clean.

You can use grapeseed oil, but very little of it. You don't need to put a smearing of oil all over the meat. You only put the oil on the grill because if you've used a dry rub, it will burn the minute you put it onto the dry heat of the metal. So, you marinade it or you rub it. And if you do rub it — meaning dry rub with herbs and spices — then you need to use a rag and use the oil on the actual metal of the grill itself before you put the product on. You don't need to grease the meat, you grease the barbecue itself. And then once it's hot, you place the meat on it.

When the sugar comes out of the product, whether it be shrimp, chicken, beef, pork, it doesn't matter, that's when it will tell you to move it. It will lift off on its own. Men tend to squash [meat] down to try and cook it faster, and then they ruin it ... Meat will tell you when it's ready, so it means when the sugars come out, it caramelizes and you can pick it up with a pair of tongs and turn it over. That's when it's ready. Not before.

How do you make sure your protein is cooked through?

[W]e take something to a high temperature, [then] turn the temperature down because [high heat is] great to sear on the outside hot, but then it never gets cooked in the middle. So you start off with a high temperature, get it seared on both sides, and then we reduce the temperature and close the door. Don't keep opening and shutting the grill, you'll ruin the meat.

And then the last thing is, when you think you're at your desired temperature ... don't forget about carry-over cooking. If I take a piece of beef off, I should take that piece of beef off to be medium rare at 115 degrees [F] — or if you feel it like a chef does ... when you pinch the meat, it bounces back — you take it off, let it rest for 10 minutes because it continues to cook at 300, 400 degrees [F] when you take it off and let it rest. And it will taste a lot better when you cut into it because it won't bleed everywhere across your board or your plates.

Speaking of seasoning and Jerk Jam, jerk seasoning is incredibly spicy with the scotch bonnet peppers. How do you balance that heat?

Well, there is no balance. Let me tell you something. And I lived in Jamaica for a year, and this is a very true story. In the Renaissance Jamaica Grande Hotel, there was a young man named Jopi. Every Tuesday I used to do a Caribbean jerk, it was called a Jump Up festival. He would come in, wrap himself in plastic wrap from head to toe, a little slit for the mouth, a little slit for the eyes, and he would grind scotch bonnet peppers, 15 boxes of scotch bonnet peppers every day. You could not breathe in that kitchen. I had to evacuate people when he was about to do that. And it took 24 hours to clear just because of the residual spray.

It is very hard to balance. You have to understand peppers and especially the scotch bonnet because what Jamaicans don't think are hot, I mean they pop them and eat them and they get ulcers in their stomach and all that kind of stuff. You have to be very careful with that. You can balance out the heat with honey, low-sodium soy sauce, parsley. But you just have to be really careful using a scotch bonnet or any hot pepper for that matter. Look, I want you to enjoy the food with a hint of spice, not be killed by the spice in your mouth and not be able to taste the food. Otherwise, why have I cooked it?

So it's more about how much pepper you use in the first place?

Yes, absolutely. A lot of people think, "Oh, let's see how much I can eat. What's the Scoville on this?" I'm like, "No. Then I've just wasted the best piece of fish or meat you'll ever eat because you've killed it with spice and I can't eat that." Be very careful. Wear gloves, wear eye protection when you use hot peppers, because if you touch yourself afterward and you haven't worn gloves, believe me, you'll be screaming for about 20 hours. Eyes and anywhere else.

In addition to your liquor line and your restaurants, you have Fresh Kitchen at the Pentagon and a new location coming to Joint Base Andrews. Can you talk to us about the concepts?

One is in the Pentagon [and] has been there for seven years. It's the only full-size sit-down restaurant in the Pentagon itself, focused on all healthy food. I am helping the military across the joint force modernize their food offerings.

The first one that's going into Joint Base Andrews is very unique because it's all sous-vide products. I'm partnered with AAFE, Army Air Force Exchange. It will be the first of its kind, I can operate a restaurant and feed as many people as you want with a couple of people, meaning healthy food done fast with very little overhead.

[W]e've [also] just opened another version of Fresh Kitchen called Victory Fresh at Fort Jackson, which is a grab-and-go concept, which is healthy food, salads, roasted chicken, specials of the day, sandwiches, etcetera. ... [to really] highlight the health and wellness, the H2F (Holistic Health and Fitness) system that the Army has started. I'm the expert in that space, helping them modernize the force.

So what I'm excited about is giving our men and women who wear the cloth of our nation, our first responders, healthier food because we're asking them to be athletes. We can buy all the tanks and planes and trains you want. It doesn't work without us humans, unfortunately. So I'm really excited about that. And Joint Base Andrews is the beginning of the change, along with Fort Jackson, the Pentagon, and a lot of other things that you'll see coming up very soon. So yeah, really excited about that.

How will the new Joint Base Andrews location work?

Things are already prepared. There is no manual labor except for putting the product together. [Everything comes] from a central kitchen. So if you have a poke bowl, a salad, it will already be pre-washed, pre-cut by us ourselves, but it works off like a commissary kitchen. And that will happen in every location once I've tested this pilot, hopefully around the United States and around the world.

All you have to do is put it together the way I tell you to put it together. Obviously, there's training involved in that. But not actually cooking, cooking, cooking. It is the restaurant of the future is what it's called. So I'm really excited about that. It's taken us a couple of years to develop it. There's nothing like it out in the world, that I will tell you.