Tom Colicchio: How To Be a (Real Life) Top Chef

Tom Colicchio’s probably most famous as the head judge on Bravo’s Top Chef, but the man can run a restaurant, too. He even won the 2010 James Beard for Outstanding Chef. This week, he offered Newsweek some tips for aspiring restaurateurs:

• Dinner parties aren’t the same thing: “People with no restaurant experience have dinner parties at home and think maybe it’s a cool thing to do for a living. That’s not quite how it works.” When things go wrong at home, no one screams and demands a refund.

• Don’t handle the business end yourself: “Get the right people—like lawyers—to look over business contracts.”
• Know local labor laws: “A lot of people are getting sued these days.”
• Specialize: “You can’t be everything to everybody. You have to figure out your price point and how to deliver quality and value at that price point.”
• Don’t overdo the decor: “Design-wise—and I learned this the hard way—you can probably spend a lot less than you think.”

(More Tom Colicchio stories.)