张大卫（音译：David Chang）是纽约最受欢迎的拉面大厨，但讨厌他的人也不在少数。

    在大众美食网站Eater上，一位不愿署名的评论者如此评论张大卫：“我们还在关注那个家伙吗？他的厨艺跟他的口味和脾气一样糟糕。”网络美食杂志Star Chefs颇具影响力的负责人安托瓦内特•布鲁诺称张大卫“被高估了”。美国掴客网（Gawker）说他是一名“说大话的厨师”，而且“对家人并不友好”。在美食家网站Grub Street上，另外一位评论者则把张大卫称作“黑武士”。

    但张大卫的粉丝们自然不会接受这样的评论。这位35岁的韩裔美国大厨凭借其福桃餐饮集团获得了巨大成功。早在2004年，他在纽约市东村开办了一家无电梯的休闲拉面馆福桃面吧（Momufuku Noodle Bar）。如今他的旗下已有八家餐厅（其中四家开设在海外），另有五家福桃奶品点心铺（Momofuku Milk Bar）。此外，公司还有两家酒吧，分别是多伦多的Nikai酒吧和纽约的Booker & Dax高级酒吧。

    今年秋天，张大卫在多伦多的福桃大楼开业，里面有三家不同的餐厅和一家酒吧，算是他到目前为止的最大手笔。张大卫的产业已经从当初纽约东村一家只有27个座位的拉面馆，发展成拥有500多名员工、出版过两本烹饪图书、一本季刊和一个研发实验室的庞然大物。换句话说，它已经成为一个名符其实的餐饮帝国。如今，张大卫正在全力投入公司运营。然而，对于公司的扩张，他的感受却非常复杂。此外，随着他的餐饮帝国不断发展，这位大厨自身也在经历蜕变，努力接受作为一名美食艺术家和一名商人的双重身份。

    毫无疑问，对于张大卫的批评绝大多数都源自他所取得的成功。每一个行业都存在竞争，但餐饮行业的竞争尤为激烈。凡是住在纽约并且关心美食的人，对于张大卫所带来的刺激肯定记忆犹新。他似乎无处不在：去年，在美国有线电视联播网HBO制作的新奥尔良电视剧《劫后余生》（Treme）中，有他的身影。来自哥本哈根知名餐厅Noma的名厨安东尼•伯尔顿和雷内•雷哲皮与张大卫称兄道弟。玛莎•斯图尔特对他的食物赞不绝口（她在张大卫烹饪图书的封底简介中写道：“有一天，我竟然尝到了张大卫的猪肉包，我感到非常荣幸。”）为了向张大卫致敬，纽约超酷的鸡尾酒餐厅PDT甚至专门推出了一款“张氏热狗”。这是一款经过油炸，包裹培根肉，使用大量韩国泡菜的改良版热狗。

    New York's favorite ramen chef has earned a healthy share of haters.

    "Are we still paying attention to this guy?" asks an anonymous commenter about David Chang on the popular food site Eater. "His cooking is as sloppy as his palate and composition." Antoinette Bruno, the influential head of the online food magazine Star Chefs, has called Chang "overrated." Gawker calls him a "mouthy chef" who "isn't exactly family friendly." Another commenter, on the foodie website Grub Street, calls Chang "Darth Vader."

    Chang's legions of fans, though, appear to disagree. The Korean American chef, 35, has had wild success with Momofuku restaurant group, which he began in 2004 with Momufuku Noodle Bar, a casual walk-up ramen bar in New York City's East Village, and has grown to eight restaurants (four of them outside the U.S.) and five locations of his bakery, Momofuku Milk Bar. The company also has two bars, Nikai in Toronto and the posh Booker and Dax in New York.

    This fall, Chang makes what is perhaps his biggest move yet, opening an all-Momofuku building in Toronto that houses three different restaurants and a bar. What started as a 27-seat East Village ramen joint now boasts more than 500 employees, two cookbooks, a quarterly magazine, and an R&D lab. It is, in other words, a bona fide culinary empire. Chang has mixed feelings about this expansion, even as he bores full-steam ahead—and as his empire grows, the chef is undergoing his own evolution, reconciling his identity as a food artist with his responsibilities as a businessman.

    Much of Chang's criticism comes, no doubt, from his success. Every industry has competition, but the culinary world can be especially vicious. And anyone that lives in New York and cares at all about food has probably suffered from Chang overload at some point. He seems to be everywhere: He appeared on HBO's New Orleans drama Treme last year. He pals around with Anthony Bourdain and Rene Redzepi of the renowned Noma in Copenhagen. Martha Stewart raves about his food ("It was with great pleasure that one day I tasted David Chang's pork buns," she says in a blurb on the back of his cookbook). The über-cool New York cocktail lounge PDT offers the Chang Dog, a deep-fried, bacon-wrapped, kimchi-slathered ode to His Changness.

    But Chang also has an attitude that can invite rebukes. He named his restaurant Momofuku because it means "lucky peach" in Japanese, but also in part because it sounds like "motherfucker." His profanity is the stuff of legend ("fuck her, man … let's put pork in every fucking dish," he says in the appearance on Treme; in 2009 he ridiculed Food Network personality Guy Fieri's "fuckin' sunglasses and that stupid fuckin' armband.") In interviews withFortune he dropped F-bombs with gusto. And by his acknowledgment, Chang has a temper that in the past led him to "explode" at employees, though he is working to soften his edge. "Dave is a big personality, obviously, and a divisive character," says Chris Ying, editor-in-chief of Lucky Peach, the food magazine Chang launched in late 2011 with Ying and Peter Meehan, both of publishing house McSweeney's. "There are people who love him and Momofuku," Ying says, "and then there are people who, for whatever reason, have a problem with him."

    不过，张大卫自己的态度也经常会招致谴责。他之所以将餐厅命名为“Momofuku”，一方面是因为它在日语中意为“幸运的桃子”，但另外一方面，也是由于它听起来很像“motherfucker”。他的脏话极富传奇色彩（他在《劫后余生》中有一句台词是：“去她妈的，把猪肉放到每一个该死的盘子里。”2009年，他嘲笑美食频道Food Network的名人盖•费尔瑞，说他带着“土鳖的眼镜和蠢到冒泡的袖章”。）接受《财富》杂志（Fortune）采访时，他也会冒出几句脏话，并且乐此不疲。而且，他自己也承认，虽然他一直在努力打磨自己的棱角，但以前他还是经常会对员工大发脾气。《福桃》杂志（Lucky Peach）主编克里斯•因格称：“很明显，张大卫的个性非常突出，而且有多重性格。”2011年，张大卫与来自麦克斯威尼出版社（McSweeney's）的克里斯•因格和彼得•米汉共同创办了美食杂志《福桃》。因格说道：“有人爱他和他的福桃餐厅，肯定就会有人因为各种各样的原因，瞧他不顺眼。”

    另外一个招致批评的原因可能是张大卫的成功完全颠覆了传统。通常情况下，人们从厨艺学校毕业后，会先找一份最底层的工作，毫无怨言地做着帮厨的工作。然后他们得按部就班往上爬，最终成为副主厨，也有可能成为厨师长。张大卫从最好的餐厅进入餐饮业，但他并没有做太长时间，便开始自立门户。他的第一家餐厅就大受欢迎，他本人也迅速打出了自己的名气，并开始创办新餐厅。与其他厨师不同，张大卫没有任何外部投资者；福桃餐厅的资金来源除了他自己的积蓄和银行贷款外，只有他从父亲和父亲的朋友那里借来的130，000美元，还有从哥哥那里借来的一小笔资金。而且，适逢数字化媒体革命的大潮，他推出了《福桃》季刊，但到目前为止，这本杂志却只有印刷版，尚无任何在线内容。如今，第一期杂志已经售罄。张大卫认为，人们想要却得不到，这是“很有趣的事情”。

    而这一切必然会让恪守传统的餐饮业人士心里很不痛快。蒙特利尔著名餐厅Joe Beef（也是张大卫最喜爱的餐厅）的大厨大卫•迈克米兰认为，对张大卫的任何指责都是源于嫉妒心。他说：“就算他在成名之前的个人履历不像大多数人那样，有令人发疯的经历。可无论如何，他做的每一样美食都非常美味，这才是最重要的。”

    张大卫的父母是韩国移民，他本人在弗吉尼亚州长大，大学就读的是美国三一大学（Trinity College），学习宗教专业。他一直钟爱面条，还说每一个韩国人都喜欢面条。从三一大学毕业后，他去了日本教英语。对于拉面的痴迷让他迅速下定决心，进入纽约法国烹饪学院（ French Culinary Institute）学习烹饪。之后，他在丹尼尔•布鲁德和汤姆•克里奇欧等多名大牌厨师手下工作过一段时间。

    26岁的时候，张大卫希望能拥有自己的餐厅。他表示，之所以会有这样的想法，很大程度上是受到911事件的影响。“在那次事件中，我失去了几位好友。所以，我当时就产生了这个想法：‘什么才是真正重要的？’当时，经历失败似乎是个好主意。”2004年，张大卫的面吧开业，他把全部精力都投入到两道最简单的主食：拉面和猪肉包。最初，他只是希望能够撑一年时间，结果他制作的这些有趣（同时也很美味的）食物大受欢迎。2006年，他又开了一家休闲餐厅Momofuku Ssam Bar。这家餐厅的价格更高，最初以一道Bo Ssam闻名。所谓Bo Ssam是指烤猪肘，配以牡蛎，主要针对大型团体消费者。两年后，即2008年，他又开设了Ko餐厅，这是他所有餐厅中价格最高的一家，餐厅仅设12个座位，只提供体验菜单，以难以预订著名。（该餐厅仅接受网络预订，而且必须提前六天预订。）第二年，Ko被评为米其林二星餐厅，并一直保持至今。

    朋友们称，张大卫首次得到媒体关注，并赢得赞誉之后，他感到非常不安。过快成名给他带来了巨大压力，因此，他试图转移外界的注意力。克里斯缇娜•托西在纽约下东区的WD-50餐厅工作时与张大卫相识，并且最终加入福桃餐厅，成为奶品点心铺的主厨兼共有人。她说：“我觉得，在某个时刻，肯定有一位德高望重的人，跟他进行过坦诚交流，并告诉他：‘停止抱怨；做好你的本分。如果人们认为你就是如此不可思议，那就坦然接受。’”之后，张大卫接受了忠告，于是他的成功之路又开始延续：2010年，他开设了Ma Peche餐厅，最初仅提供融合了法国与越南风味的菜品。之后又在悉尼开设了Momofuku Seiobo餐厅。不过，他在多伦多开办的餐厅才是去年最大的成就，可能也是他迄今为止的最大手笔。两年前，新香格里拉酒店（Shangri-La Hotel）的开发商联系张大卫，问他是否愿意在香格里拉旁边建一家餐厅。虽然华盛顿特区、洛杉矶和香港均向他提出过邀请，但他还是选择了多伦多。张大卫称，这笔买卖太划算了，根本不可能拒绝：紧邻一家豪华酒店的一整栋建筑，每一层都有不同风格的餐厅（一层为面吧，二层为Nikai酒吧，三层则是两家餐厅：家常风格的Daisho餐厅和类似于Ko，仅提供体验菜谱的Shoto餐厅。）这样的空间，可以让他在一个场所，分层展示他的餐饮帝国的多样性。他说：“在纽约，甚至整个美国都不会有这样的好机会。”面吧最先开业，在营业第三天便招待了1,000人。（不过，纽约的福桃面吧依然是他最赚钱的餐厅。）

    It could also be Chang's unconventional path to success that rattles critics. Typically, when people finish culinary school they take a bottom-rung job toiling away as a line cook somewhere. They work through the ranks, eventually becoming a sous-chef and then perhaps a chef de cuisine. Chang got right in at the best places and didn't stay for very long before setting out on his own. His rise has been meteoric; as soon as his first restaurant was a hit, he began opening new ones. And unlike other chefs, he has no outside investors; Momofuku has always used its own funds or bank loans, with the exception of a $130,000 loan from his father and his father's friends and a small amount of money Chang borrowed from his brother. And in the midst of the digital media revolution he launched a quarterly magazine, Lucky Peach, which for now exists only in print, none of its content online. The first issue has sold out, and Chang thinks it's "sort of fun" that people cannot get their hands on a copy.

    All of this somewhat expectedly irks culinary traditionalists. David McMillan, co-chef of the noted Joe Beef in Montreal—one of Chang's favorite restaurants—says any Chang backlash is just jealousy. "Okay, his CV from before his rise is not like most guys who have insane records," he says. "But at the end of the day, everything he makes is delicious."

    The son of Korean immigrants, Chang grew up in Virginia and majored in religion at Trinity College. He had always loved noodles, which he says is true of any Korean, and after Trinity he went to Japan to teach English. Once an obsession with ramen hit him full-force, he moved quickly, entering the French Culinary Institute in New York and then doing relatively brief stints at the restaurants of big-deal chefs like Daniel Boulud and Tom Colicchio.

    By the time Chang was 26 he wanted his own place. He says 9/11 had a lot to do with it: "I had some friends who had passed away, so it was like, 'Does anything really matter?' Failing just seemed like a good idea at the time." In 2004, Chang opened Noodle Bar, where he poured himself into two simple staples: ramen bowls and pork buns. His initial hope was just to make it to one year, but the interesting (and delicious) things he was doing caught on. In 2006 he opened Momofuku Ssam Bar, a casual setting with higher prices that initially was known for the Bo Ssam, a whole roasted pork shoulder with oysters, designed for a big group. Only two years later, in 2008, Chang open Ko, his most expensive location, which has 12 seats, serves only a tasting menu, and is a famously difficult destination. (Reservations can only be made online, six days in advance.) Ko received two Michelin stars the following year, which it has kept ever since.

    Friends say that when Chang first began getting press and winning accolades, he was intensely uncomfortable. He stressed over his quick rise and tried to deflect attention. Christina Tosi, who met Chang when she was working at Lower East Side restaurant WD-50 and eventually joined Momofuku and became chef and co-owner of Milk Bar, says, "I think at some point, someone high enough must have real-talked him and said, 'Stop complaining; just do the work. If people think you are this amazing, own it.' " Chang began doing just that, and the march continued: In 2010 he opened Ma Peche, which initially served French-Vietnamese fusion. Then came Momofuku Seiobo in Sydney.

    But it is the Toronto venture that has been his biggest undertaking of the past year and probably his most ambitious project to date. Two years ago the developers of the new Shangri-La Hotel there approached Chang and asked if he'd want to set up a restaurant adjoining their building. Despite having offers in D.C., Los Angeles, and Hong Kong, he went for it. Chang says the deal was too good to pass up: an entire building, next door to a posh hotel, that boasts a different style of restaurant on each floor (first a Noodle Bar, then the bar Nikai above it, and on the third floor the two new restaurants: Daisho, a family-style place, and Shoto, which, like Ko, is tasting-menu-only). The space allows him to put the tiered, multi-faceted approach of his empire under one roof. "You don't get those kinds of offers in New York or the U.S.," he says. Noodle Bar opened first and on its third day served 1,000 people. (Noodle Bar in New York is still Momofuku's highest-earning restaurant.)

    雄心勃勃的多伦多项目在如火如荼地展开，而张大卫却变得更加宽容和稳重。他的朋友和同事都说他在不断改变，实际上，张大卫自己的言行也表明，他正在从一个“坏男孩”蜕变成一位优秀的老板。这或许也是因为他别无选择。张大卫在他的烹饪书中写道，大厨马尔科•卡诺拉曾嘲笑他是“光杆司令”。如今，要想掌控多伦多项目的进展，还得保证遍布各地的餐饮帝国延续发展的势头，他必须更多依赖自己的团队。

    事实上，张大卫也表示，如今最让他兴奋的，除了美食，便是人事工作。他说：“如果我的厨师、经理或者副厨师长非常糟糕，以前，我可能会直接炒他们的鱿鱼，或者朝他们大发脾气。但现在，我意识到，如果我是正确的，我就应该能与他们进行沟通，直到他们理解。我们能不能把他们变成宝贵的资产？这些都与我以前的做法截然不同，以前，我肯定会大发雷霆。现在，我不能再这么做，因为我没有那么多精力。”精力不够的说法实在可疑，不过他的同事们也说，他们确实发现他的禅功大有进步。托西说：“大卫比以前平静了许多。他在处理某些事情的时候，更加现实。”

    托西和张大卫的其他同事还说，他正在逐步承担起领导者的责任。托西称：“大卫在当老板与保持自我和拥有愿景之间，实现了很好的平衡，但他也知道该在什么时候激励员工，说：‘不要再让我进行指导；别把我当你们的老板看待。’他现在变得非常擅长读懂人心。”《福桃》杂志的因格称张大卫是“一名极具天赋的领导者”，他“在培养他的同事。”而福桃餐厅的员工也开始接受张大卫的部分理念：例如，你可以不断做加法，却无法做减法。这是烹饪中的一条经典法则——一旦在菜中加入了某种配料，就没法取出来。这条法则同样适用于一家日益公司化、永远无法恢复到最初状态的企业。

    发展问题是让张大卫焦虑的主要原因。他说：“我正在逐步学会如何在不降低品质的前提下，在更大规模上进行多元化经营。当然，任何一家连锁餐厅都会有这样的期望，但我们不想将此作为我们的目标。虽然我不喜欢‘连锁餐厅’的说法，但我们在很大程度上已经是一家公司了。许多人会认为，连锁餐厅的每家餐厅都不会很好，我们怎么做才能扭转这种观点？”这确实是一个值得思索的问题，因为福桃正在向更多新的领域挺进，比如可能推出的厨房设备。此外，运营餐厅的道德良知也让他备受煎熬，因为他不知道该如何让福桃更加可持续和更加环保，但又不能华而不实。他说：“让我困扰的是，如何将有机食品和可持续性作为销售更多产品的主要方式。”

    这些问题让他困扰不已。托西说：“大卫和我们都有一些神经质，我们总在考虑：‘这个已经卖完了吗？’‘我想把它卖光吗？这又意味着什么？我们是不是想开500家面吧？我们是不是想让福桃猪肉包成为家喻户晓的品牌？’”

    目前，为了缓解自己的恐惧情绪，张大卫竭力地斟酌各种机会，比如一家餐厅、一个菜单项目、一名新员工，或者他在福桃实验室里试验的开心果味噌。虽然承担着巨大压力，但张大卫依然斗志昂扬。他说：“能让那些从不关心美食的人开始关注美食，这个过程让我非常着迷。”

    译者：刘进龙/汪皓

    Along with the ambitious Toronto project has come a softer, mellower Chang. His friends and associates say he's changed, and indeed, Chang's own reflections suggest that he's becoming less of a bad boy and more of a boss. It could be because he doesn't have a choice. To get a handle on the Toronto scene and ensure the continued success of his far-flung empire, Chang—who recounts in his cookbook how chef Marco Canora teasingly called him an "army of one"—now has to rely much more on his team.

    In fact, Chang says that what most excites him right now, apart from food, is staffing. "If I have a really bad cook or a bad manager or bad sous-chef, I previously would have fired them or lost my temper," he says. "But now I realize that if I'm so right, then I should be able to communicate it so clearly that they get it. Can we make them an asset? It completely breaks how I used to do it, which was to explode in temper. I can't do that anymore. I don't have the energy." The claim of low energy is dubious at best, but colleagues say they have noticed his new level of Zen. "Dave is a little calmer. He's more realistic in the way he deals with certain things," says Tosi.

    Tosi and others who work with him also say he is coming into his own as a leader. "Dave has this great balance of being a boss and having an ego and a vision, but also knowing when to push someone and say, 'Stop asking me for guidance; stop treating me as your boss,' " she says. "He's become really good at reading people." Ying, of Lucky Peach, calls Chang "a savvy leader" who "cultivates the people he works with." And the Momofuku staff has started to adopt some Chang-isms: One of them is that while you can always add, you can't take away. It's a classic mantra in cooking—once an ingredient goes in you can't take it out—but here it applies to an enterprise that is growing more and more corporate, and can never go back to the way it was.

    The question of growth is a great source of anxiety for Chang. "I'm grasping with how you do something on a large scale with multiple operations and not have quality decrease," he says. "That's certainly the expectation of a chain restaurant, but that's not necessarily our goal. And I hate to say 'chain restaurant,' but we're sort of a corporation now. How do we defy that concept, where people assume each restaurant can't be good?" It's a fair question now that Momofuku is sprouting new limbs, like a potential line of kitchen equipment. He also agonizes over the moral conscience of running a restaurant, wondering how to make Momofuku sustainable and eco-friendly, but not in a showy manner. "What bothers me," he says, "is using organic and using sustainability as a way to basically sell more stuff."

    These issues eat away at him. "The neurotic nature is always making Dave, and all of us, wonder, 'Is this selling out?' " says Tosi. " 'Do I want to sell out, and what does that even mean? Do we want 500 Noodle Bars? Do we want the pork bun to be a household name?' "

    For now, Chang is mitigating his fears by painstakingly weighing every opportunity, whether it's a restaurant, a menu item, a new hire, or the pistachio miso he is experimenting with in the Momofuku lab. "It's fascinating to me, people that don't care about food," he says, still crazily ambitious. "I want them to care."