Armed with virtues of the school of hard knocks, New Yorker realises his dream in city of opportunities
'You're opening in a mall! No one will ever come to a mall!' With these words ringing in his ears, Harlan Goldstein nevertheless launched Harlan's Bar and Restaurant in Two IFC.
His philosophy: If you do something unique, people will come. But the 44-year-old entrepreneur-chef says 'keeping it busy night after night is the hard part'.
Mr Goldstein's story is testament to the rewards of grit. He was raised in a single-parent household on New York's tough lower East Side; his mother Ruth had her hands full. 'She had to figure what to do with a wild 14-year-old kid,' he laughs. His Uncle Ben got him a training placement in a Florida kitchen. He started on potwash and at 17 his uncle got him an apprenticeship at the prestigious Hotel Le Montreux Palace in Switzerland.
It was far from soft-option nepotism: the young American was thrown in among 80 French-speaking chefs. 'I learned French very fast.' Initially he didn't think he could make it. 'But I was determined, something I have always been.' At 22, he was running the kitchen of the fine dining restaurant in the Hilton New Orleans. 'Most of the staff were way older than me, but we won lots of awards and recognition.'
A stint in Hawaii with Hyatt Regency took him to the next step, executive sous chef, running a nine-outlet operation with 185 staff and banqueting for 5,000 people.