Todd English is the first to admit that being American and of Italian ancestry makes his family name exceedingly odd. He has no idea where it comes from, but supposes that one day he may try to find out. No chance of this happening in the near future, however. This is a man with more restaurants to open, a whole lot of cooking still to do.
He lopes across the lobby of the new Grand Hyatt hotel in Roppongi Hills, where his latest eatery, Olives, is housed, with a look of puzzlement. He's sorry, having imagined this to be a phone interview. No problem though, he insists with laid-back ease and heads for the hotel coffee shop, where (being tall and built like a American football player) he fills his chair, turns his cap back to front and sticks with the bottle of water from his room. Then he says I am all his. (I wish!)
Todd grew up between Atlanta and New York. "My father was a TV producer and director in the early days of PBS, so we were always moving around." His Calabrian grandmother and Italian-born mother kept things stable, with the kitchen off-limits to menfolk. "As a kid, I was always at their side, watching, chopping, stirring. Then at 16, 17, they shooed me away, saying I was too grown up."
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