Chef William Gallagher of Becco: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became a Chef

As part of our series about the lessons from influential ‘TasteMakers’, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing William Gallagher.

Chef Gallagher’s culinary education started where most great Chef careers begin, in his grandmother’s kitchen. There he learned how to cook with skillful & careful preparation & the importance of hand selecting only the freshest & finest ingredients. Highly regarded & well renowned, Billy has cooked at the James Beard House, numerous charity benefits including Share Our Strength, & has been featured nationally on Fox & Friends with Julian Phillips, Food TV’s Follow That Food & CBS News with Tony Tantillo. The Intrepid Air, Sea & Space Museum has invited Chef Gallagher “on deck” as a regular star judge during the annual Fleet Week “Best Chow” Competition, with heavy features in local media. In his career at Becco Restaurant, Chef Gallagher has represented the Bastianich name at the “Taste of the Tetons Music Festival” in Wyoming, as well as, created a 50-foot-long Pappardelle ribbon to be cut for the televised opening ceremony of the summer annual “Taste of Times Square”. The crowning achievement for Chef Gallagher was having the honor to cook for both Pope Benedict & Pope Francis on their respective trips to New York City. When not cooking with Lidia on her PBS cooking series, Lidia’s Italy, Chef Gallagher can be found at 355 West 46th Street on Restaurant Row in the heart of New York City’s Theater District. There he works side by side with both Joe & Lidia Bastianich in creating one of the most value-packed & delicious menus in New York City.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Our readers would love to ‘get to know’ you a bit. Can you share with our readers a story about what inspired you to become a chef?

It started at my grandmothers’ tables. I grew up in a big family, and cooking was how we showed up for each other. I found my place in that kitchen early, partly because I loved it and partly, if I am honest, because I did not want to do the dishes. But somewhere in there, it stopped being a chore and became who I am. Feeding people was how I learned to belong, and I have been chasing that feeling ever since.

Do you have a specific type of food that you focus on? What was it that first drew you to cooking that type of food? Can you share a story about that with us?

Fish is at the heart of what I do. I go fishing all the time, and there is something honest about catching something with your own hands and bringing it home to cook. No two fish are the same, and that variety keeps you humble and keeps you learning. Fluke, tuna, black sea bass, and bluefish each one asks for something different from you. You can sauté it, grill the tuna, or cook a whole fluke on the grill. The fish tells you what it wants. Your job is to listen and stay out of its way.

Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that has happened to you since you became a chef? What was the lesson or takeaway you took out of that story?

The funniest was cooking on Lidia’s show with her. We laughed the whole way through, and you remember days like that. But the most meaningful moment of my entire career was cooking for two Popes, Pope Benedict and Pope Francis, when they came to New York. We cooked for them at a place I call the Pope House, an old townhouse given to the Catholic Church. There were Swiss Guards inside and out, and then the Pope himself came down to meet us. We made whole striped bass in salt and the dishes of the season, asparagus and spring on the plate, and they loved it. What stayed with me was the energy in that room. I draw so much from this work already, from a guest leaving happy, from the feedback at the end of a night, but this was that feeling multiplied a hundred times over. It almost made me tremble. It reminded me that a meal is never just a meal. It is a way of giving something of yourself to another person, and sometimes that lands in a way you never forget.

Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? How did you overcome this obstacle?

I would not point to one single hardship. The truth is, the work itself is the hardship, and you sign up for it. When I started, six days a week was simply the schedule. Sixty hours was a light week, and often it was more. You give the kitchen everything you have. The turning point was admitting I could not keep going at that pace and still be any good to anyone. I moved to a solid five days, and it made me a better chef, not a lesser one. You earn your stripes by working hard; that part is real. But you last in this business by learning where your limits are and respecting them. Burning out does not prove anything. Staying in the game does.

In your experience, what is the key to creating a dish that customers are crazy about?

You cannot rush nature, and you should not try. At Becco, the best dishes follow the seasons. Pumpkin ravioli when the air turns in the fall. Beautiful tomatoes for a simple salad at the height of summer. When you cook an ingredient at the exact moment it wants to be eaten, you are not really adding much. You are just honoring it. People can taste that timing, even if they cannot name it. That is the whole secret.

Personally, what is the ‘perfect meal for you’?

I always come back to fish. Fish and whatever the season is giving me. Tomatoes in the summer, asparagus or pumpkin when the weather turns. Simple, but right. We also make an ossobuco here that is close to my heart, and I love a short rib or a braised meat that cooks for four hours until it gives way at the touch of a fork. Patience does that, not technique. As for a single favorite, I cannot give you one. It is like having a houseful of kids. You love them all, and you would never choose between them. And the meal does not end there. Give me good vegetables, broccoli rabe, escarole, potatoes done any way at all, and I am happy. For dessert, our cheesecake, panna cotta, a granita in the summer, and a tiramisu I would put up against anyone’s.

Where does your inspiration for creating come from? Is there something that you turn to for a daily creativity boost?

Inspiration is everywhere if you keep your eyes open. Sometimes it is a plate at another restaurant that makes me think, I could do something with that. More often, it is the market, walking the stalls and letting the vegetables and the fruit start the conversation. I do not sit and wait for ideas to arrive. I go out into the world, and the world hands them to me.

Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? What impact do you think this will have?

The Lidia dinners are what I am most excited about. Lidia and I build the menu together, sometimes pulling from her books, and we create something special for one night. They sell out, and the room fills with people who came to celebrate and be fed well. That is the real impact. In a world where everyone is rushing, you give people a reason to slow down, sit at a table together, and connect. Food has always been able to do that, and it is a privilege to be the one making it happen.

What advice would you give to other chefs or restaurateurs to thrive and avoid burnout?

Protect your time, because no one will protect it for you. When I started, I gave the kitchen six days a week, and that is not a life you can sustain. If you own the place, you will be there even more, and some days you have to come in no matter what, even just for an hour. So you have to be deliberate about the hours that are yours. For me, that is the water. I go fishing, I take the boat out, and I let the work fall away, which is harder than it sounds. But that is where I find my zen, and a chef who never refills the well has nothing left to give the people he is cooking for.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started as a Chef” and why? Please share a story or an example for each.

1. No one tells you how hard this work truly is. The hours are long, and the holidays belong to everyone but you. There is only one thing that carries you through it, and that is loving what you do. If the love is real, the hours are worth it. If it is not, no paycheck will be enough.

2. The cooking is the easy part. The people are the real craft. You are leading a room full of different personalities, and even as the boss, you have to earn their respect, not just demand it. I wish someone had told me that people skills matter as much as knife skills.

3. Leadership is something you grow into, not something you are handed. Anyone can bark an order. Learning how to get the best out of a person, how to make them want to give it, takes years. That is the work behind the work.

4. The customer is not always right, and pretending otherwise does no one any favors. Most of the time, yes, the guest knows what they want. But sometimes it is a misunderstanding or a temperature called wrong, and a good chef learns to tell the difference and handle it with grace rather than just surrender.

5. The industry never stops moving, and neither can you. I have been cooking for almost thirty years, and palates have changed in that time. People eat lighter now. You learn to give them less on the plate but more in every bite, elegant and satisfying at once. The day you stop adapting is the day you start falling behind.

What’s the one dish people have to try if they visit your establishment?

I cannot give you just one, and I would not want to. There is the ossobuco, there is Joe’s veal chop, both signatures. But if you want to understand Becco, you order the Sinfonia di Paste, our three daily pastas. We make the pasta fresh every single day, and you taste three different preparations in one sitting, with an antipasto or a Caesar to begin. It is more than a dish. It is the heart of this place on a plate.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

I would want it to be about teaching and about telling young cooks the truth. Over the years, I have had so many interns. Some came in hungry to learn, watching everything, taking initiative. Others stood and waited to be told what to do, and I always say the same thing. You are in the field now. You have to observe, reach for it, and learn on your own. The honesty is the gift. This life is hard, and not everyone is built for it, and most people never have someone willing to tell them so. But for the ones who truly want it, who are ready to put in the work, handing down real skill and real honesty can change the whole direction of their life. That is the movement I believe in. Pass down the craft, and tell the truth while you do it.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you continued success!