Essays

October 1, 2021

Missy Robbins on Ambition, Burnout, and Success After 40

Image via @missyarobbins

By Leslie Price

Missy Robbins is a Michelin-starred chef, and the owner of Brooklyn restaurants Lilia and Misi. She won the James Beard Award in 2018 for “Best Chef New York City.” She lives in Brooklyn with her partner, Talia Baiocchi. Her new book, Pasta: The Spirit and Craft of Italy’s Greatest Food, is available for pre-order now.

You’ve had so much success after the age of 40. And you’ve mentioned in past interviews that one of your goals [from a young age] had been to own your own place. What did it feel like to achieve your ultimate goal of opening a restaurant at 44? 

I was 22 when I started cooking and I didn’t know anything about the industry. I made an arbitrary goal of owning a restaurant by the time I was 30. In hindsight, I don’t know why I picked 30. I think when you’re 22, 30 sounds really old.

I ended up getting really great jobs that were propelling my career in a different way. I always took positions that enhanced my education. There were moments when I was really bummed, when I saw people with much less training that were opening restaurants. But I also recognized that those extra five years at Spiaggia — I started at Spiaggia in Chicago when I was 32 — forwarded my career in terms of management and being an executive chef at a four-star restaurant. But they also really altered my focus into fully being an Italian chef, which I had never really planned on or necessarily wanted. 

Then the A Voce job came out of nowhere, and I miraculously got it. I was like, okay, this is another career-defining moment. I’m going to take this because it’s going to put me on the map in New York. It will allow me, for the first time ever, to be an executive chef without the chef-owner above me, and to see if I can develop a style of cooking.

I was 42 when I left. I was like okay, if you really want to open a restaurant, and you don’t do it now, you’re probably never going to do it. After some time off, some real thought, and a lot of talking with people, that became my focus. 

I never thought oh, you’re going to be 44 when you open this. But now I look at it, and I say, Lilia wouldn’t be Lilia and Misi wouldn’t be Misi if I hadn’t taken the time to learn all the things I learned. And to take this very slow journey that a lot of people aren’t willing to take. They are better restaurants because I took that time, and because I spent probably an extra 10 years learning from other people or practicing without the risk.

You have a confidence in your forties that you don’t have in your thirties. I don’t care how successful you are, or how smart you are, you don’t have the same kind of confidence. I just felt confident when I did it. I was scared, and I was nervous that people weren’t going to like it, but I was also like, okay, then I will get a job. That was sort of my attitude. And I don’t think you can see that in your early thirties.

I was really interested in your career path and the time you took off. What were your thoughts beforehand? Were you able to actually enjoy it? Or were you stressed out the whole time?

Oh my god, it was the best year of my life. Listen, there was a lot going on to motivate me to take that time off. I didn’t define it as burnout until after I was a month into it and I was like, oh, I think I was really burnt out. I had two restaurants, Michelin stars, very large staffs, high volume, it was just a lot. And I was working five to six days a week, 12 to 14 hour days. It was unhealthy and I was unhealthy. I was becoming kind of grumpy and my body was really broken.

It was like, alright, I’ve been doing this for 20 years, I’m just going to take a year off. And no one believed me. There’s an expectation when you get to the level I was at that…how can you possibly walk away? There are things that I learned that I wouldn’t do again. I had saved a lot of money, but I also didn’t realize that it depletes very quickly when nothing’s coming in and you don’t really alter your lifestyle.

At the very beginning, I had headhunters calling me every day. But once you tell those people, “I’m taking time off, I don’t really want to talk to you,” the phone eventually stops ringing. And that becomes very scary because you’re like wait, six months ago these people were really interested and now no one is calling. 

The short answer is, it was an amazing year and I got everything out of it that I needed to get out of it. I became much healthier, I lost 40 pounds, I went on Weight Watchers, I started doing pilates three times a week. It was such a beautiful thing to go to pilates and stroll home and go get a coffee and not be in a rush to get to work. I was loving it. From a mental standpoint, I really thought about what I needed in the next thing and how that would look. When I decided to partner with Sean [Feeney], I was like look, I want to open a restaurant but I’m not going to go back to working 16-hour days, seven days a week. It’s just not happening. And he got it. We talked a lot about values and what we wanted a company to look like and how we wanted work-life balance to look. Meeting Talia and developing a relationship with her definitely helped me really figure out the work-life balance and make that a priority.

I remember very early on, Talia said, “Why do you stay at work so late?” And I didn’t have an answer for her. I was like, “I honestly don’t know. I am just watching the food and talking to guests.” She said, “Do you have to be there? Is that really the best use of your time, to stay there ‘til 11 at night?” And I was like, “No, I actually don’t think so.” 

I was thinking about that in terms of ambition and I wonder if all the achievements you’ve had — the awards, the accolades — made it easier for you to redefine your ambition.

The ambition’s still there, but in a less anxious way. I certainly don’t feel like I have to prove anything anymore. I’ve done that. I’ve opened two restaurants that do great and that people really love, which is the most important thing. The accolades are amazing. But really, having a busy restaurant every day, where people are both happy working and coming to eat, is the most important thing.

Part of the ambition is like, what are the projects you really want to do, and focus on, and how much bandwidth do you have? And how much bandwidth do you have to still be able to achieve that life-work balance? I hate that term, but it is a real thing. The other part of the ambition is comfort level, and being able to say no. Being able to say no is a lot harder than being able to say yes. 

Someone the other day was like, oh, you should go do a virtual event with [whoever]. And I was like, yeah but I don’t want to do that and I don’t have to do it. I don’t need to do that. 

It’s not that I’m less ambitious, it’s that I don’t need to overextend myself anymore. When you’re younger, you really feel that ambition equates to workaholism. It’s the opposite now. I want to figure out how to do the most in an efficient way, and surround myself with people who can compliment my skills and help me get there. But I’m not ambitious in the way that I need to have 20,000 projects going on. It doesn’t appeal to me anymore.

One of the things that’s interesting about being a chef and working in restaurants as a profession is that it’s so physical. I assume the older you get, the harder that physicality is. 

I have removed most of that from my life. Yeah, I mean, my body’s a mess. I encourage young people to please do pilates or yoga or something to take care of themselves, because I wish someone had told me when I was 25 what would happen if I worked for 25 years on my feet. No one does, and no one talks about it.

But look, you have to accept that you are older, and that you shouldn’t be behind a line expediting every night. Part of that is ego, and part of it’s guilt. Like you should be doing what your team’s doing. And then at some point you’re like, okay, I’m 50. I’ve been doing this for almost 30 years, and these guys are 22 to 25 years old. I don’t need to be doing what they’re doing. This is their time to do it. 

When we opened Lilia, even at 45, I was expediting and plating every night for the first year. And I didn’t think about it. I was like, this is what you do! I’m a chef. I don’t want to do that anymore. Because if I’m doing that, it’s taking away from doing a lot of other things. But it does take a lot of reckoning with yourself, and saying okay, you gotta move on. You’re 50. You can’t really do this anymore. [laughs] It’s a bummer. And you want to be a part of it, but you shouldn’t be. Your focus should be elsewhere.

What are you looking forward to, and what new goals have you set for yourself?

The biggest focus for me, over the next couple of years [aside from maintaining the success of Lilia and Misi] is really growing the Misi Pasta/MP Specialities company. It’s something we really believe in, and we’re actively looking for space to do the retail store. I really love the work because it [incorporates] all of the things I like: design, branding, packaging, food, and menu development.

I guess I should mention we also have a book coming out. That was three and a half years of ambition. Talia and I wrote that together. I’m really proud of it and excited for it to be in the world.

Down the road, we really want to have our own hotel. And at some point I want to have a farm that feeds the restaurants and becomes a part of the ecosystem of the people that work with us, and a learning experience for them. Those are long-term plans. In the immediate, it’s really getting Lilia and Misi back on track and keeping them on track and seeing what we can do with MP, because it’s really exciting for us. It’s a lot! So if I’ve indicated that I’m not really ambitious, that’s not true.

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