September 11, 2025, marks the 10th anniversary of Chef Kerry Simon’s death.
Shortly before his death, Kerry asked me to contribute the memoir portion of a book he was hoping to publish. Because time was short, and his condition had left him unable to speak, I interviewed as many of his friends as possible, collecting stories about his life. Unfortunately, Kerry died before it could be completed.
The short stories in this series are precisely what I presented to Kerry a few weeks before his death, receiving a thumbs-up and nod of approval. They have not been updated. The video trailer in these stories represents preliminary work on a documentary about the chef’s life, which I discussed with him during our final meeting. I still hope to complete that project.
Iron Chef Showdown
Kerry was invited to compete on The Food Network’s Iron Chef America during the show’s second season. His business partner, Elizabeth Blau, accompanied him to New York for the competition, along with her husband, Kim Canteenwalla, who served as one of Kerry’s sous chefs.
“Kerry always had this calm about him,” says Kim, who traveled and collaborated with Kerry on numerous projects. “But that was maybe the one time I saw him [nervous]. He was cool about it. But the closer it got, he really started taking it very seriously. He really wanted it.”
The show featured a rotating cast of four Iron Chefs, and Kerry was assigned to go up against Cat Cora. Cat and Kerry weren’t close at the time, although they had mutual friends and had attended events together.
“I had great respect for him,” Cora says. “I thought he was so cool with his hair and the rock and roll chef look. And I knew he was very spiritual. He meditated. So we could relate on that level as well. I just thought he was a really cool guy. So it was great when I was told we were gonna go head-to-head.”
When the show’s host announced the episode’s secret ingredient, hamburger, it seemed like a no-brainer for Kerry. Since moving to the Hard Rock, he’d been concentrating on comfort foods, and few dishes are as comforting as a hamburger.
“It was something, to me, of a joke that he was fortunate enough to get hamburger meat,” says longtime friend and supporter Robin Leach. “That couldn’t have been a big challenge to him because it was what he did all the time.”
But Cat was undeterred. Her global influences and family history of cooking on a budget had provided her with a strong background in street food.
Kerry had a surprise in store for the Iron Chef and the audience. His old pal Bill Murray, with whom he’d made pizzas as a teen, had shown up to support him.
“Kim introduced me to Bill Murray and his whole family,” Cora recalls. “And that was a fun, unique aspect. They were big fans of Iron Chef. And it wasn’t a big surprise to me that Kerry was friends with him, because he’s a cool guy and Kerry’s a cool guy.”
Throughout the competition, Kerry (dressed in his signature black chef’s coat) remained calm and collected with an almost zen-like level of concentration. In the meantime, Cora (in light blue) rushed around the kitchen, clearly more concerned with the show’s time constraints.
Kerry eventually plated five dishes: beef on sugarcane skewers, steak tartare, consommé with soba noodles, potato ravioli and his “ultimate” burger with fries and a vanilla shake. Cat presented five of her own: samosas, tamales, a steak tartare burger, hamburger pizza and Asian meatballs.
As they awaited the judges’ decision, Kim recalls, “Bill ended up buying everyone burgers. He went across the street, [he] and his son, and bought everyone in the studio burgers.”
It was Kerry who emerged victorious by a razor-thin one-tenth of a point margin.
“It was a great competition,” Cat says of the battle. “I have done so many of them. But there are just certain ones that stick out in my mind as super-fun and exciting, like when I went up against Kerry.”
Over the years, the burger he prepared in this competition went on to be featured in several of Kerry’s restaurants, including his K.G.B. Kerry’s Gourmet Burgers at Harrah’s in Las Vegas. Cat finally got to try it a year or two after the competition in his Los Angeles restaurant.
“We had a great laugh over the competition,” she says of the visit. “And we sat and chatted. And he sent [out] a bunch of phenomenal food. And then he sent the hamburger out. And it was the winner. What can I say? [He] can take that one, because it was pretty awesome.”
THE CITY OF ANGELS BECKONS
Having already achieved fame and befriended the famous in New York, Miami and Las Vegas, Los Angeles was a logical next step for Kerry. So he opened Simon L.A. at The Sofitel in 2006.
“The restaurant was beautiful,” says his friend and partner, Kim Canteenwalla. “Kerry was so happy with the look and feel. We had an outdoor patio, and that linked onto Randy Gerber’s club [Stone Rose]. We had these beautifully designed walls by Yabu Pushelberg, and an open kitchen.”
The Hollywood stars flocked to it.
“Everyone always wanted to be around Kerry, just because of his charisma and the way he made people feel,” says Michael Fiorelli, the restaurant’s Chef de Cuisine. “He had such great energy.”
The stories from the staff are too many to chronicle. There was the time the cast of The Sopranos threw a season wrap party there, and when the cast of Big Love did the same. There was the episode of Entourage that was shot there. There were appearances by more celebrities than anyone can remember. And then there were the times Kerry showed up after-hours with some unexpected guests.
“It was always late night,” says Michael Fiorelli, the restaurant’s Chef de Cuisine. “Kerry would disappear late in the night, just around midnight. Then he would come back at like one o’clock in the morning. And he’d be like ‘Hey man, I know the kitchen’s closing up. But I have some friends here. We just have to cook some quick food. They’re not picky. They’re my buddies.’ And then I’d look up and it would be Cheap Trick.”
Other “buddies” Fiorelli recalls showing up with late at night include Velvet Revolver, ZZ Top, Tommy Lee and Vince Neil. But he says his boss was always low-key about it, never demanding special star treatment for his VIP friends. They were clearly there as friends looking to hang out and grab a bite rather than stars looking to flex their celebrity muscles.
“Kerry’s not the type of guy to say, ‘Hey, I’m with Vince Neil right now. He likes Pinot Grigio, we have to get it for him.’”
His favorite late-night buddy story involves Kerry coming to the line of the open kitchen and asking for not one, but two orders of roast chicken and mashed potatoes for his guest.
“And he says, ‘This is my buddy Suge.’ And it’s Suge Knight.”
Like Las Vegas, Kerry and his staff never tried to publicize these appearances or invade their guests’ privacy. On the contrary, says the restaurant’s assistant managers, Q-Juan Taylor, “Half the time the stars would be the people wanting to get their pictures taken with Kerry.”
Taylor’s favorite VIP story occurred while the restaurant was closed, and the staff were preparing to head home after a 12-hour shift. But Kerry asked them all to stick around because he had “some friends coming by” for a late dinner.
“And I was like, man, who are these people?” he recalls. “I just want to go home!” Nonetheless, Fiorelli whipped up a family-style dinner of chicken, cous cous and endive salad. “And next thing you know, Randy Gerber and George Clooney walked in to eat dinner with him after the restaurant closed.”
“That was just the kind of person Kerry is. I think George Clooney had a late flight and didn’t get to eat dinner yet. And Kerry just opened his kitchen up. And we sat there and we talked and hung out until three in the morning.”
Alice’s Favorite Dish
Ask most of Kerry’s fans what their favorite dish was, and many can’t remember. Maybe they liked too many of them. Perhaps they were partying too hard to remember what they ate. And unless someone eats the same thing every time they dine at a Simon restaurant, it’s unlikely the chefs will remember what each customer likes best.
Alice Cooper may be the most significant exception to this rule. You can ask chefs in Simon restaurants across the country what he’s going to want when he comes through the door, and they know. You can even ask the rock star’s manager, Shep Gordon, and he’ll tell you.
“Alice, from when he met Kerry, never went to a city that had a Kerry restaurant that he didn’t call ahead and get the maple steak,” Gordon says when describing the relationship between the musician and the chef. “Kerry used to do a steak marinated in maple syrup.”
What he’s talking about is a maple-glazed ribeye. Kerry first made it for Alice in Miami. And when he talks about it, his excitement is evident.
“We went to his restaurant in South Beach,” Alice says of that first encounter. “And he made this steak for me, this ribeye steak. And I think he did it with syrup. It was some sort of sugar coating on the outside of the steak. And I looked at it and I said, ‘Oh, I don’t know what this is gonna be.’ But it was the best thing I’ve ever tasted in my life.
“And my son, every time we’d go to one of Kerry’s places, we would get this special steak. And Kerry would make it for us. It was like a ribeye that was flash-fried in maple syrup. And it was like a dessert and a main course at the same time. And it was a very creative way to look at it. I mean, who would ever think to do that, to give it a sugar coating on the outside of a steak? It’s one of my favorite things ever!”
And Cooper has had it all over the country. “When Shep and I would be in town somewhere and he’d say ‘Hey, Kerry’s got a restaurant here,’ we’d say ‘Whoa, that’s where we’re going!’”
The dish has always been an off-the-menu treat made especially for Alice. But the chef is finally ready to share it with the world – if you think you can make it at home.
Teaching Sammy the Ropes
In addition to feeding them and providing the perfect party spot, Kerry has always been excited about sharing his passion for cooking with his celebrity friends. And there may be no better example than Sammy Hagar. In addition to a prolific musical career that includes fronting Van Halen for their most successful albums, the singer and guitarist also has a voracious appetite for food and beverages. He’s launched tremendously successful lines of tequila and rum, has published a cookbook and has two restaurant chains. And, he freely admits, he wouldn’t have been able to do a lot of that without Kerry.
“Kerry showed me the ropes of owning a restaurant and how to design and taste a menu and see if it’s really right,” he says gratefully.
One thing that few people outside the restaurant business ever experience is eating your way through an entire menu. It’s a tradition usually reserved for the introduction of a new seasonal menu, so the staff can see what they like and decide if anything needs tweaking. And the trick is to go slow, taking only a single bite of each dish.
When Sammy was invited to join Elizabeth Blau and Kerry for one of those tastings at The Hard Rock, he was thoroughly unprepared.
“We sat there and ate everything on the menu — every appetizer, every dessert, every main course,” Hagar recalls. “And we all had a bite, and we put it down. It was the first time I’d ever done that, and that was really a culinary overload. There’d be something that was so good I would want to take another bite. I’d say ‘Kerry, I gotta have another bite.’ And he’d say, ‘No, don’t do it, man. We gotta do the whole menu.’”
Sammy was so impressed with Kerry’s restaurants that when he opened his Cabo Wabo Cantina in Lake Tahoe, he hired Kerry to design the menu. And the two eventually spent two days together there, eating the entire menu. While items have come and gone, Sammy says guests there can still see Kerry’s touch in the tortilla chips, which the chef insisted come in red, white and green – the colors of the Mexican flag.
But Kerry’s contributions to Sammy’s food weren’t limited to the musician’s restaurants. Sammy also frequently asked his friend to bail him out while cooking at home.
“Any time I would get in trouble, I would call Kerry,” Sammy says, laughing. “He was my go-to guy. I would just say ‘Oh fuck, this ain’t working.’ And I’d call Kerry. He’d be in the kitchen working. And he’d pick it up. And I’d say ‘What do I do with this shit? It ain’t done and the outside’s burnt.’ And he’d say ‘Just lower it to 220,’ or whatever.”
Sammy says that all these years later, there’s still one recipe of Kerry’s that he pulls out more than any other when entertaining: steak tartare.
“He was the only guy that put this Asian twist on it that I knew of. He uses ginger and cilantro. And I have to tell you it’s still one of my go-to recipes if I’m having a dinner party, I’m down with his tartare. It’s a little bit of Asian, but not so Asian that you can’t have a white wine with it.”
Led Zeppelin Command Performance
In 2007, Led Zeppelin reunited in London for a tribute concert honoring Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun. One wealthy fan donated $250,000 to charity for the opportunity to host a group dinner with the band for friends. And as Michael Fiorelli, who was running the kitchen at Simon L.A., recalls, “the tour manager and Led Zeppelin themselves were such fans of Kerry’s cooking that they asked Kerry, ‘Would you be willing to come out and cook for Led Zeppelin and their guests before the concert? ‘”
The chef was extremely busy at the time, but Fiorelli says, “Kerry could never say no, because he has such a big heart.” As a result, the chef found himself in the unusual position of doing a favor for one of the biggest rock bands in history.
Fiorelli accompanied Kerry to lend a hand, and was amazed to see the level of celebrity his boss had achieved on the other side of the Atlantic – among both stars and average working Joes.
“I was thinking, ‘Holy shit, I’m cooking for Led Zeppelin now!’ But we’re in London, and celebrities are walking by us, and they were like ‘Hey what’s up Kerry?’ And Kerry’s like, ‘Hey man. Hey Pink. Hey, Carey Hart.’ Or then we’d be sitting in a restaurant in London, and Kerry knows the busboy!”
“Then we did this dinner for Led Zeppelin,” he continues. “And I’m practically trembling because we’re cooking for Led Zeppelin. And Robert Plant walks in and he’s like, ‘Hey Kerry, what’s going on, man?’ And Kerry says, ‘Hey man, good to see you dude!’ like it’s nothing. And then Kerry says to me, ‘Are you cool, dude? I’m going to go to the sound check.’ And Kerry goes to the sound check and ends up hanging out with Robert Plant all night, like they’re old friends. Robert was just as excited to hang out with him. And to Kerry, it was no big deal; he was just hanging out with friends.”
The younger chef says his boss’s fame was so great that at times he felt like a rock star by association during the trip – even when he went to the restroom.
“I didn’t realize that when celebrities go to concerts, they have their own restrooms,” he says. “So when I came out of the restroom, there were all these L.A. celebrities: Pink and Carey Hart and Steven Tyler and Iman. They’re all in line to use the restroom. And I was wearing my Simon L.A. jacket. And every one of them was like, ‘Hey man, Simon L.A.! What’s up? Is Kerry here? Where’s Kerry?’”
Despite the fantastic memories, Fiorelli is hard-pressed to remember the exact menu he served the band that night. But he distinctly remembers a tuna tartare as well as halibut with quinoa and pepper sauce.
The Chef on Stage
As the rock ‘n’ roll chef, it’s no surprise that Kerry felt at home backstage at just about any rock concert. In addition to cooking for Led Zeppelin at their reunion show, he’s toured with Motley Crue. A memorabilia case erected in the chef’s honor at the Hard Rock in Las Vegas contains his backstage passes from Alice In Chains and Alice Cooper. Perhaps Cooper puts it best.
“He has,” the singer says, “the golden backstage pass.”
One thing Cooper was never able to do, however, was convince Kerry to get on stage with him, no matter how hard he tried.
“I never could get him to come out as a zombie,” he says. “I never could get him to come out as part of the show. It was always one of those things where he’d say ‘No, no, no, the show is supposed to be tight and I don’t want to get out there.’ And I told him, ‘You know the show looks tight, but it’s very improv in a lot of places.’ But I never could get him on stage.”
Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick had considerably better luck, thanks to Kerry’s love of guitars and Nielsen’s extensive collection.
“In my feeble attempts to try to get him to do something, I would tell him the only way I would sell him a guitar or help him find a guitar was if he would have to come on stage.”
He jokingly describes Kerry’s playing with the band as “not very good,” but says that despite (or possibly because of) his attempts to embarrass him publicly, “We couldn’t get him off the stage.”
Another musician who succeeded in getting Kerry out on stage is Tool singer Maynard Keenan, although the chef didn’t perform a note. When Keenan’s side project, Puscifer, which is part performance art, part comedy and part band, performed at The Palms, Kerry made appearances at two shows. Dressed in his full kitchen outfit, he quietly walked onto the stage and provided the performers with a tray of his desserts before exiting. It was a small cameo on a crowded stage that could have gone unnoticed. But given Kerry’s celebrity, plenty of people in the audience recognized him.
Sammy Hagar says he’s never been able to get Kerry on stage with him. But shortly before Kerry’s death, he vowed that if the chef were to show up at any future concerts, “I’ll wheel his ass out there!”
Sammy never got that chance. But Kerry continued to rock out his entire life. In fact, just three days before being admitted to the hospital for the final time, he was on stage at The Hard Rock in his wheelchair, watching his old friends Cheap Trick perform.
LL Cool K (Ladies Love Cool Kerry)
While Kerry was notorious for a clean living lifestyle that sometimes flew in the face of his public persona, he definitely knew how to party like a rock star. As Robin Leach says, “Kerry’s only vice was women, and that’s not a bad vice to have.”
Rumors of Kerry’s romantic relationships with famous, beautiful women are widespread. But when asked, he was too much of a gentleman to name names. Yet everybody who knows him has seen the gorgeous female fans who are drawn to him. They’ve often rivaled those of many rock stars. And he hasn’t been shy about returning their attention.
“Oh my God,” Elizabeth Blau says of the women who threw themselves at her good friend when they worked together. “I was swatting them off like flies. Married, unmarried, husbands coming in, there was always some sort of drama. The women would send pictures and gifts. The girls would come and eat at the restaurant on a nightly basis, just swooning at him. And when we traveled, it was the same thing. It was those big eyes, that curly hair, and that infectious smile of his. He’s just one of those rare people who was just a gentle, kind soul. But he could definitely get mischievous, don’t get me wrong. He was definitely not an angel when it came to his relationships with women. But the ladies love Kerry.”
“That’s what I would always jive him about, man,” says Sammy Hagar, laughing. “I’d go to Simon, and it would be packed with groupies. Chef groupies!”
“He had a lot of fans among girls,” George Maloof concurs. “Not in a bad way. But it was fun to go into [Palms Place] and see who he was chatting it up with.”
There were lots of gorgeous girls,” Robin Leach says of the chef’s Hard Rock restaurant, “many of whom either knew Kerry or dated Kerry.”
And manager Tobias Peach, who occasionally went out clubbing with Kerry after work, says, “The one thing Kerry was the master of was the Houdini. He wouldn’t say he was going to the bathroom. You’d just turn around, and he wasn’t there anymore. And typically, whatever girl was with us would be mysteriously gone at the same time.”
But it’s not like the chef was indiscriminate. His pal Rick Nielsen says, “I always made fun of him about the ones that he didn’t get to charm. One of the biggest mistakes he ever made was not dating his doctor and not dating the women who had so many tattoos there was no room for his face on there.”
Hagar credits the chef’s mild, almost shy personality as much as his looks with his romantic success. “That’s why the ladies love him,” he says, “because he’s all mellow.”
FOR MORE POSTS IN THIS SERIES, PLEASE SEE:
Remembering Kerry Simon: Intro & NYC
Remembering Kerry Simon: The Miami Years
