>> Foodies, this one's for you.

Decorated chef Curtis Duffy has become a household name, making his mark on Chicago's dining table for the past.

25 years.

Now he's sharing a little more than fine dining his new book, fireproof memoir of a chef outlines his rise to success and dives even deeper into challenging and traumatic events he faced throughout his childhood.

And joining us now is James Beard.

Award-winning Michelin-starred chef Curtis Duffy, chef and owner of restaurant.

Welcome back.

Good to see Thank you.

Nice to see you again.

Congrats on all the things.

Thank course, your documentary for Grace came out back in 2015. told a lot of your personal story then why did you want to write a book now, too?

That's a great question.

You when we started writing the book, Jeremy.

>> The co-writer also asked that same question why you're so young.

You.

45?

Why now?

And for me, you know, it is the transformation through adversity and felt it was time for me to tell my story.

Like you said, Grace just skim the surface a little bit.

And I want have a lot more stories that they needed to get out.

Wanted to get out and what a better way than to put it on paper to feel somewhat therapeutic.

Yeah, very much so.

Every story lead to something new.

a new discovery.

Something that I had put away for many kind of shuffled onto the carpet, if you will, as we all So, yeah, it was very therapeutic in that sense.

You mentioned your co-writer, Jeremy Wagner.

And in reading the book, the writings, very clever did he sort of master your voice because he knows he that well.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We because we were friends before.

Right?

So that made the story for me allowed me to kind of.

Be OK with letting some of it go, right.

I think the big part writing this memoir was the comfort ability to allow those stories to come out in.

>> Into somebody that I trusted nearly and I felt like if we were wrote this book with somebody else, maybe the stories when the bin as harsh and and as Leona says, we won't set out to do was to make sure that we're telling the story with the utmost brutally honest and not sugarcoat anything.

You share a lot of a lot about your difficult childhood living mostly in poverty, sleeping your parents closet because the apartment at the time was too small.

>> The time your father held a shot gun to your head to force you to fire your own shot down as a kid fights and violence frequently.

yet you still dedicate the book to your father, Robert Duffy, your Mother, Jan, your stepmother, who you came to call mom how are you still able to see the humanity in your father when maybe others, others didn't throughout his life?

and I spoke about making sure that the book didn't philonise my father.

>> And and I was I was very adamant about that.

You I had spent 30 years.

It's 30 years now since surpassing I spent.

30 years of my life understanding and trying understand his mentality in the way he operated in the way he did things and why he did things certain way.

So.

For me, it was it was a long process of forgiveness.

And, you know, they are my parents and they've given me a tremendous amount outside of.

You know, the things that we how we grew up.

They gave me a tremendous amount great things as well.

So, you know, I'm always bust that, you know, I had a certain amount of time.

They were present in my life and I'm always going to be thankful for that.

Of course, one of the biggest dramatic moments that you had to overcome was, of course, when your father killed your mother and then himself in a murder suicide.

>> After a 10 hour standoff with you were 19 years old at the time when you had to identify them.

Out of all the tough moments in your childhood.

How did that when Chief U?

mean, it's It was in an instant.

It changed my life forever.

So everything that I knew enough to that kind of all just disappeared.

And I had to kind of just put it away and and decide for myself humming and move forward and how moderna.

What am I going to take from it?

I want to learn from it and move forward.

And I think we all do that in life is we have that option too.

Take the good and bad and we can choose left or right.

And for me like I wanted to take.

That portion of it and dedicated towards my craft, which happen to be cooking at the time and and that's all I wanted to do.

And that kind of just forced me and put blinders on and just try to achieve something great.

You also you share the letters that your father wrote in those last very dark months in this book, which is something deeply personal, of course, for you, for your family, for him.

Certainly.

>> Why did you want to share those here?

It's part of the story.

mean, it's we said I wanted to be an open book.

I wanted to this to be my entire story.

So I didn't want to pick and choose like all these fluff pieces and make this think this beautiful book.

I wanted it to be what it is.

I want tell my story and that is part of the story.

So why not put him in the book?

What do you hope other people take from from this particular chapter of your life of the book?

I think inspiration.

I want people to know that, you know, everybody has a story.

I'm lucky enough to be able to have a platform to have a voice.

My story.

But we all know everybody goes through things and you know, if they can take a little bit from the book it helps them.

In a direction dealing with something currently dealing with something in the past, that's a win for us.

That's a win for me.

never got to cook for your parents.

Certainly not at the Les you mentioned, you know, cooking for them when you're still learning and testing some stuff out.

Maybe they're being nice because it wasn't that good.

>> Owner.

At the level that you cook today, what would you make for them?

For me, it wouldn't be about cooking at this point.

It would be just about.

>> The idea of sitting at a table together with them with my family, my immediate my wife and children and down.

To have a sit and you don't have conversation and I don't want to Figure it out of 2 point.

>> Okay.

So pivoting a bit because we know that, you know, you during home EOC is when you find cooking and you've some teachers mentors who I'm trying to fast forward here, some teachers mentors get you on your way.

Now, of course, you are chef and owner ever and your cocktail lounge after next door.

So you and a restaurant, you play some quiet but critical roles and that little show called the Bear.

Your hands are in several important food plating scenes.

Both the restaurant and the cocktail lounge play the role of kitchen.

What did it mean for you and your business is play those parts in a show that became wildly successful?

Yeah, I was so important because it was.

>> It's a show that really gets it.

It's a show that really what I really love about it also, it shows so much of our city in such a great light.

I know there's a lot of films that hit shot here in the city.

this one does magical things for our city and to be a part of that was it was incredible.

You know, the team was incredible because the cast was incredible.

And they they tell a story that really nails it the kitchen life there that they do portray is about 90% accurate.

You know, they do a really good job with it.

Has anybody recognized her hands from with the black males is pretty easy pick a >> Can you relate to the main character Carmi in that program and what he and his team are going through like getting a restaurant off the ground and running it every night 100%.

Yeah.

I mean, that is the daily grind with us, right?

It is.

>> It is.

We have a deadline every day.

5 o'clock when we open those doors and we have those pressures leading up to 5 o'clock and then.

>> Once the doors open here we are.

Now we have 60 guess that we have to please and hit their expectations and make sure that they're leaving incredibly.

honored that they were.

They're incredibly thankful happy when they walk out the front door and that's that's our job every single night that we're open and a lot goes into the work that you all to you learning about those guests before they even 100%.

Yeah, we try.

We do Google.

We do with link.

Then we do Instagram.

We try to find as much as we can.

To make your experience better.

We're going to try to find as much as we possibly can.

If you're left-handed, we're gonna make sure you still wears on your left side.

If you treat Coca-Cola and a lot of your pictures, we're to make sure we have that product in House.

you talk about that, you know, some the people that you worked under.

Of course, Charlie Trotter Grant Achatz Alinea John Souza.

>> Big lessons you learn from them.

What's your advice to future ships?

Well, I think taking a little bit from each one of them is what made my successful is what made me successful.

It's.

>> It's understanding their successes and taking what used what available to you and what you can apply on your daily.

Every day during your journey.

Exactly right.

So what I take from John was certain things.

What I've taken from Charlie was certain things and grant all of those had great attributes to who I am today.

>> 30 seconds left.

The book is called Fireproof was being fireproof mean to you?

>> means being resilient.

Its means, you know.

Building character through adversity.

It's it's everything to me.

It's me.

Coming up through what I came up and coming on the other side untie untouched being able to continue push forward.

>> All right.

Congratulations, Curtis, Stephanie, thank you