Evan Funke's Incredible Year: From Kitchen Fire to Oscar Party

Last fall, one of the hottest restaurants in Beverly Hills—a pasta temple called Funke—closed for six weeks after a fire ripped through the kitchen’s exhaust system. That’s a scary moment for any chef. Let alone for Evan Funke, whose restaurant is lined with artwork by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol. Thankfully, no one was hurt in the blaze. (The art collection also survived unscathed.) But the incident is perhaps a metaphor for the 47-year-old’s career, which has been a series of trials from the jump. Funke got his start at Wolfgang Puck’s Spago before moving to Rustic Canyon in 2008, where he became a sensation thanks to a celebrated burger he basically hated cooking. Funke went out on his own in 2013 with his first restaurant, Bucato, earning rave reviews—though the restaurant closed after two years and Funke was forced to declare personal bankruptcy. Despite fears that no one would lend him money again, he came roaring back in 2017 with Felix in Venice, California; the menu drew inspiration from his time studying pasta making with Alessandra Spisni in Bologna, and at Felix, there was quite literally nowhere for him to hide. Upon arrival, the first thing diners saw was Funke standing inside a climate controlled, glass box rolling out pasta by hand. That journey was chronicled in an emotional episode of the Netflix series, Chef’s Table: Noodles, which turned Funke (and his beard) into a bonafide celebrity. Felix was the start of Funke’s rapidly expanding empire, which now includes Mother Wolf (which has three locations including Las Vegas), plus Tre Dita in Chicago and Funke in Beverly Hills. After taking much of 2025 to focus on operations, more growth is afoot the chef says—both at home and abroad. He’s even coming for your pantry. Here, Funke talks about going bankrupt, the Netflix effect, and why aspiring chefs really should go to business school first. Mickey Rapkin: You grew up in a free-spirited household in the Palisades. Your father was a visual effects specialist who won back-to-back Oscars for The Lord of the Rings. But I think you’re also a storyteller. The first thing you see at Felix is you standing inside a glass box making pasta by hand. What story are you telling there? MORE FOR YOU Evan Funke: I’m seeking out meaningful connections between the pasta maker and the guest. I’m part of a massive flywheel of history that has been bestowed upon me by women in their 70s, 80s, and 90s. My job as a storyteller is to be a conduit for those histories. The pasta lab—this glass-enclosed, temperature-controlled, theatrical piece—is a very large part of that. Eric Ryan: That’s so much more than storytelling, that’s theater. Funke: One-hundred percent. I learned about theater from some of the best people. Wolfgang Puck was my mentor—as was Lee Hefter—at Spago. I’m a little bit more reserved than Wolf is. But we’re all on stage. As a younger chef, I thought people used to go to restaurants just because of the food. And it’s completely wrong. You have to provide real experience.` Ryan: Brands are so much a reflection of their founders. The way you lit up there—you talked about it with such passion and pride. Funke: Being of service to people is one of the most difficult things to do. After Covid, the level of expectation shot through the roof, because people were denied experience. They were denied birthdays, and weddings, and anniversaries. And it created this lust. It’s like the 80s again, you know? People are investing in restaurants like it’s a good thing to do. Don’t. It’s a crazy business. Kitchen Confidential Rapkin: When young people tell you they want to be a chef, you have some surprising advice for them. Funke: I tell them to go to business school first. If you go to culinary school, they’re going to teach you some archaic French curriculum that has very little relevance in today’s industry. I taught culinary school for 12 weeks—and I was summarily fired for being too aggressive, OK? That’s another story. But they spend very little time teaching about the actual business of running a restaurant. Food costs, inventory, labor controls, accounting, HR. The laundry. Rapkin: You learned this on the job at your own first restaurant, Bucato. Would you take us through what you learned from that restaurant closing? Because the food was not the problem. Funke: No, the food was not the problem. It was rotten from the inside. I learned what my weakness was. And that was the business acumen needed to actually run a restaurant. Or at least the mechanical sympathy of understanding what goes on. Because if I’m going to be put in a position at the very top as a CEO—or as executive chef, or a partner, whatever—I at least [need] a solid understanding, if not an intimate understanding of every person, product, and process within my purview. Ryan: Hold on, you just said “mechanical sympathy.” I’ve never heard that phrase before. That’s brilliant. Funke: It’s actually from a famous Formula 1 driver. Formula 1 drivers need to understand how the car works, but they’re not mechanics. So, they have a sympathy towards the mechanism. I’m a huge F1 fan. After every single race, no matter what, they all get into a room and they viscerally—and intimately—go through every single minute of the race. What can we do better tomorrow? What are we never gonna do again? It’s so raw and so candid. There’s just nowhere to hide. Ryan: Feedback is a gift. Whenever somebody gives me the bird on a highway, I always remind them, Feedback’s a gift! Funke: I like that. It’s also about giving people the space and grace to fail. Rapkin: When you were coming up in restaurants, I don’t think chefs gave their staff grace. What’s the worst thing someone said to you when you were coming up? That you can repeat… Funke: The worst? “Funke, you broke my heart.” Rapkin: What’d you do? Funke: Who knows. Some, like, nominal mistake. It was a totally different time. And young cooks today—who’ve watched The Bear and all of that stuff—they just cannot fathom the amount of pressure that someone like me, or someone of my age, has gone through [cooking] in the late 90s through 2006, or 2008, or even up to 2012. When I took over my first restaurant kitchen—as a first-time executive chef—I was so inappropriate. Looking back, I was clearly angry and yelling at people because I was frustrated that I couldn’t do better. Rapkin: Well, you’ve now got an empire. Let’s talk about Mother Wolf in Las Vegas. There’s got to be some unique challenge to running a restaurant inside a casino. Funke: (laughing) Well, I do want to keep my contract. Honestly, in Vegas restaurants, they light things on fire. There’s bottle service and sparklers. And I fought really, really hard to just do a Mother Wolf for the people of Las Vegas. And provide them with an exceptional experience—not just [for] the tourists or the gamblers or whatever. We’re busy year-round. We’re doing double-digit millions in Vegas. It’s a good business model, the team there is extraordinary. But it’s taken us about two years to really get into that rhythm. Repeating Success Ryan: Every time you open a new restaurant, it’s like a new startup. And I always say, startups aren’t iterative. What does the first couple of months look like? Your learning curve has to be steep. Have you nailed the process? Funke: I open restaurants very differently than most people. Most people don’t budget for contingency—extra time, rent abatement, an additional runway for that rent. There is a learning curve. But I provide our opening staff with an extraordinary roadmap. I always say, “The strongest bonds are between soldiers in the military. Because bonds are built through shared pain.” We drill down on geography, we drill down on the provenance of dishes. Everyone needs to have a thorough understanding of all the things—not just how to take an order, but actually how it’s made, where’s the flour from—because that provides this richness. We do about five weeks of classroom [time]. Rapkin: Five weeks? Funke: That’s an extraordinary amount of time. It’s also a luxury. One-hundred percent of your success is based on what you do before you open the door. If you’re opening the door and you’re not ready, God help you. Everybody wants to go to a brand new restaurant—the hot thing. I want a reservation, first day, I want it. We tailor the book so that we’re only doing 75 covers the first day. Then we’ll do 100 the next day, and then 125, and then 150. The ramp is very gradual and organic. Everybody needs to build a rhythm. You have to provide the system for it. Rapkin: People do want to come on the first day, in part because you’ve become a star. Funke: I make spaghetti for a living. Ryan: (laughing) That’s what I’m always saying about Method. I make soap. Rapkin: What’s the weirdest place you’ve been recognized since your big Chef’s Table episode? Funke: Outside of my house, actually. I live in an area of Los Angeles that has a back road up to the Hollywood Sign. It’s constant traffic. I’m walking out of my house and up drives a minivan full of people from the Midwest. They’re like, “Oh my god! It’s the pasta man! Can we take a photo?” That was the weirdest. But people roll by me in traffic and will take a photo. Rapkin: It’s the beard. If you lost the beard, people might not recognize you. Funke: This episode has struck a chord with so many people that have struggled with their careers. It’s not just people that are in the food business. It’s people from all over the world—from Brazil to Poland—messaging me on Instagram saying, “I watched your Netflix, I went through something similar, this has really helped me.” Or, “You made me really hungry.” Or, “You made me cry.” Rapkin: You lost your shirt, you declared bankruptcy. How dark was that time? Did you think, “No one’s ever going to give me money again for a restaurant. I’m gonna end up at Macaroni Grill?” Funke: I think I had about a week of, like, I’m down, I don’t know what to do, blah blah blah. But my wife is a very strong, Korean-American woman. We met before the bankruptcy. We met at Bucato. And she stayed with me. She’s like, “Get your head out of your ass.” It took some time for me to process. I didn’t have that connection to money that people do. Like, this, emotional thing. Doing a BK— Rapkin: A bankruptcy. Funke: —it’s a financial tool. You shouldn’t feel an emotion to it. You should certainly study the failure, as you should study your victories. But you shouldn’t feel emotionally bad about that. I actually read an article during that time. A very famous chef had BK’d on something, and he was still paying fifty grand a month for his rental in the Hamptons. I was like, OK, if that guy can do it, I can totally do it. Rapkin: You said something there that Eric often says about studying victories. Everyone looks at the failures. But what can you learn from a victory? Funke: Failure is felt viscerally. How did I get here? Why is this happening? But if you study a victory in the same detail, you can duplicate it. Ryan: What’s been your greatest pasta victory? Rapkin: Was it cooking for Obama?Beyoncé? Funke: They’re all very cool. Honestly, it’s gonna sound cheesy to some people, but this is really the truth. When you sit with a 90-year-old woman—and she tells you that her tears used to moisten the dough because she wanted to go outside, but she had to make pasta for the evening meal? You can never leave that moment. These women have been making a singular shape since they were six years old. And they’re 90. I can go online and look at YouTube and learn the technical stuff. But for me, the real juice is to feel it in its own space, from its origin. Then I can tell a richer story. Ryan: I am so inspired by you. Funke: Pasta is one of those things that’s interwoven into the fabric of this country. I’ve always wanted to [trace] this connection between the East and the West, and draw the through-line of how it got all connected. Because the Marco Polo story is complete bull. How did it go from soft wheat noodles from 10,000 years ago—from some Chinese dynasty—to Barilla who does three billion gross selling pasta worldwide? Evan Funke Is Coming For Your Pantry Rapkin: Speaking of which, are you thinking about CPG? Packaged goods? Funke: One-hundred percent. I started a company—with some very close friends and partners—called Funke Foods. Ryan: (laughing) Some people just are born with the right name. Funke: We also started a company called Ferragosto, [producing] sparkling and still water for the restaurants. Across six restaurants, we’re going through probably around 10,000 bottles of still and sparkling a month. Let’s just do our own water. We’re [also] doing pasta—dried pasta first—from Gragnano, 100% organic. Then we’re doing some sauces just to kind of introduce ourselves to the market. And beyond that it’s frozen pizza, and meatballs, and tiramisu. Rapkin: When are we going to see this? Funke: Hopefully Q2 next year. Rapkin: The restaurant business is never dull. You had a fire at Funke in August. There’s some serious art in that restaurant. What was your first thought, grab the Warhol? Funke: My first thought was, “Let’s get everyone out.” Actually, the first thought was, “Let’s get the coals.” We actually put the coals from the wood-fired grill into the pizza oven—because it’s on a separate shaft—and we closed the door. I studied to be a firefighter many, many moons ago. If you smother the fire, it’ll go out. Then we said, “OK, let’s get everybody out.” Beverly Hills PD? Their drone was there in 30 seconds. They were on-camera all the way. They were actually outside on the patio having dinner. They saw the smoke, so they were in the truck before the call even went. Ryan: When you’re a firefighter enjoying a nice meal, and you see a fire in the middle? Funke: I mean, those guys lived for it. They were stacked, jacked, ready. I think the biggest lesson for me to share with anybody who’s in the restaurant business—if you have any kind of liability, or you have any kind of equity—is be an advocate for business interruption insurance. So many restaurants are underinsured. Pay the insurance. Cry once, cry every month. But pay the insurance. Because business interruption insurance will save you if something goes sideways. Rapkin: Looking ahead to this year, are you concerned about tariffs on olive oil? Where is your head at? You’re in an incredibly expensive business—in terms of insurance for employees. Funke: Yeah, California is an expensive place, but it’s a very good market. I took 2025 off to polish operations and really fortify the team for expansion into 2026. We’ve got quite a few deals that are on the table at the moment—international as well as domestic. New York Vs. L.A. Rapkin: Are you coming to New York? Or there’s enough pasta in New York? Funke: I’ll say my piece on New York really quick. For me, I would have to move there. Because the only way that New York and L.A. are similar is that New Yorkers want to see the chef in the restaurant—otherwise they call you out. Like, “That’s a satellite for this guy, he doesn’t care.” Ryan: So interesting. Funke: Especially for someone from Los Angeles. There’s a rivalry between the two coasts, OK? So, I would have to move there to plant the flag. I would want to do that in order to give it the right amount of energy, number one. Number two—there’s so much competition in that city. You’re not only competing with the chef-driven restaurants, you’re competing with the halal guy on the street. Because there’s something to eat every hundred feet. Rapkin: That halal truck always smells so good. Ryan I walked by one the other day, so good. Funke: On top of that, it’s really hard to justify a million dollars in rent. I mean, you’d need to do breakfast, lunch, and dinner—and you’d need to be slammed to make it. And unfortunately now, I’m in this kind of hamster wheel of not being able to do a 3,000-foot restaurant. I need to do 10,000 feet and up. The business metrics need to work, especially if it’s on the East Coast. Because now it’s a 5-hour flight, a different time zone, a completely different labor force. But I love New York. I would love to do a six-month pop-up at the Centurion Lounge. Rapkin: Perfect. Are you catering the Vanity Fair Oscar party again? Funke: Yes, we are. This’ll be our fourth or fifth year. Rapkin: I know you’re not big on celebrity stories, but give us one good story from Oscar night. Funke: I got to meet Bill Murray. I’m a big Bill Murray fan. I mean, we meet everybody there. Everybody loves pizza and pasta. But Bill Murray was in this velvet tuxedo with a burgundy beret on. He was having the most amazing time. We chatted over pizza. Bill’s really cool. Ryan: Who do you draw inspiration from—inside or outside of your industry? Funke: If you surround yourself with excellence—if you’re paying attention—it will bleed into your life. Danny Meyer, Rich Melman, people like Chris Bianco, these are architects of the hospitality universe because their ethos is so strong. And they don’t just preach it, they actually live it. Those operators are becoming fewer and fewer because people are driven by other things aside from building something long-lasting. So many people are just frothing at the mouth for success. But forced growth is very weak growth. Ryan: The faster something grows, typically the faster it dies—in nature and in business. Rapkin: Speaking of fast growth, are you relieved you’re not a TikTok sensation then? Funke: Listen, there’s value to that. But it’s not long-lasting. I want to make good, long-term decisions. I’m trying to build 20-year businesses every single time I open a restaurant. Ryan: It’s like a pop song. It takes off, it’s super catchy, but it doesn’t have depth. Funke: Strong foundation, good leadership, good thinking skills, and being kind to people. It’s all energy. What you put out there, it comes back to you 10X. Ryan: Did you figure that out early in your career? Funke: I figured that out way too late. But I try to lead from a position of gratitude. Honestly, I’m just trying to make sure that I am worthy of the stage that I’m standing on, and thanking the people that brought me here—good and bad. That may sound cheesy to people, but it’s real. It’s all energy, it’s all about what you put into your every single day, and the excellence is defined by what you bring to the table on a minute-to-minute basis in my business. You’ve got a small window in life to become a legend, and the window is open for me, so I’m getting after it.