HOW MUCH introduction does Michael Schlow really need? This is Boston, after all, where he’s been wowing the dining public since he began cooking for Café Louis in 1995. After his three years there, he and business partner Christopher Myers opened the upscale Radius, at which Schlow has garnered top awards from such publications as Gourmet magazine, Santé, Food & Wine, Condé Nast Traveler, and Esquire. And now there’s Via Matta; open a mere three months, the Italian eatery has already become one of the city’s most-buzzed-about hot spots, even enticing the likes of the Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger to dine there — twice — during his recent Boston stint.

Q: So how’s it going?

A: It’s going really well. Do I look tired? It’s going well. Busy. Very busy.

Q: Tell me why cooking. How’d you end up on this path?

A: Truth be told, cooking started at a very early age for me, nine, 10 years old. I’m the oldest of three, and my parents got divorced, mom went to work —

Q: That seems to be a common story among chefs.

A: It is now, but back then, you know, divorce was not as prevalent, moms were home more often, so for a 10-year-old little boy to be whipping up "kitchen-sink omelets," which meant I put way too many ingredients in, that was unusual for its day. And yet now, 20, 30 years later, we’re seeing that lots of kids were going through this. We just didn’t know it back then. So it’s become a common story today, it’s surfaced. And I actually had no intention of making this my career. I had worked in restaurants from the time I was little; my first restaurant was when I was 14 years old. I had lied to get my job as a dishwasher in the most popular bar in the town that I’d grown up in.

Q: Why?

A: Because back then the drinking age was 18, and I thought if I fibbed a little bit about my age, by two years, then two years early they would let me drink in there. So I told them I was 16 when I was really 14, so on my 16th birthday they thought I was 18, and they brought me out. But the bad part is, when I was 15 and washing dishes there, they thought I was 17, and they asked me to make a delivery in the company van. I couldn’t be exposed at that point as a liar, so I did it, and I drove the van petrified.

I had always thought that I would be several things before I would be a chef; one was a professional baseball player. I didn’t go to college to get an education, I went to college to be noticed so that the pros would pick me up to play baseball. I got hurt very badly and I couldn’t play anymore. I actually dabbled, for a little while — I would work with racehorses as well. When I got hurt playing baseball, I thought it was a great way to rehabilitate myself, because it’s such physical, demanding work. I worked with racehorses for 10 months, and I was actually considering making it a career, going to veterinary school or something like that. And this man who was in the other side of the [barn] said to me, "What are you wasting your life with horses for? You have this personality and this way with you, you should be in restaurants or hotels or entertainment or something." And I actually toyed with entertainment, even; acting, or, I’m not really that funny, but I was even toying with stand-up comedy at one point. When I went to culinary school, that was when there was this epiphany. I went on a lark — I really wasn’t sure that I wanted to do it, and the first day, when I got into my chef’s uniform, I thought, wow, this is going to be the career. And a funny note about going to the school is that I didn’t excel there. I didn’t do very well.

Q: How come?

A: Well, I didn’t have a lot of cooking experience, and a lot of the kids coming into the school had cooking experiences. So I was far behind them. But I had worked in the front of the house, I had tended bar already, I had worked as a waiter. There were two restaurants at the school, and I would do a lot of the front-of-the-house stuff. And I actually became a student teacher for front-of-the-house. And I was the first student they ever asked to come back and give a commencement speech, and a lot of my old chefs were there, and they said, "You know what, Michael? We always knew you would be successful; we just never thought it would be in cooking."

Q: They didn’t have much faith in you.

A: They didn’t. Not in my cooking abilities.

Q: Talk to me about the challenges of owning a restaurant, versus just cooking at a restaurant.

A: The buck stops with you. When you’re the chef of a restaurant, the owner can always come in and say, "You’re fired. Get out." And that’s never good. When you’re the owner and the chef, we have big decisions to make that are ours to make, and when you’re the chef, they’re not yours to make. Things like openings and closings, firings. The budgeting process really is yours.

Q: Do you enjoy that out-of-the-kitchen stuff?

A: I think that I’ve learned to enjoy it, because it’s time-consuming stuff. But also what I’ve done is I’ve attempted to teach and empower the people that work with me so that they can learn how to do it as well. Because you can’t micro-manage every last detail in a restaurant; it’s just impossible. So you teach them how to do those things. As an example, the budgeting of products in a restaurant: a dollar per case on every single product can make or break you. So yes, we’re always negotiating for the best price, but as things start to inch up, you have to be the one, or you have to teach someone to be the person who cuts something off and says, "Okay, we can’t buy peas anymore; they went up to $36 a case, and $32 was really our limit — at $36 we don’t make money." So that’s a lot of work.

And it is a business; you’re dealing with millions and millions of dollars, yet the profit percentage is so low in restaurants. And that’s something that the American public is not really willing to listen to, in that every single aspect of our lives in America has doubled, tripled, and quadrupled over the last 10 years — look at apartments: to live in the city of Boston, you have to spend a half a million to two million dollars to get a nice place to live. And yet we still want our food under $20 somehow. Go to the supermarket and try to make yourself dinner, a really beautiful dinner — and you have to do all the cooking, cleaning, and prepping — for under $20. It just doesn’t exist. When I say these things, I’m met with horrified looks, but for a normal percentage of profit — what any other business would ask to make — you know, food should be $40, $50 an entrée now. And I know that’s horrifying to think about, but the pair of jeans that you’re wearing from the Gap, that was never more than $19.99 when I was a kid growing up, are now never more than $39.99 — they don’t want to break the $40 barrier. But they shattered the $20 barrier. And we have these barriers in food, and it’s $30 and $40 ... but for what it costs for rent, salaries, health care, linen — all those things have doubled and tripled, yet we don’t want the food prices to double or triple. And it’s really unfair to the restaurateur, because their profits are sliced. You’re dealing with pennies. You really are. That’s what you’re dealing with at the end of the day.

Q: Alcohol is really where you make the money, right?

A: You know what? Do the math. With drinking-and-driving laws being much stricter, people don’t have four, five, six cocktails, obviously, so if the average person comes in and let’s say spends $12 on themselves on drinks, and you get 100 people ... you still have to buy the alcohol, they’re breaking glasses, you still have to buy all the equipment. Is there a profit in it? Absolutely. There’s profits in everything, with the exception of bread and water —

Q: Well, you wouldn’t do it if there wasn’t.

A: Exactly. We’re not an employment agency, we’re not here as a soup kitchen. But the profits are not huge. The average American restaurant squeaks out a six percent profit. That’s not a lot of money. Your success has to be in your passion for your business; your success has to be in watching young cooks and managers and waitstaff grow up into being real professionals; your success has to be in somebody walking about and saying, "That’s the best piece of fish I ever ate in my life."

Q: How did you know it was time to open Via Matta?

A: It’s something that Christopher and I had talked about over the years many times, what was going to be first? We knew there would be an Italian, and we knew there would be an upscale, high-end modern French restaurant. Which do we open first? It’s about positioning. Okay, if we open up a more casual Italian eatery first, will we have a more difficult time opening up and being accepted with the high-end restaurant? What Radius allowed for us is positioning more than anything, in that it gave us validity.

Q: How do you split your time between Radius and Via Matta?

A: At the very beginning, it was 95 percent Via Matta, five percent Radius for the first couple weeks. Then it became 80/20, 70/30, 50/50 ... I mean, Radius is my baby.

Q: Are you surprised that Via Matta has become a hot spot so quickly?

A: Yes. I’m always surprised whenever anything I do is successful.

Q: Still?

A: Oh, absolutely. I think one of the things that will keep us going as a company is that we don’t think we’re that good. We’re always trying to be better. We think that we have the capability, but we’re always sort of questioning what we do: is this the right thing, should we be doing this, are the portions too big, too small, are the prices right, is the lighting correct? We’re always analyzing ourselves. We’re never comparing ourselves to someone else; I mean, I’m not going to serve the pasta that’s served in some of the large Italian chains in town — that’s not what we do. We know what we do well, but we’re always questioning it, making sure that it’s the best of its kind. I never want to be, at any of our restaurants, I never want to be "trendy," I never want to be "hip," I never want to be "hot." Because those things burn out.

Q: But those are all words that have been used to describe Radius.

A: Yeah. They’ve called it "hip" and all that stuff. But you know what? I would much prefer the words to be that it’s excellent, that there’s great hospitality there, that there’s grace, that it’s fun.

Q: When you have a meal out, how much is about the food, how much is about the ambiance, and how much is about the company?

A: It’s sort of a balance in equal parts. I often think about this with reviewers, for example. What kind of day have they had before they stepped into my restaurant? And is that unfair; should they sit in some sort of oxygen tank before every review, this incubator, so they’re a clean slate? How do you know they didn’t just get in a fight with their husband or wife or girlfriend, and how do you know they didn’t just have someone splash mud on them or something? Who knows. And that’s going to set the tone for the beginning of their meal.

Q: Is the chef having a bad day going to set the tone for the food?

A: Of course it can. We always say, check your personal life at the door when you walk into work. When you’re at work, it’s got to be all about the food and the guests and the people. And if it’s not — you’ve been in restaurants where they don’t care, or they’re having a bad day. You have to cook with love. You really do. It has to be from your heart, every single dish. You have to look at that plate of food and say, would I serve that to my mother, a reviewer, myself, and Julia Child? If those four people aren’t going to get it, then don’t send it out.

The other thing that I really am upset about — and for anyone who might take offense to this, it’s probably because they’re looking in the mirror — I can’t get over how mediocrity has become acceptable. Something’s mediocre that we say, "Well, you know what, the prices weren’t too bad, I didn’t get sick, the portions were big — "

Q: Like where?

A: I would never say. You know that I’m not that dumb! But you’ve been to plenty of mediocre places that you walk away and say, "Doesn’t anybody care? Are you just putting out food?" And that’s not what I got into this for. There’s something nurturing and soul-satisfying about being a chef. And it’s not about fancy. Cost has nothing to do with quality. Quality is about the care you’ve taken. And I’ve just found that so many people don’t care. They care a little, but not enough. You’re in a service industry, and if you don’t care, you should probably go and work for a drive-through or something like that, where it’s just about powering food out and making money. It’s upsetting.

Sometimes you’ll hear, "For those prices, they should give you a lot more food." And I don’t think there should be any equation that says quantity to price. Is there anything in this country that you can think of that because you spend more money, you get a bigger portion? Porsche is one of the most expensive cars. You don’t get extra car because you bought a Porsche for $100,000. Go buy a Zegna suit — I love them, they’re beautiful, $2000. They don’t give you extra material. Some of the most expensive apartments are the smallest ones in this town. So why do we think that with food? For some crazy reason, we think that food should be bigger portions for more money.

Q: If you want big portions, you can go to Vinny Testa’s.

A: I didn’t mention that restaurant, you did! But yes, you could. That’s what they specialize in: big portions of food. That’s their niche. Which is fine. But I have 20 guys cooking the food at Radius, and it takes a lot of work to make it look like that, taste like that. And I hope that when you walk away, you walk away saying, "That was made with such care," as you’d say when you drive a Porsche or BMW, as you would when you put on a Zegna suit. And that’s not for everybody, I guess. Some people say, "I’d just as soon go someplace else and buy a $300 suit."

Q: And some people can’t afford it.

A: Which is also correct. But what I’ve done at Radius — you don’t have to come to Radius and go full-blown. You don’t have to do a tasting menu. And I say this in all my cooking classes: go to a really fine restaurant — it doesn’t have to be Radius; go to No. 9 Park or Clio or wherever — and see how they do a simple salad and a chicken. Because you’re going to eat someplace else anyway. And yes, it’s going to be a few more dollars. Like, I don’t eat fast food really too much; I’d just as soon spend three extra dollars to have a better hamburger. I love hamburgers. But I don’t want one that doesn’t resemble a hamburger. Yet I will say that consistency is the name of the game in restaurateuring. If you’re attempting to be great, you have to be great every single day, every plate, every guest. If you’re going to be mediocre, then be mediocre every single day. And my analogy is that the best, most consistent restaurant in the entire world is McDonald’s. Because you never walk into a McDonald’s — I don’t care if you’re in Thailand, New York City, Peoria — and all of a sudden there’s going to be this big, fat, juicy, medium-rare hamburger. It’s never going to happen.

Q: Jody Adams from Rialto is doing a KitchenAid infomercial. Would you do an infomercial?

A: I would probably say no. I have no idea what they paid her, so maybe it was so good that she couldn’t say no. I would have to say that I would much prefer a cooking show than an infomercial. I love doing television. It’s something that I would like to do more of. And it’s something I think I’m pretty good at.

Q: What’s your favorite guilty-pleasure food?

A: I eat pretty healthy, for the most part. A great slice of New York City pizza. I could just eat that all day long. And unfortunately, I don’t think we have that style pizza here. I love Almond Joy bars. I do enjoy a Cape Cod potato chip now and again.

Q: What about the low-fat ones?

A: Nooo! Why bother? If you’re going to do it, just go.

Q: Is there a food or an ingredient that people would be surprised to hear you don’t like?

A: I hate, despise with a passion, hot oatmeal. That’s gross to me. The idea of waking up first thing and eating hot gruel is just gross to me. I don’t care what you put on it. I hate rhubarb. Oh, and food aversions: I cannot, will not, at none of my restaurants will you ever see cheese and fish together. Never, ever, ever. So if you’re reading this and you want to eat spaghetti with clams here, do not ask for cheese. I’ll give it to you if you want it, because you’re the guest and you get whatever you want. But I would not put it in there.

Q: Do you feel like Boston’s dining scene has come out of New York’s shadow?

A: You know, it’s funny, and I say this being from New York: I don’t think Boston’s in New York’s shadow. And not to be argumentative, but I think this is sort of an interesting point, and one that I feel well-versed in fighting, having lived both places. New York and Boston are not two cities that should be compared to each other, so cut it out. Boston is the place I’ve chosen to live, it’s my home, it’s a fantastic city. But no city should be compared with New York.

Q: So you must have something to say about Bostonians’ whole "Yankees suck" mentality.

A: It’s ridiculous. How can anyone say the Yankees suck? Any team that wins 26 championships — well, how could they suck? Maybe they mean they suck for winning so much, and why don’t you let us win one?

Q: Who’s been the person you’ve been most excited to cook for?

A: You know, from a celebrity standpoint, I can’t say that there’s one, because I’ve been lucky enough, having lived in the Hamptons and New York City and here, I’ve had a lot of encounters with the most famous people in the world. I mean, Saturday night Mick Jagger ate in the kitchen here. Jackie Onassis. I mean, if you name the biggest names in each category, I’ve been lucky enough to meet them.

Q: Who would you like to cook for?

A: I can’t say that there’s any one person that I wish to cook for. I’d someday like to have a family. I’m single. I think it would be really cool to get to cook for them. I have this pipe-dream image of making my kid lunch and him being like, "Oh, foie gras sandwiches again? What I wouldn’t do for a bologna-and-cheese sandwich ..."

Q: Trade you for a peanut butter and Fluff ...

A: Exactly. But I’ll make homemade peanut butter.

Michael Schlow will appear at the 19th-annual Taste of Boston, taking place on Boston Common, on Saturday, September 28, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Visit www.tasteofboston.com for more information. Tamara Wieder can be reached at twieder[a]phx.com