Food Network superstar Bobby Flay has revealed an unexpected connection to one of pop music’s biggest icons — Madonna — recalling the days when he would see the future superstar around New York City nightclubs during the 1980s.

During an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on August 5, the 61-year-old chef looked back on his teenage years growing up in New York City and described a nightlife scene that was worlds away from the celebrity-filled career he has today.

Flay explained that as a teenager, he and his friends were constantly going out to clubs around the city.

“We used to go to a lot of clubs, almost every night,” Flay recalled.

That conversation eventually turned to Danceteria, the legendary New York nightclub referenced in one of the songs on Madonna’s latest album, Confessions II.

And that’s when Flay dropped the unexpected revelation.

He had actually seen Madonna dancing there.

Flay joked that he had recently looked at the lyrics to Madonna’s song and noticed that she mentioned numerous people from that era — but, unfortunately for him, his name wasn’t among them.

“I saw her dance,” Flay recalled.

Fallon couldn’t resist teasing him about whether the lyrics should have included “Bobby Flay, 16 years old.”

Flay immediately laughed off the idea.

“No, exactly not,” he replied.

But Flay made it clear that he wasn’t completely outside Madonna’s world.

When Fallon asked whether he had actually danced with the superstar, Flay gave a much more cautious answer.

“Nearby,” he said. “I was in that circle.”

According to Flay, Madonna was already becoming known within New York’s artistic and nightlife scene at the time. She wasn’t yet the global superstar she would eventually become, but people were beginning to recognize her as someone special.

“She was always part of the street-art scene,” Flay explained, describing Madonna as “that girl” everyone seemed to know before she suddenly exploded into international fame.

Then, as Flay jokingly described it, Madonna essentially reached the moment when she was ready to leave the scene behind and become Madonna.

BOBBY FLAY’S 1980s CLUB STYLE WAS VERY DIFFERENT

Flay also gave Fallon a hilarious look back at what he used to wear when going out.

Surprisingly, some of his fashion choices weren’t completely different from his current style.

He recalled wearing Capezio dance shoes, including white and tan pairs, along with plenty of velvet shirts.

But there was one major problem.

Getting into the clubs wasn’t always easy.

Flay admitted that bouncers didn’t particularly like his shoes, meaning the future celebrity chef wasn’t exactly guaranteed VIP treatment.

The story offered a rare glimpse into Flay’s life before Food Network fame — when he was simply a New York teenager spending nights around the city’s legendary club scene.

FROM CLUBS TO COOKING

Flay also opened up about growing up in New York and his childhood hobbies, including baseball, stickball and basketball.

He joked about the difference between his childhood and his current life when Fallon asked whether he had ever had a garden growing up.

“I’m from New York City,” Flay said. “We didn’t have gardens here.”

Today, however, things are very different.

Flay now has a garden at his home in the country, although he admitted that he isn’t particularly good at taking care of it.

His girlfriend, fellow Food Network star Brooke Williamson, apparently has much more success with the plants.

“She’s really good at taking care of the garden,” Flay said, explaining that Williamson grew up in Los Angeles and loves gardening.

Their division of labor is simple: she grows and picks the vegetables, while he cooks them.

And that arrangement seems to work perfectly for the celebrity chef.

A BLOODY MARY BECOMES THE PERFECT FINALE

The interview then took an appropriately culinary turn when Fallon brought out tomatoes from his garden.

Fallon revealed that he had even given some of his tomatoes names, including “Tomato Holland” and “Vine Diesel.”

Flay immediately put them to work.

The chef blended the tomatoes with celery salt, horseradish, Worcestershire sauce, lemon and honey before adding vodka to create a Bloody Mary.

The result earned an enthusiastic reaction from Fallon.

“That’s cooking,” Flay declared as the audience cheered.

But the conversation wasn’t only about childhood memories.

Flay also discussed the return of Bobby’s Triple Threat, praising Brooke Williamson’s importance to the series, while teasing his upcoming Food Network project Bobby Flay’s The Line.

The new show will take Flay and a team of chefs he personally selects into real restaurants, where they will compete against professional restaurant teams during actual dinner services.

Flay joked that he feels like he has spent his entire life working as a line cook.

“It’s really about prepping food, working with the people next to you, being hot and sweaty, but you have to get a lot of food out,” he explained.

From teenage nights in New York clubs where he was “nearby” Madonna to becoming one of Food Network’s biggest stars, Bobby Flay’s latest interview offered fans a surprisingly personal look at the chef’s life before fame — and proved that his connection to New York’s legendary nightlife scene goes back much further than many viewers probably realized.