Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / Finding Your Unique Style As A Chef Ep. 65

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Finding Your Unique Style As A Chef Ep. 65 · Chef's PSA Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello Chefs, This is Chef's PSA podcast.
• 0:02
  I'm your host, Andre Natera. On today's episode, we're going
• 0:04
  to talk about finding your unique style as a chef.
• 0:07
  Stay tuned. So before we get into it, quick
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  update on something that I'm working on.
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  I'm doing a super secret popup chef in residence.
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  I'll share more on my Instagram profile, but coming out of a
• 0:32
  quick retirement to have some fun in the kitchen, I'm excited.
• 0:35
  Have to make sure I could still walk that talk.
• 0:39
  Someone said to me, he said you talked a lot of shit on the
• 0:41
  Internet and on your podcast. Can you still do it?
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  Well, we're we're about to find out if I still got it.
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  So I'm taking over a restaurant really briefly.
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  Chef in residence. I did it because I want to have
• 0:54
  a little fun. I do miss the kitchen at times
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  and this allows me to kind of, you know, see, see if I could
• 1:00
  still do it, See if I can still hang with the the top dogs in
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  the city. More to come on that.
• 1:05
  I don't want to give away all the details, but I will be
• 1:08
  announcing more soon on Chef's PSA social sites.
• 1:12
  So keep your eyes peeled. I'll tell you more.
• 1:15
  Maybe even for those of you that are looking for work, you might
• 1:17
  want to come work with me. It'll be short, but we'll have
• 1:20
  some fun. For those of you that are
• 1:22
  asking, yes, I I do enjoy doing these things.
• 1:24
  Like I do guest chef spots occasionally.
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  I did one in Dallas and Jose, I still do food festivals when it
• 1:31
  makes sense, right? I'm not representing a kitchen,
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  I'm retired. I'm representing Chef's PSA
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  podcast. So sometimes it doesn't make
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  sense for me to be out there cooking.
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  But for those of you that have reached out and said I'd love to
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  do a pop up with you, would I be interested?
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  Yeah, I'd be interested. But you know, the fact of the
• 1:49
  matter is I don't have an army behind me like I used to.
• 1:53
  Chef's PSA is a one man show. It's just me.
• 1:56
  Someone asked me who makes the comics.
• 1:58
  I do, Who writes the captions, me, who edits the books, me, who
• 2:03
  edits the podcast and the video and the audio and writes the
• 2:07
  scripts. Guess who?
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  Oh yeah, it's all me. But in my quest for world
• 2:12
  domination, I think eventually I'm going to have to expand.
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  I have a couple of surprises coming up on the podcast.
• 2:20
  Some collabs. I can't share all the details,
• 2:24
  but I think you'll all be happy. A lot of people asked me to talk
• 2:27
  on service, a lot of people asked me to talk on pastry
• 2:29
  projects and those episodes are coming to.
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  And for those of you that have been asked now with regards to
• 2:35
  the subject matter, finding your unique style as a chef.
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  When I was a chef, one of the things that used to frustrate me
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  would be when I hire someone who has zero experience in the
• 2:45
  kitchen and maybe I was hiring them for something high end,
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  right? I've always been a chef of the
• 2:50
  higher end kitchens and I've always had a great team of chefs
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  behind me, Extremely talented sous chefs, extremely talented
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  chef to cuisines, exec sue and so on.
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  And when I run a kitchen, I expect greatness.
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  Excellent. And we're always pushing to be
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  at the top of the food chain or whatever market that we're in.
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  And at times I would get frustrated because the new cook
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  would come in and not even fully understand their own skill set
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  yet like still trembling and holding a knife.
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  Can't really dice an onion too well and green and then say
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  things like when can I get my food on the menu And I'd be
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  like, what's your food? And then they'd proceed to tell
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  me and it has nothing to do with the type of restaurant that I
• 3:32
  was running. So for example, if I was running
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  like a high end live fire concept restaurant, they'd want
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  to tell me about their famous Enchilada casserole or whatever,
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  right. They said, well, you know, I
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  just came back from the Caribbean and I was like, this
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  is into Caribbean restaurant, so my family's from here.
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  We want, I want to do that food. It's like, great, that's not
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  this restaurant. It'll blow my mind.
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  How many people want to do their food, their food?
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  They don't even have food. Like, they haven't even gotten
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  to the point where they could create something that would be
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  on the level of the restaurant where they maybe work, right?
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  Because maybe they're, they're working as a prep cook and
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  they're like, when can I get my dish on the menu?
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  Like, focus on the onion. You got to learn how to dice
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  those first, right? You got to walk before you can
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  run these steps. And then occasionally I'd say,
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  okay, let me see what you got. And they put up like this
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  terrible dip. They're like, oh fuck, that's
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  not going on the menu. No way.
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  I'm, I'm, I'm being, I'm being rude, but the reason I share
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  this. So there's that.
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  So my advice, if you're going into a new kitchen, you kind of
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  got to feel it out a little bit. Is that kitchen the type of
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  place where it's collaborative? Everyone's inputting ideas, and
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  there's a lot of kitchens like that.
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  And I I have kitchens like that where I would encourage people.
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  We'd have a certain day of the week where everyone was intended
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  to be putting dishes forward. A lot of times they'd be coached
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  by some of the sous chefs, but we'd look at all the ideas and
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  say, okay, this is actually a really cool component, but it
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  didn't mean that the dishes were getting on the menu.
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  It's just an opportunity to express every now and again.
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  So, like, whoa, wasn't expecting that that dish needs to go on
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  the menu. Other places they meet at the
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  end of every night, they review the menus, they talk about what
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  they're going to serve the next day, and everyone's putting an
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  input. And the final result of the menu
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  is like this amalgamation of ideas from all those that were
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  in their input. Other places, they might have a
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  whiteboard where they write ideas down.
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  Other places they might have a special, and different cooks are
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  putting up ideas for the special, or maybe they're
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  creating the special for the day.
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  They have a rotation. Whatever the case may be not all
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  kitchens are like that and there isn't A1 size fits all for every
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  kitchen. Some kitchens you may never get
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  a dish on the menu type a personality chef nothing But my
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  food and other places. It's collaboration with the
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  billion dollar question what is your food chef run into this
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  problem When I was coming up as a cook early on in my career,
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  I've talked about this before. My idols were the Charlie
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  Trotters of the world, the Thomas Keller's the Ferran,
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  Audrea's. You know, I was coming up in the
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  late 90s, early 2000s as a cook and chef, and so those were the
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  chefs that were the top of the food chain.
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  And so I wasn't the only one. Every single chef during that
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  time that wanted to make a name for themselves were all cooking
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  like Charlie Trotter or Ferran, Audrea or Thomas Keller or
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  whoever was at that moment, right.
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  Maybe it was Emeril Agasi or Norman Bacon.
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  A little bit earlier would have been Mark Miller and Dean
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  Ferring and Stephen Pyles, but you had all these chefs that
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  were expressing the ideas of others.
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  And so a lot of times when they'd say I want to do my food,
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  you know, I I was guilty of this too.
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  I remember telling my chef I want to do my food and he's like
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  present me a dip. And I did a dish right under the
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  Charlie Trotter cookbook. It was a potato tureen.
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  I don't remember what else was in it.
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  It was definitely a potato tureen that I had made and I
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  served it with a Curry oil. I have to go back and look and
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  see what that dish actually was. I do remember the Curry oil.
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  I remember talking to my chef and him saying, why is there
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  Curry oil on this? And I said, well, Charlie
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  Trotter does and he's like, you ain't Charlie Trotter.
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  So what was my food? Was it really my food, or did I
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  just want to serve food that I wanted to cop food, that I was
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  inspired food, that I was looking at different cookbooks
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  and say that's my food, it's not.
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  I want to cook like Charlie Trotter, so I'm adopting that as
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  mine or whoever the chef inspiration was.
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  I want to cook like Gordon Ramsay or whoever Gran Accotts
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  or Ron Audria. Today you might be wanting to
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  cook like Rene Redzepi or the Roca Brothers or whoever, right?
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  So what is your food? Is your food what you grew up
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  with? Is it the food that was in your
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  household? Is it what your mom used to cook
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  for you or your grandmother or your parents?
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  Is it what the neighbor's parents used to cook for you?
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  Is it walking up to the little shack on the beach and eating
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  the food right there? Was it going to the farmers
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  market and coming back with something?
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  What is your food? A lot of chefs face this
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  identity crisis because they don't know what their food is.
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  You could work for years under a certain chef and you can't wait
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  to get out of their shadows. So you could express yourself on
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  a plate to do your food, and then when the opportunity
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  presents itself, you just end up cooking like the chef you worked
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  for with a slight tweak on it. But it's still what you were
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  taught. It's a version of what you were
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  already shown. If you remember the movie coming
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  to America, the first one with Eddie Murphy, like they're
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  McDonald's or Mcdowell's, they had like their version of the
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  Big Mac or the quarterback. I don't know where it was, but
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  it was funny, like the exact same thing, just slightly
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  different. And a lot of times that's what
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  happens, is you work in a restaurant for so long and
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  you've gotten really good at preparing a certain style of
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  someone else's vision, and now you have your chance set back.
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  What do you do? Do you replicate that vision or
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  do you truly have a unique style?
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  I don't know. They tell you.
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  In most of my experience, when I've worked with chefs and they
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  come with these ideas, it's normally ideas that they had
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  from the previous restaurant where they were this chef's PSA
• 9:19
  that I say, no matter how well you do something, another chef
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  thinks you're wrong. And the reason I say that is
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  because when you're coming up in your career, you're shown
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  something, whether maybe it's in culinary school and then you get
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  out into the real world, or maybe it's one of your first
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  jobs and it's a chef that you really liked.
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  And they said all stock needs to have oxtail in it to give it
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  flu. I don't know, maybe it's
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  something like that. I know my chef said that to me.
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  And so to this day, sometimes I put oxtail in my veal stock or
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  in my beef stock. I worked for another chef.
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  It's all stock for chicken has to be made with whole chickens,
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  and it's shorter because it keeps it clear.
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  And I used to do that. I don't do it anymore.
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  Or other people were would say don't put too much celery in the
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  stock. And other chefs I've worked for
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  would say you need to make sure that you're putting pig's feet
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  and chicken wings and necks. There's more collagen in the
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  pig's feet. So you got to put that in there,
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  got to skim the stock a certain way.
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  You got to brush it with whatever the case may be.
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  Every chef has a little something that they do.
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  Grind the Bolognese mirror, plop through the meat grinder.
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  Others are like, no, no, you got to broom.
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  What, by hand? No, just put it in the robo
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  coop. It's best if you do this.
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  What's the right way? I don't know.
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  There There really is no right way because someone could argue
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  against it. No matter how well you do
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  something, someone else can argue against it that their way
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  is better because the end result is subjective, especially when
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  the person is emotionally tied to the product.
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  So coming up in my career, I cooked in a lot of Italian
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  restaurants. I cooked in a lot of European
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  style restaurants, French, etcetera, Mediterranean,
• 11:00
  Southwest cuisine. Also at one point in time was
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  coming up in that Southwest cuisine style, ever wanted to
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  cook like Mark Miller and Dean Ferry.
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  And when I finally got my opportunity at bat and they said
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  you could finally express yourself and do whatever you
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  want. And now I'm the executive chef
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  and I'm at the helm of the kitchen, what did I do when I
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  finally was able to do my own food?
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  I copied for Anna. I started doing bubble food,
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  right? So this is like 2005, because
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  that's what I wanted to do. Was it my food that I work at El
• 11:30
  Bulli? No, but I was fascinated from
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  afar and I had the El Bulli cookbooks and I was watching
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  what they were doing and I was idolizing that style of cuisine.
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  And I wanted to understand the alginates, verifications and how
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  to make mangoes into a bubble, right, and froth up sauces with
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  less a thin or whatever the case may be, make a spaghetti noodle
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  out of Agar. It was fun, right?
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  But it wasn't my food. And so little by little I've had
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  to start to rediscover who am I as a chef?
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  What is my style? Is it this or is it that?
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  And sometimes you get hired as a chef and you take on the
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  identity of the restaurant that you're hired in.
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  So an example would be you get hired in a Mediterranean
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  restaurant. You can't say, well, I do
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  Chinese food, right. If that's just not going to
• 12:21
  work, well, then you're not going to be the chef here.
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  So sometimes you adapt to the restaurant and to the
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  environment in which you're placed in.
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  And other times you run a restaurant where you have
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  creative control and not only are you driving the brand,
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  you're also driving the identity of the food and the creativity
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  of chefs struggle with this. I know.
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  I struggle with you're always influenced by the current trend.
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  You're influenced by social media, you're influenced by
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  what's on TV. Where do your ideas come from?
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  Do you just fall asleep and then these ideas pop in your brain?
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  Do they come from external sources?
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  The reality is almost all your ideas are regurgitated from
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  external sources. Books, social media, your
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  training, your parents, your experiences.
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  Coming up with original ideas is extremely difficult.
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  You could look at very original chefs, like I said, Farhan
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  Audra, he revolutionized the world when he came out with the
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  food that he was doing at Obuli. The molecular gastronomy
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  movement changed the world. And I don't know if he copied
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  that and if he did, I don't know who he copied it from because
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  it's not easy to trace to say, oh, he clearly got it from here.
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  Or you look at what Renee Rinzeppi was doing.
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  He went through the whole foraging thing in the Nordic,
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  the New Nordic. Where did he get that from?
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  I'm sure historically people have always been cooking like
• 13:43
  that, but professionally, people weren't cooking like that on
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  that level. So he redeveloped that.
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  Thomas Keller being what he did in Napa Valley at the French
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  Laundry. No one was doing that before
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  him. Charlie Trotter, the same thing.
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  So some of these greats, the mountain Rushmore of chefs,
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  right, they marched to the beat of their own drum.
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  They create their own unique style and they create and
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  everyone borrows and copies or gets inspired by it.
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  I'm no exception to that. I borrowed from all of them and
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  then claimed it to be my own style.
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  What's the what's the expression it takes a thief to catch a
• 14:17
  thief. Have you ever heard that people
• 14:20
  have to know how to steal before they can catch someone who is
• 14:23
  also stealing? Right.
• 14:25
  We're all getting inspired by social media.
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  It's it's it's really easy to police it now, right?
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  Go back and say, hey, that's the dish that so and so was serving.
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  And so after all this time, I would say I was looking that
• 14:38
  dishes that I was cooking. So I'm working on this this
• 14:42
  menu. I talked about it a little bit
• 14:43
  earlier in the podcast and I'm creating this menu and it's
• 14:47
  basically the greatest hits of my career, just modernized for
• 14:50
  2023 in the environment that I'm And as I'm going back and
• 14:54
  looking at dishes throughout my career, I'm like, wow, this
• 14:59
  looks really bad. I would not, Sir.
• 15:00
  I would not played it this way, even stuff that was just five
• 15:05
  years ago or four years ago and was very cutting edge at the
• 15:08
  moment. I look at it now and say it
• 15:10
  looks so dated. It was delicious, but it looked
• 15:13
  dated. Plating styles evolved,
• 15:16
  ingredient trends evolved very quick.
• 15:18
  I would challenge you if you've been around long enough.
• 15:22
  So, you know, I know, I know a lot of people.
• 15:23
  Maybe you're writing culinary school, so this might not apply
• 15:25
  to you, but go back and look at the food that you were making
• 15:28
  that you were extremely happy and proud with just a few years
• 15:31
  ago. And look at it today and see if
• 15:33
  you're still proud of it. And I don't mean, like maybe it
• 15:36
  tasted, but just I'm talking about the plating and the
• 15:38
  aesthetics of it, the style, right?
• 15:40
  So food is like fashion. It's always moving forward.
• 15:42
  I think it'd be really interesting to do with chefs to
• 15:45
  say post what you did 10 years ago or five years ago, post what
• 15:49
  you're doing today and do side by side my food, five years ago,
• 15:52
  my food today. I think that would be fun.
• 15:56
  So you could see how far you can come, so you could see the
• 15:59
  techniques that you've learned. You could document your history.
• 16:02
  You could document what you've learned throughout your career.
• 16:05
  Much easier, right? Keep good notes, get the
• 16:07
  Evernote app, log everything, take great photos of your food,
• 16:12
  make notes and save them for later because you're able to
• 16:16
  document your career progression.
• 16:18
  And So what does that boil down to?
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  Right? When I came up, as I said, I was
• 16:22
  working in French and Italian restaurants, Mediterranean
• 16:26
  style, and so now my food is this amalgamation of the thing
• 16:30
  that I learned early on on my specific stations that I made.
• 16:35
  I noticed that's what I like cooking now.
• 16:36
  That's my food and is it my food?
• 16:40
  Kind of right. That's what I was taught.
• 16:42
  It's the best and the things that I enjoyed most from what I
• 16:46
  was taught as a chef and the things that I crave now is like
• 16:49
  a properly made lobster bits, tornados, rossini gnocchis.
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  It's not the complex things that I've made throughout my career
• 16:57
  anything. The more complex and showy thing
• 17:00
  are the things I'm most embarrassed by now.
• 17:03
  And the most simple and delicious things are the things
• 17:07
  I'm most proud of. And I still carry with me the
• 17:10
  dichotomy of a shot. What's your food?
• 17:14
  I don't know. You need to find that out
• 17:17
  anyway. If you want to support the show,
• 17:19
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• 17:21
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• 17:23
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• 17:26
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• 17:28
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• 17:31
  Hit the porno music.