Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / Food Critics, Inspectors & Michelin Guide in Texas | Chef's PSA Podcast Ep 111

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Food Critics, Inspectors & Michelin Guide in Texas | Chef's PSA Podcast Ep 111 · Chef's PSA Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello Chefs. This is Chefs PSA Podcast.
• 0:02
  I'm your host Andre Natera. On today's episode, we're going
• 0:04
  to talk restaurant inspections and restaurant awards.
• 0:07
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  Like this hoodie that I'm wearing this hat, the new one
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  that I just put out suck a free kitchens.
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  Anyway, also coming up for me, I'm going to be and I'll Paso,
• 2:20
  Texas at the end of August, part of the El Paso family meal.
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  So if you're in El Paso, TX and you want to support a good
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  cause, go follow the El Paso family meal Instagram page and
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  more importantly, go get a ticket, have some good food,
• 2:34
  hang out with some cool chefs, maybe even the coolest chef ever
• 2:37
  myself. Anyway, we digress.
• 2:39
  What are we talking about? Food critics?
• 2:41
  Restaurant awards, inspectors? It's a hot season right now in
• 2:45
  Texas. So for people that don't know,
• 2:46
  the Michelin Guide just announced that they are going to
• 2:49
  be in Texas now. I currently live in Austin, TX,
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  and I spent a large part of my career as a chef in Texas
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  between Dallas and Austin, TX. So Michelin coming to Texas is
• 3:00
  exciting for everybody that's been here for quite some time.
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  It's something that we've always wanted as native Texas chefs
• 3:06
  because when the Michelin Guide was first introduced in the US,
• 3:09
  it went to New York, California, Chicago, Las Vegas.
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  They've started expanding now to Colorado, Atlanta, Miami, and
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  here they come to Texas, right? For many years, every chef,
• 3:21
  their dream was they want to work in a Michelin star
• 3:24
  restaurant and one day hopefully get a Michelin star of their
• 3:27
  own, right? That pushed them the level of
• 3:29
  culinary excellence that came from people striving to get to
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  this recognition and this award really saw the emergence and
• 3:37
  innovation in a lot of cuisine. You can't dispute that Some
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  legendary chefs are three Michelin * chefs.
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  So Michelin now coming to Texas, it's something that we've all
• 3:46
  wanted for years because a lot of Texas chefs always compared
• 3:49
  themselves to the bigger cities and wanted to play in the big
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  leagues. Well, now we're in the big
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  leagues. Not going to lie, it gives me
• 3:56
  the itch to jump back in the kitchen.
• 3:57
  I'm not saying I'm going to do that, but for a Unicorn
• 3:59
  opportunity. So, you know, someone wants to
• 4:01
  buy me a restaurant and push for a start.
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  You would call me, but I'm not going back in just to go back
• 4:06
  in. I'm only taking hero side quests
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  at this point in my career. So with all this talk of
• 4:11
  Michelin coming behind the scenes, a lot of chefs, they're
• 4:13
  talking, there's group texts. I've been interviewing chefs on
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  the podcast that I think you know, could potentially be
• 4:19
  contenders for Michelin. And there's a lot of excitement
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  wrapped around this. So the other day, this is kind
• 4:24
  of what prompted the episode. The other day, I'm out at dinner
• 4:27
  with one of my good friends, Junior Borgess, who is a great
• 4:30
  chef. He was nominated for outstanding
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  chef by the James Beard Foundation.
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  And when he was in Dallas, I think he got like best chef
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  according to a lot of different publications.
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  But anyway, he and I are out at dinner the other day and we're
• 4:41
  almost certain that the person sitting next to us might be an
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  inspector. I won't say what restaurant we
• 4:45
  were at. Now, the person, the person's
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  restaurant that we were at, we'll know who I'm talking about
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  because I immediately texted them.
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  So we're sitting there and we're talking to shit as chefs do,
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  right? And I immediately noticed that
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  the single diner that was sitting next to me was extremely
• 4:59
  interested in the conversation that we were having.
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  So I thought to myself, I better watch what I say.
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  Don't say anything that I would, I didn't say on the podcast.
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  I don't want to get in trouble. I don't know who this person is,
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  right? For all I know, they're they're
• 5:10
  another chef or restaurant owner or fan.
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  I don't know who they are. But anyway, they seem very
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  interested in our conversation, especially because we're talking
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  about some things about Michelin.
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  When we arrived, they were on coffee, but they seem to want to
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  linger around for another hour sipping their coffee, really
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  interested in what we were talking, but you know,
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  pretending that they're not listening.
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  But we're not idiots. So as I noticed this I also
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  occasionally glance over at this person and they're looking at
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  their phone and they got a lot of food pictures.
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  Single diner time goes on they decide to get up and leave.
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  I noticed them outside of the restaurant try and take a photo
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  of me and my friend and I caught them out of the sight of my eye
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  and they immediately turned and pretended that they weren't
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  doing nothing Like oh I'm not doing anything but I thought it
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  was kind of funny. So I was like OK this person is
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  clearly somebody. So I text my friend like hey
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  food is great. But I think we sat next to a
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  Michelin inspector. I don't know if it was a
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  Michelin inspector, but nonetheless, that's what I said.
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  He said, of course you would say that.
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  I said, well, I'm actually not joking.
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  And they pulled up the reservation and of course there
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  was no name and no phone number under it.
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  And they sat at that table for over 2 hours by themselves.
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  And of course they ordered like an inspector.
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  Were they an inspector? Who knows, Maybe they were just
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  a a solo diner enjoying the conversation and enjoying
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  eavesdropping. So who knows?
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  But nonetheless, it got me thinking.
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  Award systems and food critics are everywhere.
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  Food critics, I think, used to be a lot more relevant in years
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  past, you know, getting stars from the New York Times, LA
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  Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Dallas Morning News.
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  This was something that every chef strived for.
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  There was a lot of pressure because you wanted that
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  recognition and you wanted that excellence.
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  You wanted to be recognized amongst your peers.
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  Plus there's a financial incentive if you're getting
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  recognized in the paper or by an organization because your
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  restaurants going to fill up immediately.
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  There's other award systems outside of Michelin and your
• 6:51
  local newspaper. There's Eater.
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  You know, Eater has their best restaurants that they put out
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  every year. Back in the day, there was the
• 6:57
  goth that used to put out the Zagat Guide, mobile travel
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  guide, which then turned into Forbes Travel Guide used to be
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  the big one when there was no Michelin here in the United
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  States. So someone having five stars
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  back in the day was usually awarded by the mobile travel
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  guide or which is now the Forbes Travel Guide.
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  They'd come in and what they, what they say now is they're
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  verifying luxury. So if you want Forbes Travel
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  Guide four stars or five stars, which I believe they only go
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  four or five stars only. There's no three stars.
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  It's if you're getting three stars, you're basically not
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  getting any stars. And they verify luxury.
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  They come in and they inspect all the things from the sense of
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  arrival to the way the reservation is taken, to what
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  the service is, to the elements of luxury, to the food, to the
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  presentation, is there a theatrical presentation
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  involved, etcetera. Your food critic locally might
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  have different expectations. What's difficult about local
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  food critics is sometimes they're arbitrary.
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  You have no idea what they're going for, so you don't know.
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  But maybe it is a star system or maybe it's just a written
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  review. Of course, there's the James
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  Beard Award Foundation World's Fifty Best, which is honestly
• 7:57
  right now, probably the big player.
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  Everyone wants to get on the World's fifty Best and getting
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  number one on the world's fifty Best is like a Unicorn amongst
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  unicorns, right? So big respect to those chefs
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  that are able to do that. And there's a lot of other award
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  systems. But let's talk about food
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  critics. And for those of you that don't
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  know, I did an episode early on, it was called My Food Critic
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  Experience. It's like, I don't think, I
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  think it's episode like 3 very early on in the Chef's PSA
• 8:19
  podcast. I think it's important that you
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  go back and listen to it, especially if you're in the type
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  of restaurant that could potentially have a food critic
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  experience. So some of the things that I'm
• 8:27
  going to talk about today might be repetitive if you've listened
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  to that one recently, but if you haven't listened to it in a
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  while, there's a good refresh. If you're a chef, you have to
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  take these inspections serious because they can affect your
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  business. I know a lot of chefs out there
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  that say I don't care about awards, I don't care about
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  anything. It's about the business.
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  It's about butts in seats and how much money we're making.
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  And I agree that is true. But some of these awards can
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  also put more butts in seats or they could stop those butts from
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  being in the seats, right? People do read these things.
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  I don't think they're as strong as they used to be, but they're
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  still strong nonetheless. Michelin is different though.
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  World's Fifty Best I think is different.
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  James Beard is different. If you get one of those awards,
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  I do think that you'll have a significant impact on the amount
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  of business that you're doing in the restaurant.
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  So what do you do? Well, I'll tell you what we used
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  to do. We used to have a photograph at
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  the host to stand in the kitchen and in everyone's wallet of all
• 9:14
  the potential food critics that might show up.
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  So from the big one, the person that's in that case for me, it
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  was like an Austin Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, whoever,
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  right, Austin Statesman in Texas in particular, like, OK, we know
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  who these people are. Let's make sure we have their
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  photo and post it in the back with who they are and who they
• 9:31
  work for. You know, it might be the editor
• 9:32
  of Texas Monthly, whatever, right?
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  Michelin inspectors are a little different because you don't know
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  who they are. If you're dealing with Forbes
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  Travel Guide, again, you don't know who they are.
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  They're coming in anonymous, but they leave clues.
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  And so it's important that you're looking out for these
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  clues. If you're in a restaurant, you
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  should be reviewing the names, and if you're really good
• 9:48
  restaurant, you're at that level.
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  You should be Googling those names and seeing who these
• 9:51
  diners are. Every now and again, you're
• 9:53
  going to get a mysterious diner. There's no history on them.
• 9:56
  They're a ghost on the Internet. OK, that should be a red flag.
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  Solo diner red flag. The phone number isn't real.
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  When you call, call to verify the reservation, red flag.
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  These are all the things that you got to look out for.
• 10:06
  You also got to look out for the way that they order.
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  They're taking a lot of pictures of the food they're ordering in
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  a way that might mimic a tasting menu if you don't have a tasting
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  menu. So first, second, third course,
• 10:16
  there's coffee, their dessert. And by the way, usually an
• 10:18
  inspector is going to have coffee.
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  So that's sometimes a good clue that they are an inspector
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  because they're going to order coffee service at the end,
• 10:25
  right? They might ask questions, play a
• 10:27
  little bit naive. They are just a little bit more
• 10:31
  aware and observant than someone eating in the restaurant.
• 10:34
  That's a good clue that they might be an inspector.
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  I know some food critics would like to show up on Mondays and
• 10:40
  Sundays because they think the chef is off and they want to see
• 10:43
  how the the team performs on the chef's day off because Sundays
• 10:46
  and Mondays are typically chef's days off.
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  So if the chef's not in the building, that's when we're
• 10:51
  going to go and let's see if they perform at the same level.
• 10:53
  I know I had mitigation plan in place when I was a chef that,
• 10:57
  hey, if we suspect that they're the food critic, you call me, I
• 10:59
  show up. We always would cook two
• 11:01
  portions of everything. So for example, if they order a
• 11:04
  steak, we're going to cook two. We're going to undercook 1 just
• 11:06
  in case because there's nothing worse than being delayed and
• 11:09
  then you have to start from zero.
• 11:10
  We also always reserved the best portion for the food critic.
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  So we'd have the food critic portion, the most perfectly cut
• 11:17
  fish, you know, the steak with the most marbling.
• 11:19
  Whatever the case may be, there was always one extra portion.
• 11:21
  And as you know, like you never 86 when you have zero, you
• 11:24
  always 86 with a couple of portions because inevitably
• 11:27
  someone's going to sell it and you don't want that person to
• 11:29
  order it. That happens to also be a food
• 11:31
  critic, right? So you always have a little bit
• 11:34
  of backup ready to go. You have the best cook on the
• 11:36
  line, cook that dish, the person who knows that dish inside out.
• 11:39
  A lot of times the chef plates it.
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  The chef has eyes and hands on the dish before it goes out and
• 11:44
  the dish, when it comes back to see what they ate.
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  See what if they picked it apart, right?
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  I once had a food critic come in and I would position them in
• 11:53
  parts of the restaurant where there was bearers so I could
• 11:55
  watch them. And then I would sit an empty
• 11:57
  table next to them and I would position my friend there to dine
• 12:00
  next to the food critic to give me a play by play of what was
• 12:03
  going on. So they would say they're
• 12:04
  tasting the sauce, they don't like the sauce or, you know,
• 12:06
  they're talking about this. So that way I would always
• 12:08
  confirm that it truly is a food critic.
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  And I would see a little play by play because there's nothing
• 12:13
  worse than when you're getting inspected and you know you're
• 12:15
  going to get inspected and you have this anxiety going through
• 12:18
  you as a chef. Like, was it good or was it bad
• 12:20
  because you get no feedback for weeks, right?
• 12:22
  Because the food critic might come in and it might be three or
• 12:24
  four weeks before that article is ever written in the paper.
• 12:27
  Or in the case of like Michelin or something like that, you're
• 12:29
  not going to know until the awards come out.
• 12:31
  So getting some immediate feedback is it's a little bit of
• 12:34
  a de stressor, I should say, right?
• 12:35
  Taste everything. When it goes out, make sure you
• 12:37
  taste it. I mean, that's a given, but
• 12:39
  you'd be surprised. Chefs get nervous.
• 12:41
  I know I used to get really nervous when a food critic would
• 12:43
  come in, not so much anymore, but back then I would get
• 12:45
  nervous. So sometimes I would have to get
• 12:47
  someone to taste it and then hey, you also taste it.
• 12:49
  So I want to make sure I'm not going crazy and my nerves are
• 12:51
  getting the better of me. There's a lot of pressure for a
• 12:53
  chef. We're pleasers, we want to make
• 12:55
  people happy and we put our heart and soul into this craft
• 12:58
  and it's our reputation on the line.
• 12:59
  So we wanted to make sure it was good.
• 13:01
  It's a tense environment. It was a tense moment, a lot of
• 13:03
  those cases, but you get through it, you get the review and then
• 13:06
  there's you get that phone call, right?
• 13:08
  Hey, we're calling you from fill in the blank newspaper.
• 13:10
  We would like to come and take photos.
• 13:12
  So I was watching the bear the other day and I still haven't
• 13:15
  finished it. By the way, for those of you
• 13:16
  that are gas, what do you think about the bear?
• 13:17
  Have you finished it? Like I haven't finished it, but
• 13:19
  nonetheless, I'm watching an episode of the bear and they're
• 13:21
  talking about sending a photographer and to take photos
• 13:24
  because they've already had their review and they missed the
• 13:27
  food critic, which is like, damn it, I know that feeling.
• 13:29
  You missed the food critic. And then you find out after the
• 13:31
  fact that you got the review. So you start going back and
• 13:34
  looking at the details. When did they come in?
• 13:36
  What did they order? You start going through checks.
• 13:39
  How did we not catch it? Everyone's pointing fingers and
• 13:42
  you're like, what are they going to take photos of?
• 13:43
  Well, usually they send someone to take photos of the things
• 13:45
  that they ate. So it's like, OK, they want to
• 13:47
  take a photo of the fish and the steak and the duck.
• 13:50
  So deductive reasoning says they probably ate on this day.
• 13:53
  And the only table that ordered those things with a single diner
• 13:55
  was this person, right? So who was their server?
• 13:58
  How do they do? Do you remember anything about
• 13:59
  the table? You start going through all
• 14:01
  those things, right? Then they take some photos and
• 14:03
  of course, you know, they showed this in the bear.
• 14:05
  Like, can you give me any information on like, they can't
• 14:07
  tell you anything. They don't know anything.
• 14:08
  They're a photographer. They might not even have any
• 14:10
  contact with the food critic, but you want to make sure your
• 14:13
  food photos look good because it's going to come out in the
• 14:14
  paper and people are going to see it, right?
• 14:16
  There's nothing worse, by the way.
• 14:17
  Then you make this beautiful food and the photographer is
• 14:20
  like, man, this looks so good and they're tasting and you feel
• 14:23
  like, oh, it's a great review. And then you read and it's like
• 14:25
  the food was trash. Like fuck, heartbreaking, right?
• 14:28
  But you got to prepare nonetheless.
• 14:29
  So I do weekly Q&A on Instagram and on the weekly Q&A, someone
• 14:33
  asked me, Michelin's coming to Texas.
• 14:35
  If you had to get a Michelin star, what would you do?
• 14:37
  I thought that was a very good question and I answer it, but
• 14:40
  not everyone that listens to the podcast also shows up for the
• 14:43
  Q&A. So I figured it would give me an
• 14:45
  opportunity to explain my answer on this podcast if someone hired
• 14:49
  me today and said we want to get a Michelin star.
• 14:51
  Now, I should give you a caveat. I don't know if I could get a
• 14:54
  Michelin star. I, I would love to try, but I
• 14:56
  don't there's no certainty that I could get one because I've
• 14:58
  never gotten one. I have no proof that I could get
• 15:00
  one. I've got another awards, best
• 15:02
  new show, best chef or a four-star award here and there,
• 15:05
  but I've never received a Michelin star.
• 15:06
  So I can only speculate that I could get one because I've
• 15:09
  received other awards and I'm a good competitor and I look at
• 15:13
  sometimes the award system as a competition and I know how to
• 15:15
  compete. Give me the rules of the game
• 15:17
  and I'll figure out how to win. That's always been my mantra.
• 15:19
  So if I was looking at Michelin and someone said get a Michelin
• 15:22
  star, well, the first thing I would say is to the investor, to
• 15:25
  the person that's funding this playground, because sometimes
• 15:28
  that's what it is. Early on when you're unsure if
• 15:30
  you're going to get a Michelin star, it's a little bit of a
• 15:32
  playground, right? Because the food has to be at
• 15:34
  the highest level, service has to be at extremely high level.
• 15:37
  All the details have to be there.
• 15:39
  Elements of luxury have to be there in terms of the China, the
• 15:41
  stemware, the flatware, different vessels, unique
• 15:45
  serving pieces, right? All that has to be there.
• 15:47
  So I would make sure that all of that is top of the line, whether
• 15:50
  we're talking, you know, Rosenthal or Bernadotte or
• 15:52
  whatever, high quality China stemware for different types of
• 15:56
  wine, right? So Bordeaux glass, so on and so
• 15:59
  forth. So not just your standard, the
• 16:01
  whole purpose wine glass or just your red and white like I would
• 16:03
  have different glasses, a good cocktail program.
• 16:05
  Look at the reservation system. So all those details need to be
• 16:08
  there, right? The food has to obviously be
• 16:10
  there. And when you're designing a
• 16:11
  menu, it has to be creative. Like Forbes Travel Guide.
• 16:14
  You want to make sure you have a cheese course, right?
• 16:17
  Because at least it used to be listed on the audit that they
• 16:21
  were looking for some sort of cheese offered, right?
• 16:23
  I don't know. And you'd lose some points.
• 16:24
  It's not mandatory that you need cheese courts to get five stars,
• 16:27
  but it would help towards the point system, right?
• 16:29
  So you want to make sure you consider all those things.
• 16:32
  Really take a detailed look at what it is that they're looking
• 16:34
  for. Make sure all that luxury is
• 16:35
  there. Polish up the language, luxury
• 16:37
  service luxury language. From a food standpoint,
• 16:40
  creativity has to be there. The trend has to be there, but
• 16:42
  the technique has to be there. There's a difference when you
• 16:45
  pour the sauce in the kitchen versus pouring the sauce table
• 16:47
  side. And I know in one inspection
• 16:49
  that I got, we got points deducted because in the
• 16:52
  transport of the plate from the kitchen to the dining room, the
• 16:55
  sauce shifted. So was it unappetizing?
• 16:58
  No. But to the inspector it was.
• 17:00
  So after that, we made the decision that that particular
• 17:03
  dish needed the sauce port tableside, right?
• 17:05
  It adds another element of luxury theatrical presentation,
• 17:08
  right? All those things matter.
• 17:10
  Sometimes just sprinkling herbs on the plate doesn't work
• 17:13
  because it doesn't look like it was plated with intention.
• 17:16
  So a lot of people give shit to tweezer chefs.
• 17:18
  It's like everything is intentionally placed somewhere,
• 17:21
  so it has to look like it's meticulously placed randomly,
• 17:25
  right? That's what I like to say.
• 17:26
  So after you have all that, hopefully you have a good
• 17:28
  restaurant, but more importantly, you got to have the
• 17:30
  right team. So again, magic wand money's no
• 17:33
  object, big time investor. What I would say is my
• 17:36
  sommelier, my pastry chef, my chef de cuisine, and my dining
• 17:39
  room manager that I would hire would all have to have Michelin
• 17:43
  experience leading teams in those types of restaurants.
• 17:46
  So I think that's the key. It's not working in those
• 17:49
  restaurants, it's leading the team in those restaurants
• 17:52
  because it's one thing to work in those kitchens or to work in
• 17:54
  those dining rooms. That's another thing to lead
• 17:57
  those dining rooms because just because you know how to produce
• 17:59
  it doesn't mean you know how to replicate it with a team.
• 18:01
  So I would want to hire those four positions would be
• 18:04
  critical. Chef de cuisine, pastry chef,
• 18:06
  dining room manager, sommelier, all have to have Michelin star
• 18:09
  leadership experience. And I would give them a percent
• 18:12
  ownership. I would say, hey, here's some
• 18:14
  skin in the game. You're incentivized to stay
• 18:16
  here. That way they're not quitting
• 18:17
  after six months when shit gets difficult, right?
• 18:20
  I'd want to lock those four positions in because for me,
• 18:23
  those would probably be besides my position, which I don't know
• 18:26
  what my position would be. Chef owner, chef podcaster
• 18:31
  anyway, those would be the positions that I think would be
• 18:33
  most important because they're the ones that are going to do
• 18:36
  the majority of the heavy lifting day-to-day service,
• 18:39
  right? I would be the brains behind it
• 18:40
  and I got I got good chef brains.
• 18:42
  So I and then you put all that money in and you make sure all
• 18:44
  the details are right and then you hope that they didn't show
• 18:47
  up on a fucking off night, right.
• 18:49
  You hope that you're always on. There's a level of intensity
• 18:52
  that you have to bring in these restaurants that I think not a
• 18:54
  lot of people understand. So anyway, you could do all that
• 18:57
  and then there's no guarantee that you're going to get a star,
• 18:59
  right? And then what year 2, the owner
• 19:01
  says, hey, we're pulling the plug or we're doubling down on
• 19:04
  the playground. Tough decisions.
• 19:05
  But anyway, those are just some ideas and some thoughts, some
• 19:09
  rambling. We'll see where it goes.
• 19:11
  And by the way, I should also close with there's there's
• 19:13
  levels to this game. There's a difference between A1
• 19:16
  star and a two star restaurant and there's differences between
• 19:18
  A2 and a three star restaurant, right?
• 19:20
  Like, I don't even want to think and insult anyone to sit here
• 19:23
  and say that I think I can get more than one star.
• 19:25
  I don't even know if I could get one, but I definitely sometimes
• 19:29
  look at the levels of chefs and I see what a three star chef is
• 19:32
  doing and sometimes I don't understand it.
• 19:34
  Like they're speaking a more advanced language than I
• 19:36
  understand. When I see a one star
• 19:37
  restaurant, I think, OK, I speak that language.
• 19:39
  But when you start climbing these higher levels, you see
• 19:41
  things. It's like, man, I could look at
• 19:43
  something and I could reverse engineer it.
• 19:45
  But sometimes when you look at that three star cooking, you
• 19:47
  can't reverse engineer it. And even if you could, there
• 19:50
  might be flavors in there. When you taste, it's like, OK,
• 19:52
  you could reverse engineer it visually, but then you taste.
• 19:55
  It's like what else went on in the procedure that got it to
• 19:58
  this result that you didn't. Even notice happened.
• 20:00
  I'll close with this story. I was sitting around the table
• 20:03
  with a bunch of my chef friends and they had a lot of different
• 20:06
  awards. Everything from James Beard food
• 20:08
  and wine, best new, fill in the blank.
• 20:11
  And we asked the question, what award means the most to you?
• 20:14
  And they all said I was the first one, It was this one, it
• 20:17
  was that one. But then someone said a busy
• 20:20
  successful restaurant to me means more than any award.
• 20:23
  And ultimately that's the truth, right?
• 20:25
  So chasing awards is fun, but it's not the end all be all.
• 20:28
  And awards don't define, find your legacy, right?
• 20:31
  Anyway, if you want us for the show, you know what to do.
• 20:33
  Make sure you leave five stars, nothing less than five stars.
• 20:36
  Don't be a bad person. If you have any of my books, I'd
• 20:38
  appreciate it if you go leave a 5 star review on any of my
• 20:41
  books. If you're watching on YouTube or
• 20:43
  Spotify, you can leave some comments and let me know what
• 20:46
  you think of this episode. Give me your Texas Michelin
• 20:48
  predictions. Go subscribe to my sub stack.
• 20:51
  Go to chefspsa.com for everything.
• 20:52
  We'll see you next week. Hit the porno music.