Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / Behind the Pass with Chef Casey Wall: Mistakes, Metrics & Mental Health Ep. 156

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Behind the Pass with Chef Casey Wall: Mistakes, Metrics & Mental Health Ep. 156 · Chef's PSA Podcast

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Hello chefs, this is Chefs PSA. I'm your host Andrea Natera.
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Today we have Chef Casey Wall from The Calamar in Austin, TX,
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who's made waves in Melbourne's culinary scene and earned
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recognition from the Good Food Guide and the World's Fifty Best
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Bars. We talked about opening a
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restaurant in a new city, Australia's wild food culture
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and the importance of balance and self-care in the kitchen.
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I think you'll enjoy this one. Stay tuned.
0:37
Great restaurants don't always bring customers in.
0:40
Great stories do, because in food, beverage and hospitality,
0:43
what you sell is only part of the story.
0:47
It's the why behind it, the authority you create and the
0:50
experience that you've built. Market scale turns expertise
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into content that connects podcasts, video series and
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industry education, not ads assets.
1:05
Market scale has brought run the past and how to manage like an
1:08
executive chef to life real world examples of how great
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content leads the conversation. Because attention is earned and
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the industry doesn't need more noise, it needs more leaders.
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The first, first real prep day we had in the kitchen, we set
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the oven up. I totally forgot it was in
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Fahrenheit, not Celsius. And we just could not figure out
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what was going wrong with these stuffed chicken wings that we
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have on the menu. Little Oded PR Kaufman and we
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couldn't figure it out. And we spent hours boning these
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chicken wings out, making the Mussolin, all the forests and
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all this stuff. And they were just dying in the
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oven. And my my buddy was up helping
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me prep and he was just staring in into the oven.
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I could just see the soul leave his body.
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And then we both realized that we had the wrong temperatures
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going on back and forth. But yeah, so.
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Like did no one else on the team catch?
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It it was just us prepping and we haven't.
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I mean, there were so many things like.
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And he's also from Australia. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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He's, he's from Australia and we've had a few specials where
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we had a 20 oz rib eye and he was, he thought I said 420
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grams, which is about 14 oz. So we were like doing purple
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specials because multiple times we just misweighed things.
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Or we say something in grams and someone does it in, in ounces
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and it's just like completely wrong.
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We try to work off percentages and based on grams.
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Like, I'm kind of meticulous about that.
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I feel like savory food can be as specific as baking.
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I don't need. There is some nuances there.
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Yeah. We've made so many mistakes or
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just stupidity stuff. But luckily, all the skills that
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we have, you know, we can put them into ounces.
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Yeah, you can put them into grams.
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What what about the rest of the team there?
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So like now you're in Austin, you're not in Australia anymore.
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So what? What are these cooks that are
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working with you working off of? Well, we we we forced them into
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grams there. It's not too bad because, you
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know, like I said, the scales are in other other things, but
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you can go between oz and grams. So it's pretty easy to get that
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stuff. But oh man, like it's the
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verbiage is what is throwing everyone off.
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Like we just different way to call away dockets or?
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Say that again. Yeah.
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What did you say? Yeah.
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That's it. That's, I mean, it's like the
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multiple times you were just staring at it's like I'm
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speaking English and I think I'm saying the right stuff and like,
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yeah, call it fire a ticket, you know, call away a docket.
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That's what we would say in Australia.
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I didn't realize how much of like, I guess Australian kitchen
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English has like infiltrated me, you know, It's like I just say
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saying different things and people just stare at me like.
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When did you go from? Because you were in New York,
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right? And then you went from New York
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to Australia. Yeah, I went to from New York
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straight to Melbourne and. How old were you when that
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happened? Like how early in your career?
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2627. You were there for how long?
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15 years, I'll be 40. 2 So so maybe how long before you went
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into kitchens like in the US? I started cooking when I was
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probably 20. OK, so about six years US, yeah.
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And then kitchen English and then you go to to Australia.
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It's like. A whole nother world. 15 years
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of that. Yeah.
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And as you get there and you land and you're like, I know how
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to cook and then you I know how to like butcher things or or
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whatever. And then you get there and then
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the Australian like meat cuts are different.
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What do you mean? There's a different cuts that
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don't exist here, that don't exist there.
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They they butcher the cows. They do little things like
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little nuances and stuff like, yeah, you want to order a
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brisket? It's almost always just like the
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the point in. Yeah, like the, the, the, the
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was the navel in the fat end. Yeah, this is little things like
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that. Yeah.
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So you start like you just start realizing that English is so
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crazily different across the world.
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And then I'm there a lot, you know, coriander versus cilantro.
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That's that's a little and that's just a.
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Little we call Bell. Peppers over there, capsicums.
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That's what I thought. Yeah, that is that's that's one.
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How dare you? Yeah.
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I know I still, I'm still doing that now I'll call, I'm trying
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to weed out the Australianisms in the kitchen.
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But I've never wanted to be like, mate or I, I, I never was
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that like really dove into the like Australian lingo, like that
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stuff. But some of these words, like
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the other day we were talking to someone and we know we call
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gasoline petrol. Yeah.
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I was like, we got to go to the petrol store and they're like,
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what are you talking about? I was.
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Like. For the car, like I don't know
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what you're talking about. I was.
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Going to go to the car park and. I'm not.
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I do mumble, but I'm not mumbling.
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It's just like little things like that.
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It's been, it's been kind of wild to come back to America and
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because my partner's an American and we come back all the time,
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but you don't realize how different the 2 are for being so
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similar. And it's just pretty interesting
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that way. Kitchen culture between here and
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in Melbourne, how different is it?
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It's. Besides besides the language.
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Yeah, it's a lot different. The kitchens are a lot tighter
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in Australia. What do you mean by that?
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Laborers through the roof expensive, you know, like if we
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the businesses, if we were hitting 42% labor costs across
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like front and back of house, we were like fist pumping in the
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air. You know, a lot of times it was
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like 50% labor costs that really yeah.
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And it's. So you got to run really lean
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margins everywhere else. Yeah you have to be smart like
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prep, you know utilizing everything like you cooking
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clean the kitchens are you know we so many kitchens in Australia
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don't have dishwashers. It's like, do you want 4 chefs
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in in a dishwasher or do you want 5 chefs to get prepped down
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in the chefs just wash the dishes.
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Really. Yeah, I.
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Got and I'm assuming like no one bats an eye.
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It's just the way to no. No one cares.
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They know that. They know how it is I.
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Mean some people here, it's like.
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Yeah, nice. You know, I got my job.
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I thought, erroneously thought I could open the the Calamar with
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five chefs. Yeah, yeah, we're, we're at 8
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now. Yeah, yeah, it's, yeah, yeah,
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it's. Crazy.
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It's a different world. And and then in Australia too,
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like the it's real tight with hours, you know, you, you, it's,
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you know, 38 hour working weeks for 3840 hour working weeks.
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And like, it's pretty strict. Why is labor so high?
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Like what's the average cook making over there?
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What's the currency exchange, by the way?
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Do you know off the top of your head?
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It's about 6566 cents. So yeah, one US one U.S. dollar
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is like 65 or 66 cents right now.
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OK. Back in the heyday, it was like
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105 Australian to 1. When the US dollar dropped at
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the GFC, Yeah, man, it was crazy.
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It was so good to come back home.
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It was like it felt like you're like, I don't know, I felt like
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you're a millionaire, you coming back, but the you'd be around
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6065 Australian for like a just a line cook. $65 an hour.
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No, no salary. Yeah, yeah.
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Just for a line cook. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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What is like a sous chef? Average sous chef?
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Megan over there it. Depends on how big the
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restaurant is. Like, you know, 75 to 85, that's
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not bad. And then chefs 85 up, you know,
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depending on now there's a there's a little wiggle room in
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the Fair Work. It's it's everything's like
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scripted out, like what will you pay?
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So if you pay someone over an X amount of dollars and they can
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work however many hours. OK.
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And it's like added, I think it's I can't remember the
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threshold 120A-150 or something like that.
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You can just like you're you're working.
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If you make more than 150 a year, you work as.
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Yeah, you can. Like it's.
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There's no labor law anymore. Labor law is out the window.
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I would say it's out of the window, but it's like kind of
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opens up the door a little bit more.
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It's pretty, it's an interesting, interesting way.
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It's, it's, it's good to know because as a cook, there's no
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real negotiation of salary. I mean, maybe ask for a little
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bit more. But it's like in this government
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like document, this is what you pay if you do this.
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And if you do this, these tasks, then you get paid this much.
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And it's kind of like graded up that way.
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So if you're doing ordering and stuff, you're at like a level.
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I think level 4, my business partner Manu was way better at
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that. So I was like just focusing on
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the food and he was doing all the admin.
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I think level 4 is like when you start ordering, yet one through
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5 is like level cook you were and it's kind of.
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And everyone works off the same system.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, if you're.
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So like if you go into a restaurant, you're like, I'm a
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cook one level 1 or level 2. Yeah.
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You're just say you're hiring for like a level level 1 cook
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and that's kind of like this is you can see what.
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Everyone's kind of knows what a level 1 cook is.
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Yeah, yeah. Wow.
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OK, so it's real. It's, it's, it's good.
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And it's also bad because there's a little annoying things
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like, you know, we're global, a series of global, you know,
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country or global. It's a global world now.
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And everything's set to Monday to Friday, 9 to 5, like wage.
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And if it if you work in night or if you work on the weekends,
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there's like you have to pay extras, you have to the load
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like whatever that base salary is.
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Wait a minute. So if I'm a cook in Australia
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and I have that you happen to be closed on Monday and Tuesday,
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you have to pay me more when I work on Saturday and Sunday?
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Yeah, just those two days. And at night and at night, and
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if you start early. So we had a bakery.
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And is that all of Australia? Yeah, the whole yeah, yeah, it's
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everything. Oh shit.
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So it's like a. Lot of people listening and be
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like I'm fucking moving to Australia.
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Yeah, I mean, I, I think it'd be you definitely learn how to cook
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and how to use ingredients differently In Australia.
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There's some amazing shifts and if you're young, a young cook, I
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think 28 might be the cut off or maybe 30.
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Now there's like a working holiday visa where you pay I
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think maybe 102 hundred Australian dollars.
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Don't hold me to that. And you can get a, a work visa
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for a year. So you can go down to Australia
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for a year, cook down there. I think more people should do it
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just to see the, it's an easy way because it's, it gives you
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the ability to work. It's not just a travel visa.
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It's called a working holiday. So you can kind of pay for your
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day as you're working. And so if like me, I pay my $200
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ish and I go and I get my working holiday visa in
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Australia, are you going to pay me the same as everyone else?
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Or do you like working holiday visa?
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We pay them less, no. Yeah, that I have.
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You have to pay me what everyone else is making.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. 75, yeah, I mean 65 Australians.
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That's a little less than it's good though.
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I mean, it's real and then. That's that's entry level.
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Yeah, that's oh, that's not, that's not that would be your
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average. OK.
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And then you got four weeks paid vacation mandatory and then
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about 11 and. Every employer has to do this.
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Yeah, and you get 11 or so 11 or 12 public holidays off a year as
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well on top of your four weeks paid annual leave.
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And you have to do pay superannuation, so your
13:08
retirement. So 10% on top of what your
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salary is, the restaurant has to pay towards your retirement.
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What about those people that are not?
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No, it's I'm sitting here and saying it.
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I I don't know how we ever had successful restaurants.
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Yeah. How did you, how did you run in?
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You're running crazy labor costs.
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Yeah, it's, I mean, it is what it is.
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It's it's, it's good because I mean it, you know, you're taking
13:34
care of your employees and stuff and.
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Like, yeah, no, no, hey, look, I get that, but you got to stay
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open. Yeah, that's, I mean, it's, it's
13:40
hard. It definitely is hard.
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And it's Australia's struggling right now.
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There's they're going through pretty gnarly recession, a lot
13:48
of restaurants are closed, a lot of my friends closing spots down
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and stuff, but it's not because they're not trying or anything
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like they're great restaurants. It's just hard and no one's
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spending money right now because the interest rates are through
14:00
the roof and like mortgages. Yeah, Australia.
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When you think about like Australian cuisine, and I know
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you're not, you're, you're from the United States, but having
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lived in Australia for so long, when you think about like if
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someone's coming down, they're like, define Australian cuisine.
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What is that? What does that look like to most
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people? If you said I'm going to take
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you to the best Australian restaurants.
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I it's, it's kind of like a modern American in a way.
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You know, like what's a modern American?
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Australian burger? Yeah, that does what?
14:29
Does that have beets and pineapple on it?
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Yeah. Yes, it's an egg and bacon.
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It's that's right. I'm sorry, Australia, it's
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horrible. It's disgusting.
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I I, I there's great burgers in Australia, but that's not one
14:40
that that whole thing. I don't, Yeah.
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I think you have to, like, be tricked to think that's good
14:45
when you're a child. Yeah.
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And then, like, you grow up like, this is a good burger.
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And you're like, yeah. The sausage rolls.
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What are we eating over there? Yeah, sausage rolls are great.
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Yeah. It's like, depending on where
14:55
you buy them from, it's the cheaper they are, the more
14:58
bread. It's like, it's like less
15:00
sausage and more just bread filling inside of like, you
15:02
know, puff pastry. But the, my, the weird thing for
15:07
me about Australia is there's no like if you go to a pub in Perth
15:12
and you go to a pub in Sydney, you go to a pub in Melbourne,
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it's kind of the same. There's no like regional food in
15:19
Australia out there's like a, the only regionality really is
15:22
a, an argument between like a pit, a potato cake and a potato
15:25
scallop, which is just a fried slice of potato.
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You know, it's, that's the only real like regional thing.
15:31
And they have like a continental sandwich and.
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What's a Continental sandwich? It's just like a I'm sorry
15:37
Perth, it's like a bad version of an Italian sub.
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Someone out there is going to get mad if.
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All my Australian fans listening right now, write your name on
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their list. Now I love Australia, but like
15:48
the food, like I don't know, there's sensor isn't like a long
15:56
culinary history in Australia. I mean a lot of it is British
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influenced, you know, like roast and things.
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But since there's not like a an old Australian culinary
16:07
identity, you have this freedom to cook whatever you want.
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You know, it's not, you know, back, you know, a few years ago,
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like, you know, fusion, not a few a few decades ago, like
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fusion was like a bad word in America.
16:18
And there's a lot of people doing bad fusion food, you know
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what I mean? It's just horrible, like
16:25
attempts at like putting Asian flavors into American dishes and
16:28
it's like or, or whatever it is not fully understanding like the
16:31
nuances of Asian cuisine and trying to implement them into
16:34
like some sort of Americanized dish.
16:35
You know, like it was, there was a lot of bad food.
16:37
But in Australia, it's kind of like, you know, with the produce
16:42
in the proximity to Southeast Asia, it's like Asian
16:45
ingredients just seamlessly integrate into like like Western
16:50
food, if you will. Like so there's no real.
16:54
There's a lot of really great Southeast Asian food in
16:56
Australia as well. Oh.
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Man, amazing. The Vietnamese, a lot of
17:01
Vietnamese refugees in the war. So like it.
17:05
Yeah, yeah. There's so much great Vietnamese
17:07
food. That was my go to.
17:10
You know, I lost, I lost some Mexican food when I moved to
17:12
Australia and I picked, you know, I replaced it with
17:14
Vietnamese food. It was amazing.
17:16
What I didn't realize I consulted on a restaurant in in
17:21
Vietnam and with some friends of mine from Melbourne.
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So we consulted on this restaurant in, in Vietnam and
17:29
we're eating fun and, and going eating different stuff and I get
17:32
the fun. Isaac tastes so different here.
17:35
And he was like, yeah, you know, you know, there's also regional
17:38
fuzz everywhere. But, you know, we see the flood
17:40
tastes different and not bad or not, it's just different.
17:42
He goes, yeah. And so we went to this, another
17:46
district. I think it's kind of like a
17:48
neighborhood in Saigon. And he took me to the like the
17:52
Chinatown. And he was like, we ate.
17:54
And I was like, oh, this is what I remember, you know, front.
17:56
This tastes like Australia, like the Vietnamese food in
17:58
Australia. He's like, yeah, because when
18:00
the Vietnamese moved to Australia, there was no
18:04
Vietnamese produce. They had to start using, like,
18:05
Chinese ingredients to try to mimic their Vietnamese flavor.
18:10
So it tastes like the Chinatown version of pho because you're
18:14
using Chinese based ingredients in Australia.
18:15
So it's like this neat. Like you go to this one district
18:18
in Saigon, like, oh, this is a Phi.
18:19
I know what I thought pho was. And then they go to the other
18:22
place. It's so Vietnam's crazy.
18:24
But the food, yeah, the Vietnamese food in Australia is,
18:27
is, is elite. Going back to just because I'm
18:32
fascinated by this conversation, going back to livable wages for
18:37
cooks in in Australia. Do I mean, are most cooks making
18:42
livable wages where they could live comfortably?
18:43
I mean, you know what I mean? Live comfortably.
18:45
Like their bills are paid. They're not.
18:46
They're not having to work 2 jobs.
18:48
No, no, I don't. There's.
18:50
I didn't know anyone that really worked 2 jobs unless they kind
18:54
of had like 2 part time jobs. That's another thing a lot of
18:57
people were we're doing like part time work.
19:00
We got a lot of part time chefs and then sometimes they would
19:04
they would just be happy working two days a week or three days a
19:07
week because there's also like you have your salary positions,
19:11
but then you have like a casual chef and they're getting paid.
19:15
Right, right. It's like maybe $8080 an hour on
19:18
a Sunday or something. In the United States, one of the
19:20
big problems that we have obviously, is inflation.
19:23
And because of cost of living and inflation and, you know, the
19:26
purchasing power of the dollar, a lot of cooks have to work 2
19:29
jobs or a lot of times they leave the industry because they
19:32
can't make a livable wage. But this is, I mean, the
19:36
industry has never been like known to pay.
19:38
Like people aren't getting rich by, you know, working as cooks
19:41
and chefs. But it's gotten perpetually
19:43
worse over the last couple of years.
19:45
Oh, I didn't. I mean, I didn't know it was
19:46
getting worse. I, I've always thought that, you
19:51
know, the, the more you take care of your staff and the less
19:54
turnover you have, the the better your life's going to be.
19:59
So like I would rather have a little less and give people a
20:02
little more and then have them stay longer than.
20:05
So you're saying that instead of having going back to the five
20:07
cook example, go with four and just pay the four a little bit
20:10
more than? Yeah, what?
20:11
However you can do it. Or just, you know, like you just
20:14
take less off the top. You know what I mean?
20:16
Like that, you know, like you just you just distribute that
20:19
over. We, we had some great chefs and
20:24
managers and stuff that worked with us for years in Australia.
20:26
And I like we would always try to like, you know, take people
20:32
with us when we did pop ups in, you know, Vietnam or Singapore
20:37
or China, you know, and you know, we sent one of a really
20:41
talented chef to America because he like he just wanted to see
20:46
other things. So we sent him to America for a
20:48
few weeks. He stashed at some of our
20:49
friends restaurants. Another one of our chefs, Zach,
20:53
who was he just left Liberty a few weeks.
20:56
Bar Liberty is one of them. My old spots in the Melbourne.
20:59
He just left Liberty a few weeks ago and he, you know, he it was
21:04
a, it was a hard slog through like COVID and Melbourne.
21:08
It was it was crazy. And he he just, it worked his
21:14
ass for us. So we like is he worked so hard
21:16
for us. So we sent him to Poland to
21:18
like, because he has like Polish descent.
21:20
So he went to Poland and check things out.
21:21
And I mean, it was like it's it's fun to like those little
21:26
extra things that do with people.
21:27
Like we sent. I mean, I was, I was annoyed
21:30
only from jealousy because we had we did a pop from Japan.
21:34
I didn't even get to go like we like we.
21:36
Send your restaurant, yeah. We send Zach and one of our
21:40
AGM's to Japan to do this pop up and I was like, man, this looks
21:44
so much fun, but you know, you know.
21:46
Your bar in Australia was on World's Fifty Best Bars.
21:48
Yeah, yeah, so it's up and it's been in the top 50 and it's it
21:52
was I think 100 last year. It goes kind of yeah, on off.
21:55
It's it's the world's fifty best bar is such a a cool list.
21:59
I think it's, I mean, not not to hang shade on the restaurant
22:04
list, but the the restaurants are almost priced out.
22:10
They're almost an unattainable for the a common person, right?
22:13
And I mean, they're great restaurants.
22:14
Like no, no shade on them at all.
22:16
I don't think I have no issue with the with the list, but the
22:21
actual cocktail bars in that list, you know, you can be a
22:25
line cook and go to a top 50 bar and afford to have a drink.
22:29
You know what I mean? Like experience like this really
22:32
insane level of craft where like you, I mean, you're not going to
22:36
drop, you know, €600 on a meal. Not everyone gets to go to Noma.
22:40
Right. Yeah, You know, it's like it's
22:42
it's really neat how that how in a weird way, how utilitarian the
22:45
World's fifty best cocktail list is versus the rest or the bar
22:49
versus the. Interesting point.
22:51
I mean, by nature, you're, you know, you're, I guess what
22:57
you're consuming is a much smaller, you know, in context,
23:00
it's a drink. Yeah.
23:01
You know. So I think a lot of people that
23:04
are going to listen to this episode are, can be very curious
23:06
about, especially in the US, or can be very curious about taking
23:08
these working trips to go to Australia.
23:11
I I mean I mean I anyone wants to DM me on Instagram I can hook
23:16
you up with heaps of great chefs to work for I.
23:19
Mean that would probably be step one, like figure out who you
23:20
want to go work for, right? There's so many, there's so many
23:25
talented chefs in Australia. I mean in America too.
23:28
I'm not saying like Australia is better than America in any
23:30
chance in any way, but like there's just to go like it.
23:33
Just get a different viewpoint like to see you know what a gram
23:36
is. Learn about.
23:38
People here use gram. I mean, I use grams and kilos
23:42
and I, you know, I want to go back to the recipe conversation
23:45
because you said something interesting and it's something
23:47
that I've, I always write my recipes in grams.
23:51
I don't do cups and spoons and oz.
23:52
I think again, to your point, that's more consistent, but you
23:55
said something about percentages.
23:57
And this is something that I've been thinking about a lot lately
24:01
to write recipes with percentages.
24:02
And I, I picked this up recently from another chef where, where
24:05
everything is so they could scale it by percent.
24:08
And I've never thought about that.
24:09
It is just like a light bulb moment.
24:12
But can you explain that to people what you mean by writing
24:15
your recipes in percentages? Because I I think more people
24:18
should do it. Once I discovered I was like,
24:20
yeah, everyone should do this. Well, it's, it's, it's called a
24:22
Baker's percentage is the basis and it's got you, you're using
24:27
whatever your main ingredient is, is 100% of, you know, like
24:31
say a kilo of flour. And then, you know, then it
24:35
would be, so that's your 100% ratio.
24:37
And then it like say you want 500 gram, it would be 50% water,
24:41
so 500 grams of water and then 2% salt.
24:45
And you know, and that's kind of, and it just goes up.
24:48
It's we, we write a lot of spreadsheets too.
24:50
So just build every recipe into a calculator, right?
24:53
And say like this recipe calls for whatever 400 grams of of
25:03
clean bell Peppers or whatever and you have 377g then you can
25:08
just type 377 in that thing and it scales the recipe accordingly
25:12
instead of like trying to like. Yeah, what?
25:14
What are you using? Like an Excel spreadsheet.
25:16
Or something just Google documents and stuff.
25:17
So it's, it's a good, it's a neat way because something, you
25:21
know, you, we all do it, you know, like this recipe is 600
25:25
grams and you only have 550 grams, you know, like, yeah, you
25:29
can keep going on, but the, and depending on what you're using,
25:33
there may not be much of a variation in the end result.
25:36
But I think what I try to do is try to eliminate as much
25:39
variation at the end goal as possible.
25:41
So service is as smooth as possible.
25:43
You know, you don't want to have to be micro adjusting things on
25:48
every, you know, 5 things in every pickup because, you know,
25:50
we didn't take an extra 5 minutes when we're prepping this
25:53
item. So the percentages really helps
25:56
dial that stuff in. Where did you pick that up?
25:57
Is that was that very common in Australia or is that something
26:00
that you learned somewhere? No, I just think I'm a weird.
26:05
Well, you're not because I, I know some very good chefs that
26:08
that do that. And it was a very good chef
26:10
friend of mine that showed that to me, you know, very highly
26:13
respectable chef. And when he when he showed me, I
26:15
was like, yeah, that's brilliant.
26:16
I don't know why I never did. I was always just riding them in
26:18
grams and then manually scaling it up myself.
26:22
Yeah, we try. We have like a little golden
26:24
ratio of seasoning. We try to hit on a lot of
26:27
things. If you're not, you know, you
26:30
have to as you're making something, you're seasoning in
26:32
layers, but some stuff reductions or whatever you're
26:35
seasoning at the end. And we we, we always go for a
26:40
dialed in like golden ratio of salt and and other seasoning
26:43
stuff. And then?
26:44
What do you mean? Oh, like we we, we aim for like
26:48
what? Depends on what it is.
26:50
Can we say it's like a sauce, like a like a a a meat
26:54
reduction? Yeah, if we're making a sauce,
26:56
we'll go 1.2% salt and then .2% MSG to to finish that. 11 point
27:05
would you say 1.2% salt? Yeah, by by weight, by weight,
27:09
Yeah, of of the reduced sauce and then like it gets.
27:13
I've heard, I've heard some people's like 1 1/2, yeah.
27:15
Yeah, 1 1/2 I, I It depends also what you're using it for.
27:20
Like we make a couple, you know, at the Calm Arts, French
27:26
inspired, a French ish first French adjacent.
27:29
I'm not sure I I wouldn't I wouldn't want to say we're 100%
27:32
French, but definitely a match to French cookery.
27:36
And we make so many. I mean, a lot of that is sauce
27:40
based and it's really, really important.
27:42
So we if it's a base sauce for something else, we'll we'll
27:45
under season it slightly so we can adjust that we don't put it
27:49
in at 100% salt into another reduction.
27:51
So we're so we can kind of play with it a little bit.
27:54
But yeah, it's a lot of gram scales and like, you know, .2
27:59
decimal place gram scales and stuff to like to dial things in.
28:02
So .2% MSG one and a half 1.2%. Salt is pretty solid.
28:08
That's a great tip for people listening.
28:09
Yeah. I mean, it's it you can, it's
28:12
it's things that work through you, You can taste.
28:16
I mean, if you're a young chef, like just try it out.
28:19
You see, like where you want to be dialed in.
28:21
And of course, if you're having like if you've used some sort of
28:25
like tamari or some of this salt, you know, Worcestershire
28:28
sauce or something, you know, ratio is going to have to drop
28:30
down, right? Like if it's an essentially an
28:33
unseasoned entity, that's a good starting.
28:37
Point Yeah. Have you always been that
28:38
meticulous? Where'd you pick that up?
28:41
In the kitchen or or on your own.
28:44
No, I think just just doing just experience and like trying to
28:49
make consistent stuff. I think consistency is, is the,
28:52
is the biggest key for a restaurant.
28:54
You know, you can, you can forgive a lot if it, if you know
28:59
a restaurant's consistent, you know what I mean?
29:01
Like if you go there and you have a great meal and you go
29:03
back and it was kind of a dud. You're like, you know, it's
29:06
hard, it's hard to go back a third time.
29:09
But you know, if it's if it's consistent, you know what you're
29:12
getting, you know what you're paying for, you know, to expect
29:14
and walking the door, it's you're just going to keep coming
29:16
back. So it's like AI wouldn't say
29:17
it's safe. I don't want to be like a safe
29:20
restaurant. But I think Sissy's key.
29:21
You have to deliver that product repeatedly.
29:25
And if it's something like I put this, a chicken dish on and I
29:30
thought it would be on for like a week and it's our biggest
29:34
selling dish. It's flying out the door.
29:38
Our, our poor chicken guy is he's made multiple deliveries
29:42
Thai from true bird farm. He's a legend.
29:45
He's helped me out so much. We, I, I didn't think it would
29:51
be on that long. And now I can't take it off.
29:53
It's, it's, but it's cool. It's it's, it's a great dish.
29:55
So I was at your place the other day and I saw the chicken dish
29:57
and I was like, I'm going to order.
29:59
Look, it sounds good. Yeah, it's it's, it's an awesome
30:01
dish. And yeah, it's just I want when
30:08
you come in, I want it to be the same every time.
30:11
Like you can't just cut like a man that because that's even,
30:14
you know, we tried a lot of chickens and that the true bird
30:19
farm chicken is insane. And I if I can get chickens from
30:24
him, we just won't put the dish on.
30:25
I don't want to Like you come in this week and have a great
30:28
chicken dish and then you come back the next week and it's kind
30:31
of a it's, it's 90% of what it was the week before.
30:35
Like that's not good enough for them, you know?
30:37
Like that's, that's why the meticulousness comes in.
30:40
It's interesting. I have two friends and I'm not
30:41
going to say who they are or what restaurants they're.
30:44
Where are the chefs at? Both of them are restaurants
30:52
that are household names globally, right?
30:55
The ones that you hear on those lists, right?
30:57
One chef, again, he's, he's very important.
31:03
No recipes. Everyone knows how to cook like
31:06
we just, you know, just throw it in there like we know how to do
31:08
this. The other everything's exactly
31:12
like no, no deviation from the recipe.
31:15
It's to the gram 1.5%, whatever. And they're both top of the food
31:22
chain and they both have completely different
31:25
methodologies of how they get there.
31:26
It's it's wild. I've worked with chefs, the
31:28
first chef who had there was no real recipes out of guidelines.
31:32
And that's a fun kitchen to work in because there's a lot of
31:38
pressure on you to repeat that dish or whatever you're
31:43
prepping. But I think the level of talent
31:48
you have to have in that kitchen is wildly different from the
31:51
level of talent you need for the other kitchen.
31:54
That is true. And I, I think there's so many
31:58
chefs have taken so much of their time to teach me things,
32:03
you know, when I was a young chef or even just like friends
32:07
making a friend at another chef, you know, we'd talk about stuff,
32:10
we'd exchange ideas and things. So I, I think as an older chef,
32:14
you have to train the younger generation.
32:17
It's not, they're not cogs in the machine.
32:20
It's way more than that. And if you're not taking time to
32:22
train people, I think you're not really doing serving your
32:28
purpose as a chef. And I, I love the idea of like
32:31
teaching young kids how to cook, but also some of that is, you
32:38
know, we're working to this spec.
32:40
So I mean, you learn how to cook with the spec, You have an, you
32:42
have a, you have an obtainable goal to reach where the other
32:46
one, it's like you have to know so much about cooking to be able
32:50
to make this sauce without a recipe.
32:53
And there's so I mean, if you have a kid you're trying to
32:55
check train along, there's so much variation that could.
32:59
There's something to be said about like a good well written
33:02
recipe can actually teach you a lot.
33:05
You know, if if like you're saying it's 1.5% and, or I'm
33:09
sorry, 1.2% and then .2% MSG. And then there's probably a
33:13
method in there and you know, maybe you're cooking something
33:16
to a certain temp for an X amount of time.
33:19
So when the, when the new cook is reading all these very
33:21
specific steps to a recipe, but then you explain to them, well,
33:25
why is it 1.2%? Well, and then here's why, why
33:28
is it .2%? Well, why is it 1 1/2 hours at
33:31
this temp? Why do we need to shock it
33:33
afterwards? Or why don't we shock it?
33:35
Why do we blend it for 5 minutes exactly?
33:37
And then when you start to understand that like you might
33:39
have, that's like this Miyagi Daniels on wax on, wax off
33:43
forever. But after a while, like you know
33:45
how to work very efficient. And that recipe could then
33:48
translate into other things. So I, I, I do think sometimes a
33:52
very meticulous recipe, you could learn a lot by just the
33:57
repetition of, of making something over and over and over
34:00
again. And when you have that muscle
34:01
memory and that taste memory and you understand the the reasons
34:06
why behind certain methods, then you could scale it to other
34:08
things. 100% I think you you're giving them little tidbits of
34:12
information and we have a lot of amazing chefs worked for us in
34:19
in Australia and they and going on to open up new restaurants
34:22
and things and you can see like your.
34:25
System you. Can see the system in a little
34:27
bit of a influence you've had. I mean, I'm not saying I, I will
34:29
never take credit for the talent of the, of, of some of these
34:33
guys and girls who've worked for me, but you can see like, it's
34:36
cool to see like, OK, they, they've taken that idea and made
34:40
it their own. Like they've expanded on the
34:42
little thing they've learned from me and, and, and, and put
34:45
their twist on it. And it's, that's probably like
34:47
one of the coolest things to see as as a chef is like you're,
34:52
you're the people you took time to invest in making your ideas
34:57
better in a way, you know that that's pretty neat.
34:59
I'm. Going to ask you one more thing
35:01
about Australia restaurants for people that are listening,
35:05
explain the difference because you had one hat for people over
35:09
here in the United States and a lot of the rest of the world,
35:10
they don't understand the hat system.
35:12
Can you explain like kind of what it is and you know how how
35:16
does it compare to some of these other rating systems and.
35:19
It's a great question. I it's kind of a the, the hats
35:23
kind of parallel with Michelin stars.
35:25
So 1-2 and three, there's three hat, all three hat restaurants
35:34
in Australia would, I wouldn't say they all three hat
35:38
restaurants in Australia would be 3 Michelin stars.
35:40
They were almost would all certainly be two Michelin stars.
35:43
So that maybe the threes aren't quite in the same parallel.
35:47
You know, if you're looking at the global list, I still think
35:50
the three hat is the elite of Australia.
35:52
They're great restaurants. What are some of those three hat
35:54
restaurants? Bray, man Min and Mishima, that
36:00
those are two like Bray is incredible.
36:02
It's it's outside the city, they have their own little garden and
36:06
you stay in this old, it's in an old house.
36:11
It's a beautiful experience. And Minamishima is like a really
36:15
tight omakase sushi place and it's just like incredible.
36:22
Richard, my business partner at the Calamar, he work used to
36:25
work at Key. That's a great.
36:27
Three hats also. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
36:29
Peter Gilmore. Yeah.
36:31
Legend. Such a he's such an awesome
36:33
chef. I like some of the stuff he's
36:35
he's done. But yeah.
36:38
And then down the two hats, 2 hats would be two stars to
36:43
someone, one Michelin star kind of.
36:45
And then the one the one hats would mostly all be like 1
36:49
Michelin star. I think if you look at it across
36:51
the globe, how that yeah, trends.
36:53
There may be a couple hatted restaurants.
36:55
And hats is only in Australia, correct?
36:59
I think maybe New Zealand as well, but it's Australia.
37:01
New Zealand for all intents and purposes are extremely SIM like
37:07
that. It's like American Canada, you
37:09
know, a lot of. Especially except for when you
37:12
meet someone from New Zealand, he's there, you're from
37:14
Australia, and then they get pissed.
37:15
Yeah, that. Yeah.
37:16
There you go. You can tell the difference for
37:18
sure. I.
37:18
Can. Well, we can.
37:19
Yeah, the, the accent's crazy, but yeah, it's, that's kind of
37:25
the, the, the way they've done it there.
37:26
And it, it's a points, this amount of 20 points.
37:30
Yeah. So to get 15 if you get 15
37:34
points you get a hat. 15.5 is like also then six so.
37:39
When you said when you're talking about a point system, so
37:41
you know exactly like there's a path to get one, like you got to
37:43
have all these things. I don't know if it's necessarily
37:46
a path, but you you can see the review and and and see like.
37:52
Where points were deducted. They don't say that, they don't,
37:55
they don't get that in, but they'll just give you a point
37:57
total at the end of that. It's kind of up to the to the
37:59
review. It's like Forbes travel Guide,
38:01
which was really what was in the United States before Michelin
38:03
came to the United States. They're they're point based and
38:05
you could see where you got a point deducted and they and
38:08
they, that's cool. And they're very upfront with
38:12
with what they're grading, right.
38:14
So their thing is, and I don't know if they've changed it, but
38:16
I want to say their thing was like they were, they were, they
38:20
were grading excellence or they were validating excellence or
38:22
something like that. So they they had a whole bunch
38:24
of points. Like an excellent restaurant
38:26
would have this cheese course. There's some, some stuff that
38:28
might be slight, slightly outdated and doesn't apply to
38:31
everything. Like they'd be like an excellent
38:33
restaurant would have a cheese course.
38:34
Well, what if you're an excellent Chinese restaurant?
38:37
Yeah, yeah, probably wouldn't. That's true.
38:39
But yeah, that's, that's the way Forbes was.
38:41
And then with Michelin, yeah, it's a little bit more cloudy.
38:46
Yeah, I mean, I, I mean the, it's always been a, a gripe for
38:49
the Michelin, but I, I, it's, it's, I mean, they're, they're
38:54
there to get clicks and things. They're, you know, they,
38:56
they're, they're, I think the mysteriousness of, of the review
39:00
process is what engages people you don't like.
39:02
Why does this place lose a hat? Why did it, you know, did, why
39:05
didn't this get one? Why did this one get one?
39:07
It gets you talking about it and I think the mysteriousness kind
39:10
of like. And I think people need to
39:12
remember is like, Michelin is still a business.
39:13
Yeah, at the end of the day, it's still a business.
39:15
It's not a nonprofit. It's a tire company.
39:18
It's a tire. Like let's not forget they got
39:19
to sell some fucking tires. We got we have some tires to.
39:22
Sell my favorite review structure and not and forgive me
39:29
if they don't do this anymore, but is New York magazines.
39:31
They have the the five star ratings, but it's highbrow and
39:35
lowbrow. So like a lowbrow 5 star is like
39:38
an elite restaurant. Yeah, it's like any of your
39:40
highbrow 5 stars. So I don't.
39:42
Know if they still do that? I haven't read that in a long
39:43
time, but yeah. It's, it's such a good way to do
39:46
it because like, you know, you have this ambition to open up
39:50
just like a fun diner or something, you know, like, and
39:52
then you're like kind of getting.
39:54
Is it the best in class of a fun diner?
39:55
Yeah, it's kind of like why are you like why why is this type
39:58
restaurant getting put against like Danielle, you know, they
40:01
they shouldn't be sharing the same.
40:03
Structure so it's like right, this is the best lowbrow
40:06
restaurant and you know this is a mid tier highbrow restaurant
40:10
and it's kind of fun like that that how they did.
40:13
That, and it's easy for people to understand. 100%, yeah.
40:17
And this is what's great about. I mean, I've from afar, I've
40:21
watched the evolution of like the American dining scene
40:24
happened when I was before I left.
40:27
Like, if you wanted to be a chef, like you were kind of told
40:31
you had to go to New York, San Francisco or Chicago.
40:35
And then a much lesser extent, maybe LA, But at that time it
40:38
was like. French Laundry, Danielle per SE.
40:42
Yeah, or, you know, linear or whatever, you know, whatever you
40:45
want to get into. That was kind of we had to do
40:46
Trotters. And then you get like, you know,
40:49
then the regional chefs are popping up.
40:53
I remember like finding Sean Brock when he had his, he had a
40:57
blog going. It was, I can't remember the
40:59
name of it. And I was after an island,
41:01
something island or, you know, he so you've seen like getting
41:06
not little to no like national media attention because he was
41:09
in Charleston. Yeah.
41:10
And you know, I have Mccrady's and you're like, wow, this man,
41:13
I I want to, I want to move to South Carolina.
41:15
It's like, it was like counterintuitive what you were
41:17
told you had to do to be a chef, right?
41:19
The path isn't so linear anymore.
41:21
Now you can go anywhere there's. Good chefs everywhere.
41:23
Yeah, like there's and there always were.
41:26
But you so we're not getting recognition now.
41:28
It's like like, man, there's so much cool food being cooked here
41:31
and the freedom to cook what you want, right?
41:33
Which is what made. The game was different there.
41:36
Social media completely changed the game now.
41:37
Now you could know who the best chef in, you know, Charlotte is.
41:40
Yeah, for sure. Well, before is like.
41:43
You might never know. Exactly.
41:44
And it, I mean, the, the James Beard was like the only one that
41:47
was kind of doing that back in the day.
41:50
And, but it still felt like it was yeah.
41:52
You know, like, oh, OK, that's cute.
41:54
You know, like, yeah, someone in, in whatever Milwaukee.
41:58
Yeah, it was, it was a weird, it was like this weird elitism, but
42:00
in the in the culinary world. And I think a lot of chefs, my
42:05
issue didn't work in those big cities would like understand
42:07
that. But now I just, I just love
42:09
dudes and the, and these ladies who they're cooking such
42:13
incredible food, getting this recognition.
42:15
And you can from afar, like just in like consuming American like
42:19
food media, you can see the evolution and how it's changed.
42:22
It's so cool that you know this like, yeah, someone doing like a
42:29
a Taco pop ups getting like national attention because like
42:32
it's shit, it's good. You know, what do you I mean, I
42:35
could probably you ever deal with like a wild spider like
42:40
like you're always, always. I'm fascinated by all these wild
42:43
animals in Australia, like the everything wants to kill you.
42:45
The spiders, the fucking snakes, the sharks, the.
42:49
Yeah, the. Everything deadly is in
42:51
Australia. I never, I never had any little
42:56
interactions with a venomous spider, but we had a huge spider
43:01
who hung out in our house that was the size of like a dinner
43:04
plate. Like, I mean like, oh, let me
43:08
think. What kind of spider is that?
43:10
A Huntsman, it was probably about 8 inches.
43:14
While, you know, he would just be on the wall.
43:16
He eats mosquitoes. They don't bite humans.
43:18
They're scary as all shit. They look like a Halloween
43:20
decoration, but you don't have to deal with mosquitoes.
43:23
They just. Wow, OK.
43:25
And they're like, they do scare the shit out of you if you don't
43:28
know where they're at, like, yeah, they'll, they'll hang out.
43:32
That's crazy. The the snakes, I used to be a a
43:37
fairly competitive cyclist and we'd always run into snakes.
43:42
We were like riding mountain bike trails and things.
43:44
And you see this horror like images of someone riding a
43:50
mountain bike over a brown snake and it getting like into the
43:53
cogs of the of the and. Then it bites you and.
43:55
Then oh man, the scaredest I've ever been was an Adelaide.
44:01
I was riding up a mountain in Adelaide Hills.
44:05
So I'll be like a, a 20 minute climb is fairly steep and you,
44:12
you know, your heart's pounding your client.
44:14
You're climbing a mountain on a bike is, is pretty hard work.
44:17
And there's this, I mean, there's an eastern brown snake.
44:21
It's probably, it's one of the most venomous snakes in the
44:23
world. It's probably the most dangerous
44:24
snake in Australia because they're just around more people
44:27
like the Taipans are are are hidden.
44:29
They don't really miss. They're way more venomous, but
44:32
they're not not really at risk. So riding up there and they're
44:36
this beautiful coppery brown color, but they camouflage so
44:39
well in the dirt. And I'm riding, I'm going
44:41
probably, I don't even I can't think in in mph, but it's
44:46
probably going like 14 or 15 kilometers an hour up this hill.
44:49
Not very fast, heart rates pounding.
44:52
And I'm closer to this snake than you are on the side of the
44:56
road. And I get, I get beside of it
44:59
and it gets spooked and jumps up and I Oh my God, dude, I, I, I,
45:07
I thought I was going to die. This thing like kind of it kind
45:09
of jumped towards me, but not like at me.
45:12
And I, I mean, if it would have been me, it was over the hearts
45:14
pounding because you're climbing this thing.
45:15
It would just pump venom all the way through me.
45:17
That was the scares. But you know this little things
45:20
like you'll be riding out on trails and there'll be a brown
45:22
snicker cross the mountain bike path and you just got a Bunny
45:25
hop it the heads in the heads in the Bush.
45:27
But. I want to ask you this.
45:31
Usually when I wrap up the show, I start asking some basic
45:34
questions. But what are the hot topics
45:36
right now? Is health and Wellness in
45:38
kitchens? If you were going to give advice
45:41
to people like how to take care of health and Wellness as as a
45:44
cook, as a chef, I mean, is there something that you wish
45:49
you could have said to your younger self?
45:51
Yeah, yeah, like actually take care of yourself.
45:54
I, it was only, you know, it was, it was just like wake up
45:58
and grind, that's all. I mean, you know, we're, we're,
46:02
we're the same age. You, you know how it was when we
46:04
were young chefs, it was like, to be a good chef, you have to
46:07
do this. Like there was 1 pathway and it
46:10
was like work. Just be there before the chef,
46:14
be there after the chef and, you know, ask what you know, come in
46:17
early, come in on your day off, do what you have to do.
46:19
You never, never really take care of it, but it was for the
46:21
love of the game. You know, it's kind of this, you
46:23
know, weird mentality to have and, and that's all I knew.
46:27
So I got sick in Australia, a little sinus infection, just
46:32
kept self medicating and going to work.
46:34
And then one day I couldn't stand up.
46:36
I was at work and I, I just couldn't stand all the way up
46:39
and my back was killing me. I was like, what's?
46:42
And my buddy was like, dude, you have to go to the hospital.
46:45
And I was like, we got to get through service.
46:47
He's like, don't worry about it. I'll finish it.
46:48
Just go to the hospital, go to the hospital, hospital and I
46:52
started having acute organ failure from sepsis.
46:54
So the infection got into my bloodstream and I was out, out
46:58
of Commission for a while and it and I got antibiotics, you know,
47:01
pretty much instantly came back around.
47:03
But it was like the doctors, like if you would have went, you
47:05
might not have. You would.
47:07
Have woken up if you like went to the sleep it was that it
47:10
started to get that crazy and it's like all you knew is just a
47:13
grind and after that point I was like all right you got to take a
47:15
step back and I've always had were.
47:17
You a cook then? Or were you the chef?
47:19
IS Chef I was owning my first restaurant.
47:21
It's, it's wild, like a lot of people don't take care of
47:25
themselves until it's too late. And I and I, and it's one of
47:27
those things like, and I think it's because some people abuse
47:30
the system like, Oh, I got to scratch.
47:32
I'm going to call off and other people like are really sick and
47:34
then they still show up. I could tell you that like take
47:38
care of yourself. You, you know that like take
47:40
care of yourself. You got to you have to do
47:41
something like it doesn't matter what.
47:43
You need to have a hobby outside of work.
47:45
You need something to a clean break.
47:47
Cycling was that for me. It was like I could just, you
47:51
know, put my phone on mute and go ride for two or three hours
47:55
and just think about stuff get, you know, processed like new
47:58
dish ideas, you know, de stress. Go to the gym, ride a bike.
48:04
It is it go for a walk. Just go walk for an hour like
48:07
before work or something like just get out there and move.
48:10
And I, I think it's, yeah, don't fall into the crux of like, I,
48:15
you know, I read stuff online so, you know, like read it and
48:19
chefs talking about how like hard and like, you know, it's,
48:21
it's an impossible job because it's nothing but like drug
48:24
addicts and Alcoholics around you.
48:25
Like, I don't, I never saw this. I never, I mean, I know there
48:30
are bad kitchens to work in, but like, you know.
48:33
Like there's also good kitchens. Yeah, there.
48:35
Yeah, that's it. Like you just work in a good
48:37
kitchen, put in the time, don't use it as a crutch and just take
48:41
care of yourself like because I you had no one is going to take
48:45
care of yourself other than yourself.
48:46
And you have to put yourself in like a position to to be a great
48:50
chef And that need you need to like mentally clear yourself and
48:53
your days off. You can't like go out, write
48:55
yourself off, you know, get drunk, have a hangover, waste
48:59
the whole day off because you're hungover, you know, maybe have
49:03
more beers and then be hungover for your second day off and then
49:05
start doing things and then go back to where it's like, man,
49:08
like go join a run club, go to a gym, do like anything, do yoga.
49:13
Yoga is great for chefs. Yeah, yeah.
49:15
Pilates is like a lot of my. Flexibility is everything.
49:18
Right. A lot of my buddies back in
49:20
Australia do Pilates and it's just like great for them because
49:23
you know, you know, I love the lift weights and stuff.
49:25
We go go to the gym a bit and it's funny, not everyone needs
49:31
to be doing deadlifts. All that you know, any whatever.
49:33
Something move your body. You just have to and then and
49:35
you don't know what you like until you do it.
49:37
But once you like it, you know you like it and just keep rock
49:39
climbing. Like one of the one of the dudes
49:41
that worked for me, like great young chef.
49:45
He's super into rock climbing and that's just his out.
49:48
That's his therapy. You know what I mean?
49:49
Like you, you can a lot of self healing can be done through
49:52
movement. I I feel like.
49:54
One of the, you know, one of the questions I want to ask you,
49:58
like if you had to distill information, like advice to
50:02
someone that's listening, that's thinking you've opened a lot of
50:04
restaurants, like I've opened a lot of restaurants, or I want to
50:08
open up my first restaurant. What's one thing that you'd say
50:11
before you think about doing this?
50:12
Like here's something you need to know like make sure you check
50:14
this. Man, that's.
50:18
That's what's a what's a hard lesson that you've learned to
50:22
make sure that other people don't make the same mistake.
50:25
Oh, that, well, that's the only for a loop.
50:28
There's so many that like, it's just like a scrambled eggs in my
50:31
brain right now. I think the biggest thing is if
50:35
you have the confidence to do it, don't second guess yourself.
50:42
Yeah, if you believe like you, you've got to the point where
50:48
you thought you're good enough to open up a restaurant or had a
50:50
certain skill set to do it. Don't do it and then start
50:54
second guessing yourself. Like, why am I doing this?
50:56
Like Emma, is it good enough? Like just trust the process and
50:59
trust yourself at you? It's so.
51:02
I mean, I mean athletes, musicians and cooks.
51:07
I mean, you can expand on that. I don't know anyone else that
51:09
gets as violently, like criticized as those three
51:13
people. Like, I mean, I don't know who
51:14
else. It's like any in the creative
51:17
space. You know, someone's been working
51:19
on an album for like, three years and it gets released like,
51:22
oh, it sucks. It was, like, so much shitter
51:24
than their first album. Yeah.
51:26
Yeah. And the chefs, you know, you're
51:26
like, you're cooking. Like, don't let the noise get
51:29
too thick. Like, you got to really think
51:31
like, do you know anyone that leaves Google reviews out of
51:33
your friends? Of course you don't.
51:35
You wouldn't be friends with them.
51:36
So why are you like putting so much value in like some guy
51:39
who's mad at his desk job, like reviewing, reviewing your.
51:43
That's good advice. Last question chef that I have
51:45
is normally ask people like if they had a Mount Rushmore of
51:47
chefs out there for you who who's on your Mount Rushmore of
51:51
chefs? It's 4.
51:54
In case you I know it's fun. Maybe you've been to Australia
51:56
too long. It's 4.
51:59
Pierre Kaufman. Yeah.
52:01
David Canch. By the way, your your, your
52:04
tribute to Pierre Kaufman. I ate at the restaurant.
52:06
It was great. Yeah, the chicken was excellent.
52:08
By the way, all the food I ate there was excellent.
52:11
I think one of the most surprising things that I
52:13
enjoyed, I mean, everything was really good.
52:15
I loved the fish. Your take on?
52:20
Almadine and salsa mash, yes. Yeah, Almadine and salsa mash
52:23
was great and I also really loved your your tuna with the
52:26
rye and the Creme fresh and oh nice the people brought under
52:29
it. It was really it's.
52:30
A fun little dish. Yeah, all the food was
52:31
excellent. So for people that don't know.
52:33
Oh, and, and I can talk about this too.
52:34
Shit, I should have brought this up earlier.
52:36
Your Peach sorbet. Yeah.
52:38
It was so good because it tasted like a Peach.
52:41
Yeah. Both sorbets taste like fruit
52:44
puree, yours tastes like Peach. It was great.
52:46
It was, it's, it's literally just, we don't even peel the
52:49
Peaches. It's pureed Peach.
52:51
I could tell they had the little specks in there and a.
52:53
Little bit of little bit of sugar and we actually didn't
52:57
have to acid adjust that one though the the acid because some
52:59
of them were like super like very early Texas Peaches.
53:03
So some of them were like bursting overripe and then some
53:07
of them were like still a little tart.
53:09
So they're like the tartness and the overripe ones like made this
53:11
awesome, like slightly acidulated Peach sorbet where we
53:15
didn't have to add any lemon juice or or malic acid to it or
53:19
anything, which is pretty cool. We got off subject, you said.
53:22
Pure Kaufman. Yep, David Kinch.
53:24
Yep, Sean Brock. And oh man, that's there's
53:33
probably Andrew McConnell. Like that's probably four of
53:36
those. Awesome chef, where can people
53:37
find you? Instagram Rockwall and sons.
53:40
That's that's it. Anyone has any questions, you
53:44
know, feel free to DM me. I always answer them.
53:47
I I I I don't think you can you know, you could be too generous
53:52
with your time to young chef. So I think any questions,
53:55
everything, anyone, anyone looking for a job, you know?
53:58
If you're in Austin, and if you're in Austin, go work at La
54:01
Calamar or go eat there. Yeah, that'd be food's great.
54:04
Music's great too. Thank you.
54:05
We've put a lot of effort in the music.
54:07
Like I'm, I'm glad people are like noticing in that part of
54:10
it. Yeah, yeah.
54:11
It was the first thing I noticed when I was in this.
54:12
Like it's the same music I listened to.
54:14
It's great. All right, Chef, thanks for
54:15
being on. No, thanks for having me.
54:17
Yeah. Bye everyone.
54:19
Well I hope you enjoyed the show.
54:20
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54:22
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54:24
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