Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / Aaron Bludorn: Surviving Derecho, A Chef's Journey, Opening An Empire | Episode 100

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Aaron Bludorn: Surviving Derecho, A Chef's Journey, Opening An Empire | Episode 100 · Chef's PSA Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello chefs, this is Chefs PSA podcast.
• 0:02
  I'm your host Andre Natera. Today's a special episode.
• 0:04
  It's episode 100 guest episode with chef Aaron Bluedorn from
• 0:09
  Houston. Chef Aaron Bluedorn was the chef
• 0:12
  at Cafe Blued before moving to Houston, TX and opening up
• 0:15
  several restaurants including our Bluedorn Navy Blue and
• 0:20
  Bluedorn restaurant. We get it's a great
• 0:22
  conversation. We talk cooking competitions,
• 0:25
  weather anomalies and great advice for young cooks as well
• 0:29
  as people that are looking to open up their own restaurant.
• 0:31
  I had a really great conversation with Chef Aaron and
• 0:34
  I think you all will really enjoy it.
• 0:48
  It was a. They're calling it a derecho.
• 0:52
  They're calling it what? A derecho.
• 0:54
  A derecho. Yeah, is the name that that was
• 0:58
  deemed by news, you know, news sources and and yeah, have you
• 1:03
  ever heard of the retro before? I mean, straight right in
• 1:06
  Spanish. Yeah, the retro.
• 1:07
  Yeah, so it just goes, it goes straight through.
• 1:10
  And I guess why I, I was reading something in the leaders, the
• 1:15
  Houston Chronicle. It it was, it was all the
• 1:18
  because, you know, Central and and Central America's getting a
• 1:22
  huge heat wave that the heat Dome that's over there.
• 1:25
  So this heat Dome on the top of the heat Dome is creating
• 1:28
  conditions for thunderstorms to move across.
• 1:31
  And so it this is a thunderstorm that moves straight in a
• 1:35
  straight line and was more it was closer to a tornado than it
• 1:39
  was at hurricane. I was on social media and I, and
• 1:43
  I apologize, I didn't reach out earlier, but I saw all these
• 1:45
  videos of downtown windows getting blown out and I wasn't
• 1:49
  really following. I was like, is this old?
• 1:50
  What is this? I mean, we were getting
• 1:52
  thunderstorms in Austin, but then I saw you posting like,
• 1:55
  hey, we're we're closed or we're open and we're doing a cookout
• 1:58
  outside or something and I was like, holy shit, what's going on
• 2:01
  over there? Like it I was I was a little
• 2:03
  slow to what was happening, but you guys got hit pretty hard.
• 2:05
  We. Did we did not, you know, all of
• 2:08
  our homes for sure. So everyone was kind of like
• 2:11
  dealing with things on the home front.
• 2:12
  Yeah. But then the restaurants all
• 2:13
  lost power and thankfully no massive damage to the
• 2:16
  restaurants. But the biggest damage is
• 2:19
  spoilage, you know, and, and, and what do you do in that first
• 2:22
  24 hours? So what did you?
• 2:24
  What did you do? We bought a lot of dry ice.
• 2:26
  We kept our freezers closed, kept our fridges closed.
• 2:30
  We, you know, Bluetorne had single phase power.
• 2:34
  So we were able to, you know, do a lot with that.
• 2:38
  So actually our our walk in was working.
• 2:42
  So we started bringing everything to Bluetorne, you
• 2:44
  know, and you just, it's logistical like, OK, what do we
• 2:47
  do right now? Well, First things first, you
• 2:49
  got to clear the board. Yeah.
• 2:51
  You know, and some guests want to hang out and stay and finish
• 2:53
  their bottle of wine or whatever they purchased.
• 2:56
  That's fine. We we do that.
• 2:57
  It starts to get really smoky because your hood fans are off.
• 3:00
  That's right. And try to close your checks all
• 3:02
  the old school way. Break out the knuckle Busters,
• 3:05
  you know. Everyone's big breaking out the
• 3:07
  crash kit. Yeah, the crash kit.
• 3:09
  The crash kit, yeah. That's it.
• 3:10
  We have one. Yeah.
• 3:11
  And you just get, you get through it the best you can.
• 3:13
  And so you're so you're sorry to all the other guests that are on
• 3:17
  their way if you can get a hold of them.
• 3:18
  This was crazy because all the cell phone towers went down.
• 3:21
  I saw that. So I, I, I again, I'm like
• 3:24
  watching TikTok, look at what's happening.
• 3:25
  And I noticed that like a, a tower had crashed and I was
• 3:30
  like, what are, what are, what are they doing now?
• 3:31
  And I'm like, then it said like half a million people or a
• 3:34
  million people are without power. 1,000,000 people, Yeah,
• 3:37
  it's crazy. And so first of all, you know, a
• 3:40
  let's make sure everyone's cool on the home front.
• 3:42
  So go take care of your families.
• 3:44
  Go take care of your homes. Let's close up the restaurant
• 3:48
  and do the best of what we can tonight to make sure that, you
• 3:54
  know, everything is going to be OK till the morning and
• 3:56
  hopefully we get power overnight.
• 3:58
  We woke up early in the morning. None of the restaurants have
• 4:01
  power. OK, now what do we do?
• 4:02
  You know, let's formulate a plan.
• 4:05
  Let's get all the perishable items that we're going to lose
• 4:08
  to one place so we don't lose them.
• 4:11
  And then let's like figure out what what happens next.
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  So luckily we received power at two of the three restaurants,
• 4:20
  got those open in one day because you know, you have your
• 4:22
  whole team standing by. They did enjoy one day off where
• 4:26
  they're all I called one of the chefs up and together all with
• 4:29
  all the other managers drinking at the bar and like, OK, good.
• 4:31
  And they're having fun, but get ready to push tomorrow.
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  So the next day, they they were all there early, ready to go,
• 4:38
  ready to, you know, and the thing about Houston is with with
• 4:42
  natural disasters, everyone works as a team.
• 4:44
  They work together. It's like this, it's this energy
• 4:48
  that I haven't really felt before.
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  This is a sense of community. Everyone is just ready to do
• 4:53
  whatever it takes to get the job done.
• 4:55
  And it's amazing. It's amazing to see that.
• 4:57
  Yeah, they've been through so many natural disasters down
• 4:59
  there. I'm starting to earn a few, but
• 5:02
  nothing like, you know, I've. I wasn't there for Ike.
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  I wasn't there for Harvey. And those were, you know,
• 5:08
  moments where they just galvanized the entire city but
• 5:11
  then brought everyone together as a community.
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  And you're all in it together and everyone's trying to push
• 5:15
  for it so. So I I experienced it was like
• 5:17
  what they call the snowpocalypse in Austin.
• 5:19
  So when was this like 2020? I think it was maybe during
• 5:23
  COVID or just after COVID, I don't remember.
• 5:25
  Snowvid. Snowvid, right?
• 5:26
  Yeah. So it had to have been that and
• 5:28
  when the power went out in Austin.
• 5:30
  So I often believe that the worst services you have as a
• 5:34
  chef usually revolve around weather anomalies.
• 5:38
  Like if they're like if it's raining, everyone's going to
• 5:40
  cancel, or if it's snowing and they can't leave in.
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  In this case, I was in a hotel. They couldn't leave.
• 5:44
  Or or or. It slows everyone down so they
• 5:47
  all get there late at the same time that second Bush is coming.
• 5:50
  Right, right. And, and when we had, you know,
• 5:52
  the snowpocalypse in Austin, we have just a few employees in the
• 5:57
  hotel. The rest can't come in.
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  But we have 1000 people trapped that can't leave and we don't
• 6:02
  have enough food to feed them and we're not getting
• 6:04
  deliveries. And, you know, certain things
• 6:07
  are going down. And I was like, holy shit.
• 6:09
  Eventually I got to work and it was one of those days where the
• 6:12
  tickets are to the floor. You stop reading them and it's
• 6:15
  like, we're just serving grilled cheese now like that.
• 6:16
  That's it. We don't have anything else.
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  It's tomato soup and grilled cheese.
• 6:19
  And yeah, I can't. So I've experienced it on the
• 6:23
  cold front. I've never experienced on the on
• 6:25
  the hurricane front or the the the retro front.
• 6:27
  Yeah, the derecho front. Yeah.
• 6:29
  We in New York, I during Hurricane Sandy, where we the
• 6:33
  city, half the city lost power. I was dubbed the one.
• 6:37
  I was not married at the time. I was the executive sous chef of
• 6:40
  Catholic Blue. And, you know, during our call
• 6:43
  when everyone's going around like, well, who, who can, who's
• 6:46
  going to stay at the hotel and watch, you know, cook for the
• 6:48
  guests over the weekend while we got to have someone stay, you
• 6:50
  know? Oh, Aaron, you're you're single.
• 6:53
  You're, well, not married. You don't live with.
• 6:55
  You can. Single enough?
• 6:56
  Yeah. Single enough.
• 6:57
  Yeah. Yeah, you can.
• 6:58
  You can stay at the restaurant. No one's going to care if you're
• 7:01
  you're not home. Like, OK, you get stuff.
• 7:03
  Yeah, yeah. It's funny when so I'd imagine
• 7:06
  when you were so you spent some time in Seattle, New York, and
• 7:11
  I'm assuming you besides the what happened in New York, what
• 7:14
  you were just talking about, Seattle's pretty safe, right?
• 7:16
  I mean, it's like you got rain, but.
• 7:18
  Yeah, it's just, it just rains for a long, long period of time,
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  but it's like there's no natural disasters or yet, knock on wood.
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  I mean, they're, they're predicting a massive earthquake
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  one of these days and that's going to just rock that area,
• 7:29
  but hasn't happened yet. The food scene in Seattle.
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  So I went to school in Portland. Oh wow.
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  OK. And, and, and again this like 28
• 7:36
  years ago now, right? So I went to the back then it
• 7:39
  was the Western Culinary Institute.
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  It turned into a Cordon Bleu later on.
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  But when I went and what I admired about the Pacific
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  Northwest and then again 28 years ago, they were doing
• 7:49
  things in culinary and food that to them was normal.
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  But the rest of the world didn't catch up till years later.
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  I remember like the chef we got foraging and come back.
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  I got these mushrooms is like who forages?
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  Like I didn't even think about that.
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  I was like, don't eat those. Those came from the ground.
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  How dare you? But they were so the Pacific
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  Northwest. I think they were doing what
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  they did and I think eventually the rest of the world, I don't
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  know if you had the same experience in in growing up over
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  there, but I, I just thought the food scene in Portland in
• 8:17
  general was way ahead of its time back then.
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  Well, I, I mean, actually, I left for a reason.
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  I and you know, I, I, I'm going to piss off all my hometown
• 8:28
  friends by saying this, but I, I was never, I never felt like I
• 8:32
  could find what I was looking for in, in Seattle as far as the
• 8:35
  food, I worked at Canlis. Great restaurant, great
• 8:38
  restaurant, great family behind it.
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  They, they're doing great things today.
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  I mean, I'm, I look in and I see just how they're really pushing
• 8:44
  the culinary scene there and it's really inspiring.
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  And you know, Brady Williams is doing amazing things with Tomo
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  and but like as a whole. And he was a candlest too,
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  right? He was the Yeah, exactly.
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  Yeah, exactly. And there's a few other chefs
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  here and there. Ethan stole does, you know, as a
• 9:00
  as an empire. You know, Tom Douglas, It's it's
• 9:02
  he's like the Danielle. Of he's He's the heir in Blutorn
• 9:04
  of Seattle. Appreciate that.
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  No, I, yeah. It just never was.
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  It was never really, I, I never felt like it was really pushing
• 9:15
  boundaries or I, I wasn't able to get what I could find in
• 9:19
  places like San Francisco or New York.
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  And I don't know why that was. I, you know, I, I think
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  Seattleites as diners are not as excited about dining out, which
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  is something I found in Houston. They are professional diners
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  there, you know, and Texans in general love to eat out, love
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  restaurants, love that culture. And that was something I found
• 9:43
  in in Houston, something I definitely there is there in New
• 9:47
  York and San Francisco and then, you know, Sonoma or wine country
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  or wherever. But yeah, for some reason I
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  never found it in Seattle, so I left.
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  Yeah, interesting. You're talking about Canalis.
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  There's restaurants, Canalis is one of them that you could go in
• 10:04
  and it's like you're going to take on a legacy.
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  If you're, if you're, if you're going in to be the chef at a
• 10:08
  certain restaurant, like a Canalis or even Cafe, right?
• 10:12
  You're, you're going to, you're taking on this legacy.
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  And it's like, sometimes the restaurant identity is more
• 10:19
  important than the chef. If, if, if you kind of see what
• 10:21
  I'm saying, because so many restaurants, so many chefs are
• 10:23
  going through those kitchens. And so I guess my question to
• 10:26
  you, when you were taking over back then, what was, did you
• 10:30
  ever have like an internal challenge of like, I want to be
• 10:34
  me and I want to express myself, but I also want to represent the
• 10:36
  restaurant of the history and the legacy that you have here.
• 10:39
  Totally, totally. I, I saw Cafe Blued as my
• 10:41
  finishing school. I saw working for Danielle and
• 10:45
  upholding his brand as a way for me to learn more about myself as
• 10:51
  how I execute and how I put things together.
• 10:55
  I think I it was less about me and my style, although I learned
• 10:59
  about it throughout the process of things that I like, things
• 11:02
  that I didn't, and things that I'd sort of tuck away.
• 11:04
  But mainly I was writing the menus for Danielle.
• 11:06
  Yeah, of course. Because that's that's, you know,
• 11:09
  every quarter we'd have a meeting where we'd sit down,
• 11:11
  we'd talk about the next season's menu.
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  And it was some of the most amazing conversations.
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  It was the most terrifying conversations.
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  Terrifiable. Yeah.
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  Terrifying. Why?
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  Because you're presenting a menu you created for the chef you
• 11:27
  know, the chef who is, you know, one of the greatest chefs in the
• 11:31
  world. And arguably.
• 11:34
  Mount Rushmore of chefs. Mount Rushmore chefs and and you
• 11:37
  have to live up to that and you know he's he you'll see right
• 11:41
  through your bullshit real quick and he's AI mean he's very
• 11:45
  talented for that reason. But if you bring, if you, you
• 11:48
  can, if you can see you did the homework, if he could see that
• 11:52
  you're thinking about the restaurant 1st and your ego
• 11:55
  second, he, he'll work with you and he'll bring you to those
• 11:59
  areas. Because, you know, it's not just
• 12:01
  about writing menus as a chef, it's about how you execute that
• 12:04
  menu, how that menu, how that menu item is just as good that
• 12:08
  first day when all the cooks are, you know, hovering around
• 12:11
  it, taking pictures and really excited about it and how it
• 12:14
  looks that day and how it looks the last day.
• 12:16
  You have it on the menu, right? You know, and it doesn't get
• 12:18
  tired over time. One of the things that I noticed
• 12:22
  when I when I would have people like, OK, you're ready to get
• 12:25
  your dish on the menu. I'm ready to allow you to
• 12:26
  contribute to whatever we're having on the menu.
• 12:29
  And it was really difficult sometimes for the new chefs that
• 12:32
  it's their first time at bat, Like, oh, I get my dish on the
• 12:35
  menu, but it's not your dish. It's my dish.
• 12:37
  It needs to look like I created it.
• 12:39
  And it's, it's one of the challenges that I think a lot of
• 12:41
  young cooks have or a lot of young sous chefs have when they
• 12:43
  first get the opportunity to create food that needs to match
• 12:47
  the identity of the chef that they're working for or the house
• 12:50
  that they're in. And so I guess my question to
• 12:52
  you is, did you have guidelines that you put on yourself that
• 12:57
  you said, OK, what, what were your guidelines when you're
• 12:59
  working for someone else to create food that is yours, but
• 13:02
  it doesn't look like you created looks like they made it or come
• 13:04
  to that house, I mean. Get rid of that ownership clause
• 13:07
  right there. It doesn't belong to anyone.
• 13:09
  It's it's. Yeah.
• 13:10
  But, you know, I mean, the the sous chef needs to realize that
• 13:13
  it's not his name on the menu, right?
• 13:14
  Your name. It's my name on the menu.
• 13:16
  And if this reflects poorly reflects poorly on me, you know,
• 13:21
  Pete Wells doesn't give to, you know, do whatever about about
• 13:27
  who my sous chef was. He cares about Aaron Blutorn and
• 13:29
  what Aaron Blutorn deemed to put on his venue.
• 13:32
  So as far as ownership goes, it's more it's not ownership.
• 13:34
  It's like who's gonna bear the responsibility of the brunt of
• 13:37
  the fallout if it doesn't live up to the expectations that that
• 13:40
  restaurants already already as or set forth.
• 13:43
  Can you recreate that? I mean, that's what being a chef
• 13:45
  is little to do with that, that that menu item and those those
• 13:49
  descriptors and those things you pull together.
• 13:51
  It's like, how do you keep a consistent day in and day out?
• 13:54
  How is that, like I said, just as good?
• 13:57
  The day you put it on the menu is the day you take it off.
• 13:59
  We're doing this to make people happy.
• 14:00
  We're doing this to make people happy in our restaurants.
• 14:03
  And I think reminding ourselves of that is is the most important
• 14:08
  thing as a chef. Personally, So let me ask you
• 14:12
  this, when you're now leaving New York and you're coming to
• 14:15
  Houston, this is your, your opportunity to really stand on
• 14:19
  your own too and establish who you are as a chef and do your
• 14:23
  own thing with your restaurants. So you have some tremendous
• 14:24
  restaurants. You have 3 now.
• 14:26
  And I want to talk about the new ones that that are coming down
• 14:28
  the road, but we'll talk about that in a second.
• 14:29
  And when I was joking a little bit earlier, I said, you know,
• 14:32
  you're the, the new king of Houston.
• 14:34
  I, I mean, that's like, wow, you've done some tremendous work
• 14:36
  there and in a short period of time and your restaurants are
• 14:39
  phenomenal. It's good for me to watch from
• 14:42
  outside here as a former retired chef now.
• 14:45
  And I'm like, yeah, good for you, man.
• 14:46
  Like congratulations. But how did you establish what
• 14:51
  your identity was going to be? Like where, how did you land on
• 14:53
  say, OK, now, now I'm going to plant my flag.
• 14:56
  This is who I am. This is what the the brand is
• 14:58
  going to be. Well, you know, I mean, a lot of
• 15:00
  it happened. There were a lot of things that
• 15:02
  happened very quickly with between raising, raising money,
• 15:06
  you know, with getting the space secured.
• 15:09
  We bounced around between a few different spaces.
• 15:11
  And then there was this. What was it?
• 15:13
  It was this virus that kind of took the world over that
• 15:17
  influenced the lot. I mean, well, look, I, I'd
• 15:20
  already, I, I'd always wanted to do this, this casual fine dining
• 15:24
  restaurant that sort of took elements of fine dining and, and
• 15:27
  made it a little bit more approachable, a lot more
• 15:30
  approachable that where. And I think that's where even
• 15:34
  before that's where society was kind of headed towards, you
• 15:37
  know, we were sort of rejecting a lot of these white tablecloth
• 15:41
  and all this palm and circumstance and everything else
• 15:44
  that went along with a lot of elements of fine dining, which I
• 15:47
  will say I do like, I do enjoy quite a bit.
• 15:50
  By no means, this is just where how I wanted to interpret it at
• 15:54
  my restaurant. And I wanted a space where it
• 15:57
  could feel comfortable no matter what.
• 16:00
  And I think what COVID, what COVID, what came into play with
• 16:04
  COVID was that we were all going through an extremely traumatic
• 16:07
  experience. Regardless of what industry you
• 16:09
  were in, you were displaced in some way.
• 16:12
  You're working at home, you're not able to enjoy, you know,
• 16:16
  life was stressful, right during those, especially those first
• 16:18
  days of lockdown. And those were the days where
• 16:21
  the where we were sort of formulating what we were going
• 16:25
  to do at Ludor. How far into opening or post
• 16:29
  opening were you when COVID hit? So we raised the money, all the
• 16:34
  docs were signed, money's in the bank.
• 16:37
  In January, I already I'd signed the lease March of Yeah,
• 16:43
  exactly. I'd signed the lease with
• 16:45
  personal guarantee in December. So I'd already like I was
• 16:48
  pointing to return February full demolition of the whole entire
• 16:52
  space crushed. You know, like so when March
• 16:56
  hit, I was literally that day that we, you know, we're given,
• 17:00
  you know, the news that we had the lock down and I was standing
• 17:05
  by myself in the space with just completely demolished
• 17:09
  restaurant. Well, can't give it back to the
• 17:11
  landlord now, can't even start that conversation.
• 17:15
  What do we do? And we move forward.
• 17:18
  When did When did you open? August of 2020.
• 17:20
  OK, so just so this is now and again, I'm trying to think back
• 17:24
  because COVID feels like yesterday but also feels like a
• 17:27
  a lifetime ago. Sure.
• 17:28
  And I, I'm trying to think, OK, so everyone's coming in QR
• 17:31
  codes, everyone's still wearing masks.
• 17:33
  No one wants to touch the menu. You probably have to.
• 17:35
  I mean, restaurant servers are wearing gloves sometimes to
• 17:38
  deliver the food. It's a different, it's a
• 17:39
  different world. Is that how you reopened with
• 17:44
  all the restrictions in place or?
• 17:46
  Somewhat, somewhat, yeah, for sure.
• 17:48
  I mean, yeah, we had heard, we had heard adhered to everything.
• 17:50
  Every, you know, in Texas was a little bit more lenient for as
• 17:54
  far as percentages of occupancy and whatnot.
• 17:57
  But we took it all very seriously with the idea that if
• 17:59
  we showed the guest that we were on top of every little detail,
• 18:04
  and I'm talking every little detail we had, we had glass
• 18:06
  toppers. So you're, you'd have your empty
• 18:09
  water glass at your table. But then I, I, I made those used
• 18:12
  to see them at like you get them at like hotels, like Holiday
• 18:15
  Inn. They top your your with like a
• 18:17
  little cardboard glass Topper. It's it's what's in the bathroom
• 18:20
  and most hotels on the on the water glass, right?
• 18:22
  Exactly. Yeah, so we we made those and we
• 18:25
  said there with the the blue darn logo on top and those were
• 18:27
  in front of your glass. So the the first thing the way
• 18:30
  they would do is greet you with a Oshibora hand towel that that
• 18:34
  had they would spray a scented hand sanitizer on top of to give
• 18:38
  you that start and then your glass Topper was taken off and
• 18:43
  you were poured water. So there was no way that any
• 18:46
  germs got in that anyway. We were we were over the top
• 18:48
  because the idea was we wanted from the from your initial, you
• 18:53
  know, point of contact with us that you saw that we were taking
• 18:58
  this very seriously. So you didn't have to you your
• 19:01
  mind could sort of wash away and know that we were going to be
• 19:05
  very safe. We had an open kitchen and make
• 19:07
  sure it was clean as possible. We're going to see all the chefs
• 19:10
  wearing gloves, see us all in masks, everything else.
• 19:13
  So the idea was that you could let your cares wash away and
• 19:18
  take you back to that dining experience that you loved.
• 19:21
  And a lot of that also had to do with the accessibility, the, you
• 19:25
  know, not being too fussy with the menu, being something, you
• 19:28
  know, having something for everyone.
• 19:29
  And that just was where we started with the restaurant.
• 19:32
  And from there it's just kind of grown like I didn't, you know,
• 19:36
  you can get everything from caviar service, traditional
• 19:38
  caviar service with, you know, really high end champagne to
• 19:43
  burger and a beer at the bar and watch the Astros game and all
• 19:46
  that in our restaurant. And it all makes sense together.
• 19:49
  And so that's at the heart of what Blue Dorn is.
• 19:52
  It's the idea that true luxury is giving you exactly what you
• 19:56
  want when you want it, right? And you can be at a business
• 19:59
  dinner and if you want that burger.
• 20:01
  You're going to have it and you're not going to feel bad
• 20:03
  about it. You're not going to feel like
• 20:05
  you're dressing down. You know what it is that.
• 20:08
  Does that make sense? And I think that that struck a
• 20:10
  chord with a lot of people with what we were doing there, and we
• 20:13
  got really excited about it. Here we are.
• 20:15
  So I want to, I want to stick to the restaurant empire.
• 20:19
  And the reason I want to is because a lot of people that
• 20:21
  listen to the show are their young cooks and chefs who have
• 20:23
  aspirations to open their own restaurant one day.
• 20:28
  What does that look like? You're opening up a restaurant
• 20:31
  for the first time. You're coming from New York and
• 20:34
  I don't know if you had opened a restaurant before that.
• 20:37
  I've been part of openings but never.
• 20:39
  But as now you're the skipper, without getting to all the nitty
• 20:45
  gritty, what is some of the things that you'd learned in
• 20:49
  like, oh, yeah, everyone needs to know this.
• 20:50
  Like, this is one of the things you underestimate.
• 20:52
  And this is something that you should really pay attention to
• 20:54
  when you're opening up a restaurant.
• 20:56
  You know, have, have really good lawyers to work out a good
• 20:59
  company agreement with all of your investors and make sure
• 21:03
  make sure you do all your due diligence with your, you know,
• 21:07
  don't not spend money on lawyers.
• 21:09
  I would just say, you know, protect yourself.
• 21:11
  Is is is first and foremost is especially with landlords,
• 21:14
  especially with, you know, any, anyone that's helping you out if
• 21:18
  they're not family, be be a little skeptical about what's
• 21:21
  going on for sure. I, I would say first and
• 21:25
  foremost, you know, look, it's, it's daunting and you can't have
• 21:29
  other things holding you back. I would say use every resource
• 21:34
  that you possibly have available to you.
• 21:38
  Don't feel like there's something that Oh well, don't
• 21:43
  feel like the rest of the world is not doing the same thing.
• 21:46
  You need to have every, every advantage possible.
• 21:48
  When you're opening up a restaurant, it's going to be the
• 21:50
  hardest thing you're ever going to do and, and prepare yourself
• 21:53
  for that. The cooking needs to be second
• 21:55
  nature. You, you need to be able to, to
• 21:58
  do it with, without even thinking about it, because
• 22:01
  you're going to be thinking about everything else that's
• 22:02
  going on. And if you're not completely
• 22:07
  confident in your skills as a cook, as a dishwasher, so as a
• 22:12
  manager, you're not ready. You know it, you got it.
• 22:16
  You have to, you have to know that you're, you're going to
• 22:20
  make quick decisions. They're they're going to be the
• 22:22
  best decision that you could make at the time.
• 22:26
  And you have to know that it's not about what happens to you,
• 22:30
  it's about how you deal with it. So you go from one restaurant to
• 22:34
  two restaurants to three. So going from one restaurant
• 22:38
  when you're when when it's your first restaurant and you're
• 22:40
  still in the building every day and you're the chef and you're
• 22:42
  also the owner. But then when you go to two
• 22:44
  restaurants and three, when does your role start to change?
• 22:48
  And what does that look like for people that don't know what that
• 22:50
  looks like? Yeah, that's a really good
• 22:53
  question. It it, it changes slowly.
• 22:56
  You don't make sure that you have people that have been
• 23:00
  working with you, you know, and you can trust in order to grow.
• 23:04
  You can't grow if you don't have those people in place.
• 23:08
  We grew because we knew we had with the opening of Blue Darn,
• 23:11
  we had a lot of people move to Houston to be a part of it.
• 23:15
  They were very excited. However, these people that are
• 23:18
  moving to Houston to be a part of Blue Darn, once we got off
• 23:21
  the ground and rolling, we realized we had so much talent
• 23:23
  in the building and all this talent wants to continue to
• 23:28
  grow. If we don't grow, we're going to
• 23:31
  lose them. Yeah, they leave, right?
• 23:32
  Exactly, So what we wanted, what the, the main reason why we
• 23:36
  opened up baby blue is to have more, you know, more places for
• 23:40
  these people to grow with us, because if we, you know,
• 23:42
  safeties and growth, they always say, and we, we truly felt like
• 23:48
  this gave us the opportunity to continue to grow our team, to
• 23:52
  continue to create opportunities for these people that have have
• 23:56
  joined us. And, and now what we're seeing
• 23:59
  after it with our third restaurant is we're having
• 24:02
  people that started with us as cooks, as you know, they're now
• 24:05
  GMs and chefs and, and we've created this culture where
• 24:11
  people have opportunities and they work through our systems.
• 24:13
  They work with us at, you know, either blue darn or Navy blue,
• 24:17
  and then they're considered for these next opportunities.
• 24:19
  And that that culture is it to me.
• 24:22
  That's what I came up in. It was, it was always very
• 24:25
  exciting. It's just like, it's just like
• 24:27
  starting on garbage day and moving around the kitchen.
• 24:30
  You know that that's the most exciting thing.
• 24:31
  After you master your station and, you know, 3-4, five months
• 24:35
  go by and you're ready to move and chef finally pulls you aside
• 24:39
  and tells you, Hey, it's time for you to move the hot apps.
• 24:43
  I, I, I can remember my whole career.
• 24:46
  That was the most exciting day of my year quarter, whatever,
• 24:51
  you know, right. And how do you create that?
• 24:54
  And you have to, you have to realize that you also have to
• 24:56
  create that for your managers because people have to have
• 24:58
  something that they're working towards.
• 25:00
  And and anyway, so I didn't really answer your question.
• 25:04
  No, you did. I, I, I, I think you did.
• 25:06
  Yeah. Yeah, I think you did.
• 25:07
  So you need a team around you, obviously, that wants to grow
• 25:10
  with you so you could grow them as well and help them as someone
• 25:13
  helped you. So now you're about to you're,
• 25:19
  you're 3, right? Yep, and maybe 4. 4th is on the
• 25:23
  way. 4th. Tell me about that.
• 25:24
  So the restaurant's name is, Per said it's in the Saint Augustine
• 25:28
  Hotel, which is being built in Houston.
• 25:31
  Yep. Really, really cool project.
• 25:33
  It's by Bunkhouse Hotels. Yeah, out of Austin.
• 25:36
  Licensing agreement. I'm I'm assuming of such
• 25:39
  licensing. And management agreement.
• 25:40
  So it's a, it's a new, something new for us where it's not a
• 25:45
  known property. But yeah, you know, that's like
• 25:48
  our next step right now. I mean, I love that deal.
• 25:51
  Dean Fairing, who was who's the chef at fairings at the Ritz
• 25:55
  Carlton in Dallas. He let also legendary Texas
• 25:59
  chef. And I remember he was the chef
• 26:01
  at the mansion on Turtle Creek for years.
• 26:03
  And he had his TV show back in the 90s and he's a legend,
• 26:07
  right? And he got that Ritz Carlton
• 26:10
  deal. And I remember watching that and
• 26:12
  I was like, that's the deal. That's the move like someone
• 26:14
  else is putting up the building. You don't have you don't have
• 26:16
  all the stress of the restaurant, but like you get you
• 26:19
  get all the benefits of the hotel because hotels obviously
• 26:22
  have have a lot of incentive to have a restaurant in there
• 26:25
  because of the rooms, the revenue that the rooms are
• 26:27
  bringing in and what not. And you know, I know a lot of
• 26:29
  chefs now that look at that, like Michael Mina's built an
• 26:31
  empire off of being in Four Seasons and Fairmont and
• 26:34
  everywhere else that he's in. And you know, John Tasar now is
• 26:36
  in a lot of JW and Ritz Carlton hotels or maybe Ritz Carlton.
• 26:40
  I don't know if he's in any J WS, but John George, I mean it's
• 26:44
  the list goes on and on of all these chefs that look at that
• 26:46
  licensing deal. And I mean, I, I think we were
• 26:49
  talking about this a couple months back.
• 26:51
  I was talking with the hotel group and I had like 3 Andre
• 26:56
  restaurants about to go in and I was like, I think this is it,
• 26:59
  you know, don't count your chickens before they hatch.
• 27:00
  I thought I was going to go through and you know, in the end
• 27:03
  they decided to go a different route.
• 27:05
  But me being retired and this has nothing to do with anything
• 27:08
  but me being retired. The licensing deal would be
• 27:11
  something that would interest me to go back, but I, I like those
• 27:14
  hotel deals. I, I really do.
• 27:15
  So I think, I think that's great that you're getting that.
• 27:18
  Well, thank you, thank you. I think it's going to it's a fun
• 27:20
  opportunity to do something different.
• 27:21
  Cafe Balloon was in a hotel and we we while it was a stand alone
• 27:25
  restaurant, it still did service room, do room service.
• 27:29
  It was a different deal than this.
• 27:30
  It was owned by still owned by Danielle, but they had a
• 27:33
  contract with the hotel as the landlord.
• 27:35
  Anyway, kind of fun, but fun to be able to play with room
• 27:39
  service and what that guest experience is like.
• 27:42
  This is, we really got excited about it because it was with
• 27:45
  Bunkhouse Hotels and I, I love the experiences that they create
• 27:49
  and their different properties, you know, from Mexico City to
• 27:52
  Toto Santos to Austin, all the different, all the different
• 27:57
  brands they have here. And this is going to be a St.
• 28:00
  collection. So it's on par with Saint
• 28:03
  Cecilia here, which is just one of my favorite hotels in the
• 28:06
  country, right. And yeah, to, to create that
• 28:10
  experience in Houston, in Montrose.
• 28:13
  And they, they like my idea of doing a, a Bistro.
• 28:17
  Yeah, which I haven't been able to do yet.
• 28:20
  I I think that gives us a lot of opportunity.
• 28:22
  The the The idea is it's an American Bistro through the eyes
• 28:25
  of Houston, so we get to tap into all the different flavors
• 28:29
  and cultures of. Cuisines.
• 28:30
  What what? What does that look like like?
• 28:32
  What are some of the dishes that you're excited about getting on?
• 28:34
  I, I I I'm not going. To I can't go.
• 28:36
  OK, OK too. Far in depth yet, yeah.
• 28:39
  But you know, there there will be definitely like a Vietnamese
• 28:41
  influence. Our our chef there is Vietnamese
• 28:44
  and he's, I think it's going to be awesome.
• 28:46
  So when you were when you were the chef.
• 28:50
  And when I say the chef, I mean years ago, because now I feel
• 28:52
  like you're the chef entrepreneur.
• 28:53
  But when you were when you were when you were the chef and you
• 28:56
  were writing menus and you had your notebooks back then and
• 28:58
  you're got your dishes and you're going and like you said,
• 29:00
  you have all the cookbooks and. I still do that.
• 29:03
  So now you're doing the same thing.
• 29:06
  You're also creating restaurants, right?
• 29:08
  Right. So my question is, you have
• 29:12
  three, you're going into four. What are some restaurants that
• 29:15
  you like, Magic Wand? What are some restaurants that
• 29:17
  you would like to open that you would that when you step back
• 29:21
  and you look at your legacy and say, yeah, I did open all those
• 29:23
  restaurants that I wanted to open, What what are some that
• 29:25
  are sitting back there in the notebooks?
• 29:27
  I mean, you know, I, I, my, my partner Sharif is, he's
• 29:33
  Senegalese. And where I've taken a few trips
• 29:35
  to Senegal, we have this idea of doing Senegalese BBQ restaurant
• 29:39
  one day, you know, where it's like Texas and West Africa.
• 29:42
  I don't know. So that's like a dream just to
• 29:44
  have something fun like that. I don't you know, I I love low,
• 29:49
  low country cuisine and and you know, I've spent a lot of time
• 29:52
  out in Charleston and like some of them just like the simple
• 29:57
  seafood shacks out there sort of emulating something like that.
• 30:01
  I think has has my eye. I don't know, just creating fun
• 30:05
  experiences in different places like where I know those are you,
• 30:08
  but you know, also maybe one day at doing something a little bit
• 30:13
  more fine dining that I've always that's where I came up
• 30:18
  and you know, white tablecloth fine dining.
• 30:19
  And I know we kind of with blue darn, we sort of shed that a
• 30:23
  little bit, but I think maybe a return to that is something
• 30:26
  that's could be very interesting.
• 30:28
  Yeah, I, I think, I think fine dining will always have a place
• 30:31
  as long as there's different levels of experiences that you
• 30:35
  want. There'll always be different
• 30:36
  levels of restaurants that you want to experience.
• 30:38
  Right. I mean, and I, I do love the
• 30:40
  finding. There's nothing, you know, I was
• 30:42
  having a conversation with Ferdinand Mets CIA and one of
• 30:47
  the things that he said to me is like, you know, the best part
• 30:49
  about fine dining. I always stuck with me with the
• 30:50
  best part about fine dining in the old days when he was cooking
• 30:53
  is that it came to the table and had the cloche and you didn't
• 30:55
  know it was under it. And then voila, everyone would
• 30:58
  open up the cloche at the same time.
• 30:59
  And it's like the drama of it. And I, I do miss and I think
• 31:03
  about food that I crave and it's like, like I, I could cook like
• 31:07
  a lot of different stuff, but I don't necessarily crave it.
• 31:09
  Sometimes I just like cooking it, but I don't necessarily want
• 31:11
  to eat it. What I like to eat is like the
• 31:12
  classics. I mean, give me a lobster bisque
• 31:14
  over anything. Give me an onion soup over
• 31:16
  anything else. Give me, you know, whatever,
• 31:18
  right? What are some of those dishes
• 31:20
  like? What are dishes that you crave
• 31:22
  maybe that like take you to a place and you say I I love
• 31:26
  eating that. What's your like Ratatouille
• 31:28
  moment in your chef career when you think about food that you've
• 31:30
  made? Pike, Pike Canal.
• 31:33
  You know, like. Vanilla brochette.
• 31:36
  Oh my God, that that dish like I mean that in Leon is like cool.
• 31:40
  Then learning how to cook it and having on the menu at cafe was
• 31:43
  like one of those moments like just like that texture that.
• 31:46
  So for people that don't know what that is.
• 31:48
  Oh, yeah, So it's sorry, it's a, you know, Pike is a river fish.
• 31:51
  Yeah. And you make a moose basically
• 31:54
  out of it and then you warm it up and either, it could be a
• 31:58
  cream sauce, could be any type of sauce, but you know, maybe
• 32:00
  like a sauce American. And then as you warm it up and
• 32:04
  heat it up, it starts to souffle up a little bit and then you
• 32:07
  grotonate right at the end. And then just one more glazed
• 32:10
  grotonate one more time. It just has like almost like a
• 32:12
  little bit of like crispy caramelized on top.
• 32:14
  And it's just that like rich lobster flavour with that just
• 32:19
  fluffy Pike, canal Pike. It's like a fish mousse and it's
• 32:23
  incredible. So let's say you're you're
• 32:25
  throwing a dinner party and you're going to eat with people
• 32:28
  that you want to enjoy the food. And it's it's not about
• 32:31
  impressing, it's just about like we're going to have good food
• 32:33
  and these are people that you care about.
• 32:35
  What are you cooking? I'm, I'm doing on an open fire
• 32:39
  in my backyard. I'm, I'm putting, you know, a
• 32:42
  few cowboy steaks down or, you know, put the buff.
• 32:46
  I'm putting maybe maybe some shrimp on there.
• 32:48
  So it's like a surf and turf vegetables, like maybe I made a
• 32:52
  ratatouille earlier that day that I just warm up some roses
• 32:55
  and potatoes with, with Rosemary and some sauces like maybe like
• 33:00
  a chimichurri or something like that.
• 33:02
  Just everything very fresh. I, I end up eating very healthy
• 33:06
  and fresh because I like to just like hang out like that's like,
• 33:09
  and, and then eating outside if we can, you know, on a table or
• 33:13
  just warm summer night. I mean, it gets a little, it's
• 33:17
  the hot summer, let's say, let's say warm spring night for Texas.
• 33:21
  You know, like, you know, you got wine bottles.
• 33:23
  It doesn't matter. You just keep opening them up,
• 33:25
  you know, and everyone's just kind of picking at the food.
• 33:28
  It's it's just like a slow burn, a lot of fun.
• 33:31
  Yeah, simple food. I was like, I look at, I have
• 33:35
  the saying, it's like I look at all the beautiful food that I've
• 33:36
  made. And then I said that looks
• 33:37
  pretty. Then I go to steak, you know,
• 33:39
  it's like, yeah, I don't, that's great, but I want to eat that.
• 33:42
  That's what you're doing at work.
• 33:43
  That's like, you know, do you think I don't know someone that
• 33:47
  I don't know? Anyway, I always think about
• 33:49
  that. It's like, yeah, that's that's
• 33:50
  work. That's that's why I do this.
• 33:52
  I look at that as a very technical like, I don't, I don't
• 33:55
  know. Do you do you have the same
• 33:56
  thing where you don't always like eating the food that you
• 33:59
  create? It could be delicious.
• 34:01
  Yeah, but you can't sit down and enjoy it after you create it.
• 34:04
  I agree with that. And what's interesting is if, if
• 34:07
  I, if I create a dish, sometimes, I mean, I don't know
• 34:11
  when I was a chef, it's like I might create a dish, but I might
• 34:13
  never have made it. Like I, I will write it on
• 34:15
  paper, I'll draw, I'll talk to a sous chef, and then I will enjoy
• 34:19
  it more if they made it than if I made it, as strange as that
• 34:22
  sounds. Totally.
• 34:23
  Yeah, well, everyone says they're always.
• 34:24
  I'm so scared to cook for you. You're a chef.
• 34:26
  Honestly, I think your food, whoever that person might be
• 34:30
  who's nervous to cook for me, I guarantee you I'm going to think
• 34:33
  it tastes better than the food that I cook because I'm going to
• 34:35
  pour over my food. Have tasted it so many times by
• 34:38
  the time I get it to the point where I'm serving it that I'm
• 34:41
  just tired of it. Yeah, you know, and I've looked
• 34:43
  at it, you know, poured over it so much and get the bit.
• 34:47
  I'm like, God, OK. I hope everyone else enjoys it.
• 34:50
  What I, what I find things, you know, I, I, I very rarely get
• 34:55
  impressed with what I'm doing. But when I make stews at home,
• 35:00
  oh, like I will enjoy that like 100%.
• 35:03
  Like if I'm making a Stew, I mean, and you know, if we're
• 35:05
  making like something with Chili's in it or something like
• 35:08
  that, it's a really good point. Like my stews, I'll I'll eat
• 35:11
  them like, and I'll, I'll say, fuck, I'm a good cook.
• 35:13
  I forgot, you know, but the other stuff is like, oh, that's
• 35:15
  restaurant food. Like it's just, it's, that's
• 35:18
  restaurant food. It's different.
• 35:19
  Like on a cold day when you when you got nothing going on, you go
• 35:23
  out, you go grocery shopping earlier, like maybe maybe you
• 35:26
  went the day before. And then you just kind of like
• 35:28
  slowly put it going on and go back to the game, take it out,
• 35:31
  take a look at it. Yeah, no, that whole day thing.
• 35:34
  By the end of the day, yeah. It's good.
• 35:37
  So I have a question. So I went back knowing that we
• 35:39
  were going to talk. I went back and watched the show
• 35:42
  you were on, so Netflix, the final table, the final table.
• 35:45
  So I don't know if you could talk about it because I don't
• 35:47
  know if they make you sign an NDA or something like that.
• 35:49
  But for people that look at shows like Final Table or Top
• 35:54
  Chef or, you know, fill in the blank cooking competition show,
• 36:00
  what are some of the things that we don't see that you see that
• 36:05
  would either help you succeed or, you know, sometimes prevent
• 36:09
  you from succeeding behind the scenes that the camera just
• 36:11
  doesn't show that. I mean, it's tough.
• 36:13
  It's it's whatever, you know, cook.
• 36:17
  I I think the best thing you can do to get ready for a show like
• 36:20
  that is to cook in a bunch of strange environments where you
• 36:22
  don't know what kind of equipment you're going to have
• 36:24
  or if it's going to work or like, you know, bright lights
• 36:27
  all over you and people trying to talk to you and getting you
• 36:29
  to. Yeah, that's tough.
• 36:32
  I think, you know, one of the things I didn't realize is that
• 36:36
  will you sit around forever? It's like you're like, well,
• 36:40
  let's just wait for six hours of anxiety waiting to cook for an
• 36:44
  hour. See.
• 36:46
  What that does? To your mental state.
• 36:48
  Yeah, yeah. And then, OK, now, now we're
• 36:51
  going. So, so we guys just all in the
• 36:52
  green room, just hanging out, cracking jokes, whatever.
• 36:55
  I mean, kind of, but it's like I I get what what those fighter
• 36:58
  pilots are like on Ready 5, You know, they're like, are we going
• 37:01
  to are we going to launch? Are we going to go, are we going
• 37:02
  to do this? Are we going to just hang out?
• 37:04
  Yeah, because you're just waiting for it to come.
• 37:07
  And then once it comes, oh man, it hits.
• 37:09
  And it's everything that we did on that show was real.
• 37:14
  Like the the timeline, everything else.
• 37:16
  They it it was exactly. Do you sometimes look at that?
• 37:20
  Like how did I pull that off? Like in that time of.
• 37:22
  Course. Yeah, of course.
• 37:23
  Yeah, No, you're able to do pretty amazing things, which is
• 37:27
  why I always, sometimes when you see a cook lagging a little bit
• 37:29
  out of day, you're like, you realize that you could have
• 37:32
  gotten that whole list done. Yeah, yeah.
• 37:34
  Just got to apply yourself. You got to push yourself.
• 37:36
  You don't know how how much you can do until you really push
• 37:39
  yourself. So on that show, you were
• 37:42
  partnered up. Did you guys know each other
• 37:43
  before that or did you meet there?
• 37:45
  So that that was part of the twist of the show, right?
• 37:46
  It's like, yeah, you can meet someone for the first time.
• 37:48
  You guys are going to. It's not, not, not necessarily.
• 37:51
  Some of the, some of the other people had had had relationships
• 37:54
  before. I was initially, I was had gone
• 37:58
  really far with a local Austin chef and him and I were supposed
• 38:02
  to be together and then and then we didn't get picked and then
• 38:05
  they came back and asked me afterwards.
• 38:08
  Interesting. It's it was really cool watching
• 38:12
  it because again, I saw it when it first came out and then
• 38:14
  knowing that we're going to talk like I should probably refresh
• 38:16
  and and watch this again. And it was good.
• 38:18
  I mean, you know, watching that show was like, man, the food was
• 38:21
  really good. And then you had so many, I
• 38:22
  mean, the cream of the crop, the Mount Rushmore of chefs coming
• 38:25
  in as judges, you know, Grant and you know, Claire Smith and
• 38:28
  you know, anyway, they were all, they were all there.
• 38:30
  And I was like, what was that like?
• 38:32
  It was really cool and also nerve racking.
• 38:34
  But you know, like I think at the end of the day, a lot of
• 38:38
  people ask me like, well, why didn't they do a second season?
• 38:40
  Why wasn't there, you know, so much more interest to it?
• 38:42
  Well, because they took a lot of the drama out of it because they
• 38:47
  didn't want to. And that that's why I did the
• 38:48
  show, because it was appealing. Like the whole pitch to us was,
• 38:52
  hey, we're going to do a show that's just going to be about
• 38:53
  the cooking and, you know, for chef nerds like us.
• 38:58
  Oh yeah. That's.
• 38:58
  I want to be a part of that. I don't want to.
• 39:00
  I don't want anyone to film me in a house living with these
• 39:03
  people for however long. I don't want to be sequestered
• 39:05
  or anything like that. We weren't sequestered.
• 39:07
  We got to. We'd actually after all the the
• 39:10
  filmings, we we at night we go eat together, we eat around Lai
• 39:14
  think I got great tour of all the different restaurants around
• 39:18
  there. It was awesome.
• 39:19
  Yeah, We, we weren't, you know, all that part was, was off
• 39:22
  camera. So how long does something like
• 39:24
  that take to film? It was I was there for five
• 39:27
  weeks, like six weeks for those who stayed on all.
• 39:30
  The way to it and you know, I I know people have been on like
• 39:33
  Top Chef while are you allowed to use your phone or or just
• 39:35
  like. You're able to do everything.
• 39:36
  Yeah. So I remember calling my, well,
• 39:38
  fiance now wife after the first night, just say I think I made a
• 39:43
  mistake. You know, we we we had gotten
• 39:46
  kicked to the elimination challenge and I just didn't, it
• 39:50
  didn't feel great. And then we ended up bouncing
• 39:52
  back so. I was watching, there was, I was
• 39:54
  watching like some of the chefs that were up there, you know,
• 39:57
  after, when you're on the, on the, on the chopping block.
• 40:00
  And so you, they bring the chef down and it's like, and these
• 40:02
  chefs like they were harsh on some of the people.
• 40:04
  I was like, damn. Yeah.
• 40:06
  Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It was like culinary school
• 40:08
  judging you all over again. See, I think that's where they
• 40:10
  wanted the drama to come from. Well, anyway, it was.
• 40:14
  It was a fun show. So Speaking of cooking
• 40:16
  competitions, working under Danielle, working with Gavin
• 40:21
  Beaucusti or obviously major competition, did you ever have
• 40:27
  any aspirations to kind of jump into that competition?
• 40:31
  You know, I don't know. I have of course, like the idea
• 40:35
  was very intriguing, but not really.
• 40:36
  I've always wanted to. I've always seen myself as
• 40:39
  wanting to open restaurants and be a restaurant tour.
• 40:44
  I think being a chef was the way for me to get there and way to
• 40:47
  have the most amount of control to where I felt comfortable
• 40:50
  taking on arguably one of the hardest industries in the world.
• 40:55
  So you know, that that type of food, while I think it's amazing
• 41:00
  and, and having attended it and seen it in real time and like
• 41:05
  been a part of, you know, been a part of it through Danielle,
• 41:09
  it's, it's incredible to see what, you know, what some of
• 41:11
  these guys do day in, day out and they're able to create and
• 41:15
  the amount of time that they have is amazing.
• 41:17
  It's just it's never really been what I what I really see myself
• 41:21
  as. Personally, no, no, no desire.
• 41:25
  Do you watch it like you, you fanboy out and like, oh, look at
• 41:27
  what they're making. Sometimes I do like I'll watch
• 41:29
  and like I'll look at the techniques and like I'm still in
• 41:32
  that idea. That's a great idea.
• 41:33
  Like there's so many little things like obviously I'm not
• 41:36
  going to make that detailed something in in a restaurant,
• 41:38
  but it's like that one thing that mold that's a great or how
• 41:42
  quickly they have to make something.
• 41:44
  And so they have to figure out the fastest way to get this done
• 41:46
  that has that has to be perfect. So I'll like, I'll watch them
• 41:49
  like, Oh, that's, that's a good. Idea I watch all of it through
• 41:52
  Instagram or anything else but I I I don't get up early.
• 41:55
  No, no, no, no. You're flying to Lyon.
• 41:58
  I, I think, well, I, I, like I said, I've done it before.
• 42:02
  For for Bokus, yeah. Yeah, it was.
• 42:03
  Incredible. Which one?
• 42:05
  It was 2017 OR. Was Matt one?
• 42:09
  No, not the the one afterwards when when it was.
• 42:12
  Jeff Hayashi. No, no, no, no.
• 42:14
  Kirkley before that. Yeah.
• 42:15
  Matthew Kirkley. That's right.
• 42:17
  That's right. And yeah.
• 42:19
  And Mimi. No, that's right.
• 42:21
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 42:21
  Mimi, she was yours, right? Yeah.
• 42:23
  She worked under you. Yeah.
• 42:23
  So through C Cap, so I, she did the C cap competition, yeah.
• 42:28
  And I offered her a position at Cafe Balud and she was with us
• 42:32
  as her through her high school internship and then her in her
• 42:36
  internship afterwards was at Danielle where and of course
• 42:39
  Eddie LaRue, you know, sort of found her as a upcoming talent.
• 42:43
  So I'm, I'm trying to think back, 'cause we were in Vegas do
• 42:46
  doing the, it was the young chef competition and then it was also
• 42:50
  like the qualifier where Matthew Kirkley won and she was
• 42:52
  competing too. So I can't.
• 42:53
  I'm trying to remember what that competition was that she won.
• 42:55
  Oh, I was out there that year, were you?
• 42:57
  I think? Yeah, I was.
• 42:59
  Do you hear that Kirkley won? Or what's that?
• 43:01
  No, no, no. It was the year that Peters.
• 43:03
  Met, met. So it was the year before in
• 43:04
  Vegas, so the year after we were there and I, I remember I met
• 43:07
  her. She was doing, she was doing the
• 43:10
  young, not the young chef, but The Apprentice competition.
• 43:13
  Yeah, Yeah, she won that. And yeah, she was great.
• 43:15
  Very, very detailed. That was just fast, too.
• 43:18
  Yeah. Yeah, She, she's worked.
• 43:20
  Where's she now? She's in New York.
• 43:22
  I think. She's I've, I've seen her do
• 43:24
  things here and there. We don't bring.
• 43:27
  Her down, I don't. Don't tell me.
• 43:30
  She's listening. Yeah.
• 43:31
  Hey, no offense to whoever she's working for, but so I, I, you
• 43:35
  know, I went to Matt's spot the other day.
• 43:37
  So he just Matthew Peters who won the Bacoustie or for people
• 43:40
  that don't know who we're talking about.
• 43:41
  I'm going tonight. You're going tonight to Prelude?
• 43:43
  Yeah, I went there. The other was great.
• 43:44
  Beautiful space. Beautiful space.
• 43:46
  I mean, I, I, I I'm very happy for him.
• 43:48
  I couldn't be happier for him because I think that space, I
• 43:52
  think that, God, I don't want to.
• 43:54
  I don't. I got to be careful what I say,
• 43:55
  but I think two of the most beautiful restaurants in Austin,
• 43:58
  along with a lot of other restaurants, but two of the most
• 44:01
  beautiful restaurants in Austin is what Matt has at Prelude.
• 44:04
  And I know it's right now it's just a bar with bites.
• 44:07
  And then Bacalar, the Gabrielis restaurants, beautiful as well,
• 44:12
  a lot of artwork. And I think that's why I like
• 44:13
  them both so much, is that they they've done a tremendous job
• 44:17
  with the art. So, yeah, I think you're in for
• 44:20
  a treat tonight when you see all the art and all the all the
• 44:22
  beautiful things that he has on the wall.
• 44:23
  And it's, it's, it's really cool.
• 44:24
  I'm excited. I'm excited.
• 44:26
  I I've always really been excited about his food and what
• 44:29
  he does and what he brings to Texas.
• 44:31
  I think that's awesome. Yeah, so it's funny, you know,
• 44:34
  when you talk about competitions, you know, Matt won
• 44:36
  Bocousti or, but there's certain chefs.
• 44:39
  And so I'm curious if I don't, maybe you're this person, but
• 44:42
  maybe there's someone in your kitchen or something that you've
• 44:44
  worked with events that I've done with Matt when we're
• 44:47
  cooking together, he's the type of chef that's like, not only
• 44:51
  has he done with all his work and it's super detailed, but you
• 44:54
  need help like like. When it doesn't.
• 44:57
  Like, and I'm like struggling over here.
• 44:59
  It's like, how's he done with everything?
• 45:00
  And he's asking me if I need help.
• 45:03
  You know, there's, there's some chefs like that, that like
• 45:05
  they're just, they don't, they don't seem to ever be frazzled.
• 45:08
  They they don't, they don't run and they're way ahead of
• 45:11
  everyone else. Well, I'm able to do that these.
• 45:14
  Days because I. I come with everything prepped.
• 45:17
  Now there you go. There you go.
• 45:20
  So, so so you heard you're doing hot luck.
• 45:22
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 45:23
  So tell us about that. Excited for it.
• 45:25
  Yeah. No, we're, we're doing a little
• 45:26
  preview of Pursuit and, you know, just it's, it's these,
• 45:31
  these events are fun. You get to let your hair down.
• 45:33
  Everyone's just here to have a good time.
• 45:35
  We're going to be doing some great food.
• 45:36
  And I, I brought our pastry stuff along to Murray Riddle to
• 45:39
  do do one of the desserts from the from the restaurant.
• 45:43
  So were you using it as like a way to sort of preview it for
• 45:46
  whomever's there and kind of draw up some excitement around
• 45:49
  the Bunkhouse Hotel in Houston, which Houston very much needs?
• 45:53
  It's going to be exciting. Yeah, that would be cool.
• 45:55
  So I'm I'll be there tomorrow. So hot luck is in Austin.
• 45:59
  Tomorrow's what, the twenty 24th, 24th.
• 46:02
  Yeah. So, Junior, a mutual friend of
• 46:04
  ours, Junior Borges, another great chef, he said, hey, you
• 46:08
  want to help me? I was like, yeah, I'm not doing
• 46:09
  anything. I'll go help you.
• 46:10
  Then Now I'm like, man, am I going to get stuck doing
• 46:11
  everything? Junior, if you're if you're
• 46:13
  listening to this, I better not get stuck doing all the work.
• 46:15
  He's going to show up on the private jet and.
• 46:19
  I didn't see his name crossed off on that.
• 46:21
  It's like he hasn't checked in yet.
• 46:23
  Yeah. No, he's he's he's he's going
• 46:24
  tomorrow. He's like, what do you, what are
• 46:25
  we doing? I hope it's not like I'm all I'm
• 46:27
  thinking is like it's hot. Am I going to be on the grill?
• 46:30
  But like, no, he's doing with short rib.
• 46:32
  Got it. OK, good.
• 46:32
  I'll see you out there tomorrow. I'm going to ask you like just
• 46:35
  kind of random chef advice questions.
• 46:37
  So a lot of the people that listen to the Chef's PSA
• 46:40
  podcast. And by the way, this is the
• 46:41
  100th episode. If you if you don't know,
• 46:44
  congratulations, you're the 100th episode guest.
• 46:47
  I am not worthy, but thank you. So a lot of the people that
• 46:53
  listen to this show, the whole purpose of Chef's PSA and the
• 46:55
  reason I created it was a lot of people don't have access to
• 46:59
  mentorship. And, you know, being a part of
• 47:03
  great restaurants and having a great network of chefs,
• 47:05
  sometimes I feel like we take that for granted because not
• 47:10
  everyone has access to not everyone can pick up the phone
• 47:12
  and call Danielle or Gavin or whoever, or Aaron Bluedorn.
• 47:18
  And a lot of times we don't know what we don't know.
• 47:22
  And so we listen to the to the person next to us who's giving
• 47:24
  us bad advice and then our career just goes down the wrong
• 47:27
  path and then we're frustrated. So for the people that are that
• 47:30
  are listening, if you want to give good advice to chefs and
• 47:33
  cooks that are just coming up, I'm going to ask you a series of
• 47:36
  questions. This is your best advice, right?
• 47:38
  Got it. First day in the kitchen.
• 47:41
  It's a brand new kitchen that you're walking into.
• 47:43
  What are some things that a new cook should do when they're
• 47:45
  going into a new kitchen? First of all, make sure you're
• 47:49
  clean and presentable and paid attention to every instruction
• 47:53
  that was given to you. Do not show up late.
• 47:58
  Do not show up late. What?
• 47:59
  What is? What is early?
• 48:00
  What's on time? 15 minutes early. 15 minutes
• 48:03
  early, OK. 15 minutes early is on time.
• 48:05
  Half hour. You know, it, it.
• 48:07
  Look, I, I think anything that gives you one leg up to show
• 48:11
  that you're serious about this, you know, show up in a suit and
• 48:13
  tie. I don't care.
• 48:15
  I think I I only view that positively.
• 48:18
  Yeah. You can never be overdressed.
• 48:20
  It's not, you know, but come in, look sharp.
• 48:24
  Have all your tools ready to go. Have sharp knives.
• 48:29
  Wash your hands first and foremost when you go into a
• 48:32
  kitchen, just to show that you're taking into consideration
• 48:35
  all these things that that should be second nature but
• 48:38
  aren't. You know that that.
• 48:41
  And I would say keep your head down.
• 48:44
  Don't talk, don't lean. Do not lean.
• 48:47
  Can you can you rest your foot on the table Chef just.
• 48:51
  Just be, as you know, fly on the wall as possible.
• 48:55
  I, I, I'll tell you what you know, and, and you can be too
• 48:58
  eager. Yeah.
• 49:00
  One time my actually the first day I started Danielle, I almost
• 49:03
  burned the place down because I lit a box on fire because I
• 49:05
  thought I was being I I had a box of spinach and I was
• 49:09
  blanching the spinach and the the side of the box I had
• 49:13
  propped up against the piano of the.
• 49:15
  Yeah. Jeez, yeah, no, it caught fire
• 49:17
  and I didn't realize it because I was going.
• 49:19
  I'm going. I'm trying to show them how fast
• 49:21
  I was and I little little time goes on.
• 49:26
  Who's the chef at the? Time it was Jean Francois, yeah,
• 49:29
  Toto, who was a legend in the in the Danielle world.
• 49:33
  And anyone who knows who's working Danielle will will know
• 49:37
  He he he comes, he's the head steward who the left the box of
• 49:43
  burning spinach in the hallway. You're trying to burn the place
• 49:46
  and I had to put in my hand. So.
• 49:48
  So this is your first day. As as a trail, yeah.
• 49:52
  I still got the job. Yeah, at Cafe Balloon.
• 49:54
  There's a reason I didn't get it.
• 49:58
  Anyway, I actually told that story on my last day and John
• 50:01
  Francois was like, that was you anyway.
• 50:05
  But yeah, no, don't, don't be too eager.
• 50:07
  Try to be as as as excited, as laser focused as possible.
• 50:13
  And there's there's no way you won't get the job A.
• 50:16
  Lot of the questions that I get on Chef's PSA is something that
• 50:19
  I, I feel like I'm not necessarily qualified to answer
• 50:22
  because I, I view things differently and I don't want to
• 50:25
  skew your opinion on this. So I want, where do you fall on
• 50:29
  a lot of the people that come to me to say, how do you deal with
• 50:31
  burnout? But I have my opinions on that.
• 50:34
  But what is your opinion on burnout And how do you
• 50:35
  personally deal with burnout for yourself?
• 50:37
  And then what are some things that you have in place for the
• 50:40
  people that you work with for that?
• 50:42
  That's great. Great question.
• 50:45
  First of all, anyone who makes their own schedule I, I
• 50:49
  strongly, if not firmly demand that you take two days off.
• 50:55
  If you can get two days off in a row.
• 50:56
  I think it's very important. Of course, we all have to work
• 50:58
  six days every once in a while. So let's just work on end.
• 51:02
  You know it, it happens. If you own the place, that's on
• 51:06
  you. I think, you know, burnout is
• 51:11
  something that happens in our industry and, and for me, you
• 51:14
  have to always remind yourself why you're doing it.
• 51:17
  Why are you, you know, this, this job that we have, it can't
• 51:23
  be for the money. There's no way.
• 51:24
  It's for the money. It's for your personal
• 51:27
  fulfillment. It's for your love of the game.
• 51:30
  It's for your passion. And you having a goal is the
• 51:37
  most important thing because as burned out as you are, as at the
• 51:41
  end of the rope as you are, you always know that there's a light
• 51:45
  at the end of the tunnel. Or at least in your mind, you're
• 51:48
  working towards something that every day you're coming in,
• 51:52
  you're putting a coin into a Piggy Bank, to a virtual Piggy
• 51:55
  Bank of your career. And that's what's pulling you
• 51:58
  forward. Because if you don't have that,
• 52:01
  why you doing it? You know, and that's to me,
• 52:05
  that's where I'm at, why I do it every day.
• 52:09
  Well, also you know the the 300 employees that we have that that
• 52:14
  depend on us to to be out doing exactly what we do to continue.
• 52:20
  So allow these restaurants to continue to run to have them get
• 52:22
  them paid is is is enough for me right there.
• 52:25
  But. Do you do anything personally?
• 52:27
  Like do you have any? I mean like, do you run?
• 52:31
  Do you like what what is what is your health routine look like?
• 52:33
  So that way you're you're fit for for surface.
• 52:36
  I run, I run in the in the last few years I've I've taken, I've
• 52:41
  ramped down my drinking and make a ton.
• 52:45
  You know, I'm not and not like I was drinking a lot before, but
• 52:48
  just making sure that like I'm as healthy as possible, going to
• 52:51
  bed early. I find myself enjoying my job
• 52:56
  the day-to-day a lot more if I'm in a much healthier place.
• 53:01
  And then, you know, personally, and however that is, you know,
• 53:05
  however you take that, that's your own routine is up to you.
• 53:09
  But no, definitely running is huge for me.
• 53:12
  It's a time for me to sort out my mind, you know, sort of.
• 53:14
  Like meditation, Like meditative.
• 53:17
  It's meditative, Yeah. I sometimes, you know, find
• 53:20
  myself, I get on the Calm app or like a breathing app, and I'll
• 53:24
  do that for 10 minutes a day. And that, that helps a lot too.
• 53:28
  But, you know, also I put things on the calendar for myself.
• 53:32
  Like, I like, it's a vacation. I like to go see music concerts.
• 53:37
  I'll travel for concerts. I go see fish around the
• 53:40
  country. Yeah, you're a big fish fan.
• 53:42
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were at, where were we at?
• 53:45
  Flaming Lips. Yeah, we were cooking there and
• 53:48
  I remember like, oh, Flaming Lips.
• 53:49
  I was like, I honestly had no idea who they were.
• 53:51
  I was like, you're like, I was like, who are they?
• 53:55
  But you're you're big time into that.
• 53:57
  I'm a big hip hop head. Yeah, yeah.
• 53:59
  Do you like hip hop? Oh, love it.
• 54:00
  Yeah. Love it.
• 54:00
  Yeah, Yeah. I'm actually going to see Roots,
• 54:03
  Diggle Planets and who who else is on that tour?
• 54:05
  It's made like farsight, yeah. Like, yeah, I didn't grow up on
• 54:08
  that. So is that what you do to
• 54:10
  decompress, go to concerts and things like that?
• 54:12
  Yeah. Yeah, music, listen to music.
• 54:14
  Anything to sort of, you know, recharge yourself.
• 54:17
  Yeah, yourself inspired you allow music in the kitchen.
• 54:20
  I do. I do during prep.
• 54:22
  During prep, Not during service. Not during service, Yeah.
• 54:24
  Who picks the? Who picks the music?
• 54:26
  It's it's always the prep cooks. Yeah.
• 54:28
  It's, I mean, come on. Yeah.
• 54:30
  And I'll tell you what, all the cooks definitely, definitely
• 54:34
  embrace that for sure, because they know that if they try to
• 54:36
  change the music, they're not getting their prep done.
• 54:38
  Yeah. Kumbia, Kumbia, Kumbia's right.
• 54:41
  That works, right? I mean.
• 54:42
  But I I've fallen in love with the music because I've listened
• 54:44
  to it throughout my entire career.
• 54:46
  It's awesome. If you could give advice to a
• 54:49
  young cook on something that would help accelerate their
• 54:53
  career, advice that you wish you heard or maybe you did hear
• 54:56
  early on, what advice would you give them?
• 55:00
  I would say, you know, for me in my career, the, the biggest
• 55:04
  thing has been I've, I've stayed with, I've stayed with the
• 55:08
  restaurant longer. I, I tried to leave Cafe Balloon
• 55:11
  after one year. We all know how that went.
• 55:14
  I was there 10 years altogether. But, but the reason why Gavin
• 55:18
  told me that I couldn't leave, said that you shouldn't leave,
• 55:21
  is because I have something more for you.
• 55:24
  So he always had something, you know, guiding me on.
• 55:26
  And it was that ended up over time, I learned the most by
• 55:31
  staying in the same restaurant, you know, for 10 years.
• 55:34
  I and eventually was given the keys to to run it.
• 55:37
  I say, yeah, find a mentor, like we were saying at the beginning
• 55:43
  of all. And, you know, it's the most
• 55:44
  important thing to find a mentor to latch onto and, you know,
• 55:48
  stay with them, you know? Which is a good question.
• 55:51
  How do you how do you recognize when someone is a good mentor
• 55:54
  versus just picking the line cook that has one more year
• 55:57
  experience that works next to you?
• 55:59
  I think, I think you have to look at someone as they've
• 56:03
  achieved what, what you would like to achieve.
• 56:06
  It was, it was, that's how I felt with Douglas Keane.
• 56:08
  He was, he was, when I started working for him, he was 35 years
• 56:11
  old. He's the chef at Cyrus and I was
• 56:14
  on the up and up and over the course of working for all, we
• 56:17
  got four stars for the Chronicle, 2 Michelin stars, all
• 56:20
  that. And he was, he was so humble and
• 56:24
  you know, he wasn't out with the, you know, partying with the
• 56:27
  cooks or anything like that. He wasn't and and I like that he
• 56:30
  had a level of professionalism, created that environment in his
• 56:34
  kitchen and that's what I wanted to be one day.
• 56:37
  And so working for him. And the same was with Gavin.
• 56:40
  The same was with Danielle for sure.
• 56:43
  You know, and, and working for people that you could really,
• 56:48
  you really believe it. And and they established that
• 56:51
  culture. In fact, working for Douglas,
• 56:53
  one of the first things he told me when he hired me, I don't
• 56:56
  create cooks and make chefs. And it was that idea that he was
• 57:01
  going to take me to the next level of my career and he
• 57:04
  promised he completed on that promise at the end of it.
• 57:06
  And we create that same thing in our restaurants everyday.
• 57:09
  Now you've been you've been blessed with working with some
• 57:12
  really amazing people, but not everyone is.
• 57:15
  How would you explain to someone to recognize when it's time to
• 57:20
  leave? Like maybe you're not in the
• 57:21
  right kitchen? When?
• 57:23
  When do you know when it is time to leave?
• 57:25
  When you stop learning for sure, when you don't see the next step
• 57:29
  ahead of you as achievable, when if anything gets toxic.
• 57:37
  I thankfully have not necessarily had too much of that
• 57:40
  happen in my career to where I had to leave a kitchen to where
• 57:43
  I felt like I was being bullied or anything like that.
• 57:45
  But they're out. It's out there.
• 57:47
  Yep, it happens. And if it, if that's if that's
• 57:49
  the case, if that's the culture that's set up in your kitchen
• 57:51
  and you don't agree with it, you don't thrive in it.
• 57:54
  Yeah, there's no, no shame in leaving.
• 57:58
  Yeah, I mean, but you have to before you make the decision,
• 58:01
  you have to look at yourself and you have to make sure is this
• 58:03
  something, is this my issue or is this someone else's issue?
• 58:06
  You know, because if it's your issue, you're going to have that
• 58:09
  every place to go. Yeah, last thing.
• 58:14
  So the depth the podcast is Chef's PSA.
• 58:17
  You have a billboard out there, Aaron Blue, Orange, Chef's PSA.
• 58:20
  What is one thing the message that you want every cook out
• 58:23
  there to know that hey like stop doing this or start doing this,
• 58:29
  stop saying? Heard.
• 58:32
  So it's funny that you bring that up.
• 58:34
  I put that in the first book that I wrote.
• 58:37
  I did. So I I said, you know, say chef,
• 58:40
  yes, chef, we chef. Anything is better than heard.
• 58:42
  I got so much shit for it because heard is like, you know,
• 58:45
  like a lot of people are like, no, you say heard in this
• 58:46
  kitchen. And I was like, I don't.
• 58:48
  I don't. I don't and I don't like it.
• 58:50
  It's like nails on a chalkboard to me.
• 58:52
  But I get it like. Everyone says it.
• 58:53
  I tried to stop it. It, it, it, it happens.
• 58:56
  Everyone says it. All of our restaurants, I I let
• 58:58
  it go. I'm like really this, this
• 59:00
  doesn't I think, I think if it for, for real, if it was, if it
• 59:05
  was a real, I'd say treat it like you own it and one day you
• 59:08
  will. There you go there.
• 59:10
  We go well chef, where can people find you?
• 59:13
  They find me at Bluedorn Navy Blue or Barb Bluedorn in
• 59:17
  Houston, TX. My Instagram handles at Aaron
• 59:20
  Bluedorn and yeah, almost see me.
• 59:25
  Yeah, it was great seeing you, man.
• 59:26
  Thanks brother. Thank you so much for having me
• 59:27
  on. Congrats on 100.
• 59:29
  Thank you. Thank you.
• 59:30
  Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation as much as I did.
• 59:32
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• 59:34
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• 59:36
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• 59:38
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• 59:43
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• 59:47
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• 59:50
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• 59:52
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• 59:54
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• 59:58
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• 1:00:01
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• 1:00:03
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• 1:00:06
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• 1:00:07
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• 1:00:09
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• 1:00:11
  So.