Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / Michelin Stars, Brisket Mastery, and the Price of Success Ep.205

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Michelin Stars, Brisket Mastery, and the Price of Success Ep.205 · Chef's PSA Podcast

0:00
It feels, I mean, it's, it's difficult to deal with because
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it is, you just know that you're under so much scrutiny from
0:07
every single person that walks in the door.
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Hello chefs, This is Chef's PSA podcast and I'm your host Andre
0:13
Notaro today with welcome back for his third time on the show,
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Chef Evan Leroy of Leroy and Lewis Barbecue in Austin, TX.
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He's received a Michelin star and is one of the top BBQ
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experts in the country. We're going to talk about his
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new book, The Perfect Way to Cook a Brisket, some of the
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challenges that come with the pressure of success, and the
0:33
impact Texas BBQ has made across the nation.
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Stay tuned. So I was a chef. 2014, I'm on
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top of the world. I'm sorry. 2013, I'm on top of
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the world. 2014 I'm at the I'm at the bottom.
0:58
I'm I've hit rock bottom. And it happened quickly.
1:02
And I didn't anticipate that the person that the person that I
1:05
was in 2010 when the success started trickling in and then it
1:09
was like sipping from a fire hose.
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By 2013, the person that I was in 2010 would have not ever even
1:18
believed that the person I was in 2014 existed within me
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because they were completely different characters.
1:25
What I learned about myself in that moment was that everyone
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thinks they know how they'd handle success.
1:34
And it's easy to sit on the outside and say I wouldn't do
1:38
that. I would do this.
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It would never get the best of me.
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And then when it happens, the truth of the matter is you have
1:43
no idea how you'd react until you're in those situations.
1:45
Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right.
1:47
It's a mindset shift when you're young, you're hungry, you're
1:50
trying to earn it, you're trying to make that name for yourself.
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You're trying to just get other people to kind of see things the
1:57
way that you see. And then all of a sudden you
2:01
kind of have that stuff and there's a little bit of money in
2:05
the bank account and you kind of don't have to pull the same
2:08
shifts and you don't have to, you know, kind of push as hard
2:12
for that recognition. And it's really now for me about
2:18
kind of keeping the priorities in line as far as family, as far
2:22
as myself and health, as far as the staff and the business and
2:26
the restaurant and trying to just keep everything in focus.
2:30
That's really what I'm trying to do.
2:31
With all the recent success that you've had, you ever get you
2:34
ever get mistaken for like Aaron Franklin.
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I mean, yeah, he's, he's, he's got the glasses on.
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No, but I can feel the eyes on me in the restaurant for sure
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when I'm kind of there, like bussing tables and stuff.
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But I don't really get a case of mistaken identity.
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But I do have a kind of a funny story about that.
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I was out playing some golf with some friends of mine from out of
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the country. They were in town.
3:00
One of them was dodging at the restaurant.
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And we step up to the T, the first T.
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And this place, a friend of mine is the head pro there.
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He, I didn't know it was him. Like I saw him the last time I
3:14
played there. And he was like, oh, hey.
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And I kind of reconnected with him.
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And then the next time that we went there, we set up to the
3:22
first tee. And as I put the ball on the tee
3:25
in the ground, I hear over the loudspeaker, cheeks, cheeks to
3:29
the first tee cheeks. And I think that it's him on the
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speaker, like kind of making a joke about beef cheeks, 'cause
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we're known for cooking beef cheeks.
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And so we have a little laugh about it.
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And this other guy, like the 4th, there's three of us.
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So the fourth guy comes up and he's a random and his name's
3:45
Terry. He's a nice guy.
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And we play the whole round. And then after we finish, I go
3:51
in the clubhouse to kind of like have a laugh with Ian, the guy
3:54
who works there, and he's not there.
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And I was like, is that Ian? Who put you up to that?
3:58
Who said cheeks on the first tee?
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And he's like, no, no, that's, that's Terry.
4:03
That's Terry Cheeks, who's playing with you.
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And so like Cheeks was his name. What kind of name is Terry?
4:08
Cheeks. But I thought that they were
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just like, oh, this guy's on the 1st.
4:13
No, it's no, it's Terry. Cheeks everywhere without people
4:16
noticing me. But yeah, just just a little bit
4:20
of humble pie there. That's, that's hilarious.
4:22
Do you think that with all the success, especially with the
4:26
with the Michelin star, what kind of pressure has that put on
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you and not just put on you, but put on the team at the
4:33
restaurant? Just an enormous amount of
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pressure, but we're getting used to it.
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We're kind of getting all of us are getting better, better jobs
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like as soon as it happened, this was in fall of 24 and now
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we're in spring of 26. So they've come around again and
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we even retain the star. And so everybody's kind of used
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to that pressure. Now we are known as like one of
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the only Michelin star BBQ restaurants and we recognize
5:00
that every single day and line up.
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We talk about it often. You know, we hear it from the
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people in line and at the restaurant.
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It has changed everything about our business from the way that
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we approach it to the way that people see us.
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So it's a lot of pressure, but really the way that we deal with
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it is just working together, communicating, making sure that
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we're staying on top of our own individual jobs and showing up
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for each other. What, what does the pressure
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look like on on the team? Because I'm sure there's a sense
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of pressure that you put like, and I don't mean like you're
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putting pressure on people in a negative way, but you've earned
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it. No, no one wants it to go the
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other way. So I'm sure there's probably an
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unspoken pressure that you may or may not be a part of those
5:45
conversations, but amongst the team, how does that feel?
5:50
It feels, I mean, it's, it's difficult to deal with because
5:54
it is you just know that you're under so much scrutiny from
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every single person that walks in the door.
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And you know, it's not just the food, but it's the service, it's
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the wait in line, it's the parking lot.
6:07
It's like every single aspect of everything.
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Everybody is just putting under a microscope and we have to do
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the same thing. You know, when we are tasting
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the food every day like all of us are, you know, is it too
6:20
tight? Is it a little bit too loose?
6:22
Is a little bit overcooked? How's the trim on this?
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How like we're just constantly looking at every single thing,
6:28
tasting every single thing, dissecting every single aspect
6:32
of our business and trying to get better, still get better.
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You bring up a lot of things that are making my wheels turn,
6:40
specifically when you're talking about the minutia and the
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details in the BBQ, like you were saying, you know, the the
6:45
trim or whatever. Is there a noticeable difference
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in your opinion? And I'm not trying to get you in
6:52
trouble, by the way, so feel free to feel free to, to, to
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walk the razor's edge with your answer.
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But is there a difference that you could notice that says, OK,
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This is why certain restaurants are getting a Michelin stock.
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And here's some of the things that the other ones are are
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potentially missing on the details.
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You know, a lot of people have asked me that question and I
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don't have a very clear answer for it because you have take,
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for example, Leroy and Lewis and Interstellar, and you could say
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that, you know, they earned A Michelin star because of kind of
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interesting takes or like modernization or kind of like
7:28
more of a chefy approach. But then there's Law Barbecue
7:31
and Corkscrew as well, which are pretty traditional.
7:35
You know, Law BBQ obviously has ties to Louis Miller and the
7:39
Miller family, and they're just like BBQ eternal royalty.
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And then Corkscrew is just a really good, pretty basic BBQ
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restaurant outside of Houston. Kitchens are brutal right now,
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Everyone knows it. Fewer people on the line,
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margins tighter than ever, and somehow the expectations keep
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going up. There's just no room to miss
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anymore. I was talking to a chef recently
8:00
who said the biggest stress wasn't the volume, it was the
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mental load. Babysitting, food, timing,
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everything perfectly, trying to be everywhere at once.
8:10
And that's where equipment matters more than people want to
8:12
admit. Rationals technology comes up a
8:14
lot in those conversations. The Icon B Pro, the Ivario Pro
8:18
overnight roast that don't need to be checked, custom programs
8:21
for all your recipes, consistency without hovering
8:24
completely automated cleaning, monitoring everything from your
8:28
phone. The list goes on.
8:29
And what really buys you the headspace?
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Less standing over pans and more time to leave the kitchen
8:34
instead of constantly putting out tiny fires when you're down
8:37
to cook. When the prep list is rough,
8:40
when the production ramps up, think rational.
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And so you there's just from an outsider's perspective, it's
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hard to say what does, you know, those places do better than, I
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don't know, someplace like Truth or Bean or Franklin Barbecue.
8:55
And it's hard to say. Yeah, I don't have an answer for
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it. So I, I'm the conversation then
9:00
revolves around, well, why do they get a bib and why do they
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get a star? What's, what's the difference
9:04
here? And I think the way that a lot
9:07
of people understand it, which may or may not be correct is
9:10
that the bib is going to be usually a little bit more
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affordable. Is that?
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Is that what you understand as well?
9:15
Yeah, but I think you would spend probably the same amount
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of money at a place like Truth and a place like Corkscrew.
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So I think it's just a slightly lower distinction.
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But I think you just got to chalk it up to the pallets of
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the of the Michelin inspectors and what they liked and what
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they, you know, didn't like. How do you how do you handle the
9:35
conversation when people say why is barbecue in the Michelin
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Guide? Because I'm I'm sure you're
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probably and you're probably tired of talking about this, but
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I but I'm curious because I don't think we've talked about.
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This, I think there's two ways to approach that and one of the
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ways is here. And you know, where we can
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really get deep on a conversation and talk about the
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fact that it is just as hard to produce this food BBQ for a
10:00
large scale at the highest of quality.
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It is just as hard to do that as you know, do anything in A1
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Michelin star restaurant. But if somebody kind of asked me
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that in line and I have like a bust, a full of dishes or
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something, and I'm just like, you know, I don't have time to
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sit there and actually, like, have a conversation with him.
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But I'm just like, I don't know, we're really lucky, I guess,
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yeah. Fair.
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Do you do you think? And, and there's always a little
10:26
bit of danger in the game that's being played because a lot of
10:31
chefs, I mean, the the famously Bernard Luaza, right, you know,
10:35
the chef that took his life in France.
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And then there's a lot of pressure on chefs to maintain
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that. And I'm not saying that that's
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where we're going with this, but it also shapes how we cook.
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And you see it a lot in in in the one and two and three Star
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World where a lot of the food looks very similar because
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there's a certain formula that chefs can, can look at and say,
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OK, if I want to get a star, I need to cook like this.
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I need to have a tart, I need to have a sphere, I need to have
11:01
truffles and they have a 5. Like like, let's make sure we
11:04
check all the boxes. We have a table side pour.
11:07
Are we using Bernardo China or whatever the case may be,
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There's certain things that you'd look at and say a
11:12
Michelin, like whether people will agree with me or not.
11:16
It is true because because I talked to a lot of Michelin
11:19
square chefs, That's all I do there.
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There is certain things that they're looking at.
11:22
They're gonna say no, no, get the finer China.
11:24
No, no, get the get, you know, get, get, get the more swan.
11:28
Yeah. Are we doing linen still or are
11:29
we doing chili witch on the on the counter?
11:31
Right. So it's like things evolve and
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when these things evolve, I guarantee you all these chefs
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start talking. It's like, Nope, this is the
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new, this is the new new, right? This is where we're going now.
11:40
I was, we were looking at a lot of these restaurants around the
11:45
world in the, in the three star space are now doing tableside
11:49
foam, right? So instead of foaming it and
11:52
then it comes to the table, the table, they're coming with the
11:54
copper pot already and it's and the foam is getting put on the
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the dish table side. And now multiple restaurants are
12:02
doing that. So that becomes that becomes the
12:03
new trend. So where the danger then comes
12:06
into the BBQ space is there now, is there now a point where new
12:11
people coming in or even existing BBQ restaurants are
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gonna say, oh, they got a star. We got to have the interesting
12:17
sides. We got to do the you, you know,
12:20
the beets the way that you do them or the beat BBQ sauce or
12:22
anything like that, they said. So then you start to see a
12:26
playbook being developed for a BBQ.
12:29
Oh, yeah. I think that has been happening
12:33
in a different sense for probably about 10 years or more
12:36
since Franklin BBQ became really popular.
12:39
And then that was the model. You had to make sure that you
12:41
were trimming your briskets, you know, like a pod and you had to
12:45
wrap it in paper. And then kind of goalies became
12:49
number one. And then their method of, you
12:52
know, pepper 1st and whatever else that they do was like
12:56
everybody. Like as soon as there's like a
12:59
new number one named, then it's you see a lot of kind of like
13:02
not necessarily exact copycats, but you see those things that
13:06
are kind of popular that maybe that little thing that set them
13:09
apart. You see other people start to
13:11
adopt that. And maybe we haven't had like a
13:15
long or big enough sample size with barbecue in Michelin yet to
13:19
see people start adopting that stuff.
13:22
But I mean, you see people doing stuff that we've done for a long
13:26
time too, like the beef cheeks and the burger, both of which
13:29
are in the book, by the way. But yeah, it's it's something
13:33
that's unavoidable in kitchens and restaurants and in BBQ
13:37
restaurants. Something new comes along and
13:39
then other people start to do it.
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Do you, do you think that's is that more dangerous?
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I think it's, I mean, I don't know if it's dangerous, but it's
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more boring. I think that it leads to like a
13:52
monoculture of taste, you know, when it comes to barbecue.
13:56
That's why I always wanted to be different and we always wanted
13:58
to cook different food and different meats and, you know,
14:01
have basically a framework for BBQ that anybody could interpret
14:04
with different cuisines and flavors.
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So that's like why we do that. And I really haven't seen a lot
14:11
of other people kind of taking that model or method, but they
14:14
do kind of take other little kind of pieces of it.
14:17
How do you continue to evolve? So do you view it as because you
14:22
do a lot of things that are very interesting and I think you were
14:25
groundbreaking in terms of, I mean, I don't want to say the
14:28
burger was groundbreaking. So obviously we've had burgers
14:30
before, but you're fucking burgers.
14:31
Great. Thank you.
14:33
Really, really good. Like it's it's really, really
14:35
good for people that haven't had it, It's excellent.
14:39
Or the beef cheeks like you were talking about earlier.
14:42
There's a lot of things that you do that I think now people look
14:46
as like, OK, we'll incorporate that.
14:49
Is there anything that you're doing now that you're thinking,
14:51
OK, how do we reinvent ourselves?
14:54
Are you progressing your ideas forward with new things, or are
14:59
you refining what already exists?
15:01
We are very much in a refining phase right now because we have
15:06
been, you know, so creative and kind of coming up with new
15:10
things for so long. And then with all of this kind
15:13
of attention and pressure with Michelin, that leads to a lot,
15:17
lot more people and guests. And we are doing just like we're
15:23
at the, we're busting at the seams with, you know, storage,
15:27
cold storage, people in the kitchen, like space on the pits.
15:32
And so we're constantly in flux of like trying to figure out how
15:37
we can just perfect everything. It's, there's never a perfect
15:40
day. There's never a perfect week.
15:41
But we're just like, we're getting like really close.
15:44
And then we'll have like one kind of just like crazy day.
15:48
There's like this thing that's happened recently where like an
15:52
influencer, influencer will come and post about our burger
15:56
because it's only 10 bucks on Monday.
15:58
And that's a great deal. It's normally 16.
16:03
We'll also have like a big something happening in Austin,
16:07
whether it's Coda or Moto GP or whatever it is, and then a
16:10
Monday holiday. If all those three things like
16:12
happen at the same time, we will just get hammered with burgers
16:17
and people just coming out of the woodwork on Mondays.
16:21
And so really trying to maintain quality and serve all those
16:26
people, that's been the most difficult part and that's really
16:30
what we're focused on now. Yeah, and people are opinionated
16:34
about BBQ. I mean, everyone will tell you,
16:37
I, I, I had Ally on and she was talking about her, her, her hot
16:41
and fast method. Yeah.
16:42
And then I, I clipped and I put it on social media and all these
16:45
people on TikTok were like, she doesn't know what she's talking
16:47
about. What the fuck you mean she
16:48
doesn't know what she's talking about BBQ.
16:50
Like, you know, you think she doesn't know what she's talking
16:52
about? Like, like seriously, you think
16:54
the random guy on on TikTok knows more than her Anyway,
16:59
everyone's an expert. Everyone has fucking opinions.
17:02
Did you see this thing on social media the other day?
17:05
It was, it was on, it was someone made like a, a video
17:08
about Terry Blacks and how it wasn't great.
17:10
And then Terry Blacks. Yeah, yeah.
17:13
Yeah, I. Don't remember what they wrote,
17:15
but it was a, it was kind of a funny clap bag.
17:18
You know, Terry Black's is fine for, you know, people who are
17:21
just trying to come to Austin, get that BBQ experience, not
17:24
waiting in line forever. They got the Mac and cheese,
17:26
they got the brisket, they got the ribs.
17:28
They were in, they were out. It's great, you know, but it's
17:32
not like it's not the best barbecue in the world.
17:34
It's definitely not. And I think that Mike and Mark
17:37
and anybody else would kind of agree with that.
17:40
But they serve so many people they like they I don't, I can't
17:45
even wrap my mind around the volume that they do.
17:47
And then now they have like restaurants in every city in
17:49
Texas and they're expanding in Asheville and it's like it's a
17:52
marvel to behold. Just the business of it, you
17:57
know, But some people on like red, it'll be like Lauren Lewis
18:01
nose goose Terry blacks. They run out of everything.
18:03
Well, that's I'll, I'll take that criticism.
18:06
Yeah, well, who was it the other day?
18:09
That was it The Sussman's that hosted something, which I, it
18:14
was interesting because he's talking about the, you know, why
18:17
do we shame restaurants for wanting to make money?
18:21
They're in business. They're not nonprofits.
18:23
I mean, a lot of restaurants are nonprofits, nonprofitable, not
18:28
intentionally, but I feel like as an industry, sometimes we, we
18:34
forget why we're in this. Like there is the romance of we
18:36
want to be, we love hospitality and we love cooking and we love
18:43
feeding people and taking and the nurturing aspect and this,
18:45
that and the other. And there's the, there's the
18:47
romantic notion, if you just do that, everything will be taken
18:50
care of. But the fact of the matter is
18:53
you're not doing it for free. Because if you, if you were, you
18:56
wouldn't be in business, right? And I think sometimes we, you
19:02
know, we're as an industry, sometimes we're like grabs in a
19:04
bucket, like we tear down our own because they're, they're
19:06
making money. It's like, no, we should be
19:09
applauding them and saying, oh, look at that, good for them.
19:12
They're they figured it out. One of us made it out of the
19:16
bucket. Yeah, I think the thing that he
19:18
was trying to get at there was because he's, I think it was
19:20
spurned on by this roast chicken discussion.
19:22
Like how expensive can a roast chicken be or should a roast
19:26
chicken be? And I mean, I think that just
19:29
comes back to the idea of people just having a specific price in
19:34
their mind, like a maximum price for something in their mind.
19:37
Is it going to cost me? 9 bucks or whatever.
19:40
Yeah. Or just like, you know, whatever
19:42
it's supposed to be or where, you know, the price of X when
19:45
you grew up is the maximum price that it should always or ever
19:49
be. And they're not thinking about
19:51
all the other things that go into it.
19:52
They're not thinking about the fact that, first of all, that
19:55
very expensive roast chicken is not sourced from the grocery
19:58
store. It's sourced from like a ranch
20:00
that is taking very good care of their animals.
20:02
It has probably been, you know, dry brined and like cooked to
20:07
perfection and handled very, very well.
20:10
And the people who are doing that are probably paid well or
20:14
at least hopefully if that chicken is expensive.
20:17
And then after that the, you know, the restaurant, the owner,
20:21
whoever it is like we shouldn't be shaming people if they want
20:24
to actually make money. You know, we'd spend so much
20:26
time in this industry kind of in a mode or in a kind of mental
20:32
state of self sacrifice of wanting to, you know, do the
20:36
dirtier job or kind of like wake up earlier or stay later or just
20:42
like, you know, have that super long shift for some kind of St.
20:46
cred or respect. And then you get to a point
20:48
where that is just not tenable anymore and you want to enjoy
20:52
your life and you, you know, your body just can't take it
20:56
anymore. And you realize that it's not
21:01
about that kind of you sacrificing your mind, your
21:04
body. It's about like making sure that
21:06
everybody is taken care of. And part of that is making
21:09
enough money to put food on your table and the people who work
21:11
for use table. Yeah.
21:12
And I think that's an important distinction is I think a lot of
21:16
people assume the only reason we should be doing this is strictly
21:18
for the love of the game, right, Right.
21:21
And no other industry seems to operate that way.
21:24
You know. Football players don't do it
21:26
just for the love of the game. You know, basketball players or
21:30
any other, any other sport or any other industry, A lot of
21:33
people don't do it just for the love of the game.
21:35
Doctors, you know, don't do it just for the, for the love.
21:38
I mean, maybe they do and the pay is, is, is, you know, just
21:43
icing on the cake. But 30 years in the kitchen, 7
21:47
books, 200 podcast episodes, all distilled into a 5 minute daily
21:52
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22:12
There's like a consumer mindset that if this place is charging X
22:16
for a pound of brisket, then you know, the owners are greedy and
22:20
because they are, you know, charging way more than everybody
22:24
else down the street. Well, that doesn't take into
22:26
account that you got to pay for like the rent on the whole
22:29
building and the banknote and the investors and the pay the
22:32
people actually do the work and pay for the very expensive me.
22:35
Like, there's so many more costs behind everything that people
22:39
just see it like a price and then they're like, OK, well,
22:42
these people are obviously screwing us over.
22:46
I got a gripe though, and by the way, my gripe is not with you
22:49
because every time I go to, to your spot, I, I mean, I have to
22:54
take to go, right? You always take great care of me
22:57
and anyone that I bring. So I'm not complaining about
22:59
you. But there's, there's other
23:01
people that I, I visit. There's there's other places
23:03
that I go and I think what my gripe is, and I'm a chef and I
23:08
should probably know better, but you go and you order the meat,
23:12
get some ribs or I'm going to get some brisket or whatever.
23:14
And then I'm still fucking hungry.
23:16
Really. Yeah, Like I'm still, I'm still
23:17
hungry. It's like, that wasn't enough
23:19
food and I should know better, but there's that fucking scale
23:23
is like, like, just give me the little give.
23:26
Me a little bit extra. Don't just scrape it into the
23:29
that's going to go in the beans or whatever.
23:30
Like, no, give it to me, I'll take it.
23:33
Man, they're so precise. I mean, you have to be right
23:36
because think about portioning a piece of fish for a dish and you
23:41
want it to be portioned exactly 6 oz or 4 oz.
23:45
And you know, if you're a little bit over on however many 50
23:50
portions, that's going to add up to a lot.
23:52
It barbecues the exact same way. You know, if you cut a say we do
23:56
plates, right, We do quarter pounds on a plate for two meat
24:00
plate. And if you cut .3 and .3, that's
24:04
going to be, you know, if you do a hundred of those plates,
24:07
that's going to be a lot of BBQ that ends up not getting paid
24:10
for. So you got to be super precise
24:12
with the scale, especially when cutting for plates.
24:15
I mean, if you're just doing BBQ by the pound, then we, you know,
24:18
we'll call out the exact weight and then that is what it is.
24:21
But if you're cutting for like exact weights, you got to be
24:24
super precise. I I think what I've, what I've
24:26
discovered is like when you go to there like a lot of places,
24:29
like the two meat plate, right, get some brisket and maybe I can
24:32
get some sausage. I'm still hungry.
24:33
Like I I, like I, I need to, I need the a lot of meat plates.
24:38
Little appetizers, yeah, like. You can keep the back and
24:40
change, you can keep the green and show some extra brisket on
24:42
there. Yeah, yeah.
24:43
Why not? Yeah.
24:44
Why not like it's all the same price, You know, pasta brisket.
24:48
Yeah, exactly. Just just a little bit extra
24:51
meat. Yeah.
24:52
People ask us sometimes if they can switch out a side for
24:55
another meat and it's like no. So you can order extra meat full
25:00
price for it. So obviously being in Texas,
25:04
Texas Monthly puts out their their list of best barbecue and
25:09
now new game in town. How has that affected the BBQ
25:14
world? That's an interesting question
25:17
because like you said, there is a new game in town.
25:20
For a long time, Texas Monthly was it.
25:22
It was what everybody aspired to.
25:24
It was the biggest game changer. If you made it on the list or
25:28
top ten, then it would really affect your business in a
25:30
positive way. And now there's Michelin stars
25:34
and it's even more exclusive. But it is this whole other thing
25:38
that can change the life of your business.
25:42
And to me, it's exciting because there's another kind of thing to
25:45
aspire to. There's another kind of like
25:48
tear or like, you know, there's there's another thing that you
25:51
can kind of achieve, you know, in this in this industry.
25:55
But I don't know how it is affecting the way that other
25:59
people run their businesses or cook.
26:03
But I think it's good for competition.
26:05
I think it's good for just the state of barbecue in general.
26:09
In general, and if you had to be the spokesperson for the entire
26:14
BBQ community, which one are you?
26:21
You generally after are you after the Michelin star or you
26:25
after the number one spot on the Texas Monthly?
26:27
Well, we like like. Which one are you celebrating?
26:29
Yeah, well, we definitely celebrated the Michelin star and
26:33
we're still celebrating that every day.
26:35
But we haven't, we haven't gotten #1 So that's something
26:39
that we're still striving toward.
26:41
That's something that we're still focused on, is getting
26:44
better. And you know, really it would
26:47
be, it would be amazing. It would really be a crowning
26:51
achievement for everybody on our team.
26:54
Who's number one last time? It was the burnt bean and
26:57
Seguin. How far have you gone up the
27:00
list? So we're #2 we were #5 in 21,
27:05
the highest food truck has ever been.
27:07
And then this year, this past year in 25, we were right behind
27:10
the burnt bean and #2. Wow, Yeah.
27:13
Does it feel weird to look at someone like Aaron or you know,
27:16
a lot of these other pioneers and people that you looked up to
27:20
and now they're your friend, you send them memes?
27:24
I don't even know if Aaron Franklin knows what a meme is.
27:28
Barely does e-mail. But yeah, dude, it is.
27:32
Really. It's really cool the fact that,
27:35
you know, there was one point where I was nervous to meet
27:38
Wayne Miller and Aaron Franklin and Billy Dernie and, you know,
27:42
Sam Jones and these guys. And now I can, I can call them
27:46
or I can, you know, just send them a happy birthday text or
27:48
whatever it is. And so it's, it's pretty
27:51
awesome. Yeah, that that that is cool.
27:54
I mean, you're you're killing it.
27:56
Thank you. You are absolutely killing.
27:57
I want to ask you about the book.
27:58
Yeah, it's beautiful by the. Way.
27:59
Thank you very much people. Can see that, yeah.
28:02
You're on the camera, so it's on both.
28:05
Beautiful book. Thank you.
28:08
And I've flipped through it. You got your copy coming in the
28:11
mail. Thank you.
28:13
Is it out officially? It comes out May 12th.
28:15
I wrote it with Paula Forbes. She is a cookbook expert and has
28:21
written a few other cookbooks and helped on a lot of other
28:23
cookbooks and kind of in the process of us writing it, she
28:25
got promoted to a, to like a senior food editor, I think at
28:32
Texas Monthly. So she knows her stuff about
28:36
barbecues. She knows her stuff about
28:38
cookbooks, and it's kind of crazy how many people it takes
28:43
to put together a cookbook. I thought that you had an idea.
28:45
You write the recipes, you, you know, take the photos over time
28:48
and then kind of send it off and it comes back.
28:51
But it is, it's like starting a business.
28:54
You have to have like a pitch deck and you have to have like
28:56
all this research and data, and then you got to go sell it to
29:03
somebody. And then after that, there's a
29:05
whole team of people at the publisher that you're working
29:07
with. Not to mention setting up the
29:09
entire photo shoot, which takes days, and another whole team and
29:13
thousands of dollars. It was a crazy undertaking.
29:18
I'm glad it's over. I'm glad it's going to be out.
29:21
Soon. How long was the start to finish
29:22
process? Three years.
29:24
So it's like a year to put the pitched together and to get it
29:29
sold, and then a year to write all the recipes.
29:33
And then we did the photo shoot over 10 days.
29:35
We did 10 setups, which take about an hour, and we did that
29:39
10 days in a row. And funny enough, during one of
29:44
the most important days when we're shooting brisket and beef
29:47
cheeks, it was the same day that Daniel Vaughn, the BBQ editor
29:51
Text monthly, was making his like, final rounds for the top
29:55
50 list. That's one of the only times
29:57
I've needed to be in two places at the same time.
30:01
So I have my friend Brad who is called out in the book and who
30:05
has. Did she tip him off?
30:07
No, no, no. We're.
30:09
Hearing photos go today. But Brad helped carve the stuff
30:14
at the photo shoot, and I was able to go to the restaurant and
30:17
make sure that everything looked good for Daniel.
30:20
But you know, it takes so many people to put a cookbook out
30:24
there that I'm amazed that anybody can do it, let alone
30:27
myself. So.
30:28
Yeah, it's, it's wild. And I and I was flipping through
30:31
it and I think for people that don't know, the recipes in there
30:34
are exactly the recipes you want to have.
30:36
Oh yeah. As a as a chef or as someone who
30:38
loves to cook. It's like, oh, the, the, the,
30:41
the burgers in there. I saw that in there.
30:43
You have the Tri tip in there, you know, everything's in there.
30:47
And I was like, oh shit, you're holding nothing back.
30:49
Yeah, there's a lot of like kind of, there's a lot of BBQ recipes
30:52
in there. Obviously it's a BBQ book, but
30:54
they're kind of a lot of them are centered around the same
30:57
ideas of like if it's a steak or if it's something like that, you
31:01
smoke it to temperature and then you finish it over fire in a pan
31:05
for like crisp and, you know, making the crust in the my yard.
31:09
And it's similar for other things you want to cook to
31:11
tenderness, right? You can get some kind of color
31:14
on it or kind of treat the smoking process as like a long
31:17
sear to develop your bark and then wrap it up and cook it to
31:20
tenderness. So they're all pretty kind of
31:23
basic concepts, but really I wanted to lay them out in
31:26
different ways so people can kind of wrap their mind around
31:29
it and understand it and kind of see BBQ the way that I do.
31:32
Yeah, it's a, it's a beautiful book.
31:34
I was skimming and I remember which recipe I came across, but
31:37
it said, you know, the Dalmatian mix.
31:38
Yeah, right. Which it's funny because as I
31:41
read that I was like, I don't know what the ratio is on the
31:43
Dalmatian mix, but I'm pretty sure it's salt and pepper.
31:45
Yeah, it is. It's.
31:46
Like I'm pretty sure it's salt and pepper but in my first book
31:49
that I wrote one of my original chefs PS as in the red book that
31:52
I wrote was never mix your salt and pepper.
31:54
But there's a caveat in there, unless you're a BBQ.
31:56
Restaurant. Like I remember I got a lot of
31:59
one about BBQ is like, yeah, well, I'm talking about like
32:03
everything but that or like the, you know, the place where or the
32:08
place where it's appropriate. And my friend David Breeden, who
32:13
I wrote, he's in the, the first book that I wrote, yeah, it's a,
32:16
it's a call out to him because I didn't, I didn't write his name
32:19
in the book, but I wrote one of my chef friends who's a very
32:23
good chef said. But the most fun places to work
32:25
are where you mix your salt and pepper.
32:27
Yeah, they are. Like it's true.
32:30
Like that's where you have the most fun cooking.
32:32
Yeah, I've, I've worked in a few of those places.
32:34
Yeah, my very first restaurant was like this kind of greased
32:36
spoon like seafood place in Tallahassee, FL, and they mix
32:40
the salt and pepper there. I was like a grill cook, like
32:42
grilling up grouper fillets and stuff for sandwiches and
32:45
definitely mix the salt and pepper.
32:46
There I remember we were opening one of the restaurants and I'm
32:51
going through all the rules of the kitchen, you know, doing
32:53
orientation for, you know, the staff.
32:56
And I said we don't mix our salt and pepper here.
32:58
You know, we have, you know, black Peugeot pepper mills and
33:01
we use, you know, diamond crystal for this and we use, you
33:04
know, malt on for that or whatever, whatever the breakdown
33:08
was at that particular moment. And my rhetorical question to
33:13
the to the team was because what's the exact recipe for salt
33:19
and pepper that seasons everything?
33:20
Perfectly. Yeah, exactly.
33:22
And one of the cooks raised his head and someone you know is a
33:24
new hire and he's like, it's actually you get, you get been
33:28
written. I remember it's actually 75% by
33:31
the way. I was like, dude, shut the fuck
33:32
up. I'm like.
33:35
There's no right answer. The right answer.
33:36
Shut up and listen. But but for you, there is a
33:39
right answer in the way, in the way that you cook, not just, I'm
33:42
assuming for efficiency, for scale when you have to do all
33:45
this protein, but there's a there's.
33:49
So it's efficiency that's also flavor.
33:51
It's efficiency, flavor, and you know, the flavor aspect.
33:55
It's not just how it tastes, but it's kind of the texture of it
33:58
too because it's a specific salt and pepper.
34:00
It's diamond crystal, which is common enough, but it's also 16
34:03
mesh ground pepper and that is going to give you that really
34:07
nice like sturdy bark that you want on brisket, on beef cheeks,
34:11
on the burgers. And those are kind of the three
34:13
main things that we use it for. And we make it in big, big
34:16
batches and just toss everything in there, like completely coat
34:19
the brisket, coat the beef cheeks, coat the burgers.
34:22
So it's formulated to be a seasoning that is like perfect
34:26
for certain meats because it's going to season the outside and
34:31
give you as much pepper as you need on there and not too much.
34:35
It's going to be perfectly seasoned because that's what's
34:36
going to stick. To it, if if you had to give an
34:39
audio master class on cooking brisket for people, for people
34:42
that are listening, if you could geek out and take our audience,
34:46
you know our audience. I'm assuming it's mostly chefs
34:48
it cooks, but they might not all have smokers.
34:51
But if you had to give general advice for most likely the best
34:56
results that people would very much enjoy a good brisket, how
35:00
would you take them from from arriving in a package to done?
35:05
Well, feel feel free to all right, feel free to.
35:10
Geek out too. OK, here we go.
35:11
Appreciate it. So first you're gonna start with
35:15
the type of brisket that you have, and you're gonna want a
35:19
Packer brisket deco removed. That means all the fat from the
35:23
lean side, from the bottom. What I think of as the bottom
35:27
and all that stuff is like part of, let me back up and pause
35:30
here because part of what makes talking about brisket difficult
35:33
is that we talked about the point and the flat, which are
35:37
the two different muscles or the fatty and the lean.
35:40
But there's not a lot of terminology for the different
35:43
sides of it. And what I lay out in here is
35:45
like the tip and the end. And like when you're trimming,
35:47
you need to kind of work toward the tip or like shape the end.
35:51
So kind of labeling those and making sure that there's clear
35:54
terminology for all the parts of a brisket was kind of the first
35:57
step that I did in here I. Saw, I saw the the diagram.
36:00
Yeah, it. Was great.
36:01
So you're going to start with a pack of brisket.
36:03
You want it to be as fatty as you can get it within, you know,
36:07
reasonable amounts. You're not going to go for like
36:10
an A5 Wagyu brisket. That's just not something that
36:13
you're going to want to cook, but you're probably going to get
36:15
it from the grocery store or Costco or something like that or
36:20
you know, bring it in. Prime would be kind of what I
36:22
would be looking for around a 13 to 14 LB starting brisket.
36:28
That's what you're going to go for at first.
36:30
Then as far as trimming goes, you want it to kind of be shaped
36:35
into a pod like shape. If you think about those car
36:39
commercials with the air kind of blasting on it and how it flows
36:43
over, that's how the smoke and the heat is working inside of a
36:48
offset pit. Now we've talked a little bit
36:52
about brisket, but there's also an entire, we can talk about
36:56
offset pits, reverse flow pits, direct heat pits, rotisserie
36:59
pits. But for this sake, we're just
37:02
talking about offset pits. And that's how you want to trim
37:05
it for an offset pit because the smoke is going to be kind of
37:09
hitting the front of it or like that fatty side, that fatty tip.
37:13
And you don't want any kind of like 90° angle where it's just
37:16
going to butt up against it and then not have anywhere to go.
37:20
Because that corner that's created like that is a lot of
37:23
surface area and not a lot of meat underneath.
37:25
And that's going to get crispy and it's just not going to
37:27
render right. It's not going to be very good.
37:30
So make sure that it's in the right shape.
37:32
Make sure that the correct amount of fat has been taken off
37:35
the fatty side of it. And we like to leave, leave
37:38
about 1/4 of an inch. And I say that, but there's a
37:41
lot of, there's a lot of ways you can go about that.
37:45
I specifically like to use a six inch boning like a stiff blade
37:49
boning knife and kind of work from the center of the brisket
37:52
out toward the edges, peeling off like a little by little.
37:55
You can go from the end of it kind of all the way up to the
37:59
tip. But really what you want to do
38:01
is make sure that you're kind of curving the blade down along
38:04
with the muscle of the brisket to make sure that you're shaping
38:07
it in the correct way. So there's also this really big
38:12
kind of fatty piece on the back on the bottom of a brisket.
38:16
It's really hard fat where the two muscles come together and
38:19
there's like a natural separation in there that if you
38:23
can kind of pull it out a little bit, you can see that natural
38:26
separation. You can seam that little piece
38:27
out. If you don't take that piece
38:29
out, your first best, most amazing, picture perfect slice
38:33
on a brisket is going to have like a big fat chunk on the
38:36
bottom of it and it's going to be too much fat and not a good
38:40
eating experience. So we take out that whole piece
38:43
and then we clean up the kind of back, any shaggy pieces left
38:46
from the fatty deco. And then we do the kind of top
38:51
trimming, the trimming in the fat like I was telling you
38:53
about. And then we kind of shape it
38:56
like that pot. So you get the brisket, you trim
39:00
it. Now we go into seasoning and we
39:04
use just our Dalmatian rub in the seasoning.
39:07
But is is it 5050? It is not 5050.
39:09
It's 2 to 1 volumetric of the 16 mesh black pepper to Diamond
39:15
crystal kosher salt. And there's exact like grammed
39:19
out measurements for that in here.
39:21
But for since I was, since we came up with this rub, since the
39:25
very beginning of the food truck in the business, that's how
39:27
we've been measuring it out just like 2 quarts, 1 quart in a bus
39:31
tub, mix it up and then you put your whole brisket in that bus
39:34
tub and just season every single part of it.
39:35
So you're like rolling it in? There, rolling it, yeah, make
39:38
sure that everything, every single inch is covered.
39:41
And a lot of people do a slather, but then that's to kind
39:43
of make rub stick to it. But we find that if you trim
39:47
them up and you keep them covered and they don't dry out,
39:49
then you don't really need another slather.
39:51
And that's just an extra step that we don't see as necessary.
39:56
So we cover it with Dalmatian rub.
39:58
And it's popular now in BBQ to use different seasonings and
40:02
different rubs and to kind of layer them.
40:05
But we find the best and easiest way and most consistent is to
40:08
just cover every single inch of it.
40:10
You definitely want to make sure you get the sides of your
40:12
brisket. That is where the burn ends come
40:14
from. And you don't want the best,
40:16
most delicious season to buy to not have any seasoning on it And
40:21
then? You're ready to smoke and it
40:24
depends on what kind of smoker you're using.
40:26
It depends on what kind of wood you're using, but we will.
40:29
We use post oak wood. We don't put anything else in
40:31
our pits. We have 1000 gallon offset where
40:35
we cook all of our Brooks. Stop on wood for yeah, is there
40:37
a wood? So you said you're using post
40:39
oak common in Texas. Yeah.
40:42
Is there wood that you say but don't ever use this?
40:45
I don't like the flavor of Mesquite on BBQ.
40:50
You don't want to, you don't. You have to use hardwood.
40:52
You can't use any soft woods like you can't use like any pine
40:55
or cedar or anything like that. It's going to be too resinous
40:57
and gross. It's going to taste awful.
41:00
I I think Mesquite is a little too strong for BBQ, but I like
41:03
it for grilling. I would never put another piece
41:07
of wood that's not post oak inside of our pits because it'll
41:10
start to take on that flavor. Like as soon as one stick goes
41:14
in there, it's going to like it'll be inside the pit and it
41:17
will taste different. It's it's like the like the
41:21
Chinese master stock, you're always popping off a little bit
41:24
and it's like don't, don't. Don't mess with it.
41:27
Flavors being built up here, sorry.
41:30
But then you will cook your brisket.
41:33
We start ours very, very low. We start a very small fire at
41:38
about 150° after we put all the briskets on because we want the
41:43
meat and the temperature of the pit to come up at the same time.
41:47
Like we're cooking a potato in water.
41:49
You know, you don't put a potato in hot water because the outside
41:52
is going to get cooked and mushy before the inside.
41:54
Kind of the same thing with a brisket.
41:56
If you just shock it with that heat, the outside is going to
41:59
start to cook a lot faster than the inside.
42:01
So we're trying to bring the temperature of everything up at
42:04
the same time, probably 50° an hour for the first couple hours
42:08
until we hit about 275 and then we rock there for all day long.
42:13
50° an hour. So I mean this is detail.
42:17
Yeah, yeah, We're not even halfway done yet, sorry.
42:23
And throughout the cook, after we get a good amount of smoke on
42:27
them and we reach 275, we'll start rotating them.
42:30
And then that means the front row will go to the back and then
42:32
all the other rows move up. But then the inside columns will
42:38
move out and the outside columns will move in because we want
42:42
there's different heat transfer happening near the walls because
42:47
they are hot and they've heated up and they're radiating heat.
42:51
Then there is in the center where there's also more air
42:53
flow. So we have to keep rotating
42:56
those in and out along with back to front.
42:59
And then at a certain point when we hit around internal
43:02
temperature of 175° in the flat of the brisket, they've gone
43:08
through all the color changes that we want.
43:10
They have shrunken considerably. What are the color changes that
43:12
you're looking for one And then is there a smell that you're
43:16
looking for and obviously not the smoker smell, but is there a
43:18
smell that does it change? Yeah, it, it changes
43:24
significantly toward the end. Yeah.
43:26
But they'll go from raw looking to like a mahogany and then a
43:30
light brown and then a dark brown and then pretty like jet
43:33
black like you like, you know, a brisket looks.
43:36
And as soon as it gets black, it'll start to kind of sweat and
43:39
shimmer. And that's a lot of the fat and
43:41
juices kind of being pushed out. And once that happens, you will
43:45
go through a period called the stall, which happens because of
43:48
evaporative cooling. That fat and moisture will leach
43:52
out the top and then the evaporative cooling that you
43:56
know, once that is evaporated off the brisket, it'll cool down
44:01
a little bit and that's what happens during the stall.
44:04
But after you wrap you, after that happens, you wrap it up,
44:08
you push through that until it gets tender.
44:10
Around 202 hundred and five degrees is right around there
44:15
and then you pull it off and you let it rest.
44:17
So the the very first person that taught me how to cook
44:21
brisket and I won't say his name because I don't want because I
44:24
don't want you to get mad at him, but he he's in the BBQ
44:28
world. He said the second it's over
44:30
190, it's past the stall and then it's OK after that.
44:34
How accurate is that statement? I mean, I don't have the like
44:40
graph data to say exactly that, but I know that we usually stall
44:45
out around 165 and so we like to say one 75180.
44:51
We're we're kind of past that. And as soon as you notice that
44:54
it is get is growing in temperature, then you'll be past
44:59
the stall. But if you're paying attention
45:00
to the other QS, you will notice that before that happens.
45:06
Are you AII know you're a foible?
45:09
Guy Yeah, yeah. But we're teaching the general,
45:11
we're teaching, we're teaching everybody.
45:15
Are you a wrap it or don't wrap it for the general public?
45:19
So for the general public, I would say wrapping is is
45:23
beneficial because it can kind of fix some mistakes or it can
45:27
help you kind of speed along the cook or it can help retain some
45:31
moisture. That thing that you're going to
45:33
sacrifice is that texture that we love that crunchy bark.
45:37
You know, when the pepper and the salt and that fat during the
45:40
higher heat of the end of the cook, it gets kind of crispy.
45:44
And that's what we want on the brisket is that crunchy bark
45:48
rendered fat, tender meat. From from the time that you pull
45:57
it out of by the way, you said you were going to mention the
45:59
smell that. Oh, yeah, yeah, sorry.
46:01
So when it when it's almost done, you'll have this kind of
46:06
rounded, roasty kind of, it doesn't necessarily smell like
46:12
BBQ anymore. It smells like a different kind
46:14
of roasted, like beef, almost like a sweet kind of caramelized
46:18
smell. Leo was on here, he said.
46:21
Chocolate. Yeah, some people say it smells
46:23
like chocolate or some people say it smells like chocolate
46:24
chip cookies, but it is, it is that kind of sweeter, kind of
46:30
dark, roasty, almost coffee kind of smell that happens when I, I
46:35
don't even know what it is. But I think it's like the juices
46:38
inside might hit a certain temperature and them kind of
46:40
falling on like a higher metal, like a higher heated metal of
46:44
the bottom of the pit. I think that might be something
46:46
with it. But they do smell a little bit
46:49
different when you're taking them off and you can you can
46:52
tell a little bit that they're getting close or when they're
46:55
ready just kind of based on this, that that smell.
46:58
So, well, I had Jess on here, we were talking meat science and
47:02
she said that one of the more interesting things that that's
47:06
happening right now in BBQ that people should really look at is
47:08
the resting period. This is, and I'm I'm
47:11
paraphrasing what she said, but she says that's where some magic
47:13
is really happening. Oh yeah.
47:15
So can you talk about once you're pulling it out, what does
47:17
the resting period look like, What's the importance of it?
47:19
And what are some general guidelines for the resting
47:22
process? So this depends on the time of
47:25
year as well, because we will pull our briskets off when
47:28
they're tender. And then if it's cold outside,
47:31
we will want to rest them inside of the pit trailer where it's
47:34
still like a little bit warm. But if it's hot outside in the
47:37
summer, we will take them inside to rest where it's more temper
47:41
because inside the pit can get like 1/10, 1:20.
47:44
And we don't want them carrying over even farther.
47:46
We want to kind of halt that cooking process, rest it down to
47:50
140 and then they'll put, we'll put it into a warmer at 14145
47:55
and it'll stay there until the next day where we cut everything
47:58
up by like 3:00. What's it affecting most that
48:03
rest process? Is it?
48:04
Is it juiciness? Is it texture?
48:05
Is it? Is it all of the above?
48:07
It's juiciness and texture for sure.
48:09
There's, I know that the, you know, kind of saying that the
48:13
juices are redistributing is not like exactly 100% correct, but
48:17
there's like a settling down and kind of like, you know, when
48:21
everything is kind of moving fast and like there's a lot of
48:24
heat within the piece of meat, there's like, you know, that it
48:28
spills out, you cut into something and like juices, fat
48:32
liquid from inside the meat just like spills out.
48:34
So you need to let it rest that long heated rest.
48:37
I don't know exactly what it does, but there's some kind of
48:40
magic that happens and it's not just pieces cooked to that
48:44
temperature because we have noticed that with our Tri tips
48:49
as well. We bring Tri tip on at night and
48:51
at first we were cooking them kind of late in the day and then
48:54
just serving them. But then there was one day where
48:57
somebody just like left one in the warmer on accident and then
49:01
we tried it the next day and it was the most tender and
49:03
delicious piece of Tri tip that we'd ever had.
49:05
And it was cooked to 140. And so we cooked, we started
49:09
cooking them earlier and then they rest in the warmer at 1:40
49:13
through all of lunch. And then by the time we get to
49:16
them, they've had like a nice long rest and we just cut into
49:19
them and they're is. There a general rule that you go
49:23
by for resting like about an hour 2 hours percentage of
49:26
cooking time. I mean, I always say that if you
49:30
if it's if the piece of meat that you're cutting is too hot
49:33
to hold and it's too hot to cut, you want to just be able to hold
49:37
it indefinitely in like a gloved hand.
49:40
But for the sake of how good you can make a brisket, we always
49:47
say overnight. Overnight is the best rest.
49:50
I don't know exactly, you know, the perfect amount of time, but
49:54
I know it's not just rest down to temperature.
49:57
Like it's got to have kind of an extended rest.
50:00
And I don't know exactly what happens in that time, but
50:02
there's some kind of magic that just makes it really good.
50:05
There isn't. And you know, to your point, I
50:06
agree with you. Like I, I've seen these very
50:09
scientific videos of breaking, breaking down.
50:12
Does the rest matter? And it's the juice distribution
50:15
is not true and it's a myth and blah, blah, blah.
50:18
But I'm like, yeah, but I'm a chef and I know it fucking
50:20
matters. Like, you can say all you want.
50:22
I know it fucking matters. I've seen it with my own eyes.
50:25
You can say whatever you want. I know if you pull it off and
50:28
you cut it or if you let it rest, the meat looks different,
50:31
it tastes different, it cuts different, all of that.
50:33
So, so say all you want and you, you can show me the scales and
50:37
you can say science says otherwise.
50:38
I don't. Believe you I.
50:39
Know I'm a fucking science denier when it comes to rested
50:42
me. Dude, me too.
50:43
You're you're exactly right. You have to rest it.
50:45
The That long heated rest does some kind of magic to barbecue.
50:48
Yeah, yeah, this was. Thank you for for sharing that
50:52
process. I'm sure there's a lot of people
50:54
that are going to be like in the comments saying he's fucking
50:55
wrong. Well, there's, you know, BBQ
50:58
used to be pretty inconsistent based on what time you go get
51:03
it. Like you used to go to a BBQ
51:05
place, a classic BBQ place. If you get there, this still the
51:08
case with some of these old school joints like Lockhart or
51:11
Luling. You get there early.
51:12
It's really good because it's pretty fresh and you're cutting
51:15
into it like a, you know, like a BBQ chicken or something like
51:18
that. But if you get there later in
51:19
the afternoon, it's not quite as good, maybe oxidized piece, you
51:23
know, you get. But now that we're trying to
51:28
strive for consistency across the board and nobody wants to,
51:32
you know, get up at midnight to cook stuff to have ready at like
51:35
11:00 AM. We'd rather do that during the
51:37
day, rested overnight and then have it the next morning ready.
51:41
And then the benefit of that is that it's even better and it's
51:45
more consistent. So you're getting the same thing
51:47
at 11 AM when you first open and 3:00 PM when you're cutting your
51:51
last slice of brisket. I saw a video the other day.
51:56
It was an LA BBQ food truck and unfortunately I don't, I don't
52:00
know what it was to look. Obviously I didn't try it.
52:02
I was just watching the video and I was like it was in it was
52:05
in Compton and they were talking about this BBQ truck in in
52:09
Compton and they had their brisket and their ribs and a
52:11
couple of I think they had oxtails as well.
52:13
This was it was their thing. Are you noticing the as BBQ is
52:20
really taking off and especially with the Michelin stars and
52:24
there's obviously different styles of BBQ, you know, whether
52:26
we're talking to Carolinas or Casey or whatever, but are you
52:29
noticing that Texas BBQ is actually the one that's taking
52:32
off nationally? Oh yeah, Texas is the one
52:36
nationally, internationally, yeah, Texas BBQ is the one
52:41
that's getting that's gaining the most popularity.
52:43
And that is evidenced by the fact that you, if you open up a
52:48
BBQ restaurant anywhere in the United States and you don't have
52:51
brisket on the menu, people are going to get upset.
52:54
And that is the most clear like example of that, I think.
52:59
Because if you had, I mean, if you just opened up a Carolina
53:03
style barbecue joint and whatever any other state, I
53:06
think that people would still come in looking for brisket
53:08
because they've seen the trays on social media, they've seen
53:11
all the shows they've like, they've they've seen that
53:14
brisket and that's what they want.
53:17
It's it's like we were talking earlier, it's the formula.
53:20
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
53:21
It's the formula for BBQ, for opening up a BBQ restaurant.
53:23
Do you check these boxes right, if they're playing that game?
53:27
Is there anyone or any city right now that outside of Texas
53:32
that's doing things that you're saying?
53:33
That's super interesting that that's your baby looking at
53:37
saying wow, that that might be something that we consider later
53:39
on. I think there's a lot of cool
53:40
things happening in South Carolina right now.
53:42
I think Elliot Moss, who's a friend of mine, has a new place
53:45
called Elliot's in Florence, SC, which is a pretty small town,
53:49
but that's where he's from. And he had a restaurant years
53:53
ago called Buxton Hall, which was so good and had a lot of
53:58
publicity, but this place is his and he's like cooking his food
54:03
and he's kicking ass at it. And also my friend Robbie, who
54:08
has City Limits Barbecue in Columbia, another incredible
54:12
chef, multi James Beard nomination.
54:15
He takes just such close attention and care to all the
54:19
food that he makes. And if you're going to talk
54:22
about South Carolina Lewis BBQ, John Lewis, he's kind of one of
54:26
the biggest guys out there. He's been there for a few years.
54:30
Palmira BBQ with Hector Garate. They do stuff a lot similar to
54:35
us. They do beef cheeks, they do
54:36
whole hog. So I think there's a lot of cool
54:40
stuff happening in South Carolina, Charleston.
54:43
What what other one of the things that I wanted to ask you
54:47
is with success comes pressure. How do you handle the pressure
54:53
and what do you do for yourself, for people that are listening?
54:55
Because there's levels of pressure, you know, the line
54:58
cook faces pressure from, you know, for a lot of different
55:01
reasons. Maybe that I can't pay it up,
55:03
they can't pay their bills. Or maybe it's just the pressure
55:05
of not knowing and the learning curve and the amount of work
55:08
that they have to do and restless sleep.
55:11
But you have a different level of pressure the in different
55:13
positions in your position, you're you're an entrepreneur,
55:19
you're now a celebrity chef. You have the pressure of
55:22
Michelin, you're releasing A cookbook.
55:24
You're everywhere on social media.
55:27
You also have to deal with this public facing image that you
55:31
probably, I mean, I've, I don't know if I've ever asked you this
55:35
like you're you're pretty much the same guy on the podcast that
55:39
you are off the podcast when I talk to you.
55:41
Yeah. Yeah.
55:41
Yeah, but I know a lot of people that are not, you know, But how
55:45
do you deal with all of this now?
55:48
What are you doing for yourself and what are some of the things
55:50
that stress you out? And do you ever feel like I need
55:56
a break? Yeah, man, that's so complicated
56:01
and loaded. The pressure thing is unique at
56:08
the position that I'm in right now because we obviously have a
56:11
lot of pressure from text monthly #2 Michelin Guide.
56:16
The restaurant's busier than it's ever been.
56:18
Everything costs on everything or through the roof, labor,
56:21
food, everything. But I am also facing like an
56:26
internal pressure of feeling like I'm not really doing
56:31
anything sometimes like I go into work and all the positions
56:36
are covered covered. Well I'm checking in with all
56:39
the team and they're seem to be doing pretty well, seem to be
56:43
keeping a clean kitchen and getting their tasks done.
56:46
The management staff seems to be in a good mood and orders are
56:52
coming in and everybody is accounted for.
56:55
Nobody's calling out ever. You know, everybody in line is
57:00
being talked to and getting their drinks and they've been
57:05
greeted. I go to bus tables and there's
57:08
like, I'm constantly, I'm looking for something to do to
57:11
keep myself busy and the team has mostly taken care of it.
57:15
And so when I don't have anything to do, I think that I'm
57:18
kind of useless. I'm like, what am I even doing
57:21
here? Should I be, you know, like, and
57:24
then I kind of go and look in the corners, right?
57:27
I'll go into the walk in and look for something wrong or look
57:29
for something misplaced, or I'll go into the dry storage or I'll
57:32
go take a lap around the park. And then I kind of think to
57:35
myself, I'm like, I'm, I'm picking up trash in the parking
57:38
lot. Like, should I be, should I be
57:41
doing this? Is this the best use of my time?
57:43
And so it's a weird mental gymnastics that I play with
57:47
myself of like trying to be present, but also trying to,
57:53
sorry, trying to be present at work at, you know, for the team
57:57
members that are there for the guests that are there who kind
57:59
of I, I think want to see me there doing work.
58:03
And then also, you know, doing enough to where I feel like I'm
58:10
making a difference or feel like I'm actually helping the people
58:14
I work. And then if I if, if everything
58:20
is taken care of, then I'll go home and do some, you know,
58:24
emails or do whatever else is on my long To Do List.
58:27
And then I feel like I'm still not doing enough because I'm not
58:30
at the restaurant, even though I know that everything's taken
58:33
care of. I don't know, I think it kind of
58:36
goes back to what we were talking about earlier to where
58:38
there's this like self sacrificing thing in
58:40
restaurants. So you feel like you always got
58:42
to be putting yourself in, in, in just like a difficult
58:48
situation to kind of work your way out of.
58:51
And I haven't fully like grasped how that affects me.
58:57
What I'm, what I'm hearing is in the way I'm interpreting it is
59:02
that you're good at your job. Thank you.
59:05
And I know that my and I know that's difficult to hear
59:08
sometimes as a chef because I've gone through the same thing as
59:09
you. It's like, what am I going to do
59:10
today? Does anyone need help?
59:12
No, we're good chef. And it's like, all right, like
59:15
and like, does anyone need anything for me?
59:19
But I think that's because you've set up systems, you've
59:21
trained your team properly. They're not, you don't have that
59:23
turnover. They're not leaving.
59:24
They're they're coming into work properly trained, enthusiastic
59:28
about doing their job and they're executing it as well as
59:32
you've trained them. You know, that trauma of me
59:35
being that cook and being so weeded and then seeing the owner
59:40
of the restaurant playing video games on their phone at the bar
59:43
is still like right here, Like I can still see it like it was
59:47
yesterday. And I don't I can't be that guy
59:51
to the people who are giving everything for me at the
59:55
restaurant. So I don't play video games at
59:59
the bar. That's.
1:00:00
Good, good. I did the quarter.
1:00:05
No, but I look, I, I, I could tell you that from my own
1:00:09
experience is it sounds like you are running a very efficient
1:00:15
operation and you should be proud of that.
1:00:17
Thank you. Thank you.
1:00:18
I mean, I have a lot to be proud of.
1:00:20
Yeah, that. Thank you very much.
1:00:21
And the positive aspect of that is that I'm spending more time
1:00:25
with my family than I have in the past, however many years
1:00:28
since we had a food truck. I'm able to go to the gym and
1:00:31
take care of myself. And my mental health is
1:00:34
actually, aside from what we've just talked about, pretty good
1:00:39
because things are going well. And, you know, I can spend time
1:00:42
with the family and have enough time to myself.
1:00:45
Yeah. The only really difficult parts
1:00:47
is when it's just so crazy at work.
1:00:50
And that, I mean, my job is such that I'm not in the kitchen as
1:00:53
much anymore, but I'm out in the dining room and I'm talking to
1:00:56
guests. And that's the thing I'm worst
1:00:58
at. And so that is like, you know,
1:01:02
if you talk to a guest that is not having a good time, that's
1:01:04
just going to wreck my entire day, probably my whole week.
1:01:07
And like I'll think about that non-stop.
1:01:08
I'll be looking at the reviews later, just waiting for
1:01:11
something to pop up. But I don't know.
1:01:15
I think most of the time I'm OK. Yes.
1:01:16
What? What do you do to unwind besides
1:01:20
to get out of the restaurant and unwind?
1:01:23
I mean mostly hang out with the family.
1:01:26
My daughter's seven years old and she, you know, likes hanging
1:01:29
out with me. We like going out to dinner.
1:01:31
I like to work out and go to the gym.
1:01:33
I like to play golf. I like to fish.
1:01:35
I like to be outside. Do do you eat BBQ outsider?
1:01:38
Hell yeah, you do BBQ. Yeah, I love BBQ.
1:01:41
Well, I know 'cause sometimes, I mean, you and I both know
1:01:44
there's people that do it and they're like, I can't eat this.
1:01:46
Yeah, I mean, it's so we don't. It's hard for me to eat a lot of
1:01:52
BBQ, but I like going to other people's places.
1:01:54
I like supporting other people. I like kind of, you know, I'm
1:01:58
friends with almost everybody in the industry, so I go to visit
1:02:01
somebody, I end up it's like going to see a friend for lunch.
1:02:04
And on top of that you get some good food too.
1:02:07
We don't serve pork ribs really, because we only bring in half
1:02:11
hogs and I've gone through this many times before, but we serve
1:02:15
whole hog because we break them down in house, whatever.
1:02:18
But I love going out to eat pork ribs at BBQ restaurants because
1:02:21
we don't have them in house all the time.
1:02:24
We don't serve potato salad, so I'll go to a BBQ restaurant and
1:02:28
be very happy eating ribs and potato salad, which sounds like
1:02:30
a nightmare for somebody like Leo, right?
1:02:32
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's funny when I think about
1:02:37
like all the, the, the, the great chefs in BBQ, you know,
1:02:43
obviously you're up there. Ally's up there from Aaron
1:02:46
Franklin's, Leo's up there. There's a lot of really great
1:02:52
people that are just moving BBQ forward.
1:02:54
So I think on behalf of people that could not, I'm barely fit
1:02:59
to like tie your shoes in your world.
1:03:02
You know what I mean? Like I have, I have, I have no
1:03:05
idea how to do what you do. And it's very impressive.
1:03:08
And you know, the book's impressive.
1:03:10
Thank you for moving the industry forward.
1:03:12
So thank you for having me. Yeah, man, we got to have you
1:03:14
back, I think. I think we've covered a lot
1:03:16
that. Was a good one.
1:03:18
For people that want to get the book, that want to follow you on
1:03:21
social media and maybe want to go eat your food or maybe want
1:03:24
to come work for you, where can they find all of that?
1:03:27
Well, you can find me online on Instagram at Evan Leroy BBQ.
1:03:31
You can follow Leroy and Lewis on Instagram at Leroy and Lewis.
1:03:35
The book is going to be on May 12th.
1:03:37
Anywhere books are sold, you can buy one in the restaurant.
1:03:39
It'll be a signed copy. You can buy it on Amazon or your
1:03:42
local retailer. If you want to pre-order.
1:03:44
I don't know when it's going to come out, but if you want you
1:03:47
can pre-order it and the. Rest it should be out.
1:03:51
Oh, perfect. Yeah, pre-order, do it.
1:03:52
Yeah. And then the restaurant is in
1:03:54
South Austin, just off of Stassi and Emerald Forest.
1:03:56
So hit me up, shoot me a message, get the book, come see
1:04:00
us. So this is your third time on
1:04:02
the show, by the way. Yeah.
1:04:03
For people that don't know, go back and listen to the other
1:04:05
two. You're in a in a very select
1:04:07
group of of people that have been on time.
1:04:11
So you got Gabe, Gabe Oralis, Rico Torres yourself, Dan
1:04:17
Kennedy, Philip Franklin Lee. And I think that's.
1:04:20
It that's good company. I'm a fan of Dan Kennedy.
1:04:23
I want to meet him. I I follow him a lot.
1:04:25
He seems like a cool guy. I was just, I was talking to him
1:04:28
on the phone as I was driving up to do this podcast with you and
1:04:34
I, I said, did you guys know each other?
1:04:35
He's like, no, but I'm a fan of his work.
1:04:37
So he said the exact same thing about you.
1:04:38
So yeah, there. There you go.
1:04:40
All right, Chef, thank you so much.
1:04:42
Yeah. Thank you.
1:04:44
All right, that's the show. If you liked it, make sure you
1:04:46
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1:04:48
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1:04:51
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1:04:53
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1:04:56
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a paid member. The link is in the notes.
1:05:03
We'll see you next week. Hit the porno music no small
1:05:06
address in the kitchen mix it dropping chef Dallas no fiction
1:05:10
stirring up the beats heat enough to.