Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / You're Only As Good As Your Last Meal Ep. 64

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You're Only As Good As Your Last Meal Ep. 64 · Chef's PSA Podcast

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  Hello Chefs, This is Chef's PSA Podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andre Natero. In today's episode, we're going
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  to talk about why you're only as good as your last meal.
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  Stay tuned. Now, before we get into it, let
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  me give you a brief update. For those of you that missed the
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  update last week, I have a free ebook that I just put out, Food
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  Cost Mastery. It's on my website,
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  chefspsa.com/books. You can get it for free and it's
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  a companion to the three-part Food Cost episode I did a while
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  back. Make sure you go get it.
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  It's free. Like you don't want free
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  knowledge. What's wrong with you?
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  The other thing for those of you who speak Italian that have been
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  waiting for the books. I just finished the last books
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  translation literally right before I jumped on this podcast
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  to start recording How Not to Be the Biggest Idiot in the
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  Kitchen. I'm going to publish it tomorrow
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  and it normally takes about 24 hours to go live.
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  So by Monday, September 18th the book should be live.
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  So all the books are available in Italian, Spanish and English
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  and as I just said, chefs psa.com/books.
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  And so what's the reason for this episode?
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  One, because I saw a post the other day by my friend from
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  Susio talk Chef David Susio, and his post was you're only as good
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  as your last meal. And it got me thinking because I
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  have a Chef's PSA that says if you're only as good as your last
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  meal, that means you could completely redeem yourself with
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  your next. So as I mentioned earlier today,
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  I was translating the How Not to Be the Biggest Idiot in the
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  Kitchen and I reread what I had written in the first book I ever
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  wrote about how you're only as good as your last meal, but the
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  redemption arc opportunity is there.
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  It got me thinking. I wanted to do an episode on
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  this and talk about it a little bit, where to expand upon the
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  subject and alleviate some of that pressure that people have
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  because of that expression. You're only as good as your last
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  meal. And let's break down what that
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  means a little bit. The reason people say that is
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  because what matters is now the food that's in front of you
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  today, the food that you're serving, what you're cooking at
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  this moment, that's what matters.
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  What you cooked before doesn't matter.
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  What you plan on cooking tomorrow doesn't matter.
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  The customer right in front of you is what matters at this
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  moment. So with that being said, if the
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  food that you're serving right now is not good, then the
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  current impression, which may be the final impression from the
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  person eating your food, will not be a good one.
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  So in their mind, you're only as good as your last meal.
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  And if the last meal wasn't good, well then you're not good.
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  Now. Is that 100% accurate?
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  No, not necessarily, because maybe they've come to your
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  restaurant 10 times and nine out of the 10 times it was
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  exceptional. But the one last time it wasn't.
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  Well, the person with common sense will say maybe they had an
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  off night. We have history with this
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  person. Clearly we've had good
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  experiences there. They know how to cook.
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  They must be having an off night.
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  We'll be back. It will leave a little bit of a
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  bad impression on their mind. Now, let's assume you're not the
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  chef for a moment. Let's just say you're a cook on
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  the line. Well, if the chef has no frame
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  of reference with you and they've never seen you cook
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  before and you put up food and it's not great, then that's
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  their impression. You're only as good as that meal
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  that you put up. That doesn't mean that you can't
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  redeem yourself, but that means in the moment, that's the only
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  thing they have to go off of. Now, if you're consistently
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  putting up bad food, then they're going to determine that
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  you're not a good cook or you're not a good chef and you can't
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  blame them, right? That's their impression of you.
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  That's the only frame of reference that they have trying
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  your food and it hasn't been a good one.
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  Think about it like this. Your restaurant comes highly
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  recommended by a friend and they go in and they eat and you have
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  an off night and they have a terrible experience.
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  They're going to say, you know what, I'm never going back
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  there. It wasn't a good experience.
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  You might like it, but I don't. And when people are paying their
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  money, that's a consideration. A lot of people don't go out to
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  eat five nights a week. Maybe it's someone that's on a
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  budget and they only go out to eat once a month, so that means
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  they only eat at 12 restaurants a year.
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  Now, if you're living in a primary market with a lot of
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  good restaurants and they could only eat out 12 times, the
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  likelihood of them hitting your restaurant twice as low and it's
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  probably 0 if the one time that they go, it's not great.
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  So you have to keep that in mind.
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  Every single guest that's coming into your restaurant, it might
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  be the last time you oversee them, and it's the only time
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  that you have an opportunity to make good impression on them.
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  You can even take that in context if you're doing an
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  interview at a place. Or maybe you're a stars.
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  And I know stars are a controversial subject, so maybe
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  you're the new cook. Whatever the case may be, it's a
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  new kitchen. But this is the only time
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  they've seen you cook. If you're interviewing, you
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  might not be coming back tomorrow.
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  If you have an off day and it doesn't mean you're a bad cook,
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  it just means that you weren't the best cook on that day.
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  So is this the end? You serve a bad meal?
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  You undercooked to the chicken, you overcooked the steak, you
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  sent out the dish a little bit too salty.
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  It's not the end of the world. Every single chef out there that
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  you know has had a bad day. There's not one chef that hits a
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  home run every single time. They're at bat.
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  Doesn't exist. Fairy tale land.
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  I'll share a personal story with you.
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  When I was coming up as a chef, my career was on the up and I
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  thought I was an unstoppable force in the kitchen, at least
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  in the city that I was in. I was in a lot of magazines and
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  I was getting a lot of accolades.
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  But one thing leads to another, and before you know it, the
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  restaurant that I'm at is closing.
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  That was a huge blow to my ego because a lot of people, myself
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  sometimes included, thought I was done for.
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  That's it. Done will not recover from this
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  bad review or this bad service or this restaurant closure that
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  happens to a lot of chefs. But there's two ways that you
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  could take that. One, you could take it as an
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  opportunity to get better. Or two, you could take it as a
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  literal failure and never come back from.
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  And this is where it becomes a critical choice for you.
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  What are you going to do? Fork in the road?
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  Do you believe the criticism? Do you believe that you're only
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  as good as your last meal and there's no opportunity to
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  recover? Or is the hero's journey, the
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  redemption arc, slain the dragon?
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  It's not about how many times you get knocked down, it's about
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  how many times you get up. We've all seen this story.
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  I mean, in every single Hollywood movie is based off of
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  it. Every single character arc and
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  every great story is based off of it.
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  So why doesn't it apply to cooking?
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  It does. I'll tell you that if you know
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  the stories of a lot of great chefs, you know, one chef that
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  comes to mind is Thomas Keller. He opened up Raquel restaurant
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  in New York. It closed.
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  He had a series of bad luck before he ever opened up The
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  French Laundry. And then now one could argue
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  he's the greatest American chef to ever live.
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  How many other chefs has that happened to?
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  When I was down in the dumps years, years ago because I had a
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  bad review, a chef came up to me, a chef friend of mine, and
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  and really lifted me up and gave me encouraging words that I
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  needed to hear at that time, he said.
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  This is the first time you've failed big.
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  I failed Big Lots of times you have, you have the night, cry
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  into your beer, have a pity party, but tomorrow get back
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  after it. Now the fact of the matter is
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  tomorrow didn't get back after it.
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  It took me some time, but it was the message.
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  It was the message that I could have accepted failure and given
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  up then and there. And the truth of the matter is,
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  a lot of chefs that I came up with aren't in the game anymore.
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  And I'm not saying I'm in the chef game anymore.
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  I mean, I'm Chef podcasting or content creation, writing books.
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  But I know many chefs that had a little bit of bad luck and never
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  recovered from. It's a common story in our
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  industry. So when you're facing the
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  situation, what do you do? Do you choose to recover or not?
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  So if the expression is you're only as good as your last meal,
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  then the reverse must be true also, right?
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  You can't have one force without an equal and opposite force,
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  right? This is the laws of the
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  universe, right? Yin and Yang, so on and so
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  forth. Right.
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  Dark and light, good and bad, et cetera.
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  For those of you that might not know, and I think this to be
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  true, so I could be wrong, but the yin and Yang symbol has two
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  fish on it, a Blackfish and a whitefish.
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  And within the two fish, there's a little dot of white in the
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  black, and there's a little dot of black and the white, and
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  they're chasing each other. And what that represents is
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  there's always a little bit of opportunity for chaos in one or
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  the other. The dark is always transforming
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  into the light, and the light is always transforming into the
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  dark. So what does that mean?
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  That means take this example for a moment.
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  Let's say you're a chef who's never achieved much in their
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  career. You've never put out a great
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  meal. You've never had your own
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  restaurant. You've never had any success at
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  all. Your food is below average,
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  nothing exceptional. But one day you just wake up and
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  you decide today is the day I'm going to change everything.
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  And you write the best menu you've ever written and you cook
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  like you've never cooked before. And you create some amazing,
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  beautiful food, and the right person walks into your
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  restaurant and they try it for the first time.
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  It could completely change the trajectory of your career.
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  So everything that came before did not matter, because in one
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  moment of brilliance, you created something exceptional.
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  So then that's the message today.
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  If you're only as good as your last meal, then greatness is
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  really only one meal ahead. You have a complete redemption
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  arc right in front of you for the taking.
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  What are you going to do with it?
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  Are you going to sit there and let it slip through your fingers
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  or are you going to use this as an opportunity to show your
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  greatness? Anyway, I'll leave that up to
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  you. Food for thought.
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  If you want to support the show, you know what to do.
• 10:11
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• 10:14
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• 10:16
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• 10:20
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• 10:32
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