Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / Taking Over the World - One Restaurant at a Time Ep. 60

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Taking Over the World - One Restaurant at a Time Ep. 60 · 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 Natara. On today's episode, we're going
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  to talk about taking over the world with your restaurant.
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  Stay tuned. Now, before we get into this
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  episode, just want to give everyone a very brief update.
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  For those of you that have been asking, I've translated the
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  first book, Culinary Leadership Fundamentals, into Italian and
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  I'm working on the remaining books.
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  Hopefully within a week or so, they'll all be ready to go.
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  So for those of you that needed your Italian version, it's ready
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  to go. Spanish versions are live, and
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  of course the English versions are live.
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  So if you don't have those books, go to chefspsa.com.
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  All five books are available, including three free ebooks, 100
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  basic recipes, critical path to opening up a restaurant and a
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  culinary dictionary. Because you need to know the
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  slang. That culinary dictionary, by the
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  way, I don't know if I've ever said this, but there's there's
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  the slang in there, there's the proper terms in there, and
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  there's also slang that's unique to me that I that I put in
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  there, slang that I would say with my chef friends.
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  So there's some, there might be some new words that you're
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  unfamiliar with and they're like a Halloween ninja or kitchen
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  karate. Anyway, those are my words.
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  So when you see other people using them, know who started it?
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  Right here. Chef's PSA.
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  What inspired today's episode? So this past week I had the
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  opportunity to go to two different friends restaurants,
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  one of them, Alex Castro, He's the chef over at 7 Spirits in
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  Austin, TX and he used to work for me prior.
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  Really good chef makes incredible Mexican food and I
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  went to go check out his kitchen and I went to go try his food.
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  It's very good. So shout out to Seven Spirits in
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  Austin if you happen to be there.
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  Great bar program, great food. Go check it out.
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  Shout out to Alex and he was giving me a tour of his kitchen
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  and showing me look, the tapes cut straight, the towels are
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  folded. It was really proud of me and
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  his kitchen looked really fantastic.
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  I was happy to see him. I love, I love seeing people
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  that I've worked with shine and come into their own.
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  So really happy for him. And then later on that week, I
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  went to go visit a good friend of mine, Gabor Alice, who's
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  opening up his restaurant also in Austin, TX called Bacalar.
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  He's a previous Top Chef winner, fantastic cook, went to go see
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  his place, got the tour. Beautiful, was going to be one
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  of the most beautiful restaurants in the city, and I
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  know his food, so it's going to be excellent as well.
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  So I spent a little bit of time hanging out with him this past
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  week talking about his restaurant.
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  But the reason I bring this up is because as I was in Seven
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  Spirits Kitchen and Restaurant, and then I was in in Gabe's
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  Kitchen and getting the back of the house tour and seeing what
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  he's doing and getting excited as they're in preopening.
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  I started to reminisce a little bit about my last experience in
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  opening up a restaurant and what my mindset was like and how fun
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  it is and how intense it is and how exciting it is and then the
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  timing of it. I happen to be listening to an
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  old podcast interview I did with Flavors Unknown.
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  Shout out to Emmanuel LaRoche, good friend of mine.
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  Great podcast as well and he interviewed me several years
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  ago. I don't know the exact date of
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  the interview, but I want to say maybe it was like 2018 or 2019
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  and I went back and listened to it earlier today because it
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  popped up on my timeline. It was funny for me to listen to
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  it because I'm very much a chef. Still switched on, thinking like
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  a chef in the grind. You could even if you, if you
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  happen to listen to you can even see how I talk.
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  It's probably much different to how I speak right now because I
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  was still in that. I don't want to say I was wound
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  up, but I'm much more relaxed right now that I don't have
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  anyone reporting to me. I'm not trying to conquer the
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  world. But it was good and it he
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  brought up a story in that podcast which made me think
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  about today's episode when I was opening up the restaurant called
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  Garrison, which is a great restaurant and you know, I would
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  say arguably some of the best food in that city, at least
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  according to several lists. And the the chefs there, Chef
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  Graham Little Chef Jacob Chischen, extremely talented
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  chefs. And I would, I'd put Chef Jacob
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  up against a lot of chefs up there and incredibly talented
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  chefs. So shout out to Jacob.
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  But anyway, when we were opening up that restaurant, we weren't
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  allowed in the building, but we needed to create in in.
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  In our case we needed to create about 1000 recipes because it
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  was multiple concepts, but we didn't have a kitchen to cook
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  out of. But we specifically, when we
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  were talking about Garrison, we needed to probably create about
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  30 dishes and then whittle it down to the few that that were
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  going to be the ones that make the menu.
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  And when we were opening this restaurant, there was a lot of
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  pressure on us because of what I had done previously in my
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  career, the team that I had assembled, the amount of money
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  that was going into this building, the amount of press
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  that was behind it, the amount of people talking, there was
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  things that were said that were positive, things that were said
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  that were negative. More importantly than anything
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  is I wanted to plant my flag in the ground and establish that we
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  were at the top of the food chain in Austin when it came to
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  the level of culinary and the level of food that we were
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  putting out. Mind you, this is about six
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  years ago, so the food scene from Austin has definitely
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  evolved. And when I go back and look at
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  the food that we put on in 2017, it's it's definitely stuff that
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  looks a little bit dated. But the food that they're doing
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  now obviously evolves with the times.
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  And what we ended up doing is we ended up renting an Airbnb
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  because we had no test kitchen. And we went in there and there
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  was, I want to say, 8 chefs, because we called ourselves the
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  Hateful 8. And we went in there and every
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  day was just head down to cook. And we had to create these
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  recipes, weigh everything out, measure it to the gram, taste
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  it. No, it needs more of this.
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  It needs more acidity, It needs more salt.
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  It's not on the level, it's not creative enough.
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  And there, there was a lot of stakeholders in the, in this
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  restaurant, 3 particular stakeholders that I'll call out
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  was obviously myself being the head chef, Jason Purcell, who
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  was the chef to cuisine, fantastic, phenomenal chef, and
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  Atticus Grant, who was my #2 in charge.
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  And all three of us had very different backgrounds, but we
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  had to come together and create something exceptional for this
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  restaurant. So we'd go through these dishes
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  and taste them and we talk and is is this on the level that is
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  the same as the best restaurants in our city?
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  Or if not, a little bit better and we'd sit down and we'd
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  dissect them. I would have different chef
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  friends of mine coming in, would come in and taste and I'd want
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  them to pick it apart. I wanted people to see what we
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  were doing and say, okay, there's a new game in town.
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  We were extremely competitive but also extremely secretive in
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  what we were doing. But when you're opening up a
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  restaurant, you have to be a little bit aspirational.
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  So early on, the 1st 2 chefs that were hired on this project
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  was myself and my chef Atticus, and we had sat in the office and
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  we were talking about we really need this restaurant to be one
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  of the best restaurants in the city, but we needed a benchmark.
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  Now he was just moving from Chicago at the time and I had
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  never eaten there, but he had. And I really looked at Smith
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  Restaurant and said, you know, that that is kind of the level
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  that we need to be. Because Austin at the time, even
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  though, you know, people look at Austin as one of the most
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  progressive food cities in the country at that time, I still
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  didn't think it was on the level of a Chicago or a San Francisco
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  or New York for that matter. And then one of the chefs was
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  coming from Chicago and the other chef was coming from San
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  Francisco. We had another chef coming from
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  New York. So we kind of knew what the what
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  the top end food scene would look like, but this needed to be
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  ours now. We ran into a little bit of
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  difficulty with this because we had no proof in concept, meaning
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  we hadn't demonstrated that the level of food that we wanted to
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  pull off was actually going to be accepted in Austin.
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  That was problem number one. Problem number two was just
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  because three or four chefs could executed at the top,
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  didn't mean the 10 or 15 people that worked for us could.
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  So we had to think, we're coming into a city and we're trying to
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  push food to a certain level, but the guests might not be
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  ready for that level and the cooks also might not be ready to
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  cook at that level. So that created a little bit of
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  a dilemma. So when we're doing this, we had
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  to make sure that the recipes were ironclad, detailed,
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  everything was specked out, weighed to the gram, and like I
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  said, multiple iterations of it. But when we opened the
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  restaurant, we put a couple of things on there that we thought,
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  okay, this is probably going to stay on the menu for a long
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  time. But we introduced items with
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  training wheels and we had a plan that said, okay, we're
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  going to start here because we need to introduce new techniques
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  to the cooks that are working for us and we need to introduce
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  new flavor profiles to the city that we're in.
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  So we're going to put training wheels on and take them here.
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  And we had mapped out a journey that with every seasonal menu
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  change and in our case we were changing on the season.
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  So December 21st, April 21st, June 21st, September 21st.
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  So the 21st is usually the the first day of the new season.
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  So we always set that as the marker that that would be the
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  first day that we'd implement the new menu.
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  So we were updating our menu 4 * a year annually, But with each
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  menu iteration progressively amping up the difficulty
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  setting, not just for the cooks but also for our loyal
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  customers. We would take them on this
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  journey, introducing them to more and more complex
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  techniques, different flavors, pushing them out of their
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  comfort zone a little bit with the ultimate end goal of, like I
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  said, taking over the world. We wanted to become the best
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  restaurant in the city. Because when you're building an
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  empire, right, first you take over the town, then the city,
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  then the country, then the world, right?
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  So I mean that that's how you scale up.
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  If you can't be the best chef in your city, you're not going to
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  be the best chef in your state or your country or the world for
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  that matter. So you have to start small.
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  So our primary objective was how do we become the best restaurant
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  in the city. And with every menu iteration we
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  started to get more and more difficult.
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  Now if you've if you're not from Austin, the one thing that I
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  could tell you about the Austin food scene is it is a little bit
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  eclectic and it it has its own unique flavor.
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  So we were also trying to play to the crowd here in the city.
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  So we had to, we had to quickly think what was our greatest
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  advantage. And so we sat around in a room
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  and I remember talking with the chefs and I said let's if
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  they're not embracing us then let's just create our own lane.
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  And what we recognized an opportunity, our own lane in
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  this particular city is that there wasn't anyone really doing
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  the high end. Well, like the the luxury
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  market, the lane there was pretty clear there wasn't a lot
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  of competition in there. So I said since most other
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  people can't do it, let's just dive right into that lane and
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  let's go more high end. Let's put the white truffles on,
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  let's get the caviar, let's get the A5 Wag U, let's put the
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  tasting menu on, let's push it to the next level.
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  Let's buy the Gold Bernard Ode plates and let's amplify the
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  luxury end to be a little bit more provocative.
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  So let's push to be a little bit more high end.
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  And what we found was that we created a lane all for ourselves
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  with minimal competition and we became that luxury restaurant in
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  the city that needed it at the time because it was still
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  growing. Now I I got to say this was
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  years ago, so now Austin's much different.
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  I think the food has progressed in the city tremendously since
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  then and I think it's not uncommon now to find caviar and
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  truffles and things like that or even the the luxury market.
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  I think there's some incredible restaurants here in the city
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  specifically. But I but I get asked this often
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  is how do you start introducing things with more and more
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  complexity. So I talked about this before,
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  but I would pair them up with something that's popular with
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  something that's maybe on the fringe and pair them up
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  together. So that way you could introduce
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  the more fringe ingredient with the very popular thing.
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  And so I I did this strategy when we were opening up the
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  restaurant, you know, the chef to cuisine would come to me and
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  we'd look at the dish and be like, yes, that's it.
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  He was, he was extremely creative that had a dynamic team
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  for that restaurant, which is part of the reason why it was so
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  successful. But we had a laser like focus on
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  what we were trying to achieve. I still view Garrison as one of
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  the best restaurants in the city, and I think an argument
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  could be made food wise. It's in that interchangeable #1
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  spot. But in order to get there, you
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  had to have a very likeminded group of individuals that all
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  believed in that mission and all understood that we needed to get
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  there. But the cooks had to come up at
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  a certain level and the guests had to come up at a certain
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  level. So when you're in some other
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  markets, I'm just making this up.
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  Let's say you're in a in Nebraska.
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  And and by the way, I've never been to Nebraska.
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  I don't know, I don't know how the restaurant scene is there,
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  but let's just say you're in Nebraska and you're trying to go
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  Ultra Lux and you want to bring in this Noma style menu.
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  They might not be ready for it. They might not be ready for
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  reindeer penises with some salad that just might not be their
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  comfort zone yet. So you might want to pump the
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  brakes and introduce things slowly but surely, because it
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  could be the kiss of death for your restaurant.
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  Because ultimately, if you bring a concept before it's time, it's
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  going to fail. Just because it works now
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  doesn't mean it's going to work 10 years ago.
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  And it doesn't mean that it was bad ten years ago.
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  It just means it's time had not yet come.
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  So I, I, I caution people trying to take over the world
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  immediately, right out the gate, understand your market, go in
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  with a little bit of training wheels, test the waters and see
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  if the city's going to be ready for it.
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  I'm not sure, one last thing with you, because we're jokingly
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  calling this episode taking over the world.
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  But one of the things that I had done previously and sometime I
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  still do to this day, like when you want to get into that
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  mindset, it's a good thing to study them to and to study
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  greatness and to kind of put yourself in the mindset of those
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  great people. So something that I do is I will
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  read books or listen to audiobooks of great people in
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  history. So whether it's Alexander the
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  Great, Julius Caesar, Jengas, Khan, Napoleon, whoever, right.
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  So if you're if you're trying to conquer the culinary world, you
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  need to know how conquerors do it, right?
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  There's some strategy involved, understanding the art of war
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  like you want. You have to understand how the
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  tactics are used to take over what the strategy is and not
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  just go in with reckless abandon.
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  There has to be a certain level of thoughtfulness when you're
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  going into these scenarios. Opening a restaurant is like,
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  metaphorically crossing the Rubicon, right?
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  When Caesar crossed the Rubicon, it was like it was an act of
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  war. That's what opening up a
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  restaurant is. It's the point of no return.
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  Once you've put your foot in the water, you're in.
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  And when you're talking about people putting in a lot of money
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  in this owners, investors, you have to act swiftly.
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  If you made a bad decision on a menu item, you have to adjust
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  very quickly because restaurants live and die every day off
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  sales. One bad review hurts way more
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  than people realize. Anyway, food for thought.
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  So something I thought about recently.
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  Kind of Random Thoughts Podcast Take over the world.
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  If you're out there conquering the world, good luck to you.
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  Focus strategic, create great food.
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  Have a plan. First the city, then the state,
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  then the country, then the world.
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  That's what Chef's PSA Podcast is doing #1 podcast, 5 Star
• 15:39
  Podcast. If you want to support the show,
• 15:42
  hit the subscribe button. If you're on YouTube, hit the
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  Like button. Make sure you leave five stars.
• 15:46
  Go to chefspsa.com. Get all the books Culinary
• 15:50
  Leadership, Fundamentals in Multiple Languages Kitchen, Art
• 15:54
  of War, Bad Sue, Good Chef Line Cook Survival Manual, The Free
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  ebooks. See you next week.
• 15:59
  Hit the porno music.