Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / Restaurants vs Private Dining with Chef Francis Pascal Ep. 189

Transcript

Restaurants vs Private Dining with Chef Francis Pascal Ep. 189 · Chef's PSA Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello chefs, this is Chefs PSA and I'm your host Andre Natera.
• 0:03
  Today my guest is Chef Francis Pascal, chef and owner of
• 0:08
  Endodore, a high end private dining company based out of
• 0:12
  Chicago. Today we're going to talk about
• 0:14
  some advice for anyone wanting to get into the private dining
• 0:17
  business. The importance of making sure
• 0:19
  you have a contract, having a rhythm working with other chefs.
• 0:22
  If you've ever thought about exploring the private dining
• 0:25
  business, you don't want to miss this one.
• 0:27
  Stay tuned. I came here in 2004 and it was
• 0:43
  just my immediate family. We basically just got up after
• 0:46
  our parents let us know and like within a week's time that we
• 0:49
  were leaving and we got to this. Is in Albania.
• 0:51
  This is in Albania. We got to say goodbye.
• 0:53
  To our family, how old are you? I'm eleven at this point and
• 0:56
  that we just basically show up to Chicago, didn't know anybody
• 0:59
  here and just moved into this tiny little apartment.
• 1:02
  My parents started going to work and all of a sudden I went from
• 1:06
  being in an environment where I knew tons of people to all of a
• 1:09
  sudden just like being here alone, not speaking the language
• 1:11
  and having to basically just like start living life almost on
• 1:15
  my own. Like I I had an older sibling,
• 1:17
  but. So for people that don't know,
• 1:19
  why did you guys have to leave Albania?
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  So obviously this is a big land of opportunity kind of
• 1:24
  situation. But obviously there was after
• 1:27
  the breakup of Yugoslavia, everybody was like fighting for
• 1:29
  territory and there was a war, a genocide that was happening in
• 1:34
  the northern part of Albania. And it was just not a good place
• 1:37
  to raise raise kids. It was after the fall of
• 1:40
  communism as well. So it was basically literally
• 1:42
  anarchy. Like there would just be like
• 1:44
  raining bullets a lot of the time, like.
• 1:47
  You, I mean, do you remember? That yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  Like Albania has over something like 700,000 bunkers, more than
• 1:54
  any other country, like per capita.
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  So like they were just ready for war all the time.
• 1:58
  Obviously we're a part of like, you know, World War One, World
• 2:00
  War 2, the Cold War, this whole situation.
• 2:03
  And then we had a dictator and we were under a communist regime
• 2:07
  until basically I was born. But that just carried on into
• 2:11
  our lives still. And again, like there just
• 2:13
  wasn't once a borders opened up, there was just like a mass
• 2:15
  exodus of people and it was just anarchy.
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  Like there was no real political party.
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  People were kind of fighting for power.
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  And it was just a tough little environment to kind of grow up.
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  And or at least like from the outside perspective, when you're
• 2:28
  a kid, you don't know any better.
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  And if you're like growing up, quote UN quote poor and
• 2:33
  everybody else around you is just as poor, you don't know
• 2:35
  that you're poor. So like, I wouldn't say that I
• 2:38
  had necessarily had a bad childhood coming to the United
• 2:41
  States. All of a sudden I realized that
• 2:43
  there was a lot of people that had way more than you do.
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  And all of a sudden, like that matters, but it never did.
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  Then we all just like had, you know, all my grandparents come
• 2:52
  from families, have like 15 kids, so they have a ton of
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  kids. So I got a billion cousins and
• 2:58
  aunts and uncles and all that kind of stuff.
• 2:59
  So we were always a power, like a part of a really big community
• 3:03
  all the time. And all the people that live
• 3:06
  there had lived there for literally hundreds of years.
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  Everybody knows everybody. And it's, it's not like here at
• 3:12
  all where you kind of like want to stay away from your neighbor.
• 3:15
  You might live in these communities, but you like kind
• 3:17
  of want to stay to your own. Like they're everybody knows
• 3:20
  everybody. They're all in each other's
• 3:21
  businesses all the time. So that's the annoying part of
• 3:25
  it, is that everybody's always in your business.
• 3:27
  And then there's the really great part of it in which you
• 3:29
  have a really large community that you can always lean to.
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  So you're 11 years old. Yeah.
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  And your your parents come to you and say, hey, we're we're
• 3:37
  leaving it. Was this a very sudden decision
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  or was this planned out it? Was calculated on their end.
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  My mom literally won the lottery that that's literally what it's
• 3:44
  called. You like apply and this happens
• 3:46
  in a bunch of countries all over the world, but you apply and
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  then like once a year they pick out X amount of people.
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  And then she'd apply to a bunch of places like Canada, New
• 3:53
  Zealand, Germany, Italy. And then we, we got accepted
• 3:56
  into the US. So they, it seems like they got
• 4:00
  their plans together, but they really didn't let us know.
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  We went to like our grandparents village for like that last time
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  that summer, just hung out there.
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  And then, yeah, next thing you know, it's it's time to go and
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  it's January and we're in Chicago and it's like freezing
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  cold. So you go from Albania, you
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  arrive in Chicago. It's freezing cold.
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  Yeah, fucking right now it's cold.
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  I mean, right now it's cold in Chicago.
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  We just had this. You were at -27 you got I, I
• 4:22
  came here, people were complaining of it.
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  I got, it's 37. I'm like do this.
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  It was 44, what I came with. Yeah, it was.
• 4:27
  Like 60° warmer here, it's nice. Yeah, yeah.
• 4:30
  Well in in Texas when you have these these ice storms, like the
• 4:32
  whole, the whole state shuts down.
• 4:35
  I had to cancel like 4 podcasts. So I'm behind on a couple of
• 4:39
  episodes. I had AI had a sorry chefs.
• 4:41
  I know that we're supposed to come on, but we had to
• 4:43
  reschedule a couple of episodes. But anyway, we digress.
• 4:47
  So you're 11 years old, you arrive in Chicago and it was
• 4:51
  just your immediate family. So.
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  So you're leaving behind everyone?
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  Everybody. Yeah, I have my, my parents and
• 4:59
  my older sibling and like my parents are, they were in the
• 5:03
  economic world back in Albania, like they went to school, got
• 5:05
  their degrees, etcetera. Once you come here, those are
• 5:07
  nullified, right? So now you're in your early to
• 5:11
  mid 40s, you're going to a place where you don't speak the
• 5:13
  language. You have to work 2 jobs and
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  they're like janitorial jobs. They're not like in the field in
• 5:18
  which you're in. And so like, imagine that
• 5:21
  sacrifice, you know, like all the bullshit that I complain
• 5:24
  about or people my age, like complained about, like I'm the
• 5:27
  first person in my family to know what it's like to pursue,
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  meaning, you know, my parents just survived.
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  My grandparents just survived. Like they were just brought up
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  in these really kind of harsh environments in which you were
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  just required to participate and it didn't matter whether you
• 5:38
  like the job or not, you just had to do that job.
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  So I think like a tremendous part of my work ethic has come
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  from that of just being like, dude, look, look at what my
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  parents would sacrifice just to make sure that I have a better
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  future. Like I have a lot riding on this
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  and I think about that all the time in the sense of like, I
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  need to give back to my community because they've always
• 5:55
  been there to support me. And so it's just it's always in
• 6:00
  the forefront of of my mind and and how I lead life.
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  When I was younger, I, I worked in a in a restaurant in Colorado
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  and I want to say like 80% of the staff there was from Russia.
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  And I remember having conversations with some of them
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  and like a busser or a dishwasher specifically.
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  I remember one of the bussers was a doctor and saying, you
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  know, and I remember thinking like, you know, and I, I was
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  young, I didn't understand like, well, why are you a busser?
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  Like, why aren't you a doctor? If you're a doctor?
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  And I, you know, sometimes I would think, oh, these guys are
• 6:30
  full of shit. I didn't believe them not
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  understanding, you know, what people were going through on the
• 6:35
  other side of the world. How tough was it to leave your
• 6:40
  family behind? Some assuming cousins, friends,
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  aunts, uncles. I think initially it was like
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  fun being somewhere different. Like you kind of don't
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  understand that you're like going away forever when you're
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  that young. You're like, yeah, we're moving,
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  but you don't really know what that means.
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  And we, we, we've been back. Like I go back.
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  I obviously I still talk to all my family there.
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  But like, man, the craziest part is that you start to become
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  somebody that they used to know. Like, it's just like the saddest
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  thing. It makes me super emotional
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  because like, you know, like I have cousins and when you're a
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  kid, like you can look at somebody that's like 30 or 35
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  and be like, dude, like that's fucking old.
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  Like that person's really up there, right?
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  So I could look at like my uncles at that time or etcetera.
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  And now they're like getting older.
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  And so there's like this big long period in which you, you're
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  not there for this period in their life, but you know them
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  and then they don't get to hear from you as much and vice versa.
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  And there wasn't like social media, so it's not like you
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  could like, follow each other at this time, so.
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  Stale mail writing letters, right?
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  Yeah, man. Or like you would have to like
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  buy these little cards and like punch the numbers in to be able
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  to call. But they're like 7 hours ahead.
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  So you got to call at specific times.
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  And like, so you become somebody that they used to know and now
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  they're having kids and now you've never met their kids and
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  they're having this life. And they, they, they talk to
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  they talk to their kids about how this is like their cousin
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  that lives in the US. Like, when I was a kid, my dad's
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  uncle lived in Boston and he would like, send us these
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  packages with like, you know, clothes or whatever, right?
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  And like, that's always how I knew him was just like this
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  person that I'd never met. But that was over there.
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  And then you just become so like weirdly desensitized to not
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  having that around you, even though it's such a big part of
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  of who you are. How did that shape you as a chef
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  when you came here and you started working and you started
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  working at kitchens? How did your your identity being
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  Albanian shape your work ethic and how you approach kitchens
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  when you when you first got into them?
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  I loved every moment of it right away because of two things.
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  Like I played soccer my entire life, team sport, like you all
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  win together or lose together. And then B was just like the
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  militant aspect of it, like growing up in a place like
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  Albania, where obviously it was like communist, like everybody
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  had to be a part of the army. Like everybody had to serve.
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  My parents have both had to serve.
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  And so like, I just grew up in a yes, Sir environment.
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  Like your parents word is just law.
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  Like your grandparents word is law.
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  Like you don't. And so like the moment that I
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  jumped into kitchens, I was like, yeah, this is for me.
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  Like I never had a single problem with like following
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  chefs or just like doing the things that I needed to be
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  doing. Like, and I freaking I I hate
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  authority. Like it.
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  It's why I work for myself. Like I, I can't stand any sort
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  of like authoritarian figure at all.
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  But like, when it comes down to, you know, following somebody
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  that I really respect, like I, I don't care what position I have
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  to play. Like as long as the team is
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  winning, that's all that matters.
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  And so those two things was, you know, playing soccer and then
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  growing up in a place like that where it was super, it was just
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  very Shrek, man. I just grew up in a, in a
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  fucking tight environment. Like my parents just had a, a
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  stronghold on us at all times, like date.
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  It's not like here where it's just you kind of know the
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  teachers and you kind of go to like their parents teachers.
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  And it's like, no, like they went to school with the people
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  that end up becoming your teachers and they know their
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  parents. And so like anywhere you walk
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  within the neighborhoods, like everybody's like watching you,
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  you know, so it's like it's this, it's this you, you grow up
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  with the, the feeling that you have to like make your people
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  proud. And so you constantly have to
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  watch how you behave and like, you want to be known as somebody
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  that bends over backwards to take care of other people.
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  And so like your reputation matters.
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  And so like in kitchens, I was like, I got to go hard.
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  Like I have to be one of the best people here just in
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  general. Like I've just always been super
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  competitive too. So that part of it, I was like,
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  I, I need to make sure that I'm participating.
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  And that's what it. And that's, I guess the biggest
• 10:31
  difference between something like capitalism over communism.
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  It's like everybody's quote UN quote equal, but it's just like,
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  you know, in the Western world, you have to be #1 or you're not
• 10:41
  relevant, which is just not true.
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  Like everybody plays a, a, a small part into making the
• 10:45
  entire society happen. Whereas like in, in these other
• 10:48
  places, like you just, you have to participate, You have to do
• 10:51
  your part, but there's no such thing as you don't participate
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  at all. So jumping into kitchens, I was
• 10:56
  like, OK, great. Like if I'm working Garmo or
• 10:58
  Steam or, or Saute or whatever it is, I'm like, I just need to
• 11:01
  do my little part here really well to make sure that like the
• 11:03
  rest of, of, of the team is doing well too.
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  Like I think I I got that from the beginning.
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  Did did any of your identity of being Albanian now come through
• 11:14
  and and and the food that you create and you're cooking?
• 11:17
  A little bit, but I think the crazy part is that like I grew
• 11:20
  up in a very traditional household in the sense of like,
• 11:24
  you know, the men would go to work, the women would, would,
• 11:26
  would stay at home. But like, you know, my parents
• 11:28
  didn't by that time, like they were both, they both had to
• 11:30
  work. But like the rest of the time,
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  it's like I never had to cook growing up.
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  Like I did plenty of other things, but like, I never had
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  to. Like, I don't have that story of
• 11:38
  like, I grew up. I'm like my grandmother.
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  Like, yeah, I was around like I would peel cabbages or whatever,
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  but it wasn't like I was like cooking.
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  And so like, I never really got to learn how to do a lot of all
• 11:48
  beta food until I got older and had to like be inquisitive and
• 11:51
  ask my, you know, my, my people on how to do it.
• 11:54
  But then, you know, like, even even when I was here, like we,
• 11:56
  we ate all beta food at home all the time.
• 11:58
  Like my mom would still cook all the time.
• 12:00
  Well, you've, you've worked in some really great restaurants
• 12:01
  and you've, you've worked for the Alinea group and
• 12:08
  specifically I, I, I mean, you posted a video I think the other
• 12:12
  day where you maybe you were doing a lamb, right?
• 12:14
  And you're based in slice. It looked great.
• 12:17
  I love the traditional cooking techniques for me personally.
• 12:21
  Now it's not that I don't like some of the more modernist or
• 12:25
  molecular astronomy because I do.
• 12:27
  I did that for a long time and and you know, I, I like went
• 12:31
  down that lane and said, this is what I'm going to do for me
• 12:35
  later on. I was like, you know what, I
• 12:36
  know I started doing that, but I don't like it that much.
• 12:38
  I like cooking, you know, I like the the process of making stocks
• 12:42
  and sauces and and roasting meat and things like that, you know,
• 12:46
  cooking more in the traditional sense.
• 12:49
  But that's me. I want to ask you about you
• 12:51
  because you've worked in, you know, in a lot of different
• 12:54
  styles. How does that how did that shape
• 12:56
  you and how do you cook now, having worked in so many
• 12:59
  different styles of kitchens? I think I'd definitely prefer
• 13:02
  more classical, traditional cooking.
• 13:04
  I do think that there is a lot of benefit to learning how to do
• 13:09
  things kind of the old way first and then being able to do them
• 13:12
  and, you know, take that same kind of element and practice it
• 13:16
  in in molecular gastronomy if that's the route that you want
• 13:19
  to go. My philosophy is really more
• 13:23
  around finding a really great ingredient and trying to just
• 13:25
  not fuck it up and, and just just trying to to showcase it
• 13:29
  and maybe a couple of different ways, but then keeping it very
• 13:31
  simple. I just think that it's it's
• 13:35
  always going to Trump going directly into like a three star
• 13:40
  place. Like, and I don't know, maybe
• 13:41
  sometimes like you do get to learn that that sort of thing in
• 13:43
  a three star place if you go there right away.
• 13:45
  But I think, you know, if I look back at like the first
• 13:48
  restaurants that I worked at, the first one that I worked at
• 13:50
  even for a couple of months before I went to like my actual
• 13:52
  first restaurant job was like a diner, right?
• 13:55
  And like working the egg station at a diner is fucking crazy,
• 13:58
  right? Because you're like these guys
• 14:00
  will make holidays in a double boiler like this, right?
• 14:02
  You like, that's a big batch to mess up, right?
• 14:04
  Like you're actually streaming it.
• 14:05
  You're keeping it in nine pans. Like anything.
• 14:07
  You got to constantly keep up with that temperature.
• 14:09
  Like, yeah, sure, you could add a touch of xanthem to it and
• 14:11
  make sure or you put it in an ISI and just hold it in a bath
• 14:13
  and just put it over your poached eggs.
• 14:15
  Like if you're thinking about logistics like that, like, sure,
• 14:17
  but you need to know how to make that holidays first, right?
• 14:20
  So like I worked at that place and then went directly into just
• 14:24
  like French Japanese fusion cuisine.
• 14:27
  That was a really big restaurant.
• 14:28
  We were doing probably 4 or 500 covers a night.
• 14:32
  And it was all so traditional. Like we didn't do any like sous
• 14:35
  video or anything like that. Like you cooked all fish,
• 14:37
  chicken, beef, all from raw and it was just a, a long giant line
• 14:42
  with a bunch of burners, right? So it's not even a French top.
• 14:45
  Like you have to constantly watch your pants or your sauces
• 14:46
  are not burning. You have 1 double Decker oven
• 14:50
  and you throw into like friggin you're fired on 30 different
• 14:52
  pieces of meat. You're, you're constantly
• 14:54
  touching on all of them as opposed to just being like, OK,
• 14:56
  cool. Like I have all these things
• 14:57
  individually packaged in a sous video bag.
• 15:00
  I'm dropping it at 56 for however long I'm taking it out.
• 15:02
  I'm just getting colored and searing it, finishing with
• 15:04
  butter, garlic, whatever you're doing and, and just being able
• 15:07
  to send that out. But I think like, you know,
• 15:09
  getting to the point where you can touch all the food all the
• 15:11
  time, learning on how to do basic things like emulsifying
• 15:13
  sauces on the fly and just getting the timing right.
• 15:17
  You know, like being able to communicate with everybody else
• 15:19
  in the kitchen about how long you actually need and having
• 15:22
  these people just be on your ass, man.
• 15:24
  I remember we all had timers on our stations that we were all
• 15:26
  just like clicking and just dogging each other.
• 15:28
  Like if you didn't get it. And at that time, because it's
• 15:30
  like, I thought you were the shit.
• 15:31
  Like because that's how you're acting, right?
• 15:33
  Like, and that's, you know, for me and everybody else, right?
• 15:35
  It's just like there's a level of competition in those kitchens
• 15:39
  that really kind of gets you to like, you have to just like this
• 15:42
  is one of those careers where you cannot hide.
• 15:45
  And like it's because you're in such short time restriction.
• 15:49
  Not not just like during service, but like leading up to
• 15:52
  prep and just being sure that you're like good all set up to
• 15:55
  do a giant service. I mean, it's those skills are
• 16:00
  going to translate to literally everything else that you do in
• 16:02
  life because like, you know, that's the whole, that's the
• 16:04
  whole concept behind me saying something like, you know,
• 16:08
  practice doesn't make perfect. Practice makes permanent.
• 16:10
  And it was at that same restaurant where like this
• 16:12
  patient chef, she was a patient chef at Blackbird right before
• 16:14
  that. And I'm just like, I'm young at
• 16:17
  this point, right? Like we're, we're in pre chef
• 16:19
  the one day. And I just remember so
• 16:20
  distinctively her saying practice makes permanent.
• 16:24
  And it's, it's one of these things like these concepts where
• 16:26
  it's like, you know, it, like your entire life, you've known
• 16:28
  it, but like you'd never heard anyone put it into words before.
• 16:32
  In the moment that she said that, I was like, it was like a
• 16:34
  light switch going off, right? And I was like, I knew exactly
• 16:37
  what she meant when she said that because I'm just like,
• 16:39
  dude, if you cut, if you cut corners, if you skip steps, like
• 16:42
  that's going to become your practice, right?
• 16:44
  Right. If you're just like, look, I'm
• 16:44
  just going to pick up that thing off the floor.
• 16:46
  I'm going to wipe my station. I'm going to make sure that my
• 16:47
  knife is, you know, facing straight, whatever it is.
• 16:49
  Like these little things, if you just do it all the time, like it
• 16:51
  just becomes a habit to the point where it's like breathing.
• 16:54
  You just don't even have to think about it anymore.
• 16:55
  It's like that that Aristotle quote.
• 16:57
  We are what we repeatedly do. Therefore, excellence is not an
• 17:00
  act, but a habit. And one of the things that I
• 17:03
  used to really trained my cooks on, it's like, I want so many of
• 17:06
  your good habits to be on autopilot.
• 17:08
  And they would, they would get annoyed with me.
• 17:09
  Like, you know, fold your towel this way, put your knife right
• 17:11
  here all the time, you know, set your, your bane right here.
• 17:13
  Whatever the case may be, cut the fish always like this.
• 17:16
  And it wasn't that I was that picky.
• 17:19
  It's just I didn't want them to think about it because I wanted
• 17:22
  their, their habits and their work practices to be excellent
• 17:25
  on autopilot. Because then, then you'll start
• 17:28
  to notice. That's when you really start to
• 17:30
  notice what level you're at is when you when, when your habits
• 17:35
  are, you know, an 8 out of 10 or a nine out of 10 and you go work
• 17:39
  somewhere else and you're like, oh, wow, everyone says, wow,
• 17:42
  you're really good. It's, it's not that, it's not
• 17:45
  that you have this extra extra IQ that other people don't have.
• 17:49
  It's just like you practiced at a higher level.
• 17:51
  So you understand things at a higher level.
• 17:54
  And I love that practice makes permanent.
• 17:56
  I call it robotics man. Like you just get to a point
• 17:58
  where you do the same movement every time.
• 18:02
  It is, but that's, I mean, you're, you're grooving
• 18:04
  neuropathies in your brain. You're just you just I'm just, I
• 18:06
  want to reach for the spoon and to be in the same place every
• 18:08
  time. I want to do the pick up the
• 18:10
  exact same way every single time.
• 18:12
  Like it's, I, I wish that more people kind of understood that,
• 18:17
  especially as like young chefs, because you, you want to do a
• 18:19
  bunch of different things, you want to try things in a bunch of
• 18:22
  different ways, but it's like you, you got it.
• 18:24
  Like it's like when you come onto somebody's staging and
• 18:26
  they're like, OK, cool. Like do it in the way that I'm
• 18:28
  teaching you in the beginning. And like, once you get it, like,
• 18:30
  sure, you can add your own things and make it work, But
• 18:32
  like in the beginning you got to do it this way.
• 18:34
  Like you're being shown this way for a reason and like, got it,
• 18:38
  got to practice it that way. When, when people would come up
• 18:39
  to me, especially if it's someone that I've never worked
• 18:42
  with before, that's and I'm the chef and maybe they're helping
• 18:44
  me and they'd come and they'd I'd say stop.
• 18:47
  Let's just don't put that there. Yeah, put it here.
• 18:50
  Here's why. Like don't hand me the deli with
• 18:52
  the lid on it, take it off over it.
• 18:54
  And here's why. Because it's an extra step.
• 18:55
  And when I have a spoon and I, I don't need that, I don't need
• 18:58
  that extra 2nd. And and then, OK, so it starts
• 19:01
  to click and then you start to have this cadence with the other
• 19:03
  people and then your whole kitchen has that same cadence.
• 19:06
  It's like, OK, now we could flow because we all are working off
• 19:09
  the same system. And I don't, I don't know if
• 19:13
  everyone fully understands how important that dance and dancing
• 19:17
  to the same song. Yeah, I just, I, I wish more
• 19:20
  than anything that they would look at it and understand that
• 19:22
  like them doing that for somebody else does not make them
• 19:25
  lesser than like it's such a fucking skill to be able to look
• 19:29
  like, OK, this is what chef needs and just being like, how
• 19:31
  do I make it as easy as possible for this person to succeed?
• 19:34
  Like that's a skill set in and of itself.
• 19:35
  Like it doesn't make you lesser because you're like the person
• 19:39
  opening up the delis, dude, who cares?
• 19:40
  Like, do you need the team to win or not?
• 19:43
  And like, it's, it's super important.
• 19:46
  Yeah. Like, and every kitchen is
• 19:47
  different, of course. Like every chef has, has their
• 19:49
  own tendencies, but just a willingness to to be able to to
• 19:53
  learn things in the way that that you were taught and how
• 19:56
  will make you successful. Like, you don't know it in the
• 19:58
  moment. It's like you have to look back
• 19:59
  and just be like, oh, I learned all these skill sets and now I
• 20:03
  can apply them in the ways in which I need to.
• 20:05
  Yeah, as we're talking, I'm thinking back to, you know, when
• 20:09
  I was still still active chef and, you know, I would have like
• 20:11
  someone that was my direct report, like a sous chef or chef
• 20:14
  de cuisine. And they're plating at the pass
• 20:17
  and I happen to pop in. I'm not running service, but I
• 20:20
  happen to be there. They're running service.
• 20:22
  So when I step in and I see them and I see that, you know,
• 20:26
  they're, they're saucing and the spoon is dirty.
• 20:28
  And, you know, I'll hand them the tray, put it there and then
• 20:31
  I'll dip it in the Bane or whatever.
• 20:32
  Or I noticed that and here's the plate wipe shaft.
• 20:35
  And and they're not asking me for this.
• 20:37
  And it's not that I'm viewing this as some things like, oh,
• 20:41
  I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm doing helper work.
• 20:43
  No, no, that's, that's part of the, that's part of the game.
• 20:46
  Like, hey, I want to be handing you the plate wipe because I, I
• 20:50
  saw you look at it and you're going to need it in about 5
• 20:53
  seconds and I'm going to have it ready for you because we're
• 20:55
  thinking about the same things. Yeah, there's there's something
• 20:58
  beautiful about that ability to work with someone at a very high
• 21:02
  level. And if you could just look out
• 21:04
  like if you could just step outside of yourself and look at
• 21:07
  the entire thing, like it's not that somebody's putting a couple
• 21:10
  of herbs on the dish. Is that like somebody warms a
• 21:12
  plate, it says somebody passes the sauce, says somebody slices
• 21:15
  the bread, like it all comes together.
• 21:17
  And so if you, if you look at all those touches, all those
• 21:19
  steps of service, you can be a part of it.
• 21:20
  It doesn't matter. Like you're all a part of it.
• 21:23
  And, and, and the guest doesn't know, they don't care.
• 21:27
  Actually, I'm like, they're like, they're just getting
• 21:29
  something in front of them and, and which is completely fine.
• 21:31
  Like that's, that's the mysticism that I, that I enjoy
• 21:34
  about it. I don't want them to think about
• 21:35
  any of that. I just want them to be there.
• 21:36
  I want to create an opportunity for people to be there with one
• 21:39
  another and just enjoy each other's company.
• 21:41
  How do you train that in cooks? I just think you have to care,
• 21:45
  dude. Like it's and it's, I think of
• 21:47
  it as such a personal thing. And that, that goes back to like
• 21:50
  me growing up, you know, in Albania, like it's, this is a
• 21:57
  really difficult one for me. Like I think it's probably the,
• 21:59
  the thing that I struggle with most because I'm so passionate
• 22:02
  about it. And like, I think that I've
• 22:03
  always kind of had this desire, like to just be the best at
• 22:08
  whatever it is that I'm doing. Like, I don't care if I'm a
• 22:09
  plumber, I'm just going to try to be the best that I can at it.
• 22:11
  But like, I think the, the way that you train people in that is
• 22:16
  trying to get them to understand what their actions end up.
• 22:21
  Like what is the causation of you taking these actions over a
• 22:24
  long period of time? You know, you can work in a
• 22:26
  restaurant where everybody is just, you know, doggy dog and
• 22:29
  you don't have a good relationship with the people
• 22:31
  that you are working with. But like the moment that you
• 22:33
  start seeing that, like you do 1 little thing for for your
• 22:36
  teammate and then it makes them feel this way and they
• 22:38
  reciprocate it. Like you just have a better
• 22:40
  working environment. And these, I mean, you're
• 22:42
  working with these people 607080 hours a week.
• 22:45
  You might as well enjoy, enjoy that.
• 22:48
  So I think like getting people to understand from the beginning
• 22:52
  that like they're the choices that they're making, that
• 22:55
  they're making have impact on other people's lives, I think
• 22:58
  we'll make them think twice about the way that they're
• 23:01
  behaving. And I think, at least for me,
• 23:03
  the great thing about the Russians that I've worked at,
• 23:04
  it's like everybody was so much about the same outcome that
• 23:10
  like, if you weren't, you would just be ostracized.
• 23:12
  Like the rest of the team would just not jive with you.
• 23:15
  Like it'd be very clear that we we don't gel together.
• 23:18
  We don't think about the same stuff.
• 23:19
  Well, it's interesting because, you know, and what I do, I talk
• 23:22
  to a lot of chefs and cooks. And a lot of times when you're a
• 23:24
  young cook, you don't understand.
• 23:26
  Why does no one like me here? Yeah.
• 23:27
  You think everyone hates you because, you know, for whatever
• 23:31
  reason, you think of all these reasons that they don't like
• 23:33
  you, but the main reason is because you're not good.
• 23:37
  That's that's the main reason. It's not all these other reasons
• 23:40
  that you think they don't like you.
• 23:41
  It's that they depend on you to do a certain task and when you
• 23:44
  don't deliver it, they have to pick up the slack.
• 23:47
  And, and I just, and, and I wish that more people knew that, like
• 23:50
  if you don't have the skill set, if you just had a fucking great
• 23:52
  attitude, dude, Like I'm, I never went to culinary school.
• 23:56
  I literally just was willing to be there at all times.
• 23:58
  Like whatever you need, I'll be there at all times, you know,
• 24:00
  and like, that's the other part of where it's like, it's not, we
• 24:04
  don't like you because we, we see that chef told you to slice
• 24:07
  this thing with, with your knife to this thickness and I see you
• 24:10
  using a mandolin, fucking hacking through this thing.
• 24:13
  Like, I know, I know you're pressed for time like me too.
• 24:17
  Like you're, you're either going to have a shit day, you're going
• 24:20
  to go home and, and you know, have pain and reflection and
• 24:24
  then come back the next day and try to do it differently or, or
• 24:28
  you're not like you're just going to be like, no, well, I
• 24:30
  just want to be able to do this way.
• 24:31
  OK, well, you can't. I don't.
• 24:33
  I don't. I don't know what you're going
• 24:35
  to say. Like there's a standard and we
• 24:36
  all have to, like, we have to uphold that standard.
• 24:39
  Yeah. And something else that you know
• 24:41
  for for young cooks listening that maybe you are in a position
• 24:43
  where your skill set doesn't match the rest of the team.
• 24:46
  You're at a you're at a lower skill set.
• 24:48
  There's things that you can do. You could fold everyone's
• 24:50
  towels. You could make sure everyone has
• 24:51
  plate wipes. You could make sure the walk
• 24:52
  in's clean. You could do some of those
• 24:54
  things that they don't want to do right.
• 24:56
  You could, you could say, hey, look, sorry about this.
• 24:58
  I'm going to take care of your station tonight.
• 24:59
  I'm going to hear all your labels, whatever.
• 25:02
  Like there's little things that you could do that don't
• 25:04
  necessarily require skill, but would be emotional investments
• 25:09
  in them. Like, hey, you know what?
• 25:11
  They're not such, they're not such a shit head.
• 25:12
  Like they cleaned my station for me.
• 25:13
  They they made sure the walk in was tight, whatever, right?
• 25:16
  But in But instead, a lot of times cooks get frustrated
• 25:19
  because they went to culinary school or they have some
• 25:22
  understanding or they have some experience and they think I am
• 25:24
  good. And then they get around a bunch
• 25:26
  of people that are on a higher level than them, better than
• 25:29
  them, And then they think, well, you shouldn't be treating me
• 25:33
  like this because I'm good. Like you got to be good here.
• 25:38
  You never arrive like it's you're never there, dude.
• 25:41
  Like there's always I'm, I'm telling you that there's levels
• 25:43
  to this shit like in every capacity, there's levels to this
• 25:46
  thing. Like, and you should also know
• 25:49
  that if you're at the bottom of the totem pole, like that is a
• 25:52
  very good thing. Like that means that there's a
• 25:54
  really big gap from where you are and where you want to be and
• 25:57
  that you have a lot of room to grow there.
• 25:59
  Like once you work every station and then you become a sous chef
• 26:02
  and then you, you take care of the AM team and you know how to
• 26:04
  do that. And like you can look around you
• 26:06
  and maybe the CDC position is taken or the exact like once you
• 26:10
  once you hit a wall, it, it becomes like the gap closes
• 26:14
  between like you and the other two chefs and then the CDC and
• 26:17
  the head chef. Like there's still a gap, but
• 26:19
  that that closes not quite as big.
• 26:21
  And maybe at that point it might be time for you to move on.
• 26:23
  If you can look in in the future, a couple of years and
• 26:26
  you're like, none of these people are leaving.
• 26:28
  Like I'm not going to be learning anything else while I'm
• 26:30
  here. Like I kind of know how to
• 26:32
  operate at this level. If that's what you want to do.
• 26:33
  Some people stay places for eight years and and if that's
• 26:36
  what you want to do, like do it. But I think people should know,
• 26:39
  especially if you're a young cook, like if you're in a
• 26:41
  position where you're like, dude, like I'm at the bottom of
• 26:44
  the totem pole here. That's a great position to be
• 26:46
  in, even if you're in business. Like I had to like I had to join
• 26:49
  an entrepreneurial organization because I'm just like, OK, I
• 26:53
  know a lot about cooking, but I don't know a lot about how to
• 26:55
  run a business. Like I was a sous chef at
• 26:58
  whatever, a mission star restaurant, which is cool.
• 27:00
  And there's, you know, that there was a lot that I took from
• 27:02
  that into like how to do my business.
• 27:04
  But all of a sudden, like now you have to learn everything
• 27:07
  else about the business. And when I look at the
• 27:08
  structure, even if it's, you know, your, your classical
• 27:11
  kitchen structure, you're like, why is there an executive chef?
• 27:15
  And why is there ACDC? And like, why is the CDC in
• 27:19
  control of all food? If you're the executive chef?
• 27:20
  And it's like, in my mind, I'm like, OK, the executive chef is
• 27:24
  responsible for like marketing, like getting people to be in
• 27:27
  seats. Like that's really your job.
• 27:29
  You're looking at at all of it. And, and like there's somebody
• 27:31
  handling the food part and there's somebody handling the
• 27:34
  the front of house part. But like you're there kind of
• 27:36
  like trying to control that whole thing.
• 27:38
  And that's also a skill set. Like you got to figure out how
• 27:42
  do we let people know about our product and how do we get these
• 27:44
  people to be in here? Right, right.
• 27:47
  You bring up such a good point and, and it's actually, I was
• 27:50
  thinking about doing a, a solo podcast on this, about the
• 27:52
  difference in the way people view themselves and what's in
• 27:55
  front of them 'cause you have a, a cook, the only thing that they
• 27:58
  see is the pans and the mees in front of them.
• 28:00
  And then maybe you have ACDP who overseas one or two cooks.
• 28:04
  Well, they see what they see, but they also see two other
• 28:07
  people that are supposed to help them get the job done.
• 28:09
  The sous chef might oversee 5 people.
• 28:11
  And so they have a little bit of a, of a greater scope.
• 28:14
  The chef de cuisine might oversee 10 and they see
• 28:16
  everything that's going on in the kitchen, the executive chef,
• 28:20
  chef owner overseas, everything. They, they have a different
• 28:23
  perspective and they're, they're viewing everything and they have
• 28:26
  to be able to do all those jobs, but they're also doing a
• 28:30
  different job. And that job is the is to make
• 28:33
  sure the whole is running and they're making decisions based
• 28:36
  on the whole, not necessarily where the cook is looking at it.
• 28:39
  Like I'm making decisions based on my pan and my mesum plus and
• 28:43
  so your decision making process just keeps expanding outwards.
• 28:46
  Yeah. Hard for people to understand
• 28:48
  that super because a lot of times when you're the cook you
• 28:50
  think why is chef making this decision to screw me over?
• 28:53
  It's like he's not. He or she is not making that
• 28:55
  decision to screw you over. They're usually making a
• 28:57
  decision on what's best for the whole.
• 28:59
  It's yeah, I think you just have to be able to step out too.
• 29:03
  You got to get to that point, man, where it's like you're,
• 29:07
  you're responsible for people's livelihoods.
• 29:10
  It is a different conversation. Like, you know, even being on a
• 29:13
  chef podcast, I'm like, this is so much more than just cooking.
• 29:16
  Like cooking is just like you could do this stuff with your
• 29:18
  eyes closed at this point, right?
• 29:20
  Like you do this thing for long enough.
• 29:23
  It, it's not that difficult to, to, to cook at at a high level
• 29:27
  if you work with good ingredients and use proper
• 29:29
  technique. But dude, like you, you do
• 29:33
  leadership stuff. I'm like, why is that such a big
• 29:36
  thing? Like why are so many people
• 29:37
  reach out about leadership stuff?
• 29:39
  Because like that's a really critical skill set of trying to
• 29:42
  get a bunch of people to see one vision and align them towards
• 29:45
  that vision on an everyday basis.
• 29:46
  When you're dealing with 30 different personalities and like
• 29:50
  where they're at in their lives and the things that they need,
• 29:52
  right? Like it's you, you have to be
• 29:56
  that person even even when you're a cook.
• 29:58
  Like I, I think like that's kind of like one of the blessings
• 30:00
  that I had is that like I kind of understood that from the
• 30:03
  beginning where I'm just like, I play a small part into this very
• 30:05
  big thing. Whereas like I don't think a lot
• 30:08
  of people kind of see that the moment that they're like, well,
• 30:10
  I don't feel like I'm advancing enough or I or quickly enough
• 30:13
  for to my own standard. Like now all of a sudden, like
• 30:14
  you want to leave, but I'm like, you got to put in that time.
• 30:17
  Like if you only work there for six months to a year, you get to
• 30:22
  a certain level and then you go to the same place and then you
• 30:24
  start at the bottom again. Like you, you might as well just
• 30:26
  have stayed somewhere for three years and try to figure out
• 30:29
  exactly that, that just getting your lens to be a little bit
• 30:31
  wider, right? Leadership your, your culinary
• 30:34
  skills get you so far, but leadership allows you to become
• 30:38
  a force multiplier with your culinary skills.
• 30:40
  If you're able to pass that on to a larger group where business
• 30:44
  acumen now allows you to scale your leadership skills to
• 30:47
  multiple, multiple restaurants or whatever.
• 30:49
  I want to ask you about your business because it's it's an
• 30:51
  interesting business model and not a lot of people that I've
• 30:55
  actually, you might be the first guest I've had on the show that
• 30:57
  kind of does what you do. Can you explain to people kind
• 31:00
  of what your business is and what your business model is?
• 31:02
  Yeah. So it's called Aventador.
• 31:03
  We're essentially we're a luxury private dining company.
• 31:05
  What that really means is like we're a moving restaurant.
• 31:08
  We provide all plateware, glassware, silverware, linen,
• 31:10
  napkins. We have sommeliers on a team,
• 31:12
  mixologists on a team. So it's all-encompassing as far
• 31:15
  as, you know, dining experience and anything food and beverage
• 31:19
  we do. We don't really do any like
• 31:20
  corporate catering or drop offs or, or stuff like that.
• 31:22
  Like we'll do parties for corporate companies, but nothing
• 31:26
  like that. So we'll do, you know, smaller
• 31:28
  weddings that are like 80 to like 100 people very much kind
• 31:31
  of cater towards people that are foodies, if you will, like
• 31:35
  people that really care about their food at their wedding as
• 31:37
  supposed to decor. Like, I'm not saying like these
• 31:39
  people are super well off. They have it all, but I just
• 31:41
  mean like food is really important to them.
• 31:43
  So stuff like that. And the rest of it is, you know,
• 31:46
  private dining in people's homes.
• 31:47
  And so we're just doing tasting menus and.
• 31:49
  And how did you get started doing that?
• 31:51
  It was and you didn't have a background in that.
• 31:53
  Right, No, no, it was, it was COVID.
• 31:55
  I, I was, I was, I hit up my, my, my show from the Ellenia
• 32:00
  group at the time. I was like, well, anyway, as I
• 32:03
  was leaving the Ellenia group, I was like, I want to move to Napa
• 32:09
  or like, you know, somewhere else and I wanted to work at
• 32:11
  another three star place. So, you know, he set me up with
• 32:14
  a bunch of stages. I went and staged at a bunch of
• 32:16
  places and I got a job at, at a restaurant in, in Napa.
• 32:22
  And then they're like cool, like in a, in a couple of months,
• 32:25
  like you'll move out here, like, you know, etcetera, etcetera.
• 32:28
  And so like I move back where I go back to Chicago, I'm, I'm
• 32:31
  hanging out and COVID hits it. It just, I mean, I don't know,
• 32:36
  like it felt weird, right? Like all of a sudden everybody's
• 32:38
  like furloughed and, and like anybody else, I thought this
• 32:42
  thing is just going to blow over, right.
• 32:44
  We're just like, here, here's another whatever hoax like.
• 32:46
  Everything. Everything's going to go back to
• 32:48
  normal. And.
• 32:50
  So like, but I, I got so bored, like I was just hanging out at
• 32:53
  the house for like a week and a half and I was just used to
• 32:55
  working 607080 hours a week. And I was like, dude, I'm, I'm
• 32:59
  bored out of my mind. And people were like supporting
• 33:00
  small businesses at the time. And you know, that was kind of
• 33:03
  like the, the central focus. And so I just like started
• 33:07
  cooking meals out of my house. I was like, look, I'll take
• 33:09
  orders today. This is what I'm cooking.
• 33:12
  Like on Friday or Saturday, I'll either come drop off or you can
• 33:14
  come pick it up literally just to stay busy.
• 33:18
  And the first week I got like 60 orders and I was like, all
• 33:21
  right, like I did that. It did that for a couple of
• 33:23
  weeks. It just kept growing.
• 33:24
  It kept getting bigger. And one of my purveyors hit me
• 33:26
  up and was like, hey, do you want to do a private event for
• 33:27
  somebody? And I said, yes, I did that.
• 33:31
  And I was like, well, I just made in one day what I would
• 33:33
  otherwise make in a week. And so I kind of started
• 33:36
  shifting that attention to doing more of those.
• 33:39
  And it's been crazy because it's all been organic in terms of
• 33:42
  like growth, Like people just keep coming to us like this is
• 33:45
  the first time that I've hired somebody full time.
• 33:47
  So you don't do any like marketing ads or anything like
• 33:49
  that? No.
• 33:50
  Everything is organic word of mouth.
• 33:52
  Yeah, I just, I just hired somebody and I'm in, I'm in year
• 33:55
  4 now. I just hired somebody to be full
• 33:57
  time outreach salesperson. So we can start focusing on some
• 34:02
  more like kind of global stuff, like start going in other places
• 34:05
  of the world or just like the wedding industry and even the
• 34:08
  country, just just doing more, more things.
• 34:10
  So I want to ask you about your business acumen and and how you
• 34:14
  got there because you were going from predominant cooking
• 34:19
  positions right into predominant.
• 34:22
  You still have to cook, but you also have to run a business now.
• 34:25
  Everything. How much did, how much did you
• 34:27
  know going into it and how much did you have to learn?
• 34:30
  And what were some of the the big learnings that we could give
• 34:32
  the audience? Like, hey, if you're going to do
• 34:34
  this, here's some things that you might want to think about.
• 34:37
  I would say I probably knew zero about it because I like this is
• 34:40
  not something that I really was going to take seriously.
• 34:42
  Like I was like, I'm doing this just in the in between.
• 34:44
  And then at some point I, I started to see it really kind of
• 34:47
  take off to the point where I was like, OK, now I'm
• 34:51
  reinvesting all into the business.
• 34:52
  Like I started out of my house and then a friend at the time
• 34:55
  was doing something similar and he was like building out a
• 34:57
  kitchen. So I got to work with him there
• 34:58
  and you don't pay partial rent and blah, blah.
• 35:01
  He helped me out a lot in the beginning there until I like, I
• 35:04
  literally just saved every dollar.
• 35:06
  Like I was like not paying myself for the first few years.
• 35:07
  Like I don't, I don't even care about money like that.
• 35:09
  Like, not to say I really love investing, like I love playing
• 35:11
  the game, but like, as far as like me, like I wasn't even
• 35:14
  paying myself on like I just want to keep playing this game.
• 35:16
  So I was just taking all that money buying, you know,
• 35:19
  plateware, glassware, silverware, saved all the money
• 35:22
  to, you know, buy, buy a space built out of kitchen space.
• 35:27
  And so like, I was just kind of guessing the entire way until I
• 35:30
  started like I joined this entrepreneurial organization a
• 35:33
  couple years ago because I was like, OK, man, like I don't know
• 35:37
  enough about business. Like you.
• 35:38
  What ends up happening is that you are a generalist in the
• 35:41
  beginning. It, you're wearing all the hats
• 35:43
  and you're a generalist and, and everything, whether that's
• 35:45
  marketing or sales, like you're doing it all.
• 35:48
  Like the first person I I hired full time was an accountant.
• 35:51
  So like, I just need like somebody to bounce ideas about
• 35:53
  this money thing. Like I need to kind of like
• 35:55
  understand the cash flow of this thing, all the.
• 35:56
  Time you pay your taxes. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 35:59
  I mean, and so like I, I wish that.
• 36:03
  I wish that if I had to do it all over again, I would have had
• 36:06
  a Better Business plan. Like I would have known who my
• 36:09
  avatar is. Like who am I trying to target
• 36:12
  and just how much market cap is there?
• 36:13
  Like how big can this thing actually get and what would it
• 36:15
  actually take? Like I'd, I'd just at least do
• 36:18
  like mock numbers being like realistically like how big is my
• 36:22
  pool of people that I can actually feed into this thing
• 36:25
  all the time? Do you enjoy this business more
• 36:28
  than restaurant business? Yeah, 100%.
• 36:30
  And the only reason I, I, I say that is because I get to be my
• 36:34
  own boss, which I just man, like I, I, I think that people might
• 36:40
  be listening to this thing and they're like, I can do that.
• 36:41
  Like I can look at it as Instagram.
• 36:43
  I'm telling you, like it is, it is not that like we do the stuff
• 36:46
  on Instagram and it's beautiful and it's, and it's really great.
• 36:49
  It's, it's awesome cooking. But do like the majority of it
• 36:52
  is, is, is is business like you just it, it's the people
• 36:56
  component, it's the cash component, it's the execution
• 36:59
  component like. I'm sure there's also a big
• 37:03
  logistics. Component there is a big yeah,
• 37:05
  you're, you're in a different space doing a different menu
• 37:08
  with different pairings almost. We have pretty similar staff,
• 37:13
  but like you, you have different stuff like these.
• 37:15
  Some of these people are contractors, some of them are
• 37:16
  full time, right. So you're like, how?
• 37:18
  Like, how do you get people that work with you once or twice a
• 37:22
  week to believe in the dream the same way that the people that
• 37:25
  are there? Yeah.
• 37:26
  And a really scary component that people don't think about.
• 37:30
  You can't fuck up someone's wedding.
• 37:32
  No, dude, and it's for sure, for sure, like you're not do like
• 37:35
  every event that we do is like a 50th birthday, like a graduation
• 37:41
  or, or whatever. Like it's something really
• 37:42
  important. And not to say that that's not
• 37:44
  the same thing in restaurants, but you know, some people are
• 37:46
  just like we're, we're going to go out to this restaurant and
• 37:47
  spend 200 bucks and we're going to have dinner.
• 37:51
  We'll, we'll grab a couple of sides, whatever, 1 main and have
• 37:54
  a glass of wine or two a piece and like it'll be like 200, two,
• 37:56
  150 bucks, whatever. Like it's not that big of a
• 37:58
  deal. It's a Wednesday night when
• 37:59
  people are spending 10 grand, 20 grand, 30 grand.
• 38:03
  Like it's a, it's a different conversation.
• 38:05
  And I will say at the same time, like, man, if I've learned
• 38:08
  anything about like the way that wealthy people behave, I'm like
• 38:11
  try to sell expensive products to people that have the money,
• 38:15
  like trying to get people to be satisfied with like going to a
• 38:18
  restaurant. They're like, the bill was $80.
• 38:20
  I'm like, you have no fucking idea how much time and effort it
• 38:23
  took for you to get this food in front of you.
• 38:25
  And this restaurant is actually making like 2 to 3% in margins.
• 38:28
  So, but still, I mean, it's, it's, it's just coming to terms
• 38:33
  with how the actual machine works.
• 38:35
  Like, I think you should try to have an idea and you might not
• 38:37
  get it right the first time, but just have an idea of like, where
• 38:41
  is this money coming from? Like how many people am I going
• 38:44
  to need to make this thing happen?
• 38:46
  And like, what are the logistics of it?
• 38:48
  You know, like, and I can go really deep into that kind of
• 38:50
  stuff because I'm such a nerd about it at this point.
• 38:52
  But it's it, it's almost like the bigger you get, the more it
• 38:57
  becomes like this monster in a way.
• 38:59
  Like there was a point where I was like, OK, this thing is a
• 39:01
  monster that like I created. They're like, I almost can't
• 39:03
  stop. Like once you look at your
• 39:05
  monthly bills, you're like, oh, OK, this is different than like
• 39:07
  me cooking out of my house with my buddies.
• 39:10
  Now you're like, I have people on salary and health insurance
• 39:13
  and all this stuff, right? You're like, I'm responsible for
• 39:15
  people's livelihood and like nobody cares at the end of the
• 39:18
  day. Like you got to look at this
• 39:21
  list and you'll be like all these bills got to get paid and
• 39:23
  that you go from having 2 grand to 5 to 10 to 50 and you're
• 39:27
  like, it's crazy, right? Like.
• 39:29
  How, what are the margins like? So you, you had mentioned like
• 39:32
  restaurant margins, sometimes you know, 1% sometimes negative,
• 39:35
  right, depending on the restaurant you're putting money
• 39:38
  in, you're taking no money to the bank or you're not getting
• 39:41
  paid. How are the margins different in
• 39:43
  in your business? From, from my, from my, my
• 39:46
  understanding at least is like most restaurants have anywhere
• 39:49
  between like three to 10 and that's pretty average.
• 39:52
  And that's if you're doing like 15, like that's pretty good.
• 39:55
  Like that's. Pretty.
• 39:56
  Pretty, pretty solid for us. It's anywhere between like 22 to
• 40:00
  25%. That's great.
• 40:02
  Yeah. And like my food glass is
• 40:03
  generally like 11%. And can you explain why that is?
• 40:07
  Well, I get to quote UN quote charge a lot more because of how
• 40:13
  much goes on in the back, right? Like we're not opening of a
• 40:17
  restaurant to cook for tons of people where it's like once I
• 40:21
  buy this product, like I have to cook it for you, all these
• 40:24
  things are done just for you. It's personalized just for you.
• 40:28
  You're not buying for 20 different menu items, you're
• 40:30
  buying for what you ordered. Yeah, exactly.
• 40:31
  And like, and it's, and it's a lot of, it's a lot of work
• 40:34
  because OK, like I can also like I can only I might not need a
• 40:38
  case of tomatoes, like I might not need a case of whatever.
• 40:42
  So like I, I can't necessarily have everything delivered to me
• 40:45
  all the time. Now I got to run to the store
• 40:46
  also. So like once a week on Monday,
• 40:48
  it's like I'm going to the store, I'm hand picking up a
• 40:50
  bunch of this stuff like I don't get, you know, seafood from like
• 40:55
  the grocery store. Like I have to go to my
• 40:56
  prepares. And thankfully, like the whole
• 40:58
  system is really well set up to where I like I live and work
• 41:01
  really close to. And it's right next to like the
• 41:05
  like the food District in Chicago where I can go pick up a
• 41:07
  lot of this stuff, which is great.
• 41:09
  But like, it's, it's just a totally different experience.
• 41:12
  And like, we're only doing one of these a night.
• 41:14
  Like not everybody can have the the experience, right?
• 41:18
  We're not. Yeah.
• 41:19
  I'd imagine during the holidays you probably our spread per.
• 41:22
  We did 30 events in 23 days. Biggest month to date.
• 41:27
  I mean just crazy and like it just didn't feel hard.
• 41:30
  No, no. You have a good team around you,
• 41:32
  Super. So when you're looking to hire
• 41:34
  people to work with you specifically in this, what are
• 41:37
  you, what are you looking for? We're looking for we, we, we
• 41:42
  have company values, which is not like most restaurants that
• 41:46
  are just like you've been so inundated and, and everybody's
• 41:50
  just like, so ride a die or at least like in the kind of
• 41:52
  restaurants that I've worked at where it's like nobody ever
• 41:54
  talked to you about company values.
• 41:56
  That sounds really corporate. But like the further that I've
• 41:59
  gotten along, the more I've been like, OK, here's the actual
• 42:02
  issue is like when you, when you when I first started, I would
• 42:05
  just hire my friends and being like all these people I've
• 42:07
  worked at 1-2 or three Mission Star restaurants, like they know
• 42:10
  what's going on. They know how to do this until
• 42:12
  you realize everybody has different systems.
• 42:15
  So it's like now you're getting frustrated because you haven't
• 42:17
  communicated anything to anybody.
• 42:19
  And like you think that they're doing certain things because
• 42:23
  they don't give a shit or whatever.
• 42:24
  And you're just like, yeah, bro, you need to actually just like
• 42:26
  be clear communicating. That's my issue, right?
• 42:30
  Or, or was, and it's something that I had to like look back at.
• 42:33
  And so like now we have very specific, you know, they have
• 42:36
  their handbook when they come in, like we have company values
• 42:39
  and, and most of them are fairly basic, like, you know,
• 42:42
  hospitality, humility, preparedness is another one.
• 42:45
  And then the last one, which is kind of the bigger one is
• 42:48
  devotion, which is I just, this is, and this is one that we
• 42:54
  played with a lot because you know, people, it's people, it's
• 42:59
  just a very intense work for a lot of people.
• 43:01
  They're just like, do you mean commitment?
• 43:02
  Like do you mean like involvement?
• 43:04
  And I'm like, no, I mean devotion.
• 43:05
  Like I just, I, I need you to be all in and I need you to be all
• 43:09
  about the things that we're doing.
• 43:11
  And I don't mean I need you to be in all in on me or my vision.
• 43:14
  I need you to be the kind of person that's all in on
• 43:16
  themselves. Like I don't want to babysit and
• 43:19
  I don't want to do any hand holding.
• 43:22
  I need you to take personal accountability that you just
• 43:25
  want to do a good job. Like I, I just don't care.
• 43:28
  I don't want a pat on the back from anybody.
• 43:30
  I don't care if I had a service and people were like, that was
• 43:32
  the best meal of my life, which I've had people tell me that,
• 43:34
  right? They're just like, that was
• 43:35
  literally the best meal of my life.
• 43:36
  I'm like, if I'm not happy with it, I'm not happy with it.
• 43:39
  So I, I'm looking for these, I'm looking for these kind of
• 43:43
  qualities to begin with. And then everything that's
• 43:46
  around that is, is basically like that's how we hire, fire,
• 43:49
  train a reward. It's just based on those things.
• 43:51
  So like we know from the beginning, like when I'm hiring
• 43:53
  these people, like they're meeting with three of us.
• 43:56
  Like all like I've never used a staffing agency.
• 43:58
  They're either people that I've personally worked with or people
• 44:00
  that we have that have come highly recommended by somebody
• 44:04
  else. Or even when we've done like
• 44:06
  interviews, like if they're not trying to meet with, you know,
• 44:10
  three people on the team and see what they all think about then
• 44:12
  that you're not coming to hang out with us anyway.
• 44:13
  And is your business all in Chicago?
• 44:15
  It's primarily in Chicago. We'll do like the surrounding
• 44:17
  states. And then we've been, you know,
• 44:18
  starting to fly around to different places and stuff too,
• 44:20
  but. You gotta get get on the F1.
• 44:24
  Yeah, Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's we'll see, man.
• 44:26
  We'll see where, where this thing takes us.
• 44:27
  But yeah. So I'm just curious and I, and I
• 44:30
  don't know the answers because I've only done a handful of
• 44:34
  private catering. And what I have noticed in the
• 44:37
  handful that I've done is that the menus that people select are
• 44:42
  usually like, I mean, I, I always listen to a podcast.
• 44:45
  The chef's cut shout out to to those guys.
• 44:47
  They had Michael Anthony on from Gramercy Tavern and he was
• 44:50
  talking about how when he took over at Gramercy, he wanted to
• 44:54
  take off the filet mignon with the saboline onions, thinking
• 44:58
  like, I don't want to cook this, but people revolted because
• 45:01
  that's what they went for. That was their favorite dish.
• 45:03
  I would imagine that it's probably not always what you
• 45:07
  want to cook. I would say probably 95% of the
• 45:10
  time it is. And and then I would say the
• 45:13
  other 5% is me just being kind. You know, the, the one thing
• 45:17
  that I will say is that like, I actually don't care that much
• 45:19
  about feeling like I'm being creative or like I'm doing my
• 45:23
  food. It is more important to me that
• 45:25
  these people are really enjoying their time, but I think that
• 45:30
  we're positioned in a way where people are looking at us as the
• 45:33
  experts and I hold all the consultations like.
• 45:35
  When when you're designing menus is do you have like a set menu
• 45:39
  and you present or do you go? Is everything custom with a
• 45:42
  guest? Everything is custom with a
• 45:43
  guest. Like of course I'll repeat
• 45:44
  dishes. And if it's morale season, like
• 45:46
  I'm going to have morale season. Like put it this way, like let's
• 45:48
  say February 17th or something, right?
• 45:50
  Like I have an event that day and then you hit me up and say,
• 45:53
  hey, I need something for February 18th.
• 45:54
  I'm going to try to give you that menu if it aligns right and
• 45:58
  if you say no, but that's completely fine, then we'll do
• 46:00
  something different. But like I'll I'll try to use
• 46:02
  that as a way to just be like, OK, cool.
• 46:03
  Then I can just do this menu or like at least components from
• 46:06
  this menu two days in a row. But like I said, I host all the
• 46:10
  consultations. So when I'm on the phone with
• 46:11
  people, I'm just like, you know, what direction do you want us to
• 46:13
  go in? You're like Mediterranean,
• 46:14
  Asian, Latin flavors. Are there any do not likes?
• 46:16
  Is there anything that you absolutely hate?
• 46:18
  Are there things that you absolutely love?
• 46:20
  Right. And, and people will kind of
• 46:21
  give you a lot of this information and then basically I
• 46:25
  tell them I'm like, look like nothing to set in stone.
• 46:26
  I'm going to send you over a menu, take a look at it, say we
• 46:28
  really like this, we want to make a change on that, and then
• 46:30
  we'll work on it until we get it right.
• 46:32
  What? What do you notice most clients
• 46:33
  want? I.
• 46:35
  I'm the reason I'm asking is because I think a lot of people
• 46:37
  that want to get into your business might not know where to
• 46:40
  begin when they start writing menus.
• 46:41
  For sure. I think for me it's it's just
• 46:44
  about having a little bit of a progression, right.
• 46:46
  So like IIA, lot of my background is in French,
• 46:49
  Japanese Mediterranean. So like I, I, I really like that
• 46:52
  flavour profile, but that doesn't mean that we're not
• 46:54
  doing Latin flavours or Asian etcetera like I want it to be.
• 46:59
  I want them to have a variety or I guess enough of a variety.
• 47:03
  So usually we're doing anywhere between like 5 to 7 courses.
• 47:08
  And if they want more like 810, like we'll do that as well.
• 47:11
  And obviously like that all changes on how large all the
• 47:14
  bites are or how much they get per course.
• 47:16
  But I love doing something like a crudo by a vegetable by like a
• 47:20
  pasta or a grain by, you know, a main protein dish and then
• 47:24
  dessert, right? So what percentage of the, of
• 47:29
  the events that are you're that you're doing are, are plated,
• 47:31
  coursed out dinners versus, you know, maybe they just want
• 47:33
  family style or a buffet or something like that.
• 47:35
  I'd say yeah, 95% of them are all tasty menus.
• 47:40
  And sometimes that's actually good.
• 47:42
  Yeah, yeah, sometimes they want to do family style and then like
• 47:44
  I think they think that it'll be easier, but it's not easier
• 47:47
  'cause now I got to bring all the plates plus the platters
• 47:49
  plus the utensils and we're changing silverware in plates
• 47:53
  and, and, and we're, and we're changing silverware in between
• 47:55
  every course, right? Like we're, we're flipping
• 47:57
  constantly. So and like there's literally
• 47:59
  somebody like washing dishes the entire time, right?
• 48:01
  Like it's, it's really like a, a whole operation.
• 48:03
  Like we're not doing rentals. Like we bring the stuff, right?
• 48:06
  Like we work with local corymicis that we have a lot of
• 48:08
  beautiful plate wear all Rito glassware, right?
• 48:11
  Like working with level 2-3 sommeliers, like.
• 48:14
  And so yeah, I think their that their experience is like they,
• 48:19
  they know that and the way that we're positioned.
• 48:21
  So the majority of the time, like I'm almost never revising a
• 48:24
  menu. Like I kind of just shoot them
• 48:25
  something the first time they might say something like we
• 48:28
  don't like duck, fine. Like do the chicken, the beef,
• 48:31
  whatever it is. Like these things are fairly
• 48:34
  interchangeable. I'm also at a point and you
• 48:37
  know, I'm not not saying that people should be like this.
• 48:40
  Like it's it's probably better if you do write a bunch of this
• 48:43
  stuff down. But like I'm not really cooking
• 48:44
  with recipes like because I'm so heavily involved.
• 48:47
  Like I was just with Ron, like we just did this popping
• 48:49
  together. Like we don't use recipes.
• 48:51
  We're like, we're talking about that like.
• 48:54
  You just not a cook. You just not a cook.
• 48:55
  And when you're a small team like that and not a cook?
• 48:57
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. There's three of us.
• 48:59
  We're doing it all the time. Like there's repeat kind of
• 49:01
  menus and I, I got my eyes on everything.
• 49:03
  It's just, it's a little bit different.
• 49:05
  But you know, for the people that are listening and, and
• 49:07
  they're trying to do this thing, like, I mean, just just shoot
• 49:09
  your shot, like send over a menu, see if they like it and if
• 49:12
  they don't like change it. I think, you know, my my take on
• 49:16
  recipes is the further out you go with people, the more you
• 49:21
  need recipes. The tighter it is, the the less
• 49:23
  you need, especially depending on how involved you are.
• 49:26
  And even, I mean, sometimes I might need a recipe because I
• 49:28
  want it to come out exactly the same way.
• 49:30
  But for the most part, when you're just cooking, you're just
• 49:32
  cooking. Yeah, interesting.
• 49:35
  Your business is really fascinating for me because I
• 49:38
  like, I don't, I never lived in that world.
• 49:41
  But it seems, it seems like a lot of fun is if someone was
• 49:46
  getting into the business and they were relatively new and you
• 49:49
  said, hey, before you go on any event, here's some contingencies
• 49:52
  that you always have to have before you go to any event.
• 49:55
  What are some of those contingencies that you built?
• 49:56
  Yeah, you, you got to have a contract.
• 49:59
  Just just just have the contract.
• 50:02
  Make sure that people are always signing the contract you.
• 50:04
  Ask for half upfront or anything like.
• 50:06
  That we, we do, we do a a 25% down payment.
• 50:08
  The rest of it is due four days before.
• 50:11
  No, yeah, four days before and don't just just don't go like if
• 50:17
  and, and I've never had to do this.
• 50:18
  Like fingers crossed. Like thankfully, like I would
• 50:21
  say 100% of my clients have been really amazing.
• 50:25
  And I've been very fortunate in that way.
• 50:27
  But like, I've heard plenty of horror stories, like have a
• 50:29
  contract just, you know, years ago, like I had to pay somebody
• 50:33
  to do all this stuff for me. Like now you can have Chad GBT
• 50:36
  do it or whatever, but the other thing is to have them send you
• 50:40
  pictures of what you're cooking out of like their kitchens.
• 50:45
  And the majority of the time, these people have beautiful
• 50:47
  kitchens that they've never cooked out of.
• 50:49
  Like you turn on the oven that you smell that it's never been
• 50:51
  used, you know, but it's good for them to send you pictures.
• 50:55
  And the reason I started having people do that is because like
• 50:56
  I, I went to an affluent neighborhood in Chicago to do a
• 51:00
  dinner one time, but it's just like a historic neighborhood.
• 51:03
  So like you actually can't get permits to like make a lot of
• 51:06
  changes. So in my mind, I'm thinking
• 51:08
  they're probably going to have a beautiful space.
• 51:09
  I go there. She lives in this high rise that
• 51:12
  doesn't have a hood, super old, just smoked her house out, You
• 51:15
  know what I mean? Like this.
• 51:17
  And so just stuff like that, like always have a contract.
• 51:20
  Always be very clear on the contract.
• 51:22
  If there's if there's anything in the beginning of the quote UN
• 51:25
  quote sale, like, you know, for me, it's not really a sale.
• 51:27
  I'm just having a conversation with somebody.
• 51:28
  But if there's anything that you think will blow up later, do
• 51:30
  just say it now. Like you, you don't want to show
• 51:34
  up and they thought that you had these terms and all of a sudden
• 51:37
  you have these different terms like say it right, right in the
• 51:40
  beginning. Do you go in with a lot of like
• 51:43
  soup eater precision cooking to like a like a lot of the pre
• 51:48
  work done, assuming you're going sauces are made, purees are
• 51:50
  done, heat up, maybe finish some meat and go Yep, Yep.
• 51:55
  Yep, at this point, like because I have my own kitchen, so like
• 51:57
  it's just like prep in a regular restaurant, except I pack it up
• 52:00
  and I just show up there and, and I just set up my station and
• 52:03
  I just run service 10 top 12 Top 14 top whatever it is.
• 52:07
  Like I think if I'm good at anything, it's like the
• 52:09
  operational side of, of that sort of thing.
• 52:11
  And again, like I've been cooking for so long that I have
• 52:15
  a really good base of fundamental cooking to where now
• 52:19
  I can like do stuff like sous video and whatever like.
• 52:23
  And those things are really helpful, super helpful.
• 52:26
  Like you just, you can either have the meat rest for 20-30
• 52:31
  minutes or you can have a rest for 6 minutes like because you
• 52:34
  already did the circulation of it.
• 52:35
  So these tools are just just there for, for, for you to use.
• 52:40
  But I, yeah, I think if, if you're, if you're somebody
• 52:45
  that's just starting, dude, the other part of it, man, dude,
• 52:49
  just just spend the money on the labor.
• 52:52
  Like in the beginning, I would do crazy stuff, do like an 8 top
• 52:55
  by myself. And now you're like cleaning all
• 52:57
  the dishes you're doing. All of a sudden you just pay for
• 52:59
  it. They'll have a better time to
• 53:00
  like there. There's somebody out there that
• 53:02
  just like loves to be a front of house person and just like do
• 53:05
  all these touches and like and just having somebody there.
• 53:08
  That's the other part of it is, is definitely just use, use the
• 53:12
  labour. I think you know what the point
• 53:15
  that I'm at now, like it's, it's so big that I'm just dealing
• 53:17
  with a really big numbers to where like, you know, your
• 53:21
  decisions matter a little bit more.
• 53:22
  But even when you don't have a lot of it, like do that, you
• 53:25
  don't have that much to lose. Like that's the other part of
• 53:27
  where I'm like, just use it like try to like if I, if I could
• 53:30
  start over again, like I would just pump way more money into
• 53:33
  this thing way faster because I just know so much about the
• 53:35
  things that would work, you know, but a part of it is just
• 53:38
  you. You got to be able to make that
• 53:39
  investment. It's not about the money.
• 53:42
  Like you have to understand, it's not about the money.
• 53:43
  Like the money will come you, you have to obsess about the
• 53:47
  client experience. You're like, how how good of a
• 53:49
  time is this person really having?
• 53:51
  Like if you the other, the other thing is right when people hit
• 53:54
  me up all the time, they're like, how do you get clientele?
• 53:56
  I'm like, well, thankfully I've been blessed enough to where a
• 53:58
  lot of this comes before me and I have a really awesome resume
• 54:01
  that people can trust and we get tons of referrals.
• 54:04
  Like especially because, you know, one person hired you,
• 54:06
  there's nine other people there. Like they all get to try your
• 54:09
  product first hand. But the other part of it, if
• 54:11
  you're just starting out, do hit up everybody that you know, like
• 54:15
  you're a third grade teacher. I don't care, Everybody that you
• 54:17
  know, and just say, look like I'll cook for you for like 30
• 54:21
  bucks a person. Like, and all I want from you is
• 54:23
  for you to leave me a review at the end of it or tell me what I
• 54:25
  could have done better. Like you need reps You just, you
• 54:28
  just need to do it. Like, and, and, and that's it.
• 54:31
  I'm like, start there. And then once, once these people
• 54:33
  get in, they reach out to you next time.
• 54:35
  Like now it's 50 bucks a person. Now it's 100 bucks a person.
• 54:38
  Now it's $500 a person, right? Like it's just, it's just a
• 54:42
  different experience. You're like, I, I go to these
• 54:45
  restaurants like I know what it's like to spend a couple
• 54:48
  grand on dinner and you're like, this is fucking crazy.
• 54:49
  Like people will do that for you, like you, you just have to,
• 54:54
  you have to believe in the fact that somebody out there can
• 54:57
  spend 10 grand on dinner and they just don't care.
• 55:00
  Like it's just nothing to them like so, but they do.
• 55:05
  You know what these people do expect?
• 55:07
  They're my favorite people to work with because they're just
• 55:09
  like, I trust you, handle everything.
• 55:11
  Fucking don't bother me about nothing.
• 55:15
  But you have to be the kind of person that can actually let
• 55:17
  them do that. You have to be able to to figure
• 55:19
  all the rest of the stuff out to work they.
• 55:21
  Expect to not worry. Exactly right.
• 55:23
  Like they can like something that we say a lot within our
• 55:27
  messaging is like you can be a guest at your own party.
• 55:30
  And, and it's true. Like we have clients that are
• 55:33
  just he's like, he's like, yo, like I'm going to be like 10
• 55:34
  minutes late, like I'm just getting off the private jet
• 55:37
  because that because that's the life that they live.
• 55:38
  Like he just flew in from Mexico.
• 55:39
  Like he just landed and he's being brought to his home and he
• 55:42
  has a couple of people that he's like eating dinner with that
• 55:44
  night. That guy doesn't have time to
• 55:46
  figure out like any of this stuff.
• 55:48
  Like don't bother these people like you, you're the
• 55:50
  professional. You have to own the fact that
• 55:52
  you're, you're the professional. You you've got to know all these
• 55:54
  things. Chef, as we get closer to
• 55:57
  wrapping up the show, I have like some standard questions
• 55:59
  that I want to ask you. So if you if you're in your
• 56:03
  kitchen, yeah. What what is everyone using for
• 56:05
  tape? Is it the green tape or is?
• 56:06
  It the blue we use, we use green tape, but I think that's
• 56:08
  partially just because of like company colours, I guess the
• 56:12
  blue tape, like I think I always use the blue tape.
• 56:14
  Sometimes it would be too dark and you're like, I can't fucking
• 56:16
  see this thing. And it depends on the Russians
• 56:19
  that we worked at. Some of them we use white, some
• 56:21
  blue, some green. But currently.
• 56:24
  Currently we're using green. What about?
• 56:26
  What about your all-purpose workhorse salt?
• 56:29
  I mean, I feel like like diamond salt is is solid, right?
• 56:34
  Like just classic, like I, I like it.
• 56:38
  I I don't like it to be super fine.
• 56:40
  I think that's that's a little too much.
• 56:42
  But then I'm not going to like use super crunchy, flaky sea
• 56:46
  salt all the time. Like sometimes I see fucking
• 56:47
  like Adam Biet do it right and he's just like seasoning with
• 56:50
  just straight up sea salt. I'm like that fucking bad ass.
• 56:52
  I'm like this guy, like he's got, he's got.
• 56:54
  Like the Super fine sea salt or no no.
• 56:55
  No, like the like Malden, like just straight up like giant
• 56:57
  crystals. Like he's using it for
• 56:58
  everything. Like, Oh my God, it's fucking
• 57:00
  bad ass because this guy's got bread like that.
• 57:03
  Yeah, but. What do you use for finishing?
• 57:05
  Murray River, yeah. What about do you have a general
• 57:10
  finishing acid that you use? Is it lemon as a vinegar?
• 57:12
  As a type of vinegar. I would say it's probably
• 57:14
  vinegar. It's like we work with a company
• 57:16
  called Rare Tea Seller. What's the name of him?
• 57:18
  Rare Tea Seller? Rare Tea?
• 57:19
  Yeah. Yeah, His name is Rod Marcus and
• 57:21
  just has incredible infused vinegar.
• 57:25
  So like literally anything that you could want.
• 57:26
  I'm telling you, like this guy, he's the guy.
• 57:30
  Yeah. I mean, I think it, it depends
• 57:31
  on what it is, right. But like for darker sauce and
• 57:34
  stuff like that, like Sherry's like that kind of thing, it
• 57:36
  depends on how you started the sauce as well, right?
• 57:39
  Like did you start it with a with a vinegar or was it a wine
• 57:42
  or whatever, right. Like, so trying to keep it
• 57:44
  adjacent like that. I wouldn't say that I have like
• 57:46
  a go to, you know, just depends on what the dish is.
• 57:49
  Got it. And if if you had something that
• 57:52
  you do in the kitchen that you think could make people's food
• 57:56
  better that a lot of people don't do, like is there a
• 57:59
  certain technique or is there, is there something that you
• 58:01
  always when you meet new cooks like, hey, let me let me save
• 58:04
  you a bunch of time. This will make your food or your
• 58:05
  life easier. I don't know that it has so much
• 58:09
  to do around food as opposed to like cleanliness and
• 58:13
  organization. Do I just I like I you just got
• 58:17
  to be the kind of person that's so fucking bothered by anything
• 58:20
  not being square and like, you know, and like, and I've always
• 58:23
  been that way and start twitching.
• 58:26
  I do, man. I just, I just, I just needed to
• 58:29
  be tight. Like, you know, like the station
• 58:31
  just has to look a certain way. And my favorite part about
• 58:34
  working in some of these restaurants is that like at
• 58:36
  every hour, like you just stop and do a line scrub.
• 58:39
  Like it just, it just looks good.
• 58:41
  Like I can't sweep the floor and do like I don't like every time
• 58:45
  I drop something on the floor, I'm like, I have to pick it up
• 58:47
  right now. Like I don't want to wait 30
• 58:49
  minutes later. So to me, like that's, that's
• 58:52
  everything. Just just be clean like work.
• 58:56
  And you know, this is a multitasking kind of job, like
• 58:59
  in a way like you have to do a lot of, you have to keep at a
• 59:02
  lot of things, but like your, your, your stuff has to stay
• 59:04
  clean and then otherwise gets way too crowded.
• 59:06
  If if you had a Mount Rushmore 4 chefs that deserve to be on
• 59:09
  Mount Rushmore, who are the four chefs that to you and should be
• 59:12
  out there? That's like the hardest question
• 59:15
  of all time. I'm like, who are yours?
• 59:16
  It's like it's. Mind change like I'll I'll say
• 59:19
  one thing that ask me, ask me next week and it's going to
• 59:21
  change. Man, that's so tough.
• 59:26
  I mean, I feel like you have to give credit to people like
• 59:29
  Bokus, right? Like, yeah, OK, So like I'd, I'd
• 59:34
  go with that. I don't, I just don't want to be
• 59:35
  all French chefs. So that's so that's it's.
• 59:38
  Your personal. One, No, I know I'm like chefs
• 59:42
  that I really like probably over the last like 10 years, I think
• 59:46
  I've really liked like Sean Brock just does amazing stuff as
• 59:50
  far as like the US places that I also really wanted to work at.
• 59:57
  Like those are the kind of things that I'm thinking about.
• 59:58
  I'm thinking about like David Kinch, like memories of like I
• 1:00:01
  was like, dude, I would have given an arm to have worked
• 1:00:03
  there if I could do life over, like I probably would have gone
• 1:00:05
  to work there. And then maybe like Mario Cola,
• 1:00:08
  Greco at Mirazor, like that was just, again, another place that
• 1:00:11
  I would love to have worked at. And as I as I'm thinking about
• 1:00:17
  it, like all they all have the same thing in common.
• 1:00:18
  Like they just put the ingredients first.
• 1:00:20
  Yeah. It's it's all about that.
• 1:00:22
  And all their food is generally fairly simplistic and not none
• 1:00:28
  of it feels like the art got in the way.
• 1:00:30
  Yeah, yeah. Last question, chef, if you in
• 1:00:34
  your kitchen when you're running it, is it a herd or is it a yes
• 1:00:37
  chef or a Wii chef? What's?
• 1:00:39
  I think, I think we could just say, we could just say herd like
• 1:00:42
  I like, I like the yes chef thing.
• 1:00:44
  It doesn't have to be, I say it, but you know, I don't think that
• 1:00:50
  it needs to be as serious. But again, like going back to my
• 1:00:54
  thing of like, I don't like to micromanage or anything like
• 1:00:56
  that. Like, I think as long as we have
• 1:00:57
  a good understanding of, of what this is like, I don't need you
• 1:01:01
  to call me chef, but I, I do want you to understand like that
• 1:01:04
  this is what this job is so. Well, awesome brother, where can
• 1:01:08
  people find you? All over social media, our
• 1:01:12
  Instagram is a is a great place that we're super active in all
• 1:01:15
  the time or TikTok, Aventador Chicago or aventador.com if you
• 1:01:18
  want to just kind of see how this thing works in general.
• 1:01:21
  And then we do have like chef mentorship, like if you guys
• 1:01:24
  just want to hit me up on Instagram, like I, I respond,
• 1:01:26
  I'm the one responding to all DMS and all the comments and
• 1:01:29
  stuff. So.
• 1:01:31
  Yeah, I appreciate it, you giving people a peek behind the
• 1:01:33
  curtain of what you do. Please.
• 1:01:34
  Yeah. I, I love to see it, man.
• 1:01:36
  It's, you know, sometimes I, sometimes people are like asking
• 1:01:41
  questions that they know the answer to, but just want
• 1:01:43
  somebody to validate it. And I just wish that I could
• 1:01:45
  give more empowerment to those people and just be like, you
• 1:01:48
  just just take a chance. Like, life is risky.
• 1:01:50
  It's so risky that you're not getting out of here alive.
• 1:01:52
  So, like, just fucking go for it, yeah.
• 1:01:55
  Awesome brother. Thank you.
• 1:01:56
  Thank you. Well, I hope you enjoyed the
• 1:01:58
  show. If you want to support the show,
• 1:01:59
  you know what to do, make sure you leave five stars, not the
• 1:02:01
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• 1:02:04
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• 1:02:08
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• 1:02:23
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• 1:02:25
  No small Andre in the