Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / Top Chef's Jo Chan EXPOSES Kitchen Truths: Mentorship, Competition & More! Ep. 159

Transcript

Top Chef's Jo Chan EXPOSES Kitchen Truths: Mentorship, Competition & More! Ep. 159 · Chef's PSA Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello chefs. This is Chef's PSA.
• 0:02
  I'm your host, Andrea Netera. On today's episode, I have
• 0:05
  Austin Chef Joe Chan. She's been a competitor on Top
• 0:08
  Chef and she's working some amazing kitchens in New York
• 0:11
  City, including being mentored by Jonathan Waxman and Marcus
• 0:16
  Samuelsson. We're going to talk about her
• 0:17
  experience on Top Chef, how to be a good diner and mentorship.
• 0:20
  You'll enjoy this one. Stay tuned.
• 0:35
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• 1:15
  How it all happened, how it ended up, how I ended up getting
• 1:18
  on there because it wasn't really He felt like something
• 1:23
  that just happened to me. What?
• 1:24
  Do you mean? Well, so I never really, I never
• 1:27
  applied to be on the show. I never applied to be on Top
• 1:31
  Chef. It was just I was having one of
• 1:33
  those days at the restaurant that's like, you know, those
• 1:35
  awful days where everything's going wrong and the orders
• 1:38
  didn't come in on time and someone already called out and
• 1:40
  it's 1:00. And you're at Everly at.
• 1:42
  This time, and I'm at Everly at this time and I like, you know,
• 1:44
  I try not to get too upset. So I was like, OK, I'm going to
• 1:47
  go on the patio and I'm just going to, you know, be on my
• 1:50
  phone for a second, maybe scroll to Instagram a little bit.
• 1:53
  And this DM comes in from like a casting person.
• 1:57
  And they're like, we think you'd be a really good fit for Top
• 2:00
  Chef. Would you be interested?
• 2:02
  And if I wasn't having a bad day?
• 2:06
  This. Is an Instagram, Yeah, If I
• 2:08
  wasn't having a bad day and I wasn't just like, maybe there's
• 2:12
  a life outside of this and maybe there's something else that I
• 2:14
  want to reach for or whatever it was.
• 2:16
  If that person didn't call out those orders didn't come in, I
• 2:19
  don't know what would have happened.
• 2:21
  But I had always said I wouldn't do TV and I'd said no so many
• 2:25
  times. And it just so happened to be
• 2:27
  that was the first time that Top Chef had reached out, and the
• 2:31
  rest is history. So, So what was your experience
• 2:34
  like, by the way? Let's go back.
• 2:36
  So they reach out and so you get the text, you're looking at your
• 2:40
  phone and you're like, yes, what does the process look like from
• 2:43
  there for people that have never been on a show like that?
• 2:47
  Yeah, I mean, the process is, is interesting.
• 2:49
  It's it's, you know, it's a serious, it's just like getting
• 2:51
  a job. It's like a crazy job.
• 2:53
  Like you do a lot of interviews and stuff like that.
• 2:55
  So different casting producers reaching out.
• 2:57
  Things like that, yeah. But it, it's a whole, it's a
• 2:59
  whole thing, you know, and, and there's long a long application
• 3:03
  and things like that that happened along the way.
• 3:05
  But it was kind of funny. I was on the like last things
• 3:07
  like the last two days that they were, they had it open for this,
• 3:10
  this particular season. And I was like, sure, why not?
• 3:15
  Let's go. My wife and I, you know, I go
• 3:16
  home. My wife's an English professor.
• 3:18
  She's like, I'll type you just talk.
• 3:20
  And I was like, OK, so she helps me fill out this application.
• 3:23
  And then, yeah, it was, I think it was like 4 or five months
• 3:26
  later. And then I was making plans.
• 3:29
  I was planning on like, going on vacation.
• 3:31
  I was like, you know, making dinner plans with friends a
• 3:34
  month out and stuff. And my wife was like, at some
• 3:36
  point you got to get real because you're pretty far along
• 3:38
  now and I'm pretty sure you're going to go.
• 3:41
  And I was like, Nah, something will happen.
• 3:43
  Something will happen. Nobody gets on their first time.
• 3:45
  You know, like if something will happen, I won't, it'll fall
• 3:47
  through. And then I got the call and it
• 3:49
  was like, pack your bags, you're leaving in two weeks.
• 3:51
  And that was it. So you and I know a lot of
• 3:54
  people that have been on Top Chef and there's a lot of people
• 3:56
  that live here in Austin that have been on Top Chef, including
• 3:59
  two winners that have been on top right.
• 4:02
  Did you reach out to anybody and say, hey, look, I'm I'm going on
• 4:04
  Top Chef. Give me some advice or did you
• 4:06
  what did you do to prepare like yourself mentally when you knew
• 4:09
  you were going you? Know what's really funny is I
• 4:11
  was eating at the Garrison and I'm there and it's you and
• 4:16
  Jacob, right? And, and I look over at the
• 4:18
  table and I'm like, that's Tiffany Dairy.
• 4:21
  Yeah, and I'm. And you guys were always really
• 4:23
  good to me there. And I was pretty inebriated and
• 4:25
  I was like, OK, like I'm going to say something, right?
• 4:29
  And I was like, what should I do?
• 4:30
  I want to be cool. I don't want to be like, you
• 4:32
  know, like a fan, Like, I don't want to be weird.
• 4:35
  So I was like, you know what, I'm going to buy?
• 4:36
  I'm going to buy a bottle of wine and send it over there,
• 4:38
  right and be cool. She was having a great time with
• 4:40
  people. Really let her hair down and all
• 4:42
  that. And it's so funny because I
• 4:44
  think one of your servers actually comped the bottle and
• 4:46
  then sent it. So it didn't cost me anything
• 4:49
  but comp the bottle. How dare he do?
• 4:50
  That oh dare, right, Mamie look so cool, right, And she comes
• 4:55
  over and talks to me a little bit and I, you know, right
• 4:57
  before she walks away. She's really nice to me and
• 4:59
  people I was with. And then right before she walked
• 5:02
  away, I kind of whispered her and I was like, I'm pretty sure
• 5:04
  I'm going to be on the next season.
• 5:06
  And she was like, girl, if you get on that season, you call me.
• 5:09
  And so when I got the news that was going to happen, I sent her
• 5:13
  Adm and I was like, hey, you know, And she was like, I'm
• 5:16
  driving from I think it was like from Austin to Dallas today.
• 5:19
  Call me. And that chef stayed on the
• 5:22
  phone with me for like an hour. A chef she didn't know, you
• 5:26
  know, just give any pointers. And it was, it was pretty funny.
• 5:30
  I mean, like I, I really carried her voice with me through the
• 5:32
  experience. And it was, it was just a funny
• 5:34
  way that that happened. So it's so funny that you said I
• 5:37
  had Jacob on recently. We were talking about that night
• 5:40
  in Garrison because yeah, we were reminiscent about the times
• 5:44
  that that he and I worked together and we were saying
• 5:45
  there was a night and we we reference it on the podcast I
• 5:47
  did. I said you were there, I think
• 5:49
  with A10 top. Tiffany was there with her team
• 5:54
  at a different table. Anastasia Quinones from Dallas
• 5:56
  Chef was at another table next to her.
• 5:59
  You know what? It was an event cancelled
• 6:00
  because of rain. I think that's what it.
• 6:02
  Was no, no, that was a different night.
• 6:04
  That was a different. Night.
• 6:05
  So AQ was at a different table, Tiffany was at another table,
• 6:09
  Matthew Peters and Lauren Peters had just left the restaurant,
• 6:12
  and Diego Galicio and Rico from the Musically team won the PDR.
• 6:16
  And I remember telling Jacob I was like, fuck, it's all chefs.
• 6:19
  Yeah. Yeah, it was a good restaurant.
• 6:21
  I enjoyed it. It's funny bringing up Tiffany.
• 6:24
  I've known Tiffany from way back when.
• 6:25
  You know, we were kind of coming up together in the Dallas scene.
• 6:28
  She had come to visit me in Dallas.
• 6:30
  I'm sorry, here in Austin. And this was before I started
• 6:33
  chef PCA podcast or anything like that.
• 6:35
  And I was just thinking about this and I remember like we were
• 6:38
  talking and I was asking her her opinion and some advice and she
• 6:42
  says I got a vision board and she sent me all this shit.
• 6:44
  Like she is like the most generous person with her time to
• 6:47
  help other people succeed. I could not believe like I was
• 6:51
  like Tiffany like a simple 5 minutes of advice would have
• 6:54
  been good for me to prepare like what comes with media.
• 6:59
  But no she's like hours of information and sitting down and
• 7:02
  just sending me stuff. She's great.
• 7:04
  She's that old school chef that still just got time for
• 7:06
  everybody and, and anything she's got, she's willing to
• 7:09
  share, which is, which is amazing.
• 7:10
  I, I similarly expected like a text message that was just like,
• 7:14
  you know, don't be stupid, like, you know, like don't don't
• 7:17
  forget the salt, don't forget get everything on the plate
• 7:19
  right. And no, she spent an hour with
• 7:21
  me on the phone. Was just so wonderful and so, so
• 7:24
  generous. Yeah, yeah, I know.
• 7:26
  She she was great. Shout out to Tiffany Derry.
• 7:27
  I haven't had her on the show. I had her on my last show, but
• 7:30
  not not Chef's PSA. But when I did run the past, we
• 7:33
  did a we did an episode together.
• 7:35
  She's great. I haven't I haven't reached out
• 7:36
  to her for this one yet. I should because it's just she's
• 7:39
  so busy. She is, and she's doing some
• 7:41
  amazing things, but she's not that far away.
• 7:43
  Yeah, I know. Next time she's in Austin,
• 7:45
  Tiffany, if you're listening, call me.
• 7:48
  But back to Top Chef. So you go on.
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  What does day one look like? Well, it's COVID still, so
• 7:53
  you're sort of in the throes of that.
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  So, you know, you actually had quarantine for a little while.
• 7:56
  So we we had to, you know, so that was the big thing was like
• 7:58
  if you got COVID during that quarantine time, you're out
• 8:01
  right, right. So we sort of survived that
• 8:03
  portion of it and then it just starts.
• 8:05
  I mean, it's it's off to the races.
• 8:06
  The very first challenge was a was a challenge where we
• 8:10
  couldn't talk to each other and we had to, you know, the first
• 8:13
  quick fire was like teams of three and you would start
• 8:16
  something, you get 10 minutes, the next person gets sentiments,
• 8:19
  the third person gets 10 minutes.
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  And somewhere in there, a final dish has to come in.
• 8:23
  So it was a really, I mean, we weren't, yeah.
• 8:25
  We didn't speak to each other. We didn't really see each other.
• 8:28
  We didn't know anything about each other.
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  And we didn't know it was because that first challenge was
• 8:32
  going to be a completely blind challenge, right?
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  And then you run in and you're looking around and you're like,
• 8:37
  I don't like, you know, at some point in your career, you're
• 8:39
  like, I recognize a lot of people.
• 8:40
  Like I've seen people didn't recognize a soul.
• 8:43
  And I was like, wow, OK, this is this is going to be my group.
• 8:46
  This is my cohort for this. So yeah, really wild that first
• 8:50
  day. And when you're when you're in
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  there, so you're saying you don't recognize it, are you
• 8:54
  sizing everyone up? A little bit, you know, But who
• 8:57
  are they? Where'd they work?
• 8:58
  What are they? How's their knife skills?
• 8:59
  You're like, OK, who's got tattoos?
• 9:01
  What are your tattoos say, you know, who's wearing the Brigard
• 9:04
  shoes, who's wearing Birken socks?
• 9:06
  Like who's, you know, you're kind of like, I was making this
• 9:09
  joke with someone the other day. Like when you see someone
• 9:11
  wearing like the white Brigard shoes, you're like, they're
• 9:13
  going to be really fast. Like, they're, they're fast.
• 9:15
  Only assassins wear those shoes, right?
• 9:17
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 9:17
  So I'm like looking around, trying to, you know, yeah.
• 9:19
  You kind of size everybody up, but it's it's hard hard to tell.
• 9:21
  It's hard to tell because I think they do a good job of
• 9:24
  bringing people together that are kind of at the same point in
• 9:27
  their career. And so they haven't quite, you
• 9:29
  know, they haven't quite been I don't know they're they're not
• 9:33
  all over the place yet. So it.
• 9:35
  They're on the cusp of breakout. They're on the cusp of breakout.
• 9:37
  I think they do a really good job.
• 9:38
  I don't know if it's the algorithm or what, but they
• 9:40
  figure it out and and it was a span across the country.
• 9:44
  I mean, these are people that, you know, I just had no, no
• 9:48
  interaction with prior to this. Did you make some good friends
• 9:50
  on the show? Yes.
• 9:51
  Lifelong friendships, yeah. I would imagine it's like a
• 9:53
  trauma bonding or something. Like that, it's like the world's
• 9:56
  weirdest summer camp. We're just like all this weird
• 9:59
  stuff happened and only we really know.
• 10:01
  And but it's a strange environment, right?
• 10:03
  Because they're, they're both your like your comfort and your
• 10:06
  friends, but they're also your competition.
• 10:08
  So it's, it's a little strange day-to-day, like how that some
• 10:11
  days you just don't feel like talking and some days you really
• 10:14
  need somebody. So Evelyn Garcia and I, she's
• 10:17
  the chef that came out of Houston and was the this was
• 10:20
  basically second runner up in my season.
• 10:22
  She and I just got so close. I mean, you know, and just like,
• 10:26
  just like silly things to like, she would make breakfast for all
• 10:29
  of us in the morning. We'd come in her into her
• 10:30
  apartment. She's just such a like, she's a
• 10:32
  natural host. And she would have like these,
• 10:34
  you know, like these like IKEA plates of like eggs and bacon.
• 10:37
  And she, you know, it was this little like continental
• 10:40
  breakfast that she create and took care of us.
• 10:43
  And she just. Yeah, lifelong friends.
• 10:46
  What was the post experience like?
• 10:49
  So like what what I guess for something that people don't know
• 10:52
  is like there's a lot of media attention that goes with that,
• 10:54
  and then there's also interacting with celebrity
• 10:57
  chefs. So obviously the people are on
• 10:58
  the show, but then there's the judges and the hosts and all
• 11:00
  that. What's something that you learn
• 11:03
  from that, that maybe people don't know because they're not
• 11:06
  really in your shoes and we only see what we're shown?
• 11:08
  Yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot
• 11:10
  of, there's a lot of time from when you finish filming to when
• 11:12
  it is in People magazine, right? I mean, there's a massive amount
• 11:16
  of time and it feels like an eternity.
• 11:17
  It's a few months, right? And and during that time you
• 11:20
  can't. Talk about it.
• 11:21
  Right. Can't talk about it.
• 11:22
  And you're you're playing in your mind everything that could
• 11:26
  be on the air. But you know this, I mean, like
• 11:28
  when you watch the show, you know, you start out with 15
• 11:30
  people, you're going to get what, like 2 minutes, you know,
• 11:32
  in that first episode. But you're playing in your mind
• 11:35
  like, did I do anything that's going to be a storyline, right?
• 11:38
  Because it's happening when you're filming too.
• 11:40
  You're like, OK, I don't want to answer that question this way
• 11:41
  because that makes it a story or, you know, And so you're kind
• 11:44
  of really cagey. They're building narratives.
• 11:46
  They're building narratives. And you're like, I wonder.
• 11:48
  And I truly believe it is, it is the most fair show.
• 11:51
  I mean I haven't been on other ones but from what I've heard
• 11:53
  from other ones it's very fair like.
• 11:56
  Gabe and Paul have both told me the same thing.
• 11:58
  Yeah, it they make of it what you give them.
• 12:02
  So if you didn't give them something, they can't make that
• 12:05
  come alive, right. But yeah, throughout the, you
• 12:08
  know, throughout the time, you're kind of like, how am I
• 12:09
  going to, am I getting cast as what?
• 12:10
  What am I getting cast as right now?
• 12:12
  You know, so you're a little bit cagey.
• 12:13
  And during that time before it gets announced, that just plays
• 12:17
  and you're you're alone in that, right?
• 12:18
  Very few people know that you've done this, which is insane
• 12:21
  because you like fall off the planet for three months and
• 12:23
  you're just like, wow, nobody noticed that I just fell off the
• 12:26
  planet completely. But that's the part that's
• 12:29
  that's hard to get through. And that's the the mental aspect
• 12:32
  of it is really difficult because at that point, right,
• 12:34
  there's nothing left that you can do.
• 12:36
  You can't change anything. It's just out there.
• 12:39
  And then every week when you're watching it, that's the first
• 12:41
  time you're staying at first. Time with the the people at
• 12:44
  home. Correct.
• 12:45
  Yeah, yeah, it's playing in real time, so yeah.
• 12:48
  How did you feel seeing yourself on TV?
• 12:50
  Seeing myself on TV wasn't bad. I thought I, I thought I showed
• 12:53
  well as a person on it. I think that, you know, if I had
• 12:58
  it to do over again, I probably wouldn't have done that season.
• 13:01
  I probably would have given myself a little bit more time.
• 13:04
  I mean, I, I really had closed, right.
• 13:06
  We, we were closed for nine months through COVID.
• 13:09
  We were probably one of the longer closures here in Austin.
• 13:12
  And when I brought that restaurant back, we came back
• 13:14
  with maybe 30 or 40% of the staff that we had from before,
• 13:17
  but the volume still came back. And so we were sort of like, you
• 13:21
  know, figuring it out as we went.
• 13:23
  And I worked up until the day I left for Houston.
• 13:26
  And I, I remember like during that quarantine period where we
• 13:30
  were, you know, during our COVID quarantine, I just slept.
• 13:33
  I like, slept like for 72 hours. I slept for maybe like 40 of
• 13:36
  them. I mean, I was exhausted and I
• 13:39
  went in so tired. I didn't have the right energy
• 13:42
  going into it. And I didn't think it would take
• 13:44
  as much out of me as it did. Yeah.
• 13:48
  So going back, if you could do it all over again, or even if it
• 13:52
  wasn't you, if you're gonna advise someone, so someone,
• 13:53
  maybe someone's listening to the podcast right now and saying,
• 13:56
  OK, I'm getting ready to go on Top Chef, what advice would you
• 13:59
  give them? Like you have a month to
• 14:01
  prepare, here's what you should do.
• 14:03
  Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I, I had this conversation with
• 14:06
  Amanda Turner before she went on and, you know, a lot of my
• 14:09
  advice, you know, I think everybody has a different
• 14:12
  experience when they're on there.
• 14:13
  And it, it brings out different parts of you.
• 14:15
  It's kind of this like it's almost like a Wellness retreat
• 14:17
  where you're like, I don't know what I'm going to get out of
• 14:18
  this, right. And for me, a lot of it was
• 14:20
  mental. It was like, you need to be
• 14:22
  mentally strong enough for what's about to happen and you
• 14:25
  need to take care of yourself. You need to like, protect
• 14:28
  yourself. Yeah.
• 14:29
  The cooking stuff, like that's just going to come.
• 14:31
  We all do that. You know, we all know what it's
• 14:33
  like when like something doesn't come in and you got to run a
• 14:35
  special and you walk in the walk in and you're like, this is what
• 14:38
  we got. Like what are we going to make
• 14:39
  right. So like the cooking stuff will
• 14:41
  come. But I think for me, it was like,
• 14:43
  you know, one of my big points of advice is like, know the
• 14:46
  community you're coming home to and represent that community
• 14:49
  well make because everyone's got to come home.
• 14:52
  Like, you know, you could go on this national show, you could be
• 14:55
  all over the place. They could put you on all this
• 14:57
  stuff, but you're coming home to Austin, you're coming home to
• 15:00
  your restaurant, you're coming home to your people.
• 15:02
  Make those people proud and feel good about that because your
• 15:05
  world will suddenly expand, but it'll also contract.
• 15:10
  It's funny, I had an opportunity to go on top show a few years
• 15:13
  ago, like maybe 2013. My publicist reach out to me and
• 15:16
  said hey, do you want to go on the show?
• 15:17
  And I hemmed and hawed and I ended up not.
• 15:20
  I got some advice that said I don't do it.
• 15:23
  But there was a moment like, so take the publicist and advice
• 15:28
  that I got aside. There was an episode that I
• 15:30
  watched. It was the season that Paul won
• 15:32
  and they were cooking on a gondola.
• 15:33
  And I remember like, I'm never fucking doing that.
• 15:36
  Like there, there's there's some stuff that I'm like, yeah, I I
• 15:38
  don't want to do that. I don't want to, I don't want to
• 15:40
  like, that's not judging who's the best chef.
• 15:43
  That's judging who's the best cooking on a gondola under
• 15:45
  pressure. And that's not a true sometimes
• 15:49
  that's not the real life. And it's like, I don't know if I
• 15:51
  want to put myself out there only to lose because I didn't
• 15:53
  want to get on a fucking gondola or something.
• 15:55
  Yeah, I mean, I, I got eliminated off of a loading
• 15:57
  dock. I mean, it's, you know, it's,
• 15:59
  it's since then cooking out of a toaster oven.
• 16:00
  Like, I mean, it's it's not, it's not reality, but it's also
• 16:04
  just like, in some ways that's kind of what makes it fair too,
• 16:07
  is like, no one practices cooking on a gondola, right?
• 16:10
  So you're just like, we're all here trying to figure it out.
• 16:13
  But I I get what you mean. I mean, way back in the day when
• 16:16
  I worked at Red Rooster for a little while, I remember, you
• 16:19
  know, Marcus was a judge on Chopped and it would just be
• 16:21
  like someone would would fall through, right?
• 16:23
  And we're in New York and Chopped is down in Chelsea
• 16:25
  Market area and, and someone would just yell down the line,
• 16:29
  does anybody, does anyone want to do Chopped tonight?
• 16:31
  And you're just like, and I remember just every time being
• 16:33
  like, no, that is not something you just do on a whim like that.
• 16:37
  And that's kind of how I felt. I did Top Chef, which, but you
• 16:40
  know, like I said, if it wasn't for COVID, if it wasn't for a
• 16:42
  bad day at Everly, if it wasn't for the way things were
• 16:45
  spinning, who knows what it would have been.
• 16:48
  So I think, you know, one of the, the big misconceptions
• 16:50
  about Top Chef as you come home and everyone assumes like
• 16:53
  you're, you're good for life now.
• 16:55
  You know, when you're like, no, I you come back to your regular
• 16:57
  job, making your regular money, doing your regular life.
• 17:00
  And just like all the awards that we have in our industry,
• 17:04
  you don't take that home and feed your family with that, you
• 17:06
  know, And so that there is kind of an, an after effect of that,
• 17:09
  that there's this expectation of what you're going to do, but
• 17:12
  you're also dealing with the mental sort of windfall of what
• 17:14
  happened to you. So it's, it's a very interesting
• 17:16
  experience. It's very challenging.
• 17:18
  I I don't I wouldn't recommend it for the faint of heart.
• 17:21
  So I would imagine and I and I and I don't know, but I've, I've
• 17:24
  had similar experiences where I'll give you a good example.
• 17:27
  When I announced that I was going to no longer be a chef and
• 17:29
  I was like, I'm, I'm, I'm not going to be a chef anymore.
• 17:30
  I'm stepping away, I'm retiring. I got a windfall of people
• 17:34
  wanting me to open restaurants and work for them and, and
• 17:37
  consult. And it was like they thought I
• 17:40
  was joking and it lasted. Like I mean, I feel like I got
• 17:44
  Adm every day for like 2 months. Come work for me, let's open up
• 17:48
  a restaurant. And then it just stops.
• 17:50
  I would imagine the same thing kind of happens right when you
• 17:52
  get off Top Chef. Like you get this windfall and
• 17:53
  then it just kind of simmers down.
• 17:56
  It's interesting. It's it's sort of like you get
• 17:58
  this, yeah, you get this big boost when you're still on the
• 18:01
  show. As soon as you get eliminated,
• 18:03
  everybody's kind of waiting to see what does that look like?
• 18:06
  And now because before that, everyone's like, you're a
• 18:08
  potential winner, right? And they treat you a very
• 18:10
  specific way. Once you get eliminated, there's
• 18:12
  sort of this like, what does this look like now?
• 18:15
  Who are you going to be now? And do I want to associate with
• 18:17
  you now, Right. So it, it's tricky.
• 18:20
  It's a very tricky thing. But yeah, similarly, a lot of
• 18:22
  people would reach out, but there were also a lot of jobs
• 18:25
  that, like, I probably would have taken that weren't offered
• 18:28
  to me because there was a belief that I was going to go do
• 18:31
  something, that I was gonna take that job, be there for a month,
• 18:35
  and then go do something crazy. Right?
• 18:36
  Yeah, Yeah. And so it's tough kind of both
• 18:38
  ways. Yeah, it's in.
• 18:40
  It's really interesting how people frame you differently
• 18:42
  once they they view you as successful in their eyes.
• 18:45
  Correct. Correct.
• 18:47
  Yeah, Yeah, it's very interesting.
• 18:48
  When my chef's PSA account was smaller, I would get DM's all
• 18:52
  the time, people always asking me for help.
• 18:55
  And the larger it's gotten, the less people reach out.
• 18:58
  They probably think I'm less accessible, correct?
• 19:01
  But it's actually the opposite Because I think because people
• 19:04
  think that. I mean, I do still get a lot of,
• 19:06
  I mean, I'm still busy, but it's probably about half the DMS that
• 19:11
  I get than I used to. When you know, with with double
• 19:15
  the followers, it's it's it's just weird.
• 19:17
  Yes, double the audience, I should say.
• 19:19
  Similarly, before Top Chef, lot of like old cooks, dishwashers
• 19:23
  reach out to me, ask me questions about their career,
• 19:26
  ask if they can jump on the phone with me.
• 19:27
  After Top Chef, not so much. There's this belief that
• 19:30
  suddenly, yeah, you're not as accessible and you're just like,
• 19:32
  I'm the same person that I was prior to this and, and all of
• 19:36
  those things were things I love to do, right?
• 19:38
  So it's just it's different. Speaking of things that you love
• 19:41
  to do, obviously we're chefs. You love cooking.
• 19:44
  How do you still find happiness and joy and in in what you do
• 19:50
  after you've been doing it for so long?
• 19:52
  I mean, I think that most of us who have been doing this for a
• 19:55
  long time, at some point you're not cooking anymore, right?
• 19:59
  Like you're, you're pointing and shooting.
• 20:00
  You're, you're getting further and further away from the food.
• 20:02
  It feels like you're getting pulled deeper and deeper into
• 20:04
  the business. And I think every once in a
• 20:06
  while, just coming back to that moment, whether it's like
• 20:09
  opening, you know, Modernist Cuisine and trying some crazy
• 20:12
  recipe at my house or something like that, and just coming back
• 20:15
  to the touch point of what made me fall in love with it to begin
• 20:18
  with. It's just sometimes you get
• 20:20
  swept away and all the rest of it, right?
• 20:22
  And you forget what it's like to just stand on the line and cook
• 20:26
  and feel the joy of that. Yeah, you missed that.
• 20:29
  Like just being a line cook. I mean I only got to be a line
• 20:32
  cook for 18 months. Do you miss being a line?
• 20:34
  I miss the life I do. I mean, it was what I it was
• 20:38
  what I got into it for, right? It was like reading Kitchen
• 20:41
  Confidential, moving to New York, being one of the boys
• 20:44
  standing on the line. You know, every night we would
• 20:47
  like go out, watch the sun come up and then sleep for a little
• 20:51
  bit on the subway, come on into work, work a double, you know, I
• 20:54
  mean, it was like, it was the best.
• 20:56
  It was like the best kind of like Greek life that you could
• 20:59
  ever have experienced, right? You enter this sort of like, you
• 21:03
  know, fraternity, sorority situation.
• 21:06
  I do miss it. I wish I had.
• 21:09
  I think in hindsight, I wish I had stayed a cook a little bit
• 21:12
  longer and gotten to enjoy that a little more.
• 21:14
  But it just, I think for it, and this is happening tremendous
• 21:19
  amount to our to our younger chefs now they're getting pulled
• 21:22
  in to management before they're really ready.
• 21:25
  And it's more just like they're the best one that's still there.
• 21:28
  It's like kind of like musical chairs, but they're not
• 21:30
  necessarily they don't necessarily have the emotional
• 21:35
  skills. They're not necessarily the best
• 21:36
  equipped to deal with certain things.
• 21:38
  And I think I would have been a better young sous chef had I
• 21:42
  spent more time being a cook. I.
• 21:43
  Was talking with Gabe the other day, Gabe and Mike Diaz from
• 21:49
  Osseo, and we had a long conversation about sometimes you
• 21:53
  promote people just because you don't want them to leave, even
• 21:55
  though we know they're not ready.
• 21:56
  And, and it's a, it's really interesting how the industry has
• 22:03
  changed in terms of moving up because you and I both, I mean,
• 22:08
  I was, I was thinking about this, like you can be in a
• 22:11
  position 5 five years as a line cook before and Oh, you're still
• 22:14
  not ready. You need to learn Garmagier or,
• 22:16
  you know, whatever. And nowadays, obviously with
• 22:18
  social media hastens everything, you get to your destination much
• 22:21
  quicker. But you hit the nail on the
• 22:24
  head. There's a certain emotional
• 22:25
  intelligence And when you're in a leadership position, I feel
• 22:28
  like when I was a chef, people, you know, the place could be on
• 22:31
  fire. They'd be like, chef, why are
• 22:32
  you so calm? Was like, I've seen this before,
• 22:34
  Like I know how this is going to end.
• 22:35
  Like it's not the end of the world.
• 22:37
  We'll make it through or just do this, this, this.
• 22:38
  And like, how do you think so quick on your feet?
• 22:40
  It's like, well, because I've been in this situation 10 times
• 22:43
  and I thought about it every single mistake along the way,
• 22:46
  like I should have done this, I should have done this.
• 22:48
  But when you don't have that experience and you haven't, and
• 22:51
  sometimes that experience comes from you having to deal with the
• 22:54
  issue, but sometimes it comes from you watching your chef deal
• 22:56
  with it. Like, oh, I remember my, my chef
• 22:58
  did this one time. So if I ever get in that
• 23:00
  situation, I know exactly what to do.
• 23:02
  But when you've only been doing it for such a short period of
• 23:04
  time, you get into those situations and you get angry and
• 23:07
  you lash out at people. You can't keep a cool head and
• 23:11
  you get frustrated and then you make a bad decision and then you
• 23:14
  you spiral and then you hate the industry that was just around.
• 23:18
  I got no. I mean, I think, I think my
• 23:20
  thing, I, I completely agree. I think my thing too is like
• 23:22
  when you get promoted so young, everyone that you're managing is
• 23:26
  also that same age. So you're like, you know, it's
• 23:29
  like a horse watching a bunch of dogs.
• 23:30
  Like it doesn't really make sense.
• 23:32
  Like you're, you suddenly become like the biggest one in the
• 23:34
  room, but you have the same emotional skills and the same
• 23:37
  experience as everyone that's standing in the room.
• 23:39
  You just happen to be a little more responsible and they think
• 23:42
  they can give you some keys and you can close down at the end of
• 23:44
  the night. They can trust that everything's
• 23:45
  gonna be OK. So, yeah, there were, there were
• 23:47
  plenty of times, like I would go in The Walking, you know,
• 23:48
  walking right where the fan hits your eyes and you're just like,
• 23:51
  all right, I'm not going to cry because I'm mad and I'm not
• 23:53
  going to cry because I'm sad. But I'm gonna sit there and I
• 23:56
  would eat these raspberries. I would just eat like a whole
• 23:58
  pint of raspberries. And when I finish the
• 23:59
  raspberries, I'd be like, OK, I'm, I'm good now.
• 24:01
  And it got to the point that one of our farmers in New York would
• 24:03
  always include a couple of extra pints of raspberries and just
• 24:06
  write a note that said for Joe because they knew that that's
• 24:09
  how I coped with things. But yeah, it's your point.
• 24:10
  You don't know until you're in that position what you're
• 24:12
  seeing. But I think one of the things
• 24:14
  that really struck me, as, you know, I was 24 years old when I
• 24:18
  became a sous chef and I became a sous chef for Jonathan Waxman.
• 24:21
  And I looked at him and he was this Titan of our industry,
• 24:25
  created a whole, you know, a whole revival of a cuisine was
• 24:30
  like, you know, the Godfather, just just so many, so many great
• 24:33
  chefs, right? And I, I looked at him and I had
• 24:37
  a real deep sense of like responsibility to his, to his
• 24:42
  image, to his legacy to make sure that every day I behaved in
• 24:45
  a way that would be worthy of him.
• 24:48
  And I think that's something like that, You know, that I
• 24:50
  think we talked about the family tree, right?
• 24:52
  I was so proud to come from that family tree.
• 24:54
  I very much understood that was going to be, he was always going
• 24:57
  to be the one that raised me in this industry.
• 24:59
  And I wanted to represent him and make him so proud of me.
• 25:02
  And I don't know that that is something that younger cooks and
• 25:07
  chefs that are coming up now feel that sense of.
• 25:11
  And maybe it's because, you know, I don't know, maybe it's
• 25:13
  because I'll never be as great as Jonathan Waxman.
• 25:15
  And they don't feel that way about me.
• 25:16
  But there there isn't that sense of like, I'm hooking into a
• 25:19
  family tree and I want to represent this chef and this
• 25:22
  legacy in a specific way, right? I mean, yeah, you bring up an
• 25:27
  interesting point. And, you know, we were talking
• 25:29
  about, like, the love of cooking Jonathan Waxman, like the way he
• 25:32
  cooks. I feel like sometimes we've lost
• 25:35
  the connection of just like, make it delicious.
• 25:37
  Don't worry about making it trendy.
• 25:39
  Just make it good. Yeah.
• 25:40
  Yeah. Make it delicious.
• 25:41
  Make them want to eat it more than once.
• 25:43
  And not just to say, oh, I tried it.
• 25:45
  Have you ever tried this? Yeah, I tried it once.
• 25:47
  I'll never try it again. No, no.
• 25:48
  I want to try that every day for the rest of my life because it's
• 25:50
  fucking good. Yeah.
• 25:51
  That's amazing. Absolutely.
• 25:52
  Like, if you could nail that, that's a greater skill than just
• 25:56
  saying, well, I have all these tricks and how to make all these
• 25:58
  bubbles, right. No.
• 26:00
  But can you make them want to eat it every day?
• 26:01
  Like that's where the magic happens, right?
• 26:04
  And and Jonathan Waxman legend, because I think his whole style
• 26:07
  of cooking is that you want to eat that everyday.
• 26:09
  Correct. I mean, and that's what we did
• 26:11
  at Barbudo, right? I mean, like, I remember we
• 26:13
  would just we would, we were young kids in that kitchen.
• 26:16
  We were all trying to be like, can we make this like, you know,
• 26:18
  we read this in a book, we saw this on TV.
• 26:20
  We want to try these things. And he would be like, you know,
• 26:22
  this is a house that chicken built.
• 26:24
  Like people come here. Hundreds, hundreds of people
• 26:28
  come here every single day. We serve thousands of people in
• 26:30
  a week half chicken with salsa Verde on top of it.
• 26:33
  Like let's relax a little bit, you know, like let it be
• 26:36
  delicious. And and his big thing was just
• 26:38
  instilling in US, you know, go to the market, touch all the
• 26:41
  food, feel connected to it and respect it.
• 26:44
  Respect that. Like, not not only it as like
• 26:47
  food and sustenance, but also like a farmer worked hard in a
• 26:50
  field to put that out there. You know, there was an exchange
• 26:52
  there. And it's up to you to kind of be
• 26:54
  the final conductor in that in that song.
• 26:57
  Don't drop the ball on your part and try to make it too many
• 26:59
  things. Did you ever see this video?
• 27:02
  I'll I'll see if I can find it and send it to you.
• 27:03
  But it's it's like the life of a strawberry.
• 27:06
  Have you seen it? No, I haven't.
• 27:07
  So it's like the farmer plants it, waters it, you know, it
• 27:11
  grows, it takes all this time, it turns into a strawberry,
• 27:14
  picks it, packs it, ships it, it gets on the, you know, goes to
• 27:17
  the Packer, it gets on the truck.
• 27:19
  You know, it goes to the restaurant.
• 27:21
  You know, the chef washes it, organize it, and it goes through
• 27:23
  this whole thing. And then at the end of it goes
• 27:25
  mold and they throw it away. Yeah.
• 27:27
  And I'm, and I was like, damn, when I saw that video, it was a
• 27:30
  powerful video because obviously it's the metaphor of like how,
• 27:33
  how we're being so wasteful of chefs.
• 27:34
  It's like, but it's so true. Like we forget we've lost the
• 27:37
  connection with food. It's like we've lost the
• 27:40
  connection with food to make sure it's delicious.
• 27:42
  I often say, if you want to make your food better, use better
• 27:45
  ingredients. But if you have better
• 27:46
  ingredients, respect them. Yeah, absolutely.
• 27:48
  And I think that a part of that is also the connectivity to, you
• 27:51
  know, when, when I was coming up in New York, we'd go out to the
• 27:54
  farm. So we would spend a day out
• 27:55
  there. That was a requirement.
• 27:57
  You had to know what that was like.
• 27:58
  And the first day that you're out there, you know, especially
• 28:00
  is like a a kid like me who grew up in California, you know, like
• 28:03
  out there in the field with the sun beaten down trying to pick
• 28:06
  these blackberries. You're just like, wow.
• 28:08
  Like, I You know, I think we talk a lot about respect for
• 28:10
  food when it comes to life, when it comes to meat, protein and
• 28:14
  fish, things like that. I don't think people realize
• 28:16
  even with produce, it is a labor of love.
• 28:18
  It is incredibly difficult. We would see farmers that would
• 28:20
  lose full crops because there'd be a rainy season or something
• 28:24
  would happen, you know, And it really.
• 28:26
  Yeah. You have to feel connected to it
• 28:28
  to make it amazing and represent it.
• 28:30
  When you eat raspberries, going back to the raspberries?
• 28:32
  Yes. When you eat raspberries now,
• 28:33
  does it take you back to the walk in?
• 28:35
  I don't know that I eat raspberries very often now.
• 28:37
  OK, OK, so but if you ever have like raspberries does does it
• 28:40
  mean is it like an anchor and it takes you right back?
• 28:42
  A little bit. I mean, what we used to do is
• 28:44
  like they, you know, sometimes I'd put them on my fingers, but
• 28:46
  it would be really cute too. Some of the some of the, yeah,
• 28:49
  just like Raspberry fingers. And I'd be like, OK, like, you
• 28:51
  know, you just got to calm down in the walk in.
• 28:53
  But it was great. Like, you know, cooks, cooks
• 28:55
  that were working for me at the time.
• 28:56
  Sometimes they'd see me really stressed out and they'd just
• 28:58
  like push a pint of Raspberry slowly across my station and I'd
• 29:00
  be like, OK, like, yeah, it's going to be OK.
• 29:02
  So that that was just yeah, it is an anchor point.
• 29:05
  So I want to go back to mentoring because we were, we
• 29:07
  were touching on that. What was the mentorship that you
• 29:11
  received from Jonathan Waxman when you were there?
• 29:13
  What it what was that like? You said you were a young sous.
• 29:16
  Chef I was very young, correct, but but the thing that's
• 29:18
  interesting is I think that those chefs, you know, I felt
• 29:21
  this way when I work for Marcus Samus and as well.
• 29:23
  It's like it wasn't so much the one-on-one time they spent with
• 29:27
  you and I think that that's what a lot of people clip into is
• 29:29
  they're like what you're not spending one-on-one time
• 29:32
  teaching me directly. I very much understood that he
• 29:35
  had created an environment that I could learn.
• 29:38
  He had created systems and a space and man, he was letting
• 29:42
  like, yeah, us like 20 year old kids just run around try and try
• 29:45
  stuff under his name. And that's crazy.
• 29:47
  Like I, I think I struggled to do that as a chef Now is to, you
• 29:51
  know, if they want to put a special on, it's like, OK, do we
• 29:53
  cost this out? Do we know where we're getting
• 29:54
  all of this? Do we know that this is going to
• 29:56
  be stable for the next, you know, 3-4 weeks?
• 29:58
  Let's taste it. Do we have a grammed out recipe?
• 30:00
  And he was just letting us go fast and loose out there, trying
• 30:03
  different things with whatever we saw at the market that day,
• 30:05
  running a special whatever. And he wasn't so possessive over
• 30:09
  his image that he wouldn't let us do that.
• 30:11
  Like, he believed that that was part of the process.
• 30:13
  And so sometimes I think people, yeah, get hooked into this.
• 30:16
  Like, what did he teach you? And it's like, no, it was more
• 30:19
  like the school that he created for me within that restaurant
• 30:23
  and and the safety that he made me feel to try things out.
• 30:26
  It's. Kind of like a lot of people
• 30:28
  that work under, you know, in the Thomas Keller restaurant
• 30:30
  group, it's, it's the standards that you pick up from work
• 30:32
  working in the group. Thomas probably, I mean, I don't
• 30:34
  know, I would imagine he's not on the line, right?
• 30:37
  You know, I, I doubt it, but who knows?
• 30:40
  But yeah, a lot of a lot of that now, if that's the environment
• 30:44
  and I, I have to talk about this, like part of the reason
• 30:46
  why I have chefs PSA is to give that indirect mentorship.
• 30:48
  They're they're learning from our conversation, right?
• 30:51
  But I know a lot of the mentorship I received as a young
• 30:53
  chef was from chefs that probably don't know my name.
• 30:56
  But I was listening like I was in the room, I was watching, I
• 30:59
  was watching how they behave. I was watching what to do.
• 31:01
  I was watching what? Not to do.
• 31:03
  Right. Just equally as important.
• 31:04
  I mean, I, I remember sitting in certain rooms and I won't say
• 31:07
  names, but most of my big celebrity chef experiences early
• 31:12
  on in my career were terrible. They were assholes.
• 31:15
  Yeah. And I and I was so excited.
• 31:16
  I was a young kid in my teens and 20s.
• 31:20
  And when I got into. And that's why I've never shared
• 31:22
  these stories, because I don't want to.
• 31:25
  I don't want to. I don't want to.
• 31:26
  I'm not about. It's not worth it.
• 31:27
  It's not worth it. But.
• 31:28
  But my first interactions with celebrity chefs, and there was
• 31:32
  probably about five of them, not all at once, but in five
• 31:36
  different occasions, I always thought the next one would be
• 31:37
  better. No, they were not good.
• 31:39
  And I was like, these people are terrible.
• 31:43
  And so in those rooms, I learned what not to just like, I'm not
• 31:45
  going to be like that chef God. And then I turned into them.
• 31:48
  No, I'm just kidding. But but you know what I mean?
• 31:50
  You know exactly. I mean, they say don't meet your
• 31:52
  heroes, right? I mean, I was lucky.
• 31:53
  I think the fact that, you know, I went to Nobu because I
• 31:57
  graduated from this tiny culinary school in San Diego.
• 32:00
  They asked me what do you want to do?
• 32:01
  I was graduating top of my class in this like class of 13 people,
• 32:04
  so don't really mean anything, but they were like, what do you
• 32:06
  want to do? And I was like, I really want to
• 32:07
  go cook in New York. And they were like, OK, we know
• 32:09
  somebody who's in New York right now, we're going to ship you off
• 32:11
  there. And I have like a one day tryout
• 32:12
  at Nobu San Diego. They sent me off to to 57 in New
• 32:15
  York and I was there on an 8 week internship.
• 32:18
  Didn't know I was going. I was going to get a job.
• 32:22
  Great restaurants don't always bring customers in.
• 32:25
  Great stories do because in food, beverage and hospitality,
• 32:28
  what you sell is only part of the story.
• 32:32
  It's the why behind it, the authority you create and the
• 32:35
  experience that you built. Market Scale turns expertise
• 32:41
  into content that connects podcasts, video series and
• 32:45
  industry education, not ads assets.
• 32:50
  Market Scale has brought run the past and how to manage like an
• 32:53
  executive chef to life real world examples of how great
• 32:56
  content leads the conversation. Because attention is earned and
• 33:01
  the industry doesn't need more noise.
• 33:03
  It needs more leaders. Got the job and then it just so
• 33:12
  happened that a year after that, I went out and met one of
• 33:15
  Jonathan's sous chefs and he was like, you should come work for
• 33:18
  us. And I got really lucky with my
• 33:21
  family tree. I got really lucky that I fell
• 33:23
  in with Jonathan and that he taught me not only how to be a
• 33:26
  chef, but how to be a person. And you know, my first day as a
• 33:29
  sous chef, he like brought me into the dining room and he
• 33:31
  turned me around and he forced me to watch the kitchen.
• 33:33
  This like open kitchen working. And it was awful to not be in it
• 33:37
  and not be controlling it. And he was like, you have to
• 33:39
  realize that you're not just responsible for the experience
• 33:42
  of the guest, but you're responsible for the livelihood
• 33:44
  of all of the people back there. If that guy wants to send his
• 33:46
  kid to college, it's because you're going to run the books
• 33:49
  correctly and you are going to make money here so that he can
• 33:51
  get paid and have this job. And he just taught me so much
• 33:55
  about being responsible for other people in a way that was
• 33:58
  deeper than just the guest, than the chef experience.
• 34:01
  Right. And that was really important.
• 34:03
  Yeah. And when I went to work for
• 34:04
  Marcus, you know, he he's a massive person in the community
• 34:09
  up there in Harlem. I mean, like help helping the
• 34:11
  sponsor soccer fields and giving money to the Apollo and all of
• 34:15
  this and things that people don't even really know about
• 34:16
  him. And he really taught me about
• 34:18
  philanthropy and the power of being a chef and what we could
• 34:21
  do in the kind of spotlight that we could give to causes by being
• 34:25
  chefs. What you just said about about
• 34:29
  Jonathan taking you and turning you around, like a lot of chefs
• 34:31
  can learn from that, like your new sous chef, step away that
• 34:35
  those people are the most important thing in your in, in,
• 34:38
  you know, not just the, the cooks, but the, the, the people
• 34:40
  that work in the dish station, the servers, all of it.
• 34:42
  It's the whole, the whole restaurant.
• 34:44
  It exists and there's maybe 10 people in your restaurant, but
• 34:48
  there's maybe 100 people that are supported by it.
• 34:50
  When you think of spouses and kids and everything else and
• 34:52
  they might be supporting other people, right?
• 34:55
  That's like take care of your food.
• 34:56
  Like it's not about like, but I want to make my food chef.
• 34:59
  It's like, no, no, it's, it's like you have a responsibility
• 35:02
  here. That was so powerful.
• 35:05
  Like I'm going to clip that. That was like, people need to
• 35:08
  hear that because I think that's super important.
• 35:12
  What what is your mentorship style like though, when you're
• 35:14
  building a relationship now with your mentees?
• 35:17
  I think for the longest time I couldn't, I didn't know how to
• 35:19
  imagine myself as a mentor. I didn't really know, you know,
• 35:22
  you're kind of like, just like trying things on that you've
• 35:24
  seen and you're sort of like, do I like being a mentor this way?
• 35:27
  Do I like being a mentor this way?
• 35:28
  And I think for me, the big thing is like, I've gotten a lot
• 35:32
  better at this where I like to let them go and play.
• 35:36
  And for me, I always say to them, you know, when someone
• 35:38
  starts working for me, especially in a management role,
• 35:40
  I always say to them, I'm like, the only stupid thing that you
• 35:44
  can do is not have an answer for why you did it.
• 35:47
  That's it. You could go and make every
• 35:49
  mistake in the world. I will figure out whatever needs
• 35:52
  to happen. And if the worst thing is that
• 35:53
  we have the 86 something tonight, the worst thing is it's
• 35:56
  OK. Like you're learning and that's
• 35:58
  fine. My thing is when you come to me
• 36:00
  and you say I made a decision, but you can't explain to me why
• 36:03
  you made that decision. That is the the lack of
• 36:06
  thoughtfulness is sort of where it it gets, it derails a little
• 36:10
  bit for me. But other than that, for me, I'm
• 36:12
  also just like, you know, I always tell them I'm like, I'm
• 36:14
  not in the business of making a bunch of little Joes.
• 36:16
  Like you need to figure out your voice and your way of being a
• 36:19
  chef. And it can't look like we've all
• 36:21
  been in those kitchens, right, where you see the head chef.
• 36:24
  Then you see all the chefs underneath them pretending to be
• 36:26
  just like them. You know, they're like they're
• 36:28
  suddenly holding the clipboard in that way, or they're standing
• 36:30
  a certain way, or they wear their apron away or they roll up
• 36:33
  their whatever it is, right? You see that kind of mimicking.
• 36:36
  And for me, I was always just like, I don't want that.
• 36:39
  There's no ego here for me. I don't feel an ego when you're
• 36:42
  trying to be me. I actually think that to
• 36:44
  everyone below you, they're looking at you like you're,
• 36:46
  you're kind of stupid, right? So for me, I'm like, find your
• 36:49
  voice, find your way, you know, and and also earn the respect of
• 36:53
  the people below you. That is a massive part.
• 36:56
  They're going to hold you up, right?
• 36:57
  I would, I won't say who, but I was at this.
• 36:59
  I was in this chef's kitchen and I noticed that everyone was
• 37:03
  dressed a certain way. And then as soon as the chef
• 37:07
  walked in, everyone changed how they were dressed within
• 37:09
  seconds. And I was like, you guys did
• 37:13
  that. As soon as that chef walked in
• 37:15
  the door like that quick, you guys rolled, rolled everything a
• 37:18
  certain way. You know, you like you said your
• 37:20
  pants or your cuff or your apron or whatever.
• 37:22
  I was like, as soon as Chef walked in, they all changed how
• 37:25
  they look and I was like, oh God, that's that's kind of bad.
• 37:28
  Yeah, and it's not, it's not the, the environment you want to
• 37:31
  create, right. I mean, I remember we used to
• 37:33
  joke about people in New York because whenever somebody came
• 37:35
  from John George, the way that you could always tell was when
• 37:37
  they came in for the stage, they'd hang up their chef coat
• 37:39
  and they'd roll up the sleeves before they put it on.
• 37:42
  They wouldn't roll them on their arm.
• 37:43
  They would roll them on the thing.
• 37:44
  And we'd look at him and we'd be like, guys from John George,
• 37:47
  like, you know, we just like knew.
• 37:49
  And, and so there's these weird things that like, you know,
• 37:51
  these cults that kind of happen within the culture of a
• 37:54
  restaurant. And I just never wanted that.
• 37:57
  I I wanted everyone to feel free to express themselves and be
• 37:59
  themselves because I think it's the best environment for them to
• 38:02
  learn. And what you know, going back to
• 38:03
  the the story, just for context, it wasn't a uniform standard.
• 38:07
  It was a fashion statement, correct?
• 38:09
  It wasn't like, hey, everyone has to wear this apron.
• 38:12
  It wasn't that, it was the chef thinks it's fashionable to wear
• 38:16
  it like this, so where can I wear it like that too?
• 38:18
  Period. And I thought that was kind of
• 38:20
  weird, but whatever. Again, cult of personality,
• 38:22
  right? It was really strange.
• 38:23
  Like I remember being at Barbudo and it was right when Hedley and
• 38:26
  Bennett came out until it started and everybody was
• 38:28
  wearing these aprons and I'm like, man, this aprons is like
• 38:30
  $80, you know, and if I wear this one from the Linens place,
• 38:34
  it's like $0.50. And everyone was like trying to
• 38:36
  save their money to buy this apron so that you could look
• 38:38
  really cool in the kitchen. It's just like for what you
• 38:40
  know. What I call them, I call them
• 38:42
  Halloween ninjas. You know why have I ever told
• 38:44
  you so? I, I, I say a Halloween ninja
• 38:47
  like a little kid, dresses up, buys the uniform, the plastic
• 38:50
  sword goes trick or treating. They're a ninja for a day, but
• 38:52
  they're not real ninjas. They're not going to kill
• 38:54
  anyone. They don't really know ninjutsu,
• 38:56
  but they look like they're Halloween ninjas.
• 38:58
  There's a lot of chefs that are Halloween ninjas.
• 39:00
  They got the, they got the uniform, they got the sword or
• 39:03
  the knives, whatever. They, they look the part.
• 39:05
  None of the skills. They yeah, they don't have the
• 39:07
  skills. Same like, you know, we'd have
• 39:08
  cooks who would be like, what kitchen shoes should I buy?
• 39:11
  And I was like, just don't buy a wipe.
• 39:12
  Regards. OK, You're not ready yet.
• 39:14
  Yeah, fair. You know, you were talking about
• 39:16
  86 and things. I remember when I was a young
• 39:19
  cook, you know, the pressure of having to 86 something.
• 39:22
  And I'm not talking about being a chef, I'm talking about just a
• 39:24
  cook. Like chef's going to kill me if
• 39:27
  I 86 and I would like go to the store and buy it with my own
• 39:30
  money or figure something out. Like I will do everything that I
• 39:35
  could do within my within my my network, within, you know, my
• 39:41
  radius to get that ingredient. And if I couldn't, I would like
• 39:46
  hide it. Please don't tell chef.
• 39:48
  Please don't tell chef. Whatever you do, please don't
• 39:50
  tell chef. We sixed it, right?
• 39:52
  It's like a like, it's so funny. It is funny that we were like
• 39:56
  that. Yeah, and I think it, it, it's
• 39:58
  character building, right? Like, I mean, I, yeah, working
• 40:00
  at Barbudo, you know, the big thing was like, because we were
• 40:03
  kids, it was kind of like, don't spend before Sunday, right?
• 40:06
  So Monday, Tuesday, we'd spend like, we were just like dumb
• 40:10
  kids with an allowance. We'd spend it all on Monday and
• 40:12
  Tuesday. And then I remember there would
• 40:13
  be Sundays where it'd be like the last black peppercorns and
• 40:16
  you'd be like, OK, if anyone orders a cachoe Pepe, we're
• 40:19
  really close, guys. And it was everyone was like
• 40:21
  sharing the same pepper. And, you know, they would always
• 40:24
  be like, well, you know, people come here for the chicken.
• 40:26
  You cannot the one rule, the golden rule of Barbuda.
• 40:29
  You can 86 everything else do not ever 86 chicken.
• 40:32
  And there was one Sunday where we just got blown up for brunch,
• 40:36
  really ran through it. The last two top was in the the
• 40:39
  restaurant and I had a cook on the corner of the street looking
• 40:42
  at me from from the open kitchen.
• 40:44
  And I was like, if a chicken comes in, we don't have it and
• 40:47
  it prints out and it's like chicken.
• 40:49
  And I looked at him and I was like, go.
• 40:51
  And he ran to D'agostino's, bought a chicken, ran it back
• 40:55
  over. We cooked it.
• 40:56
  They had chicken. And we never said a thing to
• 40:58
  chef right. Like, I mean, it's just a
• 41:00
  different, but it those moments, to your point about experience,
• 41:03
  those moments are what give you great experience.
• 41:05
  Like you're like, I will never forget that moment because it
• 41:08
  teaches you. I'm going to figure it out.
• 41:11
  So I'm wondering if that guest noticed, by the way, you know,
• 41:15
  like like this chicken, this chicken.
• 41:16
  Looks a little different. Yeah, this looks like it comes
• 41:19
  from the the bodega. Yeah.
• 41:21
  Exactly. Is this bodega chicken?
• 41:23
  Yeah. How do you be a good guest
• 41:24
  though? Like from the guest perspective,
• 41:26
  what do you think is important about being a good guest?
• 41:28
  I think being a good guest is, I mean, part of it just starts
• 41:31
  from being polite, right? I mean, it's just like coming
• 41:33
  into someone's house. Like I think you just, you don't
• 41:36
  come in like you own the place. I think those are, you know,
• 41:38
  those you're going to get better service that way.
• 41:39
  I think, you know, I, I always, I learned this from my aunt
• 41:42
  who's who always does this at restaurants, which I thought was
• 41:45
  embarrassing, was like when I was a kid.
• 41:47
  And now it's really important to me.
• 41:48
  I always know my server's name. That way when I call them over,
• 41:51
  if I need something, I'm calling their name and I'm not gesturing
• 41:55
  or, you know, doing any kind of weird motion or anything like
• 41:57
  that 'cause I don't know what kind of day that person's
• 41:59
  having. And also realizing that like,
• 42:02
  you know, yeah, these people come to the restaurant sometimes
• 42:03
  because you're the name on the marquee, you're the one.
• 42:06
  But you, they don't realize that there's like, you know, there's
• 42:07
  like a whole, like to your point, there's a whole ecosystem
• 42:10
  of people that you're supporting with that.
• 42:11
  And anywhere along the way, a mistake can be made, right?
• 42:14
  Someone didn't clean the oysters all the way.
• 42:15
  Someone didn't pull a beard off of 1 of the mussels.
• 42:18
  Someone didn't clean these greens.
• 42:20
  You know, there's a little bit of grit to them or whatever.
• 42:22
  And it all falls in that, you know, when they write that
• 42:25
  review, it's you, right? They write it about you as if
• 42:28
  you touched every single thing. And the thing that's hard
• 42:31
  sometimes is, especially when you open a restaurant, those
• 42:33
  young cooks, I tell them all the time not to do it, but they read
• 42:37
  all of those reviews and it is they don't have going back to
• 42:42
  it. The emotional intelligence to be
• 42:44
  able to read that kind of critique and not have it
• 42:47
  severely affect them. You know, I had to cook at
• 42:49
  Everly Where he was really having a hard time finding
• 42:53
  temperatures on stakes. Like it just, he went through
• 42:55
  this bout. He was just having a really hard
• 42:57
  time. Every time he read that review,
• 42:59
  he'd come in and then the overcorrection was there.
• 43:02
  And then it's like if he was under, he was suddenly over for
• 43:04
  three days. And, you know, and it was like,
• 43:07
  if your confidence isn't at a point where you can take that
• 43:10
  kind of critique, don't invite it into your life.
• 43:12
  And sometimes would guess I'm a little like, let's be a bit
• 43:15
  softer about the way we say it. I, I get that you didn't have a
• 43:17
  great experience. I get that we let you down.
• 43:19
  For me, sometimes it's just like, don't come back.
• 43:21
  That's OK. No skin off my back.
• 43:23
  But it's tough sometimes how brutal it gets out there.
• 43:25
  And, you know, when you're like a keyboard warrior and they're
• 43:29
  they're real young chefs and young cooks that are getting
• 43:32
  severely demoralized and in an industry that is already very
• 43:35
  difficult to stay in, you know, and that's and, and take a
• 43:38
  little bit responsibility for that.
• 43:40
  Yeah, yeah, social media was weird.
• 43:42
  And, and when I say social media, I also mean like Yelp and
• 43:45
  Google reviews and things like that.
• 43:46
  Like it's, it's a new way of things.
• 43:50
  And there's people that only experience it one way.
• 43:52
  So they're, they only experience it as the as the criticizers.
• 43:56
  And there's people that only experience it the other way,
• 43:58
  right. They, they are constantly
• 44:00
  getting critiqued. And I think I think there has to
• 44:07
  be a better way to do it. There has to be a better way to
• 44:09
  do it where because I mean, you look at like it's it's a mental
• 44:13
  health thing. Like before we would get so
• 44:14
  worried about like the newspaper credit coming in, right?
• 44:16
  And it's like, OK, but you only got reviewed twice a year.
• 44:19
  And that was by someone who was a proven writer and right.
• 44:22
  Yeah. And now you're getting reviewed
• 44:23
  every day, multiple times a day. Yeah, by anybody.
• 44:25
  By anybody, everyone's a critic, everyone has an opinion.
• 44:28
  And it's like they say, you know everyone, they're like opinions
• 44:31
  are like assholes. Everyone has them and they all
• 44:32
  stake. That's correct.
• 44:33
  Yeah. And, well, I mean, and this is a
• 44:35
  joke that I make all the time with with OpenTable.
• 44:37
  When I talked to them, I was like, you know, we should have
• 44:39
  a, a way to review the guests back because the things that
• 44:42
  guests have done in restaurants sometimes deserve a review.
• 44:47
  You're a little bit like. You have like a revengelist
• 44:49
  going like, yeah, first. Well, I mean, you know, like
• 44:52
  especially at Everly there were. Angry Guests 357.
• 44:54
  It wasn't even that. It would just be like, you know,
• 44:56
  whether they were doing something inappropriate or, or
• 44:59
  whatever it was like we are expected to keep that secret.
• 45:03
  We're expected to preserve that, right?
• 45:05
  They could throw up anywhere. I mean, the number of bodily
• 45:08
  fluids that you've, it's just insane, right?
• 45:10
  And you're expected as a as a restaurant or as, as a person in
• 45:13
  the industry to kind of like preserve their anonymity and
• 45:16
  like, this is a safe place. I'm making a safe place for you
• 45:18
  to be whatever you're going to be.
• 45:19
  If we have to call you an Uber home, if we have to help you, if
• 45:22
  you stumble, you know, whatever it is, right, You chip your
• 45:24
  tooth doing something you shouldn't be doing.
• 45:26
  We do that. But we overcook a steak and all
• 45:30
  of a sudden it's like that is fully on blast.
• 45:32
  That is a #1 review on Google for weeks and weeks and weeks,
• 45:35
  you know? And you're just like, man, like,
• 45:37
  really, Yeah. Yeah, yeah, people get nasty
• 45:40
  with those reviews. And it's funny, like I often
• 45:42
  tell people like you're not going to and it's, I didn't make
• 45:45
  this up, but you're not as bad as people say, but you're also
• 45:47
  not as good as people say either, right?
• 45:49
  Like yes, your shit stinks too. Just like everyone else.
• 45:51
  Absolutely, absolutely. I think it's, you know, and
• 45:53
  that's what I love about being a chef.
• 45:54
  I think it's one of the last meritocracies.
• 45:57
  Like, you know, you're good at it and it's something you have
• 45:59
  to be good at every day. It's not something that you
• 46:02
  just, it just comes naturally. It's something you have to be
• 46:04
  good at every single day. Yeah, the the, what's the
• 46:06
  expression? You're only as good as your last
• 46:07
  meal, but also the reverse is true.
• 46:09
  You're also as good as your next one.
• 46:11
  Correct. You have it's, it's the one
• 46:13
  industry. Well, it's not the one industry,
• 46:14
  but we're in it. So I'll say it's the one
• 46:15
  industry. That's our audience, yeah.
• 46:17
  It's our audience. It's the one industry where you
• 46:20
  have a complete redemption arc every single plate.
• 46:24
  Yeah, right. I was an asshole yesterday.
• 46:26
  Today. Perfect.
• 46:27
  Right, right. Like minute to minute.
• 46:29
  I mean, like really just getting that opportunity.
• 46:31
  I remember being a young cook and like, yeah, I'd like, I, I
• 46:33
  would like, you know, fuck up a steak or something.
• 46:35
  I'd be like, OK, but not the next steak.
• 46:37
  Like you have an opportunity to stop that, that sort of, you
• 46:40
  know, that, that complete freefall right then.
• 46:43
  And that's what I've always loved about it is that, yeah,
• 46:45
  sometimes you do a dinner and you're like, man, that, that
• 46:47
  sucked. And then other times you do and
• 46:48
  you're like, man, I was really great.
• 46:50
  But it's about the next one. And it's about that constant
• 46:52
  pursuit. And I think that that's that's
• 46:54
  the thing that I really want to get across to younger people who
• 46:56
  are, you know, getting in the insurance, even people who are
• 46:58
  transitioning into the industry is just it's about you and it's
• 47:02
  about what you push yourself to do every single day.
• 47:05
  And if you're expecting someone to just give you that education,
• 47:08
  you're missing the point, right? So if we're if we're going to
• 47:11
  give a young culinary and or young chef advice, what would be
• 47:15
  like your chef's PSA, like chef's PSA from you?
• 47:20
  My chef's PSA I think, I think it's really just to stay humble.
• 47:27
  Like I think, you know, even as as high as I've risen in various
• 47:30
  ways and in the industry and not just in TV, but like, you know,
• 47:33
  when you, that, that first time you fight and you're the, the
• 47:36
  lead, like the first time you get to work pasta and like, you
• 47:38
  know, you're, you're the one, right?
• 47:42
  It's, it's a, it's a really humbling experience.
• 47:44
  Like I think making food is a very humble and it's a very blue
• 47:47
  collar job and it's what I love about it.
• 47:50
  And we're working with people who may not even speak the same
• 47:53
  language that you don't come from the same socio economic
• 47:55
  place as you. Stay humble.
• 47:57
  They all have something to teach you.
• 47:58
  I think people who I've not been able to speak a single word with
• 48:02
  have taught me so much more than some of the big name celebrities
• 48:05
  that that I've cooked for or that I've I've worked for,
• 48:08
  right? And it's just about staying
• 48:09
  humble. It's so funny, you know, Dan
• 48:11
  Giusti from former Noma Chef, that no institutional cooking.
• 48:15
  We're having a conversation. I'm hoping I could get him on
• 48:18
  the podcast. And in this conversation, I'll,
• 48:23
  I'll share the story with you. So you have two chefs.
• 48:27
  So it's a, it's a religious parable.
• 48:30
  Yeah, you have, you have two chefs.
• 48:31
  They both show up to the pearly gates, Saint Peter's on the
• 48:34
  other side. And only one of them can get
• 48:37
  into heaven. And chef #1 says, what did you
• 48:40
  do? Or Saint Peter says to chef
• 48:41
  number, what did you do? I said, well I was a
• 48:43
  award-winning chef. I cooked for the most exclusive
• 48:46
  clients, I made some of the most beautiful food.
• 48:49
  I was written about in all these magazines and I won all these
• 48:51
  awards. Chef #2 what did you do?
• 48:54
  Why do you deserve to get into heaven?
• 48:56
  Is I fed a lot of hungry people and I nourished them, people
• 48:59
  that couldn't eat and I and I took care of them.
• 49:02
  Who gets into heaven? Yeah.
• 49:04
  Right. No, absolutely.
• 49:05
  I mean, I think we have to go back to what the the origin of
• 49:07
  the restaurant is, right? It's a place of respite.
• 49:09
  It's a place for people to, you know, kind of kick their feet up
• 49:12
  and and let you take care of them.
• 49:14
  And that, that kind of very, the, the way in which you have
• 49:18
  to be a host, I think is a very important part of being a chef
• 49:22
  that I think is lost because they don't all have to go out
• 49:25
  into the front of the house. They don't all have to go face
• 49:26
  that person. They look at that plate and
• 49:28
  they're like, oh, it just magically disappears over the
• 49:30
  past when you actually have to bring that.
• 49:32
  And I used to do this to cooks. We need to bring that physical
• 49:34
  plate to someone and be like, I made this.
• 49:37
  It is a humbling experience and it makes you think a lot more
• 49:40
  about what you put on that plate and the effort that you put in
• 49:42
  for that person. Yeah, yeah.
• 49:44
  We we, we need more humility in the industry because we, we
• 49:48
  forget like the ultimate mission is like cook food, make people
• 49:51
  happy, take care of your people. Yeah, nourish people, nourish
• 49:54
  people. That's why we're in this
• 49:55
  business. That's correct.
• 49:57
  It's not awards, it's not pretty pictures, it's not Instagram
• 49:59
  likes, it's not vanity metrics. It's to nourish people.
• 50:03
  And I think when we get back to that and we think like that, the
• 50:07
  food is actually better. Agreed 100%.
• 50:10
  All right, chef, let's talk about your workstation for a
• 50:12
  second. If you're setting up your
• 50:15
  workstation on your line, how how does how does it look?
• 50:18
  What kind of what's on what's on your workstation when you get
• 50:20
  set up at work? You mean outside of like my
• 50:23
  knees? Yeah, not, not, not necessarily
• 50:25
  what's prepped, but like how's your towels?
• 50:27
  How's your knives? What you got in your vein?
• 50:29
  The towel thing is crazy. Like my wife loses her mind at
• 50:32
  the house because she's like, I folded all those towels, why are
• 50:34
  you refolding all the towels? And I'm like, well I get a
• 50:36
  blister if I don't fold them exactly like this.
• 50:39
  How do you how's exactly like this?
• 50:40
  What's What's your towel fold? So the red stripe or the blue
• 50:43
  stripe is this way. It goes this way and then again
• 50:46
  and then a fold over on the stripe.
• 50:47
  So the stripes on the scene. But it has to be like a line
• 50:50
  perfectly cuz, you know, it's a kind of bunchy in one spot or
• 50:52
  whatever. Yeah, yeah.
• 50:54
  It's a very, very specific SO44 folds. 4 folds, correct yeah no
• 50:58
  just everything I think the way that I was taught cuz you know
• 51:02
  when you when you work, when Nobu is your first restaurant I
• 51:04
  mean like you're just doing so much volume like I think my
• 51:07
  first night we cooked for 600 people and I was like breathless
• 51:10
  the whole time right. I think the thing you learn is
• 51:12
  like, whatever your setup is throughout the night, just keep
• 51:16
  putting it back in the same place, right?
• 51:19
  101. 101 doesn't matter like I have walked onto a station in
• 51:24
  Norway, I have walked onto a station in Atlanta, I have
• 51:27
  walked onto opening night in San Francisco.
• 51:29
  And the one thing is just like whatever is around you just keep
• 51:33
  putting it back in the same place and you're going to be OK
• 51:35
  because by the end of the night you're going to be really,
• 51:37
  really fast and you're going to have that muscle memory.
• 51:39
  So I'm not like it used to be when I was when I was cooking,
• 51:41
  when I was a lion kick, it was very much like, OK, well, this
• 51:43
  is where the Red Bull goes and this is where my bane is.
• 51:46
  And, you know, and everything was very particular and I think
• 51:48
  I've become a lot more, I've been able to adjust a lot more
• 51:51
  walking like cold walking into kitchens right in these big, big
• 51:54
  moments. But it's really just keep
• 51:55
  putting it back in the same place, so.
• 51:56
  What's in your bane? Bane, JB Prince, Blue tweezers.
• 52:02
  It's like, I think I like that. Yeah, I like the blue ones.
• 52:04
  I don't know why the fish spatula is God.
• 52:10
  What is my fish spatula? Now I'm trying to think of what
• 52:12
  the brand of it is. It's the fancy 1 and I didn't
• 52:15
  buy it. I made somebody else buy it for
• 52:16
  me. What else is in my Bane spoons?
• 52:21
  I've always been a little bit more Coon spoon than I was the
• 52:24
  Richmond's. And I don't know, there's a
• 52:25
  weight thing. Yeah, I don't know, there.
• 52:29
  It's like it's very specific. Now I'm like, it's killing me
• 52:32
  that I don't remember what the name of the, what the brand of
• 52:34
  the spatulas, but it's like insane.
• 52:36
  And The thing is there's like a very small sort of like chip on
• 52:39
  it from when I used to Ting it on the on the griddle when I was
• 52:43
  making burgers. And it was just like this
• 52:45
  constant like because I was a very impatient cook.
• 52:48
  So it like I needed to like do certain little ticks that are
• 52:51
  like probably insanely annoying to a lot of other people, but
• 52:54
  like I used to have to do little things to keep myself from just
• 52:57
  touching it and touching it and touching it.
• 52:59
  So there are just little chips and certain parts of my
• 53:01
  equipment that are just like from this like repetitive stress
• 53:04
  movement. What knives do you typically put
• 53:06
  on your workstation? When I first started, I think
• 53:10
  you know, everyone's. It's like, you know, to your
• 53:11
  point about the ninjas, it's like you're the brand of your
• 53:13
  sword is like, yeah, big deal, right.
• 53:16
  That's. Yeah, yeah, no.
• 53:17
  But I mean, put brand aside, like, is it a chef's knife?
• 53:19
  Is it serrated as a petty knife? Like when you're setting up,
• 53:22
  what are you putting out? Like, I think for me it's a
• 53:24
  chef's knife always, yeah, when depending on the restaurants,
• 53:27
  you know, at Nobu, I had to have a petty on there as well.
• 53:29
  It's just like little movements and stuff.
• 53:30
  But yeah, generally a a decent size like chef knife.
• 53:34
  It's like, yeah, my Takamura, that one's like, usually if
• 53:37
  there's just one, you're like, this can do everything, little
• 53:39
  stuff, big stuff, whatever, right.
• 53:41
  But yeah, the petty is like, oh man, that ones, that's lights
• 53:44
  out. That's like, if it was like, end
• 53:47
  of the world, it's time to go. That's the weapon to pick up,
• 53:51
  right? A baseball bat and a petty
• 53:52
  knife, Yeah. And what color of tape are you
• 53:55
  using? Blue tape.
• 53:56
  I'm a blue tape. Blue tape.
• 53:58
  I'm a blue tape. What color are you?
• 53:59
  I'm green. I used to be blue, but now I'm
• 54:00
  green. I've switched teams.
• 54:02
  Yeah, yeah. It's too glossy for me.
• 54:04
  Really. I like the.
• 54:06
  So I'm assuming you use like the Scotch brand?
• 54:08
  Yeah, I use the Scotch brand. Green is it's great.
• 54:12
  I'll have to see. It's always been blue.
• 54:13
  And then I remember the first kitchen I walked into where they
• 54:15
  actually had the dispenser and I was like, Oh my God, right, it's
• 54:18
  out. And they were like that expense
• 54:20
  that, that, that dispenser's expensive.
• 54:21
  And I was like, literally no amount of money could.
• 54:24
  No, like we would have like every cook would have a
• 54:27
  dispenser on their state. Yeah, such a luxury, right?
• 54:30
  Because back in the day, it was literally like the little, you
• 54:32
  know, with your Helen Chen, you're like, oop, otherwise,
• 54:34
  like this is going to get ripped off at the end of the day,
• 54:36
  right? Yeah.
• 54:37
  OK. On your salt, what is it?
• 54:39
  What what what salt is on your is it?
• 54:41
  Diamond Kosher. Yeah.
• 54:43
  Diamond, Diamond. It was tough because Morton is
• 54:45
  the big sponsor of Top Chef. Yeah.
• 54:47
  So actually one of the guys in his like special you get to
• 54:50
  bring a box of of your own ingredients and stuff.
• 54:52
  He brought diamond salt and we were all and like, you know,
• 54:54
  it's just like it's a muscle thing, like you can't put as
• 54:56
  much Morton as you can put diamond.
• 54:58
  I am like right all the way Diamond.
• 55:00
  It it messes with me because right now at home I have
• 55:02
  Morton's like this is very hard to find.
• 55:04
  Diamond crystal, it's really hard and also the boxes got a
• 55:07
  lot smaller, right? Yeah.
• 55:09
  And so at home I'm seasoning with Morton's.
• 55:11
  Like, I don't know, I'm over salting everything.
• 55:12
  Like I'm having to readjust, like I have to relearn how to
• 55:15
  season just because it's a different salt.
• 55:17
  It's weird. Well, also in a restaurant, it's
• 55:19
  like every grammed out recipe is now up, right?
• 55:22
  And you're just like what happened?
• 55:24
  And yeah, my wife doesn't understand.
• 55:26
  We'll go to the store and I'll see Diamond.
• 55:27
  I'll be like, we got to buy like 4 boxes and she's like, why do
• 55:29
  we need four boxes of salt? That's crazy.
• 55:31
  I'm like because I don't know when I'm going to see it again.
• 55:33
  I don't know what's going on, but if they discontinue,
• 55:36
  everything's up in the air now. If you have like a seasoning for
• 55:40
  acidity that you use, do you use lemons?
• 55:42
  Do you use vinegars? What's what's like your go to
• 55:44
  acid general? Of course there's variations,
• 55:46
  but like your general. I think go to acid is varietal
• 55:50
  specific vinegars. So Chardonnay, vinegar, Cabernet
• 55:54
  vinegar with very very like low acid.
• 55:57
  So they're likely 6% that tastes almost like juice.
• 55:59
  Love that. What is something that you do in
• 56:03
  the kitchen that a lot of people don't know and you wish more
• 56:06
  people did? Is there like a is, is there a
• 56:10
  way that you enhance flavor? So like, do you have something?
• 56:16
  Is there something that you do in your kitchen that more chefs
• 56:18
  should know and do? I think for me, you know, going
• 56:21
  back to humility, I think the thing in my kitchens is like, I
• 56:23
  know I'm not. I've always said this to people.
• 56:26
  It's like if I can't make it the best, I'm going to go and find
• 56:28
  the best. And so when it comes to like,
• 56:30
  you know, like dehydrated spices or something, I buy it from
• 56:33
  Labod, right from Leor in, in New York and stuff.
• 56:36
  It's like I, I try to go and find the best that there is and
• 56:40
  bring that in it. I don't think I have like a
• 56:42
  magic trick that's like a signature move for me.
• 56:45
  But I think for me, it's like I always want to represent the
• 56:48
  best of what everybody's doing. Last question Chef, if if you
• 56:53
  had a Mount Rushmore of chefs SO4 chefs that you think are the
• 56:56
  the greatest chefs that to you So who would be on that Mount
• 57:01
  Rushmore of chefs? Mount Rushmore of chefs, I mean,
• 57:04
  Jonathan, I think would be, you know, my primary Jonathan Waxman
• 57:07
  right there, I think. Yeah, I think Marcus Samuelson.
• 57:13
  I mean, it's just one of the greatest not only chefs, but
• 57:16
  human beings that I've ever been around.
• 57:20
  Let's see, who else would I put on there, I guess, yeah.
• 57:30
  So Jonathan Waxman, Marcus Samuelsson, I think it'd be a
• 57:33
  tie for me between Missy Robbins and and Hilary Sterling.
• 57:36
  They both just delivered something so very different.
• 57:41
  And they really just taught me how to eat vegetables, taught me
• 57:44
  how pasta was supposed to be. We're always kind and took time
• 57:47
  with me as like a baby chef being like a little fangirl in
• 57:50
  their in their restaurant. So I think that it's kind of a
• 57:53
  tie for the two of them. And now I'm trying to think of a
• 57:56
  fourth one because they kind of exist together in my mind.
• 58:04
  Chef and who's your 4? I mean, if I had to say I'd
• 58:15
  probably put Thomas up there. Yeah.
• 58:18
  Alan Ducasse. I would have to say Renee
• 58:24
  Rezepi. Yeah.
• 58:26
  And Ferran does it. You pick the like, you pick what
• 58:30
  Mount Rushmore would be, Yeah. Well, that's the question like
• 58:32
  that. To me, that's Mount Rushmore.
• 58:34
  Yeah, I don't know. For me, I think it's like the
• 58:36
  chefs that impacted me, right? And so, yeah, I think it'd be
• 58:39
  Jonathan Marcus. It'd probably be, you know,
• 58:41
  Missy or Hillary. I'm trying to think who else
• 58:46
  like really just put a lot of time in with me and and always
• 58:51
  had the patience for everything. I don't know, I don't know who
• 58:55
  the 4th chef would be. Maybe I just put Missy and
• 58:57
  Hillary up there and call it a day.
• 58:58
  Call it a day, chef. Where can people find you?
• 59:01
  People can find me doing private events in their homes now.
• 59:03
  The best restaurant in Austin is in your house, Yeah.
• 59:05
  Awesome. And on social media, they want
• 59:07
  to, they want to reach out. On social media, it's just Chef
• 59:09
  Joe Chan. All right, Chef, this was good.
• 59:11
  Thank you everybody. Thank you so much.
• 59:12
  Yeah. Thank you.
• 59:14
  Well, I hope you enjoyed the show, you know what to do and
• 59:16
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• 59:20
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