Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / Behind the Scenes with Legendary Chefs: Lessons from Ducasse, Gras & Splichal with Andrew Turner Ep. 178

Transcript

Behind the Scenes with Legendary Chefs: Lessons from Ducasse, Gras & Splichal with Andrew Turner Ep. 178 · Chef's PSA Podcast

0:00
Hello, chefs. This is Chefs PSA.
0:01
I'm your host, Andre Natera. Today I'm joined by Andrew
0:04
Turner of Valley Wine Merchants in Newberg, OR.
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Andrew's career has taken him from the kitchens of culinary
0:10
legends like Alan Ducasse to running his own wine shop.
0:14
We talked about the lessons learned from the world's best
0:16
chefs, the transitions from the kitchen to entrepreneurship, and
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what it takes to really build a great wine program.
0:22
Some great stories, insight, and real perspective from a life
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spent working in arguably one of the greatest kitchens of all
0:28
time. Stay tuned.
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check up. You sent me a photo today.
1:23
So for for people that don't know you worked with Ducas when
1:28
when he was early Ducas before he had multiple restaurants.
1:31
That's correct. So you sent me a really cool
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photo and I'm going to put it up on the screen for people that
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are watching the podcast right now.
1:37
There's some legends in that photo right?
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Who's in there? So besides you, besides you we.
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Have, I mean, in front is Ducas, we're all much younger.
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So we have Ducasse on the right. Right next to him is the chef.
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That cuisine? Laurent Gras.
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Legend. So I don't know you, you were
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talking earlier that you listened to the episode I did
1:55
with David Breeden. We we talked a lot about
1:57
Laurent. Gras, did you really?
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Yeah, we did. We talked about how how he's a
2:00
legend and more people need to know who he is.
2:02
And it's funny. And I have an off the record
2:04
story that I'll share with you because I just talked to someone
2:06
who worked for Laurent Gras. He had some great stories about
2:09
that too. And what a legend he was in that
2:11
kitchen as well, right? Yeah.
2:12
But I don't want to spend all day talking about him, but he
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was. He's a legend.
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Every once in a while we exchanged messages and he's in
2:18
New York any. And then right behind the two of
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them is Jean Francois Piage, who's 3 Michelin star restaurant
2:27
chef in Paris. So when I walked into the
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kitchen, I worked directly under Jean Francois on the vegetable
2:36
station. And I was.
2:37
Dave. So he was like, shut the party.
2:39
Shut the party at the vegetable. Station and you were like, call
2:41
me coming in. I was so you think of the lowest
2:45
of the low of the pecking order in that kitchen.
2:47
Stagger is, is, is that. And, and so the beauty of that
2:54
scenario is your destiny is wide open because there's quite
2:58
literally 0 expectations on what you can do in this kitchen.
3:03
And, and quite frankly, you're a drain on the kitchen until you
3:07
prove you're not. And and that's that's the beauty
3:10
is, you know, so my goal after that one year commitment of
3:14
being there was all I wanted to be was some sort of some sort of
3:20
position that kitchen that I was counted on in some small way.
3:23
If I could just be that that was my goal.
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So it's interesting because everyone sees these great chefs
3:29
at the top and they don't understand that they started as
3:32
a call me or they started as an apprentice and they had a
3:35
journey as well. That wasn't easy.
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Everyone just sees the three Michelin stars today for for
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Jean Francois. But what they don't see is that
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he was the CDP on the station teaching you, and he was
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probably getting yelled at by the sous chef because he was
3:49
burning the fish or whatever the case may be.
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Right, so you. You saw that?
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Yeah. And I saw, you know, how he fit
3:55
into that kitchen. And and so I was trying to
3:58
figure out it's a very foreign environment as a as as a cook
4:02
that came from Los Angeles, working at arguably the hottest
4:06
restaurant in Los Angeles, doing very demanding food, very high
4:13
touch, very progressive food in Los Angeles.
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That line that kitchen was 2345 total doing 200 and 22140 covers
4:26
almost every night. So for people that don't know
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what restaurant was. That, that was patina in Los
4:31
Angeles, that was the original patina on Melrose was Joaquim.
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Legendary restaurant, Legendary chef.
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Unbelievable experience. By far the toughest kitchen I
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ever worked in. Still the kitchen I crave, still
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the kitchen I It was just an amazing experience.
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It was the militaristic structure I needed.
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Yeah. Yeah.
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And so how did you get from there?
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Because I'm sure there's a story somewhere.
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How did you get there? To what?
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Louie Kahn's right. Louie Kahn's Yeah.
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So three months into my experience at Patina, I was
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quite literally drowning. I I just couldn't wrap my round
5:12
around the volume. I'd never been in the kitchen
5:15
that was doing such consistent volume and such demanding food.
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And I, I made a appointment with Joakim one day to literally
5:24
throw in the towel and and resign.
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I was pretty sure it wasn't working for me.
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I knew it wasn't work for me. I was pretty sure it wasn't
5:30
working for him. What position were you in at
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this time that you felt like you were driving?
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I was working hot apps right next to the fish chef.
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And so we would kind of work in tandem.
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I made the appointment. I show up in his office in
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typical Joachim fashion. He's very abrupt, he's very
5:49
tough. And I said chef.
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I just, I think we just have to call spade a spade and I think I
5:55
need to resign. It's just, it's just not
5:57
working. I just, I'm, I'm flailing every
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day. I'm drowning.
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And he laughs at me and he says, I get it, but you need to learn
6:06
this lesson of volume equals successful businesses.
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I had two restaurants fail before this one and I'm not
6:13
going to let this one fail. And so there's a reason that we
6:17
have to do volume and there's a reason why I'm using all these
6:19
humble ingredients in exciting ways.
6:22
You know, we jokingly called him Mr. Potato Head because he
6:26
potatoes a million ways and really, really cool food.
6:31
But he said, I'll tell you what, if you give me two year
6:34
commitment, man to man right here, you shake on it, two
6:37
years, you give me two years, I'll help you go anywhere you
6:40
want to go. Where, where, where would that
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be? And I said I'd love to go back
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to France. I went to France for a few
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months after corner school and I said I'd love to go to France.
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I just want to cook. That's what I want to do.
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And he said, that's where I came from.
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I know everybody, that's what you want to do.
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And I said, yeah, he goes done. You give me two years, we'll do
7:03
that. Two months to the day.
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He always went away in August on vacation to the South of France.
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So two months to the day, I show up in his office and I hand him
7:13
a stack of resumes, and he kind of looks at me and he says,
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what's this? And I said, come on, you
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remember our agreement, We're coming up to that.
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And he smiled. He said, oh, OK, I'll see what I
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can do. When he came back, I met him in
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front of the restaurant and I said, what?
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What did you find? Did you find me a job?
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And he muttered something. He said, I did, I think I found
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you a job. And he mutters where that was.
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And I just completely zoned out. And I walked in the kitchen and
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everyone in the kitchen dropped their knives and said, what?
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Where is he sending you? What do you say?
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And I said somewhere in Monaco. And I think he said, ho de de
7:53
Paris, something like that. And everyone looks at me and her
7:55
eyes get really wide. And they said, holy shit, do you
7:58
know where that is? And I said, do I care?
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I, I, you know, you can't make this up.
8:06
Like on cue, a waiter walks in the the swinging door with a
8:10
copy of the Wine Spectator. I have this wine Spectator on
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the cover. It says world's best chef
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question mark. And it's a picture of Alan du
8:19
Cast. And he slides it to me.
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And he says that's where you're going.
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And right then and there, it was like the fear of God set in
8:27
because, yeah, I just what did I sign myself for?
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I don't know if I'm up for this. So that that's how that
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happened. I fulfilled my obligation, my my
8:37
commitment. And Joe came came through.
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And not only did it come through, it came through big.
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Lo and behold, Joe came. Knew Alan for years, they would
8:45
hang out on vacation. Flash forward another month or
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so. There was a fateful day in the
8:55
Patina kitchen on Wednesday, and this was interesting because
8:59
Joaquim just opened his first restaurant outside of Patina,
9:03
which was Pinot Bistro. He opened up a Bistro in the San
9:06
Fernando Valley. On Wednesdays.
9:08
He gets the PNL statements of both restaurants.
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Joaquim is famously a pretty hot tempered guy, but on Wednesdays
9:17
he was extra sensitive. So what happened was he walked
9:21
in the back door, He walked by the garbage can that was right
9:24
on the corner. Now I'm the fish chef.
9:26
Now I'm the chef, the Partitia fish station.
9:29
He walks by the garbage can. He sees a little tail piece of
9:32
striped bass and I thrown out and he looks down literally side
9:38
eyed as he's coming around the past to where he expedites and
9:40
he picks up this piece of fish. And I just knew right then this
9:45
is going to be bad. And he said, who the fuck threw
9:49
out this piece of fish? I dropped my knife and and I
9:54
just knew this is going to be bad.
9:56
I dropped my knife and I walked over as a chef, that was me.
9:59
And and I was going to explain what had happened.
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He just he laid into me. I mean, it was red faced and it
10:07
was just, you know, what had happened was there were
10:12
refrigerated drawers that pull out famously the Patina Kitchen.
10:15
This is well documented. Patina Kitchen.
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Joaquim opened that restaurant. I, I had always heard they
10:22
opened it with $500,000 investment, $498,000 went to the
10:27
China and the banquettes and the artwork in this beautiful dining
10:31
room. We inherited the restaurant
10:33
prior with the equipment. I mean, the equipment we were
10:36
cooking on was just, it was unbelievable how we pulled off
10:39
that amount of food. The refrigerated drawers, the
10:42
dividers between your your pants, right where all your
10:45
fishes portion. Notorious for following.
10:48
I pulled out this drawer and the striped bass portions, dropped
10:51
the ground onto the mats and this little tail piece, like a
10:54
somersault, somersaulted onto The Dirty mat.
10:57
It was a little tail piece. What we do is we would steam it
11:00
and flake it into a little creamy potato for, you know,
11:03
anyway, I made the decision, the executive decision to throw out
11:07
the tailpiece. Joe came late into me and he
11:11
said This is why this restaurant is losing money.
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I took it for about 7 minutes. It was just relentless.
11:23
Where I went wrong is at some point I cracked and I said chef.
11:29
Respectfully. If this restaurant is losing
11:33
money, there's a sheet pan of overcooked salmon that came back
11:37
from a catering job in the walk in.
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Not the thing to say in that. Right, right, right.
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He literally said pack up your fucking knives, get the fuck out
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of my kitchen and don't ever, don't ever use my name.
11:58
You never worked here and if you think I'm going to send you to
12:01
the South of France, forget about it.
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You're not going to embarrass me over there.
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I couldn't believe it. I packed up my knives.
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This is that for two years. After two years and and quite
12:13
literally, I had my plane ticket.
12:14
I was ready to go in about two months to do.
12:17
You do you think in retrospect that you leaving was putting
12:21
stress on him and he was upset about it?
12:23
No, no, I, no, because he he had, he had plenty of time to
12:28
prepare, right. We we'd had this plan.
12:30
I think it was a perfect storm of he was just, you know, a
12:37
little extra touchy. I I've noticed in my career
12:41
sometimes when chefs know that the time is coming to an end,
12:45
tension starts to build right at the end.
12:47
Like friendships split, like the last few days of working
12:50
together. It's almost like one end finally
12:54
gets the confidence to push back because they know time is done
12:58
and then the other side doesn't know how to express that they're
13:00
sad that this person's leaving. And sometimes it, it boils.
13:03
I've seen it happen many times. It's happened with me, many of
13:06
my former sous chefs who I all, I love them all very much.
13:09
Hopefully they they love. Me right?
13:14
I'm just curious if you if in retrospect you you think about
13:16
that. What I, what I, what I really
13:20
think in my heart of hearts, if I'm being honest with myself,
13:26
you know, at a certain point I was hitting my stride in that
13:29
kitchen. I, I was building my confidence.
13:31
I was finding my own voice in that very demanding kitchen and
13:37
frankly, maybe getting a little full of myself, you know, cocky
13:40
young, young cook. I left with my tail between my
13:47
legs, literally thinking my, my life is over.
13:51
And I managed to reconnect with him just by happenstance.
13:59
So my girlfriend Mary was working upstairs for a little
14:03
extra money in the pastry kitchen at Patino.
14:06
And I've been calling Joaquin's assistant Eileen and, and saying
14:11
if you could just have the chef call me.
14:13
I'm not asking for my job back. I'm not asking for anything.
14:15
I just want to apologize. I hated the way it ended because
14:20
I felt like I I felt like I did good things and I felt like I
14:24
did good work. I had one bad day.
14:29
He wasn't calling me back. I I made three attempts with his
14:31
assistant. I said to my girlfriend Mary, if
14:34
you ever pass chef in the hallway, if you could just, if
14:37
you could just have him call me next day.
14:41
She passes. Joaquim says Andrew would just
14:43
like to apologize. If you could just call him.
14:46
He said, oh, yeah, yeah, that's on.
14:47
That's been on my I'll call him tomorrow and he calls me.
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Couldn't believe it. And I started out by saying
14:54
chef, I just wanted to apologize.
14:56
I I should never have spoke to you like that in your kitchen
14:59
and and I just want to appall that's it.
15:01
I just want to apologize. Lo and behold, completely
15:07
shocked, he apologizes to me and he said, Andrew, I was I was
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having a bad day. I was in a bad mood.
15:14
You're a very talented cook. I would never stop you from
15:17
going to France. You're going, but I want you to
15:20
come tomorrow to the restaurant. I want to just talk to you
15:22
before you go in person. I come the next day and
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essentially we sit down and he looks at me and he says don't
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fuck this up. Best advice you could ever get.
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You're the first person we're sending from the Patina group.
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We want to send other people. So make me proud and, and I'll
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tell you that I've been reflecting a lot about this,
15:45
that that was the perfect humbling experience to knock me
15:50
down a couple pegs to go into that kitchen with my ego in
15:57
check. That was actually perfect.
16:01
It actually played out exactly how it should have to prepare me
16:04
for that. I want to go back because you
16:06
said something before we get into your time at Tucas.
16:09
You said something that I think a lot of people could benefit
16:12
from if you expand upon it. What he meant when he said we
16:17
need this restaurant to do volume to make money and there
16:21
were some lessons in there. What was he trying to say to
16:24
you? What were some of those lessons
16:26
specifically when with with that volume comment?
16:29
Right up until that point, you know my experience when I worked
16:35
for Joachim, I was 20 and 21. Up until that point I thought I
16:39
worked in businesses and in fact what I worked in were art
16:47
expressions, tasting menus, 3040 covers a night, a lot of cooks
16:53
in the kitchen. Patina was really drilled down
16:57
to just the minimum cooks and everyone was pushed to the hilt.
17:04
The prep crew upstairs did all of the foundational work.
17:08
When I came in, I'm I'm, I'm butchering fish and I'm fine
17:12
tuning, I'm building sauces and then it's execution.
17:16
The other important lesson that Joakim taught me just by being
17:21
there, what I saw was that he always had multiple revenue
17:25
streams. He started Patina Catering out
17:28
of the same kitchen utilizing the same prep crew.
17:31
Right. Something that I've always
17:32
heard, when people refer to patina, they refer to the patina
17:35
group. The emphasis on the group part
17:39
that implies multiple revenue. That's right, streams.
17:44
So when I worked for him, it was patina only.
17:46
And then about a year and a half into my tenure there, Pinot
17:51
Pinot Bistro opened. He started doing, you know,
17:55
clients, regulars would say, hey, I'm having a dinner party
17:59
for 20-30 forty people. Would you would you do that?
18:02
That's how patina catering started.
18:04
It was right down the street from all those movie studios.
18:08
So what I saw when not even paying attention, what I saw was
18:12
that if the restaurant was slow, which it really never was in
18:15
those days, but on a Tuesday, Wednesday, if you're doing this
18:19
catering for 4050 people using the same crew that you're paying
18:22
labor on, that's just helping you balance.
18:27
So very, very important. So now you're, you're arriving
18:31
in France. What were some of the what were
18:34
some of the first lessons that you get in when you walk into
18:37
that kitchen? Besides the fact that you're
18:38
you're French needs to get back. Like what are some of those
18:41
like, Oh shit, right, Just got real.
18:44
Yeah. By the way, and what year is
18:46
this roughly? So this would have been 9495.
18:50
OK, so I'm graduating culinary school right at this.
18:53
At this point, you're walking into the best kitchen in the
18:55
world. Well, what was really clear is
18:58
that there was a pecking order. And whether you like it or not,
19:04
learn your place. And so I walked in the kitchen,
19:08
introduced myself to Laurent Gras, who was in the in the
19:11
chef's office, right in the back of the kitchen.
19:14
And you know, there was, there was, there was no celebration.
19:19
I was there. There was no carpet.
19:22
There was no, we're happy you're here.
19:23
It's I'll see you tomorrow morning at 8:00 AM.
19:27
And, you know, I hope your knives are sharp.
19:29
You know, I was, I mean, it was, you know, time for work, right?
19:33
And, and so when I showed up the first day, it was OK.
19:35
You're going to work with you're going to work on the
19:38
entrementier, the the, the vegetable station.
19:41
This is Jean Francois. Jean Francois Piage.
19:45
He's your chef. He's your boss.
19:47
What he says goes. And you know, of course what
19:51
you're doing is you're preparing vegetables.
19:53
You know, there's, there's a dish with with sauteed
19:57
Mediterranean artichokes and you're literally, you're
19:59
literally cleaning artichokes to order and you're showing fava
20:02
beans and you're. Showing Hold on, you're cleaning
20:03
artichokes to order. Absolutely.
20:05
Why to order? Because if you're, you know, the
20:08
oxidation, if you're putting them in lemon juice, those
20:11
artichokes particularly putting in lemon juice for too long of a
20:13
time, that's all you're going to taste is the lemon juice.
20:16
And they're such a delicate artichoke.
20:18
They're nutty and they're, that you, you want to just get them
20:22
down. You want to get all that fibrous
20:24
material off, sliver them up right into the saute pan that's
20:27
warmed up. Yeah, to order.
20:30
Yeah, you're, you're turning artichokes to order.
20:32
And so the expectation is and, and by the way, you know, the
20:38
forager who forages and gathers vegetables for this restaurant,
20:43
there were 12 artichokes delivered today because that's
20:46
the projection of the amount of artichokes needed for lunch
20:50
service. And then there's a there's.
20:53
A. Exactly.
20:55
So order comes in and did. Did you say I've never turned an
20:57
artichoke Show? No.
20:59
No, no, no, no. Luckily my experience with
21:04
another mentor with the with the Huber Carol Flirte Lee.
21:07
I would turn 2 cases of artichokes at night.
21:10
So I'm downstairs in the prep kitchen and and so so luckily
21:16
the building blocks were there. Knives were sharp, skills are
21:19
fine-tuned. You better be ready because if
21:23
you mess up these vegetables, the expectation is you.
21:31
You signed on for a year. We didn't commit to a year from
21:34
you for you. So you mess up.
21:38
It's not working out for this restaurant.
21:40
You're too much of a problem or, or or too much trouble.
21:43
You're gone. I mean, there's a red, there's a
21:45
stack of resumes that people were.
21:47
Drafted. You volunteered.
21:48
That's right. Right.
21:50
So the commitment is you're here for a year, there's no I'm going
21:54
to leave early, right? And and so I think that was the
21:59
tone that was set from the get go is that you better be sharp.
22:03
What were some of the the culinary lessons that you know
22:08
for the audience, the Cook's listing?
22:10
What were some of the culinary lessons that you learned there
22:14
to extract flavor, some of the technique, some things that
22:19
maybe you haven't seen since that you could talk about?
22:23
It sounds cliche today, you know, the celebration of
22:26
ingredients and Christine ingredients, but but it really,
22:31
really in the South of France and the plethora of seafood and
22:37
vegetables from Provence, you've never tasted such vibrant
22:42
vegetables. And Ducasse is really about
22:45
getting to the essence of those flavors.
22:48
So quick sautees, maybe a quick braise, but it's really all
22:54
about capturing that perfect seasonality and and perfect
22:58
expression of that vegetable. So that's the true, you know,
23:02
again, Chef Ducasse, this is the true Mother Nature being the
23:07
true artist. He was, he was the, you know,
23:09
him and a lot of other chefs, but specifically him, he went
23:13
out of his way to find the best produce and celebrate it and,
23:16
and approach it with such reverence and respect and treat
23:21
the ingredients minimally, minimally the way that they need
23:25
to be treated. It's interesting because I wrote
23:27
about this in, in a, a paper that I never published, but I
23:30
talked about how, and it was inspired by, by Chef Decoste,
23:35
how a chef gets an apple and the apple can be turned into a gel,
23:40
a fluid gel and a foam and, and a twill and a chip and it's
23:45
dehydrated. It's this, that, and the other.
23:49
And it'd be more impressive to grow an apple.
23:53
The tree has the harder job of growing a perfect apple, right,
23:56
Right. And then so can you put it back
23:57
together And it's, you know, once you've deconstructed, you
24:00
can't put it back together. That's right.
24:01
But the tree can, right. The tree takes all the, the
24:04
natural elements of, of, of, of the earth and gives you a
24:07
perfect apple. And when an apple is perfect or
24:09
a Peach or, you know, a tomato or an artichoke for that matter,
24:14
it's already good. It, it, it's delicious at that
24:17
point. So I'm sure that was being in
24:19
that environment with those legends.
24:21
I'm sure it was like, I mean, you're like, you're like
24:25
watching The Rolling Stones or in their early days, right?
24:27
Right, the celebration of ingredient.
24:32
The thing that comes to mind for me back then on the tasting
24:36
menu, whether it was the vegetable tasting menu or the
24:40
the gourmet menu, there was usually a risotto in the mid
24:44
course. This is really beautiful.
24:46
To this day, I've never tasted or seen a risotto like this
24:49
really loose, really creamy, a little mascarpone in there.
24:53
The rice is cooked pre service, but to just a point where
24:57
there's a little chew to it and then rehydrated with that that
25:02
starchy rice liquid. And then always started with a
25:06
really beautiful, flavorful chicken stock that was made with
25:10
whole, whole birds and burnt onions for color.
25:15
So it's really light stock that was really a base of a lot of
25:18
the Jews and a lot of the risottos.
25:21
So there would be a risotto and if there was a vegetable
25:25
component to that, a pea puree or favo puree, it would be the
25:29
most beautiful capturing of that finished into that risotto and
25:36
then a savory whipped cream right at the end to just lift it
25:42
and in a little beautiful fruity olive oil.
25:43
And then sometimes if it was mushroom season, it would be the
25:48
roasted mushrooms in olive oil braised in that beautiful
25:53
chicken stock again just to capture that incredible, the
25:57
most beautiful essence of that mushroom to top that risotto.
26:00
I worked with someone that worked with someone that
26:03
actually someone that worked for me.
26:05
It was one of my sous chefs. They had worked from, for, for
26:08
dukas for the group. And they were such a good cook.
26:13
And I saw things 'cause I, I, I mean, even though they were my
26:16
subordinate, I learned probably more from them than they learned
26:19
from me. And I just remember seeing
26:21
things that I just, and I don't know if this was a Dukas thing,
26:25
but he, he implied that it was a Dukas thing.
26:28
Like when you're adding stock, you know, it's something that I
26:32
saw this person do. They would add stock, reduce,
26:34
add stock, reduce. And like they would concentrate
26:36
the stock like risotto but like for sauces.
26:38
OK, Yeah. Yeah.
26:39
And then they would do it. He would also do a lot of
26:41
finishing with brown butter. So and then also make like
26:45
chicken butter. So like straighten out the, you
26:48
know, making brown butter with parts of chicken.
26:51
So you infuse flavors and just this, this, this layering of
26:56
flavors and building like the the building blocks that we all
27:01
know, but concentrated them in a way that was just 10 times
27:04
better than what the way you're used to doing.
27:06
It right, Yeah, to accentuate. Yeah.
27:11
So those are some of the things I remember from those early
27:13
days. And if you're just paying
27:14
attention to these nuances that really aren't nuances there,
27:18
it's a, it's a lot of complexity going on.
27:20
If you're paying attention to technique, you know, and really
27:24
that kitchen coming from patina where it's, you know, 6 people
27:27
on the line and everyone's pushing the limit.
27:29
And suddenly I'm in the kitchen where there's offseason, there's
27:32
20 cooks at various ranks and various positions.
27:36
And so you're kind of tripping over each other to do an element
27:40
for a dish. So there was plenty of time to
27:44
absorb what was happening around you.
27:47
Still very demanding. You're still working the, you
27:50
know, 15 hour days both shifts. But I was, I was, frankly, I
27:57
couldn't believe I was. It was surreal.
27:59
I couldn't believe I was in this kitchen.
28:00
How long were you there? For a year.
28:02
For a year. Wow, I.
28:03
Couldn't believe I was in. This this was before Ducasse had
28:05
any other restaurant. He had one.
28:06
Restaurant, so he was still in the kitchen.
28:08
The Louie Kansas not really OK, he was, but he wasn't.
28:12
What's interesting is I the first time I saw Ducasse was
28:14
probably a few weeks in. He came around the past to speak
28:20
to Laurent, and so he wasn't there every day, but he was
28:25
there. His office was down the hallway
28:29
and there was a great meeting. It was kind of like my jockey
28:35
meeting about 3 months into my year.
28:40
I can't tell you why. I was just giddy with
28:42
excitement. I couldn't believe I'm in Monte
28:44
Carlo. I'm on the Riviera, living here
28:47
in this kitchen with these products.
28:51
I just felt like I won the lottery.
28:53
I couldn't believe it. I made AIII, made an appointment
28:56
with Ducasse. And about a week later, after I
29:01
made this appointment, the office calls to the kitchen.
29:05
And Laurent Gross says the chef is ready to see you.
29:08
And I had forgot I made this appointment.
29:11
Oh, yeah. So I, I go to the office and I
29:15
walk into Mr. Ducasse's office and I could see by his
29:20
expression he was, I think prepared for me to complain that
29:25
I'm, you know, that I'm cleaning the kitchen top to bottom.
29:28
I'm working 18 hours, 7 days, you know, and I literally just
29:32
said, I, I know you're busy chef.
29:33
I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for the opportunity.
29:38
I, I'm really enjoying being here and I'm very proud to be
29:41
here and just thank you. And I get up to walk away and he
29:45
says, well, I'll see you in Los Angeles next week.
29:51
And I'm thinking my French is not kicking in.
29:53
And I think I misheard that. And he said, talk to Helen on
29:56
the way out. She'll tell you about it.
29:58
His assistant. And I walk out of the office.
30:00
And I said, Helen, Mr. Dicas is something about Los Angeles.
30:04
She said, yeah, yeah, you're going to Los Angeles with Mr.
30:06
Dicas next week. You're one of three people from
30:08
the restaurant, from the kitchen.
30:11
You are creating the Louis Cans for a week in Los Angeles at a
30:15
restaurant called The Lingerie. Mr. Giacas is taking the Luigans
30:19
and you're going to recreate that lunch and dinner there for
30:22
a week. Wow.
30:25
OK, so now we have the task of we're going to do 3 star
30:31
Michelin food with and we're doing about 150 covers for lunch
30:35
and dinner in Los Angeles. So it's three of us from Luigans
30:39
and the crew from that kitchen. It was it.
30:43
Was it a good kitchen though? Like did the burners work?
30:45
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The kitchen was where.
30:47
The fish pans fall in. The kitchen was LA Rangerie.
30:50
It was. It was a fabled kitchen.
30:51
Los Angeles, but nonetheless incredibly challenging.
30:55
Yeah. So that for whatever reason,
30:59
that began a series of events where Mr. Ducasse was starting
31:07
to promote himself with the press and with these special
31:09
dinners. So what ended up happening is
31:12
over the next six months from there I went to Istanbul, I went
31:17
to London with Mr. Ducasse to do these exact dinners, these
31:21
promotional dinners with again, a small crew.
31:24
That's, that's incredible. I want to, I want to go back to
31:27
your time at Ducasse and I have a, a question, Were you able to
31:32
recognize greatness in some of those chefs that have gone on to
31:35
do great things then or were they just peers?
31:40
Did you, did you understand that everyone you were, you were, you
31:44
were touching, you know, greatness all around you?
31:51
From my perspective, being in that kitchen, Laurent Gras, for
31:58
example, Laurent Gras position in that kitchen was Lieutenant
32:02
Exact executor of the Ducasse vision, right?
32:06
There was no wiggle room of creativity.
32:08
There was no brilliance that we all know now that is Laurent
32:12
Gras that he's gone on to accomplish.
32:18
There were personalities in that kitchen that I felt had a flow,
32:25
had an ease to their cooking. Pierre Shedlin, who went on to
32:36
be the chef at Le Cirque and other things, I think now he's
32:40
the private chef for Martha Stewart.
32:43
He was a guy that like kind of blew me away.
32:47
Just his flow, just as ease of cooking.
32:51
He had a lightness to the way he moved that I was very, very
32:55
impressed with. That was one that really stood
32:59
out to me. What did you learn about taste
33:04
and developing your palate during your time not, not just
33:07
under, you know, shift to cost, but also patina and Fleur de lis
33:12
and some of these other great places that you worked?
33:16
It's not about personality, it's about perfection and execution
33:20
on the vision of that, of the building blocks and of that
33:23
dish. And being a talented cook is
33:28
about repetition. It's about nailing it time and
33:32
time and time again, regardless of how buried you are, how
33:36
backed up you are. It's about can you come back to
33:41
that foundation of that exact flavor profile, that exact
33:45
taste? I think that's really, really
33:47
important. And, and I think a lot of young
33:51
cooks, you know, go off the rails because we all want to at
33:54
some point flex a little bit. We want to all, you know, maybe
33:58
maybe if I, you know, did this or wouldn't it be better?
34:01
There's a time and a place for that.
34:03
But but in in these situations and and these supportive roles
34:08
in someone else's restaurant, your your your place is to
34:15
execute with perfection and precision every time.
34:19
Yeah, I think that's you said a, a very keywords you're in a
34:22
supportive role for for a restaurant.
34:25
You're not in the sometimes we all want to be in the creative
34:28
role right there. I mean, we all do to a certain
34:31
extent. We all everyone fights for the
34:32
creativity stick, right. At what point do you decide, you
34:38
know, your your career's taking a turn.
34:39
I want to talk about entrepreneurship.
34:42
At a certain point you've decided to leave the culinary
34:45
industry and and go on a on a different endeavour.
34:48
So can you tell people what that is?
34:50
And we don't got to get into why you decided that, but I'd like
34:55
to talk about what that is that you do.
34:58
The great challenge when you come out of a kitchen like the
35:01
Louie cans and you see cooking at that level and you've at the
35:08
same time, you know through the patina years and as a young
35:12
cook, ambition is building, your own voice is building, you start
35:15
to have your own ideas. The burden and the challenge of
35:20
coming from that kitchen is what do I do next?
35:25
The pressure that I, perhaps it was self-imposed, perhaps
35:28
everyone feels this, I don't know.
35:30
I'll speak for myself. What I thought was I need to
35:34
respect that opportunity and respect what I do from here.
35:41
So what do I do next? At some point I think like any
35:49
young cook, I thought a restaurant was going to be in my
35:51
future. I thought that that was the
35:52
inevitability of where I go. It's like that old cliche, Hey,
35:57
you're a chef, so when you open up your own restaurant.
35:59
That's right. That's right.
36:00
Yeah, that's right. And there were certainly several
36:04
conversations of, you know, regulars at restaurants I cooked
36:08
at that said, if you ever want to open, here's my card.
36:11
If you ever want to, let's have a conversation.
36:17
The truth is, at a certain point I ran in a steam.
36:23
Yeah, a lot, a lot of chefs do right.
36:25
From a creative standpoint, I felt there's a there's an apex
36:29
of what I feel three things have to come together at the perfect
36:32
time. Energy, probably youth,
36:36
creativity and investment at the same time.
36:42
At a certain point I had the energy.
36:44
In the youth, I had the creativity.
36:49
I don't think the investment was there at that point.
36:52
And then what had happened was I, I met who is now my wife, who
36:59
has never worked one day in a restaurant in her life, had an
37:02
amazing life in, in, in New York City.
37:05
We met on the East Coast and outside looking in, I was just
37:10
very envious of this balance in life.
37:12
She had started her own business, was a hard worker, and
37:17
yet she had this balance in life.
37:18
She had a thriving personal life and friends and, and, you know,
37:23
work hard, but also played hard. I felt like I had no balance in
37:27
life. I felt like the way that I was
37:30
cooking, the way that I was approaching cookie, it was it
37:34
was kind of all or nothing. And I sort of you're like
37:36
special. OPS.
37:37
Yeah, it's. Like you're you're tip of the
37:39
spear cooking that like requires everything from you.
37:42
And I kind of felt like unless I'm doing it to that degree, I,
37:47
I, this is the way I felt at the time.
37:50
I, I, I wouldn't be proud of it unless I was giving it 110%.
37:54
And I didn't see that that was going to be a great outcome in
37:58
the quality of life, in my health and so on and so forth.
38:03
So I made the decision to start allowing myself to think about,
38:07
well, if I wasn't cooking, which by the way, was my only job
38:11
since I was 14. And I started to really allow
38:14
myself to Daydream and say, well, if I wasn't cooking, what
38:18
would I do? Wine was always my equal
38:22
passion. Wine was always my equal
38:24
interest. And a lot of these restaurants I
38:26
worked for, I would spend a little off time working with the
38:30
sum of the A and the wine buyer and come in a little before I
38:34
was going to work and, and help them stop the seller and ask
38:36
questions about wine and maybe go to a tasting with them.
38:39
And I was very fortunate to have mentors that that allowed me to
38:42
expand my knowledge and my curiosity for wine.
38:45
So that was the easy answer. If I wasn't cooking, what would
38:48
I do? And wine was the obvious answer.
38:52
Michelle and I moved to Oregon with the thought that I'm going
38:56
to change careers. And just so happens someone was
39:03
in need of a manager of a wine shop and literally threw me the
39:05
keys to the shop and said, let's see what you're going to do with
39:09
it. Well, let's see what you can do
39:10
with it. The, the, what I told them is
39:15
that I think there's a skill set that I've learned in these
39:19
kitchens I've worked in that is going to translate here.
39:24
When I was the fish chef at Patina, you need enough diver
39:29
scallops to get through tonight and maybe into tomorrow, but not
39:33
more. Right.
39:34
That's going to go back pretty quick and I looked at this wall
39:36
of wine and I said that's not going bad in 2 days.
39:40
No. And this is, this is a really
39:42
important lesson that I've talked about with a lot of chefs
39:44
is when we look at costs and I, I, I did a podcast series on
39:50
food cost and understand it, but episode 1 of that three-part
39:52
series was understanding money. And part of understanding money
39:56
is the properties of money. And wine probably is the closest
40:01
to having properties of money of everything in a restaurant.
40:04
Because when COVID happened and we had to shut down, a lot of
40:08
these restaurants realized that that produce in your cooler was
40:12
a very. Perishable asset, right?
40:15
And then a little bit better than that was the flour and the
40:19
and the cans of tomatoes because those lasted maybe by the time
40:22
you got back. But the wine that's an
40:25
investment and that's, that's an appreciated asset sometimes.
40:29
And having a strong wine program.
40:33
Personal rant. I feel like we've traded a
40:36
strong wine program for a cocktail program and I think
40:39
we're missing out a little bit as a restaurant.
40:42
There's, there's a lot of romance that goes into having a
40:45
beautiful bottle of wine, which by the way, for people that are
40:47
listening, they're gonna be like, you're full of shit.
40:48
You don't drink wine. I don't drink wine, but I
40:50
appreciate wine. I do drink wine.
40:52
I just, it's not my thing. I'm more of a cocktail person.
40:54
But from a business standpoint, I think if you're a restaurant,
40:58
you're doing a disservice to yourself if you don't have a
41:00
strong wine program because there's so much extra revenue on
41:05
the table that you're missing out, right?
41:08
Well, I think the synergy is there.
41:09
I mean, I, I'm kind of opposite of you.
41:12
I, I, I appreciate cocktails. I'm not a huge cocktail person.
41:16
I'm more much more of a wine person.
41:18
But the food and wine synergy, the connection of that X Factor
41:24
thing about what we're talking about an amazing executed
41:28
products that evolve into a dish is something you just can't put
41:32
your finger on why why there's an X Factor there.
41:34
And I think with great wine as well, I'm a firm believer that
41:37
you can put a world class wine with someone that doesn't know
41:42
that much about wine and it really makes them stand up and
41:46
it grabs their attention. And you, you can't, you can't
41:48
really put your finger on why that is.
41:50
But I think that's very true. Yeah, sorry.
41:53
We, we got, we got off you, you, you, you have this, this shop
41:57
now that you're managing. Yeah.
41:59
So I managed that shop for 10 years and, and, and my challenge
42:02
was again, taking those lessons of how do I take what was then a
42:06
very humble business from revenue perspective, how can I
42:10
expand this? And my motivator with that was
42:13
that my base salary was very low.
42:16
What I was able to negotiate was a percentage of profit because
42:20
what I told the owners was that I think I, I think I see the tip
42:25
of the iceberg here of the potential.
42:28
I think I can really take this thing and blow it to the roof.
42:32
And if that's the case, I, I'll bet on myself.
42:34
So how about we keep that base salary low and I'm really
42:40
compensated by that percentage of profit.
42:42
And so, you know, over 10 years, I really did blow that business
42:46
to the roof and it really tested this business model of creating
42:51
multiple revenue, revenue streams.
42:52
I ended up meeting all these clients who I had synergy with
42:56
and then keeping connected with them and creating a shipping
43:00
program where I'm now shipping to clients around the country
43:03
and curating selections for them.
43:05
So we're not just depending on folks walking in the front door
43:08
to pay for this. And so there's really a
43:11
connection between, again, if there's a slow night at Patinos,
43:15
thankfully we have catering going on and we have these other
43:18
things going on that can offset that.
43:21
And I made the decision to open up my own shop after 10 years.
43:24
And I, I always had an ambition to own my own business.
43:28
I never knew what that was going to be, to be honest with that.
43:30
At some point, I thought I was in a restaurant.
43:32
It turns out that I'm really good at this.
43:36
And so, you know, it was a proven business concept.
43:40
I proved it with someone else's business, which I think is a
43:45
really, really great way to do it.
43:48
Prove. Yourself, I'm I'm going to
43:49
interrupt because I always tell chefs like before you think you
43:53
could run your own restaurant, yes, you should try and run
43:56
someone else's first successfully.
43:58
Absolutely. Part of part of that agreement
44:02
was if I'm really getting compensated on that percent of
44:05
profit, that's really where I'm getting paid for and really how
44:08
I'm paying my mortgage, then I need to understand where that
44:11
figure comes from. And so I would get AP and L
44:13
statement every month from the accountants and I would comb
44:17
through that if there was something that stood out, I'd
44:18
say, well, this looks a little high.
44:20
Can you explain that? Because I'm being paid by that
44:22
bottom figure. And so I really, I really
44:26
understood AP and L statement over 10 years.
44:29
And I think that's really important practice on someone
44:32
else's dime and to whatever degree they're comfortable with,
44:36
I think understand as much of A business as you can.
44:41
Yeah, If you're not going to be a good steward of the business
44:43
for someone else, what makes you think you're going to do that
44:45
for yourself? That that's where you're
44:47
learning, right? That's where you're, that's
44:48
where you're understanding. I want to change subjects really
44:52
quick because I think, you know, going back to the wine list and
44:57
the importance of the wine list, there's restaurants without,
45:02
without naming names, there's restaurants that have a tasting
45:05
menu and I'm making this number up.
45:08
You know, you're going to get $200 a head for every tasting
45:11
menu. And so we can do X amount of
45:13
covers. It's very predictable,
45:14
especially if you're selling tickets like a lot of
45:15
restaurants, a lot of modern restaurants do you know it's
45:18
you're, they're pre paying for your reservation.
45:20
So you know exactly how much money you're going to make every
45:22
single day. You know exactly how much money
45:23
to prep. What you don't know is what
45:25
you're going to sell on the wine.
45:28
And I think it's extremely important that people understand
45:32
like a table that you take a taste menu style restaurant and
45:40
you fill it up with people with, you know, people that are going
45:43
to spend. And, you know, some travelling
45:44
cooks that are, you know, doing the, the sojourn to go eat at
45:48
the temple of of gastronomy. And they're going to go by the
45:52
entry level bottle of wine. And then there's the whale at
45:55
the table that doesn't care. They're going to spend 2020
45:57
grand on wine, right? There's a big difference in
46:00
those tables. And there's a big difference
46:02
with how much money your restaurant's going to make
46:03
depending on how strong your wine program is and how strong
46:06
your Psalm is. And I don't think enough people
46:09
talk about that, that you have a tremendous upside if you have a
46:12
great wine program and a great, great Psalm.
46:16
So if we had to solve the world's problems right, then
46:18
we're doing this on the show. That's what we do.
46:19
We solve all the all the problems in the culinary world.
46:22
A lot of restaurants have done away with strong wine programs
46:26
and strong salms. How would you solve that issue
46:32
to bring bring that back? And how would you solve someone
46:35
on the reason why they need to bring that back?
46:41
There's two sides of the equation.
46:42
I I understand from a restaurant perspective, you're tying up a
46:45
lot of money to build a list. And as we all know, there's not
46:51
a lot of money to throw around. So I see, I see that to your
46:57
point, I also see there is a huge missed opportunity of
47:07
comfort. I think great service to me when
47:12
I experienced great service, it's it's service meeting you
47:17
with your expectations of what you want.
47:20
I want a high touch service. I want you to tell me everything
47:23
about the dish or I'm having a conversation and let me have a
47:26
conversation. Same thing with wine.
47:29
I'm in the mood for this tonight.
47:31
And, and I think a beautifully chosen wine list.
47:35
They've chosen those wines because of what the chef cooks.
47:38
And so it's a well curated list. And so if you come in and say
47:44
I'm in the mood to drink XYZ style wine or, or I think
47:48
there's a missed opportunity of letting the diner guide their
47:51
own dining experience. And and to your, to your point,
47:57
there is an opportunity there from a from a business
47:59
perspective for sure. No one ever says get me the
48:04
second most expensive bottle of wine on the menu, right?
48:07
They never say that. They're either gonna say get me
48:09
the like when someone wants to come in and flex, because a lot
48:12
of times restaurants need to allow people to flex.
48:16
They are doing it because they want to.
48:18
It's a, it's a business deal. It's a, it's a, it's someone
48:20
that they want to impress across the table.
48:22
You need to allow them to be able to flex and say I'm buying
48:25
the most expensive bottle. I am buying, you know, the, the,
48:32
oh God, what's the, what's the, what's the liquor I'm trying to
48:36
blame? Happy Van Winkle.
48:37
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm buying the It's a.
48:39
Happy night. Yeah, right.
48:40
Yeah, yeah. You need to be able to do that
48:42
because you're celebrating and you don't care about the money
48:45
and money's no object. You need to be able to take
48:49
people's money so they could enjoy themselves, right?
48:51
Right. And that that has to exist in a
48:53
restaurant, you know, that type of restaurant that's obviously
48:57
doesn't exist in every restaurant, but those special
48:58
occasion restaurants need to have the opportunity for them to
49:01
celebrate a special occasion. I think it's very difficult when
49:04
a lot of restaurants say, but we can't afford to pay a sum.
49:07
And I think we have to be creative as an industry to say,
49:11
well, maybe it's a revenue share.
49:13
Maybe they're incentivized by the amount of wine sales that
49:15
they do. So it's a, you know, maybe they
49:17
make a lower base salary, but they, you know, it's higher end.
49:21
They, they, they have the opportunity to make more money
49:23
based on, on the revenue that they're driving.
49:25
I, I think that has to be discussed.
49:28
If you want to be a great restaurant and you want to make
49:30
money, you got to have a solid wine program because the food
49:33
only takes you so far revenue wise and experience wise.
49:37
I'm a big believer that you know when we when when I go into a
49:40
restaurant, for me, I great food is a given.
49:46
I can forgive an off night in the kitchen.
49:49
What I can't, what I have a hard time giving a second chance to
49:54
is bad service or insincere service.
50:01
Give the client the opportunity to spend or have the experience
50:05
they want to have. My shop is an example of I have
50:09
a wine cabinet with you can you can do that if you want.
50:15
Or if it's Wednesday and you're going to order Thai take out, I
50:19
have that too. And I've tasted every single
50:22
wine in the shop and so it's highly curated.
50:25
I want to be a chameleon for every single person that comes
50:28
in, meaning I want to match their energy.
50:30
I'm not forcing a sale. I'm not forcing to upsell, I'm
50:34
not trying to fit a square picked around hole and I think
50:37
great wine service, whether it's a restaurant or a shop, great
50:40
wine service meets them with their expectation.
50:43
Right, the 18 year old that saved up and they're on they're
50:45
at you know it's prom night. Don't don't sell them the most
50:48
expensive bottle. The guy that is the whale at the
50:51
business meeting that's on the expense account and needs to
50:54
close this deal. Yeah, get them the big bottle
50:56
one. And then the wine aficionado
50:59
that wants this one obscure bottle that no one's ever heard
51:02
of, my brothers one, get them that bottle.
51:04
But you have to know your, your customer.
51:06
And I'm, I'm going to say this for people listening.
51:08
If you have a, if you have a guaranteed $200 table,
51:11
guaranteed $200 table, you can't all of a sudden, maybe with
51:15
supplements, the caviar and the truffles and the foie gras, the
51:18
A5, maybe with supplements, you, you could turn that $200 table
51:21
into a $400.00 table. But with wine, you could turn
51:23
that $200 table into a $10,000 table.
51:26
Yes, yes, absolutely. And I think what's really key
51:31
and for me, what's very important and the ethos that I
51:34
live by and I've experienced this in great restaurants is
51:41
whether it's the couple on a prom date or the business
51:45
dinner, who's going to order the $10,000 bottle, the service is
51:50
exactly the same. The sentiment and the sincerity
51:53
of level of service and graciousness.
51:57
For we're just, we're really happy you're here.
52:00
Thank you. Right.
52:01
The sentiment is not different. We've all been in those
52:05
restaurants where we feel like that table is being treated
52:08
completely different than I'm being treated.
52:10
Yeah, that doesn't feel good. We've all been there.
52:13
Yeah, yeah, certainly it doesn't feel good.
52:16
And so I'm there a lot actually, because, because, because ex
52:20
chef chefs. PSA when I go to restaurants, I
52:22
sometimes get embarrassed if I'm getting special treatment
52:24
because like, Oh my God, chefs. And then normally when I'm going
52:27
out to eat, I'm with chefs, right?
52:29
So I'm at a big chef's table and they're like, oh, there's so and
52:31
so at the table and I like take care of them, right?
52:35
It makes me a little uncomfortable, right?
52:37
I could go on rants all day about wine and to make money and
52:42
I have I'm full of ideas. They're not all correct, by the
52:44
way, for people listening to like, don't listen to me.
52:46
Listen to me at your own, at your own discretion.
52:50
But one of the things that I think is really important is a
52:52
lot of people going back to your story earlier is they have a
52:57
dream and they've reached a certain level of culinary acumen
53:00
and experience and they think, OK, the next step, the next
53:02
logical step is I want to open up my own thing, whatever that
53:05
own thing may be. It may be a wine shop, maybe a
53:07
restaurant, it may be a food truck, it may be a catering
53:10
house. The one thing I don't think
53:13
people get good at in a culinary career when you're behind the
53:17
line learning how to perfect the craft is how do you raise money?
53:21
And I think that's not discussed often enough.
53:23
If do you have any strategies when it comes to the investment
53:29
piece and how someone that is completely green, I never
53:33
thought about how am I going to raise, you know, $1,000,000 to
53:37
fund my dream? Where do I even start?
53:40
Right. What's, what is the opportunity
53:45
is I think the big question, what is going to differentiate
53:48
your, your business from, from, from me as an example, there are
53:54
1,000,001 wine shops not only locally, right, but but in other
54:00
places. So why is your shop going to be
54:03
different and what is the business opportunity?
54:06
And I think if you can wrap your brain around the opportunity,
54:10
the uniqueness of this that by the way, you know, you as the
54:16
business owner are going to be the cheerleader of.
54:19
So you need to be the rah rah behind that.
54:23
The other biggest piece of the equation that I learned, the
54:26
lessons I learned when I started having conversations about money
54:29
and pretend potential investors. The really important question
54:35
you need to drill down to is why are you investing?
54:40
Because if it's just about. What's in it for me?
54:42
Because it's yes. Because if it's just about the
54:44
return on investment, hospitality is not the place to
54:50
get the guaranteed return and the quick return.
54:54
So why are you investing? Why is this exciting to you?
54:59
And for me, my investors came from my client base, from fans
55:08
of what I do. And couple that with the
55:12
uniqueness of what I do, the voice I have, how I interact
55:15
with my clients, the relationships that I have not
55:17
only with my clients, but with the Willamette Valley and the
55:21
wine makers, right? There's deep relationships there
55:24
that are unique. It's a unique position.
55:29
And so that question of the uniqueness of the business and
55:33
the opportunity to invest here and now and what we're going to
55:36
do, the way that I approached investors, I wanted them to be
55:46
my greatest ambassadors out there.
55:50
And so they're constantly promoting you.
55:53
They're constantly bringing other people into the fold.
55:56
The way I structured my business plan and my operating agreement,
56:02
number one, there were no personal guarantees.
56:05
Right. Never do a personal guarantee.
56:07
I'm not. I'm not putting my house in the
56:10
line for a business that I think is going to do really well.
56:15
But as we know, there are no guarantees the economy could
56:18
crash what whatever happens, right COVID.
56:22
Showed everyone what could happen, right?
56:26
Some businesses did great, some didn't.
56:28
My business, because I had relate, laid foundation to
56:31
shipping to clients. You know, my business did very
56:36
well in the COVID years. I don't want to do that again.
56:39
It was nuts. So what I mapped out with my
56:43
investors is give me two years to get my bearings, my
56:48
foundation. By year three, I think if my
56:52
projection is correct, I think by year three I'll be starting
56:55
to pay back your initial investment.
56:57
By year five, I will have paid back your investment plus an 8%
57:02
return on your investment. These are my projections.
57:06
It actually turned out to be exactly on the dot, correct.
57:12
And the way that I mapped out my operating agreement with my
57:14
investors was that that you're 5, I don't want to kick you out,
57:18
thank you very much. You're gone.
57:19
We go all separate ways. I want you to be on board until
57:22
you don't want to be on board. So you get a return on your
57:25
ownership percentage in perpetuity until you either want
57:30
to get bought out or I buy you out or whatever that looks like.
57:34
Because I felt if you're going to take a risk on me, and I've
57:39
taken this time to find the perfect people to be my partners
57:43
and you let me do my thing, Why? Why would I want to kick you
57:46
out? You're my greatest ambassadors.
57:50
It's funny, I'll share this with you as we, as we start wrapping
57:53
up. I once was connected with a
57:55
billionaire investor and I was explaining to them my, my
58:00
business plan, whatnot. And they showed it.
58:01
And, and by the way, this is a very famous person.
58:03
Like if I said the name, they were like, oh, them.
58:07
And and that person said to me, there's a reason I'm a
58:09
billionaire. I don't invest in restaurants,
58:11
right? So thanks for having the
58:14
conversation, but no go. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
58:16
You shut it down right away. It's like, there's a reason I'm
58:18
I'm rich. It's because I don't do
58:19
restaurants. Like that's the that's the
58:21
difference between a billionaire.
58:22
And a billionaire, right? But anyway.
58:26
The other thing I wanted to say really quick is I think it's
58:28
really important and I was, I was, this was a no go for me.
58:35
I was never going to own less than 51% of the business ever.
58:40
I don't care what anyone says. I don't care if people say we
58:43
can write the operating agreement and I own 60%.
58:46
You, you know, you're putting incentive sweat equity.
58:49
I'm putting in money. So I, I'm going to own most of
58:52
it. How many times has a chef owned
58:55
a restaurant? The chef was ousted because the
58:59
financials aren't coming in as the investor wants and suddenly
59:04
the investor is now the face of the business.
59:06
They own it and new chef is brought in.
59:08
So that was key for me. If I'm going to put all of my
59:14
know how into this blood, sweat and tears years building it, I'm
59:17
never ever going to not actually own the business.
59:21
And so I came into this shop owning 67% and now I own 97%.
59:28
I kept, I bought out to my major investors that owned 9% each.
59:34
They came to me and wanted to be bought out.
59:39
And I kept my wife who's an investor she wanted to get in.
59:42
And to your friends of mine and they all collectively own, you
59:46
know, 3-4 point 5%, whatever that is.
59:49
And I love that they do. Well, one, one of the things
59:52
that's really important that I've learned later on,
59:56
especially now with what I do with chefs PSA, I, I learned it
59:59
even more so now. And that is lift your head up
1:00:03
from behind the line and make connections that are more than
1:00:06
just cooks. Start making friends.
1:00:08
Start going, start going to events, start shaking hands.
1:00:11
Get to know people. Have have a lawyer friend, have
1:00:14
a doctor friend, have an investor friend.
1:00:16
Don't just surround yourself only with chefs and cooks and
1:00:19
then be like, no one wants to invest.
1:00:20
All my cook friends don't want to invest in my project because
1:00:23
we find ourselves in that position when we start wrapping.
1:00:26
You know, but I normally ask some questions.
1:00:28
So if you had a Mount Rushmore of chefs out there, who's on
1:00:33
your Mount Rushmore? Your four, your four legendary
1:00:36
chefs who should be there? Oh, I have to, of course, put
1:00:39
Mr. Picasso there. I mean, I love what he I love
1:00:45
what he's done for his vision and and I love what he's done to
1:00:48
the culinary world because he he was the one to break the mold of
1:00:55
the chef shouldn't be chained behind the stove of 1
1:00:57
restaurant. And in fact, empowering others
1:01:01
with a philosophy is really the key.
1:01:06
And you can step away and execute from the 10,000 foot
1:01:08
level. I would say we didn't talk about
1:01:18
at all another mentor, but I would say Hubert Keller was a
1:01:21
very important mentor for me. He was.
1:01:23
He was the mentor that showed me that a kitchen could be run from
1:01:32
a respect standpoint, mutual respect standpoint.
1:01:34
Quiet force, a fatherly. A fatherly, quiet, stern.
1:01:42
Yeah, firm. You knew when he was upset, but
1:01:45
he never raised his. Voice to be able to do that back
1:01:48
then when it was unheard of, that's that's tremendous.
1:01:52
OK, so that's two. Yeah.
1:01:58
I would say, you know, Joaquin was the guy that taught me
1:02:10
business. He really taught me how to run a
1:02:13
business and push not only himself, but everyone around him
1:02:24
doing what he did from from an execution and a flavor
1:02:27
standpoint in Los Angeles at the time, going completely against
1:02:31
the grain of what others were doing.
1:02:37
Truly a flash of lightning uniqueness at that time.
1:02:42
And last one, what was that for? That was 3 for someone I never
1:02:56
worked with, but someone I just have the utmost respect.
1:03:00
Ate at his restaurant in Olivetto back in the early 90s
1:03:05
Paul Bertoli, former Chez Panisse chef, went out of his
1:03:10
own. I remember this lunch I had at
1:03:12
Early Vet though. Just randomly walking on the
1:03:14
street. Looked at a menu on the street
1:03:16
as young cooks do a reading menu.
1:03:17
Wow, got in here politically executed pastas that were just
1:03:24
blew my mind. Blew my mind how delicate these
1:03:27
were. Wood fired meats, simple with
1:03:30
maybe a little natural zoo on them.
1:03:33
I still remember to this day this white Peach tart I had at
1:03:36
the end of this lunch. The pastry just shattered.
1:03:40
It was so delicate and the white Peach was like mind blowing.
1:03:44
I went home that night and told my then girlfriend I drove all
1:03:47
the way to Sonoma from Oakland. I said we have to go to dinner
1:03:50
tonight, you have to eat this tart.
1:03:53
We drive all the way back for dinner.
1:03:55
We sit down, we have the meal and when they drop the dessert
1:03:58
menus I said I had, I was here at lunch.
1:04:01
I had this white Peach tart. I brought microphone, we have to
1:04:04
have that and the waitresses. We just sold the last one.
1:04:12
But I had so many life changing meals at the hands of Paul
1:04:17
Baratoli at that restaurant. That just amazing.
1:04:21
OK, second to last question, if there was a bucket list chef
1:04:27
that you would want to eat their food, living or dead, who would
1:04:31
it be? Jacques Maxima.
1:04:33
Who's that? Jacques Maximao was the chef at
1:04:35
the Jota and Agresco back in the 70s and 80s.
1:04:38
So he was the mentor of Hubert Keller, a contemporary of Alan
1:04:42
Ducas Joaquim. That was his main mentor, that
1:04:46
was the guiding light of this generation.
1:04:49
And he was a two star Michelin chef and Agresco, famously
1:04:53
volatile guy still alive today, works for Ducasse actually.
1:05:00
And he had a restaurant in the South of France in his home.
1:05:04
He lived upstairs and he had a two star mission restaurant on
1:05:08
the bottom floor of his home. And I never got there.
1:05:11
I just didn't have the money to go to Europe and eat his food.
1:05:15
I don't think he'll ever own a restaurant again.
1:05:16
I don't think he's sort of semi retired.
1:05:18
He, he works at the cooking school that Ducasse has in
1:05:21
Paris. But he's a guy that I always
1:05:25
want to eat his food. And sadly I, I, I don't know
1:05:28
that's going to happen. I did eat at one of his proteges
1:05:33
restaurant in Paris. Unbelievable meal.
1:05:38
I was just in Paris in April for the wine shop.
1:05:41
We did a tasting event and Maison Dubois A2 star Michelin
1:05:46
restaurant in Paris. And the chef was an amazing guy,
1:05:51
came to the table. I have this great picture where
1:05:54
we were having. I told him that this year
1:05:57
Jacques Maxima was one of my guiding lights and the mentor,
1:06:00
my mentor and the captain said, oh, you know the chef looking.
1:06:05
I said, oh, I know, that's why we're here.
1:06:06
In fact, I texted, I didn't text.
1:06:09
I sent Jacques Maxima a message, a direct message on Instagram,
1:06:13
introduced myself, the connection we have with Joaquim.
1:06:17
And I asked him if you have one restaurant that I should eat at,
1:06:21
knowing that I, I, I love your style of cooking and, and I said
1:06:26
there was one restaurant you'd recommend.
1:06:28
Would that be? And he literally replied to me
1:06:29
within 30 seconds with that address.
1:06:32
And my friend who came to Paris to join me, we ate our lunch
1:06:35
there and it was mind blowing. So the, the captain brings a
1:06:39
picture of this year Maximon and puts it in the middle of our
1:06:42
table. So we're having lunch with mixer
1:06:44
Maxim and it's the greatest picture of Jacques Maxima
1:06:48
smoking a a cigarette in front of a picture of him smoking a
1:06:51
cigarette. I need one of those.
1:06:54
I need but a cigar. All right.
1:06:56
Where can people find you? So.
1:06:58
Media and and store. So my shop is called Valley Wine
1:07:02
Merchants. I'm in Newburgh, Oregon, just
1:07:04
South of Portland, and Instagram is Valley Wine merchants.
1:07:08
Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for being a
1:07:09
pleasure to be here. Thank you.
1:07:10
Well, I hope you enjoyed the show.
1:07:12
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