Hello and welcome to Cooking Issues. This is Dave Larnell, your host of Cooking Issues coming to you live from the heart of Manhattan, Rockefeller Center of New York City, New Stance Studios. Joined as usual with John, how you doing? Doing great, thanks. Yeah?
Yep. You enjoying your now having to commute into the city from Connecticut? No, definitely not. You're learning it? No.
Love. It's a long drive float traffic, yeah. I'm me, I hate I95. It's a true story. But as you know, my New Year's resolution is more small irritations, more tiny cuts.
Stan 95. Yeah, dude. More community. Love it. It's like the BQE of the North.
Exactly. Yeah. Uh behind me I got Joe Hazen rocking the panels. What's up? Hey, good morning, everyone.
Full house here. Yeah, yeah. Uh holding down Vancouver Island. Quinn, what's up? Hey, good.
Good, good, good. And then down in Los Angeles, we have Nastasia the Hammer Lopez. What's up? Hi. And Jackie Molecules.
What's up? Yo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh, you know, still breathing, as they say, or as my grandpa used to say, vertical. Until he wasn't, right?
Until he was dead. He would always just say, either he'd say vertical or soberly, which you know the latter was a lie. You know what I mean? He comes from that era where soberly wasn't a thing. Uh and oh, and special guest in the studio today.
We have uh India Doris, first time on the show. Welcome. How's it going? Owner, chef, uh, Marquette and uh the Argyle, right? And also, not announced, but the reason you came on is you're working with our man John here.
You're taking him on in a new project. You can't, I guess you haven't announced it yet. We'll see what you can talk about it. But John wanted to have you on today, not for your storied resume and your abilities as a cook. But to talk about what it's like opening a restaurant.
So welcome. Thank you. Yeah. So, but this is the portion of the show where we discuss things that have happened in the past week or so. Shoot the breeze.
So let's uh so we don't have a big pause. Quinn, what do you got for us? Uh let's see. This week I had a more successful uh facaccia-ish facatuloid recipe. Uh this time making a homemade uh paprika oil.
That turned out pretty good. What kind of paprika? I did it, I'm sort of just used up when I had, so it was a mix of sweet and hot. But smoked. No smoked.
No smoke. Smoked, sweet and hot blend. So like Hungarian style. Yeah. Yeah, I guess I don't know if it was actually from Hungary.
It could have been a Spanish one that just wasn't smoked. We were just in an old like homemade labeled container. Between you and me. Between you and me, did the temperature get too high and it tastes scorched in the oil? Between you and me.
Just you don't have to just no one else has to hear, but just between you and me. I got I got dude, I got the control free throw. What are you thinking is the amateur hour? All right, fair. And how is the focacci?
You know that like the best focacci in the world for me is just okay. Oh. It's good. Someone hands me a good facace, I'm like, oh, this is good. But if you're like, you have to drive 80 miles to taste this person's focaccia, I'm like, no, I don't.
You don't even do that for any bread though? Yeah. Oh, wow, okay. Yeah, I guess that's fair with everything you like about it. Yeah, I mean, I'm okay.
I'll say this. One of my caregivers, she tried an iteration for a few weeks ago, and she's like, you know, she cooks for herself, but she's not like the baker, and she immediately told me I had to teach her the recipe. So I feel like that's something. But she lives on Vancouver Island. We have no idea what the Vancouver Island Focaccia game is like unless Pamela Anderson's going around doing some sort of fancy farm-raised focaccia over there, right?
I mean, like, how's the focaccia game on Vancouver Island, like in general? Um, I have a few places where you can get it, but I I don't have a lot of sampling because I make my own bread here. Let me ask you a question. Like, and we'll we'll leave it out after this, but other than the word is really good, focaccia. What is it about focaccia that you like as opposed to other flattish raised breads?
Puffy, flat raised bread things. See, to me, it's the crumb texture of focaccia is never what I really want out of life. Neither is like the top surface. It's not it's not what I'm looking for. I won't be able to do that.
I feel like you're agreeing with me a little bit because you're no, I kind of disagree. You love it? I love focaccia. There you go. See, I'm not saying my opinion is correct.
This is just my opinion. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I mean, I think it's delicious. You would choose it over you would drive eighty miles. I would not drive eight miles to get any type of bread or anything like that.
Agreed. Pizza? No, I wouldn't do that. Why would I do that? Well, I guess if you were, let's say uh if you make it, then you kind of like you travel to if someone had something that you like spent a lot of time making, then you would travel 80 miles to see whether this person could teach you something that you wouldn't otherwise know, I guess.
That's why I want to travel places to s to taste something where I'm like, oh, it turns out I don't know anything. Because that happens all the time to me. If it's an experience, yes. If you're going to a new place, a new town, or something that's more than just the for catch a shop, but just the forkatcha, yeah. No, I'm not waiting outside for for a loaf of bread, no.
Well, what food would you travel for? Uh I mean, something you I can't get here, you know. Something I can't get here. Something that's like culturally of that place. What if it's culturally of that place, but it actually isn't very good?
For instance, there's a cheese, I forget what country it's from, but it's like, you know, I think it's a like a Balkan nation called Puel. And it's half donkey milk. Oh. Half sheep. And it's the it's just like I think they make it like a fresh Chev kind of a sitch.
Maybe it's half goat, I don't know. But it's like the most expensive cheese in the world. And you have to go tour their farm, and then you get this like little thing of donkey milk cheese, and it's like $350 a kilo or some crap. Yeah. And I'm like, you know what?
I'm good. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I'm I'm English. I like a cheddar cheese.
I'm good with that. Well, it's uh like uh when you were back there, were you buying for Neil's Yard when you were uh for professionally when you were working? You know, they send they don't send the best cheeses always over here. Yeah, I don't know. I mean you can get so many different cheeses from so many different parts of the UK, so like it's it's accessible.
Yeah. I whenever I go to whenever I go to uh England, the first stop I make is to one of the two Neil's Yard dairies to stock up on cheese. I can't like literally off the plane directly in Neil's Yard. I mean UK cheese is on point. Very good.
Uh all right, so uh all right. So uh Jackie Molecules, what do you got for us? So I made it to, I don't know if you're familiar with squirrel, but uh LA spot. They they they just started doing dinner. Um I found it really awesome.
So they're just yeah, one of the dishes was they call it squimps. It was like this chorizo and shrimp stuffed squid. So like the squid encases this like chapterized and shrimp. It was it was very good meal. I don't know.
She's she's great, obviously, with all the fermentation stuff. Um, but it was just yeah. So they they've come they've come back. I know they had some problems a couple of years ago. They came back from the brink of that social media nightmare.
Mold gate, yeah. I mean, you know, that was like the peak of cancel culture. So it's it seems like uh that's the that those temperatures have calmed. Yeah, yeah. Uh I wonder whether I've said this on the air many times, but the trick that uh Miley, my sister-in-law Miley, who's been on the show, learned from her teacher, Didier at the French Culinary Institute on stuffed squid, turn them inside out before you stuff them.
Turn them inside out. I wonder whether they did that there. I wonder whether she's an inside out squid person. Hot take, bro. Hot take, frozen squid, good because it's more tender.
Yes or no. Ooh. First of all, who's buying fresh squid anyway, right? It's all frozen. Yeah.
Right, that's basically where I'm at. What do you think, Andy? I don't know. I mean, I you know, I I I I I don't think uh I don't think it matters. Yeah.
I'm uh like my son is a squid i it. Get this. I finally hooked my hood up, right? And he he he's like, when the hood works, will you fry squid for me? I'm like, yeah, sure.
And then blah, blah, blah, bquid, squid, squid, squid, squid. I'm like, all right, listen, go to Aqua Best, which is a you know, a supplier really close to my house, right? It's like like a 10-minute walk from my house. I'm like, go to Aquabest, you can get tubes. I'm not gonna clean the freaking squid.
F you, I'm not gonna clean the squid, right? I'm like, and I don't want him to do it either, because if he cleans squid, then I have to clean the whole kitchen of the squid parts. So no, you know what I mean? So I'm like, you can get tubes, you can get tentacles, you can get a mixed box. They're the standard, like, you know, the small box, the same one as a shrimp, which is like three pounds or something like that, right?
He comes back with like a two and a half kilo box. And then, like Wiley, my brother-in-law with Wiley Dufrein, he's over at the house and he's freaking clowning me the whole time. He's like, Did you make enough squid? Did you make enough squid? I'm like, Wiley, what the hell am I supposed to do with all this squid?
It's thawed. I have to freaking cook it. And so then he gets everyone else to clown on me for all the freaking squid I'm making. Whatever, man. Squid.
Um, it sucks. Anyway, yeah. So uh squint squid, what'd you call it, Jack? Squink, squinky? Squimps, squimps, squimps, I don't know.
I don't know about that name, man. Squimps. You know what? You know what they need to do over there if you're still in contact with them? They need to do the A-B menu thing, right?
I've never had the stones to do it, but like, what if you passed out two menus at the same time, right? Different tables, different names, and see which one sells more. Right? Sounds you do it for like a week. So, like, for instance, I know for a fact that I have said this on the air a million times, we changed the name of one of our drinks, sold five times as many.
Just change the name. You know what I mean? And we didn't do them at the same time, but we had it on the menu for a year. We knew what our P mix was, which means, by the way, that means like how do you describe P Mix? It's what what people are ordering.
The number of each unit you sell, P mix. And um like like literally five times more. Mm-hmm. Just because then it's wild. Yeah.
Yeah. So I don't know. Maybe maybe squimps are hard to make and s squinks or whatever they are. Squinkies. Squimps.
Yeah. So maybe squimps maybe squimps are hard to make so they don't want to make that many of them. So they're like, we're gonna call them turd burgers. You know what I mean? That's wild.
Yeah. That that's why you need to have it on the menu for those people who know but you don't actually want to make it. You know what I mean? You're but you're you're forgetting the name of the restaurant is Squirrel too. So it kind of I eat squirrel the the name yeah.
I mean I eat squirrel. Squirrel's delicious. I I meant the the SQ of it all I get it's an SQ SQ friendly house. Yeah yeah. I mean if you if you eat meat you should eat squirrel.
Squirrel's good you know I mean I've never had squirrel it's just mild. Oh dry up it's good. It's fine. I don't know it feels like it's gonna be tough. I've only ever had it in stew.
It's usually like hacked up in a stew. It feels like it's gonna be mild tough they're like running around jumping around on trees and stuff. Yeah. Yeah I guess and they're always wild there's no farm raised squirrel that I know of. Yeah.
You know what I mean? Not yet. No not yet. You know what I've never eaten but I hear tastes good? Muskrat.
Yeah I'm okay. Yeah they're so ugly to look at beaver's delicious Nastasi and I had beaver it was delicious. Anyway. So Stas, what do you got for me? Um I saw Harold and Ellie in San Francisco.
Yeah. Um and how was that? I wish you it was fine. Ellie finally came out and asked us why we do the things that we do, which was rough to have to sealed. Yeah, because uh as as people who know us know, we have no idea.
Like, why do we do half the things? So Nastasia and I made a Vincent Price candle. And you ask, why? Nastasia, what's the answer? Don't know.
Don't know. We have no idea. We she bought a Vincent Price sweater. All Vincent Price. Why?
We don't know. Vincent Price did a cookbook way back in the day. Yeah, there'll be social media on it anyway. But I'm gonna say this. I'm gonna call you out.
Nastasia Lopez very nicely, very nicely, sends me this cake that we didn't have a chance to try when we were out in LA. And I she said, My mom's birthday is tomorrow, which was yesterday. Uh tell me if the cake's good, because I'll get her one. And I, because I had it on family dinner. Now, Nastasia, it's shipped out on like uh like a Thursday, shows up at my house on a Friday, frozen or shipped on Wednesday or Thursday, gold billy, comes over to my house across the country from LA to New York.
It's cold. I stick it immediately in the fridge. Left it in the fridge till I tasted it on Sunday. I'm like, it's good, not great. Now, this cake is the cake that Tom Cruise sends to everyone at the holidays or whenever he wants.
But the way he sends it is he puts it on his private, he gets someone to run it from the bakery, which is Doan's bakery outside of LA, from the bakery to his private jet. He private jets it to your location, has a messenger go to the private jet and takes it directly to you. So never been never been frozen. And I mistakenly said Nastasia that I thought it was good, not great. Then I didn't put it back in the fridge.
I let it warm up. I had another piece the next day. So this is like four days after it was made. This is now five or six days after it is made. And it's pretty good.
It's a white chocolate coconut bunch. So I'm gonna upgrade my rating from you guys. Let me get some. This is the Tom. This is the Tom Cruise.
Let me get a fork cake. I just noticed you have bread on your hat. This is quite interesting since we were just talking about catch. Yeah. This is uh swag from Flower City in Rochester.
So if anyone is up in the Rochester area and there's near that like uh market area near where they'll I guess it's near the old train depot stuff, near Cure, uh stop by Flower City. Let me know how it is. But uh yeah, I wear the bread hat a lot and people won't drive for 80 miles for bread, but we'll we'll we'll we'll collect a hat 80 miles. They have another something from 80 miles away. They have another hat that says biscuit.
Would you travel for a biscuit? No. No. What kind of biscuit? An English biscuit or America?
That means a cookie, right? To you, a biscuit's a cookie. To an American, I mean that's another thing. It's like uh yeah. I mean, I will point out India.
This was for fun too, but we did drive all the way to Owen Owensboro, Kentucky for land barbecue. We did, yeah, but that's an experience. That's true. How was the land barbecue? It was delicious.
That's very good. Yeah. Stopped at Permantis in Pittsburgh and Skylined Chili and some stuff. You can go to uh there's a place in the in uh, what is that? That's not that that is the next time you're in Pittsburgh, I'll give you some recs for places to go that aren't the quote unquote place where all the tourists go.
Yeah. How was the sandwich at Pramont? It was fine. Yeah. Yeah.
Fine. I was in Kentucky, right? No, that one was in Pittsburgh. Oh, okay. Pittsburgh.
Well, but you know, that Pennsylvania. Yeah. So you gotta like because it's the edge of Pennsylvania. It's the far. I actually like Pittsburgh quite a bit.
Yeah. I don't know. I didn't mind Pittsburgh. The beer was good in Kentucky though. Yeah, no good time there, yeah.
You weren't like all all whiskey all the time. It was like whiskey beer. Yeah, I had one beer, and I was uh, you know, I was like, the hot brown, I think. Yeah. Kentucky Hot Brown.
That's pretty good. Did you do a ham thing last time? I was only in Kentucky once and I had to ate nothing but ham. No, no, we didn't have any ham. You bought a whole leg.
Oh, that's right. I did buy a whole leg. Yeah, yeah. Whose? Broadbent, I think.
They're good. Yeah, yeah, they were good. Yeah, I forgot about that. Gotta go, gotta go get a newsomes. Gotta get Nancy Mahathy's ham.
Yeah. Yeah. Next time. Yeah, next time. You're never gonna go to Kentucky again.
But you're kidding, dude. All right. Uh so uh what else? So what what's the verdict on Nastasia's cake that she sent, the Tom Cruise cake. It's it's delicious.
Yeah? It's pretty good. It's a good cake. What do you think? I haven't had it yet.
You're chumped. You chumped me twice. First, you don't get ham in Kentucky, and now you don't even eat the cake. So I should have told her to get one for her mom. And it's okay.
I can get another one. I made a mistake. I mean, imagine if imagine if she got it the day she that was baked. Okay. This was shipped across the freaking country, frozen, put in my fridge, and then cut, you know, I cut it on Sunday.
It's Tuesday now. Have some grace for the cake. Okay. Yeah. With that context, it is very good cake.
Son of a gun. And you know, look. Oh, I know what I want to say about that before we move on. Is that Tom Cruise was apparently told about this cake from Diane Keaton. Rest in peace.
Now, interesting story about this. I don't know whether Keen Peel knew Diane Keaton, but in one of my favorite Key and Peel skits, prepare for Terry's, Peel, who they they have crazy haircuts. It's like this is one of my favorite Keen Peel sketches. He goes, We'll be eating like Diane Keaton. And I just thought it was a random rhyme, but maybe Diane Keaton had like a series.
I know she liked canned green beans, which is weird because I looked up her food proclivities after I learned this fact. She liked canned green beans. I have a crank green bean drink on the menu now. Non-alcoholic. Which is quite popular.
But maybe she was some sort of like food savant who knew like all the good places to buy cake. We'll never know. Probably not, yeah. I'll never meet Tom Cruise to ask him. There you go.
I mean, you know what I mean? That's not my thing. All right. Uh all right. So I wrap my week into Nastasia's week and blah blah blah.
And uh, as you know, we don't know why we're doing anything. So uh I guess we should do a brief bio for people that don't know. So you've cooked, you're an inter you're an intercontinental cookist here. You started in uh London, then or France. You went to France before were you cooking professionally in London before you went to France and then went back to London?
So London, yeah, then France, you Spain, I forgot the Spain, and then US, and then you went back to London for a while. Back to London, and then back here. All right. Exactly, yeah. So all over the place.
Now, uh uh, I read that you cooked for a while in sc in Scotland, yes? Yeah, so I have family uh my dad's from Scotland, so I have family up there, so uh I wanted to spend some time up there, so I just uh went to a butcher and learned how to break down some meat. Yeah. So what's the well, like it's is when you're breaking down local meat? Yeah, local meat, yeah.
Is breaking down a highland cow cow different from breaking down a different kind of cow? No. No? No, it's the same. They taste any different.
Yeah, I mean, it tastes it tastes fresher, you know, cooks nice. Yeah. Yeah. There's weird, they're so big and weird looking. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Furry, red, weird horned things. Well, those you don't, we don't really kill those. Oh no? No, those are left. Those are left alone.
That's the only animal that's like out there freely. So um because you're raising regular beef cows, and then those highland cows, they're just like kind of window dressing. Yeah, they're like they're like, you know, national treasure. You don't mess with them. You don't just you don't walk up with a captive bolt gun to one of those things with like pow.
No, no. How do they sl uh do the do they how do they slaughter it in England by the way? Or in Scotland? I think same as here. Really?
We don't use captive bolt anymore, do we? Oh. Because like it used to be we would use so it used to be we would use like you know the the no country for old men on them. But uh someone found that it drives brain tissue, it can drive brain tissue past the blood brain barrier because of the force of the of the hit. And so with uh with the mad cow stuff, they got rid of the captive bull stuff.
I don't know how they do it in that. I don't know what the technique for artisanal stunning is these days. You know, they've gone back to the old fashioned sledge, which is not pleasant. It's not pleasant. Not not pleasant, or like it's just a 22 or something, you know what I mean?
Anyway, uh, did you break down uh lamb? Yeah, so lamb lamb's a big one, venison's a big one. Um so you know you know what I'm gonna ask you, or not? What's that? Do you like haggis?
And if so, do you have any tips? Oh I used to eat a lot of haggis when I was a kid because my gran like she would sh she loved it, so she would give it to me when I was a kid. Scottish shy grandmother? Yeah, yeah, Scottish grandma. So um, yeah, she was a nanny, so she would like cook for me and like you know, look after me.
So you know, we would we would we would eat it, you know, from the the chip shop, the fish and chip shop, you'll get in haggis and chips, you know. It was pretty good, but um, yeah, you get older, and I I guess I just kind of realized what it was, and it freaked me out a little bit. So I I eat less and less of it. But whenever I go home and see her in Scotland, I she always gives it to me, and I I I I just enjoy it to make her happy. I oh I love haggis.
I think it's delicious. But when you have it at a quote unquote chip shop, we would call them fries, they serve it also with mashed potatoes and turnips. Is it still nibs and tatties plus fries? Or that's more of a home thing or a restaurant thing, like at the chip shop, you'll just have it with like chips, maybe some gravy or something. Uh-huh.
Yeah. When you we when like uh do you ever do it where you mold all three into one and then like like unmould it? That's how I had it a couple times like that. It was like almost like they put it into the whole Megilla, like all three layers were put into like a pint container. And I think they just had it in there, like they had it like in a steam table or some crap.
That's wild. And then I was like, Oh, I have the haggis, nips and tatties, and they're like yeah, no, I haven't, I've just had it in like the casing. You just like cut it open and it just uh does its thing. Do you really think the casing's necessary, or could you just make like an like an oatmeal and like and like offal and meat like kind of mix in a brick format and do it like scrapple? I think if we did like first of all, no one here eats scrapple anyway.
So for those of you that don't know what scrapple is, scrapple is like pork and parts and cornmeal. So it's like, you know, Scottish scrapple, you know what I mean? But like if there's gotta be a way to sell it because it's a delicious product. I feel you could make slabable haggis. We do it.
We do it. Last time I went went um back to see my gran in Scotland, we had it. Um and you it's usually served with breakfast. So you'll like have like a fry up with eggs and sausages and like black pudding, and then you'll have like a little little patty of it. Um so yeah, that's part of Scottish breakfast, yes.
I like that you do the the blood pudding and the haggis. Yeah, I'm not a big blood pudding person. I always give it to my dad whenever it comes on the plate, and I'm in Scotland with him. I always like hand it over to him because he loves it. You know who loves uh blood sausage is your boy John.
Yeah, I'm not surprised. So in s in Scotland, I forget how they do it. How much lightning do they add to the to blood? What's the filler over there? What do you mean?
Like it's not like straight, it's not like super black and dense, right? It's like more oh, the black pudding. Yeah. It's got some filler in it, right? Yeah, there's like there's like ground pork and like sage and you know.
John likes it as bloody as it can get. Yeah, he likes this filler-free. What? Nice and minerally. I like it.
That's minerally. Like half half a vampire. I guess, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
I saw um, there was a you know, like I I read a lot of old books, and I can't remember what book it's in, but it stuck with me since I was a kid. I opened this book and it was about food all over the world, and there's this kid, I don't even remember where he's from, but he was drinking goat blood, and the blood was running down the sides of his mouth. Yeah. And I was like, no. And like for some reason, like that kind of turned me off to straight blood eating.
So like I'll eat if someone hands me like the congealed pork blood stuff, I'll be like, I'll eat it. But I'm not like, yay. You know what I mean? No, no. And if you're not if you're not like yay, why would you eat it?
True. True, true. Also, and it's again unpopular, uh, like things that are too hard, like too. I love awful, but like sometimes if it's served in huge quantities without the right sauces, like tripe with like no kind of tomato or acid, and it smells like slaughterhouse. Yeah, you know, or smells like you're cutting meat, and I can't, I can't, you know what I mean?
Or like um, what's the other one? Now some of them, like like a kidney that hasn't been like properly like kidneyed. You know what I mean? There was a sausage that I had when I was in France, and it was like it literally smelled like poop. The le the Lyonnaise?
Oh andouette, yeah. It freaked me out, and the whole kitchen would like smell like like poop everywhere. Yeah. It was awful. And it was like you had to work in the kitchen while this thing is just and people ordered it.
I I couldn't believe when they first cut into it, I couldn't believe what I was looking at. Yeah. For those of you that don't know, imagine you're like, oh, that's the casing of the sausage, and then you cut a little bit into it and you're like, oh, there's another cake. There's a there's a yeah, but uh, and there's like no filling. And the smell, and the smell is awful.
I'll tell you this though. You know what is delicious is that style with chicken skin, just chicken skin, all rolled up. That's delicious. I believe that, yeah. That's delicious.
But like intestine done that way is not. I had it, I wanted to have it. For years I wanted to have it. I went to a very reputable shaky in uh and got it, like a Lyonnaise one, and I was like, because that's where it's from. And I was like, oh, this sucks.
Yeah, hated it. Not not not ideal. No, not ideal. That's a not order again. You would I would I would drive 80 miles to not have it.
Yeah. Imagine if you're on a date and someone is eating that. Poop breath. Like they're just pounding it. They're like, oh, I see they have the Lyonnaise andouette.
My favorite. Like, I'm gonna call it a night. Yeah, I think I believe. It's really of so funny. Is there any other like like big hates or no?
Um, I've I've I've prepped my sh my fair share of grouse on the ground. You know, but in in in the UK is game season's big, so grouse, pheasants, uh, pheasants. I like the taste of pheasants, but I worked in this one restaurant where we used to butcher them in the outdoor kitchen. We had an outdoor kitchen, and it was just like the warm like guts and stuff, and it just like it yeah, it threw me off the smell, it threw me off the taste a little bit. And in the UK, they still hang them high or no, they still get them all stinky, yeah.
Stinky. So Nastasia still has not forgiven me for a meal we had at Hicks in London where I ordered, they had the the game tasting, and it was like woodcock and grouse and all this stuff. I like woodcock. Yeah, and but like you know, I was spitting the BBs and like I was like chewing on the bones, and like little pieces of like in like intestine and blood were like flicked onto her face. She's you're still mad about it, right, Stas?
Oh yeah. What was worse? That or having to sit through the non-lunch at the citrus joint. Non-lunch, not lunch. Nastasia went with me on this trip.
We were blessed to have more citrus varieties than anyone has ever tasted, other than people who own citrus collections. All she can remember is that the lunch sucked. Because it we didn't know we were gonna have lunch, so we didn't bring lunch. So they were having lunch but not giving us lunch. That's weird.
We also had a lunatic there who told us that salt was now illegal in New York kitchens. This was Bloomberg era. And I was like, you know, I was just in a professional kitchen like two days ago, and guess what we used? All the salt. Salt.
Remember that, Stas? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He also collected old mercury's, I think chopped mercury's the car, wood blocks, and weird CDs.
Weird dude. Rich. Helps to be rich. You know what I'm saying? Mm-hmm.
Okay. So uh sorry. Uh Scotland. All right. So then we're gonna run out of time, so we should fast forward.
Because we got we had 30 minutes. What do you want to talk about from your story? I'm I although I haven't I've maybe met you like once or twice. I've had your food because I used to eat at Nomad, which was delicious. You were cooking it Nomad and then We went to Crown Shy once for your birthday.
We cooked at Crown Shy. And you were probably cooking at Crown Shy at that time. Because pretty soon I was how did Crown Shy get so many famous people to eat there? It was like you guys had so the table next to us, it was Nastasia, John, and myself. The table next to us was uh someone I don't remember sitting with Chris Rock and Rashida Jones, and one of those suckers gave me COVID.
Now hold up, hold up. I'm not blaming Rashida. I'm gonna blame Chris Rock on this. This was right after he got slapped. Yeah.
It was like right after the slap. So like everyone everyone was like, who slapped. And I was like, no, forget the slap. COVID. Dude gave me COVID.
Yeah, I mean, you must have been sitting pretty close. Unless he was just like coughing out there. I don't know. We were at we were at the we were at like one of the banquet tables, like over like you walk in, you go all the way to the back, slightly to the right, bank like in the back. I think it was there was like John was sitting uh uh with his back against the window area.
I was Nastasia was next to me, and I was in a chair facing like back here. So like I guess like I was catching the Chris Rock spray coming over my shoulder. You know what I mean? Because they were in the they were on a table, like a freestanding table next to me. It must have been them.
Had to have been. No. Only explanation. I'm not gonna blame the explanation. I'm not gonna blame the server.
That would be dumb. There was like probably like three hundred covers that day. But yeah, but yeah. Yeah, it could have been a story too, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
No. No. No, yeah. Sticking the free yeah, so like do you think like they because of like the nomad connection, how like how is it because fight, I guess fight eyes a thing now, right? Like Yeah, it's become a thing.
Yeah, because uh it's just it was shocking to me, like how many, how like what percentage of very fancy folks was down there. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, I think I think also, you know, just like uh James and who was and you know, he he listened to a lot of like RB and rap music, and we had you know pictures of like Biggie and all these artists on the wall. So I think that made a difference too.
That was like very much part of the theme. Um so we'd have like really interesting characters come through for sure. Um I I think based off of that. But you know, also James is just like great, he's a great character. Well, I know you think music's important, and I don't have any control over the music of my place.
My well, because like really like I I was brought in, so my bar place is bar contra and Jeremiah and Fat Fabian had it as Contra, the restaurant, and Jeremiah always did the playlist, and he has very like particular opinions about like what should be on the playlist from his point of view. And you know, at the end of the day, it's his place. You know what I mean? Like I'm like quote unquote an owner there, and I do the bar stuff, but it's like you know, he that's his call, so but the issue also is that like it doesn't change up enough. Like I'm a huge believer in that it's very hard because if your floor staff hates the fact that they've heard the same playlist and fifty eight times, they hate it.
You know what I mean? I agree. We what we uh when I was in saga, we would, you know, listen to the the playlist from the dining room because it's all kind of one space. And I knew at certain times what ty like what certain music, what time it was. I knew where we were in the day based off of the songs.
It can drive you a little bit crazy. Yeah. And my my theory, see what you think. My theory is that like 'cause like one old school like restaurateur like mentality is well, who cares? Who cares what the staff thinks?
It's about the it's about the guests. But if if the staff is bent because they hear the same stuff, then they have that little edge and then that rubs off onto the guests. That's what I think. I think what the staff thinks matters most. Yeah.
Well, so is your back of house nice? 'Cause I like I like I wanted to talk once. I don't know if we ever brought it up. You go to these restaurants, it's all nice. And very few exceptions, as soon as you're in like the back of house office, it's a freaking hellhole nightmare, like terrible place to be.
I don't like that. Yeah. I I I'm I'm anti like, you know, aggression. I think it's like there's times where I'm like, let's go, we gotta hurry up. Like I'm like and give give people a push, but like for the most part, I think what's important is to run the kitchen with respect rather than fear.
You know, if people fear you and they're just doing it for fear, you're not gonna have you're gonna have a lot of turnover. Yeah. But I also mean like no one spends money on the amenities behind. Like, even if you're nice, you know what I mean? It's like the kitchen's bright, but it's always like a little bit beat, a little bit a little bit dingy.
Yeah, yeah. Ergonomics are never what you need to be because you spend all your money front of house, back of house, you spend money on equipment, but you don't spend money on like Yeah. You know, you're like, Oh, I can either make this place a little bit nicer to work or I can get the rationale I want. You know what I mean? Yeah.
And what do you choose? I mean, you know, I like to spend money on the kitchen. You know, lucky for me, it's like, you know, I think we designed do we design a kit we design the restaurant really, really well. And, you know, when we need to spend money on the kitchen, I do. I like, you know, I'm a chef, so I spend money where we need to spend money.
If the rationale is broken and we need the rationale, we're gonna get a rationale, you know. I mean, like, there's been a couple of kitchens I've been to. I haven't been to your kitchen yet. I would love to see it. Uh, but there's been a couple of kitchens I went to where it's like, I can't believe how much money they spent on making this like a chef's paradise.
WD50 was that way. Oh, yeah, I don't remember. You know, I mean, like all of the mate, like all of the I'm sure no I didn't ever go into the kitchen at Nomad. I'm sure it was nice. It's huge.
Yeah, was it nice? Very nice. Yeah, you know. I've been in the kitchen at EMP, obviously nice. You know what I mean?
But like, it's so hard because it costs so much money to make things. Yeah, it is. I think there's a fine, there's a you know, there's a balance, you know. I think I don't mind a kitchen that's a little bit gritty when it comes to like, you know, you kind of have to hustle a little bit. I don't I I personally don't like super large kitchens.
I think things get missed. You know, when we built the space, we I like I wanted it to be a smaller kitchen. You know, it's just like you see everything, you taste everything, nothing goes amiss. I've worked in a lot of big kitchens and things just slip, you know. How many covers are you doing?
Um, so we're doing, you know, today we're doing like a hundred and twenty covers. On the weekend, we have a hundred and fifty covers upstairs and about a hundred downstairs, sometimes a hundred and twenty. On on Saturday last week, we just did a hundred and fifty covers upstairs and then a buyout. So like we have some buy-outs throughout the week. You like buyouts?
I mean it's easy. It's like, you know. I love the money and the fact that it's easy. I hate it because it ruins it for it depends. It depends on how big you are.
If you have room to take all of your regulars and you're not shutting your front door, it's fine. But like at like whenever like uh one of the bars would have a uh a buyout and I had to turn people away, we were already small enough, and like you have to put that sign on the front door that says sorry, you can't come. I was always like, oh yeah. I mean, that sucks. That definitely sucks because we, you know, I'm always like, Oh, have you seen the bar downstairs?
Like when I go and talk to guests and that. Um, but yeah, I mean, that's very disappointing. But when it comes to execution, it's nice because we have a whole different menu downstairs. So, like to take a minute to just pause and have one person just send the party from uh from our area downstairs, is it it gives the team a chance to risk reset a little bit and focus on one part of the restaurant, you know. Do you have to run food down the same way that the guests go down or no?
Yeah, we have we have like a prep area downstairs as well, so we kind of sometimes execute from down there. But yeah. Yeah, and but like uh you like you can you and you can so therefore you can also send things down if you want if you want to fluff someone out downstairs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We love fluffing people out.
Do you are you a believer old school? Here's an old school question for you. Are you a believer in like uh you have to like do like minor fluffs to the table? If you're gonna really blow one table out, you have to kind of minorly the tables around them, so they're not like what the hell? Yeah, I think I if I you know, people come in and excited about the restaurant, they're fit about the space.
You know, there's people that are like, oh, I've seen it on Instagram, I've seen on TikTok, you know. It's like I think um I think when you have those conversations with people and they're generally excited, yeah. I like to, you know, fluff it up a little bit. Um, but that's through connection, you know. I think people that are there, you know, to have a quick bite and leave, like that's not, you know, I don't think it's not to hell with them.
Anyway, uh it's not true. You know what, on the other hand, like for restaurants one thing, but in bars, like there's so many like people who are genuinely interested, but they're still one and done. Mm-hmm. You know what I mean? Yeah.
Cause, you know, they're only in New York for two nights and they want to try umpty ump million places. Exactly. You know what I mean? Can't hate on them. Okay.
Uh and one thing I know I want to ask before we get into the specifics of here is that 'cause I don't talk to a lot of people who have done like l lot of professional cooking, both UK and here. I'm curious about the economics of it. For a working cook, not you know, not an owner, not a sh chef owner, like are the economics wildly different in what you make here versus there, the livability of the job? Yeah, for sure. You know, uh when I was back home, um it's you know, I think that's what shocked me the most when I first came here.
Someone was like, Oh, you start at two PM. I was like, Well, two PM, that's crazy. I was like every day. And they were like, Yeah, I was like, okay. Um, 'cause, you know, back home I work I spent, you know, ten years working in in in in Europe and London and all these places and for the most part I was working sixteen, seventeen, sometimes you know, eighteen hours a day, sleeping three hours a day.
And I did that for a very long time. And we all got paid salary. Whereas here everyone everyone is an hourly employee. That's like a cook. Um so yeah, it's different as a cook, even a first-time cook, like you're going in there as a chef to party, demi chef de party, commie, whatever.
You're all paid salary. So a lot of restaurants still open for lunch. Um and you'll be doing lunch service, like prep at eight in the morning, seven in the morning, then you'll do lunch service from twelve till 2:30, and then you'll be open again at five thirty, six o'clock for dinner service, and then you're done at one in the morning. Um, so yeah. But in terms of the actual money you take home, I mean not the punishing schedule, but in terms of the actual money you take home, which place is more livable.
I would say here is probably a bit more livable. I think there are some some benefits, like for example, back home, uh every every like fine dining restaurant, they have 21% gratuity that gets split between the entire team. So when it's busier, you make more money. So if you're working the busier days, you make more money in the kitchen, get split by the bar team, the service team, the kitchen team, everyone porters, everything. Um, so that's nice for sure.
But I think the I think the general salary is higher here. You're uh management's also allowed to take the service stuff in the UK, right? Aren't they? The laws aren't as hardcore as they are. I mean, here the laws are like serious.
If you break those laws here, like you're gonna get tagged. Yeah, I think so. I can't remember. Yeah. Yeah.
So I know for front of house, I don't understand. So it's one of the interesting things in terms of like bar programs that I'm working with now. You can't, there's certain things you can't do here because the hourly is too high to and they're not salary. So, like, you know, if if I know that like an hour, it's gonna take an hour's worth of this person's time to make a liter of this product. I'm like, all right, well, that's a lot of money that I can't afford.
And so that I don't know because there's a lot of people in the UK doing things that I know in bar programs are not time cost effective. But I guess if you're salaried, you're just burning them out. You're just gonna light you're just gonna light that light their bodies on fire, is what you're doing. So you what this is like what you're saying to me makes me think that that is what they're in fact they're doing. They're lighting like young people's bodies on fire and like letting them burn.
Cause like you here, you couldn't do that stuff. You know what I mean? No. I you know, I think I think from a b business perspective, you know, the labor is is is very straightforward. Like it, you know, you know exactly how many people you need, you know exactly how much you can spend.
Here is like as an as a as an owner of a restaurant, like you have to manage it accordingly. You know, it's like a lot more of a juggle. Yeah. Um, because you gotta figure out exactly what you need on the management, you need on those on the hourly employees and how much time you need, spread of hours, overtime, all that stuff. So yeah.
I mean, the thing I that I hate most, one of the things I hate most about our industry here is that you know, depending on which shifts you have, if you're hourly, you don't know what you're gonna make at the end of the day. You know what I mean? And your rent you know, your landlord doesn't charge you less if the restaurant didn't pull. You know what I mean? It's like yeah, I agree.
I mean, but that's you know, I I think when I was a cook, is like when I needed more hours, I like push myself to be like, you know, to be a strong person in that kitchen, so they're like need me for stuff, you know? Yeah. Um that's kind of what I you know, how I saw it when I was a cook. I was like, all right, I need to make sure that like I get all this stuff done and like, you know, in kind of like show these people that I can manage all of this stuff, and then you know, they'll just give me more time, more more. So you've been you've been cooking what now, like 20 something years, right?
You like you said, because you're 19. 19. Yeah. Yeah. So like and like I was, you know, listening to some of your interviews, and very much it seems that you always had owners's mentality.
I have this discussion with my wife all the time, right? So, like, you know, people, when she was very young, she always had owners's mentality. I mean, she's an architect, not in our business, but and so what that meant was is that she always went the extra mile. Like I've heard, you know, you said you used to draw out the station so that you know exactly how the stations were set up so that if somebody dropped dead you could walk in and just work their station. Or call in sick, you know, which is the same thing, let's be honest.
Uh back then. So uh but you know um is that rarer now? Like it's like I know that culturally it's not it's not cool to ask people to want to have kind of owner's mentality when they come in, but how are you going to make the next crew of owners if they don't have it? Yeah I think you know I I don't it's not the same for everyone. You know I think certain people want to do certain stuff and and see certain things.
I you know I don't think everyone wants to open a restaurant. I don't think everyone wants to own a business like I think that's changed. You know I I I think people have different different paths and you know I and that's okay you know um but having an owner's mentality and and I always say this as well it's like you can be an entrepreneurial person but you can also be the intrapreneur and like and like try and build within a company. You don't necessarily need to build your own company if you don't want to but yeah the mindset of like being an owner definitely helps you grow like internally and just like move forward in your career. You know I think thinking of thinking outside of I'm just doing this station today you know or it's like trying to slip something in the bin or be like you know I have all this trim.
What do I do with it? Like that's a good way to think about it. You know let me ask you this is it right because like you always, like, as you know, when you're training people, right? It's when people have that when they're young and they have that kind of mentality where they're asking you questions and like you know, making sure that everything's right and going that extra mile, it's hard not to like them more. Yeah.
You know what I mean? But the thing is, on one hand, I think that's not kind of okay, because it should be okay for someone to just come in and clock their hours. Be good at their job, clock their hours. Yeah, I agree. GTFO and like do their thing.
Like that should be okay too. So I think it's like a weird balance to strike, not to not to play favorites. It's hard. No, I think, you know, a lot of people are like, oh, manage everyone the same. You shouldn't manage everyone the same.
You know, it's like people want different things. You know, one of my sous chefs wants this and the other source chef wants that. And like, you know, I think it's good great to have open conversation about what you want and then kind of, you know, give goals and set goals to like get to where this this person wants to be. Um, you also said very early, you knew you wanted to be a sh like a chef as opposed to just I want to cook. I mean, like that's the that's the thing.
I think do you think most people make up their mind earlier, or most people in some quasi, they have no idea what they want, kind of a situation and they just kind of flounder around. As career-wise or as a career-wise. 'Cause I mean being like wanting to be a chef is very different. If you want to be a chef, you better have that owner's mentality. Yeah.
How the hell are you gonna do it otherwise? You know what I mean? Yeah. But if what you want to just do be as a monster cook, that's good too. Yeah what I mean.
I agree. I agree. But like, do you think that uh like most people that you see make up their mind after like a couple it sounded like you knew from the jump that you wanted to do that because you were like taking all these notes and doing all of these things, or at least it was some spark was in there that was making you learn more than the average person. You know what I mean? Yeah.
But do you think most people are like that in that if they're gonna do it, they start early that way? No, I think sometimes it develops over time. You know, I think I think I think it it goes both ways. Like sometimes people go into not really, you know, to do it as a job, and then they end up loving it and they end up wanting to, you know, put their own food, put do their own restaurant, own their own business, or whatever. Um and then there's people that go in there with their heads saying, I'm gonna open a restaurant one day, I'm gonna own this catering company, I'm gonna do this.
And then halfway through they're like, yeah, I think uh I think I'm good for now, you know. So it goes both ways. Right. You brought up an interesting middle ground that I hadn't considered like they don't want to have they want to grow within a company. Actually love that crew when you're having a place and like you know this person, you know they're clean, you know they're fast, you know they're a monster, you know they get along with everyone, you know they just crank.
And what they want to do is do that and go home. And you know what? God bless those people. Yeah, you know what I mean? Full respect.
Yeah, you know what I mean? Like never any drama, just yeah, good, consistent chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk, chunk. You know what I mean? Yeah, for sure. But then you need someone like you over that person to put the mental input in because they just don't they don't want to do the dev work.
Well, yeah, there's a there's a visionary and then there's the execution, yeah. So you know, they have to work with each other. All right, so let's talk about in the 13 minutes and six seconds that we have left. Let's talk about uh actually opening a place, fine finance opening a place. So when you wanted to, you were still you were were you at Crown Shire or Saga?
You were at Saga, right? I was at Saga, yeah. Yeah, you're at Saga, and you ha you had you hadn't told Chef yet that you were gonna go, but you had started the kind of wheels rolling. So you decided to do your own thing, but you partnered up with uh someone who you knew from the EMP nomad, Alex, uh, I'm gonna get their name, Pfaffenbach. Great name.
A lot of Fs and Ps. Fantastic. So uh, and you said to someone, I forget who that you thought it was important, like the first time out to start with a partner. Now, Alex, though, is a business partner, but not a money partner, right? No, just business, just me and him.
Yeah. So here's something that I I know I have found is that the pie, no matter how big the restaurant is, the pie isn't as big as you think it is. The money pie that you can extract out of a place is not as big as people think it is. No matter how much you're charging your guests, like it's hard to extract. So I know for a fact, like the last place I opened existing conditions, we had our money partner who was the full money who went in, right?
Greg Bohm. Then we had I had two cre with two creative partners. It was Don and myself. We were both supposed to be working. I mean, things happen, but we were kind of also extracting money, right?
Because there's management. So there's only so many extractive people you can have in a thing. So you're working, right? So if you're working, then you can pull the money that you would get from having actually doing labor at the restaurant. Yeah.
But if you're not, it's kind of hard, right? Because the more partners you bring in, the finer that pie is sliced up. And then if you as an owner, especially a creative person, if you're gonna o go open two and three other places where you can't cook every day, but you still have to put in so many hours of like dev and putting stuff on top, it gets difficult when you have multiple partners, does it not, in terms of it getting the money out that you need? Yeah, I mean, you know, we w we were quite strategic, you know, with ours. Um, we also put our own money in it as well.
We we we worked together on uh something else where we kind of consulted. So we so we were able to like put uh put ourselves in there as well, as like um part of the investment. But yeah, I think you know, we split up between a fair um amount of people, and you know, we we started off uh in a brand new building. So that's nice. Yeah, so it was a brand new building.
So we were we were given TI to like kind of start the project, it was really, really important. Um so that helped just like build the construction and like build a first gen space, you know, as opposed to just like going in there designing it and moving some stuff around. We had to like really build from the ground up. Um you found the space and built the concept around the space? Because like how how did you start?
Yeah, so we were looking for we were getting our reps in and just like looking at spaces, you know, not necessarily spaces we wanted to you know pursue, but we were just looking to just like get the feel and get an understanding of the conversations we need to have and blah blah blah blah. Um, and we and then Alex was working for quality brandy at that time, and he was introduced to the owner of the building who came to the space, um, who brought him to the space, and Alex was like, listen, I really want to do this, this, this, and then this with it. And it was like he wanted to do like a bar, like a sports bar situation, and I was just like, he was like, All right, let's be partners, like 505 partners. And I was just like, Um, I I'm not feeling it. I was like, I'm not in.
I was like, I'm sorry, I love you, but I'm out. Um, and then we found the owner told us that there was a space downstairs. I think they were they wanted to do like a bike room or something for the building, and it was directly under it. And then um we got like extra space for the kitchen and blah blah, and it just like expanded into like something that was more than just this one room. Um, and then he was like, All right, please like come back.
Like I really want to do this. And at that point, I thought I was, you know, just gonna go out and try something on my own and like figure out. But then he was like, come on, let's let's look at this place. There's more like spaces in it, and blah blah blah. And we looked at it and I was like, all right, I was like, yeah, I'm feeling this now.
Like it feels like something that I can do, do something in, you know. Um, you know, I had a very straightforward like understanding of the food I wanted to cook. Um, so yeah, the sports bar, the sports bar was not in that. You know, I do love a good pub. I would love to own a pub one day, but at this specific time, I it just like wasn't.
You know what it's your first place. Not for my first hard to fight up from sports bar. Well, I I I was just in saga, like I'd you know, I'd wanted to like kind of work with like the Caribbean European vibe. So like, yeah, I wanted that to be the first, you know. You envision what you're gonna you work like 19 years in restaurants and you envision what your first restaurant's gonna be like.
And as much as I'd love to own a pub one day, yeah, that's not the first thing that I wanted to do. I kind of needed to get this bug of like um of why what I actually wanted to do first. I think that's fair, right? Because if you if you plant where is it the bad thing about the world, right? If you if your the first flag you plant is something, you know what I mean.
You can you know it's hard to go up, easier to like do something like elevated, but like at a at like a different kind of uh not I don't want to say lower, but at a less at a less hardcore execution point, you know what I mean, or less money. Yeah, less money. I also just I I didn't feel like I could be as passionate as I wanted to be, you know what I mean? So yeah, I just thought it was best to MS. Did you already have your numbers and crap worked out when you when you saw the space?
Um, so when we saw the space and we realized we wanted it, we were like, all right, let's sit down and like figure this thing out. So then we started to put it together. It's hard to to write out a plan if you haven't got space because you could go to a space that's completely different the next day and you and it's a completely different business plan, different performer. Like you need to build it around the space that you're in. That's what I think anyway.
Yeah. I mean, I know from my experience that like you can also sell yourself on a space that freaking sucks. You know what I mean? Yeah. You think it's gonna be good and it freaking sucks, and then you're toast because you're millions in and you're yeah bleeding money and yeah, yeah, for sure.
For sure. Nightmare. Yeah. Yeah. You know who knows that?
Nastasia knows that. Uh but anyway, so I know we as used to have to do it. It's like you have in your mind what you think the numbers are gonna be, all these weird back of the envelope, like you know, napkin crap that like restaurant people write out about what how the business is supposed to work. Do you believe any of that stuff by the way? Like you need to make you need to make your rent on a Saturday night.
You need to I mean all these old school things that people say. If you don't make your rent on a Saturday night, you're never gonna make it, or like you know, you need to be you need to be at this number, you need to be at this percentage. You know what I mean? It's like like you believe in all that stuff. I mean, it's true, some of it's true, like they work, but they're not really it's a guide.
It's a guide, exactly. Yeah, I mean, you know, like what we put on paper, like what me and Alex looked at and what we're doing is different, you know. It's like, but it's a great guide, you know, and it's a restaurant. When you first open a restaurant, especially, you know, I'm not a big company, I'm not like a huge restaurant group that everyone knows. I'm like this person that no one really knows, uh, you know, and it's like you know it's not gonna be easy at the beginning, and you're waiting for this moment to happen, and then so it fluctuates.
It's like up and down for a little bit, and then once you get once you're once you've clocked what you gotta get to, you start getting some more consistency, right? Is your landlord your partner? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So it's like that can work either way, right?
So I have some old school, I mean it's nice because they had money, right? So if you have money, you're like you don't want your landlord to be your partner because then you know the more money you make, the more money they make instead of you making the money. But on the other hand, how are you gonna open without it? Right? If you show up, like how do you how do you walk up if it's your first place and be like, this is gonna work, crap on you?
You're like, you give them the not crap on you. You know what I mean? Like, this is gonna work, trust me, with all this cash. You know what I mean? Like, I think it's relationships, you know.
I think you know, the owner of our building is he's great, you know. I I I have a lot of respect for him, and we have a great relationship. We were out for dinner um like a week ago, and you know, I he gets really excited about you know these things that are happening and the restaurant being busy, and the people that come to the restaurant, like he loves it, you know. Um he always has like these little side, these little side projects that he loves to do and like hobbies. So I think being part of the restaurant and just seeing it busy and seeing you know what we've created and what we designed and all this is just like really excited for him.
I think that building that relationship is the most important thing for me. And is the landlord the main other money partner other than you guys, or do you have also external folks? Well, he gave they give us the TIs to like select the um the TI to like for the build-out, so like the construction and stuff like that. Um, so like the tenant improvement allowance, he gave that to us. And then we have like other partners, you know, like we meet people, you know, it's like the restaurant industry and like people that you've met throughout the years, you know, it's like other hospitality groups or owners or you know, just like people that we've met in the restaurants from working at the nomad, from working at EMP, people sitting at the tables, like uh friends of the industry, people that have s moved from restaurant to restaurant to come and eat the food, you know, it's like those are the people and the relationships that you build over time that are really really important.
And you meet people that are like if you open up a restaurant, let me know. Yeah, you know? As a chef, right, when the going is good, the going is good. But the like it I know for me, like the on the bar side, the contracts can get real thorny when the going is not good, or if you don't have the control when push comes to shove, because then you can easily get toasted, even though you're quote unquote an owner. And so, like, is there anything you would say for people to watch out for?
I mean, I know uh I've been hosed, you know, I'm sure a lot of people have been hosed, and like from the outside, things can look a lot rosier than they actually are on the inside from an actual contract point of view. By the way, contracts are only as good as your enforcement. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, I think you know, any advice for from me would be like keep it tight.
Make sure that you have soul power of of what goes on in that place, you know, keep the contract tight, spend a lot of time on it, don't rush it. Yeah. Go through it, go over it, go over it again. I know for us also, like when you're opening, I mean, maybe not in a new place, but when you're opening in an old old place, or if you don't know whether your liquor license is gonna come through on time, you can sit there and burn cash. Did you have a situation like that or a plan where like you because you how how many people did you bring with you?
Like cooks and and and like front-of-house people? Like people that worked with me before, or just like people that you knew you wanted these killers to be on your team when you opened a lot, a lot. The majority of the bar team have worked with me before. Uh I'd say about a third of the kitchen worked with me before as well. And how do you keep those people alive while you're not open yet?
You know, we it was it's I think that's a good question because we cause we were a full build out, there was a lot of hurdles and a lot of things that took a lot of time, you know, and we're like, all right, we're gonna open this month and then the next month, and it gets pushed back and it gets pushed back. And you're burning, you're burning, and then who and then how does your how does your payback work? Yeah, I mean, I think I think what was interesting was that we actually this is very funny. Sorry, we were like, all right, the gas is gonna, I know this is off, but but the gas was gonna be turned on at this time, and I already hired everyone, and we were like in uh commissary kitchen, just like working on food, and everyone learned the menu, but we were waiting for the gas to be turned on. Oh god.
So we were like prepping ahead to like so we could, you know, put out our tastings and whatnot. Um and yeah, that kind of this screwed up screwed us over. Definitely a a couple of weeks. Um we lost some money from just having the staff on the team, but you know, I in my opinion, I think it was worth it because I had some really, really strong people. And if that meant that we had to, you know, run for a couple of weeks of labor, like we ran for a couple of weeks and ever, I'm not giving up on on with on this team.
So I know for a fact that if you open without enough of a buffer, at the end you get toasted and you start cutting corners at opening, and then you open by burning everyone out, and then you've ruined the restaurant for the first year. How do you avoid doing that? Um can you explain that again? Say that again? So it's like, you know, you show up, you you've only budgeted like two million for opening.
Yeah. You're you spend your two million, you don't have enough inventory, you don't have enough labor, you're opening now, so you start cutting all these corners right as you're opening and stretching your staff to the very limit because you don't have the cash to spend that you need to at the very end. And you open, you open like sucking wind. You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean you gotta raise some more money.
I think ra I think what's really important is to make sure that you have that working capital at the beginning. So you have the ability. Like, I you know, I I I'm always like raise more than you than you think you need. Raise more because you're gonna even if it says that on paper, like do your best to just keep trying to get that in because you're got something's gonna happen. You know, our gas didn't turn and we burn for a couple of weeks.
You know, you need to make sure that you have that backup money, man. It's like it's really really important. Whatever you think you need for working cap, you need more. Yeah, yeah. That is that is good advice.
And if Joe will let me on the way out, since I know uh your Saturdays were sawfish and ackey growing up, is there a good place to get non-canned ackey in in New York? Oh my god, no. I've just like I've been trying to find it everywhere, and I I I struggle to find it. Can you get it in UK? You can get it in the UK, but yeah, you had to like you have to you have to do some stuff for me.
I've only ever had canned. Yeah, yeah. It's not bad, but it's not it's not ideal. It's just, you know, anything that's canned is just never, it's like sitting in its own water and stuff. Yeah.
I mean, if it's anything like other fruits like lychee, I mean Yeah, go go to Jamaica. Uh someday. I've never been. Someday. Someday.
Anyway, India, thanks so much for coming on. Welcome back anytime. Cooking issues.
Timestamps may be off due to dynamic ad insertion.