What I did know is that I thrived in that environment of
chaos when it the tickets came in and it was crazy.
I I could kind of, I could function higher level than
everybody else. Don't know why, don't know how.
Hello chefs. This is Chefs PSA and I'm your
host Andre Natera. Today my guest is Chef Josh
Sutcliffe. He's the corporate executive
chef at 5570 Private Members Club in Dallas, TX.
He's worked in some incredible restaurants including Mirador
and FT-33. He was recognized as Rising Star
Chef of the Year by Culture Map Dallas, recovering his journey
from family upheaval at a young age that led him to washing
dishes and falling in love with the kitchen.
Pirate life. Balancing chef creativity with
business acumen and some advice to younger chefs.
Stay tuned. What happened?
How did we get here? Yeah.
How did how did this whole thing start?
I was, I was sitting on the couch, right?
And I was 13 years old and boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, knock on
the door. I think it was a Sunday.
I remember opening the door with my sister and they were like 15
feds at my front door. And of course, being 13, right,
you don't know, like, I know something's not right, but I
have no idea what's going on. And, you know, that was the
moment my life changed for forever.
And it's something I think about now. 2020, was it 24 years
later? And.
Where were you living at the time?
I was. Living in in like just north of
Wilmington, NC. So I was born and raised in
Wilmington and then we moved to Hampstead, which is like 30
minutes N near like a little small beach town and small, you
know, we had like 1000 people in our high school.
So it was, it's a small town. And anyways that, you know, that
change the, you know, feds came in, did what they do tear your
house apart. Later come to find out, you know
what dad was selling pot big quantities.
He ended up going to jail for about 4 1/2 years.
So miss him all through high school and that transition, but
that's when I got introduced to restaurants.
What? What?
What about your mom? My mom, so she fortunately,
like, you know, we had to sell everything and she, you know,
they, they tried to ring some stuff on her that she knew and,
and she did a little bit, but not enough to luckily not enough
to send her away. So she continued to work.
We made some major changes, right?
We were living in like a, you know, a pretty nice house that
we, my, my family had built, my mom, my dad, I'd built, it's
probably about 3000 square feet. And we were there probably like
3 or 4 years before all this happened.
And so, you know, we, we moved into a 38 foot camper, right?
So it was me, my two sisters, my mother, I was 13.
And right, like this is huge change in, in the pivotal point
in my life. And so that's where.
You're in high school. Yeah, I was going in high
school. I was in 8th.
Grade well, this I mean, but image matters at that point.
Like image is everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And, and, and my sisters were working at a local restaurant
and and that was it, right? It was like, OK, we'll have to
get a job and there's no time to pout.
Like let's you know, you know, I have two older sisters, right?
So I'm the man of the family at this point.
I had to take care of them and and my mother and be there and
be this, be this anchor. So I started washing dishes and
I loved it. Like it was.
It was a calling. Yeah.
I didn't even know about cooking at this point, right.
I hadn't. I didn't.
All I knew was like, I love this.
And it was hard. I'd come in three pot sink.
This is like, I'm sure those restaurants are still out there
where like the chefs and the people aren't washing the
dishes. They just throw it in the three
pot sink, fill it with soap. You come in at 3:00 and this
thing is just a mountain. And guess what?
Get to work. You get to scrub.
And I need that. I need those pans for service.
I need that. I need that.
And you got to knock it out. And so that was like my
introduction to the restaurant business.
And it was something about working with my hands and
something that was really tangible for me, like, OK, I
just have to finish this task quickly and do it well, and then
I move on to the next thing. And so there was something about
that, that task oriented thing where it was like the only thing
that's going to make a difference whether I'm great or
not great here is my speed is my.
You're you're 131313. They're putting you under the
table. Oh yeah.
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's probably making like 150 bucks a
week, maybe 100 bucks a week, things like that, you know, just
paying me, sliding me cash. And, you know, I'm not going to
name the drop, but you know who you are.
Love you guys still keep in contact with them.
And so, yeah, I washed dishes for a year and I loved it, man.
I just the energy of the kitchen.
And then, you know, it's very much like that pirate situation.
Guys are smoking cigarettes in the back and going through the
hood vent. You know, my kitchen manager,
rest in peace. He died a couple years ago.
I was wearing, you know, sandals in the kitchen, right?
Like that short sandals, music blasting, just like, you know,
early 2000s, just like stain or like stain and like Creed and
kind of like that, that just like that punk rock thing and
chaos, you know, just doing 350 covers a night.
And so I, I was about a year in washing dishes and I was like,
man, like I want to go over there.
I want to be over there. And I could imagine being 13 or
14 years old, you know, teenager, young man, and then
you're hanging around with all these grown ass pirates and
they're smoking cigarettes. They're fucking drinking and
they're cool and and they're probably taking you outside and
giving you life lessons. 100% right, that was that was my
introduction into life really quickly.
And again, I loved it and I had a bunch of great people around
me, I think, and and I was fortunate enough to have my
friends work there, right, because it was just that kind of
it was a seasonal joint. So it's like, hey, homie, like
my three guys like, hey, you want a job to make some money
this summer, we need a fry cook or we need a grill cook, we need
a sautee cook. And so, you know, it's fortunate
enough through that, you know, from 13 to 18 full time to be
able to work with my friends. And it was, it was very
definitely a special time in my life.
But you know, that's where I learned that really quickly.
I'm, I'm really good at this thing.
I didn't know anything about the craft or anything about really
the skills that were needed to be ultra successful.
What I did know is that I thrived in that environment of
chaos when it, the tickets came in and it was crazy.
I, I could kind of, I could function higher level than
everybody else. Don't know why, don't know how,
but you know, that's been like the the pillar that's continued
to push me forward is like, I'm just great at this thing and and
you know, through the years trying to find like what, you
know, what are the other things that I'm great at and keep kind
of just pushing towards those. Things how did how did you
balance going to high school and working and, you know, finishing
school and trying to trying to do good and trying to also be
the man of the house and then going to this restaurant?
I mean, it's a lot of pressure for a 13 year old.
Yeah, A. 14 year old, yeah. I mean, I think I was blessed to
be raised with great values and ethics, first and foremost,
right? Like while my dad, you know,
gots into prison, I was raised proper, was raised, you know, in
the South, you know, like, respect, respect your elders,
hard to work all those things. So like, my structure had
already been built. And so I think like that was
obviously something that allowed me to be successful.
And then also I got lucky, man. Like I just was around a bunch
of great people. And so when this transition
happened and I was living in this camper with my mom and my
my sister, my older sister end up moving out because she like
was getting, she was there for a year and she graduated high
school and she went to college. And so it ended up just being
me, my middle sister and my mother.
And so at 14, I moved out because I I couldn't, I couldn't
be in that situation. My mom still works at Corning,
Corning Corning fiber optics. She's going to retire next year.
Shout out mom, love you. 3030 plus years there.
And so she's working 12. You know, it's a an hour commute
hour back. So she's gone 14 hours a day.
She's working 12 hour shifts. You know anything about Corning
and those kind of operations union.
So you work like 7 days on, you get 7 days off.
She's gone a lot. So I moved out, you know,
there's just no, I didn't have any.
Anybody tell me what to do? So I moved out and I kind of
just started messing around and sleeping on couches at 14.
And I was fortunate enough to have a, a near and dear friend
of mine. His mom pulled me inside and
it's like, you need to come live with us.
And so I think without her life looks a lot different, right?
And so instead of me like pushing away, I, I said, yeah,
like I would love that because I don't want to be couch surfing
and figuring out my life at 14. And so I went and stayed with
her and, and, and, and her son was my one of my best friends.
And so I was fortunate enough to have that stability from 14
pretty much to until I graduated.
And, you know, just to be able to have a place to call home and
go to. And she supported me and bought
me clothes and gave me a, you know, spending money even though
I was working. And, you know, she ended up
buying me a car when I was like 17.
And, you know, Terry is, you know, near and dear to my heart.
So definitely a second mother, you know, without her, I
definitely would probably not have been where I am today.
So, so you decide at a certain point like I'm going to go to a
cooking school and I'm going to become a chef or.
Yeah, when I was 16, I was like, I just knew.
I loved it. I was like, this is what I want
to do in my life. Were you more in love with the
cooking or were you more in love with the environment?
The environment, I didn't even the like what we know now.
And when I come, I came to love change over time.
I fell in love with the with the chaos of all of it.
Like I love the thrill. I love the idea that I could
just curse like a sailor. I love the idea that, you know,
you worked in the back of the house, like you kind of called
the shots. So I told you, you were getting
the steak in 4 minutes. It's you and you were getting
the steak. If your table wasn't ready, you
better get your table ready, right?
Like, you know, it's that that thrill of being a chef.
I'm in charge. Like you just figure it out.
We're doing all the hard work back here, right?
It's that old school kind of mentality.
And so I fell in love with that. The partying, not coming to work
till, you know, 3:00 in the afternoon and staying up all
night and going out and hanging out with people and smoking
cigarettes and doing drugs. I fell in love with that first
and foremost. And I loved cooking.
And so I knew I wanted to be a chef, but I didn't know what I
would have to give up to be successful at that point in
time. I just knew that like, I'm going
to go to culinary school and I went to my own restaurant one
day and that's all I knew, right?
And so moved and did some stuff. How?
How old were you when you went to culinary school?
So I went to, when I graduated high school in O7, I went to a
Community College in Charlotte, NC.
So I moved right out and did six months party like a sailor.
And I was like, man, I can't, I can't stay here like this is
dangerous. So I moved back home and I
enrolled into that local Community College, did that for
six months. And I was like, I can't, I
can't, I can't do this. Like I'm having too much fun,
I'm partying too much. I've got a great job making good
money. And I just kind of was like, I'm
just going to, I'll put school in the back burner.
And so from like 18 to 21, I just partied and had as much fun
as I could and worked and had a great life.
You know, I was able to always live with friends.
You know, I had some great spots, spent all our money on
booze and drugs and paid rent and and made it to the next week
and pretty simple life. Yeah, the pirate life.
That's right. And then I realized, you know, I
was like 21. I was like, if I don't get out
of here, I'm not getting out. And so again, very fortunate to
have, you know, my mother was able to kind of help me get this
loan for El Centro. I'm sorry, El Centro, but the
cord on blue in San Francisco. I originally wanted to go to
Hyde Park, but I had a couple pending charges as far as like
drunk in public, like nothing major, but that was a life I was
living. And so like forget to mention
from the age of 14 to 21, I probably, I was probably issued
anywhere from 6 to 8, like underage drinking tickets.
And so I was always kind of in the court system because of that
because I didn't have any authority, I can do whatever I
want. And so that led to a lot of
like, hey, dude, you're drinking again, here's a ticket, call
your lawyer, take care of it. And so when I applied to CIA in
Hyde Park, they obviously didn't like that and they wanted me to
send like this four page letter of like how I was going to
change and stuff. And I'm like, fuck this.
Like, you know, I understand that what I'm doing isn't great,
but I'm also not like doing anything terrible and I'm not
going to do that. And so I was like, forget them.
I'm going to figure this out another way anyways.
And. This is what the Cordon Bleu is
like. The Cordon Bleu we'll take,
we'll take anybody. We'll.
Take anybody. And so it all worked out.
It was obviously very easy. It probably was a month process
from start to finish and got the paperwork sign.
Mom helped me kind of like bear kind of the front of like the
first year of loans, 300 bucks a month or something.
And I could have never afforded it.
And so that gave me the flexibility to be able to just
like jump on a plane, live in a hostel, which is like that, you
know, San Francisco's a whole another story, maybe for another
time. And anyway, so like that, that
set me there and that place and that time and that was, that was
a jump I needed. And it was also the risk that I
needed to take to move my career forward.
So that's what I do. But you played sports too,
right? I played basketball, you played
basketball, and I was good at basketball.
My vision has always been an issue.
You know, like you really need purple vision.
Like purple vision when? You were trying to get LASIK.
Yeah, my, my, my eye is too bad. So I, I had, I had really bad
vision. I had laser surgery like in 2016
or 2017, I don't remember, but it was I fucking hated wearing
glasses in the kitchen because they fog up, they're constantly
greasy, they're scratched, I'm constantly pushing them up my
face. And then after I got laser
surgery, I was like, why the fuck did I never do this sooner?
It was fucking great. I had like 2020 vision the next
day. It's amazing 'cause I have a bad
stigmatism in my left eye that has denied me the two times I've
tried. But technology does change and
yeah, I think hopefully in the next couple years with
technology changing, we'll be able to get it done.
Yeah, I have fucking laser eyes now.
It's fucking great. It's amazing, I'm sure.
It's fucking great, especially because I've spent my whole
life. Can't wait for the day.
Wearing wearing glasses, right? Like and I played sports too, so
I remember playing baseball when I was a kid.
You got you got the straps. No, I wouldn't wear them.
So I'd fucking strike out because I couldn't see the ball.
And I remember once the fucking ball hit me right on the hand
because I, I couldn't, I, I just didn't see it until it was too
close or until it's too late, really.
But the reason I ask about basketball and sports is because
I'm wondering, did playing sports prepare you for kitchen
life? A. 100% I think about it to this
day. Yeah, I think you probably, but
you being in the game so long too, you see a lot of, you know,
similarities with with chefs running teams.
It's a it's a team game, right? And the, the further you get
down the path, the more you realize I'm, I'm a piece of this
puzzle and I can't do I can't be successful about all these
people. And so yes, it, it is played a
huge part in who I am as a person and who has I am as as a
chef, even as a person, you know, even to this day, like I
don't want to do something by myself.
I don't want to be, I want, I want to be in a, in a group
setting where like the team is, you know, we're all equal part
of that sum and we're all like without one piece.
It, it, it doesn't work. And and for me, I've always
enjoyed that. Yeah, I, I agree.
I think well, and what a lot of young cooks don't understand is
when they get into a kitchen for the first time and you're 17 or
you're 18. You, you kind of touched on this
earlier is you might be walking in with cooks that have 10 years
experience, 20 years experience, two years experience and you're
all expected to fucking work together and perform at the same
level. The the guy that's been cooking
for 25 years and is in his mid 40s and he's a disgruntled line
cook and he's a beast on the grill and he's pissed off at you
because you're three months experience and you can't keep up
with them and they don't give a shit.
But when you have that sports, I don't want to say sports
training, but you know, just just being on teams and working
with people, you understand that you're hey, look, I'm playing
this part. I got to get better because
they're the star player. You know, that competitive
mindset does lend itself well to kitchens, I think.
You know, you talked about earlier how you wanted to get
into a kitchen because you liked that environment more so than
you loved cooking. I often say to people, just
because you love to cook doesn't mean you're going to love
working in kitchens. They're 2 completely different
things, loving to cook and loving to work in kitchens.
There's people that love to work in kitchens but don't
necessarily love food. And I know that's very strange
for people to hear it, but they could give a shit about what
they're cooking. They just want to be in the
kitchen, right? They, they just love the thrill
of it. And other people like they love
nothing more than cooking. And then they go get their first
cooking job and they're like, Oh my God, I make the greatest
fucking casserole. And the chef says, like, Hey,
we're not making your fucking casserole, Go clean the walk.
And and then you're, you're picking herbs after that.
Like you're not, we're not, we're not trying your casserole
maybe for family meal one day. And the reason I bring that up
is because now that you're a chef, now that you're operating
your own kitchen, if you could look at your career and some of
the ups and downs that you've had throughout from being a line
cook to now being an executive chef and, you know, multiple
properties. What are some of the things that
you're advising young cooks on now when they're coming into the
industry? I mean, you know, it's a loaded
question and I know that we could talk about it for hours.
Yeah. But I think start starting at,
you know, I think tying it into the sports thing really quick,
understanding that like it is a team game, right?
And so something that I always enjoyed was like, hey, dude,
like if, you know, if Joey fucks up, we're all running sprints.
And that it's something I think that for me is, you know, and
again, everybody's different. Everybody's going to see it
through the same viewpoint. And like you said, some people
love cooking, but they don't love the chef part or they don't
love the food part. And so now everybody's going to
gravitate towards it. But kind of understanding that
like everybody plays a role and in a big pivotal piece and how
this thing moves forward. And as you start out
understanding that it's a team game, right?
A lot of people, you know, myself included as a young cook,
it's like me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me.
And you know, what am I doing or how am I growing?
And I didn't understand how that affected the team, right?
I had no idea. And and I don't expect for you
can't expect for a young chef or a young cook to to be thinking
like, well, what is the chef going through?
What's he looking at? But, you know, I think that's
important to kind of just like compartmentalize as you start
cooking. OK, this is a long, long game.
There's many layers to it. It's about a big group of people
being successful. This one person at the top has a
lot of challenges and they're trying to make sure all these
pieces work. And so I just need to go in and
I need to do great in my role. And if I do great in my role and
I understand my role, hopefully I can move up.
And so learning the basics, right, like, you know, I'm sure
you've talked about it so many times on this podcast, being
being to work on time, you know, showing up early, being
consistent and when you're there, like learning your stuff,
but trying to make things better.
And then you're not always going to get tall every little single
thing. And so you know, hopefully using
a little bit of like your intuition to, you know, as an
example, like if I'm, you know, on the egg station or something
and. I've been trained to cook eggs
and you know, there's recipes and they're showing me, but you
know, I, I guarantee 100% every time, unless maybe you're at the
French Laundry, there's something about that station
that can be more efficient. Every restaurant you work at, an
example, you know, would be like, OK, I'm cooking eggs and
my my coolers over here and I'm putting eggs over here and I'm
turning back around and I'm grabbing salt, you know?
OK, well, why don't you take the salt and have salt here and put
a second salt here? Who?
I showed you that who I trained. To do that, I thought you were
gonna say just mix your salt and pepper, just dump them together.
Don't, don't do that. That's very.
Don't do that. Yeah, don't do that.
Let's let's not do that. Very steakhouse style, but you
know, think about what can make your job easier.
Not because so I didn't show me or hey, I was showing to do it
this way. So I'm not going to Nobody is
going to get upset at you. If you like make a station
better. If you say hey, like chef like
and you don't even have the teller chef, but like, hey, like
I was putting tasting students here and I was turning around
dumping them here, but there's not a trash can.
So I'm pulling the trash can up beside me, which is gross.
And you don't want to do that. OK, we'll get a six pan and
label it, you know, dirty spoons and put it here, right.
You know, get a rack like make your station work for you as you
as you move through the kitchen and try to make everything that
you do better, right. Like, hey, man, like I came in,
I worked this egg station and now I'm getting promoted because
I'm doing a great job and I'm going to, you know, maybe hot
apps or whatever, or the Sally line or going to Expo, I'm going
to grill. But this station is better now
because I've kind of set better systems in place and and guess
what? The next person coming on, they
will see something that you didn't see, and they can also
make the station better. It continues to grow in our
kitchens. We're always talking about that.
When you come in, identify something that's wrong, fix it.
Every single day you come in, there's gonna be something
that's not right. I wish that wasn't the case, but
that is the case. And so get, get good identifying
that and trying to, to resolve it and, and put a solution in
place. And, and, and, you know, that
could be, you know, somebody's burning something or, you know,
I walk in and, you know, somebody's dumped pasta in
water. That's not boiling, right.
Those are like things that are just that that's the job.
But you know, putting the salt here and the salt here, having
two salts or having two things or tasting spoons, like those
are things that if you put a good system in place, like it's
not going to change. The moment you became sous chef,
the rules changed. You can't drink with the crew
anymore. You can't look the other way
anymore. You can't be liked and respected
at the same time. Caesar's not above the law and
neither of you the sous chef blueprint the manual that nobody
handed you when you got promoted.
Get it at Chefs psa.com. What is when you on board a new
a new cook on your team? What is on boarding look like?
What is the training process look like?
It needs to look better and we're and we're.
What does the ideal onboarding look like then?
Yeah. So and we're getting there,
right. We, you know, our business has
boom and grown so quickly and now we're scaling.
And so there's a lot of things that we have to put in place.
And I think this resonates with people listening because you
rarely are you going to find something that's 100% ideal.
But the goal for me is to continue to build towards that.
You get all the information beforehand that you need.
You get all your paperwork, you get your insurance stuff
beforehand. Everything gets filled out.
You give it to, you know, the chef, you show up early, you've
already been given, or maybe on your first day, you're giving
recipes, you're giving training manuals, you're giving job
descriptions. And then you're kind of talk
through like, here's your station that you're going to
start on, here's the dishes, here's your prep list, this is
where it lives, here's these items.
And kind of just briefly go through, right?
Like, you know. Are you like hardcore
standardized recipes? Yes, everything grams I'm
assuming. Everything grams, everything in
percentages. We built some really good
systems, right? If, if you know in a system we
built in our kitchen is if like you come buy a recipe and for
whatever reason, like and you know, this stuff just happens.
It's an oz right there. We have a, we have a document in
a specific spot. You grab the document, it's a
recipe revision. You make the revision, you sign
it. And this would be like a high
level prep cook or like the lead prep cook or, or somebody in a
white coat. So somebody as a chef would do
this. Nobody else would do this.
Blind Cook's not allowed to do this.
They don't know about this. But if you did, you're really,
you know, you're really stepping up.
You know, you're going the right direction.
Yeah. And then we have a box.
Then you drop in the box. So essentially the chef's
walking by, they can see it and they can pull it, pick it up and
say, OK, cool, we made this revision, talk to the chef about
it. Hey, like this is all in ounces.
I tweaked it in grams. And then that chef knows to go
take. So we use Meese as a recipe
system. And so they go in, they update
it. Boom, now it's in it's in grams
versus oz. But yeah, everything's
standardized. I mean, we tried because we're
trying to scale a business. The idea is that anybody can
come in, they get the proper training, they get the proper
information and then, you know, they are are training for about
a week and then they're on their own.
But they're they're, you know, for the first two or three weeks
there, there's constant supervision and, and tasting of
their dishes. Like when it's slow make me this
make me that make me. This what would it look like for
someone to be successful in your kitchen?
Like when you look at the cook, that's like, OK, here's this
person, they are successful because they do these things.
What? What are some of those things
that they do? Well, inherently, like, you
know, when somebody gets there or they don't, right?
That's first and foremost. By the way, someone said that to
me once is like, there's people who get it and there's people
who don't get it. That's right.
And it's fucking been true for my entire life.
No matter what, it seems like that that person that never got
it still hasn't got it. Yeah, so I would say if you
don't get it, then you then you're in the wrong field,
right. And and if you're struggling and
you can't, you know, you know when you're gonna get something,
you know, like, hey, I got, I got a shot here, right?
I got a shot to, I played varsity my freshman year.
I got a shot to like I'm throwing the ball 90 miles an
hour and on the mail, I'm like, I got a shot here, right?
Don't lie to yourself. And if you're struggling in the
very beginning and you just can't find it, it's probably
you're probably you are in the wrong field, but not probably
right. People that are really
successful, I think maybe you don't come in and crushing it in
the beginning, but you get it right.
And so some of those things, I would say, first of all, you
have to get it. And that means like obviously
showing up on time. And then as you start to see
stuff, right? Like a big sign for me is like
day 2 or day three, the person isn't like doing small tasks,
right? They're not grabbing.
OK, maybe you don't know the dishes, but like at this point,
if you haven't remembered, that 1/2 sheet tray and a resting
rack lives here in this area and the salt and pepper lives right
in front of it. And that's your seasoning tray
and your Kumi is going front with a wet towel.
And those things are already in a tray.
It's not like you're we're not pinting those up.
For people that might know, what's a Kumi pan?
Your Kumi pan is. Because that's not, that's not
like that's a that's insider knowledge.
Yeah. So for, for, for the people that
are listening, like, what did he say?
Where can I buy a Kumi? Pan Yeah, yeah.
Well, yeah, good luck buying them.
They're hard. They're hard to find.
They're very expensive. I mean, I get them on Amazon,
but they take weeks to get there.
Yeah. Every time I go to like JB
Prince or something, they're out.
And so I Amazon them. They're just like they're
they're stainless steel trays and they fit perfectly and they
have different sizes. And so generally for, you know,
finishing salt garnishes and. And you know, if you're at like
a steakhouse, for example, like you're probably running that on
your Expo pass and you're probably putting like your oils
in there, but it's really like to to set your mis and plus up.
It's that fucking Swanee station.
It is set up. Yeah, yeah.
That's so, so like when you're on Instagram and you're looking
at those, those Michelin star kitchens, like where do you get
those pants? What are they called?
They're called Kumi pants. Called Kumi pants.
You find them on Amazon and just need a little bit of lead time.
Yeah. And so it's like things like
that where it's like, OK, well, maybe like you haven't mastered
the omelet or maybe you don't remember the whole like every
component on the chicken dish. But if you, you know, if you're
not like doing some of the things again, setting your
station up properly, like having your towels folded in the right
spot, getting your drop tray down on the floor or like where
it needs to go, you know, getting, you know, getting kind
of your bread set up or, or whatever it is.
I'm, I'm thinking about these things because they're in our
kitchen getting your plates where they need to be put at
like, you know, your oven at the right temp.
Like then I'm concerned, right. If you're getting the food stuff
and maybe you're forgetting some of the station stuff, then OK,
like you're doing one of the two.
But the people that are really excelling, like are taking
notes. Yeah, they are taking, they're
taking photos of their station. Like they're doing those things
like they're showing you that they want to succeed and you're
not going to memorize everything.
Use the tools. Take a picture A.
Lot, a lot of line cooking is muscle memory, repetition and
just, and, and speed and efficiency.
Because I, I've worked in places and I, and I can say this for
myself as a line cook when I was young, I didn't know how to
cook, but I was really good on the line.
So I was really good at making the dishes that they told me to
make, but I couldn't like, OK, make something else.
Well, I don't know how to make anything else.
I know how to make these dishes. So I wasn't a good cook, but I
was a good line cook. And I and I think people don't
understand what you're talking about.
It's like, yeah, you just want to turn around.
The salt's always there, the pepper's always there, the
towel's always there. The pan is always there.
It's always hot. My burner works just like this.
And you start to pick up the the autopilot settings of you can
get in that flow state and just crank out food.
And then there's other people that know how to cook, right?
There's other people that's like, hey, I'm not the greatest
line cook, but I know how to cook.
I can make a delicious sauce. I can make delicious braises,
food, beautiful plates. Like, OK, that's a different
skill, but they're not always the same person.
Agree And, and, and on that note, like I'll tell you about
myself, right? Like I, I have a problem like
cutting straight, you know, and, and I've picked these things
I've been doing this for 23 years, right And it's nothing
like at year 10 I was like, Oh yeah, this is weird or turning a
potato in culinary school. It was always challenging for me
and you know, I think early on I thought like, man, like I just
suck at these things And guess what, Like if I would have
practiced more, I could have got them, but it naturally wasn't my
strength. And so you know that that didn't
lead me down a path of like if I if I if I like rolled up in
culinary school, Mr. Patricio, he's a chef, Chef Patricio so
good do a tornado behind his back.
You know, like this is crazy. But if I was good at that, like
maybe I would have chose and, and like focus to go down a
different path as far as like trying to go the French Laundry
or going to take a three star different focuses.
But also like Nash, I wasn't great at that stuff.
And still to this day, those aren't my strengths, right?
And I, I think through my journey, I, you know, I've been
fortunate enough to be able to like look through a lens and try
to understand what am I good at? And what do I want to like put
time into and focus and my energy into, you know, is if the
answer is like, Hey, I'm not great at tornaying, but I'm
really passionate about going to work at this restaurant and I've
got it out of Pernet. And for because of that, like I
think that's going to open up this door.
It's going to lead me down this path because I don't really want
to open a restaurant in Mission star.
They're like that probably would have made sense, but for me, I
ran into the business side of things and the leadership side
of things, and I found more interest in in in care in that.
And so like, I took that path that was a little bit of a
tangent, but in like onto the cook thing.
Yeah, you just know, right? Like you have to want to be
successful. And so if you want to be
successful, you have to do things that are going to set you
up for success. And yeah, cooking is easy,
right? I can say that because it's easy
for me. It was easy for you.
Learning the nuances is something that like, I mean,
again, it's been a long time and I, I still, I, I, I really love
talking about this stuff. Like I've been, you know, doing
it since I was 15 and going out and talking about the dinner
service and how many steaks I, you know, I put up.
You see, I put up 13 steaks all the same time, 3 salmon and four
this and boom, boom, boom, right.
And, you know, went out with a friend the other night and guess
what? Like different parts of our
career, still just telling amazing stories.
And he, he knows overseeing 12 units, 3 states.
He was telling me a little bit about like his first tasting.
And these guys kind of like told him to like make this stuff.
And he's like, I don't think that that's right.
He doesn't really fit the concept.
But they were above him. And so he made, he made kind of
what they wanted him to make. And everybody was like, dude,
like fucking tasting, not good. Like it's bad.
And so he was telling the story, but we were just laughing and
laughing and laughing because he's, he's killing it.
He's ungodly talented and but it, you know, reminded me of
those those days or like this, this, you know, this many years
down the road and still like these moments make me the
happiest. And, and and that, you know,
obviously tells me like I'm I've done the right thing, I've made
the right decisions, I'm going down the right path.
I love what I do, you know, and I love spreading and the love
and talking about cuisine and food and leadership.
And, you know, it looks different for everybody.
There's a lot of different ways to get that mountaintop.
But the one thing that will always be the same is once you
get there, there's another mountain and there's another
mountain. You got to keep climbing, you
got to keep going. There's no, you know, the saying
is for a reason. It only gets harder.
I mean, you have to continue to push and elevate and like kind
of you got to you got to get comfortable stepping outside
your comfort zone, you know, and that what I would say to cooks
is like, if you're uncomfortable doing something awesome, like
keep doing that thing as a cook, right?
It's important for you to get good at cooking steaks, at least
to be able to manage a station. You don't have to be the best
grow cook, but you better be able to go run the station and
hold your own you. Need to understand.
Because somebody might be better than you.
There are people better than me, right?
That's fine. There's always going to be
somebody probably a little bit more swanier than you in the
kitchen. And if that matters to you and
you want to keep growing, then keep trying to go to better
restaurants until you become, you know, maybe one of the most
swan yay. But like you got to be able to
hold your own on all these stations.
You don't have to be the best. And I could say like in my
experience, probably wasn't always the best.
There's price at least one person that was better than me
specifically, at least on one station, But I I pushed hard to
like to get there and it mattered to be like, you know, I
can hold my own when I. Used to have a large team and
everyone's a fucking gangster on my team.
Like everyone had Michelin pedigree and, and, and I mean
dozens of them, like world's fifty best Michelin PED and they
were all fucking gangsters, every single one of them.
And we'd always used to sit around and shoot the shit.
Like who do you think's better at this?
Who do you think's better at that?
Like, and, and no one was ever one of those like, well, I
should be the best across all metrics 'cause some of them were
like, oh, he's the best at pasta, but he's the best at, you
know, cooking meat Or he's, he's really, he's really good at
creativity. But I wouldn't call him when the
line gets busy, you know, and you, and you start to realize
that when you have a, a diverse group of chefs, like they all
come with different skill sets and they all prop each other up.
Because I, I used to say one of my friends, I don't want to say
who, but I would go up to him and say, like they say, like
he's a really good chef. I said, no, no, no, he's a
really good cook. I'm a really good chef.
I would just bust his balls. But, but it's, it's one, it's
one of those things like there's so much that goes into it.
And in culinary, you could not be good in one kitchen and you
could really be good in a different one.
And and of course there's those certain chefs, they're like
sevens, eights across the board. Like I'm, I'm not the best at
anything, but I could do a lot of different things.
That's right. But you have to love the game.
You have to love learning and you have to love hard work.
Because the shocking part when you come into your kitchen is it
is hard work. And you do have to, you do have
to learn. You do have to learn how to
cook. You do have to learn how to
saute. You do have to learn how to show
up on time. You do have to learn how to, we
were talking about this earlier, make sure your fucking
transportation is reliable, whatever that is, if that's the
bus or that's the car or that's the friend or the Uber,
whatever. But you got to be able to get to
work on time. You have to be consistent.
And one of the things that I like to say about when it comes
to consistency is I'd rather you be consistently good or
consistently bad, one or the other.
Because when you're consistent, when when you're inconsistent,
sometimes you're really good and sometimes you're really bad.
It's hard for me to plan with. Yeah, you can't solve for that.
Yeah, I, I can't cuz like, hey, you're the best cook, but you
always call off on Fridays like I, I, I, well, I guess that
would be consistency, but you can't like, show me something.
I need to understand who you are fully and what I tell people
when you're consistent. Like if you suck, just be
consistently sucky because at least we know that you're the
the B team and you stay in this kitchen until you're ready A.
100% and we know, you know where to put that person.
If, if, if there is a spot for that person, you, you, you can
find the spot. It's in most kitchens, right?
Like there's a lot of people that work and and get paid to do
this and they're not very good. And, and you know, back to the
team thing, right? Like, and as you, as you rise to
the ranks and you, you become, you know, exec sue or CDC or
exec chef like you, you realize that more than ever, the game is
a puzzle and it's putting the right people in the right places
and understanding people's skill sets.
And like this person's I can't have I can't have three creative
people in the in the kitchen. Like that is a, you know, it's a
trouble waiting to happen in it's the same with the bad cook.
It's like if you're consistently kind of average or not that
great. OK, well, maybe I have a spot
that like you could kind of cuz I cuz I need that right?
I need, I need that spot. I need that product made.
You know, maybe that's maybe that's washing dishes, right?
Or maybe that's being a comedy to four different stations and
you're like washing lettuce and you're just doing very minimal.
Maybe you're. Just covering people's days off
because you can't fully on the station. 100% and maybe like you
don't solve problems while you're on the station, but like
you, you can, we can get their service and I know I'm going to
get a decent product and I don't have to worry so much about it.
And and maybe you like doing that, right?
But yeah, you can, you can work with that.
You can't work with that. You can't work with this because
it's like, well, what could be or you're great and now you're
terrible. And it's like, OK, that's I just
don't know where to put you. How do you guide a young cook
that's looking to map out their career and what that looks like?
So they're they're getting into the industry now and they're
thinking about like, OK, where do you want to go?
How do you advise people to map out their career early on?
I think part of that, I think part of that depends on where,
you know, I can say for me like where, where am I right in, in
my example is that is like when we open 5570 in 22, that looked
a lot different in like what I would have said to somebody in
that position. I had like 3 cooks.
And so it would have been like, hey, like we're going to grow.
I just don't really know what that looks like yet.
And four years later, we've exploded.
And so I think, yeah, it depends on where you are as a chef and
what your operation looks like, as most chefs are running
someone else's establishment. So, and if you do own your own
restaurant and you are the entrepreneur and you are the
business owner and you are also the chef, then like you have a
very good understanding of like, hey, we're going to open up.
Another concept or we're going to go to another city or not or
you know we're going to Providence to staying in LA and
we're going to start from here and we're going to try to get
through Mission Stars and so this is journey we're going to
take. So for me specifically it
depends on like where you know so again, we're trying to scale
this company. We're about to open our second.
We will soon be signing a lease on our third and.
Did you find an exact shop yet? Still looking?
We're getting there, OK? We're getting there.
Yeah, we got some. We got some promise and
prospects. You got to build a whole team,
right? So if people are, if people are
looking to come work for your work today.
Where should they come find me? Yeah, I mean.
For for the new for the new project.
Yeah, I mean, DM me. DM me my Instagram.
Yeah, Jay Suckler. You need 2 chefs everything.
We will need everything. Yeah.
So I mean, I'm going to, you know, we want to be mid-july, we
want to have AEC kind of announced and then the training
process will start. And then really it's on that EC
and myself more on that you see than me to start building the
sub team. So it's the Exec zoo, CDC
banquet Chef, Zoo chef. Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to
cut you off. I just figured people are
listening, people are listening. You might need to.
I might need to direct some people.
Your way. So with that specific question
directed towards me knowing our trajectory, yeah, I would ask
the person, you know, what is it you're what are you looking for
again? If, if our, if our values don't
align and you want to be working in a Mission Star restaurant?
Well, OK, well, maybe I maybe maybe you're willing to commit a
year to what we're doing and I can teach you, you know, golly,
all the things that would make you ungodly successful in any
environment. Or maybe you're not willing to
because you're not, it's not exactly where you want to be yet
and you want to just get there now and then.
Like, OK, well, I don't have anything for you, right?
So it's like when it's my stages and it's generally not a long
term thing. But the way you know, I talk to
stages is this is a two way street, right?
Like I'm coming in to see you perform.
But equally, equally as important, you're seeing the
team and you're seeing what we're doing.
And if you don't feel like this is for you, that's also why we
do this. And we do 4, we do 4 hour
stages, 3 to 4 hours. I don't, I don't, I'm not
looking to get a bunch of work out of you.
I want you to do one or two recipes and I want to see how
you move around the kitchen. I can tell obviously in about 5
minutes whether or not somebody is going to a fit in the kitchen
or be a good fit or if they just aren't going to be a good fit,
not culturally, but just getting the work done.
And, and so I really start there and then we kind of figure out,
yeah, what is it that you want to do?
And then we can map that out as far as like, hey, we're growing,
this kitchen's growing this, this business is growing.
And so if you're willing to move, if you're willing to go
into other States and go train, you get to this point and we can
kind of map that out for you. If if you were talking to
someone that maybe wasn't working in your kitchen, they
were just a random culinary student reaching out for advice,
they weren't going to work for you.
They're just saying, hey, I'm starting my journey, where do I
begin? I would say, where do you want
the journey to end? What do you want to be work
backwards? Yeah, I think that's the way.
I think the way is to work backwards.
And I do that with a lot of stuff nowadays is I think about
what do I want? What's the end product?
And we get to do that in business because it's like,
well, if you're, you know, to be the best, what does that look
like? And then you have to say, well,
what is actually a table? Do I have the funds?
Do I have the resources? Or what do I need to do to then
try to get that? And so, yeah, what I would ask,
what is the end goal? What do you want to do?
And if you said, you know, I want to, and this is what most
people say. I also taught culinary school
for like almost a year. Did you?
Yeah. Where at El Centro Community
College and that school. Yeah.
And so I did that.
You know what? Did you teach?
Basic, basic culinary fundamentals, yeah.
Tornay. No, I didn't not teach that I
didn't teach. I couldn't do it like I still I
still can't tornay like. Did you flute a mushroom?
I've never actually fluted a mushroom I.
Can flute the shit out of mushrooms.
So like when it comes to some of those classical skills, I don't
have them. I've I've trained classically,
but like that classically, it just wasn't anything I was
strong at. So again, I never like really
focused my attention towards it. Yeah, but no, I can't.
One of my first jobs we had fluted mushrooms on my station.
I was like a 20 year old cook, whatever.
So I had to, and it was a busy restaurant, so I had to absolute
like, I don't know, 200 mushrooms a day.
Geez. Yeah.
So I I got good. At it, Yeah, you got a.
Quick. Yeah, I mean, and by the way,
back then, they weren't all perfect, but it's like, good
enough. Yeah, we're not gonna throw it
away. Yeah.
And you're gonna. Glaze them probably and cover
them in chives or something. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, back then it was like a lot of chopped parsley, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were delicious.
I love, I love butt. Butt mushrooms I think are
underrated. Like they're fucking tasty.
Man. Duck cells.
Great. I do sell, sorry.
Salt, Mushroom, you know, maybe you put maybe some garlic,
maybe. I don't think so.
And you just like put that on a bechutan and you the cap up,
right? Yeah.
You've got to let the, the moisture and the juice soak into
itself. And I mean that by itself is
umami and deliciousness. And so you add like in whatever
if you were to add like some crispy chicken skin or that or
something like, are you? It doesn't at that point, it
doesn't matter what you add to it.
It's gonna, it's even. It makes it that it takes it
over top, it's even better. 30 years in the kitchen, 7 books,
200 podcast episodes, all distilled into a 5 minute daily
leadership practice. It's called lead like a chef.
Most people get promoted, quit the industry within two years,
not because they can't cook, but because no one taught them how
to lead. I built an app that does Lead
like a chef. Take the free 2 minute quiz that
tells you exactly where you stand.
Go to studio.com/andre. Link is at the show notes.
What I love about the industry so much is like it, it really is
like, yes, you got to have the thing, you got to be intuitive
in the kitchen, like you got to know it's for you first and
foremost. And if it is, all you have to do
is work your ass off. That is it.
And pay attention. Yes, surround yourself with the
right people, the right chefs and the right team and the right
try to try to be a successful restaurant right You don't want
to work at. And you, you can learn anything
from any kitchen. And I learned any any time I was
in a new environment. Yesterday I did a dinner in
Houston. Guess what?
Taking pictures of all this stuff like.
Yeah, Yeah, you go. In my brains, always.
And what am I seeing that's new? It's great to go to.
Operations, so you could see how they how they operate.
One of the things that I thought this is where I was going with
my Ratatouille comment. I don't know how I was going to
segue into this because I lost my train of thought, but the
network of chefs, there's a network effect that I, I think
we, we know a lot of the same people.
I mean, Junior's a good friend of both of ours, right?
And, and there's so many, and that's just one, but we know so
many other chefs that, you know, Matt McAllister, like there,
there's, there's a lot of chefs that we cross paths with.
There's a lot of chefs that will send you a text.
We'll send me a text, we'll pick the phone, we'll have a long
conversation with them. And I think years ago, I think
it was a little bit more guarded, like your chef's circle
was probably smaller. I think social media obviously
expanded your chef, your chef's circles, going to events like
food and wine festivals, food grazers and stuff like that.
And you get to meet people and you get to break bread with them
and you get to know them. You get to know who you don't
like. And like, I'll never party with
them again. Maybe I'm that person to some
people too, right? But with that being said, I
think it's important for, I mean, do you agree?
Like it's not just about the network in your kitchen, it's
about putting yourself out there, especially when you start
becoming a sous chef. Go to those food events, go with
your chef, start introducing yourself to people, and start
building your network. 100% it's something personally, right?
And again, it, it, it also, it's like if you have it, you have
it. If you don't, you don't.
And and that also blends into like your personality.
Yeah, right. Me personally, I, I think I
thrived in the kitchen because I also in a lot of ways was not
very confident. And at that point in my life,
definitely more of an introvert. Yeah.
I knew that kind of as I got a little bit older, but I knew
that like, at some point I needed to step outside that box
and become a little more of an extrovert.
And I'm, you know, in my 30s, you know, like when I'm 37,
almost 37, but in my 30s, I knew I really need to start moving
that direction and start networking and meeting more
people because man, you just, it's like this, yeah, organic
effect where you, you have to put yourself out there and, you
know, and on social media, like I'm not really big into a social
media thing. But what what I am getting
better at is just like connecting with people, saying
hello, having a conversation, being genuine.
And that's something that's working for me.
Whereas for somebody else it might be like, dude, like you're
awesome at the social media thing.
Like you should keep doing that and and build your following.
But but, but what's also interesting is the reputation
that you have. So before you and I had ever met
years ago, years ago, and I mean, like almost 10 years ago,
someone had mentioned your name to me and said, oh, he's a
really good cook. And I remembered it like,
because your name is also unique, it's easy to remember,
right? And someone mentioned to me
like, oh, you should, you should look at him.
He's a really good cook. I was like, OK.
And then it's like that name sticks in your head.
And then years later, Junior's talking about you to me.
And, you know, and then, and then we meet and we've hit it
off. And I think we've had some
really great conversations since then.
But the opposite has also happened to me where someone
will say that person's a piece of shit.
I've never met them right? And it's and it sticks with me.
And then that one time that I do meet them.
Is a piece of shit. Well.
Sometimes they're not, but I don't even want to give them a
chance because it's it's already been, it's already been told to
me by someone that I respect. And you know, maybe someone
that's a mutual friend. And I don't know the back story.
They just said, oh, they don't like that person.
And sometimes, unfortunately, I'll be like, OK, I kind of want
to keep my distance from that person because I have heard
negative things that I never gave them a chance.
Right. And shame on me for for doing
that. I try not to do that, but it is
a natural human reaction. When someone says something
positive, you remember them, but also when they say something
negative. And because of the industry
effect, if many people don't know you and only one person
says bad things about you, but no one else comes to back you
up, say no other. You need your network.
That that network, sorry, is a force multiplier.
And without getting into the gossip, but I'll give you a, a
very real example. I sent you something the other
day and I sent it to a couple of other people.
And I said, is this that? And you said yes, because that
person has that reputation without.
And, and I'm not trying to, to, to say who we're talking about
because I don't want to hurt their business or their
reputation, but people's reputations are definitely
preceding them. What do what?
I don't know the saying exactly, but it's like it takes you, you
know, a lifetime to build your reputation and it takes you, you
know, a week to ruin it, something along those lines,
right? You know, it's you only got so
many things in this life, right? You got what you can control.
And, you know, again, spec to like my upbringing, I was always
taught like you be a man of your word.
If you say you're going to do something, you you better
fucking do it. Yeah.
And those are things that I live by, right.
And again, like, I think I've just been very lucky.
I've been very blessed in a lot of ways in my life.
You know, a lot of things that I've done that like, I shouldn't
be sitting here today, shouldn't be sitting on this earth.
Yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, I think a lot
of I'm not, I'm not unique in this situation, but I, I am very
understanding of it. And, you know, I've been
fortunate as I get older to like, not put myself in those
positions anymore. But that was, yeah, always talk
to me at a young age, like just be a good person and, and, and
take care, you know, and you learn as a chef, you got to take
care of your people. Like you can't do this without
them. And, and these people that work
for you are going to have to show up.
They show up every day. They do this thing and they're,
they're grinding to get a paycheck.
And you, it is your job to be a great leader.
You have to truly care about your people and you can't.
There's, there's no, there's no halving it, right?
Like you, you have to be all in. And it's something we, we talk
about with my team like all the time, you know, like if this
person's asking for a day off, even if it's next week, if we
can make it happen, make it happen.
And sometimes caring about your team means taking that one
person out. That's bringing down your team,
which is uncomfortable. But we're.
We're currently going through the same situation and we're
somebody has been with me since the beginning and it's time to
part ways. And the, the good part about
this story is we both see it. We both the both sides agree.
But I, you know, I was actually talking to him while here and,
you know, I told him like I thought, you know, to have
somebody who works with you for 3 1/2 four years plus, if you're
that kind of chef, you're doing something right.
Nine times out of 10, you're doing something right.
Somebody show up for that long to work for you, they go work
anywhere else. You know, you're taking care of
them, they're taking care of you and, and right in a lot of
different ways. But I thought, you know, for me,
that has always been like a sign of like I'm going in the right
direction. Like man, to have someone who
because before this job, like I really, I really wasn't a lot
around a place long enough, you know, three years, probably
three years kind of a Max before my first job when I was a kid.
And so I never really gave myself the opportunity to have
somebody work for me for five years because I was never in a
place for five years. And so this being really my, my,
my first long 10 year job, I would say, you know, when I was
young, you know, I did kind of culinary school year and a half
year and a half, right. The classics kind of bounce
around until you kind of get into like a management role and
you do three years. And then I try to about anyways.
But I learned today kind of through this conversation, like
it's equally or more important to let that person go if the
time is up, right? You're doing everybody
disservice from trying to keep them just to like, but to keep
the tenure long, right? When it's time for swine to go,
it's time for swine to go. And it ultimately, hopefully you
see it before they do. And you say, hey, man, like it's
time. Like I've done all I can do,
love you to death. I want to help you in your next
chapter, but it's time for you go a different direction.
So you're in a very interesting position, which by the way, I
ate it at your spot. Food was fantastic.
The, the space is crazy. It's, it's crazy.
Thank you for giving me a tour. It was really, really impressive
how complex and how unique what you're doing is.
And it's, I mean, I thought while I was walking through, I
was like, oh, this is a great business model.
What are you working on right now?
What, what is it that you're doing for yourself to develop
yourself now? What's exciting you?
Well, again, I think midpoint my life, I realized like these are
the things that I'm great at leadership.
I think being a great leader is where it started and learning
new tasks, right. And so I've taken that kind of
with me through my journey and, you know, with, with this
specific part of my career and, and, and kind of scaling this
private members club, it's focused on wine and food.
You know, I, I am now partnered with somebody who's in private
equity and, and going through this experience banking, like
banking and private equity is what my partner and CEO, Tommy
Shuey, That's what he, his previous life.
And so it's given me such a, a beautiful outlook on things that
I wish I probably would have known earlier in my future or
I'm sorry, earlier in my career is, you know, we talked about
being in the right room and surrounding yourself with the
right mentors. Yes.
But also like before it gets to, you know, before you get too far
down, the whole understanding and trying to find people that
are higher than that, the business owners, the people
running the business, How can you start getting closer to that
person to Start learning the other side of the business,
right? How the deals get put together,
how the leases get put together. You know, we bought, we bought
the property in Houston, right? We own that.
And like me being able to be part of understanding kind of
understanding because I don't have a, you know, a finance
background. So like, you know, I don't fully
understand all of it, right? But I, I grasp and I was, I've
been able to sit in the room and like be part of these
conversations that we are scaling this business that I
haven't in, in the, in the past. And so, you know, as much as I
love food, as much as I'm always going to be a chef, for me,
it's, it's, it's, it's switched a little bit to if we, if I'm
going to be the person at the top pushing this business
forward, I've got to be a business mindset first before
I'm a chef. And that switch is obviously
hard because I don't really believe it's a switch.
I think you have to wear both those hats all the time because
my job is to make sure my team's good.
And so like, I'm always going to look at it through first and
foremost the chef perspective, but I've had to learn to also
immediately then take that hat off and put the business hat on
and say, OK, what's best for the business?
And how do those two things work together?
Because that's now what I have to be teaching my team.
Do you spend more time in your own personal studies?
Do you spend more time in the business side or in the culinary
side? Half and half.
Half, yeah. Yeah, I spent a lot of time in
where I'm gonna be in a year. It'll probably be more in the
business. Are there any resources that you
currently use or books or anything like that, that you're
like, hey, this is a good resource for people that are
listening that they might also find beneficial?
I'm getting ready to start a book called The E Myth
Revisited, which is like a business, professional business
kind of scaling restaurant book and I haven't started yet.
I've heard it's great. So I'm getting to start that.
Before that I just finished, right, because I'm always going
to be this person. I finished the Wilga Dara book,
Unreasonable Hospitality. Great book.
It's fantastic, right? It's fantastic.
And again, like that's wearing both hats.
I usually go back and forth. I usually will read a business
book and I read a culinary kind of like leadership book.
It could just be a culinary, but it might be one of your books
just to keep refreshed. I'm writing a new book, by the
way. Let me know when I will send it.
Over so it's it's most likely when this episode's airing,
it'll be out. It's called the Sous Chef
Blueprint. And if I'm going to give it a
plug for listening, go get, it's the Sous chef blueprint.
And what I did with this book is I read a lot of books.
I mean, I went through a phase in my life where I probably read
about a book a week. I'm over educated in a sense.
I'm over read to the point where it's not necessarily good
because I don't remember everything.
That I've read right? But with this book, and I wanted
to correct a problem that I find in a lot of books, especially
that are like, I hate to say self help or business.
Like they tell you what to do, but they don't tell you how to
do it. Like they give you a lot of
ideas, but they're like vague and there's a lot of Gray
business advice. It's like, OK, but what do I do
with it now? I don't know where to start.
So in the book that I wrote at the end of each chapter, there's
do this now, execute this now. And there's bullet points on
there like, OK, do this, this, this, and it's in every single
chapter. And one of the things that, and,
and you and I have talked about this, you know, I, I fully live
in the matrix. Sometimes AI is so beneficial
when it comes to building spreadsheets, recipes,
converting and all, all sorts of other things.
Writing manuals. What I did was a lot of times
when I consult or when I'm helping other chefs, I just, you
know, I have my AI prompts that I use.
So I put some of my AI prompts that I use in the book too.
So like people would like, Hey, if you need a, if you needed to
generate recipes that are in grams with allergens, with
percentages, etcetera, etcetera, just copy and paste the prompt
and put your recipe and it'll convert it.
So I wanted to make sure I had tools in there that were useful.
That would be the next thing is AI.
You know, I'm currently working with my team to, you know, we
get we get BE OS and so we need now to take those BE OS and
input in the back end, like portion sizes and waist sizes.
But we're trying to work with, I mean, I'm sure this doesn't
exist. We just we're we're starting on
this rabbit hole now taking that BEO putting in AI and it is just
going to regenerate prep list how much you need to prep, what
you need to order, where you need to order from the
quantities. And so like that will take my my
banquet chef spends 2 hours every week.
More, does that depend on how complex the?
Yeah, just just going through like what needs to order?
When do we need to buy, who's it coming from, how and then
writing the prep list, right. And then and then the actual
organization of the day-to-day. So it's a you're basically.
Creating a banquet chef brain. 100% so he or she can focus on
surely the execution portion of it and not all the modern the
monotony of building up to. It, I, I think about this
sometime and this will be the, the last thing for my rants, but
I think about this sometimes it's like how different our
operations going to look when the chefs who are technically,
you know, the, the, the driving force of the culinary, they can
leave the office and spend more time in the kitchen.
How is that going to affect labor models?
How's that going to affect the flow of service?
How's that going to affect food quality when they're no longer
in the office for six hours out of their shift where they're now
like, oh, office work is an hour and that's five hours on the
floor? And especially in a time right
now where the labor is more than it's ever been, like we need to
be going that direction. We need to be taking those away
and, and right we, we push for right now like less meetings,
Like we, we're, we want to be a hands on company.
We don't want to be a, a building in all these meetings
and all, you know, it's like, yeah, you got to answer a lot of
emails. But like, I want my team in
there doing the thing, solving the problems, spending time in
the kitchen, doing what it is that is going to make us
flourish as the best private members club in the country.
Chef, when we start wrapping up, I typically have my my wrap up
question, so I have a few of them for you.
If you had a Mount Rushmore of four chefs that you think should
be on there, who should be on? Listen, I heard I was listening
to somebody's, I don't remember who might have been Kennedy.
I don't remember. I was like, yeah, those are some
good ones. You know who You know the the
twins. It was the twins that I was
listening to and I like theirs. I don't remember off the top of
my head, but for me, and again, some of these are repetition of
no, people said these. But personally for me in in in
my, my journeys, in my travels, Ducasse Albert Ardria, right,
Not for Ron, but Albert. I think he he truly, I mean, you
see what he's doing, like the guy is obese, right Enigma and
everything he's doing in Spain, like unreal.
So I think I think he's one that will forever be talked about
just like escapier, right? Like he's one of those cats
escapier right. Again, I grew up in the guy went
to French culinary school. I think escapier and there's
there's another one or two right in that same round.
But I think those set the standard for, for how, you know,
French cooking and, and the sauces and all the things and
then, right, we need to do kind of somebody modern.
It's a tough one, man. Give me a second.
I mean, there's a bunch of people going through my head and
then I like a lean to New York and there's somebody said David
Burke. He's not on the Mount Rushmore,
but David Burke's AG who's the 4th, You know, one of one of
those top guys, you know, TK Ballude repair.
John, George. John George, these guys are all
Mecca. If I can link all those into one
and put them in on the same head of the fourth round much more.
That's what I do because I think all those all those cats just
came at the right time and did some really cool stuff.
And all of them except TK are foreign.
And so like that was a special, you know, time in in our in our
air of cooking. What's the what's the tape in
your kitchen? Is it green tape or is it blue
tape? It's three M first of all,
right, it can be well, it's three M tape right, the brand 3M
right. It can't be is it is 3 It's
three M It's three M Scotch 3M right.
You can get green blue. We do blue.
I, I like, I say 3 M Scotch because if it, it's more
important that the tape is durable and not like, you know,
some tape you put on and it's like it's not thick.
So like you put it on and it like has like little bubbles in
it. It's like it's just not good
quality tape. So first and foremost, no matter
what color better be Scotch and it better be 3 M.
We use blue. I also love green.
I just, I've just been a blue guy.
What about salt? And black sharpie Only black
sharpies, no other. Colors I I don't.
Don't fucking don't come in the kitchen with a red Sharpie or
purple Sharpie. I had to kill that stuff.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Black only.
No, no, no, no. Click Sharpies are fine.
No fine points like either click or traditional.
Sharpie, I'm against click Sharpies just because they annoy
me because there's always that one cook that's just standing
there. Click, click, click when I'm
trying to talk. Yeah.
We don't, we, we don't have like nobody.
We, we, we buy off brand Sharpies like, because, you
know, we're too nice and we provide Sharpies because, you
know, like people can have Sharpies and I just can't deal
with that. So we Amazon like the really
cheap ones and that's generally what everybody in the kitchen
uses. What?
What about your all-purpose salt?
Oh, Diamond. Diamond Kosher.
Yeah, Yeah. Diamond Crystal.
Yeah. What about?
What about finishing acid? What do you use?
It depends on the dish, but you know, I'm you know, because of
what we do and we try to work with local stuff as much as we
can and we do and we do like do make some vinegars and stuff,
but like it's not really the forefront of what we do.
Hopefully as we grow this brand, we get some creative people that
can do some fun stuff like that. Like we're all about that.
But right, you right people, right place, right time, right
position. I'm too busy to be like trying
to ferment strawberry tops to make vinegar.
And so if we have some kind of like sometimes we like marinate
and macerate vinegars, like so we'll take white distilled and
we'll put a bunch of Peaches in it like Peach scrap.
So like that's how we would do like a house vinegar.
So to answer your question, something like that that goes
with a dish. So if we're doing tomatoes and
you know, just say just tomatoes and we have a Peach vinegar,
maybe there's not Peaches in there.
Like that makes sense for me to finish that dish with.
And if not that, Daniels Sherry 2 that I love, or lemon or lime.
Awesome, where can people find you if they want to follow you
on Instagram if they want to reach out for a job?
Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm based in Dallas and 5570, you know,
website you can you can kind of e-mail or find or I'm Jay
Sutcliffe on Instagram. Josh Suckcliffe, LinkedIn.
It is kind of big now in the chef world.
So I'm on LinkedIn a lot. Yeah.
And yeah, that's it. Awesome brother, I'm glad you
came. I appreciate you man.
Yeah, yeah, this was fun. Yeah, Nice seeing you.
Cheers. All right, that's the show.
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