394: Pizza Night with Ali Stafford & Emily Hyland

23:39It's great. So simple. the combination itself was sort of started like was inspired by like the classic like quesadilla with just of like you know I mean any cheese you like but onions pepper roasted peppers a good melting cheese such a good quesadilla I love that combo next one up is sauteed radicchio with fig jam and gorgonzola bold but I buy it I like bitter greens with fig jam and a and a and a stinky astringent cheese loving this yeah no i mean you you hit it i mean it this one is sort of like one to make it the in the dead of winter when you don't have much inspiration like produce wise radicchio also lasts forever i feel like it will last forever in your fridge yeah you just have to peel off like the outer outer you know leaf and it's like right um it's bitter but when you saute it it mellows a little bit um and pairing it with something sweet again tempers the bitterness and And then, yeah, the stinky cheese.

24:36Yeah, cooking vegetables for a pizza is a smart way just to use something that's maybe not that like super fresh, but you can cook it down and it'll be good. Yeah. And it also, a lot of times, I mean, it releases the moisture, so it will help prevent your pizza from being soggy. Now, Detroit pizza speaks to me as a Michigan native, and I love Detroit style. We talked about buddies a little bit. But this one, it's for a crowd with pepperoni, pickled jalapenos, and hot honey. Nice. I mean, this one, totally inspired by the one served at Emmy Squared. I have their pizza book. I took a virtual cooking class with Emily.

25:11It was great. I ordered a bunch of their pizzas via Goldbelly during the pandemic. I read that. Yeah, totally inspired by them. But what I love about that pizza is like such a good model to follow, like a pickled pepper with a cured fatty meat. Like it doesn't matter the pepper. It doesn't matter the meat. Like they're going to go well together. And then Hot Honey is just great on I mean, it's on so many pizzas, like just to like round it up, just like to add a little bit. Paulie G invented it in Brooklyn, essentially, as many say. Right. And speaking of Emily Highland, her interview follows yours.

25:42Oh, no way. Yeah. And so we have you both talking about pizza. Oh, my gosh. Amazing. I love her. Yeah, she's fantastic. And they like I also took a class at their restaurant. I can't remember. It was a long time ago. But I think he maybe is from New Haven. One of them's from New Haven. But they are. Matt is from New Haven, I believe. Yeah. So I do feel like a connection with them. They don't feel a connection with me, but I feel like. Well, now they know there's a connection. This is a pairing that I think is great for our listeners. And my conversation with Emily later is is really revealing.

26:09So I'm happy that there's this connection. the last one i love it and i know what what's inspired it's hot italian sauces with giardiniera and mozzarella let's talk about this one yes so also this was a totally inspired by steve dolinsky who has a a podcast but i he always is talking about like true chicago style pizza and i was shocked to learn that it's not deep dish like as an outsider i would have totally said oh deep dish is chicago style pizza but he true chicago style pizza is thin crust tavern style thin and this sausage and um giardiniera is a classic and i also learned about like the specific giardiniera that you need to it's they're different like this is the um it's they're pickled first and then marinated in olive oil whereas i think just like you can get italian's um giardiniera in the grocery store and it will just be pickled and all pickled and very harsh and you want to get the right giardiniera for this pizza yeah you got to cut it with definitely with olive oil and yeah and video nicks on the south side is my style pick i haven't been but a friend went recently oh video nicks is a must are you going to be in the midwest for your book tour i'm not at the moment i want to i'm trying to um i'm trying to add a few spots i mean i'm dying to get i mean i have so many spots in the midwest that i've that have been on my list just start at buddies and Yes, I need to.

27:29Head to Martini's in Kalamazoo. Okay. Vito and Nick's on the south side. And then hit someplace in Lakeview. Okay. Not going to pick my pony, but I have some. Oh, done. I'm just like trying to book a tour. No, thank you. I'll drive, Allie. You know, straight up, I'll drive. You rest. Do your book tour. I'm a chauffeur. Let's book this. Oh my gosh. We'll take it on the road. What is the best dessert to pair with pizza? Oh, I mean, so I do have five simple desserts. I know you do. Yeah. And I love them. I mean, I feel like affogato is the best like pizza dessert. But I also I mean, I like some I mean, I like just like honestly, like a good cookie, a good brownie.

28:12But, you know, just a good scoop of, you know, forget if you don't want to do the espresso over the ice cream, just a good scoop of ice cream. I think simple. I agree. And I think a cookie is perfect. Yeah. Something about cookies and pizza or cake. If you've been to quarter sheets in Los Angeles. I have not been. I know that has been on my that's on my list. I hope you can make it out to L.A. and visit those guys. I'm going to L.A. on the tour. So I'm yeah. So I will be there. So I and I do have a list of places there on there. I hope you can make it. Now, what about a beverage? You know, lots of ways to go.

28:42Do you have a preferred pairing? I so recently I I've been loving Nebbiola red wine with it. But I don't I'm not a huge I don't know. I don't I don't want to be the first. I mean, I don't know a lot about wine. I'm not really the person to ask. All good. So but I love Nebula that it's always good. I just feel like it's always good. And yeah, that's my go to. You write honestly and I love this and I really want to tap into it. You said you're a homebody and you have zero wanderlust. And I believe and this made me think I'm like, that's the key to happiness when you realize that you are either a traveler or you're not.

29:21Yeah. And I feel like you by saying it out loud or writing it out loud, it's liberating because like, you know, you're giving the cosign that it's OK to want to be at home and not go out and like these Instagram vacations and be, you know, in these great places like love that. I just want to commend you for saying that just like really unlock something for me. I am such a homebody. I'm so happy at home. I'm so happy when my days look all the same. I really am a creature of habit and routine, and I feel like I thrive in a week that looks like that. I do feel like it makes me, when I travel, and in 2017, I went to Paris for a photography thing, and 2022, I went to Italy with my husband.

30:06That's basically it in terms of where I've traveled in the last however many years. when I do travel I feel a little bit of like regret that I am such a homebody and such a creature of habit and I wish I could be a little bit more no it's liberating though yeah yeah no it they're just there is a lot to see and it's one like I loved it I would go back to Italy in a heartbeat you know but yeah I mean you're you're you're admitting and you're saying it that you are happier at home and on the flip side some people really love to travel and and like you acknowledge that and you base your life around it.

30:41But I think some people kind of force themselves to travel if you have to. Yeah. Don't admit that like being home is cool. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. So you got the pizza book in the can. Are you going to wait another seven, eight years or do you get a number another book in the works? I have no idea in mind for another one. I really don't. That's OK. Yeah. I feel like I do need time. I think time is good to just think about what's next. I don't have ideas. Let's give a shout to Susan, by the way. Susan Roxburgh. Yes. She's so wonderful. Yeah. We both share Susan as an editor. Yes. And we both have books coming out in the same season.

31:17And I know Susan was working on your book while she's working on mine. And she was so complimentary of your work. And Susan's just the best. She's such a terrific editor. So skilled and so such a sharp eye for recipe development. She is. She really helped me. My dough chapter was massive. I mean, also, I had turned in way too many words to begin with. But my dough chapter had something like 10 plus recipes. And she was like, Ali, you're trying to make this simple and accessible for people. And even though the recipes are still simple, it just I think it kind of it makes it intimidating. And so now they're four basic dough recipes.

31:58They're variations, you know, sourdough and things like that. But it's simpler and I'm so grateful. I mean, what a perfect note. So smart. Shout out to Susan for that. Just making books better here at Clifton Bottom. I love it. On This is Taste, we asked guests about the discerning taste. So to close this interview, here's a little rapid fire, fast and furious taste check. Are you ready? Yes. The best fruit. I love like a white, like nectarine or peach in the summer. Sweet, juicy, like perfect. You live a little bit more upstate than me, but we're like kind of near each other. And I got to say, I haven't had a good peach upstate in two years.

32:35It's been kind of a drought. Yeah. No, I actually I have them when I go to my parents in Connecticut. I feel like my mom always has the best white nectarines and I can eat like 10 a day. I know when you hit when they hit they hit and it's been a little bit of a bummer. Maybe this year will be the year. It's been a little bit of wetter spring. The worst vegetable. This is hard because I love vegetables. Yeah. If I had to pick, I'd say beet greens. Like I love greens of all kind. I don't love beet greens. They just don't. Yeah. They don't. I don't know. Yeah. Not good. And I always want. Sorry, go ahead.

33:06No, no, no, no. Tell me. I mean, I just as somebody who's had a CSA for so many years and I really try to help people like use like leaf to root, like use every part. I just have a hard time with beet greens. Wow. Compost. I don't think I've ever cooked with beet greens. Wow. Yeah. The best dessert. maybe a brownie or rich fudgy brownie fudgy not cakey yeah fudgy fudgy all the way favorite american fast food chain i mean as a kid it was mcdonald's hands down i haven't eaten at mcdonald's in years um i'd say it's probably chipotle my it's like my kids love it it's where we end up at hockey tournaments all the time i actually they're vegan like kids taco meal i think it's great all the sauces all the salsas and it's just it tastes fresh it's good yeah i'm going to the new uh chipotle restaurant colonel they're launching a new concept oh cool so i'll let you know oh yes let me know yeah um you're a hockey parent yes love it are they like are they your kids like very in dootly travel hockey and all that they are my older three are my youngest didn't want to do it and we didn't push it yeah great what a great sport are you a fan of hockey Love hockey, yes.

34:17So what's your team? Well, okay, I don't really have a fan. Two of my kids are Islanders fans. My son is a Tampa Bay Lightning fan. I don't know. I feel like always connection to Philly, but I can't even say I'm a fan. I have no idea how they did or how they've done. Gritty's the best, though, we have to admit. Yes, he is. Gritty's great. So good. A couple more. Your favorite New York City restaurant? I feel like I don't come here enough to have a favorite because every time I come, I go to someplace else. But over winter break, we took our kids actually to an Islanders Tampa Bay game. Fun. And then we got back and I had read about Don Antonio's.

34:55It's actually not too far from here. We walked in. It was prime dinner hour. They had a table for six. So good. And it was so good. It was really good. It was like, and I just loved the vibe. It felt very like neighborhood people. I don't know. I loved it. Have you done any pizza crawls in New York? Do you have any spots? I mean, I have a huge list. I mean, I've been to Scars. I loved Scars. I've been to Ruby Rosa. I loved it. Oh, yeah. I love it all. That's the thing. I really, I mean, also the places I go are places that have been written up. So they're probably going to be good. You're a fan.

35:27You're a fan of pizza. I'm a fan. It's always good. I love it. Your favorite cookbook of all time? Shepinese Vegetables. Alice Waters. Ooh, the vegetable one is cool. So good. It's like every year, I feel like I know it by heart. I feel like I've made every recipe. And then every summer I pull it open. You know, it's organized by vegetable. I'll pull it open to see if I can do something and I'll find something new. It will be perfect. It's also I love it. It's a very old book. So it's written so differently than like how our cookbooks are written now, which are, you know, very precise. And it assumes like a certain.

35:59A little more feel. Yes. A little more assumptions. Yeah, I know. I just I love it. That style of book is is I think coming back a little bit. I would love to see that. I feel the other Ali and Food Ali Slagle's book. Yeah. Is kind of like. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Because, right, she doesn't hide. I loved what she said. She doesn't hide the prep in the ingredient list. That's part of the—I love that. Yeah, it's great. It reminded me of her. Have you guys ever met? I've met Allie, yes. And I've connected with her many times over the years. I'm a big fan. Do you guys ever get each other's mail?

36:31No. I feel it could happen. I know. I don't think I've ever gotten her mail, no. I've never confused you, just for the record. I'm not trying to admit my own sins, but you're both terrific. A couple more. Your favorite city outside America to visit for food? I can't. I haven't been many places. I would say Rome. I would go back in a second. I just, and I know that's an easy place to stay, but those two, the Da Remo and Ostiense, those places that served the Tondo style pizza, again, it was just from the vibe to the pizza to the style of food. I mean, and, you know, they had other, they had pastas and other things too.

37:06It was just, it was so good. And there was so much I didn't get to. Last one, your favorite sandwich. You know, in the summer, I always order a BLT. Always. Yeah. My favorite sandwich would be, Gabrielle Hamilton writes about this sandwich in Blood, Bones, and Butter. It's prosciutto, arugula, olive oil on buttered bread. And I don't think she specifies the bread, but I want to say it's ciabatta. I like it with ciabatta. but when I read it the description for the first time she talks about like the union of these three fats the fat from the prosciutto the butter and the olive oil and I like had to make it immediately and she's right it's so good and sounds like the perfect pairing yeah Allie Stafford thank you so much for joining This Is Taste thank you so much for having me this was wonderful

38:06Emily Hyland, welcome to This is Taste. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Happy to be here. I'd love to meet you. I mean, Emily, Emmy Squared, you're a pizza legend in New York and around the country. You live in Santa Fe now, though. What's it like living in Santa Fe? Let me hear about that, that Santa Fe life. I love that. I feel much calmer. It's really peaceful to live in Santa Fe. I miss living in New York, but I come back often so I can get my good coffee and Chinese food and all that good stuff. I respect when you say your nervous system because when my wife and I go to Palm Springs, we have a similar just like lets you like separate from that running restaurant stress for you.

38:43Right. You just were able to. Yeah, I run a yoga studio now, so it's a very different energy than restaurant life. So when you're running a studio, let me ask you, do you do retreats as well in the area? Do you take people out in the desert and do yoga? I do lead retreats. I led a retreat to Puerto Rico this winter and I'm leading one to an island off of Vancouver in the fall and some local stuff, too. That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. So do you still you split time? Your brain goes between yoga and then into the restaurant running world? It's yoga poetry restaurants. Poetry, too. Exactly. Wow. Well, let's start with pizza because I want to get a sense of your style.

39:21I think we've had a lot of operators and owners on the show. And I'd love to get a sense when you and Matt, your current partner, your former husband, you know, you guys have a unique style. And I'd like to hear in your words of your pizza. Sure. We make New York, New Haven style pizza. And so the idea is that we're cooking in a wood burning oven. We're not making Neapolitan pies. The pies do not have a soupy middle. There's not a huge crust to topping ratio. It's a nice even plane for all of the toppings to land. And it's a very thin crust that has a little bit of char on it that's a little bit more well done than some other places that you might see pizza.

40:00And we have really fun inventive toppings on there. I mean, they really are. I mean, you have a lot. It's like a really full menu. But let's go back to the idea of like not doing Neo, but with a oven that is fired by wood. And it's probably north of 700 degrees, I'd imagine. Maybe into the 900 degrees, but firmly not doing Neo. I love it. Yes. For Matt, he always labeled us as making fiercely American pizza. And for him as someone who came up in Connecticut and has spent many, many years as a chef in New York City, the merging of the New Haven and the New York styles felt really resonant to him and to me, too.

40:38I don't want a soupy bite of pizza. I want a bite that holds up texturally and has balance in its flavors. Yeah, it really does hold up. It's really a special pie. so matt worked at soda casa which i think to me is like such an underrated pizzeria in new york agreed i love it and it was on atlantic was close to where i used to live and man what what was but that is firmly neo that's neapolitan right it is yeah and that's to say i i eat i have no judgment i eat all types of pizza to this day uh but for us stylistically we wanted a different approach but Matt was working as a pizza cook and trained under Luca there.

41:16And we had just moved to downtown Brooklyn. He had been working all sorts of jobs in the culinary world, pastry, you know, whatever apps, hotline, this and that. And then when he got to Sotacasa and he put his hands on the dough, that was the moment when he was like, this is really what I want to do, where I want to head with my culinary vision. And Luca mentored him and he learned all he did through Luca and through the oven there at Sweet Little Sotacasa, where we had many, many a lovely night. Sweet Little Sotacasa. I love that restaurant. I've had many, many great nights and days there. And I think it's a special restaurant that never gets talked about.

41:55Literally never. Speaking of getting talked about, though, your restaurant, when you decide on the name, how does it become Emily and not Matt and Emily, not E &M? You went and eventually opened Emmy and we'll get to what that offshoot was. But how do you get to get to this name we were really struggling coming up with a name and that was one of the things we were we were just circling around a lot of names that didn't feel right in our guts and finally i think matt had listened to a freakonomics podcast about naming and had um learned that emily was a really popular one of the most popular names and all these facets of uh what makes names popular yeah yeah and um and he just said one day you know what we're gonna name it.

42:36We're going to name it after you. And that's how it went from there. So pizza loves Emily. Pizza loves me. I'm a walking brand. And I'm really proud to be the eponymous namesake founder of the restaurant. Yeah, absolutely. It's smart. I mean, Matt's also a very common name, too, of the era. I know a few fellow Matt's in the world and 1980s children. When you open Matt's doing the pies, we've said that. But I want to hear about you, Emily, when you open, what is your role in the restaurant? What are you doing? How are you part of the restaurants running, branding? Because clearly you guys got brand right away.

43:12You understood how to market. Instagram early was everywhere. And not just because it's dope food. It was just like a cultural moment for New York. Well, thanks. Yeah. It was a really complicated entry into the food world because Matt came up as a chef. He went to culinary school. He had experience in that realm. And yeah, I had waitressed and tried my hand at bartending a little bit and that sort of thing. I'd worked at a wine bar. But I was a public school teacher in the city here. And it worked out nicely that a lot of the skills in terms of systems implementation, high level operational skills to like run a reading program, the more I ran the restaurant, like a ninth grade classroom, the more functional it became, you know.

43:53So I really dealt with the operations, with management, with that sort of thing. And that allowed Matt the space to work in his creative realm. So it was a nice complimentary action of him at the open kitchen in the back, me at the front greeting guests and merging in the middle. Yeah. So you were a ninth grade teacher. Wow. Let's go into that. I mean, what were you reading? What were the kids reading in that age? What were you teaching? We were reading all sorts of stuff. What were we reading, you know, Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth and all that Shakespeare and things fall apart. I'm trying to think.

44:30It was so long ago, another life. But we read Persepolis, which is a really cool graphic novel. So yeah, I taught nine through 12. And I think my sweet spot was with the 11th graders. I helped to found a small school through Bloomberg's Small Learning Community Initiative. And that was really cool to help found and bring a school to life. Was it successful? Was it was Bloomberg's initiative to do smaller learning, smaller schools effective? I think so. I think in terms of the communities that it fostered. That said, I burnt out really hard. I came up during the peak of the Common Core Initiative, and that really, I was an English teacher, and that really revamped how students were, or how teachers were encouraged to teach.

45:12So we went from reading and writing lots of poetry to writing essays about, informationally about poetry, for instance. So yeah, I burnt out pretty quickly from that and then was in yoga school on the weekends. And that gave me the courage to resign from the Department of Education and pursue teaching yoga. So all of this time and space opened up in my life. And that's when the restaurant kind of came into vision. Matt needed that support and we jumped in together. You guys jumped in together. You got your space in Clinton Hill. We did. And really, honestly, like you're still you're still operating today.

45:48I had dinner there last night, in fact. And, you know, that broccoli salad is not just pizza. We'll get to your burger because I think burger is actually the most famous dish that you do, which is I kind of avoided. I didn't have it. No offense. I just wanted to talk about pizza, but we'll get to that. But that broccoli salad was let's go. Let's talk about it. I loved it. OK. Yeah, that is I'm happy that you're highlighting the broccoli salad. It is one of my favorite things on the menu. And it's simple. And it's the miso dressing. It's like a miso aioli kind of dressing that just is massaged into that raw broccoli.

46:23And the broccoli is chopped up really finely. So it's not feeling really cruciferous to you. You've got those cherries in there. So you get that tartness. So there's lots of layers of umami in that combination. And the best part of the broccoli salad at Emily Restaurant is it cancels out all the pizza. Exactly. That's the thing. Like you typically and then no one wants like, I mean, you have a Caesar, but no one really wants like a lame pizzeria salad. because, you know, no one wants it. But when you have a cruciferous vegetable and you're like, man, I can have pizza and burgers now because I got this fiber in me.

46:57Super smart. And I like stone fruit or like dried fruit in broccoli salads. It was a great dish. Really excellent work. Great restaurant you're running. Now let me ask you about this burger then. It's like 31 bucks. A lot of people might get a little sticker shocked. On our show, we obviously are pro restaurants. Restaurants do not make a ton of money, guys. Like they got to charge this price. This is what you got to charge these days. But still, that is probably for some a sticker shock. It sure is. And earlier when the burger first went on the menu, it was a little bit less expensive. I think it was$25 or$26.

47:31And that was meant to be in response to demand and really what we could handle because we're designed to do a lot of volume of pizza. And we're not designed to make burgers or that wasn't something that was in the plan. And so when that came on the horizon, we had to calibrate. So we had originally capped it at 25 burgers a night. It's an expensive burger so that we could handle it. That if you really want this thing, you're going to come in, you're going to get your spot and you're going to get your burger. And then like with everything over a decade, you know, rents are up, insurance prices are up, delivery fees are up.

48:06Just the cost of eating at a restaurant is higher because of how expensive all of those hidden costs that folks don't see really are. Yeah, absolutely. It's likely the margin is not what you think it is. Right. But let's walk through the culinary side of it. What makes it like it truly has made the list forever. and I'm glad you brought up the point also like how do you split pizza and burger it's very rare that they're both good at a restaurant how do we split it up in terms of the flow of the restaurant because you've got like a great it's like hard to do both it was incredibly challenging in the beginning because the burger takes almost 20 minutes from start to finish because there's a resting period in there as well and then conversely you have this pizza oven that is burning at you know hundreds of degrees and those pizzas are cooking in about 90 seconds so So it really had to be food is coming as is and you're not getting if you're on a date and she's ordering this and you're ordering that, that pizza is coming out.

49:03You're not eating together. You got to share everything. You got to share it. What's the burger? What makes it your burger? What makes it our burger is the pretzel bun. I really think that was a huge vision point that Matt had that has really led the industry in a lot of ways. You know, when you see places like Wendy's having a pretzel bun. And I don't know, I feel like Matt Highland saw that. But it has patlafredda, meat, cheddar cheese, tons of caramelized onions on there. The bun is nice and buttered. And then we have our ever-famous Emmy sauce, which is a gochuching-based aioli that's just like umami flavor bomb.

49:41Yeah, it's a great setup. And it's big. It's a big burger. It is gnarly. It's gnarly for sure. I saw a couple next to us. They definitely split the burger and they definitely took the pizza to go, which I thought was wise. You got like two meals out of it. You get like four slices left. Got the burger, had some sides, had some drinks. There you go. You know, crack an egg on that leftover pizza and you got some breakfast. Crack an egg on the pizza or you get cold. I love it. All right. So let's transition to ME squared. So you're doing Detroit style. Again, you and Matt, Vision, because you're doing Detroit before Detroit is at literally fast food pizza places.

50:17I'm from Michigan, so I'm a huge fan of that style. How did you guys land on doing Detroit style? And what was Emmy Squared all about? So it was meant to be the sister concept to Emily. Matt knew he wanted to stay with pizza, but wanted to do a different style of pizza. And our coming to understand what Detroit style pizza is was really a backdoor entry in. He always loved to, at home, make focaccia-like grandma pies in sheet pans and everything like that for us. And so it really developed like, OK, this is what we love. And we love a frico crust on like a bar pie, you know, and if we combine those things and cook this in a pan, huh, this is actually a style that's Detroit style.

50:57So let's order a lot of buddies and have it shipped to us and start doing some R &D. God bless buddies. Nice call there. Yeah. So it was taste testing and then him really just like homing in on the vision for that. So you get that beautiful focaccia like middle, the crispy fried cheese edge and then those soft stripes on top of it that make it that signature Detroit style. Where do you stand on ranch? Oh, I could take a bath in ranch. Yeah. It's, it's the pizza I had last night was, was, uh, it was a ranch pie, a white pie, which I really would with bacon. And that was tremendous. I liked seeing ranch.

51:30Nice. Um, I, I definitely, um, love that you're brought Detroit pie to the masses. So are you involved with Emmy squared now still? Uh, no, we're just the founders watching our baby who's off in the world, you know, graduated from college and doing its thing. It's pretty cool to see it coming into its own from the sidelines and having the opportunity to really embark on next chapter work. That's cool. So what does that mean when you're on the sidelines? Are there a lot of Emmy Squareds now? I'm not less familiar with that brand. There are. Emmy Squared goes from New York to Florida now. And I was actually just visiting my father who lives outside of Fort Lauderdale and the newest Emmy just opened in Fort Lauderdale.

52:11So it was a real special moment for me and him to go to the Emmy Square there and see this creation that I had nothing to, you know, I used to pick the paint colors on the walls and that sort of thing. And then to walk into this beautiful restaurant that has evolved from my vision and go and have the experience of eating there. So that's fun. Yeah, it was really neat. How many locations are there about now? I believe there's about 26, if I'm correct. Wow. Dang. So there's 26 Emmy Squares and you're you're like founding partners so you but you're not involved day to day sounds like a pretty like cool opportunity to see your brand grow uh and the pizza's good i would imagine still oh it is damn good i you know it's hard when something grows like that to keep consistency and quality and um the the operating systems they have in place there are are really wonderful and i'm really impressed with everything they're doing and yeah it's been a real it's been a real gift You know, I'm not someone who came up in the culinary world, like being like, I want to open restaurants.

53:12It just is kind of the way my my life went. And I wound up in that experience. So it was this decade of like flourishing unexpectedly while also diving into the abyss of all the perils of restaurant life. We've all seen the bear and know. Yeah. Know what it's like. That was it. Yeah. Felt a little close to you. You brought up the bear, not me. I love you that you did that. Pretty hit home. Close to home. Yeah. Almost so much that I didn't watch season two. It's like, I already know all my friends were like, you need to watch this. Yeah. It's like, I know I could write the show. Yeah, exactly. A lot of chefs I've had who don't even want to talk about it, but I'm glad you brought it up.

53:4826 locations. You have like more locations than buddies by a long shot. Oh, look at that. I mean, it's like, wow. I mean, it's cool. I like seeing Detroit Pie. I got to check one out when I'm out in the world, a new Emmy squared. I want to check back and maybe I'll report back on my travels. And you got the VIP hotline for reservations right here. Oh, I feel like I got you on the gram. So I appreciate you can, it's like the bat phone. I want to talk to you about, so you and Matt divorced and you're both remarried and you're open to talking about this, which I appreciate. It seems it's like relatively rare when a couple can leave and separate at least their marriage, but then continue to work together on a restaurant.

54:28Talk about that work that you had to do to get to this point. I recognize it being quite challenging. I think for our listeners, going through separation is part of life and many have. So let me ask you what that was like and what can you say about working with your ex-husband? I have a lot to say on that. Sure, let's go there. Yeah, well, first of all, I have my debut collection of poetry coming out with a small press called Howling Bird Press this October, which is called Divorced Business Partners. I saw that. What a great, that's great. Thank you, which is inspired by this whole experience.

55:01and as I was talking about with Kendra earlier, she was quoting Eric Clapton and had this great phrase where it really tries to put a stamp on the emotions of a hard time in life and really capture the essence of what it's like to be vulnerable while you're in the thick of it. So anyway, that's coming out. But it was a really, I mean, the experience of opening Emily Restaurant and then going through the divorce And then coming out on the other side with a deep sense of kinship and partnership in business with Matt was the has been, I think, one of the biggest learning experiences of my life. And I'm grateful for all that it's offered because we're both with people now who are much better suited to be with in life.

55:47And he's happy with his lovely wife opening restaurants and I'm happy with my lovely husband climbing around in the mountains. So that's good. But in terms of the restaurant, you know, it was so busy. And we were both back to that idea of the nervous system and like complete active nervous system deregulation from like day one of the restaurant. Because like, how do you do everything? Like we didn't have a porter the first two months. We were like coming in and cleaning the bathrooms and then like figuring out what the heck it is to like do the a million things you need to do and then go into service and then figure out how you close out a cash drawer and, you know, all that sort of stuff.

56:23and so we were in the momentum and in the busyness and like the muck of it all that I missed getting to appreciate the sweetness like just as that restaurant was so special and so sweet I missed and I can only speak from my perspective but I missed the sweetness of it you know and there were these moments when the wait list was like three hours long and I was like trying to seat a table and I would like have a moment of pause and see Matt at the oven and like really see him in what he was meant to be doing in life, you know, and have that beauty. But there be a disconnection because our management styles were so different.

56:56And like, we just couldn't, we couldn't function, you know, we were doing our best to stay afloat. And so things got really, really ugly. We had a very harrowing divorce, which is, you know, really painful for anyone who's gone through that kind of experience. And I wound up taking a leave of absence from both Emmy squared and Emily restaurant original. And we just had a lot of space and then, you know, time and you don't think it'll happen, but like time and distance really do help heal. And as the emotional stuff started to fade away and as we moved on with life, it, it became clear that we still love each other and are still family.

57:40And, you know, we met in college when I, we were still teenagers and we came up together. And so there's something that's really beautiful in that. And to me, Emily Restaurant is like our baby, our child. And so that really yokes us and links us and is this very special place that we both are invested in emotionally and care for and have deep respect for each other and supporting each other and where we are in life right now. I love that. Thank you for sharing. It's really, I think, powerful when you when you talk about the the ups and downs of a divorce and also just to observe you know your your name is on the door so like when you divorce um that makes it very public because it's like you're not there anymore so i must have added a layer of of just dramatic drama to the whole thing there was drama yeah yeah um i think you know the idea it was called you know pizza loves emily yeah and so that you know he named it in this big romantic gesture for me and uh from my perspective i had a very hard time separating the personal and the business during that time in our lives um and you know that was when i really came to understand business is not personal yeah and it was so personal for us it's like how do you open a restaurant with your husband with you know um you know my mom was helping to clean sinks and his mom was coming and bringing supplies and my dad was running to home depot to get hooks for the wall and like it It was really my sister was one of our opening staff members.

59:11It was like a part of our family. And so that was a hard one lesson that business is not personal. And it also is really nice from a point of nostalgia to like for me, the Emily the Cookbook is really like this time in our lives that's like encased in history. You know, it starts with the picture in the beginning of the book is kind of the iconic picture of us holding hands right when we open outside the restaurant. and then what the final picture in the book is a picture of us outside of the west village right after that opened just i think a few weeks before we separated which was a very unexpected thing we didn't i don't think we realized we would when you took that photo you didn't realize that this would be like two weeks before yeah so yeah i mean but then again like you've opened this restaurant that has met way more success than you could have ever imagined you open another concept that meets all of this success and support.

1:00:06Everybody is really supportive. Investors start coming around wanting to grow things and then you're snowballing and everything. And how do you not get lost in the middle of that? And we were pretty young when this was happening. This was all in our early 30s. The life experiences, we're real teachers and I built so much resilience from it. And I think to say that these things just like happen and restaurants open and everyone is happy. That's not the truth of it. And, you know, it wouldn't be as what it is if we hadn't gone through all of that. No, and you exited the Emmy Squared business too.

1:00:45And that's something that never really happens. Restaurant groups get offered these deals all the time. And you're one of the rare ones who can, you know, happily walk away and be on the sidelines. So you must feel a level of, you and Matt feel a level of pride about that. Oh, I'm I cannot believe what this all turned into. I mean, I really thought we were going to be living in his mom's basement like six months after opening. You know, like I did not think it was going to be successful. We were impulsive and opening and thinking about location. There wasn't much thinking. It was like, oh, we've been to Clinton Hill once.

1:01:18We're seeing this spot. It's shuttered. We didn't realize that's where Emily's going. And just it was a lot of like very gut based. Again, they're just there felt like there was this propulsion driving us into what this all became. And now to be on the other side of it and see what Emmy squared has become. I couldn't be more proud and grateful for all of it. It's pretty great. What was your first rent in Clinton Hill? The first like how much it cost? Yeah, how much it cost that first? God, it was so cheap back then. Right. That's what I'm saying. Because it's like 20. What is this? 2014. 14 yeah that might have been like four thousand dollars you whisper into the mic i mean four thousand dollars a month downtown brooklyn clinton hill right by atlantic i mean what you know that i mean you know what your rent is now so it's not that more it's a lot a bit more but see like that is i just want to like build this like kind of image for anyone listening to show who kind of wonders about 31 burgers and pieces in the 20s like it's if you triple your rent like come on labor is up like it's you gotta charge what you charge yeah another thing i'd like to say about that too is we have quite a few employees that have been with us for almost the whole 10 year stint that we've been around and matt and i are both very aligned in terms of especially because this is like our one-off and we can do what we want there essentially we really value paying people well and so that's another factor that goes into prices you know like our manager started as a hostess and trained under me as a hostess and now she runs the show our um head chef sammy he started off as a daytime prep guy and now he's the head chef who studied under matt all those years and maybe running a tiktok account soon there you go watch watch this space please watch sammy on tiktok but anyway you know it's valuable to us as humans that we pay those folks really well they've been with us a decade and and that kind of adds up you know so of course it adds up and you have to sell a lot of pizzas.

1:03:16But then you've got these like predatory, you know, delivery services that you kind of have to use. Yeah, it's it's it's challenging. I recognize that. I recognize the challenge. Oh, yeah. The delivery. I mean, it's ridiculous. I'm staying in town right now and I ordered some food the other day and it's like, yeah, how is this like seventy dollars right now? And it's all the fees. So, yeah. What do you think about returning to Brooklyn when you're when you don't live here anymore? I mean, what's I mean, I've done the same. I don't live. I lived in Brooklyn for almost 20 years and now I don't live in Brooklyn.

1:03:44So I got thoughts, but what about yours? I love coming back. It's really nice to visit and I get my mocha from Hungry Ghost and I get my dry pepper style from Han Dynasty and all my kind of staples that I love. And I lived in downtown Brooklyn. I spent so much time in Clinton Hill. I lived in Prospect Heights and had helped open a yoga studio there. So there's a lot of sweetness in that whole area that I just love to walk around and take in. Yeah, those are mostly my same thoughts. And when I say that thoughts, it's not like I have notes. It's just, I mean, I know like Gowanus is like absolutely different.

1:04:17I mean, holy shit. Like the amount of building once the rezoning happened and the Superfund site, it's like crazy to see. I'm sure there's going to be an Emmy squared somewhere near there. I know there already is one there, but there'll be more. Let's hope so. I know, right on. Matt and I, we had moved into one of the first hall buildings in downtown Brooklyn, right over on Hoyton Skirmerhorn. what was that like 12 13 years ago I don't know however long that before Emily opened and it's wild to come back and every time I come it's like there's five new towers twice as tall as that one I know it's an interesting dynamic downtown Brooklyn really fascinating place to live now you know you your full-time job is yoga and poetry and you obviously run Emily too but from a distance do you feel like you'll have a restaurant in Santa Fe in your future you said that so fast.

1:05:02I love that. I love you cut me off. Yeah. I have no interest in ever opening a restaurant ever again. The labor of love that that is. I commend people who, you know, I actually had dinner with Matt and his wife, Simone, a few months ago when they were both in for the 10 year anniversary of the restaurant. And I was talking to the two of them because they just opened their first restaurant together called Zoe Tong down in Austin, which looks fantastic. And they have plans for more. And I was saying, how, how do you have the energy to sustain this? And, you know, she was saying this, this is just what I do.

1:05:40And that's like chef life, you know, the two of them are chefs. And I'm not, you know, I'm not a chef. I just happen to be along for the ride for a little bit. Yeah, you're such a unique place in food. You know, your namesake, you ran a restaurant, you're an expert in pizza, but you're not like in the restaurant world anymore. Yeah, it's cool. And also, you know, I always feel like I was labeled as like a female restaurant entrepreneur, and I don't feel like I'm an entrepreneur. You know, I just, again, happened along this path for a little while. Yeah, no. On This Is Taste, we asked guests about their discerning taste.

1:06:15So to close this interview, here's a little rapid fire, fast and furious taste check. Are you ready? I think so. Great. The best fruit? Blueberries. Why? I like those big fat genetically modified ones now that just taste so sweet and amazing. Yeah, those ones, they defy science. They defy logic. In 10 years, they're going to be like the size of a face and I can't wait for it. It's kind of like, you know how Reese's got bigger? It's like blueberries will hit their Reese's. Bring it. That's what's going to happen. The worst vegetable. Bok choy. So let me ask you, bok choy, this hurts me. It hurts you.

1:06:49I fucking love bok choy. It's slimy. Yeah. I can't. Okay. Fair enough. I mean, this is no judgment zone, but I rarely do debate. But I like box. Have you? Okay. I don't want to even. This is your show. Your call. I can give you a backup vegetable that I don't know. This is your answer. Okay. Let's go. The best dessert. Ben and Jerry's fish food ice cream. Okay. I think I've had 150 pints in my life. Okay. And that's like conservative. Okay. Then you and I are kindred spirits. Why? Why is it so great? Why? No words. oh i mean it's like orgasmic the like marshmallow caramel melty chocolate like oh i love that i love fish food because you know they somehow like the actual the chocolate it doesn't taste weird it's actually a really nice chocolate in there it is good i actually i do something really gross with my fish food though i like pick out or even will like spit out the little dark chocolate things and collect them in the top of the pint and then eat those afterward.

1:07:50I love that move. I've never tried that. Because you get this nice smooth like chocolate caramel marshmallow like smoothness and then you eat the chocolate separately. I'm really that's like very interactive. Pro tip. Pro tip. Your favorite New York City restaurant right now? Upland's. Right? Yep. I think they have the best cachoe pepe in the city. I will go so far as to say. And every time I come in, I have lunch there. Yeah. Man, I haven't heard of Upland in a minute. I love that. So good. I love that call. It's so good. Your favorite cookbook of all time? I think The Joy of Cooking. It reminds me of my mom.

1:08:23Love that answer. I love that answer. Any recent cookbook discoveries? You know, I really like Jake Cohen's Jewish. Yeah. It's just got like good home nostalgia-y staples in there. Yeah, he's a terrific developer too. He's got a great sense of what a recipe has to be. And a really nice person. And I actually think he and his partner got engaged at one of my restaurants. or there was something related to him getting married in one of my restaurants a long time ago, which I can't remember exactly, but I have a nice little connection. Very cute. I love that. Your favorite city outside America to visit for food?

1:09:01According to Larry David, I would say I don't really like to leave the continent. Fair enough. I'll take that quote. I love it. A cuisine you'd like to learn more about? I think there's so many cuisines. I really like, I love Berber in Ethiopian food. And so I would love to learn more about that. Yeah. I love that answer. Last one, your favorite sandwich. Favorite sandwich, breakfast burrito. Wow. What makes a good breakfast burrito for you? I mean, Santa Fe is like the land of breakfast burritos, but like some hash browns in there, some, you know, chili either coated like a smothered burrito.

1:09:37I don't know, cheese, eggs, no meat, no meat for me. Yeah, no meat for you. Yeah, hash browns in there are good. I have to say, the burrito answer for a favorite sandwich is really stretching the definition of a sandwich, I must say. How about an egg and cheese, salt, pepper, ketchup? Love that answer, too. Salt, pepper, ketchup's really good. Abiquiu, what a cool place. You ever go out there? Yeah, I went to Ghost Ranch many years ago for a writing and grief retreat. And when I got to New Mexico for the first time there, that was what really was compelling me to move there and change my life.

1:10:11to make that home special. Yeah, it's really beautiful out there. Yeah, what a cool city. Nice to meet you. Thanks for being on This is Taste, Emily. Thank you for having me.

1:10:25This is Taste is hosted by Eliza Abarbanel and me, Matt Rodbar. The show is produced by Shalia Harris and Pat Stango and edited by Clayton Gumbert. Theme music by Steve Rydell. Visit Taste online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter for updates on all cool things that are happening.