492: Palm Springs Food Adventures with Angelo Sosa

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0:31we have a mushroom farmer that forages for us and he's driving in mushrooms to us weekly from Arizona so you know we really want to embellish that story and create more lifelines and unveil the beauty of a small farmer.

0:50This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbard.

0:59Angelo Soso is one of the most talented chefs I know, and he's currently the chef at the new Tia Carmen and Carmocha at the Hyatt Regency Indian Wells Resort and Spa. Angelo was also the runner-up on Top Chef and has worked with some of the biggest names in the game, including John George, Elaine Ducasse, Stephen Starr, and Morimoto. On this episode, we talk about his move to the greater Palm Springs area and the exciting high desert cuisine he's serving. Also on the show, I speak about my recent visit to Palm Springs and dig into the region's restaurants, both established and brand new. Palm Springs is such an underrated food town, and I think I have some great picks in my conversation with Eliza.

1:38I hope you enjoy this episode.

1:50Angelo Sosa, welcome back to This Is Taste. It's great to talk to you. You know, it was so amazing seeing you last week. And you're one of my favorite people to talk to. You just understand food and you have such an interesting perspective. And I feel like I'm always just learning and listening. I love listening to you. So thank you for having me. Well, Angelo, it's absolutely mutual. I love, of course, your food. And I was in Phoenix last December and we had a great chat about your restaurant there. But really, you're, I think, one of our country's most talented and creative chefs. And you always are so centered around your staff.

2:29And I got to meet many of them. And I feel you have this compelling, you teach your staff, not just about food, but about life. And I don't know, this is a mutual respect club. I just love seeing you in your space. Thank you. Thank you. You know, it's pretty powerful because, you know, I know we're going to talk about food, but food is the connection to the body, right? When I say the body, it's the community, the team, right? So when the team is connected, I believe the frequency of the food really just, that's our language, right? So when we're connected, you're able to taste that frequency, right?

3:06Oh, my God, of course. And, you know, you can taste when a staff is down, when a staff is not in sync and when the body is not connecting to the food in the physical sense. That's a well said, man. So let's get into it. And I love Palm Springs. I love the area. I've been going there for a couple of decades. And it's really cool that you decided to open in Indian Wells, which is community north of Palm Springs. and I, it's really close and you fly into Palm Springs. You're there in a moment, but what excited you about opening up a restaurant in the Coachella Valley? Well, I think first and foremost, um, you know, I'm such a visual person, right?

3:53Like I don't know many places and I I've traveled the world. I don't know many places that you could see snow-capped mountains, you could see palm trees and, you know, a variance of temperatures of 20 to 30 degrees, you know, less than 30 minutes away. And I think, you know, referring to like Idlewild, right. Or maybe it's a little bit longer than that. I just think it's just a stunning event. First of all, visually it's stunning. Right. And for me, what excites me is that there, You know, and you've been in the valley longer than I, I think you said over 20, you know, 20 plus years. Right. So I'm new to the valley and I feel like I'm discovering it.

4:33And there is amazing restaurants out there. And I want to be part of that story. And and I want to unveil more of the beauty of the valley. So that really, really, you know, we want we take that when I say seriously, we want to spearhead that and unveil, you know, a little bit more, you know, elevated dining in the valley. So that excites us and that gets us fired up. I love that you say elevated because it absolutely is true. And listeners, you should stick around. And at the end of this episode, Eliza and I chit chat about my thoughts on some of the new restaurants in Palm Springs and around the Valley and why I love visiting so much.

5:12And back to you, Angelo, let me ask you, when you're researching your menu at Tia Carmen and you're thinking about how you're going to build your own restaurant in this area that has such cool agriculture and really a diversity that's underrated, frankly, local farms, what were you doing to build this menu? So we have two beautiful restaurants. One is Carmucha, which is more of a global tapas and a casual setting. And then we have Tia Carmen, which is a little bit more elevated dining that focuses really on the land, right? So we want to, you know, embellish and uncover the land and uncover, you know, stories and build relationships.

5:54So I almost look at it as, you know, we want our number one goal is to promote the small farmer, right? The the the small farmer that doesn't respond to emails, that doesn't pick up the phone because they're out there, you know, you know, 4 a.m., 5 a.m., you know, tilling the garden and in in in, you know, harvesting. So that that's really what we're in search for is to be a voice, to be a lifeline to the valley, to these farmers. Right. So, you know, we classify this valley, you know, part of the southwest, right? So, you know, what I will say is this, is that, you know, we use local farmers such as Aziz Farms, you know, in thermal, not about 45 minutes from us.

6:38We use some local, you know, small little micro farmers that grow our flowers and our microgreens, right? So now that we opened the restaurant in the dead heat, I think it was 120 degrees and it was very arid and dry. So what we're really excited about is this season. The cooler weather is now the farm. Now the product is really flourishing. So we're excited to embrace not only the community, but dive deeper into the farmers and see the products that they have. So that's super exciting to us. A lot of our produce we do get from currently now from Santa Monica Farmers Markets. Um, you know, and we also, you know, use some farms, um, in, in, in Arizona as well.

7:22Right. Because that is a couple, you know, that is, you know, the Southwest, right. So we're using, you know, native beans from the Pima tribe and we're working with Ramona farms for her heritage corn. We have a mushroom farmer that, uh, forages for us and he's driving in mushrooms, um, to us weekly from Arizona. So, you know, we really want to embellish that story and create more lifelines and unveil the beauty of that small farmer. Wow. I had never heard of many of those farms and I definitely knew they were there. And we hear about the date farms, of course, and the nut farms as well, but we don't hear about the mushroom foraging.

8:02But the biodiversity and the agriculture there is amazing. Are there any producers of products that you're clued in on? Any cheeses or anything like that? Yeah, you know what, Matt? What was pretty amazing is that as the restaurant's been, I think we're three months into our infancy, you know, I had a guest come last week and she's like, you know, she had her meal and she wanted to talk to myself and Chef Danielle. and she's just like, I would love to introduce you to not only the local farmers, though some of the local tribes. So we're like, wow. So I think as we start evolving and the restaurants growing to its maturity, we're going to meet more people that are all honestly just going to be advocating for us as well in introducing us.

8:52So what I will say is we've only, you know, we're on the surface of our discovery and we're going to dive super deep over this next season. So it is early days. And I totally recognize that you're you're really finding your way there in terms of this new season. And I want to focus on Tia Carmen. The menu is so deeply modern and adventurous. And I just love I mean, you did something that is like kind of I would say bananas, pun intended, to put it on the menu. You paired fluke with banana. That is not easy. But I will say, what a delicious bite. And it shows, Angela, your creativity. And you're really pushing things out in the desert.

9:37And I really hope our listeners can come out and try your food. Yeah, I mean, I would just be interesting to hear. I want to answer the question, but I would love to hear what was your experience when you had that bite, right? Yeah. I mean, I thought, first off, banana is impossible to pair with savory. It's traditionally one of the most difficult fruits to even cook with because it has such a adversity, aversion in our public. There's many people who just do not like bananas. But of course, we know, and I had Rene Redzepi on talking about his show Omnivore, and they did a whole episode of bananas.

10:11because this is one of the world's great foods. And to use it in a culinary sense, I thought that raw seafood and banana works. It's very tropical. It reminds me of Southeast Asia. It reminds me of Mexico. And I'm getting a lot of that with that bite. But I love the creativity there. So that's my take. But what are you thinking about this dish? Well, I love what you're saying, first of all, because that's really the impetus of the food in itself. And when you talk about deeply modern, my interpretation of the word modern is extremely deep, right? Like I've had a blessed, not only career, but I've been blessed to travel the world, right?

10:53And for Tia Carmen, we spent time in Oaxaca. We spent time in Mexico City. We spent time in Guadalajara. We really traveled the Southwest along with California, New Mexico, parts of Colorado, right? So what we do and that word modern is I just love it because there's, you know, we're in a day and age of what's relevant is many cultures are relevant and many cultural techniques are relevant and many cultural, you know, traditions are relevant. So when I think of banana, right, I don't look at it in the context of that it's sweet, though the sweetness is important for this specific dish to put it into balance and combat the spicy notes of the lech de, or the acidic notes and the spicy notes of the lech de tigre.

11:41But we want that banana for the fat, for its unctuousness and its richness. Just so, again, I might have mentioned this at the restaurant, but think of guacamole or avocado, right? It's so fat. It's so creamy. So now you want it to be a little bit uniquely different, right? And really take that beautiful lean fluke, okay, which is stunning and coming from the Sea of Cortez, which the waters are so rambunctious and so intense that the fish, the flavor of the fish is so clean. And then we have that with the banana that it's just that extra fat, right? And with the Letra de Tigre, you're getting those acidic notes and then you're getting the spice.

12:19But even the Lettere del Tigre has this beautiful viscosity that just complements this dish. So we have fun with that word modernization, right? We really want to pay homage to the past. But I also believe that the past evolves to the present and to the future. Another dish that really stuck out was a plant-based mushroom menudo, which is really, I mean, such a clean broth. It's one of my favorite broths in the years and so deeply flavorful. And I'm done with such care. I love that it's plant-based. You're obviously opening up your menu to many. What inspired this dish? Yeah. So when we talk about, I mean, first and foremost, this dish is just, you know, it's, I'm exercising, you know, due to health reasons and full transparency from high cholesterol to high blood pressure to pre-diabetics, just my schedule is erratic and not consistent.

13:14So I need to be more mindful about my wellness, right? So, you know, having a vegan, and there's many people like that, right? And we really want to pay homage to that, you know, when you talk about grapes and the terrain of the terroir, we want to talk about, when we talk about the Southwest, we want to pay homage in reference to the terrain, to the beautiful microclimates of the Southwest. So mushrooms, you know, we have this incredible forager from, his name is Brian, and he has a company called Haifa Foods, and he forages mushrooms for us. So he forages these incredible cauliflower mushrooms.

13:53And what's fun about the concept of menudo, menudo typically is tripe, right, which is the stomach of the cow. But when I was at the farmer's market and saw this ingredient, I was reminded by the texture, right? And how fun would it be for vegans to feel like they're equally as important, which they are, right? And we can have fun with food and we don't need to be quote unquote, so serious, right? So it's a whimsical interpretation of a menudo and it's super healthy. And there's so many, you know, health benefits to that. So that's something that we're very conscious of because, you know, we have to protect the earth and we need, for me as a chef, food is my voice.

14:38Food is my language. Food is what connects me to people like you and to others. And we need to protect the earth and be mindful of what we're, because the earth provides all that we need, right? Switching gears, probably my favorite bite was your lamb barbacoa, which I think is becoming a bit of a signature for you. You're doing it in a way that pushes really the boundaries of a lamb over coals. And you're wrapping this beautiful lamb in a perilla leaf. You've got culantre, pickled onions, some pineapple, and a little dollop of caviar for a little luxury. And, you know, of course, Palm Springs, you know, it's a vacation place.

15:21You want to ball out sometimes. Why not add some caviar? This dish takes me back. I remember perilla uni and caviar was a dish, maybe with raw beef that was done in New York. maybe a decade or so ago, a Bourdain favorite. And it reminded me of that dish, but I love what you're doing there. I mean, traditional lamb barbacoa, one of the best barbacoas I've ever had was in Mexico City. So the inspiration came from a dish that I had where they take the whole lamb, they wrap it in the mague leaves. All they do is season it with salt. And then when it's unveiled at the table, you release these beautiful charred mague leaves and you get that perfume of this fatty lamb.

16:03And it's just literally like just butter, just melting and dripping all over your palms and your hands and your mouth. So, you know, so Chef Daniel and I are amazing chefs de cuisine that have previously worked for Robuchon and Jose Andres. This is a great dish as well as the fluke of where our worlds have come together through pure connection and love for food. So we took the concept of a barbacoa. But we roast it in banana leaf and get those beautiful perfume and aromatics of the banana leaf. We serve it with the perilla leaves. And this is where kind of my Asian display and Asian love comes, almost of a take of like a bo sam, right?

16:44So you have the pork and you eat that with all the accoutrements, the herbs, perilla leaves. So we wanted this dish to be lighter versus serving it with tortillas. So we use the perilla leaves and then that grilled pineapple, right? The acidity, but that deep char just cleanses the richness of the lamb and the culantro just allows this dish to just dance and pop. And then the caviar adds that beautiful savory note and that salinity. And it just goes back to our mantras of what we call the trinity. Each dish has its own trinity, whether that's sweet, sour, salty, or if it's earthy, bitter, umami.

17:22We really want to focus on a core trinity. So this dish definitely does that for us. Yeah, it's really, really cool to see that. And this leads to my next question in a hotel, in a resort. And I mean, what impressed me with your career is you're operating these restaurants in Phoenix and in Palm Springs. And I imagine you have other plans, but you're doing something that is difficult. You're you could be very well doing like typical, really like well done resort food. You could have had a club sandwich. You could have burgers and steaks, things that we expect in the resort setting, but you're not.

18:00You're pushing boundaries, as I said before. And I guess it's challenging because you've got people rolling up from a conference or just for a vacation, and you're offering these menus that are challenging in the best way possible, accessible as well, and that you're offering these global flavors. But I just want to ask you this tension between pushing boundaries in a resort setting that must be difficult. Yep. I think that's a brilliant question. And I'll answer it this way. So this is this is what's amazing about this opportunity is we have two restaurants run Carnucha, which in fact was my tia's nickname because she was just this vivacious, loving woman who, you know, she wanted mucho and mucha.

18:42She wanted more, more love, more drinking, more, more happiness. Right. Right. So that restaurant covers the gamut because it's casual. We have lamb sliders. We have mussels. We have deviled eggs. We have a hamburger. We have, you know, a burrata salad. We have a takeoff of a Mediterranean salad. So we feel that that restaurant covers the gamut of the guests. You know, there's no age restraints. There's no. Right. So it covers every palate. So for Tia, Carmen is I really wanted to have, you know, I looked at it and had discernment of what's going on in the valley, right? And what's the real opportunity here?

19:21And how do we be singular in our voice? And how do we speak up and speak out and really, you know, expose the valley or more importantly, unveil the valley? And that's where we have, you know, for example, the yam dish with our 24 month age mole negro with the, you know, the tempari beans, like, you know, it might look very modern, but when you eat it, it's approachable. And our chicken guisado, it's a stew, but it's served in a Japanese donabe. But when you look at it, it's very homey, right? The mushroom minuto, when you look at it, it looks homey again. When you taste it, it's just pure in these flavors.

19:56So for us, it's the dichotomy of the high, the low, right? The high, the low, and really kind of that juxtaposition. And the opportunity here is to, again, to go after what I believe is the opportunity. And I'm not sure, and you might know better than I, there's not many restaurants in the valley, and I humbly say this, that take this approach. And for us, we really want to be at the forefront of showcasing this beautiful region. Yeah, you're correct. I've been going for a while, and I think the cuisine has really vastly improved over the past decade, and it's tremendous to see the growth. but there isn't a lot like what you're doing.

20:42And it's a huge area. And of course we're entering the busy tourist season in the fall, winter into the spring festivals and the music festivals. No, you're not seeing this and that's why you should head out and check out the food. That's why we're talking. I mean, I'm just excited by what you're doing there. And I'm going to imagine this is early days, but you probably have had some pretty surprised visitors in a good way. Yeah, you know what it is, is, is, is Matt, I think it's when I say that it's simple, it's never simple, and it doesn't need to be simple, right? But one thing we do is we always need to be listening.

21:21And we always need to be honoring, you know, the vision, right? And I think when I say at the end of the day, it's about paying reverence to the guests and offering an environment that they feel comfortable in. And hey, do we have to pivot and make, you know, be a little bit more strategical of how we name things so it's not so intimidating? 100 % we do, right? But at the end of the day, you're welcomed into this beautiful atmosphere, greeted hand over to heart. And we literally preached this in our pre-shifts is we have to look at the guests with loving eyes, right? We have to look at each other with loving eyes, right?

22:02We have to treat the guests with an open heart. And that's really, at the end of the day, we're offering hospitality. So that's really, at the end of the day, what this all comes to is this is another form of hospitality. It might look differently. It might feel differently. But at the end of the day, we want to inspire people. And we want to indoctrinate people to speak, to advocate for what we're doing. So we've been very excited. We have so many guests already. We have a lot of local following already. We have this gentleman. He, you know, I think he's been in close to 20 times. His name is Will.

22:40I won't reveal his last name, but just, you know, we just get back to the basics and we formulate real relationships. Hey, you want to come in? Just text me. Like, I want to make sure you're cared for because you're caring for us. So it's, it's one hand feeds the other, you know, and that's, what's exciting about this relationship is we're not in this massive conglomerate of a metropolitan city that we're able to formulate really deep relationships where we look out for each other. And that's what a community is. And that's what these restaurants mean to us. I love to hear that you have some regulars already.

23:15Yeah, this is really cool to hear. I have to ask you about Top Chef. You were a very memorable character and contestant long ago, and you've been on subsequent series. Do you keep up with the current batch of contestants you watch it and second question is you are you doing some tv yourself are you getting back in you know i i haven't put on the old top chef uh show in probably a decade um i i will say this um um rashika who was who was in san francisco i believe she moved to new york city i might be pronouncing the name wrong a dear friend um i i you know i was rooting for her I didn't watch any of her episodes.

23:54I just know her as a human being and her talent and, you know, bringing Indian cuisine and her culture to the forefront. So regardless of what the results were, I was rooting for her. Are you getting back into TV, though, or are you just busy head down being a chef? You know what, Matt, is one thing I'm learning and I'm going to be 50 this year. One thing I'm learning is I want to, I want it to be, I'm not going to force it. I want it to be at the right time. Because what I have to say and what I want to say, I believe is important. And I've gone through the gamut of life as many of us have. And if I could impart any knowledge, any perspective that could support anybody's growth, I'm all game for that.

24:37So I just want it to be the right platform for me, and I want it to be a very powerful platform. On This Is Taste, we ask guests about the discerning taste. So to close this interview, here's a little rapid fire. Fast and Furious Taste Check, Angela, are you ready? Go right ahead. The best fruit? Guava. Ooh, what's fresh guava like to you? What's it taste? Ooh, it reminds me of my childhood in Dominican Republic up in the mountains. We would literally just, as we're barefooted and our feet are being annihilated by red ants, we just grab the beautiful guava and just eat it. It's fragrant, it's floral, and it's just sweet.

25:15I love that. The worst vegetable. I appreciate it. I don't get it. A crone. I just don't get it. What is a crone? Yeah, it looks like a, you know, it looks like, oh my God, what does it look like? Wow, you're like stumping me on this one. It's a little, it looks like a spiral, a small little beige, like little spiral vegetable.