682: Jordan Salcito Has a Smart Mouth

27:36I'm very honored. So this is like some of the detail people can get in the tasting chapter. What are some of the later chapters of the book. Yes, of course. All right. So there's a how to use this book. One of my favorite pages is the page on wine experts. I don't know, it came to me one night and I was... Well, you're basically saying like, if someone says they're a wine expert, don't trust them. Then don't listen to them. Please don't. I mean, nobody who studies wine enough would ever call themselves a wine expert. So anyone who does say, oh, I'm a wine expert, it's just a big red flag. Is that just from the mentality of like, there's always the more you know, the more there is to know.

28:12Yes, exactly. And wine is not meant to be conquered. It's a journey. So yeah, choose curiosity, I think, is always a good motto. That said, the more curiosity you have, then you get your reference points and then you'll find your own sort of preferences within that. Yeah, it is possible to know more than you've previously known. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Let's see, what else do we have? We have chapters about New World and Old World, and we put those in quotes because there is now so much, there are Old World values in the New World, and there's now New World technology in the Old World. But still, there are these, yeah, there are these sort of different philosophies.

29:00And let's say 10, 20 years ago, New World meant California and, you know, U.S., Australia, New Zealand, South Africa. We go into this in more detail. It's sort of like I think it's like post 16th century counts as New World. But really, these industries didn't get rolling until much more recently versus Old World is sort of Europe and the Mediterranean basin. then Greece, Italy. Grapes initially came from Lebanon. It was the Phoenicians who started spreading this around, including to Greece. And then Greece, thanks to Greece, Italy became very competent with viticulture. And then the Roman army, thanks to the Roman army, there are finds throughout Europe.

29:51So I think the history was always important to me and always interesting to me because so much of anything is, It's sort of like, how did we get here? Where are we and how did we get here? And what does that mean for where we want to go? But I would say like new world and old world. One of the things that, yeah, I was so grateful for as I was sort of researching and writing this book was Jancis Robinson in the Oxford Companion to Wine has this definition where she defines new world as very technology driven and sort of guided by technology, which is so true. like University of California at Davis, is very technologically oriented and all about sort of, you know, how can we use technology to make better wine, which is, as I learned when I took an intro to winemaking course through that university, it was so sort of propaganda driven in my experience.

30:47It's like, and there's no such thing as indigenous yeasts. You have to go to the yeast store and you You can buy whichever yeast you want. It's like having worked in Burgundy and seen that that was untrue, it's like, what is going on here? This is such propaganda. By the same token, a lot of New World technological advances have uncovered the science behind things that were sort of enshrouded in mystery, such as Britannomyces is a yeast strain responsible for that sort of barnyard smell that was always like, oh, it's just barnyard. It's part of the terroir. It's like, actually, that's a yeast strain called Britannomyces, and if it gets overpowering, a lot of people don't like it.

31:28Some people like it a little bit here and there. But this sort of idea of old world being more land-driven and new world being more technology-driven, and that as a sort of root framing for old and new world with, of course, plenty of overlap now. What else do we go into? We go into how it gets from the winery into your glass. And I think one of the things that has been so interesting for me as a winemaker and also a, I mean, winemaker as a spritz maker, but also like working harvest in different wineries. But then prior to that, a buyer in a restaurant group and even a buyer in a single restaurant in New York, you see how distribution impacts what's available in the market.

32:15And then who gets into the distributor that has the reach and how and why? And so there's this really sort of Byzantine structure that dates back to prohibition and that we still live with today in the U.S. It's called the three-tier system. So I think that's something that whenever I try and explain it to people, they're sort of their jaw drops. It's like, oh, I should I should put this in here because it's it's it's very relevant to one's world of wine. And yet it's sort of hushed and sort of swept under the rug. And yeah, I think that section is like one of the great kind of like I think everyone wants to feel like they're getting insider information.

32:57Almost like when Anthony Bourdain wrote Kitchen Confidential and talked about eating fish on Mondays. Right. Like everyone wants that kind of light bulb moment that's like, oh, this is why I see like mine clang in like every wine store I go to. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Good. I'm so glad I was a little nervous about putting that in there. I'm like, no, this is like this needs to be said. No, that's like the juicy stuff that everybody wants to know. You mentioned Ramona, which is your spritz business a little bit before. And I was really curious to get your thoughts on this kind of proliferation of canned wine and wine-related drinks that I feel like has in the past couple of years kind of popped up everywhere in New York.

33:34Like when you see category growth like that, like what's kind of driving that? Yeah, I am proud of Ramona for being a pioneer in that front. Definitely. I remember when we were the first beverage to be canned on this particular canning line, and it was quite risky at the time. And the whole purpose, it was sort of like, well, why isn't there something with high standards? I want something that's organic and tastes good and isn't secretly poisoning people with Velcarin that's administered through a loophole in the FDA or really allowed through a loophole and administered with a hazmat suit. Why doesn't that exist?

34:13And so that was sort of where the idea for Ramona came from. And now it's nice. It's always nice to see like validation. Like, okay, you see all the, you know, the very well-funded beverage groups appreciating the sort of ease and convenience of something that is ready to drink. Yeah. Ramona is a spritz, but there are just kind of straight up wine, sparkling or not, that's being served in a can. Do you think that like wine can be preserved in a can format? It's funny. I am not a consumer of wine in a can. I'm shocked. I don't think of, and when I, you know, Ramona is wine-based, and so it like technically like through a tax category lens fits into that.

34:56But I've always thought of Ramona as a spritz or a spritz moment, sort of like, okay, this is for a casual moment. I think there's value in convenience. I think Americans or maybe everyone, but certainly Americans, are always happy to sort of trade in for convenience. And I think that's why the category is growing so much. I also think that we're still around, whereas like when we launched, there were so many companies just even the last like nine years that have come and gone. And I think, I really do think it's because people want quality. And I think quality, eventually the cream rises, I think.

35:40But like, you know, there's a lot to be said for the convenience. There's a lot to be said for the way that things are being marketed. Like I think White Claw is quote unquote pure, but like pure is a meaningless marketing term that literally means something. Pure what? Pure what? Yeah. I think also partially, you know, we don't live in a place where you can drink a bottle of wine in the street in the same way that you can in Europe. So it's a lot easier to kind of be enjoying your wine at the park if you have it in a can that could be kombucha or like a CBD seltzer or like anything else as opposed to like having your beautiful glass bottle in the street in Paris.

36:19Yes, it's so true. I think that's very well said. That's just like me being a bitter New Yorker. Come to Paris. Yeah, I would love to come to Paris with you. How long have you been in Paris? We moved in 2022, September of 22. So we're on our fourth year now. It's like three full years and a couple months. Do you feel like being based in Paris full time gives you a different perspective on wine than when you were, you know, I'm sure just going and visiting the city? Yes, for sure. I think, for sure, I think life in Paris is so different that it just sort of, my life is so much more, like the company and my team is still U.S.

37:02based. So it's sort of like evenings are spent at home and on Zoom calls and cooking dinner and having a nice bottle of wine with my husband. And it's certainly not even every night. It's sort of like some nights we'll have a nice bottle of wine, but some nights we won't. And versus New York, which is sort of, or for me at least when I was here, it was so many obligations every week and almost sometimes every night. So you're sort of like, there's not really time to breathe, which is not a bad thing either. It's funny. I remember hearing this the first time through the winemaker, Piero Inchiza de la Roqueta, whose grandfather started Sasakaya.

37:44Now he has a winery called Bodega Chakra in Patagonia. But he was talking about the terroir of places, of cities. And at first I thought it was crazy, but I was like, what do you mean? And it's like, well, you know, Manhattan's a big granite island and you land and it's hard and it's go, go, go, go, go. And then you think about it and it's like versus a Paris, which is right next to a river. It's on limestone soil and clay. And it's just a different kind of energy that I do actually think translates a little bit. I mean, part of it's just, you know, historical context. Like Paris is a different kind of city with different values.

38:23And one of those values, I think, is art and beauty in a way that is not necessarily one of New York's values. Of course, there are great museums here, but Paris as a city is like a museum in and of itself. And so just walking is a beautiful experience. And sometimes I'm like, I need an art dose and I'll go to the Picasso Museum for 45 minutes or I'll be near the Louvre and I'll stop in and I'll see the Monet's Water Lilies. And that's a 15 minute sort of meditational experience, a meditative experience. And it's just different. But I think as a result, my my my values, not that they're shifting, but I'm sort of getting a chance to clarify because it's such a the pace is a different pace in a in a way that has given me the opportunity to reflect so much more on past, present and future versus New York felt, you know, especially, you know, working in restaurants in New York.

39:26Like there's really no minute off. You're sort of on all the time. Yeah, the pace is totally different. I totally, I see what you mean. I always remind people that New York is an island, but we're like the least, Manhattan is the least chill island of all of them probably. It totally is. You're right. It's the opposite of Sicily. Yeah, yeah. Maybe in some way in the summer it gets there. Just on this moment of reflection in the book, you write a little bit about kind of choosing to step away from working in restaurants, partially due to your experience taking the Master Somme evaluation. and there's been a lot in the news and I'm sure just kind of discourse in the industry about just the issues with that program.

40:00And I'm curious, looking back on that decision, just like how that all kind of sits with you. Yeah, I think I'm so grateful because I, all right, so I got to be part of the 11 Madison Park team when we won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Service. Bobby Stuckey, who's a friend and a dear mentor and is like the service guy for the Court of Master Sommeliers, when I was running the program at Coe, when we had opened it, Bobby and his amazing wife, Danette, came in for dinner. And I poured the pairings for them. And Bobby said, what you're doing at Coe is the most important thing that's happening in wine in the country right now.

40:39You should be so proud. And that was such a compliment. And so I would say service is something that I have. At that point in my life, when I took this exam, I had a lot of experience with. And I'd also at that point taken the exam twice and failed because I should have both times. Like one time I didn't study hard enough and I should have studied more and then I learned that lesson. another time I ran out of time and so I you know by the the third time I practiced I was you know I was like locked myself in this sort of cocoon for the entire month prior I mean I went to work but when I was not working I was either doing timed exams I was visualizing as I went to sleep my service exam so fast forward to the the third and final time so the way that the exam was structured at the time is you got, you know, I was sort of the last year, the last class of getting to take all three parts and then getting three years to pass these three parts.

41:43And so the first time I passed the blind tasting exam on the first try, and that qualified me for the sort of two more years to pass the two other parts, the service, practical, and the theory exam. Year two, I passed nothing. And I learned. It's like, okay, I did not study enough. I did not study hard enough. I needed better memory palaces. So I read the book Moonwalking with Einstein and got so good at mapping out my memory palaces. I studied with Jane Lopes and Pascaline Le Pelletier, who are such brilliant wine professionals, and who both, one of whom passed the MS and then was a yeah both of them in fact pascaline has now renounced her ms um title um just because of a lot of the things that you're alluding to which we're talking about like allegations of sexism yes things like that exactly exactly yes just we should i figured we should name it because maybe not everyone listening has that context you're right and then there was also a cheating scandal where Where a master sommelier gave his answers to people that he was mentoring and was clever enough to put it in email and got forwarded around.

42:57And then the way that was handled at the top was really interesting. They sort of just took the title away from everyone without actually doing the sort of research into who had received that email and who hadn't and sort of stripping away this title that some people had earned. but then deciding, well, you were just going to take it away. And so there was sort of, I guess, a carelessness that was very evident. But my experience was by the time I took this the third time, the theory practical is you get asked 100 questions within an hour, and it's sort of rapid fire, and you have to get a number of them right.

43:34And I remember sitting in that room, and the times prior, it was like I would fumble and I would be nervous or I wouldn't know. And the third time I passed the exam and it was easy. I was like, okay, just one more to go. So I passed the line tasting, passed the theory, and then I had the service practical. And what I did was exactly what I was just saying, the sort of constant reviewing, making sure I had every base covered, timing myself, visualizing. and I passed all three tables. No, I passed time-wise, passed everything. There's always a mystery table, a decanting table and the champagne table.

44:14Mystery table passed, decanting table, which is usually considered the hardest, passed. I remember they were like, what, oh, we're having this Barolo from blah, blah, blah vineyard. Like, oh, what village is that in? And it was just like, I just nailed every question. And then we got to the champagne table and it felt the same way. It was like, I remember it was like, oh, you know, Clos de Guasse. Oh, yes, Filippo Nog. You know, you have to know who makes it and what the grapes are and talk about it. And anyway, so I was like, oh, my God, I think I passed this. And in the end, it was the champagne table.

44:50And without obviously naming any names, it was a group of people who worked in distribution, not in restaurants, none of whom had ever visited me at a restaurant before. and actually one of them, the woman who ended up delivering the news was a woman and she said, yeah, you know, you didn't pass this year. We just didn't think you seemed like yourself. And I remember being like, wow, that is, at first it was such a blow and a gut punch and because it was so absurd, it was a gift. Because by the time I could take a few deep breaths and be like, that's absurd. In fact, I went to the head of the court and was like, hey, I've always taken this feedback seriously and it's made me a better sommelier, a better professional, a better human.

45:40And I don't even know what to do with this. You know, explain this feedback to me because these people don't know me and they've never seen me and they don't work in restaurants themselves. So it was sort of so ridiculous that it was such a gift. And then I found out a week later that I was actually like a few days, you know, whatever, four weeks pregnant with our first son, Henry. And that was, I think, the gift of change. It was this change agent that I actually was looking for. I think for me, I thought, oh, I need this title because that will give me these opportunities to shift into my next chapter.

46:22And in a weird way, like that sort of disempowering experience led to such an empowering experience of sort of looking within and being like, OK, I'm so grateful for this journey. I'm so sorry and grateful for what I've learned along the way. And I don't want to be part of something where this arbitrary, ridiculous feedback is par for the course. And then after that, these cheating scandals and sexism scandals were revealed in the New York Times. Yeah. I mean, reading it and hearing you, most importantly, hearing you say this now, like, I get so mad, like, secondhand. I'm like, you worked so hard.

46:57Like, that's, it's really, but I think it also speaks to just, you know, wine is such a old and flawed, like, thing in terms of how it was created, how these, the grapevines spread, like, how these restaurants have been created. Like, there's so many layers to that. And I think to be able to have had such a different chapter since then, I hope it feels good. I feel so fortunate. I feel so lucky. Okay. So not to like trigger you, but we will do a rapid fire to close today. But there are no wrong answers and they're all very fun. Does that sound okay? It sounds great. Okay. Your favorite cookbook right now?

47:30Otolenghi Simple. Your most used or referenced wine book? Oxford 2. Oxford Companion to Wine and the World Atlas of Wine. A favorite like food-wine pairing for fall? For fall, Northern Rhone Syrah and slow-roasted lamb shoulder. A restaurant whose wine list you really love? I love a restaurant whose wine list. I love the restaurant at Nordwick, the wine list at the restaurant in Nordwick. A favorite wine bar? Parcell. Nice. Your go-to bottle shop? Go-to bottle shop. Okay, this is the— Do you buy your wine at a— I don't. That's my amateur question. You were on the co-signing market or something.

48:17No, I feel very lucky. My husband also, he works in wine, and it's been a while since I bought some wine retail. But I guess if I were to say, there's a shop right across from our house in Paris, and they have fabulous wines, so I do go there. Nice. I'm not even remembering the name, but just the shop across the street. That's okay. We'll preserve your anonymity where you live a little bit. Perfect. A bottle that you would drink on your birthday. Oh, a bottle I would drink on my birthday. A bottle I often get to drink on my birthday is a bottle for my birth year. My husband has created a beautiful little collection.

48:53That's so romantic. It's so sweet. My favorite ones that he pops out here and there are Domaine du Jacques Clos Saint Denis, 1980. A wine bar that you wish you could be a regular at. L 'Aix, Annie's L 'Aix. Here in New York, I talk about this on the show all the time. I love that place. Okay, finally, a fictional food scene, like from a book or a movie that you wish you could magically eat or maybe drink. Such a good question. I feel like there are so many places my mind goes. Great Gatsby, one of those parties would be interesting. I think living in France, this is going to be like a, I don't know, maybe too apropos.

49:32Like that scene from the Sofia Coppola, Marie Antoinette movie where she's eating all the pastries, like that would be so interesting to be a fly on the wall. But then like get in and get out kind of thing. I love that answer. I have a friend who's a very great food stylist, and that movie was the thing that made her, like, seek out food styling as a career. So I think you're right on the money. And thank you so much for coming on the show, Jordan. This was so fun. Eliza, thank you so much for having me. Today's episode is brought to you by ButcherBox. As a food writer, I can be a little skeptical about subscription cooking boxes you hear about on podcasts.

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51:21Visit butcherbox.com slash taste to get this limited time offer and free shipping always. That's butcherbox.com slash taste. Don't forget to use our link so they know we sent you. Ari Collender, welcome. This is Taste. We're doing the Resi Top 5. Are you ready? Let's go. Concept here is really, really, really exciting. We're talking about memorable meals through your life. I've not been prepped on any of it. I don't know what you're going to say. And I'm thrilled that you want to do this because I think this is a dream for many people and many of our guests to really go long about favorite restaurant meals.

52:00I want to ask you first, though, when you're thinking about this list, what makes these meals memorable? Is there any connective tissue? I mean, tons. Honestly, it's a little hard to kind of decide what to talk about because, you know, I'm in the restaurant business. I eat for a living. Like it's every time I go and eat, there's some kind of impact. And, you know, I think our conversation today, I thought it would be kind of memorable to talk about places that kind of made me want to be in the restaurant industry. And also, once I was in it, helped stylize and give me the, I guess, framework for what I realized I wanted to do in it.

52:45Yeah. I mean, it makes perfect sense. And I have to imagine that some of the restaurant visits we're going to talk about have inspired Found Oyster, have inspired Queen. Oh, for sure. Definitely. Tell me about when you're building these two restaurants, and you have other restaurants too, of course, but I'm going to focus on those two. Are you just looking back into your history when you're thinking about the concepts? Well, I mean, it's a two-edged street there. Like, yes, it's always top of mind, you know? And like, I guess at the same time, we also like can't stand still, you know? Like that's, a good restaurant is always evolving.

53:22So, you know, that's not to say that I won't find inspiration from a hundred-year-old restaurant somewhere, which has been doing the same thing for a hundred years. Right, right, right. Constant evolution. You ready to get to the list? Let's get started. All right, let's do it. So are you doing chronological or are we just jumping around? There's no rules here. We're not setting any rules. Let's start at the beginning and then we can decide whether the rest of the chronology makes sense. Let's start in the bidding. What is your first restaurant in the Resi Top 5? So I grew up in Charleston, which, you know, at this point in time has quite the history behind it and, you know, scene.

53:57And it's all these amazing restaurants and chefs that have gone there. I grew up in the 80s and 90s there. It was a different scene. Charleston's restaurant history got big when like Spoleto music, or sorry, art festival started happening. And so restaurants started being a thing. And then Johnson and Wales cooking school opened up there, which, you know, everyone who went there was like, well, this place is cool. I'm just going to live here now. And all these great chefs were able to kind of thrive. In the 90s, a couple guys opened a place called Slightly North of Broad. The acronym is SNOB. That's amazing.

54:34And they intentionally made it that way. Correct. Yeah. So Broad Street was kind of the dividing line on the Charleston Peninsula of old money and you've kind of, you know, mansions and the rest of the city. Other side of the track. Correct. Now, and this is older, like this is not even 20, this is a long time ago. I mean, now it's very expensive everywhere, unfortunately. But it's like, it's really the old, you know, mansions and things like that that are below Broad. So this was slightly north of Broad. And my grandparents took us there continually for birthdays and anniversaries and things like that.

55:10It was kind of the go-to fine dining place for whatever that meant at the time in Charleston. And, you know, it was such a different thing from us, you know, going to like Outback Steakhouse per se, you know, or the things that we used to go to. if we were going out typically, that, you know, that it's really where I started to like, see the theater of a restaurant and kind of not only from the side of like what happens inside sitting down and everything that's happening around you, but also the theater that we get to play to be a diner, you know, and like the care you take into dressing and, and, you know, getting to the, to the restaurant and maybe there's valet, you know, and, and talking to the the maitre d' and just the whole, the ballet.

55:58Heating the big book. Yes. With the wine. Oh, yeah. And as a kid, you're like, what are these things? Totally. That's such a cool point about, it's like a contract you're in as a diner. And you're going to the play, you're going to a concert, you're going to the theater, but it's a restaurant and this really unlocks something in you. It did. Not only did it feel special to be able to go to something like this, you know, to a restaurant like this, but it was also special to sit there and be entertained and like watch the show. And I, you know, I saw the people working in that restaurant have a very like, you know, dignified and graceful kind of allure that just kind of sparked my sense of curiosity to know what it would be like to be in that.

56:45What's the food like? Back then, all the restaurants were Southern cuisine. Like that just was what, if you had a restaurant in Charleston, you serve Southern food or pizza probably. Yeah. So it was a chop house of sorts at the time with shrimp and grits and she crab soup and other southern staples. But I remember distinctively that it was where I would order lamb. I don't know why, but I would order lamb chops with like mint jelly. I love that you call it the mint jelly. Yeah. Like the little thing of mint. It was like a hue that shouldn't be human. Oh, yeah. No, it's like Hulk. It's like Hulk, exactly.

57:22You ready to move on to your next one? Yeah, sure. Let's do it. What's your second of five? Second of five, we stay in childhood, honestly, because the kind of dining part of restaurants, I think, is very unique. But also the cooking side is a whole other part of it. And this isn't actually a restaurant experience. But when I was a kid, a little few years after that last restaurant experience, I went down to Miami to visit my aunt and uncle for the summer with my parents. And my uncle is an avid spear fisherman and loves to go spear fishing, lobster diving, all this stuff. And he took us out on the boat with him when there was a lobster mini season.

58:05So he went diving. We got to put the snorkel stuff on, like get in the water, beautiful water. And we got to go fish and lobster. And so when we got back to the house, it was my job to help prepare all these things for the grill. Amazing. And so the experience of like going to catch these things or, you know, fish for them and bring them back and learn about reverence of product and creativity with your hands and just, you know, really that kind of that working with your hands resonated with me. And I just remember, first off, it being the first time I ever had lobster because we didn't really eat that kind of stuff growing up.

58:45but we the style of which we did it all was just so compelling yeah and talk about the first time you're having lobster it's it's with live fire yeah it's not like a boiled lobster it's not that and that must have been interesting no I like I had to rip these lobsters in half when they were alive and like you shell them and then yeah you know like put them on a grill and you know skewer them do the whole thing um it was primal you know yeah sure and what what's the what's the setup for your uncle what's is there is there like a light is it obviously there's some lemon involved but like what else are you not drawn butter it was a very it was a very classic simple situation um yeah i think you chopped up some ginger and garlic and put it in the butter or something like that you still do that today do you do a little yeah i'm i'm not the biggest lobster fan, to be honest.

59:37I'd rather have crab or shrimp, but I think it's one of the better ways to have it. I like a little warm butter with aromatics. So right after this experience with my uncle, it was probably two years later when I got into high school and could legally work. I got my first job and it was at a restaurant. So I kind of was following the path that I intended to be on. It was not as a cook, it was as a host. I was like this tall and like, you know, they were like, you should just hand out menus. So, you know, I started there and worked my way through into the kitchen eventually. But, you know, that it was an inspiring time for sure.

1:00:14What's, tell us a little bit about the restaurant. I have to know your first restaurant. So it's a seafood restaurant back home on Meeting Street that is, you know, an institution. And it's definitely, you know, for the tourists. It's not like, you know, it's not a fine dining restaurant in any means. But back then, you know, the guy, Eli Hyman, he was getting fish deliveries from the fishermen every day. They would pull up the truck and he would go on there and I would watch him, you know, select through different fish that he would bring into the restaurant and scale and go out and do the whole thing, you know, and it's just, I was in the right place at the right time to be seeing the pattern that I liked.

1:00:52And seeing just live fish in the fish butchery, which is such an important part of your restaurants in Los Angeles right now. Of course. Back to your top five. Let's do number three. So number three, I decided to go to cooking school and ended up in LA. And my first job out of culinary school was at Providence. Yeah. I was 21. I had no idea what Providence was. Interesting. I kind of lucked out into this. And my externship was meant to be at like a Norman Van Aken restaurant on Sunset Boulevard that like closed the week I was supposed to go. So my teacher gave me his best go at helping me out and he got me an externship there.

1:01:31Wow. I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I just knew it was seafood. And I ate there probably a month after I started working there, still not really knowing what to expect because at the time it was just like, you had little bites of things here and there, but you weren't eating these dishes that get put together. and uh it was such a uh all in all encompassing experience uh i my heart was filled with joy immediately because i just knew i was in the right place again like being able to learn how to create this food working with seafood and with being new to la and coming from a space that there was no real cultural flavor.

1:02:20The idea of using Japanese ingredients, Korean, Thai, all this flavor was new and exciting. And at that restaurant, people know how to handle those things. And so I felt like I was getting not only a crash course in cooking, but also kind of a cultural kind of wave. Yeah. You know, you were feeling the changes in Los Angeles at that time. Oh, totally. Because at the time, you know, from my understanding of Los Angeles, it was like the neighborhoods were doing the neighborhood food. And then there was like fine dining. So this is back in 2005. Like province was like a year old, less than a year old when I started there.

1:03:03Very different kind of restaurant than it is now was there was more than just the tasting menu, but the quality was absolutely still there. I remember at that dinner getting this one course that was cooked by the chef cuisine or the sous chef at the time i can't remember exactly yeah but he took sweetbreads it was the first time i'd ever had sweetbreads and he basically did it in the style of orange chicken and it was just it blew me away it was like szechuan-y orangey sweetbread that feels of the era like the early 2000s where um awful yeah was becoming a thing and a fad. But then Providence is thinking about Chinese flavors and Chinese American cuisine.

1:03:47It must have been so exciting to be there. It was. I mean, I was there for the better part of four years. It really shaped who I am as a cook. And Michael is such an incredible mentor and chef. I learned so much. There's really not a time that I am cooking that I'm not really thinking about an experience that I had there. No way. You know, the way that I would do things is because of this, you know? And you can very much go to Providence today. You can. Yeah. You absolutely can. Yeah. Can you make it back there once in a while? I, you know, not really. But I do see, you know, Michael at the market and things like that.

1:04:25Yeah, yeah. They just celebrated 20 years. I know, incredible run. Really cool stuff. What's your fourth restaurant? So fourth restaurant, I think, just staying on the timeline, One of the first trips I took from LA, went to San Francisco, 2008, and I ate at Nopa. And I think they were pretty new too at the time, maybe like one or two years old. And as much as I was enjoying LA, I was really just working all the time. And I didn't really get out and eat that much stuff outside of Thai food late at night or ramen or things like that. And I hadn't really been given an understanding of like California cuisine, if you want to call it that, you know, at the time.

1:05:12Yeah. So like Nopa and Chez Panisse and things like that were really foreign to me. And on that trip, I actually did eat at Chez Panisse in the cafe side as well. Like the NOPA dinner was just illuminating to me as far as what it meant to be a neighborhood restaurant and what it meant to kind of encapsulate the California cuisine in that. Like thinking about centering farms. Yes. Yeah. That's what I think you're articulating. Centering farms, it being a place like a gathering place for the neighborhood, but also something that's classy and not, you know, like a internet cafe of sorts, obviously.

1:05:50Right. I remember seeing the chef come out of the kitchen and his wife and like newborn baby were at the bar. And it's like, you know, it was this iconic kind of dreamscape of like, okay, I think this is the kind of restaurant that I want to own one day where I'm, you know, the chef and, you know, my family comes, I cook for them every night. And, you know, we're here to do this thing for the neighborhood. Were you thinking at that moment, four years into your career that you wanted to run restaurants, own restaurants, put your name on restaurants? It's the only thing I ever wanted to do since the day I decided to go to culinary school, really.

1:06:22Wow. Yeah. I mean, I was a terrible student. I did go to university for a year. I went to University of South Carolina, but I got kicked out because I didn't go to class. I hated it. Yeah. It's not for me. So what were you doing? I was partying. Yeah, right, right. The other USC is pretty fun. Yeah, it was a blast. Too much fun, maybe. But, you know, I took time off. And then when I was like, okay, what am I going to do? I need to like make sure that my parents will, you know, not disown me. Acknowledge your existence. Exactly. So I was like, well, I like cooking and you can go to culinary school.

1:06:59I know I like school, but maybe I'll like it because I like this. And it legitimized my thing. What did they think about your choice to go to culinary school after this one year at university? You know, they were very supportive. Cool. And I can never thank them enough. I know we're we'll talk about this later at some point but I did come out with a cookbook this year about seafood and they are in the acknowledge or the you know the I dedicated the book to them and their ability to support me in my decision to like do this because it was a radical way of doing something 20 years ago yeah you know this is before Top Chef for that's what I'm asking Next Food Network star like all this stuff like it wasn't I didn't have this thing where I was like looking at media or, you know, things and being like, I want to emulate this.

1:07:48It was just kind of a feeling. It was like, it was just, it's what brought me joy. Last of your resi top five. So going back to Charleston, when I moved back in 2012 as an adult to open the ordinary, I was able to experience that city and like what it really means to immerse yourself in the food there. I didn't do it growing up because we lived in a kosher household. And so shellfish was off the table. Pork was off the table. So this was like a little, the uncle was a little bit of a drafe. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. This was like a little moment away from the house. Yeah. So to be clear, my parents are not Orthodox, but we were raised Orthodox.

1:08:30We went to the synagogue because of my grandfather. So they don't really care, but it was drafe for sure. Yeah, you're having a little, yeah. Totally. But so I got, you know, my first experience going back to, like, some of these roadside shacks. Yeah. It was this place called the Fishnet. Down 17, just past West Ashley where I grew up. It's kind of at the bottom of West Ashley. And it's the kind of place where, like, they're selling seafood. The guy's bringing in bushels of live soft-shell crabs. And you get a crab sandwich and it's literally, you know, two pieces of white bread, mayonnaise, tomato.

1:09:08Maybe some cayenne. Sounds incredible. It's just like it's so pure and so delicious. It's just inspiring. Yeah. And there's so many places like that. I mean, there's also the like the Gullah food there is incredible. Hannibal's Kitchen has like this incredible crab rice. Bertha's Kitchen is one of my absolute favorites with like their okra tomato stew. It's hard to kind of like decide which one of those. Which angle. But this one shack was the one. Yeah, it was. You know, because there's something about just getting that sandwich in like a basket of fried shrimp, popping it on your trunk and eating it.

1:09:42Yeah, that's the number one. Staring at the estuary, watching cars fly by. Yeah. It's good stuff. That kind of outdoor dining is, you know, seafood outside is something that is like nothing else. And you can eat outside at Found Oyster. You can. You absolutely can. Let's talk about the cookbook. Oh, great. What inspired you to write the book? I feel there's a lot of seafood books. I think you have a strong point of view doing it in Los Angeles and having California seafood and, of course, bringing some in from overseas as well. Yeah. But what did you want to say with it? My co-author Noah Gluten and I really kind of dreamed this up to be a no frills, easy way to not get flustered and be able to cook seafood.

1:10:29We made such an effort to make sure that we're speaking in language that people can understand. There's like no French cooking terms in the book. We're using ingredients you can find on Amazon if you must. And, you know, the idea is to take away the notion that it's fussy or hard. We really just wanted to kind of make sure that people could understand that this is such an easy thing to do. And it doesn't really take that much time. Fish cooks so fast if you cook it at all. Yeah. So that was kind of the basis for the book. Let's talk about raw, keeping it raw. Yeah. What's an idea that you think is maybe a little sneaky smart in there that people maybe don't know about?

1:11:15We do one recipe where we take kombu and we give it a rinse so it's a little bit more malleable and we wrap halibut in that. Oh my gosh. And so it's cured. You can do it for, depending on the thickness of the fish, you can do it for however many hours you'd like. But it perfectly cures the fish. It's so tasty. And it's a great crudo after that. We've also tried steaming it in the seaweed and it works really well. That sounds good. Which is kind of sneaky also. Yeah, if you're like maybe a little skittish about doing the crudo prep, you can always do the steam prep. What does the kombu do when you're wrapping kombu around a filet?

1:11:52How long is the cure? Yeah, so I mean on a filet that's, let's just say, is like an inch thick, you really only need to go for a couple hours. And the immense amount of ocean flavor, the vegetal quality of seaweed that gets flushed into the fish is really incredible. On top of that, there's salt in, you know, natural salt in it as well. Yeah, the glutamates. Yeah. So it does the seasoning at the same time. What's your take on buying fish? Because you think like if I'm going to Whole Foods or going even to the grocery store to buy a halibut. I mean, can I do a raw version with that product? You can.

1:12:29There's a lot to talk about there. And, you know, it's not lost on me that it is still incredibly difficult to buy seafood. It's just one of those things. There's not a lot of markets. Yeah. If you don't live by the water and can't go to like a dock or something, you know, it's just really tough. Whole Foods is great. There's farmer's markets that, you know, have great vendors there, you're always looking to buy American first and foremost. Our waterways are the most controlled, the most regulated, the best stocks. So you should be looking for that first. If you can't find something that's American, I'm not saying you shouldn't buy it, but if you need to have that, whatever fish it is, you know, but I would suggest looking for something else that might work instead, you know, and we kind of break that down in the book as far as what types of fillets are out there, right?

1:13:19You have like sticky things that are tuna and swordfish and salmon. You've got flaky and mild fishes, right? Which are your halibuts and your snappers and your, your basses and things like that. So the other side of purchasing fish is like making sure you use it all too, you know? I mean, storing and like figuring out what to do with it if you don't use it is difficult because it does spoil fast. You have to use it when you're buying it. You have to be, have a plan. It's not the kind of thing where it's like a box of pasta on your shelf. It's a little different. We do talk about freezing a lot in the book, though.

1:13:52I think a lot of people think that's kind of like taboo, but it's really not. I mean, most of the shrimp you consume in America is already frozen. It's been frozen one time. Things like that and scallops and even fish flies can freeze well if you take care of it. I mean, that's the nature of the beast is you want to find seafood that is handled correctly. Totally. And so if you freeze correctly, you have this great opportunity. Right. And that's the other thing. It's like part of the freezing thing when you see sushi grade as like, you know, on the tag and the market, that really is a made up term, you know.

1:14:27Sure. What it means is that it's been frozen, and I forget the numbers right now, but to a certain temperature for a certain amount of time, meaning that the possibility of there being a parasite in there is 99 % gone, right? Right. So it's like kind of a marketing thing. It's not, it's not like not saying that that piece of sushi grade tuna is better than the fresh piece of tuna that you can buy off the dock. Yeah. Oh, of course. If you're going to get off the dock, you can get fresh catch. You obviously, if you're so lucky enough to have a waterway near you. My tip though, getting back to your question about like, how do you know if it's safe to use for crudo maybe, is if it's in a case on the other side, talk to your person who's going to cut it or wrap it for you and maybe they know how long it's been there or you know ask to see it see if you can smell it right like if it looks and smells delicious then it will be yeah i love that that point if you just smell the seafood and and even out of your when you've stored it yeah and smells smells good doesn't have that whiff of not good you're safe you can eat it yeah i think we have this like tendency to think that like it's very scary to eat raw fish.

1:15:35Yeah. I mean, listen, spoilage happens in the restaurants. Sometimes I'll have a cook or a sous chef come up to me and they're like, do you think this is okay? I'm like, do you think it's okay? I'm like, I don't want to smell that. What do you think? And there was like, oh, I didn't even think to do that. All right. And this is Taste We Has. Guess our brother is turning to taste. So to close this interview, here's a little rapid fire, fast and furious taste check. Are you ready? Let's do it. The best fruit. Watermelon. I love that. It's the season right now. I literally have one in the fridge at all times.

1:16:06I have a knife in the fridge. I just go and I slice a little bit and I eat it. Knife in the fridge. It's cutting it off. It is a treat. The worst vegetable. Parsnips. A lot of parsnip hate happening, but I appreciate it. Why is it so not good? Parsnips to me are not that flavorful. I don't think it's a good add. I think you're adding parsnips to something that gets it like rutabagas and all these squashes. They mask the flavor of it anyways. Like I just don't, I don't like it. And when it's on its own, I just don't think it does enough. Yeah, it doesn't have enough flavor. It's gluey. Yeah. What is your typical breakfast?

1:16:45Man, I wake up really early at like six and I actually don't eat for a while. I have coffee, but I don't eat until like lunch. Yeah. Noon, one o 'clock. My wife, like much to her chagrin, she always wants proper breakfast and I'll make her, you know, eggs on a sandwich or something or whatever. But, yeah, it's just not my thing. Yeah. You always skip it. It's just coffee. If I sometimes, I'll force myself to have a little yogurt and granola and some jam or something like that. Okay. This is the chef life. I get it. The best dessert? I'm a pie guy. Oh, interesting. Yeah. I like, we do like a pecan chocolate chip pie at the restaurant, which I think is, I mean, it's my grandma's recipe, so I'm a little biased.

1:17:29But it's just heaven to me. A little ice cream on top. A little ice cream on top. Are the chocolate chips are the semi-sweet or are they bitter? Valorana. Chopped up Valorana. Chopped up Valorana. Yeah, we do a mix actually. It's dark and dark and light. dark and milk, yeah. A restaurant you wish you could bring back from the dead. Le Cirque. Okay. And I say that because my mentor, Michael Samarusi, worked there and I've just heard so many stories about this place and how opulent it was and what it meant to see and be seen in that room and I just, I feel like I'd really enjoy it. Yeah. What a scene in the 90s and 2000s.

1:18:07When you're craving fast food, where are you going? Honestly, I'm going to a burger shack. I don't know. I don't crave McDonald's. I don't crave In-N-Out. But if it's more local, like Gold Burger here, like Yellow Paper Burger, In-N-Out does the trick every time, though. Yeah. So it all comes back to In-N-Out. It does. Because they're all inspired by In-N-Out. You can't deny that. Oh, for sure. Oh, In-N-Out has paved the way for decades. Your favorite city outside of America to visit for food. I love the south of France, Marseille in particular. And I haven't been back in a long time. But I got the chance to go about eight years ago and was so inspired by all the food and all the chefs there.

1:18:52There's a lot of creative stuff going on there. I feel like even now it's having another kind of wave. It's first on my list to get back to. I love that you call it Marseille. It's one of those cities that never really gets mentioned in this question or really in talking about France. It's always Paris. Right. Paris is great. Paris is great. I love it. Yeah. But I've been there. The mixing of culture is amazing there. It's incredible. You have all the North African influence and all the islands and everything. It's a port city. Yeah. It's a port city. There's always interesting things. I love that city.

1:19:25Great call. Last one, your favorite sandwich. Sliced turkey, yellow mustard, Dijon mustard. Yeah. sprouts avocado. That's my sandwich. That's really good. That's really simple. What's a bread choice? It is probably either focaccia or some kind of bouncy sourdough. Yeah, it can't be like too hard. Yeah. Ari Callender, what a great chat. Thank you so much for joining This Is Taste. Thank you.

1:19:58This Is Taste is hosted and produced by Matt Rodbard and me, Eliza Abarbanil. The show is edited by lead producer Clayton Gumbert and supervised by Pat Stango, director of media production and development at Penguin Random House. Thanks to Shalia Harris and the production team at Penguin Random House. Theme music by Steve Rydell, logo and guest illustrations by Ellie Skrzat. Visit Taste Online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to keep updated on all cool things in the world of taste.