756: Nobody Cooks Italian in New York Like Michael White

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23:22That's 15 % off masterclass.com slash tastecooking. masterclass.com slash tastecooking. I want to read a short section from a review in the New York Times of Fiamma Osteria. This is from 2002. I think William Grimes wrote it. Bill Grimes, yes. And it was three stars. quote the pastas at Fiamma with the exception of a dull rather mushy gnocchi with a fava beans and morels are exceptional two deserve special mention ravellini stuffed with braised veal shank in a potent highly reduced veal sauce enriched with a formaggio defosa a cave-age cheese from Amelia Romagna and broad bands of spinach pasta tossed with braised rabbit bolognese in a parmesan cream sauce.

24:05Now, this ties into what you were saying. In 2002, this isn't common. We take it for granted

24:14Michael White:24 years later because you see it everywhere. You could go now and see dishes like that and not think anything of it. You'll think this is table sticks. It's kind of random, but you know. It's just like a mille romagna. We're doing it. We're doing it. 100%. Michael, you pioneered a type of cooking that looked to regions of Italy and these combinations and fresh pastas. But my question, I wanted to bring this up, three stars New York Times is one thing, but was it challenging to get the New York diners to buy into this? You know, they'd really never, Mario had started at Poe and Bappo had opened.

24:49Of course. And so this was like the next level. I had been at San Domenico for years working there and all throughout Italy. And so where Mario was doing very much this trattoria, you know, very brash of himself, the way he'd cook, I was a bit more refined and really starting to take it like cucina moderna to

25:12Michael White:a certain extent, but not overly, you know, too sophisticated. You weren't doing like multicolored ravioli. The way we see today. Bravissimo. Thank you for noticing. I've never done that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah. Whether I'm obviously a spinach pasta, different ingredients. But that type of Italian food, exactly. But it's interesting to bring the Batali instance because it is true. His food really did have this richness and unctuousness, used a terrible food word, and this brash type of Italian cooking that he made famous on his TV shows. 100%. But you, and this is why I think the critics really recognize this and why the diners followed.

25:53It's a light touch. It's serving proportionally the way we see now today pasta like Stefano Secchi's places, Missy Robbins places. You pioneered that style of Italian cooking in New York.

26:05Michael White:Exactly. And having restraint. I want customers to come back very, very fortunate at Santi and Mika. Customers are coming two and three times a week because we're not going to whack them over the head. They want the impact flavor, the pasta, the taste, the texture. but they don't want to have it in such a wrought way. And so applying the method and technique to Italian food, you know, looking at Italian food through a lens, you know, I look at French food through a lens of an Italian chef and vice versa. So applying some of the south of France, the lightness, the broths, the techniques. When you're in Italy, you don't need to add many things in order to have a cohesive dish, whether it be a seafood pasta.

26:50So here, you know, we're making lobster stock, right? So we're adding, where in Italy, you wouldn't add lobster stock. You just go ahead and aglio, aglio, pepperoncino and deglaze with white wine. You're going at it, right? The product is amazing. Not that we don't have amazing product here. It just tastes different. The water, the salt. You have a home field advantage too. I think like you got the mise en scene. You got like the vibes, as we call it today in Italy, that you can kind of like get away with the simplicity. But in New York, you're like in a not your spaces, but cold midtown building.

27:21Oh, got to got to do something a little different. You have to do something different. But we're very fortunate when you said, you know, you said Missy and Stefano, myself. We're very fortunate in Italy. Chefs have to take those dishes and they have to do a little bit more to them. Right. They have to do tortellini alla panna con this, this, thus and so. So we're here in America. We're able to execute perfectly made tortellini one by one, but in a parmigiano crema. And I don't have to do any more. We're in a, you know, somebody else in Italy, a chef, a young chef, a chef that has a couple of missions.

27:56They have to do more. They have to have. And so I feel bad sometimes. Because they're known as making the basic stuff. The basic stuff. So you can't you can't charge, you know, what you need to charge. But you have a high-end restaurant in Italy and make the same things that you could go to a trattoria. Which I think why a lot of Americans visit like Milan and have a restaurant like a two Michelin star and are kind of bummed out. Because it feels like it's overwrought. But it's a cultural difference. Yep. Well, we could talk about a lot of other restaurants you opened in New York. I really liked Nicoletta from memory.

28:31Nicoletta was amazing. Great pizza. Great pizza. Great pizza. Great spot. I loved it. But, you know, when you open restaurants, you have to make sure, and this goes on every restaurant, you need to make sure, not need to make sure, but, you know, we do due diligence and demographics. But you have, the neighborhood has to rise to the occasion when you have a restaurant like that.

28:51Michael White:Yeah. And that neighborhood wasn't ready for that kind of. Yeah, it was like East Village, right? Tough. Tough East Village. It's always been tough. 10th and 2nd Avenue. Fall Witch just closed, which is one of my favorite restaurants of last year from the Roberta's team. And like, yeah, East Village is impossible. It's a tough, tough neighborhood. You know, that's a beauty. Midtown right now is absolutely burgeoning right now because there's so many things happening. Well, we could talk about Ifiori, but I think we should talk about Mireya because I think to me and to many others, this is the restaurant really major career.

29:21And I think we can talk about the pastas, but crudos and a little bit of the evolution of the crudo. I want to get your take. I've always thought Dave Pasternak at Esca like pioneered crudos. What is your take on like the history of crudos in New York and like how I think this is I feel it's like almost like a New York thing. Absolutely. You know, absolutely. Dave Pasternak and Mario at ESCA. Yeah. Kicked off the the the crudo craze, if you will. And I'm dating that. What would be that? 2000. I think ESCA was operating like 99, 2000 closed in actually like 2015. It opened for a long time.

30:02Michael White:Yeah. But that is where, you know, he was, Mario and Dave were doing Himalayan pink salt on fish, lemon, maybe lime, maybe bergamot oil. And when I looked at that, and I love Japanese cooking, I love Asian cooking, I love, you know, these ingredients. But I didn't want to add those ingredients to it. You know, obviously, then it's not Italian or so when we as a chef team and myself, we looked throughout Italy and said, those ingredients and i want to add those types of ingredients to small bites so making a small fine diced caponata and putting on a beautiful piece of tuna a piece of mozzarella um crispy artichokes like judaea style artichokes with with escarole that's something romana but then i put in uh oysters to blend that together with oil and lemon you know and so bringing crudos to the next level and now in new york city you see crudos every there's not a restaurant that you can go to that probably doesn't have one crudo oh it's it's so true i think it's our our kind of acknowledgement of japanese culture and the omakase and and being very very interesting to diners of course there's the the it's kind of a perfect bite it's like low like impact in some ways well it's high impact flavor but but it doesn't you know you you you get satiated flavor Otherwise, but not so much in your stomach.

31:28In the belly, yeah, that's what I was saying, yeah. So, you know, it doesn't have the rice. So it's like having omakase, like you say, but, you know, with Italian ingredients, like we're doing right now,

31:38Michael White:tuna with bittoridicchio and citrus fruits and things. It just works. I loved that dish, that tuna with citrus, with, I think it was an orange. An orange and citrus. But I think it's a cool distinction because you really wanted to root it in Italy. And these dishes, do you take a long time to conceive the crudos on your menus? We do. What we do is we really are looking at what's available, you know, whether we're going to, you know, whether it be Natura or Regalis or, you know, these companies. And we're looking for special ingredients. Yeah. High impact flavor, whether it be, you know, Budahem lemons.

32:15You know, as long as it fits, you know, we're not using every ingredient. As long as it fits in the Italian vein. Italian cooking is a way of thought process, more than not just the ingredients. The ingredients you can travel through Italy, whether it be the Austro-Hungarian influences in Tabelspitz and Bolito-Misto, or you can go down to Sicily and you go to the Couscous Festival. Have you attended? I've been, you bet. And those North African influences and cinnamon and such. So Italy is extremely, the play box is amazing. You know, there's, you don't have to, it's enough.

32:59Michael White:Tell me about Calabria. Have you been there? Oh, you bet. I was, we do culinary tours through Taste and my friend Maurizio Leo. And we were with a guide in, driving around Southern Italy. And I mentioned Calabria and she's like, don't go there. This Italian guide. She's like, don't go there. It's dangerous. And I'm like, and I'm like, I want to go there. You know, well, it's a very famous place because of Aspromonte in the mountains. And that's where they would, when you're kidnapping somebody, the Casa Nostra or something, they would take them there. She's a snob from Florence, as you would say.

33:29Michael White:So that's her more than the region. Listen, there's so much. Puglia, Calabria. I mean, I have my PhD in Italian, so io parlo senza problema. I have my wife is from southern Italy. So, you know, having, you know, having that, my wife gives me all the credibility. So it's like, you know, she, we can talk. So we've done every region in Italy. Oh, 26, is that right? 23, 24, 26. So we're going to get to Santee, which you opened in your former space where Alto was. But I want to talk about leaving Alta Mereri Group. Like, I think we should talk about that because you kind of just left. and I read a couple of news articles and how you were literally in the Hamptons hanging out.

34:16It's crazy. Yeah.

34:17Michael White:Let's clarify. It sounds like a great story, doesn't it? Let's clarify. I think somebody said decamped to the Hamptons, right? Yeah, it's such a bad, first off, bad writing. Horrible cliche. Decamped is never used on the pages of taste. But second off, I wanted to give you the opportunity to clarify leaving that group, then forming a new group and getting to Santee where we're at. I always like to say, too, I wasn't baking sourdough bread in a cast iron pot during that time either. I think you probably made some sourdough before the sourdough boom. Listen, I'm extremely proud what went on it and what we've transformed and did at Marea Isuri.

34:56That changed the way people thought about Italian cooking. And it was something that, you know, obviously difficult. But at the same time, we just didn't know what was going to happen during COVID. During that time, it just wasn't going to happen for a month, three weeks. It just kept going and going and going. And so one gets to the point where you have to decide what's the next chapter. And, you know, in order for the restaurant to survive and the company to survive, you know, I wanted the restaurant to keep growing and to be on its own two feet. and to be able to walk away from a restaurant and be able to see it flourish and still continue this day is going is something that I'm very, very proud of.

35:39At the same time, I needed to keep growing and providing for, you know, my psyche and food and what I was going to do next. And so all of a sudden, you know, six months to a year into it, you know, I'm working on new deals and there's a tremendous amount of deals that are coming, you know, past because, you know, there's distressed assets and people need help. And so it became something, you know, I've been doing this for a long time. And so having that credibility and then deciding what my next move was and then signing on and starting to have my own company now called BeBianco. I formed it with my business partner, Bruce Bronser, who is my legal partner as well from previous.

36:25Michael White:And Bruce does the art. I met Bruce. You met Bruce? Great taste. He does a lot of like found art. Found art. He loves to yard sale. Yard sale it. You left the group. Yeah, absolutely. Because you saw a lot of opportunities. Definitely. With distressed assets. We knew that time in 2021 where we knew in certain parts of the country, but in particular, they were reopening and a lot of demand for restaurants, distressed assets. People had lost a lot during COVID. You just wanted to have your own equity, right? Having your own squad. So I formed Bibianco. Yeah. So management deals are part of when, you know, you go in early part of my career is what you're working on constantly.

37:05You're working on taste and flavor. Now, this part of my career now is building and being part of an investment stack. You know, giving when I become involved in a project or Bibianco becomes involved in a project, it gives instant credibility and indeed levers the risk that, you know, all of a sudden becomes something that a bank can lend against. So it's at my time after 35 years, me being part of a project, whether it's new projects I'm working on at West Palm Beach or Dallas, I'm working with strategic partners in order to help them. And it's a win-win. So I'm on my sixth project right now, and we're almost ready to sign two more.

37:48Wow, Michael, tell me about scaling up like that. I mean, you clearly want to serve great food. Like we just established your interest in the culinary side. You're not a cash grab kind of guy, but you also are savvy in the business side. How the hell do you balance that? So having a great team, investing in your team, it's not about me when it's that time. I'm very fortunate to have people at Santi, for example, that have been with me for 25 years from Pshama, my butcher, you know, Chef Jason Lin, Sol Han, Francis Hoven. I could just name every team member that have been with me for 14, 15 years.

38:24So that's first and foremost, you know, letting them allow them to be creative. They really have the DNA of what I think about as Italian food. And so to see them create and build dishes is really, really the cool part. And to see that it's very much has the ethos of my, you know, how I feel. I mean, to put it in other terms, it's you're the creative director of the group in many ways. And creative directors sometimes have to go to the photo shoot and move this stuff around and talk to the photographer, which would be the same as you is kind of thinking through the service that day. But also you have seven, eight, nine restaurants around the world.

39:04You can't be there all the time. You can't. So how do you communicate?

39:08Michael White:How do you stay in touch with these trusted lieutenants? Right. So, again, I talk to everybody almost on a daily basis. You know, I'm talking to Florida. There's events. But when my time is here, I'm here in the kitchen. I got in this business to be in the kitchen, and I'm a very lucky guy because I'm in a position now that I'm going to leave this with you speaking. I'm going to go in the kitchen, and I'm going to cook at lunchtime today. You're doing service at Santee? Oh, absolutely. I get the big—I'm having the best time right now because I can cook for—I don't have to set the station up, but I can be in there and cooking with the team.

39:42Colicchio said the same thing to me a year ago. It's like you get the station set up, you roll in, it's like the surgeon ready to go, which is, you deserve that.

39:49Michael White:Listen, after 35 years, come on. Yeah, you don't need to set up stuff. But like, and they know how I like it. And I get to work with them. And it's the greatest joy of mentoring and hanging with the team and making sure they're tasting and tasting and watching them grow. That's what it's about. It's not about the stars. Obviously, we need the stars. We need to grow. Nobody wants a bad review. But at the same time, I'm living the dream right now. Good segue. let's talk about stars i mean santee big boy restaurant right down the block from moma it's it's in the jeffrey's building uh really high profile location you'd been there previously uh really nice reviews in in new york magazine matt matt schneier wrote a terrific piece i love that writer he's so good he nailed it he's such a he's one of my favorite critics if not the favorite new york he's but he got it he got it he he's obviously been to italy relax elegance though he got it like you know there's jeffrey's people at the same time you can go in there relax yeah have great food great music it's there's so much more than just the food and he got it you but i my my second part is that you're still waiting on the times still waiting on the time so what's that like chef to very patient as the chef uh i didn't mean to call you chef i'm not one of those guys no but but uh but like what is it like waiting that out we are extremely focused never taking the eye off the ball.

41:10Yeah. Listen, there's been a lot of good things that have happened at New York Times. There's four reviewers now. I think it's super exciting. I mean, there are so many other outlets that we're focused on, too, on a daily basis, whether it's Redbook, you know, the Asian, you know, application. Like, you click on it, it's Santi, Santi, Santi. It's great. It's amazing. So we are not just focused on the New York Times. Thinking about Belly? Do you look at Belly? Oh, my God, I love Belly. I love the voice on belly. And tell you, young people are really, really focused on belly. So my team, and when I say my team, I'm talking about my chefs, whether it be a wine director, my chefs, Bruce.

41:52We're focused on everything and focused on belly and you name it.

41:57Michael White:But New York Times is extremely important. Yeah. Particularly for this restaurant and this location. This restaurant. The New York Times has been an amazing supporter of me for my whole career. As you mentioned, I've had a couple of bad reviews. But listen, that's just for us. I mean, you have, but you've also had three stars in 2002. So, how bad? It's a really, it's a slow and steady wins the race, right? No, don't know. So, what's it like returning to New York and having Santee be your restaurant in Midtown? I mean, you were away for a while. I was away for a while. I was still here. That took me two and a half years to build.

42:30It was a deep, deep build. Yeah. They really allowed me to build the place that that building Jeffreys deserves. It's a really fantastic space. But it was great to be back in the city. The energy and working with the products and working with my team. My team, we were doing other things during then. I was in Florida at the Four Seasons. I opened up Residency there for two and a half years and then went on to do the Fountain Blue and now in Coral Gables. So we've been working together. And then opening Santee has been just one of the pinnacles of my career because it's focused on the future and to see the whole team solidify and create what we're doing on a daily basis.

43:16I mean, we make everything at the restaurant, whether it be the fresh churn butter, the cultured butter. We're making the bread program. Francis is doing a fantastic job with the desserts and Jason. And right now, it's really firing on all cylinders. I couldn't be more proud of the team and the discipline. So back to the New York Times. I'm ready. Yeah, you're ready. Just love that we wanted to come. I would say all four of those reviewers have sat in that seat in the past year. And we've talked about their aims and their tastes. And I respect them all.

43:53Michael White:Definitely. It's a great group. We've had so many great reviews. But more than anything, the reviews is having the customers. When I look at all the data, we could talk about AI. But looking at the data and seeing how many repeat guests we have, that's what I'm concerned about. When I see a restaurant that's been opened, I don't know, just a little over a year, and 17-time guests, 16-time guests, that's what I'm focused on. And knowing that we're doing something right. Food is extremely important, but it's the atmosphere. It's the sound. It's how you make people feel when they come inside your restaurant and when they leave.

44:34You know, it's a restaurant has to have focus and a point of view. And Santi has this very money Santi and, you know, this very restrained Italian cooking. I mean, you have to do that. I mean, there's obviously folks thrown down the corporate cards, but others are really going there for special occasions. And this is not an inexpensive meal. and really all restaurants in New York have levels of cost structures that require this. That's the other thing too. And we always preface is that cost structures are what they are. It's almost embarrassing how much things cost now and how I have to charge for things because when you think about a steak now, you know, a strip steak is like$89 on a menu, right?

45:17But we're not making a lot of money. It's literally covering the costs. Well, you've echoed a sentiment that was recently brought up in the press. I think it was in San Francisco. Literally, Chef was like, I'm embarrassed.

45:31Michael White:You feel the same way? Oh, like I don't, you know, Dover sole, let's say if you put that in. If you're putting real Dover sole on a plate, you have to charge well over$100. Yeah. You know,$120,$130 just to be in the ballpark. You know, that piece of fish costs$42. When you look at veal chops now, a veal chop can cost$30. yeah like raw costs yeah you can't mess up no no and and there is obviously you can't serve literally every you have to have you have like gloss in there so absolutely there's trim and that's the beauty of having an italian restaurant yeah um that you can you can use you know by product what i say by product or dovetail you know the deckle of something and dice it and put it into you know a filling or something like that but that's not really how you have to i mean that's the beauty of having stuffed pastas yes because they can land in there but that's how you arrive at margin because the margins are so tight right now yeah and i think that's the thing about dining out these days is like you're not you know making more money with this cost structure just you have the same margin that is or less because you know or less or less fair fair you're taking less margin you're taking there's definitely lost leader dishes that are on the menu you have to have on the menu you got to have on the menu listen it's like the costco chicken right you got to get them in the door.

46:46Michael White:We don't have any of those things, though, really. Yeah, the$2 hot dog at Costco, too. It's exactly the right. But even a salad, you know, not to belabor the point, but, you know, we're using Tardivo greens. We're using, you know, amazing Italian greens. Yeah. Well, those salads are not cheap, you know. Yeah. Because we don't want to serve box lettuce. You're doing Natura. You're doing great products, great purveyors, right? And beautiful oil and, you know, all these types of things. But it resonates with the guests. I don't want you to think it doesn't. They know. But there's a cost involved in using those products.

47:15And it's just been exacerbated, you know, after COVID. Yeah, and it's, I think the one thing we talk about a bit on the show is like, we as diners finally get it, that going out to dinner, if you're going with four and you're splitting it, it's a different number than it was in 2018. And we're very lucky that restaurants are still a point of respite. It's two hours away of your frenetic lifestyle, or it could be at lunch an hour. it's the last thing that's very social everybody's on their phone all the time i'm on my phone all the time but sitting at a table and and and breaking bread not to be cliche but but sitting there for an hour and a half or whatever that's like one of the last kinds of things you do social that could be you know we're eating you're talking you're you're interacting with people indeed i in an ideal world i must say when i dine there there's definitely a group of people with the ipads out at your restaurant which is because you're doing business there but i can't pass

48:11Michael White:judgment i mean it's just like you know i don't either i think it's funny it's like when chefs say oh no photos or oh stop are you kidding me give me a break did you ever have a moment where you were like that at any point in your career never and when people would say that and and i'd be like are you kidding me if we see the octopus and bone marrow go go click go type that in yeah there's a hundred thousand pictures of it like of course i want you to take pictures you're like a midwest guy i feel like there's a little bit of that happening here come on like no i you There are some people that take themselves way too serious.

48:43Michael White:It feels that way. And I think with your style of dining with these precise pastas and with crudos and really fine dining and white tablecloth, et cetera, the optics are what they are. And they think you're just like a chef who takes himself seriously about pastas. But this is why I like to have these conversations because we can hear your voice and say you don't cast judgment. It's like you want your diners to be happy. Absolutely. And we want them to come back and feel a certain way when they come in there. And that's, you know, knowing their name, knowing their preferences. And that's where like AI and people ask you, how do you use AI in your restaurants?

49:17Like, it's amazing. Like for me, who is like a data junkie, like I want to know everything about everything. When you can tell you that you're selling more Totalini this week over that week and why? Because there was like an article about it, but you can literally see the metrics. It's amazing. You have multiple dashboards on your phone, your restaurants? Multiple. You want to see them? Yeah, I would love to see them, actually. I love looking at data dashboards. You know, but I'm constantly looking at, like, I know where people are at in a meal. So I can call a restaurant and say, hey, chef, make sure you send them out the new Dopeio because I want them to try it.

49:53But it's because I can see where they're at. Live time. Like, it's a big boy business. It's a big boy business. And I think we all benefit from it, especially from point of hospitality. if like you are mining this data. Exactly. I'm mining and I am taking, we've done that since, you know, whether, oh, this person likes it stirred, he likes ice, she doesn't like this. We've been doing that for years, but it's now, it's just so deep though. I love this. So deep. You know, when we're doing tasting menus, I can tell you what, if we want to do a tasting menu, we don't want to repeat. I know exactly what they had before.

50:28So then the chef knows that, oh, we shouldn't do the scallop because they had that in the last tasting menu. So you'll do like a pre-meeting and talk that through looking at their previous. Oh, totally. Yeah, that's smart. What's the dream New York City project? I feel like you have Santee and it's on its way. But knowing that you've had multiple restaurants in the city many times in your career, are you thinking that?

50:47Michael White:Oh, I want to do something below 14th Street for sure. Back to the East Village? Yeah. Well, wherever the case may be. But I mean, you know, downtown, I'd love to do something downtown. Yeah. You know, I think what we're missing in New York City right now, everything after COVID has become so much earlier. Yeah. You know? I remember as a young person going to, I said before, Blue Ribbon on Spring Street. Well, that's because Fiamma was right there. But you'd go to K-Town. You'd move all about the city at nighttime. I was going home late. Not like, you know, just for a great meal. I wanted to do a restaurant that people don't have to ever worry about.

51:19Is it open or is it not open? Yeah. And doing something, you know, that people could go to late at night. So it's open until 1, 2 o 'clock in the morning. And you could have something great. I was talking to Chef Karima.

51:32Michael White:about this exact topic recently. There's not a, so that's definitely what I want to, you know, a large, when I say large, you know, it's got to be 120, 140 seats, economics have to work, you know, all those things, but being open late at night would be just like, get going. I was talking to John George about this not too long ago too. Like we love going out at night, but there's, we want to stay open a little bit. And I think like that you'll have the diners there. It's not just like you guys. It's not just us. No, it's like you'll have like Gen Z who want to have a great meal after 12. But, like, people are, like, stuck on their devices and stuff like that.

52:04Michael White:We didn't have it. So we were going out, you know? As much as I love my device. No, you love your device, but you know when to put it, shut it down. So, Michael, you mentioned Hong Kong and really your interest in Asian food. You mentioned K-Town. Asian menu, Asian restaurant. I mean, would you go there? Yeah. You know what? I have a lot of team members that work for me. My chef, Jason Lin, who is Cantonese. my chef Sol Han who is from Korea Francis is Filipino there's a very deep bench love Cantonese cooking love Asian cooking in general and I imagine you're pretty dope yourself you know I have a walk at home and out in Hamptons and I do do my thing but I tell you what I would do it as a collective group in the sense that there are restaurants So maybe somebody needs to have two restaurants inside of a space or whatnot.

53:04And I would do an Italian restaurant slash Mediterranean. And if it was a small space, I would have my team members. We'd hire somebody. But, of course, I would love that. I mean, Danielle has done it. He has the Japanese restaurant. John George has done it. Yeah, John George is famous for it. I mean, it's part of his identity. No, but I'm saying 66 downtown, things like that. But it would not me being cooking. I would be part of Bibianco Hospitality. You bet. Absolutely. I have a very strong point of view when it comes to Asian food. So that would be fun. At the restaurant, we're doing Lunar New Year.

53:37So at Santi, we're doing some Lunar New Year specials. So it just helps the team also keep evolving. So we're doing duck a la range, but there might be a little bit of chiodo di garofano or clove and star anise and stuff like that, but very rooted in Italian cooking. But we're having fun. I mean, it's like, it's kind of the blending of the two cultures. Yeah, we're doing curligiones, which are the Sardinian kind of pasta, but we're doing a shrimp dumpling with it instead of potato filling. Oh, that's fun. You know, things like that. That's fun. That's a fun menu. Yeah, it's great. But it's great for the team.

54:08Yeah. It keeps everybody excited, and it's also for our customer. And, you know, we're bringing in Venice, and we're doing things, these old dishes that I used to do at San Domenico, and revisit them a little bit. So it's fun for the team members to do some cold-weather cooking. This episode is brought to you by Quince. I used to think great cookware was something you admired on Instagram more than actually owned. Quince is what changed that for me. Their cookware is thoughtfully made, good looking, and it genuinely makes cooking dinner so much better. Their cast iron Dutch oven, it feels like something you'd find in a professional kitchen, but it's actually affordable.

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56:53That's butcherbox.com slash taste. Don't forget to use our link so they know we sent you. Not sure how to tackle your taxes? Are you sweating the small print? You may be experiencing FOMO, the fear of messing up. The answer, using TurboTax on Intuit Credit Karma. They help you get your biggest refund and then we help you do more with it. with a personalized plan designed to help you hit your money goals. It's time to take your taxes to the max. Start filing today in the Credit Karma app. On This Is Taste, we discuss about the discerning taste. So to close this interview, here's a little rapid-fire, fast and furious taste check.

57:35Michael White:Are you ready? Here we go. These are one of the toughest things always. You know, I don't want to tick anybody off. I think you're up for it. You can definitely tick people off. You're very okay to do that. Okay. The best fruit? White peaches when they're really ripe. Yeah, from where? Amir Omane, I remember as a kid, right? They're just dripping down your arm. But I love it. When you pick fruit from the tree, it's warm, unreal. Yeah, the worst vegetable. Steamed Brussels sprouts. I love Brussels sprouts, but if you steam them, horrible. Yeah, there's no— They stink. They smell—I mean, especially if you roast, but it becomes a steam.

58:08Somehow you've messed it up. Yeah, I think we've all been there with Brussels sprouts. Gaseous.

58:13Michael White:What is your typical breakfast? Wow. Bread from Santee with mortadella on it. That's probably, you know, no mayo. Just literally toasted bread with mortadella. And the mortadella gets warmed by the toast. That's one of the things I love. I love chicken salad. Yeah. But it's not sweet. It's not, you know, it's coffee. Yeah. But then family meal. We're very, very fortunate as chefs. We can go in. Family meal is at 11 o 'clock. So I'm up early, 6, 5.36. and then, you know, doing emails and all that kind of stuff. Hitting the gym? You know what? I got to get back in the gym. I got a little S1L5, you know, grabbing, clamping, IT band issue.

58:55Michael White:Yeah, yeah. Get into a stretch class, get some core. Now you sound like my daughter, Francesca, right now. Dad, dad. How old is she? She is 22, just graduated from Bates, doing amazing. Yeah, a restaurant future for her. You know, I would love that, you know. She's working at Old Melvony now. She's in big law and enjoying that right now, but I would love for her to be in the business with me. I mean, general counsel for the group. Listen, you need to have legal. With all the regulatory and stuff that we're dealing with on a daily basis, it's crazy. Yeah, yeah. Oh, man. Yeah, but I mean, yeah, keep that core work going.

59:30Michael White:Definitely, definitely. The best dessert? You know, like a warm crostata out of the oven, you know, a buttery crostata. I don't care whether it's blueberry or whatever, you know, that kind of thing. Warm is key. Warm. I love this question for you. A restaurant you wish you could bring back from the dead. You know what? I'm going to give it to you. Yeah. Second Avenue, Chef Ho's. They had a fire years ago. Amazing roast duck on Second Avenue, Chef Ho's. Chef Ho's was the name of the place. Yeah. Maybe, I wonder if your viewers are going to, you know, listen. Yeah. Chef Ho's. I'm going right to see if like Road Food or William Grimes or somebody wrote about it.

1:00:15Oh, yeah. You got to check it out. Ruth did probably. Ruth probably covered it. I love that, right? Amazing hot and sour soup. Roast goose.

1:00:22Michael White:Roast duck. Pardon me, not goose. I love that. Your favorite city outside America to visit for food? Hong Kong. Unequivocally. Yeah. It's like a pinball machine. You can have amazing French food. You know, I had a restaurant there for eight years. When you're cooking Italian food there, We could talk about Cantonese and bamboo noodles and like, oh, yeah, it's unreal. Off the charts. But at the same time, you can have amazing French food because you're getting pijon from, it's flown in. You know, you're getting amazing cheeses, all the meats, anything you want. When I'm cooking orecchietti with salsicha and broccoli rabe, the broccoli rabe is coming from Puglia.

1:01:00That's insane. So it's like in certain extents, you're cooking una cucina più italiano in Hong Kong with Italian ingredients. It's the same thing as like cooking Italian food in Dubai. Yeah, yeah. Dubai, there's two Emirates 380s that come there every day. So there's mozzarella in cinquante, 200, all different sizes. Sorry, I'm starting to speak Italian. Sorry. I love it. Is it like exorbitantly expensive in Hong Kong to dine out? You know, it's not crazy. It is. It is and it isn't. Obviously, you're going to Michelin restaurants, but it's still not the same cost structure as going to a Michelin restaurant in America or France or anywhere else.

1:01:43Michael White:Definitely makes sense. Yep. I'm thinking about those A380s and all those balls of mozzarella underneath the cargo. But I'm not, you know, you're going, you're seeing wild turbo. You're seeing crostace from Italy because in Milan is where the best fish market is, right? It all comes together there. and so where there's market yeah it's coming it's where it's at very exciting last one your favorite sandwich Wow. I said mortadella. I'd have to say going to Cats is probably a lot. But getting tattoo work, right? Back in the day, I would go down to Invisible, Gino Gonzalez, Chris Garver getting tattooed.

1:02:24I'd go and get a corned beef or pastrami, right? I'd eat half of it on the way home, a little base after getting tattooed. But in the morning, I'd do eggs with the rest of it, no bread off, obviously. But that's my favorite sandwich, probably. That's going to the Polo Bar and having it, the little sandwiches that they do. Oh, that's nice, too. But I love Kat's. You should go if you haven't been.

1:02:51Michael White:New York, quintessential experience, great food. And the food is always so good. They have quality control on luck. Michael White. What a great conversation. Thank you so much for joining This Is Taste. Thank you. I had a great time talking with you.

1:03:07Eric Bedrugian, welcome to This Is Taste. Really good to meet you. Good to meet you, Matt. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Long time coming. I don't live in LA, obviously, but I've been to Budunoki a lot. And I think I was there with a critic one time. I've been there with my friends. I was there the other night, solo. It's one of my favorite restaurants in LA and you're welcome. And I say that because it's, to me, my perception is that it's, it's beloved by, by neighborhood people, but it's not like the most popular, like the most known restaurant in LA. No, I mean, we opened to be a neighborhood restaurant for the neighborhood by the neighborhood.

1:03:45So the neighborhood is what keeps the lights on, honestly. I mean, that's the way to do it in many ways. And I really wanted to have you on because we don't talk to operators that often. We honestly are talking to chefs and sometimes it's chef partners and sometimes it's chefs. But I wanted this to really be a conversation about building this restaurant and really how you think about a restaurant with your chef and partner and really how you make it up. This modern izakaya idea is incredible. I love it. I want to hear about your own background. You worked at Major Domo as a GM. You also worked at Hillstone Group.

1:04:32And we had Brooks Reitz on, a great restaurateur and writer from Charleston. And he was able to find the Hillstone manual. He actually got his hands on it. Wow. And I don't know if you're aware, but this is like a coveted thing. Yeah, yeah, it is. So tell me a little bit about working at Hillstone, and you worked there for over four years, like what the training was like, what you took away from it to kind of, and what you think about Budenoki, because I do agree that this restaurant has like a really strong point of view of service. Sure. Working at Hillstone was a super positive experience for me.

1:05:09I started as a manager in training and all their managers in training, they start out at a specific kind of flagship location that's been around, that's been established. And you go through this very immersive, comprehensive training experience where even as a front of house manager, you're like going through like four or five months of kitchen training. You're working the dish pit. You're in the baking station for a few weeks. you're a prep cook for like a month and then you're working every position on the line and until you achieve this like level of not mastery per se but kind of adequate comprehension of all these all these different positions and then you transition to front of house after that so So I think the biggest thing for me as a front of house manager was just learning a lot of the back of house stuff first and, you know, being able to know how to receive, you know, in the back, like dealing with vendors, vendor relationships, learning how to cross utilize ingredients that go into recipes, learning how to cost things, measure yield on certain products.

1:06:28and how that relates to your costing, how to set up a line efficiently and what goes into menu construction. So a lot of that was really useful. And I didn't really tap into it until I opened my own restaurant, of course. But, yeah, I mean, that and just being able to work in, like, eight different states was super cool. So tell me about that. I guess backing up, actually, first. are they giving you tests along the way? Oh, yeah. I imagine that this is like an academic rigor. There's a rigor here that you're, like what are those tests like? I mean, they're not really like written tests. Like you have a reading, you're not like taking exams or anything.

1:07:15It's just, you know, you have to have a level of mastery at every single station in the restaurant, every single position in order to graduate, to become a manager. Because you can't really manage people effectively if you don't know how to do their job. You can't get into their heads. Right. And you can't really have empathy. So yeah, there weren't really any tests, but it was more just like, okay, you're ready to move on to the next thing. Wow. Yeah. It's like Mr. Miyagi. Yeah. Like Sensei, we're moving on. And so you mentioned you worked in eight states. What is that like? I mean, that's a lot of travel, uprooting yourself, are you just like a floating GM?

1:07:58How does that work? When you, when you sign up for the job, you kind of have to agree to that. Like you have to be okay with relocation. And sometimes it's, you know, on a moment's notice and sometimes you get a few weeks of notice, but yeah, it was, it was super cool. I was in my early twenties and I got to travel around on, you know, on the company dollar and yeah uh work in new markets and work with all different kinds of people i got to live in like every major u.s yeah where were you like tell me give us a little bit like where were you at i mean i was in new york for a bit uh like over here washington dc denver houston dallas like you know um i'm from canada so if you if you ever if you ever asked me if i'd be living in like Texas, you know, 23, like in high school, I would have been like, that's crazy.

1:08:50No, I want to go back to California where I was born, but it was super cool. Look back super fondly on it. And I wouldn't have changed that experience for anything. That's cool. So you do the program and then it's Major Domo. And then I take a little break from restaurants, go back home to be with my family in Vancouver. My dad was kind of looking to like retire and close down his business. So I helped him out with that for a year. But then I knew I wanted to move back to Los Angeles and kind of reconnect with Josh and open our own restaurant. Because that was always in the back of our heads ever since we graduated.

1:09:34So you and Josh had gone to USC and met there and famously had some pop-ups there, right? So you were kind of collaborating, which, you know, that seems to be, there's like a few restaurants in LA started out of USC pop-ups. Take us back to that and collaborating with Josh and these pop-ups. It was a dumb thing that just kind of happened, but it started from a career fair. We were at USC. There was a career fair every semester and Hillstone was one of the recruiters, you know, the recruiters from Hillstone were at this career fair. And I remember applying because I knew I was interested and they could tell I was passionate about it, but they didn't see any legit restaurant experience on my resume at the time.

1:10:23Was it accurate? It was pretty accurate. Yeah. You know, I studied finance. Most of my internships were in that field. But I knew I didn't want to do that. Like I wanted to work in food and beverage professionally. And I couldn't convince them. So they were like, why don't you, you know, it's your senior year. Your senior year is coming up, fall semester. Why don't you try and get a job at a restaurant and do that for, you know, four, five, six months and then come reapply in the spring and we'll see where you're at. We'll see if you still want to work in restaurants. Sure, fair. I mean, fair question.

1:10:59And instead of doing that, I went home and I was like, Josh, let's just start a restaurant out of our apartment. And I don't know, we were naive college students. It was easy to just say yes to these things and do it. Well, you're just like, we can figure this out, this restaurant thing. Like we, even though we don't have a deep restaurant bench in our resume, we could do it. Yeah. And I mean, there was some confidence that was already there. like my family owned restaurants growing up and I always had the bug you know but no I didn't know how to operate a restaurant it was totally on the fly but you had it in the family so you was in your blood a little bit what are these like?

1:11:39what are the pop ups? we would go to any farmer's market Santa Monica on Wednesdays, Hollywood on Sundays we would kind of look at where all the chefs were going with their little milk crates and stuff and we would follow what was in season kind of and just like buy seasonal ingredients and build a three-course menu around you know I remember one menu we had it was like citrus season so it was a citrus menu and then you know closer to the summer it was like stone fruit very obvious things right but we would just make a three-course menu and invite our friends and it snowballed into this like thing where we were serving 80 people a night out of like a house yeah like it was like a townhouse yeah yeah did you did you go back to hillstone with that with that experience is that how that worked yeah i told i told them exactly what i did and they were they probably thought i was crazy but at least at that point they um were convinced i was serious enough to offer me like a stage so i was able to like go in and work at a restaurant for a day and they could they could see how i moved and yeah the sense of urgency i had yeah you knew you knew what you're doing it's okay so we talked about hillstone but then you're back in la after that pause uh and how do you end up at major domo uh i kind of arrived here without any direction or any job and i i looked at restaurant openings that were that were you know recent and hot and companies that um i could see myself working for that could maybe offer a little bit more like uh depth creatively that than hillstone did yeah um and momofuku was a company you know i had experience standing at the restaurants in new york for a while while i lived there and yeah um yeah it just seemed it seemed like a really good opportunity to to open this kind of behemoth of a restaurant you were in the opening crew at major domo i was right after right after the crew but what's that like i mean it it was it was crazy because i at hillstone you know there wasn't such a celebrity around the restaurant and the people they're anti-celebrity yeah they're faceless totally yeah um and at momofuku at major domo specifically at the time like it was the total opposite um there was hype there was you know all kinds of famous people coming in.

1:14:12But also they're like doing pretty cool things like pushing the envelope on cuisine and food and beverage and wine and cocktails. I remember the original, I went the first few months of Major Domo and like, you know, doing the Samgitang, like that big, you know, chicken table side. And I feel Chang at that time was really thinking deeply about his Korean heritage and expanding it. and like there's so many cool dishes still today great restaurant today by the way still great so great still great and like what's it like kind of introducing la to this this like david chink korean restaurant which kind of at the time was his first proper korean restaurant i think people people were i mean at first i thought there would be some pushback you know because um there there was a lot of like fusion elements to what they were doing and that word is kind of off limits at the time like I think it's more in vogue now for sure um but I I just think it was more about the dining experience like all the large format stuff yeah the table side stuff the the grandeur of it all yeah um I think that's what drew people there it was just such a like celebratory dining room um and i think i drew drew from that with you know with respect to budonoki like dining out should be an experience it is escapism right um i think major domo really nailed that when that when they opened so yeah so where does the idea for budonoki come come in because you know this restaurant uh it feels like it's it's considered i mean i went i think i went the first year and then you've been even here for several years now and it's a cool restaurant you know my take is that like you're doing like izakaya is at its root but you're you're really expanding it into different you know parts of asia yeah and i've always enjoyed it because like service is great you can like choose your own adventure on the menu i love precious sushi and knowing you're now from vancouver this makes perfect sense i didn't know that and i i just like the the bar program's cool and like that that miso sweet potato such a great dish thank you um the idea you know when we were putting pen to paper and really um conceptualizing it i think where we arrived first was wasn't the menu at all um it was before we even met dan so we the menu hadn't even been considered set up who dan is yeah right uh dan's our chef dan's our executive chef um he is the heart and soul of budo no yeah he's a partner too he is yeah um and he uh he colored in you know all the the parts of the restaurant that aren't you know the physical um he's really put he's really just the food is really all dan um there is a little element of of vancouver and and my upbringing in there too but that happened from a trip that we took before we opened the restaurant me dan and josh we all went to vancouver for like a week and a half and i showed him around all the izakaya as i grew up going to uh and i think that was really important for to kind of crystallize everything but dan was the one who colored it all in um i think for the concept itself budonoki we really just thought about and again this goes back to what i was saying before the the guest experience like what what does it feel like from the moment you walk in uh to the moment you sit down what are the guest touch points what are uh the physical elements like the cute mugs the lanterns um the lighting the mute the music the audio visual of it all um we we really carefully considered that more than anything because i think like ideas now uh are so democratized like with AI and all the chatbots and stuff, there's nothing that's like really original anymore.

1:18:23And so it's, you can come up with any recipe anytime. You can rip off someone's recipe that's happening like 4 ,000 miles away. It's really just about experience, talent and execution. Like guest experience, talent and execution. Like that's your competitive advantage. That's what you're selling. And I think like why Budonoki works is because it's uniquely singular in that way. Like it's a unique experience that there's a lot of dichotomy in there of like serious and unserious things going on. It's so smart you said that because I think the culinary side is super serious. And like the technical, the talent and the execution technical ability of Dan and really like it's surprising because it's the kind of restaurant that I think we don't have in New York.

1:19:19We don't have this restaurant because you have your traditional izakayas or yakitori or robatos. Or you have full-stop fusion restaurants. And there's just not a middle that actually has real technical ability, but it doesn't feel too serious or too run by Japanese people, frankly, which has its own point of view. I think that this is like a singular spot, which I really like the restaurant, by the way. Thank you. Yeah. So let me ask you about this press sushi. Because I feel like that's like one of the, like, why isn't it anywhere else outside of like Vancouver? I mean, you grew up with this stuff.

1:20:02Yeah. I mean, it's other places. Of course, it's Japan. I mean, but like it has a huge following in Vancouver. For sure.

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1:20:59Oshisushi in Vancouver was popularized by this one company and restaurateur that started opening these restaurants and putting it on the menu. That's where I was introduced to it. Of course, it's existed in Japan before there was even refrigeration as a method of preservation. Yeah, exactly. But it was something I grew up with, and it was familiar, and it was satisfying. And all the izakayas had it. And when I took Dan and Josh to Vancouver, I'm really made it a point to be like, hey, we should do this, because no one in LA is doing it. And I think it's like a cool canvas to just do sushi a little bit differently.

1:21:44And we're by no means a sushi restaurant. I think a lot of like sushi purists get upset when they come to Budonoki and they're like, well, people are calling this a sushi restaurant and they're doing this flame-seared pressed sushi. And it's like, no, this isn't a sushi restaurant. And I think a lot of people don't take us seriously for the pressed sushi, but that's not the point. It's just, it's a canvas, it's a means to creating this like savory, delicious, like bite that pairs well with drinking because that's what an izakaya is, right? So yeah, I mean, I wasn't expecting it to be a big or small part of the menu.

1:22:26I didn't have a ton of foresight to how it would turn out or how it would be received. but it is one of the most popular things that's ordered on our menu. And I think it's the novelty of it. Like you said, like no one's. Yeah. It's delicious. I think there's like, it's high quality. It's delicious. Yeah. And it pairs well with some of the other dishes. And I want to like zoom out a bit and ask about the way you think about the dining room and the flow. And do you feel like, what do people get wrong when they're thinking about setting up their restaurant in terms of like the dining room? That's a good question.

1:23:03You know, we at Budonoke, we don't have support staff. We just have servers very much like Hillstone. And I think spatially, like you have to set up your dining room so that it is seamless and efficient for your front of house to make their moves and get through their steps of service. I think we put a lot of thought into that. um i also think it comes with some menu construction like you have to make the dishes one you have to make them fun to eat i think a lot of chefs get that wrong agree um the food needs to be thoughtful but it also needs to be fun to eat um and you also you know at budonokia if you've dined there you you know everything is with chopsticks or your hands we don't have any silverware you know unless my mom's dining and she asks for a fork but we don't you know we strip away all the fluff and only only give the guests what they need um so i think that speeds things up and makes things a little bit more efficient and you know when you shave seconds here and there um it really helps with service and focusing your attentiveness on the guests and not all the things you need to get for your guests.

1:24:18Yeah. Plus there's like always loud hip hop playing. Yeah. I mean, yeah. And electronic. I mean, it's a pure energy that you got to be ready for it. And I love it. Yeah. I got to ask you, just looking at the numbers, do you think Gen Z is drinking less? Anecdotally, yes. I still think most of our clientele is in the millennial category. Sure, definitely. Yeah. And I think because we have a beer and wine license and we're approaching the cocktail menu with that and we have emphasis on sake and beer, I don't think we've necessarily been feeling that from a numbers standpoint. I think beverage is an adequate part of our product mix.

1:25:06um i think sake for sure you know obviously it's becoming more in vogue but people are more interested in being educated about it as as like a compliment to food not just this thing that you you slam down or you know drop in a beer um so so i think for that reason like um we haven't really seen uh that affect us that much to be honest yeah and i think that's why we haven't gotten a full liquor license too like there's yeah there's no need so food sales is really like a big part of what you're doing yeah yeah for sure i mean it's the majority that's really great i mean that that protects you from a lot of these changes happening and i think anecdotally as well i see jenzy drinking less but but like i i gotta talk to operators about it right that's like the biggest thing is like you're you know yeah yeah um yeah yeah um What was the single hardest month running Budonoke?

1:26:06The first couple, for sure. We obviously opened with like a little bit of PR and some kind of like pedigree, you know, behind our resumes. Like we're established industry veterans. Yeah. I mean, Helen's Wine Bar and Alinea for Josh. Yeah. And like Dan's worked at some amazing places. Yeah, that's great. He's had, you know, 14 years of experience before we opened Budonoke. but like you know there's a lot of noise in la and it's hard it's hard to to make noise and hard to make a big splash i think the first two months it was like such a slow burn you know there were mondays tuesdays where we were doing like 20 covers and it was like geez like is this is this gonna work out like what you know uh we were running super lean yeah cutting where we could so we're not just bleeding money.

1:26:59And we didn't have, we didn't open the restaurant with any investors. I think that's something that we forget about. It's like this was shoestring and bubble gum, like scotch tape, elbow grease. And like we didn't have a big runway to be bleeding for a long time. So that was scary for sure. And then, you know, the right people came in and started telling their friends and it kind of snowballed after that. I felt, I mean, it's such a unique space too. like you like it's like in a in a building on virgil it's like kind of it's like an awkward space it's awkward yeah it's weird it's like truly awkward space which clearly for izakaya you don't need this the standard space yeah the big corner with all the light it's izakaya you know in tokyo and in new york they're underground usually which we tried to recreate that for sure i mean you walk in you notice like all the everything's tinted there's no natural light it's just just how we want it yeah i mean it makes a lot of sense but it didn't used to look like it was like a it was a coffee shop before with concrete walls and you know all glass windows and it took some imagination to to recreate it but um i'm really happy with how it how it looks now you're a one restaurant operator you and your partners and it's been a while right how many years have you been open uh two and a half two and a half i mean it's you're getting up there do you do you think about expansion what's what's do you expand budonoki the brand i mean i i see this again like i i'm just saying like there's nothing like it in new york yeah um i think where we're at is we want to open a second restaurant that's top of mind right now and um i think if we were to open a second restaurant it if budonoki was like the debut album i think the sophomore effort would be it would have the same vibes in the same field but maybe a different track list if that makes sense so izakaya um but but it wouldn't be a carbon copy of budonoki it wouldn't be called budonoki um i think that's where we're at you know whether there's interstate expansion and stuff that remains to be seen.

1:29:16Are you thinking expanding out of the east side? Yes. Yeah, I think we want to capture sort of a different radius, different audience, and just be far enough from Budonoki too where you're not like cannibalizing what you're doing there. I think Budonoki is awesome, and I don't want to take away from it at all. I love it. I want to see this iteration. I'm very curious about how you do that, because I know just the thought that goes into Budonoke, there's going to be some cool things coming with the second location when and if it opens. On this list, we ask guests about the discerning taste. So to close this interview, here's a little rapid fire.

1:29:50Fast and Furious taste check. Are you ready? I'm ready. The best fruit? Ripe mango. The worst vegetable? Zucchini. Oh, tell me why. I think when I think of zucchini, you know, I think of like cafeteria school lunch, like steamed sliced zucchini that's unseasoned. and that's very off-putting, but I know there's preparations that are serviceable. They weren't, up in Canada, they weren't serving you the best prep at school. No, no. What is your typical breakfast? Usually skip it, but if I'm having breakfast, we're in LA, breakfast burritos are the best. Do you have a spot in mind? I love Cafe Los Fios up on Hillhurst.

1:30:37I like theirs. There's Sobune on the west side. They do a nice one, but I don't get out there that much often. The best dessert? Soft serve. Bro, I mean, they just dropped soft serve at my table as a gift. I was anonymous. I just showed up. Wait, were you there this week? Yeah. I missed you. Dude, I did anonymous. I just showed up. Really? So they just dropped a soft serve? Yeah, they're cool. you have great service that's why i did it i mean i i i like legitimately like this restaurant and i just like wanted to go oh awesome yeah just like i rolled in solo i had like two or three dishes dropped some soft serve as a gift and i was like you guys are still you still got it that's great no it was wonderful um tell us about your soft serve though it's really good uh yeah i mean it's it's good product and it's a good machine you know we we have a nice carpe brujani soft serve machine yeah uh we use strauss family farms there you go man you know good ingredients simple it's all you need and i think when you get strauss officer out in la you just have to order it so yeah it's so good it's great um restaurant you wish you could bring back from the dead horses oh yeah horses it really is dead now i i i don't i don't know much um i know there There's some really unfortunate stuff that has happened behind the scenes, but it was one of my favorite dining rooms in LA.

1:32:08I think it sucks. And I love the people working there. I think it sucks. The dining room could be yours, my friend. I'm sure. I'm sure there are already plans. Yeah, fair enough. When you're craving fast food, where are you going? Taco Bell. Word. It's Taco Bell. I love it. What's your order? Cantina chicken quesadilla, cheesy gordita crunch.

1:32:39What are they? Nacho fries? Nacho fries are pretty good. They work for me. They work for me. Yeah. I don't need a Baja Blast. I'll get like a Diet Coke. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I'll dabble with the Baja, maybe one out of four visits. Love that choice. Your favorite city outside of America to visit for food? Wow. I only get to pick one. osaka oh very cool yeah i went there i went there pretty recently i hadn't been out there before i'd been to japan but i i recently got to osaka and it was can't wait to go back yeah do you guys do research trips to japan once in a while we haven't done one together um we have all gone separately several times uh i think before the new restaurant uh comes to life we we have to make a trip happen together.

1:33:28Yeah, that would be cool. Last one, your favorite sandwich. I go through phases of sandwiches. Right now, my favorite sandwich is the fried mortadella at the Beverly Hills Cheese Store. Oh, I love that choice. Yeah. I haven't made it out there. I've always wanted to go. You have to get the sandwich. Yeah. It's nuts. It sounds good. So what's the bun choice? It's Panda Cristal. Yeah. Nice light and airy. They get mortadella, I think, like kind of crispy on the plancha. And then several different kinds of cheeses, pickled peppers, and then like a Dijonese or something like that. It sounds super heavy, but it eats so incredibly light.

1:34:12And it's so good. That sounds good. I had the mortadella sandwich that was served down in Chinatown. It's a pizza shop. And they have a similar energy there. Yeah. I love that. LA's got some great... Our sandwich game's good. Oh, yeah. It's been good. It's like one of the best. But I think the Mordedella game here is really strong too. Eric, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much for joining us. This is Taste. Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.

1:34:39This is Taste is hosted and produced by Eliza Barbanal and me, Matt Rodbar. 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. Episode portraits by Louise Zergon Pomeroy. Logo design by Ellie Skirzat and Ian Dingham. 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. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile, with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much.

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