777: At the Top of Mount Dunsmoor Stands LA's Most-Interesting Chef with Brian Dunsmoor

29:16It was like Jelena, Tasting Kitchen and us. That's right. And that's when you started. You got on like the media's radar at that point. Yeah, that definitely skyrocketed. And we started that and we both put$3 ,000 into that. So cool. And with the intention of it did exactly what it was supposed to do. That led to Heart and the Hunter, which was kind of our claim to fame. And then we both decided to go our own ways and do our own thing. And that's when I went to Hatch It All. Okay, I see. So the pop-up led to a restaurant, which led to Hatch It All. Yeah, and Heart in the Hunter was kind of a pop-up in itself.

29:52Like we were working out of a coffee shop with no gas. Okay. So you had doing like$3 million a year or something like that. It was crazy. We did everything ourselves. But we were also, we were like wild back then. I mean, that's a lesson, I think, to listeners about using small, like, capital and small equipment. And it's possible. You just got to do it. That's it. Whenever it was like, how, how, how? Just do it. Just like, you got to send it. Yeah. And I think, I never thought about this before, tell right now. but like heart and the hunter like cooking off of induction burners and like plug-in things and we had like a gas like a home gas grill on the fire escape and like that's like how we ran that restaurant maybe that's why i went so hard in the other direction on like the apparatus that we used to cook you know because that didn't feel necessarily soulful cooking with fire by hand definitely has a different sentimental value i don't know if that's the right term but you're doing it the hard way, just like talking about these setups.

30:55So like, it makes sense that you would do live fire, which is, can be very difficult or is very difficult. Yeah. Once you, once you get used to it, it's the same, you know, it's like we had a lot of, there was a lot of butting heads in the beginning of opening Dunsport about efficiency and this and that. And it's just like, I don't think efficiency is what makes a great restaurant. Yeah. I think you need to challenge yourself and I think struggle. A lot of things come out of a struggle, you know, making things more difficult. So back to Dunsmore, this is one of LA's most popular restaurants right now.

31:28It's like one of the hardest reservations. I mean, how do you keep the momentum? You opened in 2022. So it's kind of an anomaly to like be a restaurant that's four years old that is currently one of the hardest reservations. How do you keep people interested? well i think it does more uh we had like a a pretty rare situation uh now that i want to go down this rabbit hole but we got no press or let's say no good press yeah like the first couple years i read about the opening and you had protesters about gentrification though i challenged that because you're offering jobs to community and you clearly yeah it's book and who you are but when it comes to like how successful the restaurant is now i think the rather than being like a flash in the pan like a lot of restaurants are with press it's like you get all this press at the beginning and then like that's kind of it and then the restaurants fizzle out because sadly enough restaurants like dunsport do depend on some press to help us you know like fill seats and stuff like that because like we need a full room to be able to succeed uh but the gradual build of that success.

32:39And we also got better. When we were really struggling and figuring things out, which every restaurant does, any chef that tells you that the first year is easy is lying to you because it's just a complete shit show. All the decisions you make before you open, most of them are wrong, though you do have to make those decisions. And you figure out the first year, you're just tweaking things. I feel like we were kind of out of the spotlight during those years, And we had really caught our stride by the time people really started paying attention. And then on top of that, you know, I think it's the conversation that we try to evoke with the food and the narrative of American cuisine and the history of America, which can be a pretty, let's say, complicated topic on several different levels.

33:26I'm not like a big, like, I don't like sit around watching TED Talks or anything like that. But there was one presentation that really struck me. And it was about, they directed it towards Apple. Like, why do people use Apple computers? Like, I can barely, I barely even use a computer and I use an Apple computer because I fancy myself creative. And they somehow have like, you know, sold themselves to creative people. And the guy talks about it's the why that people care about, less so the how or the what. And I think if you work from the why, like the message that we're trying to deliver, like the what is the food.

34:05The why is the conversation about American food and why do Americans not know how food got the way it is today in our country. Yeah, and having that why continually refreshed in the media, word of mouth. And really, it does start with delicious food and having iconic dishes. Getting your steaks on Netflix doesn't hurt either. It was mentioned on a current previous Netflix show, I believe you said. Oh, it was Aziz Ansari's movie, Good Fortune with Keanu Reeves. Yeah, that was that. That was actually kind of cool. it definitely brought in a lot of people for the steak. Yeah, but my point to bring back is like it is the why and you articulate it really well.

34:51Like I think people need to be challenged a little bit more with their dining choices and they want it to be a little bit more. Is it a show? Is it history? But like the why are you going to this restaurant? The why behind it. So like pushing the restaurant, like I think these heritage dinners that we're working on, they're crazy. It's a lot of work. like I think I think those go a really long ways you know it's the press that bring people in it's the food that keeps them coming yeah you know and when I say press it's I mean people acknowledging the conversation that we're trying to have you had Bad Bunny do a party in the back room too doesn't hurt I can't I can't confirm that okay okay yeah I've only heard it on social media we'll say someone told me about that on social media but it's LA and like you need to have buzz and like you've got A-listers in the dining room and that's very cool it's a very nice dining room It's a very warm dining room.

35:41And I think you want that sometimes with your dining experiences. Oh, for sure. Well, you know, if that were to have happened, that would be a huge, a huge honor, you know, especially with everything going on right now. But, you know, I think game respects game. I'm down with anybody that's trying to fight the good fight. I love it. Well, let's talk about your cycling career. I think it's very cool that you - I like that you say career. Well, you know, you compete. You have some cycling. You're a very good cyclist. You dedicate a lot of time to it. But I wanted to ask you about doing Everest and having a world record.

36:17You have a world record for Everest. Tell us about that. Really fascinating. All right. So first of all, Everesting is like a weird, freakish cycling challenge. It's like the hardest climbing challenge that they do. So you basically have to go up and down one hill. It has to be one hill because it's like a mental thing too. until you hit the elevation gain of Mount Everest, which is 29 ,029 feet. And tons of people have done it. I mean, if I wasn't in my weird little niche of fixed brakeless cycling, I wouldn't even come close. But nobody else is dumb enough to do that. So I ride for a team called Concept Team for Indo Customs, a guy named Bobby Indo.

37:03I ride for him and him alone. He's the best. He puts up with so much shit to get us our stuff and get us out there racing and stuff like that. Great human. But the first year I rode for Concept was 2020. And obviously, very shortly after I found out, COVID was happening. And I was still at Hatchet Hall at the time. And to be honest, as bad as it was, I was pretty burned out when COVID hit from working so much for so long. And cycling at that point almost took the front seat for me because the restaurant was kind of humming and everybody was doing a good job and I was burnt out. And I was, you know, I need something to fixate and move forward in at all times of my life or I'll go crazy.

37:46And there was no racing or anything like that going on. So I was like, OK, I got to, you know, I need to figure out something to do for the team during this mess. And also, you know, all the undocumented workers in Los Angeles were like in the shit. There wasn't money coming in. No, like all the Americans are sitting on their ass like watching Netflix making$1 ,200 or$1 ,300 a week for doing nothing, which a lot of people were making more money than they made, you know, from benefits. And these guys are coming into work with tears in their eyes like, hey, my kids and this. And I was just like, yo.

38:27I spend more time with Spanish-speaking people than I do English-speaking people. And that just really killed me. Not to mention just my personal relationships, like you talked about earlier. And I was like, I need to figure out a way to get some money in these guys' pockets for them and their families. so I went on this like weird little fixed gear monster hunt thing it was actually kind of cool you know I enjoyed it like I was a pig and shit during COVID I would like rode my bike like 100 miles a day oh wow with no out with no work stress other than the stress that came along with COVID so I think I did I did a virtual ever staying in my bedroom okay so you started with like the virtual yeah while drinking I was just like drinking beer and like watching stepbrothers and like eating candy bars and stuff like zooming out a bit when you talk about the the time required to do an everest when you say you're doing in your room how long did that take the room was didn't take as long because i was on a machine on a geared bike yeah and you can coast yeah very you can come downhill very fast on a bike with a freewheel fixed gear you never stop pedaling so you you'd like really never hit above 30 miles per hour like probably 25 at the gear that i was riding um but yeah so that one took me like not that long like maybe 13 hours hours 13 hours yeah 13 hours but dude i was like crazy shape then yeah that was actually not that hard yeah no no but but still like just for the the listeners it's a 13 hour uh challenge yeah but then the the real one like i don't even count that one yeah it does count that was the training yeah it really was uh The fixed gear one, that one took 16 hours moving time, but 19 hours elapsed time.

40:16I had some mechanicals that I had to deal with. Obviously, I had to eat. But that one was really challenging. And I hit that one way harder, too. Like, I went out much faster because I was going for, you know, I was trying to take the record. And I had some really fast roadies coming out, like, kind of, like, Sherpa-ing me. Yeah. And, you know, I'm not one to let anybody get ahead of me. So it's like at 10 ,000 feet, like a third of the way through, which I used to do on a pretty regular basis. I was like, I don't know if I'm going to be able to finish this because I went out so hard. You just felt like race based.

40:46And one of my teammates came out, Alvin. He came out and he was like, dude, he's like, what you've done so far. He's like, you do that like twice a week. He's like, get bent. Yeah, he's like, you got this. He's like, OK, bye. And left. And I just got back on the bike and toned it down a little bit. And I finished at like 3.30 in the morning or something like that. But you broke the record. Yeah. There was fixed gear. So you're the world record holder. Where was the hill? I did Temescal Canyon like 160 something times. But the reason I did Temescal is because, like I said, you have no brakes. You can never stop pedaling.

41:26The only way you can slow yourself down is by you slow the bike down with your actual legs. and when I'm really strong or not strong I can tell by how how well I can resist going down like if I can slow myself down without skidding and after like the first 22 ,000 feet like eight more to go basically like I had I couldn't slow myself down anymore so I but but I was really smart about the hill that I chose because if it was steeper than that if it was steeper than that I could have done it significantly faster because like it's gain it's not mileage right because like an everesting can be like i think people have done it in like 115 miles which is about a short i did it in 195 miles wow so 29 29 000 29 feet and i think it was 194 miles all in yeah finished at 330 in the morning my buddy my buddy hung the whole time with me shot the whole thing for for a magazine which was cool that's so great and and then you raised money yeah throughout all the little things i did i was able to raise ten thousand dollars for those guys yeah hand them grips of cash that's really really cool buddy i mean i i think it's a really it's a personal challenge but the fact that you built in this this this like fundraising moment is commendable yeah it was a time and place dude yeah time and place i would like to talk a little bit about cookbooks because i think like you're you're you're thinking about it writing one of your own i feel like you not thinking about it uh like we got kind of got going on it a little bit last year the restaurant just got so busy uh that i had to tell the person that i'm writing the book with i was like yo like we got we got to figure this out at the restaurant we're gonna have to put this on hold let's like revisit this after the new year uh and in a few days actually we're gonna get going on it again which i'm really on the bike yeah i'm really really really excited about it's always been something that i've wanted to do uh yeah and like i said it's so you just got to do it yeah you just got to force yourself to do it so now that i'm finished with you know just got finished with some like w set like sommelier like wine training stuff that i've been working on okay back up back up back up back up back up so you you clearly are a project guy you you're a polygot you really enjoy learning and it's it's many of my friends who are chefs are similar so it's a characteristic that really shines through um my therapist would call it being hypomanic she said she said i have clinical fomo but really it's it's just like fear of wasting time like money i don't care about wasting i waste lots of money but time you can't get back money you can get back yeah so it's like it's the whole i think einstein said it it's like life is like a bicycle in order to keep your balance you have to keep moving forward that's like me like on crack yeah clinical fomo seems like a interesting term from a professional but I guess she's cool yeah she's cool she's it's working out for you um but you need projects and it's healthy these are these are healthy projects so what uh what's this wine education you're getting certified you start you said you started in December yeah I did one in December which was like really easy everybody's like don't even bother but I was like I'm just gonna do it yeah to hold myself accountable that was like pretty easy but I'm like coming from nothing like yeah I enjoyed really but you enjoyed it well I don't know that much and I know I realize how little I know even more now um but we we're definitely a wine destination in los angeles as much as the food yeah um and we have a lot of really tight relationships with winemakers and distributors and uh and lots of collectors which i wasn't really that into that world yeah like the really expensive fancy champagnes and burgundies and stuff like that but apparently i am because that shit's delicious vintage champagne oh dude that's what turned me brandon brandon go and angela stillion brought in like six crazy bottles of champagne and i've had champagne and i was like yeah sure it's great i don't understand what the fuss is about and then like he hit me with like six different glasses that's the first time him and i met too that's where the bromance pretty cool began and i i drank that and i was like what the fuck is going on wow i was like what is this taste and this is like you know no more than a year ago like just a little bit over a year ago that like i had like that aha moment you know like when you have like a meal like thai food i can remember the first time i had like thai food where i was like holy shit thai food's the bomb or this or that like that was my moment where i was like oh my god it's just is it flavors from the age is it umami flavors is it like something for me i like like the bready toasty biscuity oxidized flavors like a really clean champagne isn't as exciting i also like big flavors i'm not like a subtlety guy unless it's like japanese then like bring all the subtlety um but mostly because like my business partner he's a huge collector uh and then a lot of his collector friends come in and i'm i'm able to drink i have access to tasting all this wine like nobody gets to drink and i could never afford to drink it and i felt like it's pretty disrespectful not to know yeah more my partner and some of his buddies we were all in greece uh last year drinking like crazy shit dude like everybody was like smuggling bottles to greece and all the for all the front like bringing in french bottles oh yeah all like chablis and burgundy and nebbiolo and like crazy stuff and i had a keller g max riesling and it was like like a slap like a slap in the face that was like another moment and I was just like oh my gosh I have to learn more about this yeah and I'm like looking around the table I'm like I'm like such a little grom compared to these guys I was like I gotta like learn more uh so yes I didn't really have much time once we got back from Greece but then in December is like really when I hit the ground running I just finished my level two I think I think I aced it I yesterday I signed up for level three which is like advanced yeah uh And I'm going to be doing that in October.

47:29After I leave here, I'm going right to another spot to do a thing with Krug and Olivier Krug. That's great that you're making. And you're all bringing vintage Krugs to this party, you told me. I don't have a bottle of vintage Krug in my position. So the guy that's hosting, I was like, yo, dude. I was like, I'd love to come, but I think you probably know that I don't have any vintage Krug. And he was like, yo, I got you. He's like, just come and I got a bottle for you. That's really cool. Yeah. Yeah, it's awesome. So kind of trying to infiltrate that world. I like that. I think it's cool that you can recognize who your customers are, your partner, and you know you need to put in the work.

48:05And I think that recognizing it's a savvy move, but it's also like this idea of education you're pushing yourself forward. Yeah, and it's also just something for me to fixate on. I'm like a muse guy. I like shiny objects, dude. Whether it's whatever I'm interested in and cooking or I don't know if I told you, but I'm like super serious pool player. yeah i know you're going to shoot after you get a little extra time yeah i'm gonna try to get some of these yeah these wine fools in there when you shoot is it uh is it like competitive with with the gambling part of it yeah yeah like straight up yeah like that's like there's i don't think there's anything such thing as like hustling anymore and obviously i'm not like at the level of the hustle like dude to be that good you gotta like i mean like the really really really really good players like i'm one of the better players in the city but like then when you get to like the pointiest end, like those guys are crazy.

48:57And they play like six, eight hours, 10 hours a day. Like it's like an obsessive thing. But like I said, like wine, pool, cycling. Yeah. Yeah. Whiskey, cooking. You're in therapy. It sounds like you know that. I'm not in therapy anymore. I was too crazy. That was a, that was a past tense for the therapy. Maybe I need to go back. Listen, I'm not here to judge. I think that you are aware of this and it makes it work. and that's cool. Y 'all hear that? He just told me I need to go to therapy. I never said that. I said at least you had therapy, assuming you had a therapist. But listen, I think you acknowledge that this is part of your makeup and you love learning things and being really involved with it.

49:40Yeah, it doesn't leave much time for other important things. I was just saying, I'm probably pretty difficult to be married to. Bless your wife. Yeah. Bless you, Jessica. Is she in the industry? She used to be. Yeah. Yeah, she ran a bar called The Mandrake in Culver City. It was like one of the coolest bars of the time. She was like a bar legend, like a unicorn. I remember when we got engaged, people would be like, oh, I heard you got engaged. Who are you getting married to? I was like, oh, her name's Jess. They're like, oh, cool. What does she do? I was like, she runs The Mandrake. They're like, what the?

50:11You're getting married to Jessica from The Mandrake? I was like, yeah, what's up? That's my girl. Yeah. On This Is Taste, we have guests and brothers learning taste. So to close, this episode is brought to you by Rula. Therapy is absolutely great Finding a therapist who takes your insurance Is the opposite of absolutely great It can actually be a nightmare Those two facts have coexisted for too long RULA is the fix With over 100 insurance plans An average copay of$15 And you're matched to a therapist Who is actually right for you Not just whoever has an opening Someone aligned with your goals Your background And what you actually need And appointments are available as soon as tomorrow.

50:53There are no wait lists and no out-of-pocket surprises. Visit Rula.com slash taste to get started. That's R-U-L-A dot com slash taste. You deserve mental health care that works with you, not against your budget. Get business done with the new American Express Graphite Business Cash Unlimited card with unlimited 2 % cash back on all eligible purchases, unlimited 5 % cash back on flights and prepaid hotels booked through American Express Travel Online, and a flexible spending capacity that can grow with your business. You'll have the confidence to keep building. Apply today and earn a welcome offer of$1 ,500 cash back after you spend$50 ,000 in qualifying purchases on your new card within the first six months of card membership.

51:34Terms apply. Learn more at go.amex.com. Where is Daredevil? I'm right here. Don't miss the return of Marvel Television's Daredevil Born Again. So what's next? I've been liberated. I'm gonna take this city back. Over-Medicated. In an all new season now streaming only on Disney+. They're hunting us. It's time we started hunting them. I can work with them. This should be tons of fun. Marvel Television's Daredevil Born Again now streaming only on Disney+. Close this interview. Here's a little rapid fire, fast and furious. Taste check. Are you ready? Let's go. The best fruit. Peach. Tell me more. Here.

52:18Yeah. You're showing me some tats. Oh, we're going full. Oh, wait, wrong. That's the artichoke one. That's the artichoke grenade. Yeah. Oh, here we are. Dirty South? Yeah. That was one of my first tattoos. That was part. When did the tattoos start? Before I was 18. Yeah. But then really when I was working at 5 and 10, I worked with a girl named Whitney Atwaka. Yeah. She's actually a pretty well-known chef at this point. And she was dating this dude named Little D. He's a tattooer in East Atlanta, in the East Atlanta village. And I just started getting tattooed by him. And then when I came out here, you know, it's like collecting.

53:04I'm a collector as well. I collect all kinds of stuff. So it's like lots of different artists and stuff like that. It's great. Do you still get work done today? Are you? Oh, I've been more work done now than I ever have. I'm like working on my head. My whole back is almost done by one dude. We did like 30 something hours. And he's based in New Zealand, but he's back in LA now. So I'm going to get that all. The ace of spades is rad. Which one? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Up in your side. Well, that's my dad always called me ace. Whether it be like, oh, good job, ace. Or like, god damn it, ace. Like, what are you doing?

53:34He always called me ace. It's really nice work. It's cool. The worst vegetable. Celery? Yeah, yeah. I don't know what you do with celery other than like, we use it, obviously. It goes in a Mirapol on Trinity and stuff like that. I don't know if I would ever do a celery soup or celery dish. What is your typical breakfast? I'm not a big breakfast guy, but I do green juice and kefir, like the yogurt drink. Do you have a health nut streak? No, definitely not. The shit that we eat while we ride bikes, it's like trash. It's trash food. like sugar and fat yeah that's pretty much it um but if i have a choice i wish i could eat like japanese breakfast every morning yeah i would actually do that yeah uh but you know i'd say chilaquiles oh yeah after i did my everest thing the next day i didn't get out of bed my jessica just kept delivering new batches of chilaquiles i ate chilaquiles all day jessica is the hero of this conversation by the way you hear that man is an absolute just the hero the best dessert

54:46i'm not a huge dessert guy either but this is accident thing like after getting hit by the car when i was like down one of my comfort things uh like truly comforting things it made me feel good in a time where i was like not feeling good at all um oreos is like a big nostalgia thing like me and my dad he's like you know oreos and milk was like a big thing in our family same with like graham crackers and milk but thrifty's chocolate chip ice cream like so it's like the vanilla ice cream with like chocolate flakes in it i mean lots of ice cream in like a big bowl and then i take like 15 oreos and crumble it on top yeah but then i dump milk on top of it and i eat it that's it like cereal that's a very like perfect bite you can't mix it though you gotta like pull from the ice cream to the milk with the that with the temperature of the ice cream with the milk it It just hits that perfect melt point.

55:37Like fancy, like real dessert, like pie. Yeah. Like fruit pie, like peacher, like a berry pie with ice cream is up there. A restaurant you wish you could bring back from the dead. In Los Angeles, a Buri Araku. Oh, okay. I would say until they closed during COVID, that was probably my favorite restaurant in the city. When you're craving fast food, where are you going? I'm sure everybody says the same thing. But for me, it's, I don't really eat too much fast food. Like if I like go to McDonald's, which is like almost never, it's like a coffee. Like I'm like, oh shit, I'm in a rush. I got to get a coffee.

56:15The most boring answer. No, but in and out, I think is what most people would say. But I also classify that in like a different realm of fast food. Shake chicken and out kind of like in that higher level. And like fried chicken. I like Popeyes and Jollibee's. yeah i like a chick-fil-a sandwich la you don't really have to do that much fast food because you can just pull over and like jump out of a taco stand and have tacos that's the probably the correct answer especially because we're recording this in la is like yeah i do fast food when you can and like that's that's the thing i i'm telling you like i rarely i'll eat like an in-and-out burger on the way to vegas and i'm playing in like a pool tournament or something like that uh but that's like not not very it's not your thing you're not craving it'll be like a desperate thing like it like a cycling cycling thing your favorite city outside america to visit for food dude i am not very well traveled but i would have to say tokyo okay that's that's a pretty good answer though yeah that's i think even if i was well traveled it would still be tokyo yeah japanese food is i mean yeah hands down by a long shot my favorite food yeah period that's why i do not cook it i would never disrespect it in that way so not being well traveled but is that I mean, you've been a chef.

57:29You get opportunities. A lot of chefs travel. Is that by choice? Done just because, you know, I think we came up a little too fast probably for our own good. Because when I was working at Joe's, the chef there at the time, I wanted to go apprentice in the southwest of France. The cooking of southwest France was like one of my first cookbooks that was really influential on me. And I was like, I'm going to go do this. And he literally was like, yo, he's like, if I see you, like after when I was leaving Joe's, he's like, if I see you. and then after three years and you haven't done your apprenticeship in you know france and all this stuff he's like i'm gonna beat the shit out of you and i still have never been to france yeah but i think it's just because when we opened when we did wolf and sheep's clothing we were like we were young and we were like faking it at that point yeah and uh we just had to really you know fake it till you make it dude like we had to work really hard yeah for a really long time but we just never had any time to or i never had any time really to to travel that much i'm just now recently you know i'm 41 years old excuse me 42 42 42 birth ages up yeah man um great and uh like i'm just now starting to get to do the traveling that i want to do we're about to go to san sebastian oh wow uh for like a little research trip being some friends and partners drink some a bunch of wine and we're good to a shabari oh which is about one of pretty much the only not only but the only fine dining restaurant outside of Japan I'm really interested that's the one restaurant I've said it many times to show that I want to go to in the world that's I've never been and that's like a dream of mine you can get like a thousand dollar bottle of champagne there for like 250 bucks apparently there's some value did you how did you get the res it's challenging my business partner made a call yeah to somebody who was able to get us the res I think we have I think we have enough connections.

59:18You do. And also just your style of cooking too. It's going to be really fascinating. Love to have you back here about your impressions of Eshtabari. I know I'm going to like it because I like appreciate. I think part of the reason I love Japanese food and like high-end Japanese food, like what Brandon does, because it's like, I mean, it's like crazy simple, but just with a lot of attention to detail. I'm really curious to see what it is about his food that makes it so special. Because I see it. I'm like, oh, sick. He cooks over only coals. Like he does simple stuff. He sources, he raises Cal, you know, like all the stuff that makes it really cool, but I need to experience it for myself because it almost seems too simple to be held in the regard it's held at.

59:59But I will let you know. I'll already tell you I'm going to love it, especially if I'm not paying for it. Man, that's the key. I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure you're going to have a wonderful time. Ryan Dunsmore, this has been really fun. I love your food. I think that this is one of my favorite interviews. Thank you so much for joining This Is Taste. Awesome, dude. Well, thank you for having it.

1:00:25Jordan Michaelman, welcome back to This Is Taste. How are you? I'm really great, Matt. I love coming on the show. Thanks so much for having me. You're welcome, buddy. And you know what? I love your podcast. Like, please plug. I rarely go listen to another podcast listener, but I really, you and Zach, have been doing some cool stuff. Tell us about your podcast. Yeah, so the coffee website that I am one of the co-founders of Sprudge, we, you know, we publish a ton of different voices on the site. And there's lots of different bylines and photographers, people we work with around the world. But me and the other guy who started it, we have a podcast that's just the two of us where we kind of talk about what's happening in the coffee world and stuff that we're up to on Sprudge.

1:01:06And then we always drink a bunch of cool coffee in it and play with coffee gear, which is fun and informal. And me and the other guy that I do with, my partner Zachary Carlson, who I founded the website with, we've been friends since we were 14. So it is also kind of our like funny old friend time, I think. Yeah, it's a real hang. I love it. Well, buddy, before we get to this Costco story that you wrote, it's a personal essay. Really, really terrific work. And it's been viewed by hundreds of thousands of people. It's one of our biggest stories of the year. Before we get to all that talk, my man, where have you been dining out?

1:01:45In Portland, your hometown, in Oregon, or other places in the world, really? Yeah, Portland. I went to Kochka a couple of nights ago, which has been great for a long time and had a big hit cookbook. I think maybe a decade ago now that book came out. But it's still awesome. Like one of the most interesting sort of pan-Soviet multi-state Russian adjacent restaurants in the country. And Bonnie and Israel, the owners of that restaurant, always slay it. The service is always perfect. And I went there a couple of nights ago and it was fabulous. I was also just recently in Las Vegas and did a bunch of really fun food stuff in Las Vegas, including going to Tomba, which is a Beard Foundation finalist for best restaurant in its region.

1:02:39And it's like stunning modern Indian cuisine. And then a really pro sushi chef who is working kind of in the idiom of raw fish in an Indian style, which was new to me to have exactly that way. And very interesting and compelling. The restaurant's stunningly beautiful. The drinks are fabulous. And the food's really, really good. And it's like 15 minutes north of the Strip in an outdoor shopping mall sort of a scene. You immediately forget you're in the outdoor shopping mall when you go. And I will say, I think for people who are visitors to Las Vegas, there's always sort of this drumbeat of like, got to leave the Strip, got to go do other stuff.

1:03:23Can't just stay at the hotel, got to go other places. but this place is like fully I fully fully am like it is worth the quick lift to get up there because it's rad and it is probably my favorite new restaurant I've been to anywhere in the country that's really great I love that you're on the Las Vegas beat you're a huge fan of dining there why do you keep going back because I feel like you go back every few months it feels like it's kind of just worked out like that with various events and things I was there this most recent time because I went and saw the band Fish from Vermont a few times at the Sphere.

1:04:01I was part of a big group of folks doing that, including my older brothers, who are like 75 shows plus crazy lifelong fish heads. And then I stuck around for a couple more days to do food stuff. And yeah, I don't know. I think Las Vegas is just the food and bar stuff there is even better than build. Like it has this urgency and it's not a place that I have spent a terrible amount of time in until around the last like year or two. And there's something very fun about that to me too. Like I get to travel pretty often to big cities in California and up to New York and all the rest of it. But and have for many years.

1:04:39But for Vegas, I had spent less time there cumulatively over the last decade or whatever. And so for me, I'm getting to see a lot of it with fresh eyes. And I really, that's very, very fun to me. Yeah, you have to do your homework, obviously, with Las Vegas. And not all casino food court is created equally. No, no. But it is a really exciting place. And, you know, I'm glad that the one Indian restaurant you mentioned was not Ginkana. I did get to go to that, too, actually, on this trip. And it was also rockin' good. They're very different restaurants. And there's some things that the two of them do quite differently from each other, just even if it's on paper, kind of the same dish.

1:05:26And very different experiences going. And yeah, that was cool to get. That was cool. I spent a lot of time this time in the Arts District too, and ran around and went to some really fabulous bars and drank some good coffee and did Arts District-y stuff even more this time than I'd done in previous times. And that was all very fun and makes me want to go back and do more. Great neighborhood of the Arts District. Absolutely. Carbone Riviera. Have you laid eyes on it? Haven't done it. No, no. I'm much respect to the Carbone Massif, but I haven't gone and done it yet. I'm sure it's a good time. You went, right?

1:05:59I just did a walkthrough pre-opening and just I went out on the Bellagio Fountain Terrace where they have this million-dollar literal yacht that takes people around. Oh, wow. It's pretty crazy and cool. And, yeah, I got to get back there. It's been a while. All right. Let's get to Costco. I mean, we talked about this a little offline before you delivered it. I think you delivered an essay that was a little different than what we discussed, and I was so pleasantly surprised with what you had written. It was more personal than I thought, and really just struck a nerve. I mean, we've gotten so many letters, and again, hundreds of thousands of people have read it.

1:06:37Why write this essay? What was the goal? yeah you know i i that's i love that we get to talk about the inside baseball of the kind of food writer stuff and that's one of the things that i love as a listener of your show i always love it so it's it's fun to get to talk about this stuff with you um you know no grand plan honestly like from going a few times and doing i'm a big like live note-taking guy like i'm just gonna thumb it all out in my phone while i'm there and i love to do that at bars and restaurants and And fortunately, the phones, most people just look like they're being rude, you know, or they're like not paying attention and they're looking at their phone.

1:07:12So that's a great reporter trick because you get to do that, too. But you're like taking notes. It makes restaurant reviewing so much easier now, too. So much easier. Oh, for sure. Yeah. Oh, for sure. And, you know, sitting and then you sit down and type it all up. And sometimes that process you're trying to marry with other kind of bigger stuff or with different kinds of interviews and things. And for me, it was like when I really sat down and typed everything up, it was like I sort of was able to see the Tetris of it or like see how that could kind of work. I think also with a topic like Costco, which is so beloved and has been written about in every kind of context and business reporting and in the news all the time.

1:07:54And there's been a million different kinds of ways of writing about it, including on taste. There's a very good previous essay about localization on taste that was really good from a couple of years ago. And anyways, trying to talk about it in more of a personal way felt to me like something different I could do or it made sense to want to try it as I was working my way through the notes. And some of that stuff that's a little more personal and about, you know, family and stuff in the piece was things I was thinking about when I was there taking notes. I was taking notes about it. And so for whatever reason, the clearing the Tetris lines a couple of steps ahead, I could see it once I got into doing the notes and that's how it came out.

1:08:34Well, really, I mean, a big part of it, it's about going to Costco for different reasons and different, you know, I would say the milieu of people who go there and really you did it with an open heart and open mind too. And it wasn't judgy, which I think is difficult because you could make a caricature of certain people who go to certain places. It's easy to do. It's a real crutch. But you kind of land on it that there are all sorts of people at Costco. And I think like for me, it's because of the way like it is the everything store i mean there really is uh a limitless uh cart i mean your cart can be you can have five carts of stuff i mean they're selling literally not just food but like clothing and and electronics and it's like you're there and you're you're it's just a slice of life when you're when you can really shop everything you know how did you thread that needle with the personal essay but also just like the reporting and and observing what people were actually buying there.

1:09:37Yeah, there's a great trick of that thing where you get to sort of stream of consciousness a little bit, take notes on people that are around you. And, you know, it's something, I mean, there's old, old writing that kind of feels like that. For me, my reporting hero and kind of writing hero in general has always been Tom Wolfe. And Tom Wolfe, the way he will write about crowds and groups of people and get a couple of physical descriptors and sort of do this volume approach to it that at the end of it gives you something like a snapshot. I love reading stuff like that. And anytime I can ever do an impersonation of it or try to like incorporate it into my stuff, I love to do it.

1:10:20And it's something I've done for forever. I remember one of the first guides to a coffee scene we ever wrote on Spreads. This is back in like maybe 2010 or 2011. Has a big piece, chunk of it, where I'm sitting at a cafe and just describing every person walking by in Seattle and trying to kind of capture that moment of the cafe in Seattle. And I remember thinking like, oh, that was fun to try to do. And so I'm always trying to figure out how to do it. And this was a cool opportunity to get to do it. And like not just one kind of person at Costco, but the many kinds of people at Costco, like including me, like I am at Costco.

1:10:56Well, let's talk about the brand itself. I mean, they famously do not advertise. Their advertising budget is zero. And it's become this, again, almost public utility. Why is it so successful when other club retailers have had kind of checkered results, if you look at BJ's and others, that the results are quite different than Costco? Yeah, you know, it was interesting. There was this huge message board thing about the story with hundreds and hundreds of comments on it that was through Y Combinator, for reasons I'm not entirely clear. But there was a lot of - Hacker News. Oh, Hacker News, sorry.

1:11:39Yeah, it was through Hacker News. Yeah. But it had some kind of Y Combinator connection. Yeah, I think it's hosted by Y Combinator domain, but Hacker News is pretty popular message board. That's great. Yeah. Well, the people in that really talked about this thing of like, people are just going to this because it's, because it's, they need it for life. Like it's not that deep. Like, you know what I mean? Which I sort of appreciate. But then I think if it is this thing that you're doing once a month in your life, like it does kind of become that deep, you know what I mean? Like, or it can be if you want it to.

1:12:10And that was a really fun, huge thread to get to read of like, somebody said like, Frasier crane goes to costco which i think they were trying to insult me and they don't realize the degree to which that's actually my entire and like that's like thank you like i can i could only someone else said that it was like a 1986 new yorker piece and it's like oh my god they also were trying to insult me but it's like i have to fan myself like i can only be i can only blush so much guys like thank you you know um but yeah the public utility thing i think is an important way to think about it and i think especially as we've had a um degrading in public life for what we get to have as public utilities uh or all of these sort of actually very private and sometimes quite onerous companies that we sort of use like public utilities.

1:13:09Things like certain key restaurants being, in a way, kind of like public utilities is an interesting way to think about it. And I think somewhere like Costco being that is a really interesting way to think about it too. I think everybody goes, you know. There was the book a year ago or a year or two ago that was like, they all came to Barney's. Yeah, right. And I think this was – it's also like they all came to Costco. Like it is this thing in sort of very late 20th century, early 21st century public life that has that weight, you know. And I also think another wrinkle is, of course, people are going to Costco for their weekly shopping and saving money.

1:13:50And it's truly an economic decision. And buying at a small scale allows you to buy many things and not have to keep going back and reloading. But the other wrinkle is like grocery shopping is a real sport. There's a real surprise and delight element. It's truly entertainment. And we see this from maybe millennials and Gen Z, where you're shopping and you're looking at these brands. And now Costco, and you write about this, it has the buzzy Fly By Jings, Fish Wife, these brands that were formerly internet-only direct-to-consumer brands. Now they're getting into Club Graza. I mean, Bonza, these brands that are very millennial-coded.

1:14:26So I think there's a level of sport almost when you're going to Costco as a younger person, perhaps. Who cares about your poops? Oli does. That's why Oli's science-backed gut health lineup helps support your family's regularity. From daily probiotics to fiber gummies, your kiddos will love. Find it all on oli.com. That's O-L-L-Y dot com. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. I get so many headaches every month. It could be chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting 4 hours or more.

1:15:07Botox, Autobotulinum Toxin A, prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It's not for those who have 14 or fewer headache days a month. Prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems, or muscle weakness can be signs of a life-threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue, and headache. Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms, and dizziness.

1:15:38Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions, including ALS Lou Gehrig's disease, myasthenia gravis or Lambert-Eaton syndrome, and medications, including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Why wait? Ask your doctor. Visit BotoxChronicMigraine.com or call 1-800-44-BOTOX to learn more. perhaps. Yeah, totally. And, you know, it's interesting because there's sort of the neo-boutique bodega and cool co-op and the Erewhon or the It's My City's Erewhon, which is very popular to talk about. Like, we don't really have Erewhon, but this is like our Erewhon has become this thing that people talk about.

1:16:24And, you know, Costco is in a funny way kept up with that and is like another sort of wrinkle of that for a certain type of consumer. It's quite possible to very sort of post ironically go and shop at Costco, which I don't think was necessarily the case a decade ago. And they've kept up with that in an interesting way. And, you know, there's a thing in the story where it's like that moment where you realize the thing you were looking at at the grocery store, you can buy it for way cheaper at Costco. I think traditionally that was like the box of Nabisco crackers or like the jar of peanut butter.

1:17:04But now it very much is the like the fly by Jing or the fish wife or those things like that. And I do think that creates sort of an interesting thing of like, it used to be more like a regular grocery store that I was making me think about how Costco was a better deal. And now it's the curated millennial boutique grocery section of the bigger environmental things store that has those little fish tins. And I'm seeing it. I'm like, hey, what about Costco? Yeah. And you're getting like 16 of the tins too. That's the other thing, which is a bonus for all parties involved. Listen, what's your current basket looking like when you're heading to Costco yourself?

1:17:44I haven't gone back since the story came out and I've thought about wanting to kind of go and my wife was like, hey, by the way, haha, we need to go to Costco. The funniest response I got from someone, I got an email where someone said, really loves the story, so it's great to read it. By the way, I noticed you mentioned using a Google Talk. Well, I represent this software as a service platform that allows you to keep live notes with family members that if you try it out using this. It was like, oh, damn, dude. That is a heavy hustle to try to onboard me for your, like, notes app. But, you know, I really want to go back in and go walk around it somewhere.

1:18:27And I don't know, you know, what's... I always want to find, like, what's the thing that wasn't here the last time I went. I also was kind of looking at the, like... There's, like, the little, tiny, cheapy Apple computer now. that's like the$600 like baby MacBook. That's just for word processing. And at some point, I'm going to need a new computer because I haven't bought one in a really long time. And I was looking at that the last time I was in there and I was like, damn, I might be like a Costco electronics purchase person at some point. We all come to that point in our life. That might be coming.

1:19:07I've always just kind of looked at that area before, but I think I have one in mind. I mean, you're getting your$1.99 flat screen. I mean, for sure. I know. Some of that stuff's crazy. I know. Some of that stuff's crazy. Yeah. I personally like going to the pasta sauces because I feel like when Club gets a new brand, it's like that's like the come to Jesus moment for that brand. And when Rao's entered Costco, it was like not far ahead of that massive exit, the sale to a coconut bread. so I'm always looking at like categories and seeing who's getting into club and it's kind of a little bit of a tell about future possible acquisitions yeah Batch Hands just did that right Batch Hands has been in Costco with the big bottles for the last like year and then they just had their exit too it is a little bit of a canary in the coal mine for like who's working on some end stage proof of concept for their for their uh for their through their deal throughput right definitely and we just had one of the founders of midday squares and he told us about his uh going to costco to pitch and if you follow him he's always posting like these meetings that they have at costco but uh such a fascinating company thank you for doing the piece it's really resonated and really proud of the work you you've done for taste um i want to segue a little bit you write our newsletter occasionally and do a great job.

1:20:33And you wrote last week's and you wrote about the James Beard Awards, the Media Awards, and you did a very nice job of highlighting some favorite work from around the world of journalism. And at the end, you mentioned Portland Monthly's nomination. You're part of that team. I want you to talk a little bit about this very, I think, unique nomination. It was a little bittersweet for the staff at Portland Monthly. Yes. So, yeah, I'm the restaurant critic for Portland Monthly. And I share that role with Karen Brooks, who's been sort of like the major restaurant critic in Portland for many decades now.

1:21:11I've had the role for just about a year. And it's a small team there. And it recently got a little smaller. And the magazine was acquired by a new media group that owns a number of magazines around the country, urban glossy magazines around the country. And as part of that, two of the former team members were not retained through the acquisition. And those happened to be two of the former team members, Brooke Jackson-Glidden, who was the editor-in-chief, and Alex Frayn, who was the restaurants and drinks editor, who had worked very closely on all of the submitted work and the sort of total body of work.

1:21:56The general interest in a food publication category for the Beards is an interesting one because it does involve submitting specific pieces, but it also involves submitting kind of an everything URL for people to go and look at sort of the bigger body of work, which is interesting. And so there was a lot of hands on this, but it's definitely weird to be part of a team that gets this amazing honor. But in the interim between when the honor was submitted and when it came out, two of the people are no longer on the team. And so it's very weird. And I guess what I'll say is all of the media stuff that's happening in the big cities is also happening in the like comparatively smaller cities.

1:22:43Media is super weird right now. Well, and yeah. Yeah, well, I'm glad you recognize those former teammates, team members, and really congratulations. It's a very competitive category, and you guys deserve that recognition for a regional publication, doing terrific work. Not just your reviews, but just general coverage in this wonderful city of Portland. I'm super, super proud of all that work. We did a big package that was the 25 restaurants that shaped Portland, and it was sort of like a, it's 2025, let's talk about 25 restaurants and do a little bit of that thing where you get to do food writing.

1:23:22Sometimes you think about places that are closed, which you never get to do in food writing. It is really like a pleasure whenever that comes up and the opportunity to do it. And I was really super proud to work on that package with everybody. And that was one that I think we felt really good about and had really good feedback to the city around and stuff. Yeah, so I guess we'll see what happens in Chicago. It'll be interesting. and I'm happy to, I'm going to be there. I'm excited to go. And I'm super proud of all the work we did. It's just that, you know, the timing is a little weird, but it's also sort of, there is something kind of ironic about it all or whatever, or very 2026, very of the moment.

1:24:04Yeah. So what's the scene check at Higgins right now? Give us an update. Yeah, so he was recently in the newspaper here in Portland saying, I would like to retire if anyone would like to purchase the restaurant, which is interesting because I think a lot of times people either have a successor that they're grooming a house to take over as they retire or they just retire and close. And he has sort of done this other version where they've said, I'm going to retire. If anyone would like to step in and take over Higgins, please get in touch. But he sort of did it through the newspaper. That is really interesting.

1:24:46I mean, and for a little context, and if you're listening this far, you're fascinated in Portland and Jordan's work. I mean, this is like one of your favorite restaurants. You took me there. Yeah, yeah. It's one of the most classic, I would say Pacific Northwest restaurants in terms of the menu build. Yeah, it's interesting. I think in some ways, this is a little bit of a provincial thing. It's hard for me to imagine that happening in New York City or in Los Angeles or something. Portland is not those places. so it is possible to imagine such a thing happening here. Yeah, I guess the context is like, I think Higgins is like our Zuni Cafe or our Republic or our Union Square Cafe.

1:25:25It's been there since the late 90s and it's had lots of sort of, in some ways, evolutions. In some ways, it's kind of exactly the same. There's some things that they do that are really incredible. They were making all their charcuterie in-house before that was a thing people really did very often. And even now, it's still not a thing people do very often. And it's a really fabulous place. It's one of the great Pacific Northwest cuisine, whatever that means, restaurants that you can go to. Similar to something like Zuni Cafe or Che Pinis being like, this is California cuisine. That's kind of like what Higgins is doing for Pacific Northwest cuisine.

1:26:02And it's a place that I love to go. I like to go there. I'll go there on my own. I'll go there with people that are locals. I like to take people from out of town. so I hope that it has a happy next chapter for what happens and in the meantime let's kind of wait and see and go while you can still go and it's still the same I guess. Absolutely that's a great recommendation go go go before it's too late and we don't want to have those like it closed I'm sad messages on social that happens with all these restaurants just go and support now well Jordan thanks for chatting and for this terrific piece I hope to have you on again soon Thanks.

1:26:38Honor to do it for Taste. Taste is where great work like this gets published. I'm so proud to get to do it. And thanks for having me on to chat about it. I appreciate you.

1:26:51This is Taste is hosted and produced by Eliza Abarbanal 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.