816: The Pad Thai–Free Zone with Bangkok Supper Club’s Jenn Saesue

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1:07I just think that there's such a wide range in Thai cooking because we love all flavors, right? Every dish is balanced with five different flavors at all times. And there's such a big variation because in Thailand itself, it's a melting pot. This is Taste. I'm your host, Matt Rodbard.

1:35Jen Sesu didn't want to open another Thai restaurant that served the same watered-down menu as everyone else's. She's the co-founder of 55 Hospitality, the group behind Fish Cheeks, the Michelin-listed Bangkok Supper Club, and Bub's Bakery, New York's first completely allergen-free bakery. On this episode, Jen and I talk about pad thai, managing an impossible reservation list, and how a birthday cake from her husband turned into a two-and-a-half-year R &D project. I hope you enjoy this episode.

2:11Jen, Stacey, welcome. This is Tay. So great to meet you. Nice to meet you too, Matt. Big fan of your restaurants. I mean, just from the jump, Fish Cheeks, it's truly like a Mount Rushmore name for a restaurant. Like, we get a lot of restaurant names coming through our worlds. It's like the best name. What's the story behind it? We knew that we wanted to do like a seafood restaurant, right? And me and Chad basically were like, oh, my God, let's look at the, I don't know, like a fishing dictionary. We Googled a bunch of names and we're like, what do we call it? We don't know. Do we want it to be Thai?

2:49Do we not want it to be Thai? And I think we landed on fish cheeks because Chad was like, oh, I read this like story by Amy Tan. It's like a short story. And when he was in CIA and he was like, what do you think about this? And I was like, actually, I don't hate it. I kind of love it. But again, is it off putting? Like, I don't know for people. So I think we kind of, you know, like ass around like for our friends opinions and stuff like that. And I think Igor from Employees Only, he was like, Jen, incredible name. Yeah. People remember it. I was like, are you sure? And he was like, yeah, like I love this name.

3:28And I that was kind of like, OK, great. Let's do it. Because I think it's so weird. Like, it's weird. I mean, getting a co-sign from Igor, too. That's a blast in the past. Yeah. Employees Only. Yeah. I think it's weird. It asks a question. But it's also like you like memorize it, like you remember it. Well, yeah. Like in the beginning, I remember putting the sign up and people just walking down, like passing the restaurant while like we're doing construction. And they're like fish cheeks. Huh. It makes people kind of like not knowing what's inside. They even say it themselves out loud. And it happened so much like, you know, in the beginning that I was like, this is amazing.

4:09This is great. It's like such a cool example of like landing on a name and then getting buzz. And then it's like everyone wants to go to fish cheeks. And it's like, oh, my God, I just said that word out loud. And like obviously some people didn't even know that fish have cheeks. Yeah. Like a coveted part of fish awful. And I think it also extends to your ethic at a seafood restaurant. It was really all about like no pad thai. Right. Like how did you frame that when you launched and continue to talk about that iconic dish and fish cheeks? I think for us, we were super intentional of our menu because we saw like I worked in a bunch of Thai restaurant growing up.

4:48Right. And I see that like the menu, the menus were very similar to each other. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's like those are moneymakers. We know people love it. We know people enjoy it. But I think for me as well, like growing up in Thailand, we I know that like there's more to that one page menu. Yeah. So I kind of want to bring that to life. And we also wanted to show that there's variations to Thai food and not just this one page menu. Of course. And it was such a strong point of view from the jump. And I think that's why many in food writing love what you're doing. Where do you dine out when you're not working?

5:26I have to ask. Oh, my God. You're popping between restaurants. I think this is like an unfair question. Living in New York City, I don't think there's like a one – you should not have a one favorite restaurant. You know, like you can change it every single day. It doesn't have to be your favorite. It could just be where you like to go. I love Sachon Mountain House. I love Chinese food. I love Four Charles. Like if I can get in, like, hey, Four Charles, hi. Let's be friends. You don't have the bat phone. Yeah, I don't know. Because that's a hard res. Yeah, it is. It's crazy. I love what they're doing in there.

6:00just like it's so comfortable and so cozy but it's like super well done i i respect them a lot um what else noodles any sort of ramen i love um i think the list goes on and on and on because like there's just it's just so vast like there's so many new restaurants that are opening now that i i have it on the list that i'm like okay i have to go check it out i don't have enough time no there's never enough time yeah when you were developing bubs as well the bakery were you going to a lot of bakeries as well and kind of filling out that scene? Yes. I mean, I like treats. You know, I think everyone likes treats.

6:36But it's more so that when I was trying to find stuff for my husband, like to celebrate him or anything like that, it was so hard. It was so, so hard. Him and his mom, you know, they're gluten-free. They try to like be dairy-free. And he has so many intolerances. I was surprised that there wasn't one bakery that kind of offered it all. There was this one, Erin McKenna. But that was a long time ago. Baby cakes. Baby cakes, yeah. And they had amazing cupcakes, right? But that was it. It was donuts and cupcakes, right? So I was like, how is this possible? Where is all the other places? Listen, I was super naive.

7:21I was like, how hard can it be? It can't be that hard. Right. Like and spoke to my business partner, Chad, and I was like, hey, I think there's like a crazy business opportunity here. Let's let's do it. Yeah. We'll return to that story because it's interesting. But I did some reading about your bio and your background and you opened a restaurant when you were 22 and it kind of like didn't work. Right. No, it didn't work. It failed. Failed. Failed. Failed. It failed. You said that like. Yeah. How do you get back in the ring? And also, why did it fail? I think it was too young. I think that the group that I was doing it with, nothing wrong with them.

8:03I think we didn't talk enough. I don't think we talked enough about all the possibility of it not working out. I think everyone was in this dreamland romanticizing everything that it's going to work. It's going to be beautiful. It's going to be great. But when in reality, when you open up a restaurant, there's like a hundred moving parts. And, you know, when you didn't like nail those down in the beginning, I think everything just keeps kind of start falling apart immediately. How did you know? Like when did you know it was going to fail? When the chef didn't stick with the menu that we discussed.

8:47Interesting. You know, it started like going rogue. Correct. Like I think since day one, like I wanted something that was, again, more intentional, smaller menu. You don't have to offer a million things like just offer, you know, like more selective items, but do it really well. That's what we agreed on. But the minute we start, like we open the restaurant, she's like, well, but I have this so I can do this. So I can do this. I can do this. I'm like, yeah, but now we're getting confused. It's like now we're getting super lost in everything now. So that was already kind of like the writing on the wall.

9:27So it fails. And where does that leave you at 22? I went back to work for my old boss. He at the time had multiple Thai restaurants in the city. So I was managing one of them. Which one? It was called O Bao. It was Michael Bao's extension. Michael Bao was your boss? No, no, no. He started it, but then he part ways. But my boss was, it was called Chase Restaurant Group. And they have, they have like room service. They have like all these Thai restaurants, right? So I went back. I was their GM. And, you know, like I kind of was like, okay, what do I do now? Like, am I going to still stay in this industry or am I going back to school?

10:07Like, what is happening here? I worked there for a while, met my business partner there, Chad. And we got talking. He was like, I want to open a restaurant too. but the time that we started that conversation to the time that we actually opened the restaurant, I believe it was almost like two years in making, right? So we talked about all the possibilities of it not working out, if it doesn't work out, and if it's terrible, the menu that we put out, what do we do? What is the game plan here? So I like to say we always now approach things. If we have an idea, we always think of it as like, what is the worst thing that can happen?

10:49Great thing. Great. Beautiful. I don't want I enjoy that. No problem. But what is the worst thing that can happen to us? Right. Like, I think we we approach it with that nowadays. I mean, that's the best way to look at things as an operator because it's all about contingency plans. Yeah. How do you – like if the worst thing happens, you got to have a plan for that. Yeah. So you're working at Obao with Chad and you're just like dreaming up fish cheeks. You're thinking there's like a market here for Thai cooking, seafood-centric. How do you – The seafood didn't come until later. Oh, okay. I think it was more so that, okay, we want to open a Thai restaurant and we want it to be different.

11:26But what is different, right? Yeah. Like what does that mean? Like, are we going northeastern Thai food where it's like papaya salad and like lap and like sticky rice, grilled chicken, fried chicken? Where do we go? Do we go southern? Do we go northern? Like, where are we in this process? And, you know, like I think during that time we were kind of just like scoured the city and we went to Astoria's seafood. Yeah. We're like, wait, this is really like Thailand. Like Thailand, you have like fish markets and you can literally order whatever you want and you can ask them to cook it for you. So for us, we were like, oh, my God, this would be amazing if we can pull this off.

12:05But then with that concept, you need space. You need big space. And we're like, wait, are we going to do this in Queens? Are we going to do this in the city? Like where do we want to do this? So you were actually looking at real estate maybe outside of where you ended up. Yeah, because we were like, if this is such an amazing concept, do we want to entertain this anywhere else? But we were just like, no, no, no, no. This is our first one. Focus. Come back to life. No, let's not do that. Let's actually try to make a difference. And in the city where we have more people, it's just more condensed in the city.

12:42So we finally found a space on Bond Street, which is that's a whole different story in itself. And we were just like, OK, we need to make it work. We still like the seafood idea. But let's now maybe like approach it in a way that it just Thai food, but with a focus on seafood and not a regional thing. Right. Yeah, I mean, you open on Bond and like that's like the land of like downtown agency girlies and like real like, you know, Times Square adjacent. I mean, especially when you open it felt like that's a different audience to have to market to. No, I cursed my real estate agent out when she told me about the listing.

13:25I was like, are you like, are you trying to piss me off? Like, I can't afford that. Right. Like, I was like, what is wrong with you? Like, are you just like dangling things in front of my face knowing that I can't afford it? She's like, no, no, no, no, no. Like, they were a restaurant. Like, they're trying to like subblood it. And like, they want to move really, really fast. They just want it to be a different concept. Yeah. I was like, okay. Okay. So like key money was pretty light? No key money. No key money. Like, they just want someone to like move in. Like, you can flip it around real quick and just start paying rent.

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17:33What's the first like couple months like when you open Fish Cheeks? It was really amazing. From the get go. From the get go. Not going to lie. Is that name? September through December. We were like, oh my God, we're hot shit. This is incredible. January come, I wanted to cry. I know. I wanted to cry. What year? Like this was 2017. 17, yeah. January of 2017. Yeah, yeah. I wanted to cry. I was like, what just happened? Like what's going on? Where did people go? Like what is happening? We started doing weird things. Like we started putting like lunch on the menu that it has nothing to do with our dinner menu because we were like, oh, maybe people would just want like individual plates.

18:15Like, you know, just do that. It didn't work out. We flipped it back to just like normal dinner, like our regular menu served throughout the whole entire day. And I think from there, we're like, oh, my God, what else? What else do we need to do? We introduced Oyster Happy Hour. We're like, fuck it. Just do it. Like, you know, we don't need to make money on it. Like, just put people like butts in seats during those weird off hours, right? Yeah, so like that's what we did. Yeah. And you just kept building and building and building. It's funny, Taste launched in February of 2017. So we're both celebrating our 10-year early next year.

18:55And I think about the evolution of what we do here. No, my 10 is September this year. Oh, okay. Yeah. September this year. So it's around that time. So it's like the way the city has changed in that decade is crazy. And that you're hitting that 10 years. I mean, I think this I wanted to zoom out, actually, and talk about Thai food in New York, because like I never say like a food is having a moment. I hate saying that because it's very weird and not not really cool for people who've been working for generations. But in some ways, like the talent here, not just in your group, but like throughout New York, it's like at a level that it's, you know, Thai cooking is rivaling all like all cuisines in some ways.

19:40What do you attribute this to? I think the younger generation are seeing that it's a possibility for them to own a restaurant. So I think they get together now like faster. and you know i know what's funny is that like all these new tire restaurants i don't want i don't want to claim it but like soother the kids used to work for me at obao so like those literally were like like my hires shalom he used to be my food runner she used to be my sous chef so they open the new one that's like tapraya the kid used to work for at Time Out Market and also was a runner at NoHo. So like it's funny like that there's like a touch point with all these kids.

20:30But like I give it to them like they're incredible. You know, they get together with friends and they have a vision and they want to execute it. So it's kids like 10, like there's sometimes like 10 of them pulling money together and just say, hey, we want to open. Let's just do it. Yeah. Yeah. And you just think that there's an audience here in New York City that really wants this cuisine like frequently. There's just so many people in New York City that I feel like there's enough for everyone. Yeah. And it's a flavor profile, broadly speaking, and talking about the canonical Thai cooking, because it can be many different flavors.

21:02Yeah. But it's a cuisine that New Yorkers love. Yeah. And it feels like there's always going to be an audience there for it. I think it's just, you know, the flavor hits all palate, right? Like, you don't have to go, like, super crazy spicy. If you want to, sure, there's a restaurant for that. But if you want to go a little bit more mild, if you want to go, you know, easy, there's noodles and there's stuff for that. And if you want to go a little bit more, I don't know. I think I just think that there's like a wide range in Thai cooking because like we love all flavors. Right. Like it's like every dish is balanced with like five different flavors at all time.

21:39And there's such a big variation because in Thailand itself, like it's a melting pot. Like you got like the whole Malaysian kind of like influence. You got Indian influence. You got Chinese influence. So it's a melting pot and it's a mixture of flavors. And then Thai developed it themselves. Like even Vietnamese food. Thai people sometimes put a whole, you know, taste of like Thai taste to like a Vietnamese dish because like we border them. So I just think that there's so much that we can still play around with. Yeah. Well, there's something about acidity, too, with Thai food. I think if you look at, like, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese cooking broadly, it doesn't have the citrus, like, of lime and lime adjacent.

22:28And for some reason, that really opens up a whole new avenue, I think, for owners. I think people like it. Like, the salty, the citrusy. right like fish sauce lime juice that combination together i think it's bomb right like it's already like millions will agree yeah like it's already like that in itself like creates so many other dishes that like you can just kind of you can lead with that and you can follow with other things yeah yeah it's so so cool so with bangkok supper club like a real level up in every way and and i and i had a great meal there but a month ago and talked about three things like super impressed i went in kind of blind I wanted to like didn't really look at the menu too much and man top to bottom like this grilled chicken thigh and citrus salad combo give it to me every day it's like something about the restaurant really is connecting with with with many and myself it's like style of service the room is really cool like really nice design and this menu is it's really a special restaurant what did you want to do when you were thinking about restaurant two in this group and and like the locations like slightly different audience and crowd like take us through that a bit i think because we had such a great success with fish cheeks we didn't want to repeat what we already have right and i feel like all entrepreneur have this itch where it's like oh i did it once i can do it again i can do it again i can do it again so it's called scaling yeah It is really whack in our world because everyone thinks they can scale everything.

24:01Right. But I think for me and for Chad, we were, you know, we were like, what do we do? We were actually super close to signing the lease in L.A. Wow. So stupid. I don't know why I thought that was a good idea. Yeah. I don't know why I thought that was a great idea. I was like, oh, look, like, you know, same kind of like clientele. Like we can like translate it over. That's a six hour flight. Are you crazy? You got Rue and Pair like doing great work out there. You know, they got some SAP is like pretty good. It's insane. Like I was like, what were we thinking? But Max came from Thailand, got vaccinated, like to during COVID to get vaccinated.

24:39And, you know, I have known him for a while at that point, follow his career. And I'm like, wow, this kid is so talented. But what is he doing? He's just bopping around. Right. Like he was consulting like throughout Southeast Asia. And so I basically asked him, I was like, what is your goal here? Like, what is next for you? I was like, I don't know. Like, I'm just having fun. Like, do you ever want to have a restaurant? He was like, yeah, I think so, you know. And I was like, would you want to have a restaurant in New York City? He was like, yeah, I would love to, but I don't know. I was like, think about it.

25:11I was like, think about it. You couldn't take, like, the strong hint? Yeah, I was. Like, successful operator asking questions? Listen, in Thailand, people live a very good life. It's hard to leave that, right? Like, it's, you can get whatever you want. You can do whatever you want at any given moment. The weather is really incredible and it's really nice. You get to travel around all the time because it's so freaking cheap. So it's a big ask for someone to move from like such like literally a paradise to like let's come and grind every single day. Right. So I think he was kind of like taking a bag and he was like, OK, whatever.

25:51Went back to Thailand. A month later, he calls me and he said, John, like, I actually want to open a restaurant. I said, done. Let's do it. Yeah. That's it. I told Chad and we just basically from there, like, hit the ground running. What did you see in Max? I mean, there's a lot of great chefs out there, but you clearly were pursuing him for a reason. I think that for me, there's, if you look at different culture, right? Pick Koreans, for example. If you look at graduating class of CIA, Koreans are probably like the majority of that class. Chet went to CIA. He said, Jen, Thai kids that were graduating at that time, they were literally like me and Shep Pam, which is now like number one chef in Southeast Asia in Thailand, like world 50 best.

26:40And there's Shep Don also. He was like, you know, but they all went back to Thailand. It's like there's not a lot of talent, you know, coming out of places like that. And so we had to kind of like divert our attention to what's going on in Thailand. Like who's doing the cooking there and who are the chefs that are like up and coming there. And he was one of them. Like he was, you know, Chef Ian Kiddishai. He's like an iron chef of Thailand. And Max was like his right hand man. Oh, I see. He worked with Ian Kiddishai. Yeah. So like he was his right hand man. Kiddishai was great. Yeah, he's amazing.