You're listening to Heritage Radio Network. Hi, everyone. Welcome to Potluck for Talks. I'm Eric, and I'm here with my homie, Phil. And today, we don't have a topic to talk about, but we have talked in a while. So, how's it going, man? You're in Dubai now. Yes, back in Dubai. Pretty cool, pretty excited. Really happy to be back. Yeah, we haven't talked in like a month. I would say even two months, something like that. Really? That's crazy. Yeah, I've done a lot of episodes
with strangers. Surrandoms, just NPCs of the street. Yeah, but oh good, man. I've been in Dubai for just about a month now. Yeah? And yeah, you know, just getting settled in, settling into my new role, you know, all the usual stuff. What's your role now? You're like a research and development chef? I've rejoined the Arts Club in Dubai, where I have previously been a head chef for one of the restaurants. And I've now joined as culinary development. Okay, so it's kind of like a research
and development role. Yeah, it's kind of like the role didn't exist before. I've joined kind of like an executive chef to do sort of like, you know, R &D, and work on new openings also. Okay, nice, nice, nice, sounds pretty cool. Yeah, it's been really, really good. I mean, the Arts Club in Dubai, it consists of three different restaurants. And a rooftop terrace. So there's lots of stuff going on. And there's also the Arts Club in London, which has been around since
1863, I think. It's super crazy. It was founded by Charles Dickens. So it's been around for a really long time. And so I'm going to fly to London also to work in the restaurants there a little bit. And yeah, you know, just it's been super cool because I'm just basically doing creative work. I don't have the really tedious stuff that a head chef has to do, like rotoring, dealing with all the bullshit, you know? Lots of micromanagement, right? A head chef has lots of micromanagement.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. I mean, in an ideal world, a sous chef has even more, right? Yeah. In an ideal world, the head chef can give the sous chef direction and the sous chef deals with it. Yeah. But yeah, so that's why it's been
kind of nice. and to come back also like i come back to the club and so many it's three years ago that i was here right and so many of the same people are still there like half the kitchen team is the same and i think that's really really telling also front of house and stuff like that you know um it was a really nice welcome back i came in and it was kind of like such a different work attitude like if i compare to to germany you know um and especially berlin Like I come
in here and people come up to me to say, hey, chef, how's it going? Nice to be back. Blah, blah, blah. How have you been? And in Germany, it was like, man, you know, like waiters walking into the kitchen, like to the pass. No, hello. Like nothing, you know? And I'd be sort of like, okay, who are you? Like not seeing you before. Do you maybe want to introduce yourself or like, you know? And this whole sort of fucking like, oh, you know, yeah, I don't know. I'm just here
like two days a week and block. I can't work so much. It's not like that here. The work attitude is super good in general. You know, people work really hard. Sounds great. Sounds great. And what projects can you talk about? Do you have any next openings or something? I think I can talk about it a little bit. Next year, we are planning on opening three restaurants. We have a place that we're going to open in the AFC.
So I'm here in the financial district. It's like called the financial district because that's where all the banks are and loads of like big offices, kind of like Canary Wharf in London. Yeah, there is also a financial district in Manhattan and in Tokyo. Exactly like Ginza, you know. It's actually a good comparison. In Ginza, there's loads of good restaurants. So here in the financial district, there's also a bunch of really, really good restaurants altogether. So that's where
the arts club is. And in this district, we're going to open another more small -scale restaurant. We've signed a contract for a big -ass yacht club on the harbor, which is going to be massive. It's going to be a place where you do 1 ,000 covers a day. And then probably next year also we will launch a restaurant in London. Super cool. Super, super cool. Yeah, yeah. It's good. It's very good. I love the team, you know. I mean, you know Michael Hepfel. Yes, of course.
Love working with him. But also the other people involved. Like, for example, the upper management, the CEO. Like, it's a person I respect a lot. I have not many times worked with... Like, worked in places where I really respect the upper management. And I'm sort of like, they know, they really know what they're talking about. Nice. Yeah, sounds super cool. Yeah. So, yeah. What about you? What have you been up to? No, nothing crazy. Like, just some things I could share here. I
went back to Mucha. I think it's really my favorite restaurant in San Sebastian right now. And I have the same, do you remember that sparkling wine we had, the Isarlecu? Oh, yeah, that was really good. Which was like a sparkling Chacoli. I think that's my favorite wine right now, period. You know, like, it's just so incredible, like a Chacoli where they apply Champenoise method. It's so unique, and it's so much better than, you name it, like Cava or Champagne or anything,
without the bullshit, you know? Like, it's just like something for connoisseurs. That is something I had recently. And besides that, I'm just coming from a gastronomic society, lunch party. Nice. I was in charge of the steak, of the chuleta. Oh, nice. How did it turn out? I didn't mess up. I did it the proper Basque way. Everybody respected me for that. And yeah, so that was it. Yeah, so I've only been once to a Sociedad like that. And that was in Muguritz. It was one
of the team outings. We went to the one that Jorens was part of. And that was super fun. I remember Jorens was cooking, Javi, Ramon, they were all kind of, you know, cooking in the background. We were just all enjoying and eating. I remember Andoni was there also. And we all got incredibly drunk. It was a good time. I already found, like, I placed a request for one to see if I become a member. And yeah, so maybe I become a member and next time you come, we can do a party there.
Yeah, we were talking about the steak, you know, because it's something really, to do it the Basque way, right? Because it's not the same as you would do it anywhere else in the world. If you do it in France or in Argentina or in the States or in London or wherever, it's different. But here it's really something that where you have to do only like three or four things. the, according to how it should be. And I would say it's pre -resting the meat, high temperature, uh, quick
pan searing or, or grilling or whatever. And then also very important, good knife and good salt. That's it. Yeah. Course salt. Those are the KPIs, you know, like you need. Yeah, coarse salt and a good one, not whatever crappy salt. I use aniana, which is this Basque salt from a salt bank not far from here. Nice. Just to make it more mystical. Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course. It's been harvested by... By a Basque nun. Of course, yeah. Other full moon, of course. They
tie canaries to her forehead. The canaries, they search out the salt. Exactly. In cooking, those are my favorite sort of things. The ones that are so, so, so simple. Like ridiculously simple. Like if you had to explain it to somebody, you'd be sort of like, you add salt, you put it over charcoal, you flip it, you do the same thing again, blah. But the way that you do it and the like little intricacies make the difference.
Like with, you know, I don't know, people are probably sick to their fucking stomach of us, of me mentioning the Spanish tortilla. Every time I mentioned the Spanish tortilla, everybody's like, oh my God, not again. But it's just the perfect example of simplistic cooking. You know, those are my favorite sort of things. What about, I saw when you just arrived, you had like a,
like a private diner. to you directly by by michael oh yeah like you're yeah like you're welcome there what was that that's all really amazing what did it come for you i mean it wasn't anything like out of the ordinary as in like just specifically for me the first day i came into the office and i signed some paperwork and he was like so you want to have some lunch or something and i just came in and ate off the lunch menu and then it was the same i think the day after for dinner
he was like hey just come by have some food but it was just off the menu you know but i had like the food there is just amazing it's just really fucking good there's so many people there that do amazing work um and yeah so like when i was there in the beginning what did i eat i ate like this little we make this little nori tartlet with like a tuna tartare uh like a little mayonnaise with yuzu kosho and then you put some caviar on it some chives some yoga That's it. And it's
so fucking simple, but just so tasty. You never get tired of it. This little crispy nori shell looks beautiful also, right? And then you have tuna tartare, sauce, a little bit of caviar. That's it. Also really nice, like we're making these like little ramen for lunch. Like if you want to come have a quick lunch, we make these little bowls of ramen. But it's like very thought
through. So it'll be like a chicken ramen. with a sort of like slow roasted soy chicken that's like super crispy a really really nice like intense um kind of tonkatsu chicken broth like really thick and creamy homemade noodles good marinated soy egg like it's just good i love the style of cooking you know it's it's really it doesn't it can be anything you know but it's just like simple straightforward um delicious nice nice
nice nice So I went to Muca again. I remember having also some dishes that were mind -blowing once again, especially the vegetables. I remember having the tear peas again, having asparagus again, the anchovies again. All of those things were just out of this world. The anchovies were so good, man. I still think about those. But besides that, I haven't had any new, crazy different experiences. Nothing out of the box, to be honest. being a little bit more of the same. Same old,
same old. Yeah, same old, same old is often good. I mean, especially when you're in the Basque country, you know. I cooked a couple of really nice things these last couple of weeks. Okay. In my new role as culinary development. One of the things I did that I tried out the first time, and I've never done it before, and it was one of those things that it just worked out straight away super well. So I tried to make pastrami. It was kind of cool because... Like, I wanted
to make pastrami for a simple reason. I needed to work on a sandwich for, like, lunch for one of the restaurants. Just super casual. Nothing fancy, you know? I don't like buying shit in. Like, I think most of the things should be made in -house. Also, so the quality is really, really high. I was like, okay, I'm just going to try to make pastrami. Also, when you buy pastrami, it's often, like, super dry and stuff. So I think
there are, like, two major schools. One is that it feels like a cold cut, and it's that one that you say, like, that is more like a dry thing. And the other one that is like a cooked brisket, almost like a stewed beef cheek kind of a situation. What's the one you're doing? Like the ones from Katz, for example, in New York. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So that's the kind of the style that I went for, but I didn't want to use brisket.
We have these really nice Wagyu short ribs. right big wagyu short ribs on the bone from australia super nice marbling nice amount of connective tissue and so i did it with that brined it for four days did a nice brine lots of spice some kombu inside of there also give it some umami four days take it out rinse it pat it dry then put it in a hosper smoke it with wood for like five hours and make like a really nice rub you know, lots of pepper, some sugar, some salt,
some garlic and onion powder, a little bit of MSG. The good thing. The good stuff. Yeah, the good stuff. And then just like backpack it with the rub and cook it at 80 degrees, 12 hours. Done. It comes out. It's bright pink all the way through. It's so fucking fatty and so delicious and so tender. It's absolutely unbelievable. So that after we did this. We tried it the first time and I was like, shit, man, this is like, this is way too good for just a sandwich, you
know? And so we came up with this thing where it's kind of like you get like a set of bao buns. So freshly steamed bao buns and you get like a couple of thick slices of pastrami and then you just get condiments to make like your own bao. So you have like yuzu pickled daikon, you've got like a miso mustard sauce, some like fresh cucumber, a little bit of like a cress salad. You know, just like little steam buns. You put this like fatty, juicy meat in, put your condiments
in, just eat it. It's fucking delicious. What about, I saw something you posted that was like a croissant, like a square croissant kind of burger or sandwich. What was that? Oh yeah. That was also the pastrami. So that was in the end, the sandwich that I made. Ah, you fucking pervert. Yeah. You know, like, um, So basically, we took croissants, though, because we bake croissants in -house also. And we put them into little rings. You put a lid on it and then bake it so it stays
flat and compact. And it's perfect because it's really light. So you have like a hockey disc
kind of. croissant thing exactly it's perfect because it's really light it's buttery it's flaky it toasts really nicely you can freeze it you can defrost it super easy and then like what did i do i just put like thin slices of pastrami so when it's cold you just like you put it in a steamer just gets back warm then you like flame it a little bit and then super simple like i made like a an onion cream so you just cook down onions for a really long time until they're really
soft and caramelized. And then I seasoned that with just some butter, some water, and a little bit of miso to make this like onion jam. Then I made like a mustard tarragon mayo. So lots of herbs, you know, and then just like lettuce, tomato, homemade cucumber pickles. That's it. Some cheese, you know. It's fucking banging, man. It's so like, so simple, but so nice. Nice, nice, nice, nice. I like it. I like it, like it. We started doing this like chef's table thing.
So once a week, we was in a restaurant there and one of the restaurants, the Japanese restaurant, well, the Nikkei restaurant, I should rather say, at the sushi section, they have a counter for six people. So once a week, we do like a tasting menu of like 10 courses that we do couple style. You know, I mean, we talked about couple style in Japan where you sit in front of, you sit on the counter and you watch the chef. prepare
the stuff basically. So we do that. That's also a large amount of the work that I do at the moment is kind of make dishes for that and like cook there also. So we have this message from Chef Ryan, probably our most active listener. Shout out to Chef Ryan, yeah. I think I have a good idea for the podcast. Where do you find your identity in cooking? For me personally, I feel lost as a chef sometimes. Maybe imposter syndrome?
I've been born and raised in California, but have no real tangible connections except what is expected as far as what a chef on the West Coast means. Thomas Keller helped define that and bred the farm -to -fork movement, which is essentially what Basque Country is for California. Where do you find your passion in the culinary industry? That's a good question. What do you think? What are your initial thoughts to this?
It has to be autobiographical, I think. I mean, unless... I think there is no way around that. It has to be... For example, I, myself, I have this mixture of cultures where my parents are Spanish and German and I grew up and was born and raised in Venezuela. I think I... belong to the three cultures. I think I'm entitled to open a German restaurant or a Spanish restaurant or a Venezuelan restaurant. And I think that
that's okay. But even apart from that, if I feel I wanted to open an Italian restaurant or a Japanese restaurant, I feel I can also do that as long. as whatever I'm cooking resonates with me. As long as I feel that I'm expressing something or telling a story with the stuff I'm putting on the plate, I do feel that that's the whole point. It's like, I don't know, if you're a musician, you have to feel what you're playing, right?
I guess that's the whole point of cooking and delivering something on a plate, in my opinion. Yeah, I totally agree. It's autobiographical
for sure. you know i feel like we're still in a mindset where we separate cultures a lot but i feel like we live in a time where information is so widely spread that you can't make this differentiation differentiation that much anymore like of course you can there's very clear cultural differences but if you're in a in a subject like say you're a painter right You're a painter in a certain area and people around you paint in
a certain way. But at the same time, you go on the Internet and you see all the fucking different painting styles from all over the world. And you see things that you really like, that you look at and you're like, man, I love that. You know, maybe I love the choice of color or I love the, you know, the technical aspect or I love the abstract aspect of it. It's something that very emotionally resonates with you. I think it is very normal to be inspired by that. I think
it's kind of the same with cooking. I think you have to be careful with saying, oh, this is traditional this, this is authentic that. But I think that if you are inspired, which you unavoidably are going to be in this day and age with all the information and all the input that you're getting these days, as long as you absorb things and maybe replicate things out of a place of appreciation.
then i think you're good and it's authentic i think it is a big part of food and cooking is way beyond what it used to be like 20 years ago right it's cooking is evolving in a in a as an expression and as an art form in a way that's incredible and um i think that's part of the reason why you know because people have a very widespread treasury of information and When you are apprenticing, when you're starting in something, replicating the masters or the people that you
admire and that you respect is undoubtedly one of the first steps of improving yourself. Replicating and repeating that and absorbing. You have to do that before you are even able to express something of yourself. Additionally, to close what I'm saying. You know, Chef Ryan taking the example of Thomas Keller, who, Thomas Keller, forefather of American cooking and Californian cooking, no? For example, the donut, you know, donut and coffee, you know, like that's nothing. It's one
of his signature and most iconic dishes. And there is nothing disruptive about it. It's quite
the opposite. It's something. as classic and straightforward as it gets but he's doing his own take and putting it in the right moment at the right place and telling a story with it and that's what makes it uh extraordinary basically absolutely yeah and um like to get there he for a very long time cooked predominantly french food right like you don't just start with something authentic It becomes authentic, you know, and Thomas Keller nowadays has his own style because
it evolved. He started somewhere, maybe predominantly cooking French food and like Mediterranean food in California. And that at some point he developed his own style, you know, and now we don't even question it. You know, it's French laundry style. You can look at a dish and you can be like, oh, that's, you know, that's very French laundry -esque. That's very birthday -esque. And like the donut, you know, coffee and donuts is something
so. american in a way with his own style of cooking that was formed by a different style so i think that people need to i feel like americans have this a lot where they're like very they have imposter syndrome we need to maybe look at these sorts of things in a much more organic way that everything's a process um there's a constant osmosis of information and different cultures in our day and time there's no sort of real like segregation anymore sort of like oh my people
here your people there that's not really happening anymore right and i think that's that's nice that's the zeitgeist yeah i have a i have also something to add on top of that um so on one side this is something i've talked with with xander the producer a million of times he told me once one of his drama teachers while he was in film school, he said, all stories have already
been told, but not by everyone. Because if you break apart the structure of a story in, let's say, in a novel or in a movie, there is a limited amount of story structures that work, and those structures are 99 % of all of the movies that are being published. except for the very, very experimental one. But it's either a character that is transformed by his environment or his or her environment, or the opposite, the character transforms his or her environment. And from that,
you can make millions of variations, right? Yeah, but not by everyone. That means, like, even the same movie, you know? Like, even, let's say, Romeo and Juliet, you know? There are a hundred versions of that same story, and these are completely different movies. On that same line of thought, I bring a lot of people to places, for example,
like Bar Antonio, to try their tortilla. And I've heard more than once people that have no idea about tortilla, of what a tortilla is, and they tell me, yeah, that's amazing, but it's not that traditional tortilla. And I'm like... That's a very traditional tortilla. It's a tortilla that follows all of the rules of what a tortilla should be, but they have their own personality and character, and that's what makes it different.
But they're not breaking any rules. They're not, like, adding flour to the tortilla or something like that, you know? Like, that would make it untraditional or even take it apart from the definition of a tortilla. Once you add... Flour is not a tortilla anymore. It's something else, right? Like your break. But they're not doing that at all. They're just doing it like their
own way. And I think that's very important. And it's also like you talked about, for example, what now is new Californian cuisine or this kind of things. What now is Latin American fine dining? Now you will find Peruvian or Mexican restaurants that are Michelin star. But there were no Peruvian or Mexican Michelin stars 20 years ago. Only 20 years ago. And the restaurants that were Peruvian or Mexican fine dining weren't Peruvian -Peruvian or Mexican -Mexican. These places were French
-Peruvian or French -Mexican. And if you go back in time, you will see the same thing. It's pretty much the same story, what happened with French Laundry. First, they took French technique. And then they did French -French, and then French -Californian, and now California -Californian, right? Like, same thing happened with Brazilian, first French -Brazilian, then Brazilian -Brazilian, and so on. Like, and the same thing with the
Basque cuisine, you know? Like, the new Basque cuisine, what happened here in the late 70s. Basically, these were chefs that were all French trained and they started taking recipes from their grandmothers or from farmers or fishermen or producers and transformed that into a fine dining setting, applying French technique. And at the end of the day, everything is a remix. Everything is a combination of what you've seen
and experienced yourself. And you're kind of like a melting pot that puts all this stuff together and you just... Deliver whatever only you can express. For me, that's what it's all about in any art form. It could be writing, singing, making movies, telling stories, telling jokes, dancing, whatever. You should look for something that only you can do. Something even that is difficult to explain. For example, in my case, imagine I do a restaurant that is 100 % myself. It would
probably be... German, Spanish, and Venezuelan. And people would be like, what the fuck? Just line after line. And it's like, well, that's my identity. These are my cultures. This is my heritage. And it's just what I'm putting together. Yeah, for sure. I had somebody ask me the other day, how come a German chef is cooking Japanese
food? And I was like, well... um because i fucking want to yeah yeah it's just like i am yeah like i was i've been fascinated with it since i was a kid and like went to japan cooked like i mean maybe other days somebody said something like that i was sort of like oh i never i never pictured you like cooking japanese food and i was like man i've been like i've cooked japanese food for like at least a quarter of my career if not a third you know like It's definitely a good
question. So thanks to Chef Ryan for prompting it. People can always get in contact with us. I mean, with me. I don't know about you, but if you guys feel like reaching out, you can always message me. Yes, of course. Yeah, we're happy to read your questions and discuss them here. Absolutely. That's it for this week's episode of Potluck Food Talks. If you like what we're doing, Make sure to subscribe to the podcast
so you never miss an episode. You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok as potluckfoodtalks. The show airs every Monday.